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I
agree with you — and with Paul and with Alexander Campbell
that the seven ones of Eph. 4, which Campbell liked to call “the
seven facts,” are the basis for unity. They are indeed
facts
or
propositions and form the essence of the gospel, for they point to
what God has done for us through Christ. They are not seven
opinions, though there are countless opinions as to what they may
mean or imply. So, while I believe that the seven facts are
necessary to unity, I cannot believe that anyone’s
opinion
about
them is essential to unity. There are many opinions, for example,
about “the one Spirit” — how he functions, his
gifts, glossolalia, etc. — and while these may be held as
opinion they cannot be made a test of fellowship. But anyone who
repudiates the “one Spirit” as a fact or a reality could
not be a true believer.
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While
I believe the seven unities of Eph. 4 to be essential to unity and
fellowship, I do not believe that a perfect understanding or
compliance to them is essential. If perfection is required, we are
all doomed, for who has made a perfect response to the “one
hope” or to the “one Lord.” It appears that some
early Christians, such as in Corinth, were still affected by
idolatry, even though they accepted the fact of the “one God
and Father of us all.” It is a matter of one’s heart and
mind being turned in the right direction, and not a matter of
perfect knowledge or perfect response.
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Most
of my brethren in Churches of Christ would agree with me that on six
of these facts there might be imperfection in knowledge and
obedience. Even though we are strongly church-oriented, few would
say that we have to know everything about the “one body”
to be true Christians, or even the “one faith,” however
much we have taught about it. So with the one God, one Spirit, one
Lord, and one hope.
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The
hang-up is on the “one baptism,” for here we demand
perfection across the board, whether it be the mode, design, or
meaning of baptism. While all believers accept what Eph. 4:5
actually says, that there is “one baptism,” we insist
that they accept our interpretation of its meaning and obey the
ordinance as we understand it, before we acknowledge them as
Christians. Many among us even insist that one must understand
why
he
is baptized, and they dictate the
why
—
one must understand he is baptized for the remission of sins.
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Nearly
all believers would grant that no one is a true Christian who
repudiates any ordinance of God, including baptism. Anyone who
rejects
baptism
rejects the counsel of God (Lk. 7:30) and falls short of the basis
of unity as prescribed in Eph. 4.
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But
suppose one has both accepted and obeyed the ordinance of baptism
“in his heart,” as Campbell put it, “while
mistaking the form” (assuming immersion to be the correct form
or mode)? Is he in the same category as one who has repudiated the
ordinance? Is he not a Christian for lack of enough water, being
only sprinkled rather than immersed?
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We
should be able to see why Alexander Campbell wrote as he did on this
matter:
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“I
cannot, therefore, make anyone duty the standard of Christian state
or character, not even immersion into the name of the Father, of the
Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and in my heart regard all that have
been sprinkled in infancy without their own knowledge and consent,
as aliens from Christ and the well-grounded hope of heaven.”
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Campbell
anticipated the question that is often asked, “How do you know
that one loves Christ except by his obedience to his commandments?”
His answer was:
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“In
no other way. But mark, I do not substitute obedience to one
commandment, for universal or even for general obedience. And should
I see a sectarian Baptist or a Pedobaptist more spiritually-minded,
more generally conformed to the requisitions of the Messiah, than
one who precisely acquiesces with me in the theory or practice of
immersion as I teach, doubtless the former rather than the latter,
would have my cordial approbation and love as a Christian. So I
judge and so I feel. It is the image of Christ the Christian looks
for and loves; and this does not consist in being exact in a few
items, but in general devotion to the whole truth as far as known.”
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And
Campbell drew the same distinction that I did above, between
mistakes of the mind and mistakes of the heart: “With me
mistakes of the understanding and errors of the affection are not to
be confounded. They are as distant as the poles. An angel may
mistake the meaning of a commandment, but he will obey it in the
sense in which he understands it. “
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He
goes on to say what is badly needed in the thinking of Church of
Christ folk: “Many a good man has been mistaken. Mistakes are
to be regarded as culpable and as declarative of a corrupt heart
only when they proceed from a willful neglect of the means of
knowing what is commanded. Ignorance is always a crime when it is
voluntary; and innocent when it is involuntary.”
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In
the same essay, which is found in
Millennia!
Harbinger
(1837),
p. 411, he answers the question
Who
is a Christian?
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“I
answer, Everyone that believes in his heart that Jesus of Nazareth
is the Messiah, the Son of God; repents of his sins, and obeys him
in all things according to his measure of knowledge of his will.”
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These
reflections from Alexander Campbell are especially significant since
he championed the cause of baptism by immersion and for the
remission of sins as much as any theologian in modern times.
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Campbell
or not, we must not impose upon the “one baptism” of
Eph. 4 what is not there. If we make it mean “one immersion,”
we do so only by ignoring the context. The apostle is affirming
oneness for Jewish and Gentile believers. Jews and Gentiles are in
the one body and worship the one God and share the one faith and the
one hope. They look to the one Lord and are infused by the same
Spirit. In this context it would mean little to speak of one
immersion
—
as if there could be more than one!
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This
is why we err when we make baptism
mean
immersion.
It means no such thing, even if it was by immersion. The Greek word
etymologically means
to
dip
or
to
immerse,
but
words are not to be judged simply by etymology. If so, we would have
to revise our dictionary, for words are not defined by their origin
as much as by their use. The word candidate, for example, means “one
who comes out dressed in white” if you go by etymology, but we
know it does not mean that. The word dean means “a leader of
ten men” etymologically, but its real meaning is different.
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We
believe we can establish that baptism was practiced by immersion by
the early church, but that does not make baptism
mean
immersion.
