(Death, Heaven, Purgatory, Hell)
Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults
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Baptismal Grace
Few truths are so clearly taught in the New Testament
as the doctrine that in baptism God gives us grace. Again and again the
sacred writers tell us that it is in baptism that we are saved, buried
with Christ, incorporated into his body, washed of our sins, regenerated,
cleansed, and so on (see Acts 2:38, 22:16; Rom. 6:1–4; 1 Cor. 6:11, 12:13;
Gal. 3:26–27; Eph. 5:25-27; Col. 2:11–12; Titus 3:5; 1 Pet. 3:18–22). They
are unanimous in speaking of baptism in invariably efficient terms,
as really bringing about a spiritual effect.
Despite this wealth of evidence, Protestants are
almost equally unanimous in rejecting this truth. In general Protestants
regard baptism as something like an ordinance: an observance that does
not itself bring about any spiritual effect but merely represents that
effect. Its observance may be required by obedience, but it is not necessary
in any further sense—certainly not for salvation.
This view requires Protestants to explain away
all the New Testament passages on the nature of baptism as figurative
language. It is not baptism itself, they assert, but what baptism represents,
that really saves us. Yet the language of the New Testament on this point
is so uniform that they cannot even dredge up a couple of "proof-texts"
on baptism to support this view or their figurative reading of all the
other passages.
There is one text that Protestants occasionally
mention. In 1 Corinthians 1:14–17 Paul wrote that he was glad that he himself
had baptized so few of the Corinthians, since they could not say that they
were baptized in his name; and he went on to say, "For Christ did not send
me to baptize but to preach the gospel. . . ."
Needless to say, this passage doesn’t say anything
about baptism only representing spiritual realities, or not really saving.
It doesn’t say anything about how those who accepted Paul’s preaching of
the gospel were then saved. Paul didn’t write, "For I was not sent to baptize
but to pray with people to accept Jesus as their personal Savior" (or even
"to lead people to faith"). Paul didn’t pit faith against baptism.
Nor did he pit preaching against baptism. He would
hardly have contradicted the great commission in Matthew 28:19: "Go therefore
and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father
and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." Paul’s point was not that God didn’t
want him to baptize, only that preaching was the driving force of his evangelistic
ministry.
In short, Paul’s remark doesn’t remotely support
the Protestant view of baptism, or justify a figurative interpretation
of all the other passages. Yet this is the closest thing to a Protestant
proof-text!
The early Fathers were equally unanimous in affirming
baptism as a means of grace. They all recognized the Bible’s teaching that
"[In the ark] a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water.
Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a
removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a clear conscience,
through the resurrection of Jesus Christ" (1 Pet. 3:20–21, emphasis added).
Protestant early Church historian J. N. D. Kelly
writes, "From the beginning baptism was the
universally accepted rite of admission to the
Church. . . . As regards its significance, it was always held to convey
the remission of sins . . . we descend into the water ‘dead’ and come out
again ‘alive’; we receive a white robe which symbolizes the Spirit . .
.the Spirit is God himself dwelling in the believer, and the resulting
life is a re-creation. Prior to baptism . . . our heart was the abode of
demons . . . [but] baptism supplies us with the weapons for our spiritual
warfare" (Early Christian Doctrines, 193–4).
The Letter of Barnabas
"Regarding [baptism], we have the evidence of Scripture
that Israel would refuse to accept the washing which confers the remission
of sins and would set up a substitution of their own instead [Ps. 1:3–6].
Observe there how he describes both the water and the cross in the same
figure. His meaning is, ‘Blessed are those who go down into the water with
their hopes set on the cross.’ Here he is saying that after we have stepped
down into the water, burdened with sin and defilement, we come up out of
it bearing fruit, with reverence in our hearts and the hope of Jesus in
our souls" (Letter of Barnabas 11:1–10 [A.D. 74]).
