The Early Development Of Baptismal Beliefs And Practices

Advocates of baptismal justification and some other views of baptism (e.g., infant baptism) often speak of their views as if they were universally agreed upon in earlier centuries. Some of the groups involved even claim that they belong to an institution that's always held all apostolic teaching in unbroken succession throughout church history, that the institution is infallible, that all or a large percentage of the church fathers were part of their institution, and so forth. So, it's significant accordingly if we see early baptismal theology being more developmental and varied than claims like the ones I just mentioned would suggest. And for those who think there was an early departure from apostolic teaching on one or more baptismal issues, evidence of development and variation in early views of baptism can provide significant evidence for their position accordingly.

Parsing "baptism"

My main objective in this post is to make a linguistic point about "baptism" in the NT. But for completeness' sake, I will review some related issues before getting to the main point. 

i) Sacramentarians believe in baptismal regeneration and/or baptismal justification. This includes Roman Catholics, Anglo-Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Lutherans, and Campbellites (e.g. Everett Ferguson, Jack Cottrell). In the case of Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, this depends the authority of the church to dictate the interpretation of Scripture. In the case of Protestants, this involves methodological errors. 

ii) Sacramentarians don't understand the basic nature of symbolism. A symbol stands for what it symbolizes. Therefore, you can impute to the symbol what is literally true of what it signifies. Take the OT sacrificial system. Animal sacrifice emblemized the principle of vicarious atonement and penal substitution. From that, some Jews probably inferred that sacrificial animals could actually atone for sin. But, of course, that's not true. That confuses the symbol with what it stands for. 

Even if the NT attributes saving benefits to the sacraments, this doesn't means the sacraments are in fact the source of saving benefits. For the NT would characterize the sacraments is precisely the same way even if that's merely what they represent. For that's the nature of symbolic representation. 

iii) The Bible often uses food and water as theological metaphors. The fact, therefore, that some NT passages use such imagery doesn't presume that this is referring to the sacraments. 

iv) Although the NT sometimes attributes saving benefits to the sacraments, it often promises the same saving benefits apart from the sacraments. For instance, it indexes such benefits to faith in Christ. That confirms the point that the ascription of saving benefits to the sacraments is symbolic. They illustrate divine grace. 

v) Now to the main point. Because the meaning of "baptism" (as well as the theology of baptism) is controversial, English translators of Scripture traditionally avoid prejudging the question by simply transliterating the Greek nouns and verbs rather than rendering them into English synonyms. 

However, because the word "baptism" is used in almost every Christian denomination as a technical term for water baptism, for the rite of initiation or church membership, that conditions us to associate the word "baptism" with the Christian sacrament whenever we read the word "baptism" in the NT. That constant linguistic association in church practice becomes the subconscious default meaning when we read the NT. 

As a result, sacramentarians find more occurrences of water baptism in the NT than may actually be there. So when we read the NT, we should make a conscious effort to bracket that linguistic conditioning. "Baptism" doesn't have a presumptive meaning in NT usage. Rather, that's to be determined on a case-by-case basis. 

vi) There are explicit references to water baptism in the Gospels and Acts. In the Gospels, some of these refer to John's baptism–which is the precursor to Christian baptism. But even in the Gospels, "baptism" doesn't always denote water baptism. In Mk 10:38-39 and Lk 12:50, it's a metaphor for persecution or judgment. It trades on the imagery of drowning.

Likewise, the Gospels refer to "baptism" by fire. That, too, is figurative.  

vii) Although Acts contains several references to water baptism, the first reference is to Spirit-baptism (Acts 1:5). That's both backward-looking and forward-looking. It looks back to the contrast between John's baptism, by water, and the fiery "baptism" which Christ confers, which is a metaphor for imparting the Holy Spirit. And it looks forward to Pentecost, when the Spirit descends.

Interestingly, Joel's description uses an aqueous metaphor: the "outpouring" of the Spirit. One question is the precise nuance of this image. Does it trade on water as a cleansing agent? Washing away one's guilt? A metaphor for the remission of sins? Or does it trade on water as rain? A downpour which revives parched land after a drought? A metaphor for new life? Given the agricultural prelude in Joel, it probably signifies spiritual renewal or spiritual empowerment.   

viii) Mt 28:19 is a locus classics of baptism. However, that doesn't specify water baptism. So that's not something we can just assume. It's something we ought to exegete.

Could it refer to Spirit-baptism? One objection to that interpretation is that it makes reception of the Spirit contingent on apostles transmitting the Spirit, as if it's a power which they discharge. So I think water baptism makes more sense. 

ix) More ambiguous are some Pauline references (e.g. Rom 6:3-4; 1 Cor 12:13; Gal 4:25-26; Eph 4:5). Do these denote water baptism, Spirit-baptism, or something else?

Baptists tend to construe Rom 6:3-4 (and Col 2:12) as a reference to the Christian sacrament because they think that interpretation bolsters immersion as the proper mode of baptism. However,  I think the up-and-down imagery trades on the comparison with burial and resurrection (i.e. to be lowered into the ground, to rise from the grave) rather than baptism. I think it's a mistake to use Rom 6:3-4 as a prooftext for the mode of baptism. Of course, it could still refer to water baptism, but that apologetic agenda shouldn't drive the interpretation.  

I happen to think immersion is the normative mode of baptism. But I think narrative passages furnish better evidence for the mode.    

x) Attempts to defend one interpretation or another (i.e. water baptism, Spirit-baptism) are often circular inasmuch as commentators will construe one Pauline passage in relation to other Pauline passages. But that assumes the other passages refer to the same thing, which is the very issue in dispute! 

If it refers refers to Spirit-baptism, we might render the verb or noun by "saturated" in the Spirit (or something along those lines). 

xi) Let's take some specific examples:

Commenting on Eph 4:5, Hoehner thinks it refers, not to water baptism, but functions as  a baptismal metaphor for union with Christ in his death and resurrection. And he cites Rom 6:1-11, 1 Cor 10:2; Gal 3:27, and Col 2:12 to corroborate that interpretation. Ephesians, 518. 

Commenting on Gal 3:26-29, Thielman says:

The reference to putting on Christ is metaphorical, and so the reference to baptism is best understood as metaphorical also. Ephesians, 258-59. 

Commenting on 1 Cor 12:13, Fee argues for Spirit-baptism rather than water baptism, in part because there's no reference to water, as well as Semitic parallelism. To "drink" the Spirit is clearly figurative. 

He also refers to agricultural metaphors (Isa 32:15; 44:3). God's Empowering Presence, 179-80.

xii) My purpose is not to settle on the correct interpretation of these passages. The point, rather, is that "baptism" in NT usage isn't necessarily a technical term for the Christian sacrament. It's a mistake to read the NT through that filter. That preconditions the reader to perceive something that may not be there. 

We should treat "baptism" as a neutral word, a placeholder, the meaning of which must be determined in context. And in some cases, there may be insufficient textual clues to nail down the identification. 

The History Of Beliefs About The Unbaptized

Anthony Lusvardi recently published Baptism Of Desire And Christian Salvation (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University Of America Press, 2024). He's a Roman Catholic priest and scholar who did a doctoral dissertation on baptism of desire. Though the book is primarily about that subject, the book also addresses some related concepts to a lesser extent: baptism of blood, invincible ignorance, limbo, outside the church there is no salvation, the salvation of infants who die without having been baptized, etc.

Catholic Judaizers

I'm posting some email comments I may about Andrew Preslar's response to Jason Engwer. The anachronistic orientation of Catholic theology turns historical narratives like Jn 3 into fictitious allegories about Catholic church history:

***************

Andrew Preslar

“(1) We variously evaluate the significance of the fact that the gift of the Spirit in justification can precede the reception of baptism. (2) This (among other things) leads to different readings of ‘faith’ passages that do not say anything about baptism.”

That’s one reason, but not the only reason. It’s an indirect reason.

It is, however, true that if we have specific cases of prebaptismal justification, then there’s no obvious link between baptism and justification. In that event, baptism seems to be superfluous to justification–although it might still have a rationale apart from justification.

