Baptizing Grace

by Bill Hallsted

I was recently asked (again) why the Bible says, in Matthew 28:19, to baptize “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” but on the day the church began, Simon Peter said, “be baptized . . . in the name of Jesus Christ” (Acts 2:38).

The questioner asked, “If the wrong words are said, is the baptism valid?”

Behind the question is failure to understand a vital, underlying tenet of Christianity, so important that God spent thousands of years teaching it.

The lesson is this: Rules and regulations won”t help us get it right. Ever.

 

THE PROOF AGAINST RULES

The story of God”s proving rules and regulations won”t work is called the Old Testament. God waited centuries before sending Christ in order to provide time to prove, under every possible circumstance, that rules and regulations can never work (Galatians 3:24). Rules wouldn”t work even when God himself personally policed them.

When God had proven, in every possible way, that we cannot be good, cannot follow rules, cannot get it right, cannot want to be more than just right enough to feel superior to others, THEN he became man in the person of Jesus to show us the only answer that really works.

It”s called grace.

He gave us something totally, entirely, wonderfully different. He said, “Love me; then do what you want to do.” He knows the only thing that will make us really want to do what”s right is to love him. He paid the price for our failures. He brought us into a relationship with himself. He imbues us with his nature, through his Spirit within us. He gave us eternal life as a gift, because we can”t ever do enough things right to deserve it.

 

THE PICTURE OF GRACE

What does that have to do with baptism? Everything!

He has asked us to accept that gift of eternal life, that gift of a special relationship with him, that gift of his Spirit, by believing in him, surrendering our lives to him, expressing our faith, being baptized into him, and by trying to live in a way that will please him.

Baptism is the perfect picture””a visual demonstration””of God”s willingness to bestow that amazing grace on us, without our deserving it in any way. When our old selves, incapable of keeping rules and being good, are buried, he provides a whole new “self” that is raised and belongs to him on the basis of a whole new covenant. What a gift!

If we intend and endeavor to accept the gift, but someone says the wrong words, or says them with the wrong inflection, or burps in the middle of it all, or yawns, or countless other things . . . IT DOESN”T MATTER!

That”s why the Bible doesn”t give us a single, pat “formula” for baptism. It must be an act of faith in Jesus Christ, on the part of the one being baptized. It must accompany a surrender of that person”s life to Christ. But it is not what is said, or that person”s understanding of what baptism accomplishes, that makes it valid. Baptism is part of a covenant of grace, not part of a new code of rules and regulations.

I understand a lot more about baptism now than when I was baptized. That doesn”t mean I need to be baptized again whenever I learn yet another facet of what Scripture teaches about baptism.

 

AFTER “˜I DO”

Marriage is one of the parallels the Bible uses to teach us about this covenant of grace. When I said, “I do,” I didn”t begin to understand what I was getting into. As life unfolded, I began to understand more. Each new thing I learned added a new perspective of what “I do” meant, but my marriage was still valid. Each time I learned another facet of marriage I didn”t need to get remarried. My failures to sometimes fully live out all the implications of that promise didn”t negate my marriage. It”s all about a relationship based in love and acceptance. I don”t have to worry about whether I understood it all when I said, “I do.”

That”s why the Bible confuses those who seek a legalistic “right way” to baptize. Jesus said, “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” but Peter said, “in the name of Jesus Christ.”

Well, which is it? The right answer, I think, is, “Yeah, that”ll be just fine.”

So, do I need to understand that baptism is for the forgiveness of sins, or do I just need to do it because the Bible says to do so? The answer, I think, is, “Yeah, that”ll be just fine.”

It”s all about grace. Amazing, wonderful, exhilarating, incredible grace, through faith.

“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith””and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God””not by works, so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:8, 9).

 

TEACHING, NOT DOING, IT RIGHT

Having said all that, I believe it is incumbent upon us to teach the biblical concept of baptism, along with all other biblical truth, to the very best of our ability. We need to teach that God says it was when we were baptized that we were added to the church (1 Corinthians 12:13), our sins were forgiven (Acts 22:16), the Holy Spirit stopped being a transient presence within us and took up permanent residency (Acts 2:38), the veil was removed from our eyes so we could understand Scripture more clearly (2 Corinthians 3:12-18), and a whole host of other benefits of God”s blessings were bestowed upon us, by his grace.

But it is still by his grace, not because we “did it right.”

One of the saddest things in the church is the amount of division and dissension over things that really don”t matter. To God”s sorrow, we argue about pictures, symbols, music, musical instruments, how the Lord”s Supper and offering are administered, and even how the furniture is arranged. All of those arguments ignore that this is a covenant of grace, not a covenant of newer, better rules and regulations.

In Acts 2:38, Peter laid out what I believe was intended as the “norm” for the church: “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

Simon Peter had to be the one to do that. In Matthew 16:16-19, Jesus gave to him alone “the keys to the kingdom of heaven,” or, in other words, the responsibility of opening the church. He fulfilled that responsibility by opening the church to Jews on the Day of Pentecost, to Samaritans in Acts 8:4-17, and to Gentiles in Acts 10:1-48.

That “norm” was given on the Day of Pentecost, but in opening that covenant of grace to part-blood Jews in Samaria, then to Gentiles in Caesarea, God chose to depart from that norm. In Samaria, faith and baptism didn”t open the covenant of grace to them, because the church wasn”t yet open to them. In Caesarea, the covenant of grace was granted prior to their baptism, to facilitate the opening of that covenant to Gentiles. Both instances provide graphic evidence that the church is intended to be a covenant of grace, not one of earning admittance by compliance with a new book of rules.

I believe we have the obligation to teach and practice that norm to the best of our ability. We also have the obligation to remember that God can make any exceptions he wishes to make. He deviated from that norm at Samaria, and again at Caesarea, because it is always grace through faith that makes baptism valid. It is not the baptism that validates grace.

It is my sincere expectation we will see in Heaven myriad people who have not “gotten it right,” who were not nearly as wonderfully right and scriptural as we. It is also my sincere expectation to receive God”s welcome, and to know that I, above all other people, do not deserve it.

Heaven is mine ONLY because of God”s amazing grace!

 

Bill D. Hallsted serves as minister with Hot Springs (South Dakota) Christian Church.