J. M. Frost - 1916
J. M. Frost. Religious Herald, Richmond, Va., Oct. 7, 1915.
”The like figure whereunto even baptism doth now also save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God), by the resurrection of Jesus Christ; who has gone into heaven and is on the right hand of God; angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto him.” - I Peter 3:21, 22.
THE text, in its connecting link, is apparently not easy of translation, but the meaning is clear. The New Version does not help, but rather makes it more cumbersome. The apostle, speaking of Christ, who bore our sins in his own body on the cross ”that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit,” came to speak of those who were saved through the ark. And then, to illustrate and enforce his thought concerning Christ, he characterizes baptism as follows: In like manner even now baptism, not the putting away the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God, is the figure of our being saved through the resurrection of Christ. So we have in baptism the figure of his resurrection and of the salvation through him, ”who was delivered for our offenses and was raised again for our justification.”
This is the thought which is enforced in the text and is of infinite moment in our present-day thinking and teaching. Christ’s resurrection for our salvation is the reality, and baptism its picture - the original and its likeness, the historical event of one rising from the dead and its picture set out before the world. Ancient and historic as an ordinance, baptism, then, may be characterized in modern terms as the photograph or ”moving picture show” with marvelous precision of what took place from the new tomb in the garden.
It may well remind us, in dramatic way and with no uncertain meaning, of the earthquake on that night of wonders in the world’s history, the great stone rolled away, the Roman sentinels falling down as dead men, the risen Christ appearing and reappearing, the angels sitting in the empty sepulchre in white apparel, with the startling message from the other world: ”Ye seek Christ crucified; he is not here; he is risen as he said; come see the place where the Lord lay.”
The apostle in the text speaks of baptism as something quite familiar to those to whom he was writing, and puts in a strong word as to its relation and noble use in the scheme of grace. Its fame had gone abroad even in those early years, from the Jordan and Jerusalem, ”to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia and Asia”- signaling wherever the gospel was preached the triumphs of the cross and the risen Christ.
Four things are here said showing its wonderful significance and lofty character:
1. Though an ordinance requiring the physical act of immersion in water, baptism is ”not the putting away of the filth of the flesh” - not a bath or washing or outer cleansing of any kind. It has marvelous outward meaning, as we shall see, but in no sense for cleansing the body or the life of its wrongs and pollutions - much less the inner cleansing of the soul from sin.
2. Baptism is ”the answer of a good conscience toward God”- showing its spiritual meaning as distinguished from its physical act, indicating one’s experience of grace, his conscious attitude and bearing toward God, and emphasizing its character and dignity as ceremonial obedience and worship.
3. Baptism is a figure of the salvation which is offered of God, as was the ark, to save from impending ruin, and which is accepted by the believer in Christ for deliverance and safety from sin, as with the eight souls when the flood came.
4. Baptism bears testimony to Christ as risen from the dead, having ”suffered for sin, the just for the unjust,” but now reigning in resurrection glory, having ”gone into heaven and is on the right hand of God; angels and authorities and powers being made subject to him.”
These several phases of this New Testament figure, while severally distinct, yet overlap somewhat and all center in magnifying its wonderful meaning and didactic character, whether we think of it as ordinance, ceremony or symbol. It is here magnified to magnify Christ and the salvation which comes through him. God set it in the gospel system, and from century to century it has told the story of his grace with charm and power.
The word figure is somewhat unusual, but significant. It means an impression taken from an original pattern, or an expression of an original as seen in its copy-the outward declaration of an inward experience makes visible a soul transaction which, in its nature, is invisible. In the printer’s shop it is a proof taken - the copy from its original pattern - the sign from the thing signified - the truth seen in picture and symbolic form as taken from the real and glorious truth itself. Herein is the greatness of baptism. It holds in symbolic form some of the most wonderful workings of God, and sets out to public view, in a figure, the mightiest and most rapturous experiences possible in the human heart.
The text, therefore, emphasizes baptism as a figure of salvation, a picture from its original pattern, a symbol of great realities. Salvation taken in the fullness of its meaning may be considered from different viewpoints with baptism serving as the figure, picture or symbol of them all. For example in brief, salvation may be viewed as God’s work of grace in his provision for saving sinners; salvation may be viewed as the believer’s experience in accepting of Christ through faith, in which he is saved, becomes an heir of God, and is as one risen from the dead; salvation may be viewed as the new life which one lives in Christ Jesus-a new life in God’s service among men; salvation may be viewed in its glorious consummation with resurrection power and glory for the believer in Christ - his ”salvation ready to be revealed in the last day.”