“You read them as excluding baptism. I see no logical reason to do so…”

There are at least five logical reasons to do so–of which I’ll mention three, and save the rest for later:

i) Besides the phenomenon of prebaptismal justification, we also have:

ii) Paul’s argument in Galatians. Paul classifies circumcision as a work. He says Abraham was justified apart from the work of circumcision. And he’s mounting an argument from analogy between OT justification and NT justification. So, by parity of argument, it would be inconsistent of him to turn around and say that Christians are justified by baptism (cf. Col 2:11-12).

iii) This is reinforced by the fact that if baptism were justificatory, then Paul could have dispatched the Judaizers in one crisp sentence: “No, Christians aren’t justified by circumcision; rather, Christians are justified by baptism!”

Let’s put it this way: If Paul were Roman Catholic, isn’t that how we’d expect him to make his case in Galatians?

“Given what Sacred Scripture says about baptism, in particular, baptism in relation to faith and the gifts of initial salvation.”

i) Which fails to take into account the nature of symbols and metaphors. If baptism were a symbol or metaphor of salvation, then saving properties would be symbolically attributed to baptism. Preslar needs to explain why that interpretation is untenable.

ii) Notice how he implicitly distinguishes between “initial” salvation and (I guess) “final” salvation. But is that distinction given in any of his prooftexts?

iii) And not just a distinction, but a potential dichotomy between initial and final salvation, where someone can be initially saved/justified, but fail to be finally saved/justified.

iv) Catholics don’t believe you have to be baptized to be saved. In fact, they don’t even believe you have to be Christian to be saved. So their actual paradigm for salvation is inconsistent with either justification by faith or justification by baptism.

It reminds me of something Feynman said about physics. He said it was very difficult to introduce a new theory into physics since any new theory had to fit in with all of the established theories.

And that’s a problem when Catholics appeal to Scripture. For their interpretations have to find a place within the preexisting cubicles of Catholic theology. Each interpretation has to be consistent with everything else in Catholic theology.

“(3) I recommend a synthetic reading of both (a) the justification by faith and benefits of baptism passages and (b) the Spirit & forgiveness of sins given before baptism and the Spirit & forgiveness of sins given in baptism passages.”

One of the problems with his “synthetic” approach is that he’s not simply combining different kinds of passages. He’s also introducing harmonistic devices like “proleptic“ gift and “initial” justification to make them go together. And his harmonistic devices are not something he directly adduces from any of his prooftexts. Rather, that’s something he introduces from the outside.

“In my approach, the ‘faith’ passages are not automatic pretexts for interpreting the ‘baptism’ passages as merely symbolizing indwelling/forgiveness/union/justification, rather than actually conferring the same.”

That’s not the only reason to treat the baptismal passages as “merely” emblematic of the spiritual benefits in question. Given the nature of symbol and metaphor, he needs an independent argument for why we should take these ascriptions literally.

That’s actually a preliminary question, even before we get to other data which are difficult to reconcile with baptismal justification.

“Without this premise, you would, I think, interpret the baptism passages differently, and more naturally, in accordance with their respective contexts. You would also feel less pressure to exclude the actual sacrament of baptism from those passages that ascribe some spiritual efficacy to ‘baptism.’”

That begs the question of whether it’s unnatural to construe these passages symbolically and/or metaphorically.

Is it unnatural to construe Jesus’ statement about the vine and the branches figuratively?

If, for the sake of argument, baptism were merely symbolic of certain blessings, like forgiveness, then it would be quite natural to ascribe spiritual efficacy to baptism. It would be quite natural to describe forgiveness in the figurative imagery of “washing away” sin.

“I think that if you were convinced that the faith passages do not automatically exclude baptism then you would read the baptism passages differently.”

He takes for granted that there’s a standing presumption in favor of sacramental realism, and it takes some strong counterevidence to override that default understanding.

Speaking for myself, I don’t agree. The Bible is studded with symbols and metaphors. Sometimes these are purely literary metaphors. At other times they are concrete metaphors, in the sense of symbolic actions or objects. As such, I don’t think there’s any reason to assume sacramental realism unless proven otherwise.

“I have tried to facilitate such a reading on your part in a variety of ways, including invoking the principle of not judging the nature / efficacy of something based upon passages that do not mention that thing.”

But he himself does that very thing with his extraneous harmonistic principles.

“Rather, we should form our views about baptism based upon what Scripture says about baptism.”

The question is not what is “says,” but what it “means” by what it says. What does Jn 15 say about the “spiritual efficacy” of the vine? Doesn’t the vine “confer” life on the branches? Yet Catholics haven’t added a sacramental vineyard to their list of sacraments.

“A related issue is that you seem tempted to read certain ‘baptism’ passages, including the ‘born of water’ and ‘washing of regeneration’, as excluding the sacrament–which would be a really strange way to teach rebirth/justification by faith sans baptism, especially since the sacrament figures so prominently in Christian initiation in the NT and beyond.”

i) To begin with, Christian baptism wasn’t prominent for Nicodemus. Indeed, it didn’t exist at that time. Catholics simply deactivate the historical context.

ii) As for Tit 3:5, if the “washing of rebirth” denotes baptismal regeneration/justification, then what does “renewal by the Holy Spirit” denote? It’s strange that Paul would use two phrases rather than one if only one stands for baptismal regeneration/justification. And it’s equally strange that he’d use both phrases for baptismal generation/justification when only one phrase employs aquatic imagery.

Catholics quote these prooftexts, but they don’t pay close attention to the actual wording or historical setting.

“I have given some reasons for not doing that, e.g., it is an argument from silence, such an approach seems to be pretty clearly falsified in the case of, e.g., repentance…”

That doesn’t falsify it at all.

i) To begin with, “justification by faith” (and verbal variants thereof) is a Pauline idiom. I wouldn’t expect other NT speakers or writers to reproduce a Pauline idiom. And, indeed, James is the only other NT writer who uses that phraseology. Yet that’s actually a study in contrast since he means something very different by that form of words.

ii) Repentance and faith are not two fundamentally different emotions. It’s just a difference in emphasis. Both reflect a change of heart and mind.

iii) Moreover, I doubt the NT always intends to draw a conceptual or psychological distinction between the two. I expect that much of the time these function as stock terms and stylistic synonyms.

“And, yes, the most straightforward reading of the baptism passages seems to indicate that they really are about baptism…”

If he’s still referring to Jn 3:5 and Tit 3:5, that begs the question.

What’s apparent is that he can’t take the opposing position seriously even for the sake of argument.

“And that the effects of this sacrament are truly foundational to life in Christ, in terms of both inward changes and new relationships.”

i) How is baptism “truly foundational” if, by his own admission, there are many cases of prebaptismal justification?

ii) And, of course, he doesn’t take the baptismal passages straightforwardly, since they generally make faith a precondition of baptism, whereas infant baptism is the norm in Roman Catholicism.

“Now, to revert to the timing issue: My position here is the result of my synthetic reading of the passages in question, in which there is no need to pick one or another passages as ‘normative.’”

But if he just told us that baptism is “truly foundational,” then that makes baptism normative. And he introduces harmonistic devices to square the other types of passages with the baptismal passages. That’s another mark of what he views as normative.

“In any event, questions about the timing of the effects of the sacrament of baptism and the moment of a conscious act of faith depend greatly upon the subject of baptism, such as whether the subject is an older child/adult or an infant, or, in cases of the former, whether or not the sacrament is received with the right disposition.”

And where do his baptismal prooftexts draw those distinctions?

“If Scripture does not make a major issue of the timing of the gift of the Spirit/justification and the reception of baptism, then neither should we, at least, not in the interpretation of those scriptures. There are passages in which the timing of justification is central to an argument, but these are not addressing baptism. For instance, St. Paul makes a big deal of the timing of Abraham’s justification viz circumcision.”

And isn’t baptism the counterpart to circumcision? Both are covenant signs of covenant membership.

“One reason that this is not parallel to the timing of justification and the (non)efficacy of baptism is that faith and baptism both belong to the New Covenant…whereas circumcision did not belong to the covenant that God made with Abraham when he was initially justified.”

Circumcision did belong to the Abrahamic covenant. But it was separable from his justification.

“Baptism, however, does belong to the covenant in which we are justified, the New Covenant in Christ’s blood. So faith and circumcision, in the covenantal theology of Romans 4, can be temporally distinguished in a way that faith and baptism cannot.”

i) Faith and baptism are temporally distinguished in Acts, since there is no fixed sequence.

ii) Moreover, he’s blurring two different issues:

a) Are faith and baptism temporally distinguished?

b) Are faith and justification temporally distinguished?

