I've written before about the many Biblical passages that refer to water, cleansing, and such in relevant contexts without having baptism in mind. But advocates of baptismal regeneration take certain passages out of context to make them seem supportive of baptismal regeneration because of the water-related terminology that's used. Even where the context goes in the opposite direction, they appeal to phrases that can be made to appear supportive of baptismal regeneration if taken in isolation (e.g., citing the reference to water in John 3:5, even though Jesus goes on to refer to the Old Testament background of his comments and keeps referring to people being justified apart from baptism elsewhere in the gospels; citing the reference to washing in Titus 3:5, even though it's accompanied by an exclusion of works). I want to expand on my previous post, linked above, with a discussion of some other relevant passages.
In 2 Corinthians 7:1, Paul tells his audience that we should "cleanse ourselves". Was Paul suggesting that he and the Christians he was addressing should get baptized again? No, it's an obviously non-baptismal reference to spiritual cleansing.
What about the cleansing referred to in 2 Timothy 2:21? Like the 2 Corinthians passage, it seems to be about growth in the Christian life, as 2 Timothy 2:22, addressing Timothy, illustrates. It's not about baptismal regeneration.
The plural "washings" in Hebrews 6:2 most naturally is taken to refer to more than one type of washing, so it has to involve some application of that language to something other than baptism. That sort of language can refer to, and does refer to, a variety of physical and spiritual events.
Though this post has focused on a few New Testament passages outside the gospels, keep in mind the Old Testament and gospel passages I cited in my earlier post. Since proponents of baptismal regeneration acknowledge that it wasn't in effect during the Old Testament era and often place the beginning of its application sometime after Jesus' public ministry, the widespread use of water-related terminology in those earlier contexts is highly significant. That earlier usage carries more weight than the unverifiable appeal to a smaller number of passages with water-related language that allegedly support baptismal regeneration.
The best argument I'm aware of for interpreting a passage like John 3 or Titus 3 as teaching baptismal regeneration is to appeal to a later history of interpretation. But that later history is outweighed by factors like the earlier evidence against baptismal regeneration, the lateness of the later interpretations in question, and the other later interpretations we find alongside the ones being appealed to by advocates of baptismal regeneration. Passages like the ones in John and Titus were being interpreted in multiple ways, including in ways not involving baptismal regeneration, long before the Reformation. The popular claim that there was unanimous agreement, or nearly unanimous agreement, about interpreting such passages in support of baptismal regeneration before the Reformation is false. See my discussions here and here, for example, among other posts.
For more about the evidence against baptismal regeneration, go here.
Is there an index to infant baptism posts? Helpful article, btw....
ReplyDeleteA good way of finding posts on a topic is to use the labels listed at the end of posts. But we didn't use labels in the earliest years of the blog, so that leaves out the earliest posts. On the subject of infant baptism, here's the list of posts under the Infant Baptism label. And here's my main post on the subject. I don't remember all of the posts on infant baptism that went up before we started putting labels on our posts, but I know I did a series on the topic in 2006. You can find the posts if you start looking in our February 2006 archives. I think the infant baptism posts I have in mind started late in that month. I don't remember how much they continued into the months that followed.
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