[This is a rerun from way back in January 2011.]
People need rituals. God doesn’t so much, but people do.
Love
Consider a young couple. The young man embraces his girl friend and for the first time says, “I love you.” She hugs him, smiles, kisses him passionately, and the evening ends.
Later he discusses the evening with a friend over coffee. The friend says, “Wow, it’s great that you have a girlfriend who is so affectionate! Can’t you see in her eyes how much she loves you?”
“Yes, I know she loves me,” the young man says, “but I need her to say that she loves me. In fact, if she won’t say it, I don’t think I can continue in this relationship.”
Is he right to consider her reluctance to express her feelings a barrier to their relationship? Why not travel on her body language and behavior? Why are the words so important?
And, you know, the words really are important — not because of tradition or his inability to perceive her emotions. They are important because his girlfriend has to make a decision. She may feel love for him very much, but saying that she loves him changes their relationship and it changes her. It forces her to admit to herself that this is how she feels — and once she admits that, it changes her life. As soon as she admits her love, she has to make a commitment and be willing to make sacrifices.
Moreover, once he hears her words, he’ll behave differently. He’ll see her as a companion. No more will they just be dating. They’ll be bound to one another in a way that’s radically different from before. The words matter. And if she never says the words, their relationship will not progress much at all. In fact, it will end.
So when did she fall in love her boyfriend? When she first felt those feelings? When she started imagining what it would be like to be married? When she found her dreams filled with him? When she says the words?
Well, she fell in love over time. For some, it takes a few weeks. For others, it takes years. But true love is never at first sight. It always takes some time.
When did their relationship change? Well, it changed incrementally, a bit here and a bit there. They were strangers, and then two people on a date, and then they were a couple, and then they were a couple in love.
When do they become a couple in love? Well, not until they admit it to themselves and then to each other. The words matter. The words change everything. The words change both lives forever.
But, of course, many couples say, “I love you” and don’t mean it. The words only matter as between honest people. Lies happen.
And then there are some couples, not many, who fall in love, get married, have children, and grow old together never having said “I love you.”
Is it essential that you tell your boyfriend that you love him if you want to one day be married? Yes. Well, almost. Relationships don’t always follow the rules, but the rules are the rules for a reason. They matter.
And this is why Tevye eventually insisted his wife avow her love.
Confession
It’s become popular to argue that faith is a process, and it is — obviously. But there has to be a moment when the first inklings of faith mature to saving faith. When does that happen? Well, not before I’m willing to confess my faith. It’s not that confession is a magic sacramental thing that empowers (or forces) God to save me.
Rather, it’s more that faith isn’t really faith until the believer is willing to confess it. If the believer won’t even tell the church that he believes, it’s just not enough faith to save. It’s not really what the Bible calls “faith.”
(Rom 10:10 ESV) For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.
Now, if we avoid the sacramental, Plan of Salvation understanding and, instead, see confession as the moment when faith becomes real — real both to the church and the believer — Paul’s teaching makes perfect sense.
(Luk 12:8 ESV) “And I tell you, everyone who acknowledges me before men, the Son of Man also will acknowledge before the angels of God … .”
Words matter. A willingness to say the words, to admit to yourselves and others that you’ve made the decision to be a believer, takes faith from a possibility to a reality.
(And as I said already, the words aren’t enough. They aren’t so much sacramental as a necessary consequence of actual saving faith.)
Baptism
Why does God want believers to be baptized? Well, actions matters, just as words matter.
* The requirement to be baptized forces another requirement — confession. I can have something like faith and keep it a secret. But when I confess my faith to others, wonderful things happen.
First, I admit my faith to myself. I make a decision: my faith matters enough that I’m willing to admit it to the church. That’s a big deal because faith too weak to be admitted is faith too weak to matter.
Second, when I admit my faith to the church, my relationship to the church changes. I go from being a visitor to family. From outside the body to inside. Of course, these things happen when I’m baptized, but confession and baptism cannot be separated. I confess so I can be baptized. I’m baptized because I confessed. It’s the confession that starts the process at the human level. Before then, my faith is between me and God only — and not much of a faith. Not really.
