Some Baptism Reflections

We are preparing for several people to make Profession of Faith and be baptized this Sunday.   Because several have requested to be baptized by immersion, it seemed like a good time for me to gather some thoughts and history.

Typically in the Christian Reformed Church denomination, people are baptized as children by believing parents who stand in the covenant promise of Genesis 17:7 first given to Abraham. "I will be your God and your children's God," the LORD said to Abraham and his wife Sara; a promise to them regarding their houshold.

With the death and resurrection of Jesus, baptism became the sign of covenant relationship both for the new believers as well their households.  See Acts 16:15 as one of many examples.

That the covenant sign extended to children based on God's promise to their believing parents, was never meant to preclude or replace a child's own coming to a personal faith - "owning" those promises to their parents for themselves.  Hence, the practice of "Profession of Faith" in the CRC.

On Sunday, everyone will be doing both Baptism and Profession of Faith in the same step of faith.  Because they are adults and it is summer, it works well for us to do these baptisms at a nearby lake.

So it is good to remember that our deepest committment is to believing faith, not a form; the faith that we express with baptism, and not the form which the baptism may take.  With that in mind, here's three Scriptures follwed by two historic statements that shine light on our worship this Sunday.

Baptism as Covenant Sign – Colossians 2:11-12

In him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your whole self ruled by the flesh was put off when you were circumcised by Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through your faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead. 

Baptism as Washing Away of Sin - Acts 22:16

And now what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized and wash your sins away, calling on his name. 

Baptism as Death and Resurrection – Romans 6:3-4

Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

John Calvin in his Institutes of the Christian Religion writes:

But whether the person being baptized should be wholly immersed, and whether thrice or once, whether he should only be sprinkled with poured water—these details are of no importance, but ought to be optional to churches according to the diversity of countries. Yet the word “baptize” means to immerse, and it is clear that the rite of immersion was observed in the ancient church.   IV, xv, 19

And a particular favorite of mine because of his passion, eloquence and surprise,

Martin Luther in his book The Babylonian Captivity of the Church, 3:23, written in 1520 writes:

Hence it is indeed correct to say that baptism washes sins away, but that expression is too weak and mild to bring out the full significance of baptism, which is rather a symbol of death and resurrection. For this reason I would have the candidates for baptism completely immersed in the water, as the word says and as the sacrament signifies. Not that I deem this necessary, but it would be well to give to so perfect and complete a thing a perfect and complete sign. Thus it was also doubtless instituted by Christ. The sinner does not so much need to be washed as he needs to die, in order to be wholly renewed and made another creature, and to be conformed to the death and resurrection of Christ, with Whom, through baptism, he dies and rises again. Although you may properly say that Christ was washed clean of mortality when He died and rose again, yet that is a weaker way of putting it than if you said He was completely changed and renewed. In the same way it is far more forceful to say that baptism signifies that we die completely and rising to eternal life, than to say that it signifies merely our being washed clean from sins.