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Why so much Controversy in Baptism methods?
Like, "It's by pouring!", "It's by sprinkling", "It's by immersion!", and they all say their method its the only acceptable one, but why?
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Martin Luther on water in baptism:
How can water do such great things? Certainly not just water, but the word of God in and with the water does these things, along with the faith which trusts this word of God in the water. For without God’s word the water is plain water and no Baptism. But with the word of God it is a Baptism, that is, a life-giving water, rich in grace, and a washing of the new birth in the Holy Spirit, as St. Paul says in Titus, chapter three: “He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by His grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life. This is a trustworthy saying.” (Titus 3:5–8)
Key take away; the method of water is not what matters. It’s God’s word in with and under the water.
Yes, so what Luther was saying is that through baptism we are spiritually reborn. The problem here is that if we are a new creation then that means a “declaration of righteousness” from God would have to be a result of an intrinsic quality that God sees in us after our character(soul) has been regenerated.
Luther denied that this was the reason for such a declaration, preferring instead to teach that man REMAINS sinful intrinsically and thus any declaration of righteousness must be the result of a crediting of Christ’s righteous reputation to the sinner’s account.
I just find that SO confusing.
The aforementioned quote just makes me think that Luther was schizophrenic or something. It’s like he wants to take both sides of the issue(of justification). He does something similar here where he writes:
Obviously Luther had to invent his view about “proper righteousness” to explain passages like Romans 6:16:
After all, once you spend your career telling everyone that “righteousness” is by “faith alone” through an imputation it makes it a real challenge to explain why it is Paul is saying that acts of obedience can also lead to righteousness, or what Luther deemed “proper righteousness”. In other words he(Luther) was teaching the Catholic view of “intrinsic righteousness” under a different title(“proper righteousness”) so that way, hopefully, people wouldn’t notice that he was in fact conceding the Catholic view that an “imputation of righteousness” was not sufficient to get you into Heaven since “proper” or “intrinsic righteousness” was also going to be required at some point. Thus contradicting his previous view that all we “need” for salvation is “faith alone”(and opening a door to the Catholic concept of Purgatory at the same time!).
It’s just sloppy theology.
The only reason I can think of is that people are afraid God is like a robot who judges people by a set of criteria and who can't judge people's hearts himself, thus leading those who were baptized incorrectly not being saved.
Perfect way of putting it.
I come from a Church of Christ/Baptist background growing up, and I was surprised when learning about other denominations that adult, immersion baptism was not actually the majority position of Christendom. Most of Christian history infants have been baptized.
I personally believe any “baptism for the forgiveness of sins” done in the name of the Father, Son & Holy Spirit is legitimate, and I personally don’t believe people should feel the need to be rebaptized, because the Nicene Creed mentions one Baptism.
At the end of the day, it is our faith that saves us, not our works. Our faith will prompt us into a life of obedience which includes being baptized.
But historically pre 3rd century baptism was through immersion of believers. Infant baptism was a reaction to the implications of original sin. If the early church baptized believers for the forgiveness of sins why shouldn’t we hold to their patterns?
We have writings from the church fathers as early as around the year 150 mentioning how infant baptism was a tradition passed down directly from the apostles. Infant baptism is valid.
And we have other writings from not much later than that which indicate that baptism was delayed until near death because there was a fear that no sins committed after baptism would be forgiven.
There are letters from Paul that are in the Epistles that show how false apostles, false prophets, and false teachers were already at work in the Early Church. Quoting the Church Fathers is meaningless, especially one from 150 AD. So late after the true Apostles already went home.
In that sense, then quoting Paul (A church Father) is also meaningless. Great logic.
Hyppolytus, Irenaeus, and Origen all wrote of infant baptism prior to Augustine developing the framework of original sin. Infant baptism has been part of Christianity since the beginning. The doctrine of original sin and its implications did reinforce the need of the practice, but infant baptism itself had been written about and supported by earlier church fathers.
Tertullian and others believed baptism should be delayed let’s not pretend that it was the consensus, even then scripture makes no mention of infant baptism and people use inferences to build a doctrine.