Third, when I confess, the church knows to baptize me. They may botch the ceremony by teaching bad baptismal theology or by not using enough water. But the church invites me to bring my faith to fruition by taking a simple, easy action based on my confession.
Fourth, and this forces the church to decide whether to accept you for baptism. I know some find this idea horrifying, but in fact churches sometimes delay baptism for someone too young to understand or who has not yet learned enough about Jesus to understand the meaning of the ritual.
In the Churches of Christ, these decisions are usually made by the preacher, under the elders’ oversight. In traditional Baptist Churches, this is done democratically. Other denominations have their own processes. Regardless of how well we like the chosen process, the fact is that baptism is only for those who understand enough to have a genuine faith — and the church is irresponsible if it baptizes people it knows do not meet this standard.
Of course, properly taught, baptism is no simple, easy action at all! Baptism is into the death of Christ and into his body and into his Kingdom. It’s a pledge to live a different kind of life by different values. No, baptism should be scary because Christianity done right is scary.
Now, can you confess without being baptized? Yes, if you don’t understand God’s intentions regarding baptism. And it happens every day, because of some bad theology that’s crept into Christianity. But it’s not the design.
Can I be saved without baptism? Well, yes, if the church botches its instructions to you. God won’t damn you for that any more than you’d have the right to divorce your wife because the wedding certificate was improperly signed.
Jesus is Lord. Jesus commands that new believers are to be baptized. The correct answer to the question, “Can I be saved without baptism?” is “Yes, if Jesus didn’t mean what He said.” “Yes, if the apostles were mistaken in their teaching what they were led to believe.” “Yes, if words don’t matter.”
If words and actions DO matter, the Spirit is given to those who HAVE repented and HAVE BEEN baptized “into Christ.” Do some imagine that God gives His Spirit in advance of when the apostles taught that the Spirit WOULD be given? Yes, many do so imagine. Their imagination doesn’t change the fact. Acts 2:38 remains the guide to our knowledge about when a sinner has been saved.
Those who promise salvation before baptism “into Christ” are ignoring what the apostles plainly taught. It’s true that God MIGHT make an exception if baptism is impossible. But conversion to Jesus is not real until the person has been buried with Christ and raised up into NEW LIFE (Romans 6:–Dead to Sin, Alive to God
What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6 We know that our old self[a] was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. 7 For one who has died has been set free[b] from sin. 8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10 For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. 11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. 13 Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. 14 For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.
Paul makes clear that Jesus really meant His orders that new believers are to be BAPTIZED. He affirms that baptism matters, that it affects our standing with Jesus. Those who HAVE been baptized are now IN CHRIST (Galatians 3:27). Those who have NOT been baptized are NOT IN CHRIST. How foolish then are arguments based on the hope that God may save some who have NOT been baptized.
Comment to Brother Ray Downen
I was baptized twice and didn’t feel any different other than wet. It was much later after leaving saved by works churches that I learned grace and then I knew I was saved because of what Jesus did not by what I do.
I now worship with loving praise and gratitude. Grace is what powers me to follow Jesus and serve others while making sure all Glory goes to God.
I see people (many similar to the woman at the well) being baptized and when they come up out of the water their faces show how free they are from the sin that devastated them and the complete joy they have. They were taught the true Good News not saved by works or Grace + works. It took a long time for me to accept Grace as the Bible teaches and to shake off those legalistic chains.
My point is I’m afraid most in the coC will never experience that true joy and freedom in this life because many are not sure if they are saved and will go to heaven. Shame on the preachers and elders for keeping people in doubt of their salvation.
Part of our need for ritual is that community thrives on it. Ritual is where the community takes life and raises markers for its most significant events. The ritual endures from generation to generation, knitting the old to the new in a continuing fabric. Ritual is the community’s chance to reiterate, to remind itself, to pass from one generation to another just exactly what is important and why. Baptism and confession are ritualized because it serves the church. Where we leave the track is when we forget that the reason we own a milk bucket is because we have a cow, and start a bucket collection. Likewise, we may cast the ritual in stone even as we lose touch with why we are really continuing it. Sometimes, this means it’s time to ditch the ritual. More often, however, we merely need to change how we observe that ritual, to return to its roots, where the life is, and to renew it among our community so that once again, it serves as a lasting agent of revelation and connectedness.
