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They
call it se-baptism, self-baptism, though it is almost never
practiced. It is common in history for those who decide to be
baptized, particularly immersed, to have some problem in finding
someone to baptize them, but they almost never resolve the problem
by baptizing themselves. It seems to be generally assumed that
baptism is something that is done to us rather than something we do
to ourselves. But we cannot help but be impressed when we find
someone who is so eager to submit to this ordinance that he would
serve as both administrator and subject at his own baptism,
especially when he was apparently unable to find someone to assist
him. History is so studded with the unusual that we have at least
one rather significant instance of se-baptism.
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In
our own history in the Stone-Campbell Movement we have instances of
where our forebears might have at least considered se-baptism. One
of our pioneers, Samuel Rogers, tells in his autobiography of a
little girl who wanted to be baptized after hearing him preach the
gospel in her community, but by the time she made this decision
Rogers had already moved on. The girl sought someone to baptize her
according to the primitive gospel, but no one was to be found. Even
her own father refused, supposing he was not qualified to perform
such a sacred rite. Even after she fell deathly ill she still longed
for someone to baptize her. At last the family “negro mammy,”
as they were called in those days, agreed to immerse her. Rogers
responded to her plea only in time to conduct her funeral, and he
tells us that the littler girl’s faith had a profound impact
upon the community.
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We
may hope that those of us among Churches of Christ-Christian
Churches, who have championed the place of baptism in the scheme of
redemption all these years, no longer have doubt about the salvation
of such ones as that little girl, whether she at last found someone
to baptize her or not. The God of heaven never requires of anyone
what is impossible for her to do. I also presume that we would not
have blamed her if she had at last decided to baptize herself. It is
noteworthy that throughout the history of the church, both in and
out of the Scriptures, those who seek baptism never consider
baptizing themselves. Except for that one case back in the 17th
century that I am going to tell you about.
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But
in passing I might reveal to you that I once practiced se-baptism.
Some years back on a visit to the Mid-East there were three bodies
of water with which I sought a special fellowship, and being alone I
could do any fool thing I pleased. I insisted on bathing in the
Mediterranean (at Beirut), floating on my back, with clothes, shoes
and all on the Dead Sea (near Qumran), and being “baptized”
in the Jordan (where John the Baptist baptized). I did all three,
the latter being se-baptism, though it was not really baptism. I had
already been baptized into Christ at the hands of another. This
se-baptism was a baptism into the Jordan. It had only semi-spiritual
significance. It was just something I wanted to do.
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Now
tell me, how many editors do you know who have been baptized in the
Jordan? Well, it is no big deal, just one of those things. That was
25 years ago and I think this is the first time I’ve told it.
I am telling it now so as to say I have some understanding of
se-baptism and sympathy for the one person in history who was
baptized that way —and he for real.
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We
might well have had cases of se-baptism among our founding fathers
who had difficulty getting themselves immersed after the ancient
order once they broke from their respective sects. Alexander
Campbell persuaded a Baptist minister to immerse him, not after
Baptist order but simply upon his profession of faith in Christ. It
was with reluctance that Mathias Luce agreed to do this, but at the
appointed time he not only baptized Alexander Campbell but Thomas
Campbell as well, along with several others.
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A
few years earlier Barton W. Stone and his fellow Presbyterians (or
former Presbyterians) had more difficulty finding someone to immerse
them. The Baptists would do it only if they became Baptists.
Concluding that the one who baptizes does not necessarily himself
have to be an immersed believer, they proceeded to immerse each
other.
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There
is drama in such a scene, former Presbyterian ministers who were now
resolved to be simply Christians immersing each other. And that is
how our history started, preachers who had only been sprinkled
immersing each other after the New Testament order, as they came to
see it. I am going to guess that se-baptism never occurred to them.
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With
the Baptists, who have practiced immersion longer than we have,
history takes a different turn. When they trace themselves back to
their beginnings (excluding John the Baptist!) they come to a
delightful character who was resolved to be immersed like the Bible
teaches, but finding no one he considered qualified to serve as
administrator he proceeded to immerse himself, which is one way to
have the perfect administrator. It is a wonder that it has not been
practiced more!
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May
I introduce to you our brother in the Lord, John Smyth of Amsterdam,
Holland, who in about 1600 went to prison in England for his faith.
He is a brother of no mean background. Educated at Cambridge, he had
promise of a glorious ministry in the Anglican Church, the state
church of England. He first opposed the dissidents, such as the
Puritans who separated themselves from the state church, like John
Bunyan, who also went to prison for his faith, from which he wrote
Pilgrim’s
Progress
(thank
God for prisons!). After studying the sentiments of Separatists for
almost a year, Smyth cast his lot with them, which led to his own
imprisonment. In England at that time it was against the law to
preach the gospel except by the authority of the Anglican Church.
The Separatists were terribly persecuted, causing some of them to
seek refuge in “the land of the free and the home of the
brave.”
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Released
from prison, Smyth made his way to Amsterdam, a haven for those who
sought religious freedom. He joined the English Separatist Church,
which repudiated the authority of the Anglican Church but continued
to practice infant baptism. Like our own pioneers, Smyth came to
believe that baptism is only for believers, and when he published a
repudiation of infant baptism the English Separatist Church
disfellowshipped him.
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Smyth
and thirty-six of his friends then formed a new church, one that
would reject infant baptism and practice only believer’s
baptism. Finding themselves unbaptized by their own understanding of
Scripture, they were in a strait. They could have had the Dutch
Baptists to baptize them, but Smyth, who was now a typical
“restorationist,” some of which we have in the
Stone-Campbell Movement, did not believe the Dutch Baptist was a
true Church of Christ and so he would not accept their baptism.
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In
fact Smyth now believed that he had restored the only true Church of
Christ on the earth. The true Churches of Christ had perished back
through the centuries, and he believed that he had restored the true
church after the apostolic order. He only needed to have a baptized
church, and since there was no one to represent the true church in
baptism, he baptized himself (apparently by immersion) and then
baptized about forty others. This church in Amsterdam (1608) could
serve as the first Baptist Church in history.
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But
if one reads the story of John Smyth in the
History
of the Baptists
by
that eminent historian Thomas Armitage, who also gives a delightful
account of Alexander Campbell whom he warmly embraces as a Baptist,
one might conclude that it was a Church of Christ and not a Baptist
Church that Smyth organized. Here is part of what Armitage says: