J. M. Frost - 1916
J. M. Frost. The Word and Way, Kansas City, Mo., Nov. 25, 1915.
”Go ye, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing- them into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you; and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.”-Matt. 28: 19, 20.
This is the filial article, but three, of a series written in the last six or seven months, and published in the denominational papers. This method of publication was chosen partly to avoid the monotony of a series, but also for the further double object of securing a wider range of reading and to serve these papers by contributing- to their columns. The several papers were selected sometimes on the request of the editor, and sometimes on local conditions - with regret that there were not enough articles to include all the papers. The articles were written but not published in the order here named - some of them at this writing having not yet been published:
1. ”The Greatest of All Easter Pictures.”
2. ”The One Million Baptisms.”
3. Two Memorials with One Meaning.
4. Evangelism with the Baptismal Note.
5. Baptism a Figure of Salvation.
6. Baptism and the Wonders of Pentecost.
7. The Baptism of Saul of Tarsus.
8. Left His Chariot to Be Baptized.
9. The Relation of the Ordinances.
10. Baptists and the Evangelical Faith.
11. The Voice of Conscience in Baptism.
12. The Spirit, Form and Purpose of Baptism.
13. The Lord’s Supper in Revival Meetings.
14. Magnifying the Local Church.
15. Will Sprinkling Do as Well for Baptism?
These articles were a growth, not having special connection, but not without continuity of thought and common aim. They assume throughout that the great ordinance requires a given spirit, and form, and purpose, as essential to its integrity and lofty mission. If this were not true the discussions would be without meaning and the articles impossible. Every question concerning baptism, whether of spirit, or form, or purpose, or whatsoever, rests back on the New Testament for final appeal in definition and decision. This is the supreme standard not as against the Old Testament in any way, but because the new system must have its government in the New Testament, which holds within its record not only Christ’s history but also his word and will.
The words at the head of this article, known everywhere as the great commission, were spoken at the climax of his earthly career, and comprehended the future ages in the magnitude and beneficence of this glorious enterprise. From this comes as its rich product all Christian life, history and literature. They indicate at the very start and with impressive emphasis what is to be the spirit and form and purpose of this great ordinance which he was committing to his disciples. Whatever baptism is, it is because our Lord so commanded. It was to go wherever his disciples and his gospel went, was their obligation and privilege, and was to share in the honor and glory of the mighty things they were to do. If for any consideration we think of baptism as being lower than the commission, we at once get below the estimate which Christ had and commanded concerning it.
He made promise of his personal presence in five items, and we may expect the presence of our Lord in one as in the others, namely, in going as missionaries, in making disciples, in baptizing, in teaching the observance of his commandments, and all this for the ages. This must mean that he in his august and gracious person is present in our baptizing and being baptized, that every baptism rightly conducted repeats somewhat the scene of his own baptism in the Jordan, and shines in the glory of the eternal Godhead. This gives to the simple Christian ceremony a renown and dignity beyond human thought, and should guarantee on our part the right spirit, and form and purpose, as he intended and commanded. This alone is worthy and comports with the high course which he himself marked out both in precept and example. It makes plain and gives definite emphasis to the proper spirit essential in its administration.
It is the threefold spirit of faith, obedience and worship. This is of the very genius and spirit of baptizing into the name of the persons of the Godhead. That formula means all this and much more. Being first an outward physical act - one which some count homely-baptism is yet a great sentiment born of the richest and most blessed experience possible in the human soul - a sentiment to be sought and cultivated by all who share in the beautiful ceremony. Much depends here upon the preacher who has the service in charge, not however by any sacerdotal or ecclesiastical right. But his own spirit of devotion, his attitude of heart and mind toward the ordinance, his delicacy and efficiency of management-these are the things which carry into baptism the spirit of worship and give its observance devout sacredness of meaning. It is a ceremonial service which should be undertaken only by such persons as come into it with faith and sincerity, with no misgiving as to its being what Jesus requires, and who are capable of heart and head to feel the touch of its wonderful and momentous symbol of burial and resurrection from the dead.