“According to St. Paul, baptism is the means by which we are identified with Christ, the foundation of our new life in the Spirit (Romans 6–8).”

Which sidesteps the question of whether that connection is symbolic or constitutive.

“Paul simply says that we are identified with Christ by baptism.”

And if Paul were a Baptist or Zwinglian, he’d simply say the same thing. That’s in the nature of symbolism. What is said of the significate can be said of the sign, and vice versa. What is said of Christ can be said of the vine, and vice versa–within the limits of the intended analogy.

Preslar never gets inside the logic of symbolic reference or emblematic denotation. So all he ends up doing is to repeat himself by paraphrasing his question-begging claims time and again.

“When an event is bound up with something eternal, its efficacy need not be in every way bounded by its temporal placement.”

In theory, no. But Paul makes a big deal about the timing of justification in relation to a covenant sign.

“There is also a sense in which the full effects of initial salvation await the actual reception of baptism…”

And his prooftext for that is what?

“…without which one is not, for example, inwardly configured to participate in the Eucharist.”

Was Ted Kenney inwardly configured to participate in the Eucharist whereas William Booth was not?

“This is a further claim, but it indicates one of the reasons that Catholics can hold that there is a distinct and foundational effect in the actual conferral baptism, even when spiritual life has already begun prior to baptism, in anticipation thereof.”

But if baptism confers regeneration, then how does regeneration precede its sacramental cause?

Credobaptism Before The Reformation

I discussed infant baptism at length in some posts here in 2006. I don't think I've addressed the subject much since then. I want to revisit it.

Baptismal Justification

I've been having a discussion with Bryan Cross on the subject of justification. Below is a portion of my latest response, relevant to the subject of attaining justification through baptism. For those who want to read the full discussion, keep in mind that what I'm about to quote is only a portion of what I wrote in my latest post. You'll have to look over the entire post to read the portions I left out here:

Bryan wrote:

"Of course it wasn’t accompanied by baptism under the Old Covenant, since Christ established Christian baptism only in the New Covenant."

Christian baptism was established later, but Paul, James, and other New Testament authors suggest continuity between justification through faith in the Old Testament era and justification through faith in the New Testament era. You could argue for a diminished continuity by adding baptism for those living in the New Testament period, but that would be, as I said in my last post, a diminished continuity. The higher level of continuity that I'm suggesting makes more sense of the New Testament theme of continuity in the means of justification.

You write:

"And it seems clear that Abraham’s faith was accompanied by works, as James points out."

It was eventually accompanied by works. But works of faith come later than faith. Genesis 15:6 is about a faith that would result in works, but the works come after the faith. When somebody trusts God in response to a promise God makes, as in Genesis 15, that's faith in the heart (as in Acts 15:7-11 and Romans 10:10), not faith accompanied by an outer manifestation like baptism.

You write:

"A person can be justified even prior to baptism, but the grace by which he is justified nevertheless has come to his through that sacrament."

Jesus and the apostles neither said nor implied that. And I was addressing the normative means of justification. I'm aware that Catholicism allows exceptions. But baptismal justification is the norm in Catholicism.

Are the Biblical examples of justification apart from baptism exceptional? They could be in some cases, such as the thief on the cross. But it wouldn't make sense to dismiss all of them, or even most of them, in that manner. There isn't a single individual who's described as coming to faith, but having to wait until baptism to be justified. Nor is there any individual who's described as only having a lesser, unjustifying faith prior to baptism or not having faith at all until baptism. Rather, we repeatedly see people justified as soon as they believe, prior to or without baptism. That includes people who could easily have been baptized. It's not as though people like Cornelius and the Galatians didn't have access to baptism, nor is there any reason to think that God couldn't have waited until their baptism to give them the Holy Spirit and the confirming evidence of their justification. It would make no sense to dismiss a passage like Luke 18:10-14, Acts 19:2, or Romans 10:10 as an exception to the rule. Justification upon believing response to the gospel, prior to baptism, is the rule, not the exception.

You write:

"A mere suggestion is not sufficient to warrant schism from the Church, or the public charge that the Catholic Church teaches a false gospel."

The comment you're responding to is just one argument among many I made. I did say that my argument "suggests" my conclusion, but it wasn't my only argument. And I, of course, don't hold the view that Roman Catholicism is "the Church".

You write:

"It is St. John who tells us at the beginning of his gospel (written later in his life, according to tradition) that Jesus said to Nicodemus, 'unless a man is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God.' (John 3:5) Jesus is the one who 'added' baptism, just as He did in Mark 16:16, and just as Peter did on Pentecost: 'repent, and let each of you be baptized for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.' (Acts 2:38) It is baptism that now [in the New Covenant] saves us. (1 Pet 3:21)"

Mark 16:16 is an extra-Biblical source. It has some significance as an early text, but the readers should keep in mind that it's an extra-Biblical text. The authentic gospel of Mark says nothing of baptismal justification. (Similarly, the authentic letters of Ignatius of Antioch say nothing of it. The inauthentic longer versions of his letters, on the other hand, include reference to the concept.)

You've made no attempt to explain the large number of Biblical examples of justification apart from baptism that I cited earlier. As I said, such passages have moved many advocates of baptismal justification to argue that baptism didn't become a requirement (in normative cases) until after Jesus' public ministry. Do you hold that view? If so, then citing John 3:5 makes little sense. We know that Jesus frequently forgave people, pronounced peace to them, and healed them (often with justificatory implications) during His earthly ministry. See the examples cited here. In John's gospel, the reasoning that Ronald Fung applied to Galatians (in my quote above) is applicable again. John refers to justification through faith many times (1:12, 3:15-16, 3:18, 3:36, 5:24, 6:35, 6:40, 6:47, 7:38-39, 11:25-26, etc.), and baptismal justification is alleged to be referred to only once, in 3:5. Three of those references to justification through faith come later in Jesus' discussion with Nicodemus (3:15-16, 3:18). Using one reference to "water" to argue for the inclusion of baptism in such a large number of other passages that neither state nor imply its inclusion is dubious.

What does 3:5 mean, then? Jesus is speaking with a teacher within first-century Judaism and rebukes him, in that capacity, for not understanding what He was saying (3:10). Do the Old Testament scriptures or other sources a teacher in Judaism should have been familiar with teach baptismal justification? No. But the Old Testament does associate the Holy Spirit with water without having physical water in view (Isaiah 44:3), and John associates the Spirit with non-physical water elsewhere (John 7:37-39). Spiritual washing is a common theme in scripture (Psalm 51:2). Jesus probably is referring to Ezekiel 36:25-27, and it should be noted that He possibly alludes to the wind of resurrection from Ezekiel 37:9-14 in John 3:8. Jesus goes on to clarify what He's saying by referring to justification through faith three times, without any mention of baptism (3:15-16, 3:18).

Some of the same points I've made about other passages can be made regarding Acts 2:38. I've cited other passages in Luke's writings in which people are justified apart from baptism, including passages portrayed as normative and in which the people involved could easily have been baptized. Most likely, Acts 2:38 has a meaning similar to Matthew 3:11. The people in Matthew 3 weren't being baptized to attain repentance. Rather, they were repenting, then being baptized on the basis of that repentance. Not only would it be irrational to think that unrepentant people would be baptized in order to attain repentance, but Josephus specifically tells us that John's baptism was for people who had already repented (Antiquities Of The Jews, 18:5:2). Given the availability of such a reasonable understanding of Acts 2:38 (one similar to how we all read Matthew 3:11), it wouldn't make sense to adopt some other view of the passage that would be so inconsistent with what Luke says elsewhere and what other Biblical authors say (documented above).

