Although the topic of baptism can and does fill volumes of published works, I will simply address one important mis-appropriation of the meaning and purpose of baptism.
When I was baptized as a Christian, after thoroughly first “weighing the cost” (Luke 14:28-30), my understanding of what I was doing was that I was agreeing with God regarding my own personal sin, and desiring and planning to act upon His on-going transformation of my heart, mind, body and soul.
I did not believe baptism saved me. I believed, for me, baptism was an outworking of having been already saved (freed from lord of self) and wanting to follow through on John the Baptist’s call to baptism, which Jesus fully endorsed.
I had been a Christian for about 12 years at the time of my baptism, which took place in a small rural church.
As I mentioned, I did not come lightly to the font: I had given it great thought and prayer, searching the Scriptures to come into a right motivation for it. It was so important to me that this baptism was Biblically informed and desired, and not done to please or obey any person, leader, denomination or church. I did not want to rotely go through the motions of a “rite” or “ceremony.”
So it was with much chagrin and amazement that, as I walked down the aisle after the service, still holding my damp towel from having dried off after my full baptismal submersion, a main leader of the church met me and congratulated me by saying,
“Now you are accountable to the church.”
I was speechless and felt manipulated.
Because that, indeed, was not why I had freely chosen to be baptized, and I had never heard that reasoning before.
Since then, I have on occasion heard others interpret baptism this way.
But is that the point and purpose of baptism? To be “accountable to the corporate church?”
R.T. France writes in his Tyndale New Testament Commentary on Matthew that John the Baptist’s
“prophetic ministry…called all to repentance instead of recruiting for a closed and ritual-bound community…”
“Repent means more than ‘be sorry’ or even ‘change your mind’; it echoes the Old Testament prophets frequent summons to Israel to ‘return’ to God, to abandon their rebellion and come back into covenant-obedience. This radical conversion is necessary in the light of the coming of the kingdom of heaven which here means the establishment of God’s rightful sovereignty in judgment and in salvation, i.e. the Messianic age.”
France goes on to say that those being baptized were not seeking “ceremonial purification…Their baptism was a token of repentance involving confessing their sins.”
Wayne Jackson, in the article The Establishment of the Church of Christ published on the Christian Courier website, points out that while some scholars in the 1930’s claimed that the “church of the New Testament was set up and organized by Jesus Christ during his personal ministry on earth,” there actually was not yet a New Testament at that time, so therefore no “New Testament Church” could even exist or be established.
So if the church did not exist at the time of John the Baptist—and at the time during which baptism was first modeled and prescribed—how could the meaning of baptism be “accountability to the church?”
Some would say that what is meant by that is our taking a public stand in our commitment to Christ, with many witnesses.
However, D.A. Carson, in his commentary on Matthew in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, writes:
“Any interpretation demanding either privacy or crowds at Jesus’ baptism as Matthew or Luke report it reads too much into the texts and probably misses the evangelists’ chief points. Jesus came from Galilee (Mark specifies Nazareth) to be baptized by John,…and as a result the Father testified to his Son. This much is common to all three accounts, and it matters little whether only John heard this heavenly witness or whether the crowds heard it as well.”
Another support for there not needing to be a large congregational witness to one’s baptism (and thus implied accountability to the church) is Philip’s baptizing, right then and there—in water at the side of a desert road—of the Ethiopian eunuch.
“The eunuch answered Philip and said, “Please tell me, of whom does the prophet say this? Of himself or of someone else?” Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning from this Scripture he preached Jesus to him. As they went along the road they came to some water; and the eunuch said, ‘Look! Water! What prevents me from being baptized?’ And Philip said, ‘If you believe with all your heart, you may.' And he answered and said, 'I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.’ And he ordered the chariot to stop; and they both went down into the water, Philip as well as the eunuch, and he baptized him. When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away; and the eunuch no longer saw him, but went on his way rejoicing.” Acts 8:34-39
Notice how, post-baptism, the eunuch “went on his way rejoicing.”
Which brings me to the whole point.
Paul sums it up beautifully:
“It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.” Galatians 5:1
This isn’t to say one should not attend or join a church.
It is to say that the purpose of one’s baptism is not for accountability to the church, but to Christ.
Many churches, sadly, mingle allegiances, or boldly promote a single allegiance to a denomination (it’s bylaws, confessions, statements, etc.), a political party, cause, pastor, Bible translation or no Bible at all.
So it follows then that if our baptism makes us now “accountable to the church,” that opens up a really large can of worms of confusion as to who, exactly, we are to follow: Christ? Or the “leadership” and fellow members of our local congregation?
Church is for enjoying fellowship and service opportunities, becoming other-focused and growing mature in Spirit, with Christ as the only Cornerstone.
It fails in that regard the minute anyone ties a rope of church expectations to one’s baptism (or to church membership for that matter) usurping and drawing a person away from the pure and discerning Christ and His Gospel.
Copyright Barb Harwood
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