Hermas
"‘I have heard, sir,’ said I, ‘from some teacher,
that there is no other repentance except that which took place when we
went down into the water and obtained the remission of our former sins.’
He said to me, ‘You have heard rightly, for so it is’" (The Shepherd
4:3:1–2 [A.D. 80]).
Ignatius of Antioch
"Let none of you turn deserter. Let your baptism
be your armor; your faith, your helmet; your love, your spear; your patient
endurance, your panoply" (Letter to Polycarp 6 [A.D. 110]).
Second Clement
"For, if we do the will of Christ, we shall find
rest; but if otherwise, then nothing shall deliver us from eternal punishment,
if we should disobey his commandments. . . . [W]ith what confidence shall
we, if we keep not our baptism pure and undefiled, enter into the kingdom
of God? Or who shall be our advocate, unless we be found having holy and
righteous works?’ (Second Clement 6:7–9 [A.D. 150]).
Justin Martyr
"Whoever are convinced and believe that what they
are taught and told by us is the truth, and professes to be able to live
accordingly, are instructed to pray and to beseech God in fasting for the
remission of their former sins, while we pray and fast with them. Then
they are led by us to a place where there is water, and they are reborn
in the same kind of rebirth in which we ourselves were reborn: ‘In the
name of God, the Lord and Father of all, and of our Savior Jesus Christ,
and of the Holy Spirit,’ they receive the washing of water. For Christ
said, ‘Unless you be reborn, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven’"
(First Apology 61:14–17 [A.D. 151]).
Theophilus of Antioch
"Moreover, those things which were created from
the waters were blessed by God, so that this might also be a sign that
men would at a future time receive repentance and remission of sins through
water and the bath of regeneration—all who proceed to the truth and are
born again and receive a blessing from God" (To Autolycus 12:16
[A.D. 181]).
Clement of Alexandria
"When we are baptized, we are enlightened. Being
enlightened, we are adopted as sons. Adopted as sons, we are made perfect.
Made perfect, we become immortal . . . ‘and sons of the Most High’ [Ps.
82:6]. This work is variously called grace, illumination, perfection, and
washing. It is a washing by which we are cleansed of sins, a gift of grace
by which the punishments due our sins are remitted, an illumination by
which we behold that holy light of salvation" (The Instructor of Children
1:6:26:1 [A.D. 191]).
Tertullian
"Happy is our sacrament of water, in that, by washing
away the sins of our early blindness, we are set free and admitted into
eternal life. . . . [But] a viper of the [Gnostic] Cainite heresy, lately
conversant in this quarter, has carried away a great number with her most
venomous doctrine, making it her first aim to destroy baptism—which is
quite in accordance with nature, for vipers and asps . . . themselves generally
do live in arid and waterless places. But we, little fishes after the example
of our [Great] Fish, Jesus Christ, are born in water, nor have we safety
in any other way than by permanently abiding in water. So that most monstrous
creature, who had no right to teach even sound doctrine, knew full well
how to kill the little fishes—by taking them away from the water!" (Baptism
1 [A.D. 203]).
...
"Baptism itself is a corporal act by which we are
plunged into the water, while its effect is spiritual, in that we are freed
from our sins" (ibid., 7:2).
Hippolytus
"And the bishop shall lay his hand upon them [the
newly baptized], invoking and saying: ‘O Lord God, who did count these
worthy of deserving the forgiveness of sins by the laver of regeneration,
make them worthy to be filled with your Holy Spirit and send upon them
thy grace [in confirmation], that they may serve you according to your
will" (The Apostolic Tradition 22:1 [A.D. 215]).
Cyprian of Carthage
"While I was lying in darkness . . . I thought
it indeed difficult and hard to believe . . . that divine mercy was promised
for my salvation, so that anyone might be born again and quickened unto
a new life by the laver of the saving water, he might put off what he had
been before, and, although the structure of the body remained, he might
change himself in soul and mind. . . . But afterwards, when the stain of
my past life had been washed away by means of the water of rebirth, a light
from above poured itself upon my chastened and now pure heart; afterwards,
through the Spirit which is breathed from heaven, a second birth made of
me a new man" (To Donatus 3–4 [A.D. 246]).