Awesome, Stubbs. An elder recently pled from the pulpit for the church to pray for mercy for his sister who is battling cancer. He humbled himself and at the same time it was tragic because he had to. Being immersed in a hospital bed is not going to happen. The question to me here is who has the greater sin? Those who will see her faith in Jesus atonement for this woman, broken by more in life than I will know, as saving. Or those who were saddened because they believed it too late for this soul? The Good News is John 3:16 and yes all the rest including baptism/ confession. Yet getting a soul one step further is His work and not ours to sit in such judgment of. Teach the Word in love without such condemnation. Let God’s work have its effect as it heals our hardened hearts.
Stubbs, reflects that she didnt feel any different after baptism, well we may expect too much. I wash my hands everyday and one washing feels pretty much the same and uneventful and it is hard to gauge any difference from before to after, but when I get my hands really dirty and I wash my hands I feel a real difference from the washing. The same I would gather is true in baptism…the more sin we have to come from the more we understand and have the impact of baptism. I was raised in the church, so when I was baptized it was because I recognized that I was a sinner, even though I had never done any of the major sins, but everyone is different and impacted differently due to what they have come from.
But this still doesn’t detract from the fact that Jesus and the apostles connected faith and baptism for salvation. We are not do what Naaman initially wanted and make excuses, we are simply to follow and recieve what is promised in the doing. Now many put batpsim first, but then again many put faith first and in reality it is Christ first and then the others should follow in response.
Dwight said “… well we may expect too much”. That is true in a legalistic/ritual-based church given there is so much work to do to earn salvation. Using your analogy would you feel different if your hands never had to be washed again to be spotlessly clean?
The problem here is that we relate any amount of ritual t mean a legalistic/ritual based church, but lest we forget that God commanded rituals to be done and Jesus even did rituals and the apostles in the NT. The problem was that the Jews eventually had separated the why from the doing and God was saying that the why was the foundation for the doing and the doing was the why in action. The Lord’s Supper is a ritual, and even though it is but grape juice and bread, we are told the all but important why we are to do it.
Washing was a Jewish ritual, but it had purpose behind it, cleansing. We can either regard baptism as just ritual, which would be a mistake, or regard it on the same level as the Lord’s Supper, which is a ritual with deep association of the why. If we leave out the meaning it will be useless. Jesus who was spotless led the way in that He himself was baptized and then He was baptized in the earth and yet we turn our nose up at the concept, because we are called on to do it. If Naaman would have thought that way he would have never been healed.
Most people from the CofC denomination go to Naaman to try to prove that someone has to be baptized before God will forgive them. You do realize that Naaman wasn’t a follower of the God of Israel, it was after he was healed he came to have faith and became a believer in Yahweh as his God. To use Naaman as the example how the CofC denomination baptizes people would be that you baptize unbelievers.
Naaman needed proof that the God of Israel is the one true God.
Let us look also at the blind man who Jesus accepted his faith and healed him.
Luke 18:35-43 Then it happened, as He was coming near Jericho, that a certain blind man sat by the road begging. And hearing a multitude passing by, he asked what it meant. So they told him that Jesus of Nazareth was passing by. And he cried out, saying, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Then those who went before warned him that he should be quiet; but he cried out all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” So Jesus stood still and commanded him to be brought to Him. And when he had come near, He asked him, saying, “What do you want Me to do for you?” He said, “Lord, that I may receive my sight.” Then Jesus said to him, “Receive your sight; your faith has made you well.” And immediately he received his sight, and followed Him, glorifying God. And all the people, when they saw it, gave praise to God.
This man didn’t need to see proof to believe Jesus is the Lord, Jesus said his faith was enough.
Interesting that sight instead of eternal life is what he wanted and Jesus gave it to him. Would Jesus of given him eternal life if that had been his request or did he already have it?