What is the importance of Christian baptism?

There are but two ordinances connected with Christianity—Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Both stand in relation to the death of Christ. Baptism, an act, has no meaning or virtue in itself, but is symbolical of that which should powerfully affect the believer’s life every day and all the days. It sets forth the identification of the believer with the death of Christ, that it is his privilege to die practically to all that Christ died to. The world that crucified Him and the flesh that clamoured for His crucifixion are to be judged and set aside. The believer henceforth is to walk “in newness of life” (Rom. 6:4).

The one baptism is necessarily Christian baptism and is our committal to all that is involved in the truth of Christ Jesus (Romans 6:3). It announces our identification. with the death of our Lord Jesus Christ in all its bearings and implies our obligation to walk in newness of life. The water under which we are passed is an emblem of death and an understanding of our identification with Christ dead and risen again, teaches us that we are no more at liberty to be under sin's dominion, no more available for sin's control. He — Christ — lives unto God; every pulsation, every movement of His risen manhood is Godward; for the accomplishment of God's will and pleasure.

Thus being baptised unto Christ's death, the believer owns that he has died with Christ out of the old life; that Christ died for him, and he died in Him to the world with its hostility to Jesus our Lord; to the flesh with its seductiveness; and to the devil with all the power he has usurped over man through sin. It is a present, personal and permanent deliverance, to the praise and glory of the Lord Jesus, in which that believer rejoices, who reads aright the meaning of Christian baptism. Buried with Christ in baptism unto death he thus confesses the real lordship of Jesus. Christ, who died for our sins according to the scriptures and was buried, rose again on the third day as Victor over death and the grave, and we exultantly hail Him as Lord of our life and the God of our salvation. We rise again from the typical grave of our baptism to walk with Him in newness of life; for as surely as we died with Him we also live together with Him. This we confess, as we steadily set our minds on the things that are above, where Christ our Risen Lord now is.

Here is the open secret of Christian Baptism. (1) There has been a crucifixion and a death not only for our sins, but to sin. (2) There has been a burial and a resurrection, and we are risen with Him, Col. 2:12. (3) There has been by baptism an outward identification with all this on the part of "as many of us as were baptised unto Jesus Christ."

Baptism has a wider scope than Christianity, but no amount of reasoning can eliminate it from Christianity or from the epistles of Paul, which fully set forth the new order. The young Christian therefore should search the Scriptures on this as on all other doctrines and practices, and act before God according to what he finds written there. I do not propose here to enter into a discussion as to the subject or mode of baptism. But it is my present purpose to press upon the reader the distinctive instruction of Paul as to the lines of truth exemplified by, or connected with, baptism unto the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. For in the revelation of the Trinity we have Christianity in its essence. The Father so loved the world that He gave the Son, who became man, and in the power of the Eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God for our salvation. This is the grand fundamental truth each baptized one is called upon to defend, if need be, at the cost of his life. In baptism, Christ’s death is set forth in symbol. He, in amazing grace, because of our sins, bore on the cross the awful baptism of divine wrath, that we might enjoy forever the living favor of the God of all grace. This is pictured as the baptized one is immersed beneath the water. Every baptism is thus a fresh reminder of what we owe to the Lord Jesus. Like the communion supper, it sets forth His death (Romans 6:3).

Then, secondly, it pictures our death with Him. If He died beneath the judgment of God for sin, it was as taking our place; so we, in this ordinance, are “buried with Him by baptism into [or, unto] death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4). For the baptized one to be living a careless, worldly life, while yet enjoying what is called “a good conscience about, or through baptism,” is a shameful thing. If baptized to death, it is that you should daily own in a practical way that you are through with the world, severed from its follies and all its ways through identification with Christ in death, and now living on the resurrection side of the tomb, called to walk in accordance with the new life in Christ risen. Thirdly, baptism answers to a soldier’s donning the regimental uniform: “For as many of you as have been baptized into [or, unto] Christ have put on Christ” (Galatians 3:27). This is not to say that all the baptized are truly Christ’s. That would be a grave error indeed. But he who has been baptized unto Christ has thereby taken upon him the badge of subjection to Christ. A man being recruited for the army is a soldier the moment he signs up. But the uniform marks him out as such. Even so, baptism is the putting on of Christ and owning Him as Lord. Closely connected with this is the fourth proposition: Baptism is for the dead. “Else what shall they do which are baptized for [or, over] the dead [ones], if the dead [ones] rise not at all? why are they then baptized for the dead [ones]?” (1 Corinthians 15:29). Here it is not baptized for a dead Christ, as some would have it, because the word rendered “dead” is plural in each instance. Neither is it a vicarious baptism by living persons on behalf of others who have died unbaptized. This is a foolish and hurtful heterodox notion maintained by Mormons and a few other evil sects. But it is simply that each baptized one, since the first generation of Christians, has been, by baptism, filling up the ranks, taking the place of those who have died in the service of Christ. We are all baptized for the dead. We have taken their vacated places, and we are now called upon to fight the Lord’s battles in their stead. If there were no resurrection this would be folly. We might better enjoy the world while it lasts, knowing that we must soon depart and then eternal unconsciousness follow! But, in view of resurrection, we take the place of Christ’s soldiers, even though we “stand in jeopardy every hour” (1 Corinthians 15:30; and note the following four verses).