1 Peter 3:21 is a passage addressed to Christians in the context of discussing sanctification. Baptism saves in that sense, not in the sense of justification. Like the baptism of John the Baptist, Christian baptism doesn't remove the filth of sin (1 Peter 3:21). Instead, it's a public pledge made to God that commits Christians, like those to whom Peter is writing, to faithfulness to God in their present experience of persecution. As J. Ramsey Michaels observes:

"It is unlikely that the present passage [1 Peter 3:21] intends to say something so banal as that baptism's purpose is not to wash dirt off the body. What early Christian would have thought that it was? More probably Peter, like James, has moral defilement in view, i.e., the 'impulses' that governed the lives of his readers before they believed in Christ...The 'removal of the filth of the flesh' is not a physical but a spiritual cleansing, and Peter's point is not that such cleansing is an unimportant or unnecessary thing, only that baptism is not it. The analogy of the passage in Josephus (18.117) suggests that Peter may simply be insisting that the inward moral cleansing to which he refers is presupposed by the act of water baptism. This interpretation is confirmed by the positive definition of baptism with which the argument now continues." (Word Biblical Commentary, vol. 49, 1 Peter [Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1988], p. 216)

In other words, Peter is contradicting your position rather than supporting it.

You write:

"Faith comes by hearing, of course. But if it comes to a person in its fullness (as a virtue), it has come to them through the sacrament of baptism, even if they have not yet been baptized. The Spirit ordinarily works through the sacrament, but the Spirit is capable of outrunning the sacrament, as John outran Peter at the tomb."

If you want people to accept your assertion, you should offer more than an analogy to John's outrunning Peter. As I said above, there are no Biblical examples of what you consider the normative role of baptism. But there are many Biblical examples of people being justified apart from baptism, in a wide variety of contexts, including contexts in which people could easily have been baptized.

You write:

"When Paul says 'Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?', he is asking them if they were confirmed when they were baptized."

You're not giving us any reason to agree with your conclusion. How are you getting baptism and confirmation from a reference to believing in Acts 19:2? You go on to cite 1 Timothy 6:12, but the fact that Timothy made a confession wouldn't lead us to your conclusion about how baptism and Roman Catholic confirmation allegedly relate to the reception of the Holy Spirit. Acts 19:2 only mentions faith. Your additions to the passage are unreasonable.

You write:

"Correct, but this believing includes baptism"

If you want us to believe that Galatians 3:2, Ephesians 1:13-14, and other passages are including baptism when they refer to faith, you need to argue for that position rather than just asserting it. There were Greek terms available for conveying the concept of baptism. A different term is sometimes used for baptism just after belief has been mentioned (Acts 8:12-13, 18:8). We don't begin with a default assumption that references to belief include baptism. If you want baptism included, you carry the burden of proof.

You write:

"In neither the Cornelius situation nor the Acts 19 situation is faith truly separated from baptism. Faith precedes it, but the Apostles do not take this as nullifying the need for baptism."

It's not just a matter of faith coming before baptism. Rather, justification does as well. Cornelius' example and Paul's assumed soteriology in Acts 19:2 involve the reception of the Spirit, the seal of adoption and justification, at the time of faith and prior to baptism. That's why the Christians in Jerusalem, after hearing Peter mention Cornelius' reception of the Spirit without any mention of his baptism, respond by saying that Cornelius had been given eternal life (Acts 11:18). Peter goes on to use Cornelius as an example of a person whose heart had been cleansed through faith, demonstrated by his reception of the Spirit (Acts 15:7-11). Peter says nothing of baptism in that context, and the reception of the Spirit that confirmed Cornelius' justification occurred prior to his baptism. Besides, reception of the Spirit is normally associated with the beginning of the Christian life, so the description of what happened in Acts 10:44-46 would be sufficient to support my conclusion even if we didn't have the further confirmation in Acts 11 and Acts 15.

You write:

"If a person believes, he will, like the Ethiopian eunuch, respond by seeking baptism, in which he is united to Christ, what St. Paul refers to as coming to 'belong to Christ' (Gal 5:24)"

As I documented earlier, many things in the Christian life unite us to Christ in many ways (Romans 8:17, 13:14, 2 Corinthians 4:10-11, Philippians 3:10-12). Something can unite us to Jesus without being a means of attaining justification, as the examples cited above illustrate.

You write:

"You’re thinking of the faith in an entirely subjective, inward and individualistic way. But faith is public. It involves a public ‘yes’ to the gospel, and that public yes means the reception of baptism and incorporation into His Body, the Church."

Faith begins inwardly, then is manifested outwardly. That's why scripture refers to justifying faith as something that happens in the heart (Acts 15:7-11, Romans 10:10).

And it's not as though including baptism in faith is the normal meaning of the Greek language in question. Rather, you're reading your Catholic theology into terms that normally don't include baptism. Faith and baptism are different things. The relevant Greek terms have objective meaning, and that meaning isn't determined by Catholic theology. As I said above, there were other Greek terms available if the authors wanted to communicate the concept of baptism, and they do often use such terms. The problem, for you, is that they don't use those terms in places where you want us to believe that baptism is involved....

You write:

"You don’t seem to realize Who is doing the baptizing. Does the believer exercise his free will in stepping into the font? Of course. But that’s not baptism. Who does the baptizing? Christ. Christ is the Baptizer."

You're singling out the elements of the ceremony (and the arranging of it) that you attribute to Christ alone. But terms like "baptism" and "getting baptized" are often used in the sense of all of the activities combined. If a person is "stepping into the font" and taking other actions in order to be baptized by Christ, then more than faith is involved.

The History Of Infant Baptism

Paedo-baptism has been losing ground, and credo-baptism has been gaining ground, in recent scholarship. We see this change reflected in a recent book published by the patristic scholar David Wright. He's written a large amount of material about infant baptism over the years, and last year he published a book titled What Has Infant Baptism Done To Baptism? (England: Paternoster Press, 2005).

Though Wright is a paedo-baptist, his book is largely critical of the historical practice of infant baptism. He thinks that the practice has often been abused, he thinks that credo-baptist scholars make many good points that should be acknowledged, and he thinks that his fellow paedo-baptists need to make some changes (some of which are already underway). Wright acknowledges that infant baptism has done some good, such as in promoting societal unity. And he's critical of Baptists on some points, such as what he considers to be too low a view of the efficacy of baptism. However, he acknowledges that the historical evidence suggests that infant baptism was a post-apostolic development. He acknowledges that a wide variety of views existed on this subject in patristic times. (Contrast this acknowledgment by Wright and other scholars with the claims made by some critics of credo-baptism, regarding an alleged universal or almost universal acceptance of infant baptism.) Wright is a paedo-baptist, but he acknowledges many facts that I as a credo-baptist consider important.

Before I quote from Wright's book, I want to mention that the foreword to the book is written by another scholar, Anthony Lane. The view that Lane advocates is that more than one view of infant baptism co-existed in early church history. He writes about:

"the situation in the early centuries where the two forms of baptism existed side by side, both because of the large influx of converts and because by no means all Christians brought their babies to baptism. The ‘dual practice’ of allowing Christians the choice of whether or not to have their children baptized, and if so at what age, may strike many today as muddled and unprincipled – but the clear fact is that such a variety of practice existed in the third and fourth centuries and that no one raised any principled objection against it. Indeed, it can be argued from this fact that it is most likely that such acceptance of variety goes back to apostolic times." (pp. vii-viii)

For reasons I explained earlier, I think that infant baptism was rare or nonexistent prior to the first explicit mention of it in Tertullian. I doubt that infants were baptized at all in apostolic times. However, Lane's view is at least much more plausible than the common claims of universal infant baptism made by many Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, etc.

