15. WATER BAPTISM, AN INTRODUCTION TO MODE

In an interesting book, How To Read The Bible For All Its Worth: A Guide To Understanding The Bible by Gordon D. Fee and Douglas Stuart, I came upon two paragraphs which surprised and disappointed me. Here are the two paragraphs :

…."There is no express teaching as to the mode of baptism, the age of those who are to be baptized, any specific charismatic phenomena that are to be in evidence when one receives the Spirit, or the frequency of the Lord's Supper, to cite but few examples. Yet these are precisely the areas where there is so much division among Christians. Invariably, in such cases, people argue that this is what they did, whether they derive such practices from the narratives of Acts or by implication from what is said in the Epistles."

"Scripture simply does not expressly command baptism must be by immersion, nor that infants are to be baptized, nor that all genuine conversions must be as dramatic as Paul's, nor that Christians are to be baptized in the Spirit evidenced by tongues as a second work of grace, nor that the Lord's Supper is to be celebrated every Sunday. What do we do, then, with something like baptism by immersion? What does Scripture say ? In this case it can be argued from the meaning of the word itself, from the one description of baptism in Acts of going "down into the water" and "coming up out of the water" (8:38-39) , and from Paul's analogy of baptism as death, burial and resurrection (Rom. 6:1-3), that immersion was the presupposition of baptism in the early church. It was nowhere commanded precisely because it was presupposed." (italics are theirs)(Page 109)

These paragraphs come in a chapter titled, Acts: The Question of Historical Precedent.

The disturbing situation arises when the authors give arguments for baptism by immersion. It is one thing to claim that the word baptism has the meaning of immerse, but their following arguments seem to be flawed and lead through muddy waters of silly, simplistic theological jargon.

The reference to Acts 8:38-39 just does not support their argument for immersion.

Their so-called "description of baptism in Acts" should have been dropped, since this is the second edition of this book. The description offered is the "down into the water" and "coming up out of the water". What is left out of this description, is the fact that BOTH Phillip and the eunuch go 'down into the water' and BOTH were 'coming up out of the water'. But remember, only one was baptized !!

The authors also state that an argument can be made "from Paul's analogy of baptism as death, burial, and resurrection (Rom. 6:1-3)". There is no attempt to show that, yes, indeed, this is truly a Pauline analogy. For those who would desire to read the Bible for all its worth, it would seem that those writers, who claim to have written the book for these very people, would at least warn those same readers that Romans 6:1-3 is looked by some as 'wet' and some as 'dry'.

That is, there are some who would agree with Fee and Stuart that water baptism is found in Romans six. But there are a host of believers who could never accept any idea to be taught in Romans that there is a liturgical/ritualistic act which did/might/could place a believer into Christ or into Christ's death.

What is also interesting and irritating is that these authors give Rom.6:1-3 and give burial in italics, while the word 'burial' is not even found in Romans 6:1-3. This seems to be a leaking think tank.

The last argument does not come from reading the Bible for all its worth, but from the early church( history). It does not seem to fit into the area learned in homiletics: save your best arguments till the end. But it does fit the idea that you can find support for anything in history, whether it is true or not is another argument for another day


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