Aphraahat the Persian Sage
"From baptism we receive the Spirit of Christ.
At that same moment in which the priests invoke the Spirit, heaven opens,
and he descends and rests upon the waters, and those who are baptized are
clothed in him. The Spirit is absent from all those who are born of the
flesh, until they come to the water of rebirth, and then they receive the
Holy Spirit. . . . [I]n the second birth, that through baptism, they receive
the Holy Spirit" (Treatises 6:14:4 [A.D. 340]).
Cyril of Jerusalem
"If any man does not receive baptism, he does not
have salvation. The only exception is the martyrs, who, even without water,
will receive baptism, for the Savior calls martyrdom a baptism [Mark 10:38].
. . . Bearing your sins, you go down into the water; but the calling down
of grace seals your soul and does not permit that you afterwards be swallowed
up by the fearsome dragon. You go down dead in your sins, and you come
up made alive in righteousness" (Catechetical Lectures 3:10, 12
[A.D. 350]).
Basil the Great
"For prisoners, baptism is ransom, forgiveness
of debts, the death of sin, regeneration of the soul, a resplendent garment,
an unbreakable seal, a chariot to heaven, a royal protector, a gift of
adoption" (Sermons on Moral and Practical Subjects 13:5 [A.D. 379]).
Council of Constantinople I
"We believe . . . in one baptism for the remission
of sins" (Nicene Creed [A.D. 381]).
Ambrose of Milan
"The Lord was baptized, not to be cleansed himself
but to cleanse the waters, so that those waters, cleansed by the flesh
of Christ which knew no sin, might have the power of baptism. Whoever comes,
therefore, to the washing of Christ lays aside his sins" (Commentary
on Luke 2:83 [A.D. 389]).
Augustine
"It is an excellent thing that the Punic [North
African] Christians call baptism salvation and the sacrament of Christ’s
body nothing else than life. Whence does this derive, except from an ancient
and, as I suppose, apostolic tradition, by which the churches of Christ
hold inherently that without baptism and participation at the table of
the Lord it is impossible for any man to attain either to the kingdom of
God or to salvation and life eternal? This is the witness of Scripture
too" (Forgiveness and the Just Deserts of Sin, and the Baptism of Infants
1:24:34 [A.D. 412]).
"The sacrament of baptism is most assuredly the
sacrament of regeneration" (ibid., 2:27:43).
"Baptism washes away all, absolutely all, our sins,
whether of deed, word, or thought, whether sins original or added, whether
knowingly or unknowingly contracted" (Against Two Letters of the Pelagians
3:3:5 [A.D. 420]).
"This is the meaning of the great sacrament of
baptism, which is celebrated among us: all who attain to this grace die
thereby to sin—as he himself [Jesus] is said to have died to sin because
he died in the flesh (that is, ‘in the likeness of sin’)—and they are thereby
alive by being reborn in the baptismal font, just as he rose again from
the sepulcher. This is the case no matter what the age of the body. For
whether it be a newborn infant or a decrepit old man—since no one should
be barred from baptism—just so, there is no one who does not die to sin
in baptism. Infants die to original sin only; adults, to all those sins
which they have added, through their evil living, to the burden they brought
with them at birth" (Handbook on Faith, Hope, and Love 13[41] [A.D.
421]).
NIHIL OBSTAT:
I have concluded that the materials
presented in this work are free of doctrinal or moral errors.
Bernadeane Carr, STL, Censor Librorum, August 10, 2004
IMPRIMATUR:
In accord with 1983 CIC 827
permission to publish this work is hereby granted.
+Robert H. Brom, Bishop of San Diego, August 10, 2004