There is danger lest in this great transaction we have the letter and miss the spirit, have the form and miss the beauty and power of its meaning-not that baptism is a prescribed form of worship-by no means. For there are no prescribed forms of worship, whether this or that, provided only that God be worshiped in spirit and in truth. However, baptism is a ceremony of such ceremonial character in its relation to the Godhead as requires the heart of devout worship and this in turn means the spirit of faith and sincerity, of willing and loyal obedience to him who gave us the ordinance and in his own life set the model of its observance. It is for those-and only those-who repent and have faith in him as Lord and Saviour, and can for themselves render this great act of personal obedience.
This is finely illustrated in the case of Dr. Adoniram Judson and his noble wife, pioneer missionaries of a century ago. While en route to the missionary field, in the study of the New Testament while sailing the high seas, they changed their views of baptism and foresaw at once an inevitable change in their denominational connection. They discarded infant baptism both of themselves and as a New Testament practice, abandoned sprinkling as baptism, saw immersion as the only form, and came to the feeling, deep and strong of personal conviction, that baptism must be a personal obedience. It was a wrenching of soul to them in the struggle, but satisfaction and joy in its consummation. It cost them such sacrifices as try the souls of men, but they came to the ordinance with an abiding feeling of peace and devoutness of spirit.
”We expect soon to be baptized,” Mrs. Judson wrote home, reciting the cause of their action, telling of their struggle and trial of heart, of their satisfaction and joyous spirit in walking in this way of their Lord, and added: ”Oh, may our hearts be prepared for that holy ordinance!” A noble sentiment indeed and well becoming the great service which they had in mind, a sentiment just as sacred, rich in emotional power, and marked with spiritual fervor, as belongs to its companion ceremony, the memorial supper of our Lord-the great souvenir of the cross.
In addition and equally with all this, the form of baptism is also essential to the integrity of the ordinance and indispensable to its observance. Its form cannot take the place of its spirit, neither can its spirit take the place of its form. Back of the life, leaf and fruit of the tree, is the tree-form essential to their expression and even basal to their outward growth of beauty and richness. While baptism is not a prescribed form of worship, it has itself a form of its own. That form is prescribed in unvarying regularity in its name. Its name is its form, baptize equaling immerse, baptism equaling immersion. This word - the one word used always to name the ordinance always means immerse, literally as when Jesus was immersed in the river Jordan, or figuratively as when Paul speaks of being ”buried with Christ by baptism into death.” This is the one New Testament word for the ordinance, and the one New Testament pattern for its observance. Without it there can be no baptism, as there can be no immersion without an immersion.
There are other words for other forms in modern use, but they are not of the New Testament to describe this ordinance. There are Greek words for pouring and sprinkling and washing, but not one of them is ever applied to baptism in any way. It is the one ordinance with the one word-baptize; and no other word in any language has been so sifted in the world of scholarship by friend and foe, as this word, and after years of conflict, more today than ever before, it marks baptism as a physical act of immersion. And the ordinance with its rich sentiment, its spiritual meaning, even in the rapture of worship, cannot get away from this one word with its one meaning-first the immersion as the physical act and then comes all its spiritual significance.
The other forms, or ”other modes,” of baptism, have been inherited from Romanism by modern Christianity. But these are not of the New Testament. The issue of the one form with ”the other modes,” in the last analysis, is almost exclusively an issue between the New Testament and the Roman Catholic claim of authority. On their boasted right to change the ordinance they made infants, even unborn infants, proper subjects of baptism, substituted for immersion pouring and sprinkling as suitable ”modes” for its administration, and displaced the simplicity and beauty of its New Testament purpose with the ”design of baptism,” which gave the whole world some of the most fearful doctrines that have blackened the pages of Christian history. So that the simple question confronts modern Christianity concerning this great ordinance, shall we follow New Testament baptism or ”the modes of baptism” which we have inherited from the city of the Caesars? See pages 149, 150.