Who said anything about consensus? I just pointed out a few fathers that showed that the practice predated the doctrine of original sin being developed.
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Some groups still practice that. I knew a bunch of people I grew up with in my Baptist youth group that would get baptized 3-4 times, usually after Summer Camps or any other event coming off of a “spiritual high”.
Occasionally a preacher or speaker would sort of try to insinuate that because they were Baptized at a young age, they didn’t know what they were doing.
Honestly it left a bad taste in my mouth. One Baptism is entirely sufficient. Rebaptism indicates a lack of understanding or belief in Baptismal Regeneration.
Used to believe? It's not uncommon for Evangelicals to get re-baptised as a way to recommit themselves. It's a consequence of believing that baptism is merely an outward expression of one's inward commitment (really, one's feelings.) Feelings wax and wane, and with it the effectiveness of baptism.
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Wow.
But, again, if baptism is merely "an external manifestation of inward commitment", why not do it everyday?
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The Didache (The Lord's Teaching Through the Twelve Apostles to the Nations) on baptism:
"And concerning baptism, baptize this way: Having first said all these things, baptize into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, in living water. But if you have not living water, baptize into other water; and if you can not in cold, in warm. But if you have not either, pour out water thrice upon the head into the name of Father and Son and Holy Spirit. But before the baptism let the baptizer fast, and the baptized, and whatever others can; but you shall order the baptized to fast one or two days before."
Man, I never see anyone bring up prebaptism fasting. Do you?
I was urged to do it before my chrismation but I probably failed! Still standing vigil before any crucial life step is inspiring!
In the bible, baptism means immersion. When a ship sank under water, in the Greek it was a "baptisma", baptism. What anyone wants to do with that is their decision, but in the bible baptism is immersion. And considering the meaning of the sacrament, full immersion seems the normal way to go.
I mean, does that mean that people baptized by other ways have invalid baptisms?
That's above my pay grade. But why not do it the right way? I don't understand deviation from the bible when it is not necessary.
I mean, for example in the didache, 1st Century christian book, It says that immersion Is preferable but pouring or sprinkling Is acceptable if large portions of water aren't available
I don't have a problem with that. There was a lot of persecution back then, and people could be wanting baptism in prison cells. But we don't sprinkle Christ onto our lives in a superficial way, we put the old man to death and we come out of the water a new person in Christ. Only total immersion properly signifies that. Sprinkling gives the wrong impression.
Faith is what saves, no matter ho9w you get wet.
If you have faith you are saved, if not it doesn't matter if they nearly drowned you , you are not
Simple. We all want to please God. We don’t want to do it wrong.
Baptism means to dip. It's symbolic of Jesus's burial and resurrection. Seems like submersion is the way to go.
Except the Catholics who just go by the 1st-century tradition, which identifies all three as valid.
Didache (AD 70)
To be far to Protestants, this document was lost between the 10th and 20th centuries, so the reformers didn't have access to it to confirm the Church teaching.
True. They also tended to deny the authenticity of the letters of St. Ignatius due to their obvious importance. Calvin called them "rubbish published under Ignatius' name." And various Protestant scholars since then have spent enormous efforts attacking their authenticity and creating elaborate forgery theories.
Yet today, the clear consensus of Patristic scholars is that they are authentic, and there is no good alternative explanation for Lucian's 160 A.D. satire of the letters.
Anybody who accepts or rejects ancient Christian texts based on if they fit into their modernist theology or not are not to be trusted. We should take legitimate Christian history and tradition and form our teachings around them, rather than the opposite. Which I’m sure we’re in agreement on my catholic brother or sister
The Didache is the oldest text we have regarding baptism procedures. It tells us baptism is by immersion, but affusion is acceptable if there is no running waters easily accessible. Baptism is important, that’s why there’s controversy. A baptism is a gift of grace from God whereby we are joined to His body for life. God is not limited by the method by which the water is applied. All that matters is that we are baptized by a proper Trinitarian formula, preferably by legitimate clergy, but if it’s an emergency or impossible laity can baptize.
