What is the purpose of baptism?
Baptism is one of two outward signs the New Testament attaches to Christian faith, and almost everything about it has been argued over — who, how, and above all why. The commentators return again and again to a single answer: baptism is about a death, and about the new position that death gives a person on earth.
The Death of Christ Set Out in Figure
The act itself carries no power; its whole force lies in what it pictures. One writer sets it beside the Lord's Supper as the second of the two signs that both point back to the cross.
A J PollockThere are only 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 symbolic of something that should powerfully affect the believer's life every day and all his days.
The one going under the water is not testifying that he has already died. He is accepting a sentence.
Norman AndersonSo baptism does not witness outwardly to an inward reality. It is not that I am baptised because I am dead, but that I own the death of Christ and all that was involved in it in God's judgment on the flesh. I accept death with Christ by baptism, as Paul says, "Know that as many as were baptised unto Christ were baptised unto His death. Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism unto death."
Commentators differ over how far the picture reaches. Some hold that Romans 6 stops at burial and that resurrection is only added in Colossians 2; others read the two together and speak of the baptised as risen with Christ.
Cutting the Links With the World
If burial is the figure, then the practical purpose is separation. The world buries what it is finished with.
F. B. HoleNow baptism is, in one word, dissociation. It is only an outward ordinance, yet it has a meaning, and that is its meaning. It is based on the death and resurrection of Christ, for we are "baptized into his death," and so we are "buried with him." Nothing more effectively dissociates us from the present order of things, cutting our links with the world, than death and burial.
That break reaches into ordinary tastes and habits, because it means taking the world's verdict on Christ as your own.
Scripture QuarterlyIn this connection the death of Christ implies that the world gave Christ a criminal's death and grave... Now those who are linked with His name ought gladly to accept the place the world gave to their new Lord and Master. Baptism then implies separation from the world. We can no longer go on with the course of this world. The amusements that once filled our day no longer interest us.
A Badge of Discipleship
Baptism is always unto someone. Being baptised to a name puts a person under that name's authority.
C CrainThe risen Lord, in commissioning the eleven to go and disciple all the nations, authorizes them to formally identify the disciples of Christ with the confession of "the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit." It is therefore plain that baptism is a token, or mark, or badge, of discipleship to Christ. The badge of discipleship is put on by the baptism.
Wearing the badge creates a claim on the wearer, which is why the question is worth pressing on anyone who has been baptised.
Edward DennettIts meaning is the absolute authority of Christ as Lord, and the responsibility of confessing it on the part of those who have been baptized. In a day of profession and decline, it is well to ask whether souls who have been brought onto the ground of Christianity are aware of the responsibilities they have taken on.
What Baptism Cannot Do
Writers are firm that no ceremony gives spiritual life. New birth is never traced to water.
William KellyThere, as in Romanism, baptism is made the means of the new birth; whereas we are told that it is burial into Christ's death, and not a channel for the communication of life... New birth is nowhere attributed to baptism in Scripture. "As many as are baptized unto Jesus Christ are baptized unto his death." Baptism is therefore a sign of salvation by Christ's death, and in no way a means of giving life.
The Salvation Baptism Does Speak Of
Peter still says baptism saves — but he guards the statement in the same breath, and the salvation in view rests on a risen Christ, not on the water.
William KellyChristian baptism sets forth, not new birth, but salvation by the work of Christ. We are, as another apostle says, buried in it to His death, and the value of that death was proved by His resurrection. This a good conscience asks for and receives. But it is carefully said, to avoid superstitious misuse, "not the removal of dirt from the body" — which was all water could do — but what a good conscience toward God asks for: salvation through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Summary
- Death — baptism's subject is the death of Christ; the one baptised owns that death as the sentence on himself.
- Burial — the water is a grave, hiding the old life from view; commentators differ on whether the figure carries on to resurrection.
- Dissociation — a buried man is done with the world that crucified his Lord, so old pleasures lose their pull.
- Discipleship — it is the badge put on a person, placing him publicly under the authority of the name he now bears.
- Not life — it gives no new birth and no soul-salvation; it is the sign of salvation by Christ's death, never the means of it.