This is no guess work or theory, but matter of history well known and easily verified. With the Greek Catholic Church it has been quite different. They through the centuries have held to immersion as the one original form, and their testimony at this point is more worthy than the testimony of Rome-especially as Rome confessedly and boastfully changed the one original form to the use of ”other modes which will do as well.” Some months ago I met a member of the Greek church - devout, spiritually minded, comparatively a young man, of ability and culture, a foreigner, but his nationality cannot now be recalled. He had graduated after the usual course from an American university, and was now a traveling salesman ”to see the country and learn the language.” Our conversation ran easily enough into experimental religion. As he told of his experience and membership in the church, I asked if he had been baptized when an infant. ”Oh, certainly,” he answered with feeling of pride. ”How were you baptized?” I asked, and his answer was prompt and with evident emphasis, ”I was baptized by ”submersion.” ”Why do you use that word-submersion?” I asked. His answer was earnest: ”Because we do not want any mistake about it,” and proceeded to explain how they did not want their ”baptism misunderstood,” and how his people cherished their ”history of baptism” as against ”the effrontery of Rome” in doing away with the original and creating new ”modes for its administration.”
But this question is of the New Testament and cannot be settled by Catholic authority, either Greek or Roman, or by conditions which have come down from them. They have created a Christianity which the world is repudiating, but which is far removed from the New Testament. Many people today revolt from ”The Church,” and think they are revolting from Christ and the New Testament. This course is more common in the old country but is taking place also even in America. We must get back to our base and make our appeal to the New Testament with its ideals, and the one common standard in baptism as in other things. On one of the streets of Nashville there are four jewelry stores within as many blocks. In the window of each lies a small regulator. The passerby finds all four giving the same time to the minute and second, and knows there must be somewhere a common standard. The same would be true with a hundred regulators. Baptism was neither the cause nor occasion for the division among Christians, but in the course of years it has become more deeply rooted in that division than perhaps any other one question, and is the most manifest signal of where they stand apart - their baptism serving as their colors and the bamner of their belief. In this division of sentiment, or judgment, or opinion, there must be the one standard of appeal if order and oneness ever come from the confusion. As division came in departure from New Testament simplicity, so the easiest and surest return to union will be in returning to the New Testament pattern in belief and practice.
In this connection the New Testament purpose of baptism calls for special attention and emphasis. This is of fundamental importance and a large factor in the right adjustment of these vital and momentous questions. Departure from its simple purpose has been the most fruitful source of other errors and false views of baptism. The changes through the changing years at times have been fearful to contemplate, have well-nigh wrecked the great ordinance and completely wrenched it from the New Testament base and significance. What was its purpose at the first must be its purpose now, and like its spirit and form is essential to its integrity and its right observance. Missing the mark at this point will drive us far afield at almost every other point, and land us in total misunderstanding of the great ordinance, and oftentimes of even the great doctrines.
The prime purpose of baptism is obedience to Christ, an acknowledgment of his reign in the new life. The believer in being baptized puts on the Christ uniform and makes open avowal of his allegiance to the New King. This purpose is made first and basal because of the spirit of baptism - believing, obedient, worshipful. Its very heart beat is in the words: ”What will thou have me to do?” It is direct obedience to Christ’s direct word, heart to heart and each one answering for himself in the great ordinance. The new convert in the first glow of his new hope, if asked why he seeks baptism, will probably answer, either because he loves Christ and wants to obey him, or because Christ was baptized and he wants to follow him. This is simple, and as viewed by some of little consequence, but it is of far-reaching significance in expressing this foremost purpose of baptism - keeping Christ’s commandments because we love him and because of loyalty to him as our Lord and Saviour.
This first and essential purpose of the great ordinance leads easily to its further and larger meaning - its confession of faith, its wonderful figure and symbol, its monumental and memorial character, its outward expression and signet of the work of grace in the heart, and its drawing the line between the old life and the new. For one reason or another men may fail to discern its beauty and meaning, and miss its great power to show the gospel in symbol. But not so in the New Testament where its every mention indicates its exalted and essential place in the Christian system.
Our Lord, we may be sure, carried all this, so far as applying to him, into his baptism, and in his own glorious person made the occasion at the Jordan one of the most august scenes in his wonderful life. ”Thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness” - doing the right thing, in the right way, with the right spirit, and for the right purpose. Will this great question of baptism ever be settled? Will the breach in the Christian world ever be healed? Indifference to the question is a grievous answer, so also the spirit of strife, prejudice and pride of opinion. ”When the Son of man cometh will he find faith on the earth” - faithfulness in keeping the ordinances of the Lord’s house?