Early in the book, David Wright discusses one of the reasons why the credo-baptist position is becoming more widely accepted:

"Away from the erstwhile citadels of Christendom in Europe, Christianity is expanding rapidly in Africa, much of Asia and Latin America. This new Christianity of the South and the East is heavily dominated by models of Christian life, old and new, which generally baptize only converts. Pentecostalism is perhaps the predominant paradigm, expressed in many highly diverse forms, of the thriving Christianity of the South. This seismic shift in the distribution of world Christianity is one of the contexts promoting a reconsideration of baptismal history today." (p. 9)

Before I quote more from Wright, I should clarify something. Wright refers to a time when infant baptism was normalized in the fifth century or later, often referring to it as a "reign" of infant baptism. However, Wright isn't denying that some people objected to the practice even during that timeframe when infant baptism reigned:

"Infant baptism became regnant, and the millennium or so up to the Reformation witnessed only popular, small-scale, uncoordinated and short-lived protests in favour of baptism for believers only." (p. 3)

After discussing the historical abuse of Anabaptists, Wright comments:

"The contemporary church still waits for appropriate acknowledgment by the Vatican and the worldwide Anglican and Reformed communions (the Lutherans of Germany have in good measure led the way and the Swiss Reformed churches have followed more recently) of their forebears’ scandalous mistreatment of the first significant modern advocates of long-lost dimensions of New Testament baptism." (p. 4)

Here are some of the significant portions of what Wright goes on to say:

"One legacy of the baptismal breech of the sixteenth century which has militated against a comprehensive history of baptism has been the stubborn hauteur displayed towards Baptists and believers' baptism by paedobaptist churches and theologians. A friend recalls a world-famous Scottish Reformed theologian telling a seminar in the 1970s that Baptist teaching was 'a bit of a theological slum'….A credible history of baptism, at least so far as Western Christianity is concerned, can be told only if the overwhelming domination of the tradition by infant baptism is subjected to searching scrutiny….Peter Leithart has recently asserted that 'The church was rescued from Baptist theology and practice by Augustine of Hippo.' If 'Baptist' here implies rejection of infant baptism, this wonderfully bold statement is an exaggeration but within pardonable limits….To Leithart, '[t]he remarkable fact about baptism in the early church is that infant baptism emerged…as the dominant practice of the church'. This is not the way the story is usually told! It is indeed seriously misleading to view the age of the Fathers simply as an era of infant baptism. In fact, of known named individuals in those centuries who were both of Christian parentage and baptized at known dates, the great majority were baptized on profession of faith. The obscuring of a truer picture derives ultimately from sixteenth-century apologetic, both Catholic and Protestant, against the Anabaptists….As Leithart helpfully summarizes, 'the earliest baptismal liturgies…were constructed on something like Baptist assumptions, even when children were included'….Leithart fails to draw the obvious conclusion from this evidence, that infant baptism can never have been the norm in this early period….The timescale of infant baptism’s long reign extends from the early medieval period, from about the sixth century, that is to say, after Augustine of Hippo, who died in 430. It was he who provided the theology that led to infant baptism becoming general practice for the first time in the history of the church, perhaps in the later fifth century, more likely in the 500s or even later….A plausible case can be made for a normal practice of baptizing the newborn having developed by the regularizing of clinical paedobaptism [baptism of dying infants]." (pp. 4-6, 8, n. 7 on p. 8, 12, 17)

Throughout the book, Wright gives many examples of paedo-baptists over the centuries contradicting themselves, contradicting each other, and giving a variety of justifications for baptizing infants. One of the significant points Wright makes is that some of the procedures followed for baptizing infants treated those infants as if they were believers. It seems that credo-baptist practices were taken over by paedo-baptists, resulting in absurdities like asking infants to make a confession prior to baptism, then having an adult speak that confession in the voice of the child. Wright comments:

"It was as though paedobaptism had the strength of a cuckoo to eject the original occupants of the nest and thus effect a takeover of baptism, but lacked the independent vitality to fledge its own appropriate liturgical feathers." (p. 8)

Regarding the ecumenical creeds, Wright notes:

"The only ecumenical creed to mention baptism is the Nicene (none mentions the eucharist) in the phrase 'one baptism for the remission of sins'. I have argued elsewhere that this cannot have originally embraced babies, because in the circles from which this creed emerged, to be approved at the Council of Constantinople in 381 (if we accept the testimony of the Fathers at the Council of Chalcedon seventy years later, as most scholars do), it was believed that newborn babies had no sins." (p. 93)

In conclusion:

"We have tracked, largely in this lecture by attending to the texts of Western baptismal development, a truly massive change in the history of Christ’s church. From being a company recruited by intentional response to the gospel imperative to discipleship and baptism, it became a body enrolled from birth. It was arguably one of the greatest sea changes in the story of Christianity. It led, as we have seen, to the formation of Christendom, comprising a Christian empire, Christian nations or peoples. Christianity became a matter of heredity, not decision. The famous and telling words of Tertullian, fiunt, non nascuntur, Christiani, 'people are made, not born, Christians', were turned upside down." (p. 74)

"Baptism saves you"

20 because they formerly did not obey, when God's patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. 21 Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ (1 Pet 3:20-21, ESV).

1 Pet 3:21 is a favorite prooftext for sacramentalism. Let's consider the various permutations of this issue:

1. For the record, I think the NT teaches the rite of water baptism. I'm not opposed to that. 

2. Sacramentalists fail to grasp the nature of symbolism. They suppose that if baptism was "merely symbolic," the NT would describe it differently. But symbolism operates on a representational principle, where you can substitute the sign for the significate. In symbolism, the emblem takes the place of the thing it symbolizes. Therefore, whatever is true of the significate can be said of the sign.

For instance, when the cross is used to symbolize the redemptive work of Christ, we ascribe anything and everything to the cross that's actually true of the atonement. But that isn't meant to be taken literally. We aren't saved by a piece of wood. 

So the NT would use the same descriptions for baptism and communion whether or not these were "merely symbolic." 

3. Water is a flexible theological metaphor in Scripture. Water can be a source of life. Water can be a source of death.

Water is a direct source of life in terms of drinking water; water is in indirect source of life in terms of crop irrigation.

Water is a direct source of death in terms of drowning, or an indirect source of death in terms of Nile crocodiles. 

Water is a cleansing agent. By extension, water represents ritual purification. 

Finally, it's possible that the ancients associated water with birth via amniotic fluid. 

4. Let's grant the sacramentalist interpretation of 1 Pet 3:21 for the sake of argument. If so, that passage is still fraught with complications and ambiguities:

i) Does that mean baptism necessary for salvation? Can you be saved apart from baptism? 

ii) Does that mean baptism sufficient for salvation? Is baptism alone all you need to be saved? 

iii) What baptism saves you? 

a) Does the efficacy of baptism depend on the mode of baptism (e.g. immersion, sprinkling)?

b) Does the efficacy of baptism depend on the intent of the officiant? 

c) In the case of adults, does the efficacy depend on the intent of the candidate? 

d) Does the efficacy of baptism depend on the orthodoxy of the officiant? Is baptism performed by a heretic valid or invalid? 

e) Does the efficacy of baptism depend on words as well as the action (e.g. a Trinitarian formula)?

f) Can a layman perform baptism, or must it be a church officer?

So even if you think baptism conveys saving grace, that leaves many crucial questions unanswered. 

5. Concerning baptisma:

i) BDAG offers the following definitions: plunging, dipping, washing, water-rite, baptism. 165b. 

ii) That's a fairly rare word in NT usage. By my count, it's only used about 20 times.  

And out of that, most occurrences refer to John's baptism. Another few denote "baptism" as a metaphor for martyrdom. 

Only three or four occurrences are generally thought to denote Christian baptism (Rom 6:4; Eph 4:5; Col 2:12; 1 Pet 3:21). 

That's a very thin database from which to derive belief that baptisma is a technical term for the Christian sacrament. Technical terminology can be established by stimulative definitions or stereotypical usage. But three or four occurrences hardly amounts to stereotypical usage. 

iii) Moreover, the appeal to these three or four passages is circular, for unless you already know that baptisma is a technical term for the Christian sacrament, there's nothing in the context that demands that meaning, and, indeed, there are contextual factors which may militate against that meaning. We need some independent lexical evidence to establish usage. 

6. There's no reason why Rom 6:4 can't be figurative. Certainly the passage contains other metaphors. Christians didn't physically die with Christ at Calvary. And they weren't physically buried with Christ. So this is vicarious language.

It seems arbitrary to insist that it refers to literal baptism, but not to literal death or literal burial. So I think it's at least as likely, if not more so, that this trades on picturesque imagery. 

7. Likewise, it's unclear that Eph 4:5 refers to Christian baptism. 

a) For one thing, if Paul is referring to the sacraments, why single out baptism to the exclusion of communion? 

b) It might instead denote Spirit-baptism or symbolic death (e.g. martyrdom). 

8. Concerning Col 2:12:

a) That may not even mention baptisma. The textual tradition is divided.

b) Even assuming that baptisma is the original reading, since Paul is using circumcision here as a theological metaphor, there's no presumption that he uses baptism literally. 

Paul isn't treating baptism as the new covenant counterpart to circumcision. Rather, circumcision carries over into the new covenant as a theological metaphor ("circumcision of Christ"). 

Put another way, in this passage he uses "baptism" and circumcision as synonyms. But if one is figurative, why not both? 