If we sought a word that best expressed its meaning, it might be
initiation.
This
gives meaning to the “one baptism” of Eph. 4. The
apostle is saying that everyone is initiated into the community of
Christ alike— one initiation for Jews and Gentiles. This gives
meaning to similar passages, such as Lk. 7:30 where the Pharisees
and lawyers rejected God’s counsel by rejecting John’s
baptism. It is not that they rejected immersion, but they rejected
the initiatory ceremony that would have inducted them into the
community John was preparing for the coming Christ. The Great
Commission is similar: “Go therefore and make disciples of all
nations, baptizing them.” While the act of baptism was by
dipping in water, its meaning was something like initiation or
enrollment, as the term “make disciples” would suggest.
There was a rite whereby they were to be enrolled in the school of
Christ. In this instance we might say that baptism means enrollment.
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I
say this in order to observe that John the Baptist or Jesus and his
disciples did not
choose
immersion
or dipping in water as the rite of initiation into the new
community. Jesus did not invent or originate immersion as a
ceremony. Neither did John the Baptist. When the Pharisees observed
John baptizing, they knew exactly what he was doing. It was a
familiar rite, long practiced by the Jews. What upset the Pharisees
was that John was relating this old rite of initiation to a coming
Christ and a coming kingdom of God, thus calling for their
repentance.
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While
Paul later found great symbolic value in immersion, as in Rom. 6, we
are not to presume that the founders of the church selected it for
this reason, for they did not select it at all. They used the rite
that was familiar, but elevated it to greater significance. It could
be argued that the practice of immersion (washings) among the Jews
was part of the preparation that the God of heaven made for the
coming of the Messiah and his community, and so he had baptism there
as a recognized rite of initiation when John came on the scene. But
it could also be argued that it did not matter all that much, that
John sought for an initiatory symbol of some sort, something for the
people to do as a “stepping out” act of decision, so he
simply used what was already known and practiced, giving it special
meaning. He
might
have
used something else, such as anointing the eyes with clay and
spittle, followed by washing the eyes, a rite Jesus used at least
once.
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But
my point is that the
meaning
of
John’s baptism (and of Christian baptism that followed) was
not that it was immersion but that it was an act of initiation into
a new community. Immersion was but its mode.
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If
you ask the
So
what?
of
all this, it is that we may miss the point of baptism when we are
preoccupied with its mode, and especially when we labor to make
baptism mean immersion. It is risky to equate baptism with
immersion, as if they were synonymous. Of the hundreds of
translations of the New Testament hardly any dares to substitute
immersion for baptism, not even those translations made by those who
practice immersion. Our own Alexander Campbell is an exception in
that in his
Living
Oracles
immerse
and immersion displace baptize and baptism, the wisdom of which can
be and has been seriously questioned.
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To
impose immersion upon some passages, as if it was the
meaning
of
the original Greek word, is to make them awkward to say the least,
Eph. 4:5 being one of them: to say “one Lord, one faith, one
immersion” is not the same as saying “one Lord, one
faith, one baptism.” One points to the mode of the rite; the
other points to the rite itself. Despite our complaints to the
contrary, it is probably just as well that the Greek word has
through the years been consistently transliterated
baptize
and
baptism.
Perhaps
that too has been the providence of God.
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Another
part of the So
what?
is
that other modes of baptism are rendered less offensive. After all,
we level a serious indictment against most of the Christian world
when we make baptism mean immersion, which implies a degeneracy on
the part of those who do not see and practice baptism the way we do.
If it is as “simple” and “clear” as we
claim, why does such an infinitesimal part of the Christian world
insist on immersion? Many who practice other modes readily admit
that immersion was the primitive mode, but they believe the
sprinkling of water captures the meaning of the initiatory rite as
well as immersion, and that they are in no wise rejecting the
ordinance of baptism. Are we to dechristianize them for this?
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We
should at least be able to see that those who have been “sprinkled”
or “poured”
have
submitted
to an initiatory act. It is not as if they have rejected baptism or
not been baptized at all. They have “stepped out” and
declared themselves as part of the Christian community by being
baptized, even if it was not by the mode used by John and the
primitive church.
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How
important is this “mistake” (as most of you and I see
it) to the God of heaven? Is the difference in the amount of water
between sprinkling and immersion of great import to Jesus Christ? I
do not know. Speaking for myself, I was immersed and this is what I
believe. It is also what I must practice. It would have to be a very
unusual circumstance for me to sprinkle someone, but I suppose I
would do so if immersion were impossible. This is almost certainly
how other modes started, as a sincere effort to obey an ordinance of
God in dire circumstances, not as a repudiation of immersion or even
as an indifference to immersion. We as immersionists must rid
ourselves of the ungracious notion that those who do not baptize the
way we do have rebellious and disobedient hearts. They can be
mistaken without being degenerate. And they can be mistaken and
still be Christians who are pleasing to God, just as we can still be
Christians when we are mistaken.
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Our
position on immersion would be much stronger if we could prove that
(1) baptism
means
immersion;
(2) baptism by immersion was
chosen
(originated)
by John and Jesus rather than borrowed from current practice; (3)
that any other mode is absolutely and incontrovertibly unacceptable
and invalid to the Lord Jesus Christ and the God of heaven. I cannot
prove any of these things, so while I remain an immersionist I
nonetheless accept as Christians those who practice other modes.
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Since
some of my readers may be of the persuasion of some of those to whom
Alexander Campbell was writing in the quotations given above, I will
close with one more statement of his from the same essay:
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“My
correspondent may belong to a class who think that we detract from
the authority and value of an institution the moment we admit the
bare possibility of anyone being saved without it.” —the
Editor