Dear EFC subscribers:

As I write this I am in an airport on my way to Vladivostok, which is in Eastern Russia, near North Korea to teach for a local church.  This will be the first of a five city three week tour of East and Central Asia.  I will also be in Tokyo, Osaka, Ulan Bataar, Mongolia and Bishkek, Kyrgistan.  I will be doing both Bible classes and Christian evidence presentations in these cities, as well as taking part in a leadership conference for central Asian churches.  Please pray for this work, and especially that I can stay healthy.  Please forgive a somewhat hastily put-together newsletter as I will be too busy to post for the next three weeks, but please visit the web site for updates on the teaching trip.

Right now we are working on putting together a regular series of podcasts, as well as producing video material for youtube and facebook.  Be looking for lots of new material on social media.  Thanks to Carlos Vargas for immeasurable help with these efforts.

The article below is the third of a series of essays in my new book The Christian Story Volume III  Finding the Church in Church History, which should be coming out by the end of the summer.

John Oakes

Baptismal Regeneration  

The doctrine of baptismal regeneration has been disputed time and time again in the history of the Christian faith. We all know that Google is the final word on every question, so let us consider its definition of this doctrine: “Baptismal regeneration is the name given to doctrines held by major Christian denominations which maintain that salvation is intimately linked to the act of baptism, and that salvation is impossible apart from it.”

It is an oddity of church history that two of the major church movements which rejected infant baptism and insisted on adult baptism of believers denied the role of baptism in salvation. One reason that this seems odd (at least it does to this author) is that groups which taught infant baptism (Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Lutheran, most Reformed churches) also taught that salvation is connected with baptism. Why, if we correctly restore the biblical doctrine that baptism is only for accountable adults, would we then reject its connection with salvation?

The two church movements which restored the biblical teaching on adult baptism in the face of fierce persecution are the Anabaptists of the sixteenth century and the Baptists of the seventeenth century. One would think that if the Anabaptists rediscovered the necessity of adult baptism upon a confession of faith, then surely they would have believed in baptismal regeneration. If baptism is necessary then, biblically, what is it necessary for? One thing we can say for sure is that the Baptists and the Anabaptists saw adult baptism as central to their faith. Untold thousands died rather than renounce this Christian doctrine.

This book is part of a series on church history, not on biblical doctrine, but let us take a moment to consider what the Bible says about the purpose of baptism. One thing we can say for sure is that before we were saved, we were lost. “At that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. (Ephesians 2:12) We were outside of Christ. Yet, if we are saved, then we are in Christ. In fact, the most common phrase used in Scripture to describe a person who has been saved is “in Christ.” The phrases “in Christ” or “in Him” or “in the Lord” are found 164 times in Paul’s writings alone.

If we were at one time outside of Christ, but are now in Christ, when, then, did we come into Christ? Is there any chance that the Bible would be confused on this point? Presumably the point in time when we came into Christ is also the point in time when we were saved. The only idea associated with coming into Christ in the Bible is baptism. Galatians 3:26-27 has “So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.” In Romans 6:3 Paul asks us, rhetorically, “Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?” Does the Bible ever suggest that we repent into Christ or believe into Christ or pray ourselves into Christ? Certainly not. Is baptism how we are saved? We could argue both for or against this proposition. The thing which cannot be argued against biblically is that baptism is when we are saved because it is the point in time that we come into Christ. This is an unambiguous biblical teaching.

Why, then, did those who reestablished the practice of adult baptism not reach the obvious conclusion? It is perhaps a bit surprising that with the Anabaptists and the Baptists, the reason they did not accept that baptism is the point in time of salvation (and therefore that baptism is necessary for salvation) was different. For the Anabaptists it was principally due to a pendulum swing against the Catholic sacramentalism. Anything which smacked of a holdover of the Catholic sacramental system was anathema to the Anabaptists. The Anabaptists rejected all seven of the Catholic sacraments. They denied that anything done by or under the auspices of the Church could be connected with salvation. As was said above, the Anabaptists were so repulsed by the Catholic teaching of grace being imparted by a sacramental action—apart from faith—that when Scripture tells us that a sacramental action connected with faith in fact imparts grace, they were unable to accept the connection. And thus, the Anabaptists as a whole rejected baptismal regeneration.

The Baptists, whether of the General or Particular flavor (see chapter 7), rejected baptismal regeneration for a different reason. As already noted, Luther’s doctrine of faith alone was a cardinal point of Reformation teaching. Although the Baptists were convinced that baptism is an essential of the Christian faith, because they were so strongly dedicated to the proposition that salvation is given to us apart from anything we do, they concluded that there cannot be a connection between baptism and salvation, because they believed that baptism is something that we do.

Whether we reach a false conclusion because of an overreaction, as with Anabaptists or because of a false premise, as with the Baptists, the result is the same. In either case, we can gain useful perspective on how to do Christianity from the mistakes of those who came before us.

What about those who do not believe in baptismal regeneration, but who are nevertheless baptized as adults out of obedience—not in order to be saved. Are they saved at baptism, even though they are not cognizant of that fact? This question will be addressed when we come to the nineteenth century Restoration Movement.