6. Which brings us to 1 Pet 3:21. 

i) Unless baptisma is a technical term for the Christian sacrament of initiation, there's no presumption that that's what it means here. To translate the word as "baptism" is prejudicial. 

ii) In what respect is baptism comparable to Noah's flood? Noah's family weren't saved by water, but from water. They were saved in spite of water. But those who espouse baptismal regeneration or baptismal justification hardly think we are saved despite the rite of baptism. 

iii) Moreover, Noah's family never got wet. If that's analogous to baptism, then it's dry baptism. Surely, though, the sacramentalist considers contact with water to be a basic element of baptism. 

Admittedly, analogies have disanalogies. But where's the parallel? 

iv) What if, instead of "baptism," we render v21 as:

Washing (dipping, plunging), which corresponds to this, now saves you.

Because the generic usage doesn't specify baptism, it invites a figurative interpretation. Resurrection is the antithetical parallel to death. So baptisma may symbolize Christ rescuing us from spiritual death (by drowning) via our participation in the Resurrection. 

Show and tell

A commenter left some remarks on this post:

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2015/10/baptism-saves-you.html

I will respond here. The commenter is Lutheran. Since I'm a Calvinist, I'll use Calvinism and Lutheranism as the frame of reference:

2. Does the N.T. assume the the sacraments are just symbols? If sacramentalists assume the reality why can you just assume they are merely symbols? 

i) What I said was NT language is consistent with a symbolic interpretation. So, you'd need something additional to tip the balance either way. 

ii) We have two sets of passages: those that index salvation to sacraments and those that index salvation to  faith and repentance apart from sacraments.  

How do we harmonize those passages? In theory, there are different ways:

a) Does that mean some people can be saved by baptism and/or communion apart from faith and repentance? Are there different paths to salvation? Presumably, you disagree. 

b) On the symbolic interpretation, the sacraments function as vivid theological interpretations of salvation. For instance, the eucharist depicts the death of Christ as a vicarious sacrifice. It teaches Christians that the death of Christ was a penal substitutionary atonement. 

The point is not that we are saved by taking communion, but that communion teaches us the meaning of the Crucifixion. Likewise, because water is a cleansing agent, baptism becomes an emblem of forgiveness. And possibility new birth. That's another way of teaching us another facet of salvation. Show and tell. 

c) On a sacramentalist interpretation, you might try to combine them. You might say the passages which index salvation to faith and repentance are incomplete. These must be supplemented by the sacraments. There are, however, problems with that. 

In depends in part on your overall theology. For instance, Lutheranism affirms universal grace and universal atonement. But if saving grace is channeled through Word and Sacrament, then that localizes saving grace. Saving grace is for all and only those who hear the Gospel and/or receive the sacraments.

Yet at many times and places, people never hear the Gospel and never have access to the sacraments. How can grace be universal if the opportunities to receive grace fall far short of universality? Universal atonement might suggest a universal provision of grace, but that's narrowed by the limited availability of Word and Sacrament. So there's an internal contradiction in that theological system.

Conversely, Calvinism rejects a one-to-one-correspondence between saving grace and sacramental grace. On the one hand, people can be saved apart from the sacraments. On the other hand, some people who received the sacraments are damned. 

So how you harmonize them depends on how that fits together with other things you think the Bible teaches. That can rule out certain harmonistic options. 

The N.T does not say the cross saves us, but Christ on the cross saves us. 

Actually, it says things like:

and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility (Eph 2:16). 

by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross (Col 2:14).

So it sometimes uses the "cross" in absolute constructions. But more to the point, it's clearly employs the cross as a symbol for the redemptive work of Christ, where the cross is a stand-in for the atonement.  

The N.T. states that baptism now saves us. Those are clear texts. We can accept them as is or as the above post tries to do is to simply explain things away.

i) In terms of literary genre, narrative texts can be clearer than epistolary texts, because historical narratives contain local color and atmospheric details regarding the nature of the rite. That's why it's easy to establish water baptism from the Gospels and Acts. By contrast, the NT letter lack those contextual clues, so it's harder to determine if they are referring to literal "baptism" or using theological metaphors. 

ii) You assume that baptisma means "baptism." But I cited a range of definitions from the standard NT Greek lexicon. 

iii) Another problem with your simplistic appeal is that everyone adds qualifications to that passage. For instance, Lutherans think it's possible for someone who's been baptized to lose their salvation. But in that case, baptism didn't save apostates. Baptism didn't save them in the long-run. 

So you don't just "accept it as it." You yourself "explain it away" based on other requirements of Lutheran theology. 

3. Water gives life with the Word and the water in our baptism. It also means death to the old adam as he is drowned in the waters of baptism.

Now you're claiming that baptism signifies both life and death. Why should I accept your contention? Where did that come from? Perhaps you're alluding to Lutheran prooftexts for baptismal regeneration (e.g. Jn 3:5; Tit 3:5)? If so, I don't grant your interpretation. 

4.i) Does that mean baptism necessary for salvation? Can you be saved apart from baptism? No. The Word of God can convert a sinner. The Spirit can work apart from the waters of Baptism, but this is the normal scenario. (Infant baptism). 

Okay, but notice how that complicates your simplistic appeal to 1 Pet 3:21. You've now conditionalized 1 Pet 3:21. If I'm baptized, then baptism saves me. 

If, on the other hand, I believe the Gospel, but die in a traffic accident before receiving baptism, then is wasn't baptism that saved me, but something other than baptism. 

That, however, isn't what 1 Pet 3:21 says. According to you, it says "baptism saves you," yet you admit there are situations in which baptism doesn't save–because something else did the saving. Baptism didn't save the person now or later. Baptism didn't figure in his salvation at all. Not now, not ever. 

ii) Does that mean baptism sufficient for salvation? Is baptism alone all you need to be saved? Baptism saves. It gives us Christ and all his benefits and grants us faith to trust the promises of Christ. Faith is then nourished by the Word, the Lord's Supper, and the absolution we receive as members of the church.

i) That's ambiguous. Did Adolf Hitler go to heaven while Anne Frank went to hell? Did baptism save Hitler? 

ii) What exactly saves you in Lutheranism? Is it universal atonement? Baptism? Justification? Absolution? The Eucharist? Is it one thing? More than one thing? Looks like a shell game.  

iii) Moreover, if 1 Pet 3:21 means "baptism saves you," then that, by itself, doesn't distinguish between the necessity and the sufficiency of baptism. So you're adding lots of qualifications to your prooftext that not only go beyond what it says, but diminish what it says. 

iii) What baptism saves you?
a) Does the efficacy of baptism depend on the mode of baptism (e.g. immersion, sprinkling)? No. Though Sprinkling would be a prefered choice.

But 1 Pet 3:21 doesn't say that. So you've added a specification to the text beyond the actual wording.

b) Does the efficacy of baptism depend on the intent of the officiant? No.

But there are theological traditions that think it does matter (e.g. Roman Catholicism). 

c) In the case of adults, does the efficacy depend on the intent of the candidate? We approach adults as the N.T. church would have. They are expressing faith so we baptize and catechize them. We trust the Spirit has produced faith in them through the Word.

But 1 Pet 3:21 doesn't say that. So you've added a specification to the text beyond the actual wording.

d) Does the efficacy of baptism depend on the orthodoxy of the officiant? Is baptism performed by a heretic valid or invalid? No. 

"No" to valid or invalid?

e) Does the efficacy of baptism depend on words as well as the action (e.g. a Trinitarian formula)? We should confess a Trinitarian Baptism as we are placing the name of God of the candidate for baptism. Lutherans will accept other baptisms except from if from certain hereodox charismatic sects or cults like the Mormons or Jehovah's witness.

So you've added another qualification to 1 Pet 3:21, beyond the actual wording. 

f) Can a layman perform baptism, or must it be a church officer? Yes, but it would be prefered if the local pastor would be the one to baptize and they will be the pastor of the baptized.

Notice that you have to supply all these specifications from outside your prooftext. The text itself doesn't say the presence or absence of these qualifications is what makes the baptism in question salvific. So it's not nearly as "plain and clear" as you imagine. 