Baptism follows the hearing of faith. And thus, when they come upon a certain water, the stranger asks what hinders his being baptized, and has the privilege conferred on the spot. So Peter asked, in Cornelius' house, if any one could forbid it, when the Gentiles had received the Holy Spirit, even as the believing Jews before them. For the outer mark, worse than worthless without the heart's subjection to the Lord and His grace, has its importance in ways neither few nor small; as the loss of the truth represented is as manifest in those that despise, as in those that idolize it. They fail to see that life is never attributed to baptism, but salvation is set forth in it, the washing away of sins, and death to sin, the blessed portion to which the gospel bears witness in Christ dead and risen for the believer.

Probably no other subject has provoked so much acrid discussion and unkind feelings among Christians as the subject of baptism has done, yet the idea is very simple. Christian baptism is "unto" the death of Christ (not "into" as the Authorised Version reads), i.e., unto the significance of His death. In this connection the death of Christ implies that the world gave Christ a felon's death and grave. (That it was not a felon's grave in which he was buried was not the intention of the world). Now it is incumbent on those who are associated with His name that they should cheerfully accept the place which the world gave to their new Lord and Master. Baptism then implies dissociation from the world. We can no longer go on with the course of this world. The frivolities which formerly filled our day are not now of interest to us. We cannot enjoy the pleasures of sin, because of our estimation of the riches found in the reproach or special stigma of Christ's name, which we now bear. Baptism then signifies cutting off from the world with the object in view that we should walk in newness of life (i.e., in association with Christ).

Once more, baptism is a refreshment to Faith. While we are made up of body and soul as we are, we shall need some means by which the body shall sometimes be stirred up to co-work with the soul. In the Lord's Supper my faith is assisted by the outward and visible sign. In the bread and in the wine I see no superstitious mystery, I see nothing but bread and wine, but in that bread and wine I do see to my faith an assistant. Through the sign my faith sees the thing signified. So in baptism there is no mysterious efficacy in the baptistry or in the water. We attach no reverence to the one or to the other, but we do see in the water and in the baptism such an assistance as brings home to our faith most manifestly our being buried with Christ, and our rising again in newness of life with him.

In the solemn ordinance of Baptism, that lies on the threshold of the Christian’s career, and the remembrance of the atoning death of our Lord, in the Lord’s supper week by week, on the Lord’s day, linked up, as it is with the blessed hope of His coming again, we see the desire of God that the death of His beloved Son should find its true and proper place in the minds and affections of His people.

Christianity denies both. It dispels despair and delivers from license. It is the application of what God has wrought in the Lord Jesus to all of us — not merely to our sins, but to our sin, to that root of evil within; and just as He has shown me the blood blotting out my sins, so He brings me to see that I am dead to sin. If He had not given me this, I were equally lost. It was true from the first, and accordingly in the very baptism of a Christian the Scripture sets forth this great fact. "Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized unto Jesus Christ were baptized unto his death?"

Such is what baptism signifies. It is not the sign of life-giving but of death-giving so to speak — that is to say, it brings the believer into this place of death with Christ. It is the outward expression that if I have got Christ at all, the Christ I have is a Christ that died and rose again; and when I am baptized, I am "baptized unto his death."

As to the scriptural ordinance of baptism, we look upon it as a beautiful exhibition of the truth that the believer is associated with Christ in death and resurrection. (See Matt. 28:19; Mark 16:16; Acts 2:38, 41; Acts 8:38; Acts 10:47-48; Acts 16:33; Rom. 6:3-4.)