The Ecumenical Councils settled it millenia ago. For some reason, people want to claim more authority than the church fathers.
I think it's interesting that the folks that do it via the method the bible prescribes (full body dunking) describe water baptism as an outward example of an inward change (correct!) but the folks that have invented all sorts of non-biblical ways to do it say that water baptism is a matter of salvation......so they've added a manmade way to do it (probably to distinguish themselves from others as having the only 'right' way to do it) AND have made it a matter of life and death (so you'll choose their denomination out of fear? pride of those leaders to try and 'improve upon' something Jesus-Yeshua did?.....no clue).
I personally believe that any method is fine as long as it is done in front of others and accompanies saving faith, but why not dunk?
A lot of people say that, but not all.
its a problem with their church, they reject history and any sort of structure so baptist theology becomes whatever the current pastor thinks
It’s mostly Baptists who make a big deal about it. Which is ironic, considering their views on baptism.
Baptist theology in a nutshell: You have to do the thing that does nothing correctly, or else it won't do the thing it doesn't do.
This is the problem with the Tradition of men interfering with the word of God
The only reference to the mechanics of baptism is that which we read about John The Baptist.
Dunking adults into the River Jordan
No where do we see babies being baptized, or sprinkling of water, and yet some man said it was so, and it was so for his group
There is only one place where it sprinkled as a verb for metaphor for baptism in the new testiment. That means the majority of all new testiment are full immersion.
The old testiment talks about Waters that will purify the children, suchlike as in Isaiah and Leviticus? Where Aaron's children are sprinkled with holy water. And in old testiment talks heavily about sprinkling water or blood to purify.
Historically, baptism for Jews was regenerational and weekly and for babies , cows, and adults.
Then, for early Christians, it replaced circumcision as Paul says it does. They took it as literial it replaces circumcision. Thus, a one-time event at birth.
However, the majority of examples in New Testament baptism is upon believer or repentence and full immersion. Then later Christian protestant saw majority of baptisms happen on belief and said this is when it must happen.
So all sides do have valid points and even scripture. But this causes huge divides. That, tbh is useless. Your saying tradations of well old testiment or ancient Christians is useless. I wouldn't go that far. I think what is useless is the debate.i think both sides have valid points. In my tradition, you had to be an adult teen to get baptized. I think that is probably on the extreme saying being an adult. If I meet a Christian who is baptized, I don't care if they were 18, 16, 12, or infant. That is awesome. I just care about your current confession and devotion to christ now. I met people baptized at 18 walk away or people infants baptized walk away. Do you confess Jesus is Lord now is what matters.
Where is sprinkling in the New Testament? Just curious
Hebrew 9 talks about just like sprinkling of calves in old testiment were sprinkled clean with water etc then in chapter 10 it says we have had our hearts sprinkled.
This is kinda metaphorical and kinda weak for the sprinkled side. The strongest cases for sprinkling is old testiment not new testiment.
Heb 10:22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean.
Compare to sprinkled in old testiment.
https://www.stepbible.org/?q=version=ESV|meanings=sprinkle&options=HNVUG
Also sprinkled means to throw or lift so there is bunch of unrelated verses above.
Should be we also wait until we are 30 to be baptized? There's no evidence that anyone younger than 30 was baptized
Don't know if anyone will see it as a comment, but I've always wondered where folks are getting the "Bible prescribes baptism by immersion!!" argument. Where is this, exactly? All the references to baptism I know of are ambiguous and do not clearly say you have to be immersed.
John was baptizing people in the Jordan. That could just as easily mean he was standing in the water.
Jesus came up from the water after he was baptized. It doesn't say he came up from under the water. That could just as easily mean he walked out of the river afterwards back onto the riverbank.
The Ethiopian goes down to the water to be baptized. It doesn't say he went down under the water. That could just as easily mean he walked down the riverbank into the river.
Is it a translation thing? Is the term more clearly defined in Greek?
My understanding is the Greek word for baptism in the NT means immersion.
Because people predicate salvation on it.