5. I don't get trying to nail a point with the word and how many times it is used. There should be clear enough evidence with 4 usages relating baptism and salvation to drive home a point. The most clear and plainest reading of the texts should be accepted.

i) Because you can't simply import the entire context back into the meaning of an individual word. You're getting that, not from the meaning of the word itself, but from the surrounding text in which it's used. A word doesn't mean everything the context means. 

ii) For a word to become a technical term (apart from stimulative definition), it must be employed often enough in a particular context to acquire a specialized connotation through repeated usage. Three or four occurrences, even if these were unambiguously about baptism, hardly establishes stereotypical usage. For the context of a word to rub off on the word, it must be used often enough to trigger that context even when the context is absent. In the nature of the case, idiomatic usage requires a certain frequency before it counts as idiomatic. 

Take the word "martyr," which derives from "witness"–in secular Greek. And that's how it's employed in NT Greek. But in patristic usage, it becomes a technical term for Christians who were executed for their faith. That's not what it originally meant. It eventually picked up that specialized connotation through frequent contextual usage. Once that association is cemented, it has that meaning independent of an explicit setting where the God's people are put to death for their faith. 

Consider Antipas (Rev 2:13). At that stage in the evolution of the language, martus means "witness." It is not, as of yet, a technical term for "martyr". Although Antipas is, indeed, a martyr, it's not the word itself, but the context, which supplies that identity. However, it is cumulative occurrences like that which will turn it into a technical term for "martyr". 

Another example is how Catholics bungle justification because they fail to distinguish between Paul's specialized, idiosyncratic use of the dikaioo word-group and the non-technical usage of James. Paul's repeated usage is jargonistic in a way that James is not. 

6. There is a literal death in baptism( the old adam, and a new life is given as we are united to Christ by baptism and given faith to trust the promises of God.

That's equivocal. You're comparing physical death to the mortification of sin.  

7. The context doesn't reach to the Lord's Supper. It is enough for Paul to stress our unity in that we have 1 Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one Father. The fact that baptism is placed in this context would highlight the importance placed on baptism and its connection to faith, and our unity with the Lord and the Father.

Why is baptism a hallmark of unity, but not communion? 

8. I do not think this passage demonstrators anything different that Luke records in Acts, John in his Gospel, or Peter. Baptism kills the old adam and grant us life and faith in Christ. 

i) You're not exegeting Col 2:12 on its own terms. Rather, you're glossing it in reference to random material outside the text and context. 

ii) In addition, scholars (e.g. F. F. Bruce, M. J. Harris, B. Metzger, D. Moo, P. T. O'Brien, R. McL. Wilson) generally don't think it uses the same word as 1 Pet 3:21–much less Acts and the Gospel of John, which don't use that word, either. 

You're overlooking the fact that I'm referencing passages which use the same Greek noun: baptisma. 

9. Noah's family passed through the waters of death in the Arc and were brought to new life. We to pass through the waters of death in baptism and are raised to new life in Christ. The water does not save us, but the Word of God (the promises) united to the Word save us as we are united to Christ. 

But you're not getting all that from 1 Pet 3:21. 

Again, Lutherans do believe that people can be saved apart from the waters of Baptism because we do believe in that the Word of God can bring new life to men. We trust God at His Word. He saves through Baptism and He can save through His Word.

You're interjecting distinctions into your prooftext that aren't contained in your prooftext. So appealing to the "clearest, plainest" text is deceptive. What you've really done is to begin with Lutheran systematic theology, then modify 1 Pet 3:21 to shoehorn into that preexisting framework. 

Proselyte baptism

As an Anglican, Roger Beckwith naturally supports infant baptism. However, he raises some interesting questions regarding the extent of infant baptism in the early church. If Christian baptism is a modification of John's baptism, which is, in turn, a modification of proselyte baptism, and Christians originally followed that paradigm, then paedobaptism may not have been a universal practice at first. The practice of postponing baptism was another drag factor. 

There are potential strategies for blocking his inferences, but Beckwith's argument is interesting because it concedes certain restrictions on the traditional scope of infant baptism even if you grant the apostolicity of infant baptism. 

The point of contact between the two pairs of ceremonies is that John's baptism, like proselyte baptism, is an initiation rite, performed once only, at the time of conversion. John reinterpreted proselyte baptism as a washing away of sin, and therefore applied it to Jews as much as Gentiles, but likewise in an initiatory fashion.  

Jeremias makes much of the fact of proselyte baptism, and also of Jewish household baptism, in establishing his case, since these present close parallels to the missionary methods used by the apostles. Peter's actions on the Day of Pentecost established a precedent, for it is clear that the apostles and their fellow-evangelists had their converts baptized (Acts 8:12-16,36-39; 19:5; Rom 6:3; 1 Cor 12:13; Gal 3:27; Col 2:12) and that they often baptized them by households. Some of these converts were Jews, some were Gentiles, and some were that middle-category of God-fearers or God-worshippers–Gentiles who attended the synagogue but had not submitted to circumcision. They are mentioned a good number of times in the NT (Acts 10:2,22,35; 13:16,26,50; 16:14; 17:4,17; 18:7).  

The NT contains five individual examples of converts whose households or families were baptized with themselves. The first of these is apparently the God-fearer Cornelius at Caesarea (Acts 10:1f.,46-8; 11:14). Then there are various instances in Macedonia and Greece: the God-fearer Lydia (Acts 16:14f.), the Philippian jailor (Acts 16:33), the Jew Crispus (Acts 18:8) and Stephanas (1 Cor 1:16). It is hard to think that, in the case of Jews and God-fearers, when their households were baptized, this would not have included any children they had, in accordance with Jewish practice. In the cases of Gentiles converts, there might be more room for doubt, but in these cases too, the apostles supervising their baptism were of course Jews, even though they themselves were Gentiles. It is sometimes suggested that none of these five households need have included children, but if it was the practice of the apostles to baptize households, as it evidently was, many such households would have been bound to include children.  

We have more or less explicit evidence that circumcision and proselyte baptism were given to infants as well as adults. In the case of John's baptism and Christian baptism, the NT evidence is not explicit and we are dependent upon inference. But if John's baptism was an adaptation of proselyte baptism, one may assume that he too would probably have admitted the infant children of his converts, and the more so as he was baptizing in immediate expectation of divine judgment on those who did not respond to his message (Mt 3:7-12; Lk 3:7-17). A similar inference could be made in the case of Christian baptism, and here we have more to go on, because there are the records of household baptisms, at which we have just been looking, and which strongly imply baptism of infants as well as adults. 

There is one interesting difference between circumcision and proselyte baptism which may have affected early Christian practice. Circumcision was given in every generation. Proselyte baptism, however, was given only in the first generation, after which the proselyte and his family would observe the laws of ceremonial cleanness, and so would not need to repeat it. On this model, a Christian family might be baptized in every generation or only in the first generation, and it is possible that there was for a time a variety of practice, even among Jewish Christians.  

But though we may have confidence that infant baptism began in the apostolic age, we cannot be sure that it was at first universal. We have noted the possibility that in some Jewish families it was not practised except in the first generation, and in Gentile families there may have been less readiness for it than in Jewish. If this is so, there was probably a variety of practice until agreement was reached that every Christian needed to be baptized. This would still leave open the question, at what age he needed to be baptized. Infant baptism was, before very long, widely practiced, as the evidence from Irenaeus, Tertullian and Hippolytus (from the late second and early third centuries) indicates, but the numerous converts from paganism were still baptized as adults, which made it possible for Tertullian to raise the question of whether this was not a better age for baptism. He did not claim that infant baptism was a novelty, but he argued that the forgiveness of sins was less needed in infancy: it was more suitable at an age when there were actual sins to be repented of and washed away (On Baptism 18). Others thought similarly, to judge from 3C inscriptions which show baptism sometimes delayed until there was a danger of death. And after the conversion of the Empire in the fourth century, such delay became for a time, though only for a time, common. For as long as a delay was being practiced, a fruitless desire to avoid postbaptismal sin seems to have been the reason. 

At the conversion of the Empire there was naturally a flood of adult converts, but it was not long before almost all adults were at least nominal Christians, and were baptized as such, and the only remaining candidates for baptism were the children who might be born to them, in that or succeeding generations. As long as the practice of delaying baptism still existed, this did not make infant baptism universal, but it was largely a matter of time before it did. Only in missionary work in new lands or among new peoples would the situation be any different. R. Beckwith, Calendar, Chronology and Worship (Brill 2005), 220-225.

