More Than a Symbol
One of the major theological criticisms lodged against Baptists in ecumenical discussion is the claim that we don't really have a theology of baptism. Or, if we do, that it is reduced to a kind of optional symbol. Popularly conceived, it is simply one of those weird things to do “just because Jesus told us so” and has nothing to do with a person's status with God, place in the Church, or anything else significant. Like most other movements and groups traditionally labeled “evangelical,” American Baptists have tended to shift the emphasis in Christian initiation from baptism to “altar calls” or “prayer cards” or other manifestations of what is characterized as essentially the adoption of an inward feeling.
Okay, so I admit this is definitely what a lot of Baptists do believe. This is certainly what I was taught as I was raised in the Church. However, the evangelical-symbolist perception of baptism does not comprehensively exhaust Baptist thought on the doctrine, both through history and in innovative work today. In fact, Baptists in the past have been keen to describe baptism as an effective sign and an objective seal of entrance into the Christian life.
Baptism in the ordinary way of God's communicating the grace of the Gospel is antecedent to the reception thereof, & is propounded as a means wherein not only the Remission of our sins shall be granted to us, but as a condition whereupon we shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost...was fore-ordained to signifie and sacramentally to confer the grace of the pardon of sin, and the inward washing of the Conscience by Faith in the Blood of Jesus Christ.
Thomas Grantham (1634-1693), Christianismus Primitivus
As it was the design of the Son of God to ordain and initiate a water bath for his whole church that it should be an efficacious seal and outward sign to all those who should believe in him...
Alexander Mack, A Plain View of the Rites and Ordinances of the House of God (1888)
Baptist “sacramentalists” - as such may be called – do not hold to a view of baptism as working ex opere operato without the conjunction of faith. And, as Grantham noticeably uses the adjective “ordinary,” Baptists of this order will deny that baptism must be regarded, forever and always, as absolutely necessary for salvific union with Christ in the present or eschatological salvation in the future. However, they do recognize that the New Testament does not separate faith and baptism, and that outside of irregularities and extenuating circumstances (Dr. Freeman here at Duke likes to think that “the exceptions prove the rule”) proper Christian initiation in its fullness entails a unity of “inward disposition” and the outer, performative sign. As the great British Baptist of the 20th century G.R. Beasley-Murray put it:
In the light of the foregoing exposition of the New Testament representations of baptism, the idea that baptism is a purely symbolic rite must be pronounced not alone unsatisfactory but out of harmony with the New Testament itself...The extent and nature of the grace which the New Testament writers declare to be present in baptism is astonishing for any who come to the study freshly with open mind.
Baptism in the New Testament, p. 263.
For further reading, see Baptism as a Performative Sign by James Wm. McClendon, and More Than a Symbol: The British Baptist Recovery of Baptismal Sacramentalism by Stanley K. Fowler
Okay, so I admit this is definitely what a lot of Baptists do believe. This is certainly what I was taught as I was raised in the Church. However, the evangelical-symbolist perception of baptism does not comprehensively exhaust Baptist thought on the doctrine, both through history and in innovative work today. In fact, Baptists in the past have been keen to describe baptism as an effective sign and an objective seal of entrance into the Christian life.
Baptism in the ordinary way of God's communicating the grace of the Gospel is antecedent to the reception thereof, & is propounded as a means wherein not only the Remission of our sins shall be granted to us, but as a condition whereupon we shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost...was fore-ordained to signifie and sacramentally to confer the grace of the pardon of sin, and the inward washing of the Conscience by Faith in the Blood of Jesus Christ.
Thomas Grantham (1634-1693), Christianismus Primitivus
As it was the design of the Son of God to ordain and initiate a water bath for his whole church that it should be an efficacious seal and outward sign to all those who should believe in him...
Alexander Mack, A Plain View of the Rites and Ordinances of the House of God (1888)
Baptist “sacramentalists” - as such may be called – do not hold to a view of baptism as working ex opere operato without the conjunction of faith. And, as Grantham noticeably uses the adjective “ordinary,” Baptists of this order will deny that baptism must be regarded, forever and always, as absolutely necessary for salvific union with Christ in the present or eschatological salvation in the future. However, they do recognize that the New Testament does not separate faith and baptism, and that outside of irregularities and extenuating circumstances (Dr. Freeman here at Duke likes to think that “the exceptions prove the rule”) proper Christian initiation in its fullness entails a unity of “inward disposition” and the outer, performative sign. As the great British Baptist of the 20th century G.R. Beasley-Murray put it:
In the light of the foregoing exposition of the New Testament representations of baptism, the idea that baptism is a purely symbolic rite must be pronounced not alone unsatisfactory but out of harmony with the New Testament itself...The extent and nature of the grace which the New Testament writers declare to be present in baptism is astonishing for any who come to the study freshly with open mind.
Baptism in the New Testament, p. 263.
For further reading, see Baptism as a Performative Sign by James Wm. McClendon, and More Than a Symbol: The British Baptist Recovery of Baptismal Sacramentalism by Stanley K. Fowler