All this the ordinance holds in figure and expresses in symbol. Baptism is not salvation, but its figure; does not save, but symbolizes the saving grace of God in Christ’s atonement for sin; baptism is not the resurrection of Christ, but its figure, marking that great event in its historical character and saving power; baptism is not the remission of sin or the washing away of sin, but their figure, the visible showing of the invisible cleansing and remission-not causative, as procuring, but declarative of something already come; baptism is not a new heart, cannot make the heart new, but is its figure, the outward expression of the inward change and experience; baptism is not a good conscience, but its answer, cannot make the conscience good, but meets its demand for obedience and walk in newness of life; baptism is not the resurrection of the dead, but its figure, the forecast of that wondrous event to which believers look as the consummation of their hopes.
Do I magnify this simple Christian rite too much? Is it not marked with honor and distinction throughout the New Testament wherever it has mention ? Has not God, who set the stars in the heavens, set this significant ceremony in the gospel system as part of its organic life and charged it with the mission of preaching in figure and symbol the everlasting message of his grace? Do we get all its wonderful meaning and learn its lesson as God would have us do? There are those who walk under the stars, but see nothing of their glory; who stand within the thunders of Niagara, and have no sense of wonder awakened within them. There are those, too, who can speak of this great New Testament ordinance as ”mere rite,” or ”only a ceremony,” or ”an external thing” of little consequence. And others, not going quite so far, can make it an occasional jest or joke. Why, rather, should we not contemplate the great ceremony in its wonderful meaning, as Jesus did at the Jordan, and catch the full significance of his word: ”Thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness?”
It is surely God’s message in figure and symbol, and, reaching the heart through the eye, is something more powerful than the spoken word. Its content of meaning, expressed largely in its form, remains the same through all the years and centuries. It means the same to us, if only our hearts will receive it, that it meant to Jesus at the Jordan, or to the disciples on the day of Pentecost - all it meant, indeed, throughout those early years of triumph in preaching the gospel. We do well to set our hearts to this matter, and see that we do not come short in our estimate of the value and larger use of baptism as a figure of salvation.
Summing up and repeating somewhat, for sake of emphasis, baptism in its symbolic import or figure declares salvation or being saved to be of God’s grace, to be spiritual in character, to give a good conscience which no outward act can give, and that it comes through the resurrection of Jesus, and not in any sense through work of righteousness which man may do. The text, and other Scriptures as well, sets the resurrection of Jesus over against the great ordinance as reality and figure-as original and copy - the one a mighty event in the history of the world, the other its figure, unchangeable in form, unmistakable in meaning, and to abide through all times.
Through the centuries, therefore, in unbroken lines to this day, baptism has been the unwavering witness for the cross and the empty sepulchre, for Christ crucified but risen from the dead, and now at the right hand of God in the heavens. Taken, therefore, as the ancient ordinance set in the gospel system, it is now a powerful apologetic for that greatest of all events in human history. It cannot be answered, and its testimony, though silent, cannot be overthrown and is of dramatic power.
This particular phase of its value and meaning, though of such great worth with us, was not needed by the preachers of New Testament times. They needed no apologetic for the resurrection of Jesus. Some of them had been eye-witnesses of the risen Christ; all of them lived in easy memory of the event with unimpeachable and accumulative evidence, and needing no proof-even as we of today need no proof of the Civil War with its tragic upheaval and desolation.
They simply, but powerfully, proclaimed the resurrection without question, and expounded baptism as its wonderful figure, setting one over against the other-portraying both in word and symbol the wonderful achievement which God had wrought in raising his Son from the dead and setting him on high as King of kings and Lord of lords. This is the reason, no doubt, why Satan has sought diligently through the centuries to destroy baptism, and in later years to weaken its hold on the conscience and conviction of Christian people. For to destroy the picture, or even to mar its beauty and strength, would go far toward removing the original from the face of the earth.
But the glory of heaven is upon this lofty figure. As the undaunted sentinel of the ages baptism stands at the very place where Christ, though in the tomb, could not be holden of death, where death itself received its death blow, and where glory broke through the open sepulchre from the other side, bringing life and immortality to light. O death where is thy sting! is the song the baptismal waters sing to celebrate his resurrection power; O grave, where is thy victory! is their shout of triumph for his crowning day in resurrection glory. Thanks be unto God! is the word they have passed down the ages-who hath given us the victory through our conquering Christ, who himself ”is on the right hand of God, having gone into heaven; angels and authorities and powers being made subject to him,” our Saviour and Lord.