Martin Luther’s Understanding of Baptism

Since most of our readers are Reformed, and since the Lutheran concept of baptism has been brought up, I thought it would be helpful to share what Bernhard Lohse, a Lutheran Professor of Church History and Historical Theology, has written about Luther’s view of the sacraments in general and of baptism in particular:

Formation of a new, Reformation theology of baptism went hand in hand with Luther’s entire theological development, particularly during his first lectures on the Psalms and Romans. In dealing with the sacraments, concentration on questions such as judgment and gospel, righteousness and faith, or on the divine promise and human confidence, led to a new impulse and important consequences: the criterion under which Luther dealt with baptism and baptismal usage. In other words, the relation of baptism to life from the perspective of the acceptance of the divine judgment promised in baptism took center stage. Since Luther’s understanding of the nature of sin was more radical than the theology of late scholasticism, he could no longer share the view that baptism purges inherited sin, of which a mere “tinder” (fomes) remains, and against the seductions of which the baptized can successfully resist.

Justin Martyr And Infant Baptism

Paul Owen's latest article on infant baptism repeats some of his previous errors on Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Gregory Nazianzen without interacting with the refutations I posted in previous responses. However, he does address Justin Martyr in his latest article, which he hadn't done previously, so I want to discuss what Paul argues about Justin and infant baptism.

His case for infant baptism in Justin Martyr is similar to his case for infant baptism in Irenaeus, in that he once again relies on reading assumptions into the text while ignoring weightier contrary data. Paul doesn't even address what Justin wrote about baptism in chapter 61 of his First Apology, even though I cited that passage earlier. I'll quote it later in this article, and I think that the reader should understand why Paul didn't address it.

As I noted with Irenaeus, Justin Martyr discusses baptism many times. It's not as though he avoided any mention of infant baptism because of an absence of the theme of baptism in his writings. Rather, he discussed baptism much without mentioning infant baptism at all. He also discusses circumcision at length in his Dialogue With Trypho, and he makes a number of applications of the concept of circumcision to Christianity, but he never refers to Christians baptizing their infants rather than circumcising them. He does compare circumcision and baptism, but such comparisons don't lead to the conclusion of infant baptism unless other assumptions accompany the comparison. Since Justin doesn't supply those other assumptions, Paul Owen reads them into the text.

Does a comparison between circumcision and baptism require that both ceremonies be the same in every conceivable manner? No. So, how do we know how far the comparison is being taken? By the text and context. Does anything in the text or context of Justin Martyr suggest that the age of the recipients of circumcision is being repeated with baptism? No. Paul Owen wouldn't want us to assume that baptism can only be applied to males, since circumcision was only applied to males. He wouldn't want us to assume that circumcision was regenerative, since he thinks that baptism is regenerative. We can compare circumcision and baptism in some sense without intending a comparison in every sense. Paul needs to show that Justin intended baptism to parallel circumcision in being applied to infants. He hasn't shown that so far, and he won't be able to show it.

Let's look at some of the other comments Justin made about circumcision, not just the portions Paul quoted:

"Jesus Christ circumcises all who will - as was declared above - with knives of stone; that they may be a righteous nation, a people keeping faith, holding to the truth, and maintaining peace." (Dialogue With Trypho, 24)

Do infants "will" to be baptized? Do they "keep faith", "hold to the truth", and "maintain peace" as a result of a baptism that occurred in infancy?

Elsewhere, Justin tells us:

"But though a man be a Scythian or a Persian, if he has the knowledge of God and of His Christ, and keeps the everlasting righteous decrees, he is circumcised with the good and useful circumcision, and is a friend of God, and God rejoices in his gifts and offerings." (Dialogue With Trypho, 28)

Do infants "have the knowledge of God and of His Christ"? Do they "keep the everlasting righteous decrees"? Do they bring God "gifts and offerings"?

Justin writes:

"Those too in circumcision who approach Him, that is, believing Him and seeking blessings from Him, He will both receive and bless." (Dialogue With Trypho, 33)

Do infants "approach" God? Do they "believe in Him" and "seek blessings from Him"?

Justin tells us:

"For your first circumcision was and is performed by iron instruments, for you remain hard-hearted; but our circumcision, which is the second, having been instituted after yours, circumcises us from idolatry and from absolutely every kind of wickedness by sharp stones, i.e., by the words preached by the apostles of the corner-stone cut out without hands. And our hearts are thus circumcised from evil, so that we are happy to die for the name of the good Rock, which causes living water to burst forth for the hearts of those who by Him have loved the Father of all, and which gives those who are willing to drink of the water of life." (Dialogue With Trypho, 114)

Does infant baptism ensure that those infants will "be happy to die for the name of the good Rock"? Or does it seem more likely that Justin has a believer's conversion in view?

In the passage above, Justin refers to the preaching of the apostles as circumcision. As I said earlier, Justin applies the concept of circumcision to Christianity in a number of ways. Baptism is just one application. As D.R. de Lacey explains:

"At about the same time Justin Martyr, in his Dialogue with Trypho, provides the first link in a chain of development from Colossians 2:11 to the identification of baptism as 'Christian circumcision,' only for Justin the circumcision by which Gentiles are circumcised from their errors is achieved primarily by the words of the apostles (Dial. Tryph. 114.4; cf. Dial. Tryph. 19.2-3; only in Dial. Tryph. 43.2 is it said to be 'through' [dia] baptism)." (in Ralph Martin and Peter Davids, ed., Dictionary Of The Later New Testament & Its Developments [Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1997], p. 228)

Earlier, I mentioned chapter 61 in Justin's First Apology. Paul doesn't discuss that passage in his article, even though I had mentioned it earlier. It's a passage in which Justin is explaining Christian baptism to a non-Christian audience. Here would be a place to mention infant baptism as part of the explanation of what Christians practice. Instead, here's what we read:

"I will also relate the manner in which we dedicated ourselves to God when we had been made new through Christ; lest, if we omit this, we seem to be unfair in the explanation we are making. As many as are persuaded and believe that what we teach and say is true, and undertake to be able to live accordingly, are instructed to pray and to entreat God with fasting, for the remission of their sins that are past, we praying and fasting with them. Then they are brought by us where there is water, and are regenerated in the same manner in which we were ourselves regenerated."

Justin refers to baptism in general as a ceremony in which the person baptized "dedicates" himself to God. Do infants do that in infant baptism? No. Justin goes on to refer to the recipient of baptism being "persuaded" and having "belief". The recipient attempts to live as a Christian. The recipient prays and fasts.

Later in that same chapter, Justin writes:

"And for this rite we have learned from the apostles this reason. Since at our birth we were born without our own knowledge or choice, by our parents coming together, and were brought up in bad habits and wicked training; in order that we may not remain the children of necessity and of ignorance, but may become the children of choice and knowledge, and may obtain in the water the remission of sins formerly committed, there is pronounced over him who chooses to be born again, and has repented of his sins, the name of God the Father and Lord of the universe; he who leads to the laver the person that is to be washed calling him by this name alone. For no one can utter the name of the ineffable God; and if any one dare to say that there is a name, he raves with a hopeless madness. And this washing is called illumination, because they who learn these things are illuminated in their understandings."

Justin contrasts the recipient of baptism with infants. The person baptized chooses to be baptized.

The most likely paedo-baptist response to all of these passages I've cited would be to suggest that Justin only meant to address converts, not all of those baptized. But that argument, if valid, would only render Justin's testimony inconclusive. It wouldn't result in Justin giving us evidence for infant baptism, as Paul Owen claimed he does.

But if Justin was living in the middle of the second century, with many children having already been born into Christian homes, why would he repeatedly ignore infant baptism while discussing baptism, circumcision, regeneration, and other related subjects so many times and at such length? Why would he so often make comments like the ones I've quoted above without even once adding a qualifier about how infants are an exception? Is it likely that Justin would contrast the recipients of baptism with infants, once again without any qualifiers, if he believed in infant baptism?

As I said before, Justin isn't as explicit as Tertullian. But when somebody discusses baptism, circumcision, and other related issues so much, yet he never mentions infant baptism and he repeatedly associates baptism with concepts that exclude infants, why should we think that it's likely that he believed in infant baptism?