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Are we all wet
or does
Baptism matter?
By Greg Wills
Interest in baptism has grown in recent times
as dispute and disagreement over the issue has
mounted. A number of questions have arisen
as it relates to this doctrine. In this article, I
will address three in particular.
Is immersion essential to baptism?
There are a number of Baptist pastors and churches
that will accept sprinkling as an acceptable mode, as
a valid form of baptism. Some conservative and, more
commonly, moderate Baptist churches have taken this
approach.
May we admit persons to church membership
and to the Lord’s Supper who have not
been immersed or who have not been baptized
according to our understanding of baptism?
This is a relatively new approach. Noted pastor and
author John Piper recently has argued this, and I think
that is one of the reasons people are talking and thinking
about it.
Does the administrator matter?
This relates to the traditional question of Baptists, of what
we have usually called alien immersions. This is the issue of
whether a person immersed upon a profession of faith by a
non-Baptist pastor has experienced a valid baptism.
Before I address these questions, let me say that these
issues are not as central to the Christian faith as regeneration.
If we get baptism wrong it is going to do less damage
to our churches and to the Gospel than if we get core
issues such as justification by faith, the full inspiration and
authority of Scripture or the doctrines of the person and
work of Christ wrong.
However, the issue of baptism is still important. Getting
baptism right is not essential to salvation. But that does
not mean that baptism and matters related to it are not
essential to obedience, to faithful stewardship of the ordinances
that Christ has committed to His churches and to
the right ordering of Christ’s church. Because a matter is
secondary to Gospel doctrine doesn’t mean it is a matter
of indifference.
Is immersion essential to baptism?
The fundamental question here is what has Christ commanded?
Does Christ require the mode of baptism to be
immersion or is the mode a matter of indifference? The
common attitude of Protestant paedobaptists is that the
mode is a matter of indifference. Immersion is good, sprinkling
is good, pouring is good, they believe. Traditionally,
Baptists have held that the only valid mode of baptism is
immersion.
page 10
Fall 2007 | Southern Seminary Magazine