TWO KINDS OF BAPTISM

‘There are two kinds of baptism in the New Testament. John the Baptist administered a baptism of repentance which represents law.  His baptism was a call for sinners to prepare themselves for the good news to come by confessing their guilt before God. By itself John’s baptism did not forgive any sins. Its sole purpose was to prepare guilty and needy souls for a greater baptism, a baptism that came down from heaven through the work of God’s Son.  This Christian baptism was inaugurated after Jesus’ work on Calvary for Christian baptism looks beyond itself to the forgiveness of sins that happened when Jesus Christ offered Himself up for sinners on the cross. Christian baptism is therefore not something that man does to express his devotion or even his sorrow for sin, but is a communication of God’s grace that draws its efficacy from what God did wholly outside the experience of man. Thus, baptism is not an offering upward from man to God, but divine life communicated downward to unworthy sinners. Many people who heard Peter preach at Pentecost had already been baptized by John. They had acknowledged their sin but that acknowledgment did not keep them from murdering the Messiah.  Even while admitting their sin they yet “crucified the Lord of glory.” But when Peter stands up and preaches the gospel and proves to the crowd that Jesus was the Messiah who came to forgive sins all those who believed in Him forgiven and immediately commanded to be baptized in the sacred name. That is, they were to receive something from God that their own human will could never produce. It seems to me that many in the church today still get baptized according to the scheme of John the Baptist. They see their sin and then try to do something to show the world that they will do better by being baptized.  But as we have shown such a vow is futile.  Rather men and women need to be baptized into the very work that God has done for them on the cross.  And so with open hands of faith they receive the good gift of forgiveness of sins through Christ crucified through the medium of water.  Thus, baptism is merely an extension of the entire work of salvation that God always initiates and is mediated through the most common of all substances. This shows among other things that in salvation God has brought together the spiritual and the material worlds.  Baptism is neither the magical power of a mystical substance, nor is it a merely spiritual exercise that negates the importance of the physical universe. Christian baptism is neither wholly material nor is it gnostic. In the strangest mystery of all it Baptism communicates God’s saving presence through the joint instrumentality of the seen and unseen, through matter and spirit.  And in baptism we see the gospel most clearly pictured for it unites the created stuff of water with the uncreated and eternal Spirit, which is an exactly representation of Jesus who came in a body to save our souls. Perhaps it would behoove us all to stop arguing about all the different schemes of Baptism and simply believe that it another mystery of God’s forgiveness that is better obeyed than analyzed.’