J. M. Frost - 1916
J. M. Frost. Christian Index, Atlanta, Ga., Aug. 19, 1915.
BAPTISM and the Lord’s Supper as the two great ordinances of the New Testament hold their place in the gospel system as symbols and ceremonies. As ordinances they were commanded, and appeal to our spirit of obedience; as symbols they appeal to our belief and stand for mighty events, partly historic and partly yet to be, being memorial and monumental, prophetic and didactic; as ceremonies they are outward expressions of the experience of grace which one has in Christ Jesus, telling of death to sin and new life in him, of union with Christ and union also of all who believe on him for the saving of their souls.
In the cities throughout the South there are many monuments of the tragic war between the States - many memorials but all with one meaning. These monuments differ in material, in their form and pattern, in their inscriptions, in representing the different phases of that heroic strife, but they have one meaning in their testimony for honor of the soldier who fought by land and by sea, and especially in commemorating that four years’ struggle as a mighty upheaval in our nation’s life and the bloody war in the history of men. That stand for honor’s sake, and home defense will never be forgotten - especially cannot be denied as history - so long as these monuments shall endure. They stand as evidence - silent witnesses like the stars but with no uncertain voice - with evidential power and value to the student of history.
In ”Christian Union Relative to Baptist Churches,” a book recently published, I make the following statement in behalf of these great ordinances (page 8):
”Baptism was not at the first either the cause or occasion of division, but Christendom will not be reunited until this great ordinance, so full of wonderful and didactic meaning, has its rightful adjustment and is accorded New Testament position in modern Christianity. There is need for fresh study of the ordinances in their relation to Christian history, doctrine, experience and life, as set forth in the New Testament. And this more than we dream, perhaps, may bring a return to primitive Christianity and so prove the highway to Christian union. It is a wonderful story these ordinances tell-Baptism and the Memorial Supper, if only they be allowed to speak their words untrammeled and unembarrassed. There is scarcely a fundamental doctrine in the whole Christian system that does not get didactic emphasis with illumination and power in one or both of these ordinances.”
A study of their doctrinal content with the New Testament as guide will confirm what has been written above, and will also show that these sacred and beautiful ordinances supplement each other in their symbolic import. They have the same memorial significance, yet each one emphasizing in its own way the two phases of the one event. We may think of them as the two sides of one sphere, which when placed together give us the completeness of thought and of figurative expression.
Taken together they bear testimony concerning Christ for his death, burial, resurrection and risen life. Baptism taken by itself speaks in marvelous way of his burial and resurrection, but says nothing except by inference of either his death or risen life; these are taken for granted, as death precedes burial, and resurrection would mean a consequent new life from the dead. This is strikingly illustrated by what Dr. Sanday of the Church of England has to say when commenting on the expression in Romans of being buried with Christ in baptism: Immersion equals death; submersion equals burial or the ratification of death; emergence equals resurrection.
On the other hand, the Memorial Supper says nothing except by inference of the burial and resurrection, but tells of his death by startling and painful figure, and gives great emphasis to his being alive again as risen from the dead. When taken together the two ordinances tell the whole story. Baptism stands for the new tomb, first as holding the body of our Lord and then as being empty, while the Supper stands first for his death on the cross and then for his new life as he showed himself to his disciples by many infallible proofs, and that he shall come again in power and glory to raise from the dead those who are in their graves - memorials of the past and symbolic forecast for the future.
We need to emphasize more than we have done the oneness of meaning in these two ordinances, just as the many Confederate monuments throughout the South show the several phases of the great struggle, but all combine in one meaning of historic and didactic significance. As symbols these ordinances are unchangeable in form and meaning, and as witnesses they must tell the same thing through succeeding generations and centuries. Their meaning is the same now as at the first. They are two symbols with two voices but with one story and one significance. They cannot be hushed. They cannot be made to equivocate.
While they last and bear their witness the world cannot forget Calvary or the empty tomb in the garden, or the resurrection scenes which followed that first morning, culminating with the gathering on the mountain and his ascension to glory with the promise that he should come again. In celebrating these great events by these memorials we are celebrating our faith in the past and our faith also in the future. As they give assurances of the past they also give a guarantee for the future that our hope shall not fail. In my book, ”The Memorial Supper of Our Lord” (page 227), I have illustrated and emphasized these mighty things in the following language:
”One of the most brilliant of the hostile critics, who has gone furthest and deepest in the darkness of unbelief, has left his creed of unbelief as follows: The time will come when no heart shall remember that the Saviour suffered and died for the world. The last believer shall go down in darkness to his grave, and from that hour shall Golgotha vanish away from the earth, like the place where the garden of Eden lay.’ Shall the words of this prophet come true? Shall Calvary be no more? Shall the fountain of blood cease to flow, or lose its blessed, satisfying power? Shall the Saviour and the Saviour’s sufferings and death and glorious deliverance cease forever, even in the memory of men? Over against the dark prophecy of the hostile prophet and in answer to these foreboding questions, which come to the very heart of the world in its deepest needs, we will spread the Lord’s Table next Sunday or the Sunday following, and on ’till he come.’ There the white line, and underneath the simple bread and wine; there the eating and the drinking; and there again, as through many centuries agone, the blessed words are heard ever new and fresh, ’Do this in remembrance of me.’ ”
Having this oneness of meaning in their relation to Christian history, these great ordinances supplement each other also in their relation to Christian doctrine, Christian experience, Christian life and activity. They are of the same didactic import and emphasis. Neither of them are essential to salvation and in no way administer to salvation, but are both for people already saved. Neither of them can give remission of sin or take away jointly the sins of the heart or the sins of life, but together they symbolize the atonement of Christ wherein we have remission, and have no meaning for those whose sins are not already forgiven. Neither of them can make the heart clean or new, yet both of them, whether separately or together, demand a new heart and a new life, proclaim one dead to sin and alive unto God, symbolize his union with Christ, as being crucified with him, yet nevertheless risen with him and now live in him.
In their oneness of meaning, therefore, they have high place in Christian apologetics as evidence for historic Christianity. As symbols and ceremonies they are powerful expressions of Christianity in its organic character. As ceremonial service and worship they minister to the spiritual life of those who walk in the ways of the Lord. In keeping his commandments there is great reward, not only in what comes to us, but in what we come to be in his worship and service.