Why is baptism taking a knocking these days?

At the outset of this article I do state that, yes, I understand that “baptism” is not one of the enumerated “fundamentals of the faith” in any of the lists made some one hundred and more years ago. I get it, so please, there’s no need to try to comment that this blogger is trying to add to the fundamentals of the faith.

I am asking this question in light of Dr. Olson’s relegation of baptism to the backwaters of importance at NIU by his comments in his multi-part articles about What Matters Most. There was a time when NIU (Northland International University) was Northland Baptist Bible College (emphasis mine). One of those Biblical distinctives of being a Baptist is believer’s baptism. Even a brief overview of Baptist history reveals that both sides of this issue held their respective beliefs firmly in centuries gone by. While no one is dying at the hands of pedobaptists for holding to believer’s baptism, yet I find it most interesting that those who give the most ground when seeking some sort of cooperation between the two views, it is the believer’s baptism view which succumbs. Why? We hold the high and holy ground on this one. Ours IS the Biblical view. Yes, I said, IS the Biblical view.

Dr. Olson has also been one to tout “Great Commission Living” (The catch phrase at NIU is, Preparing the next generation of servant-leaders for Great Commission Living”). Look at the Great Commission articulated in Matthew 28:19, 20; “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.” What marching orders does our Sovereign give us? Believers are to, 1) go to all nations, 2) teach all nations (make disciples, evangelize with/to Christ), 3) baptize those converts (identify with Christ), and 4) teach the Scriptures (indoctrinate with Christ). So part of the Great Commission is baptism. If the Great Commission is so important (and it is), why such latitude on this sub-point of baptism? It is clearly spoken by our Lord Jesus Christ that before one can be baptized one must first be converted, born again, become a believer. We have example after example in the book of Acts of that which the Lord Jesus Christ articulated in the Great Commission. Here are the passages in Acts:

Acts 2:37-41

Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do? Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call. And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward generation. Then they that gladly received his word were baptized: and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls.

Acts 8:12

But when they believed Philip preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God, and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women.

Acts 8:35-38

Then Philip opened his mouth, and began at the same scripture, and preached unto him Jesus. And as they went on their way, they came unto a certain water: and the eunuch said, See, here is water; what doth hinder me to be baptized? And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. And he commanded the chariot to stand still: and they went down both into the water, both Philip and the eunuch; and he baptized him.

Acts 9:17, 18

And Ananias went his way, and entered into the house; and putting his hands on him said, Brother Saul, the Lord, even Jesus, that appeared unto thee in the way as thou camest, hath sent me, that thou mightest receive thy sight, and be filled with the Holy Ghost. And immediately there fell from his eyes as it had been scales: and he received sight forthwith, and arose, and was baptized.

Acts 10:44-48

While Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word. And they of the circumcision which believed were astonished, as many as came with Peter, because that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost. For they heard them speak with tongues, and magnify God. Then answered Peter, Can any man forbid water, that these should not be baptized, which have received the Holy Ghost as well as we? And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord. Then prayed they him to tarry certain days.

Acts 16:12-15

And from thence to Philippi, which is the chief city of that part of Macedonia, and a colony: and we were in that city abiding certain days. And on the sabbath we went out of the city by a river side, where prayer was wont to be made; and we sat down, and spake unto the women which resorted thither. And a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple, of the city of Thyatira, which worshipped God, heard us: whose heart the Lord opened, that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul. And when she was baptized, and her household, she besought us, saying, If ye have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house, and abide there. And she constrained us.

Acts 16:25-33

And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God: and the prisoners heard them.  And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken: and immediately all the doors were opened, and every one’s bands were loosed. And the keeper of the prison awaking out of his sleep, and seeing the prison doors open, he drew out his sword, and would have killed himself, supposing that the prisoners had been fled. But Paul cried with a loud voice, saying, Do thyself no harm: for we are all here. Then he called for a light, and sprang in, and came trembling, and fell down before Paul and Silas, And brought them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house. And they spake unto him the word of the Lord, and to all that were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes; and was baptized, he and all his, straightway.

In every single instance, the pattern is salvation first then baptism. EVERY SINGLE TIME! There is not one exception. Is this pattern not clearly seen?

Second, and just as important, is the meaning of the underlying Greek words. Sadly, this is where English translators through the centuries, dating all the way back to William Tyndale’s English NT, have failed to translate the Greek word, βαπτίζω, and instead have transliterated the word from Greek letters to English letters. So what does βαπτίζω mean? It means, to immerse, to submerge, to place under (the water), to plunge. Hmm,…so, where does sprinkling, or pouring enter in? Answer, they don’t. These methods of baptism have no Scriptural precedent, whatsoever. Where does infant baptism come in the Scriptures? Answer, it doesn’t. Again, there is not one single passage that clearly states that a child, before they could understand the Gospel message and be saved, was baptized. Advocates of pedobaptism infer from passages such as Acts 16:12-15 and 25-33 that these two households surely had infant children present when the Gospel was preached and therefore they too were baptized. Just as valid an inference could be drawn that Lydia was a widow lady past child bearing years, whose children were grown and out of the house, who traveled about unencumbered with the domestic life of children so that she could promote the purple dye guild of Thyatira. And because she traveled about her servants were also childless so as to move about with her with relative ease. As to the Philippian jailer, surely we know him to be a retired Roman legion soldier who settled at Philippi because it was his last post as an active soldier of Rome. While he was at the garrison of Philippi he had made friends with the city rulers and upon his retirement they offered him the job of city jailer. He liked Philippi so well and the offer was a lucrative one that he just couldn’t turn down, besides it was a long and arduous journey to travel back to his native Gaul. Because he had spent his lifetime as a soldier he never had time for family life so his household was comprised of fellow retirees who had served with him in service to Rome. Again, no children were present in this home.

You see, those are just as plausible (and I would tend to think more highly probable) as those who infer that infants were present. The pedobaptist also try to tie baptism to circumcision as a rite of initiation, which is again nowhere taught in the Scriptures. Pedobaptism is a leftover tradition from Roman Catholicism that the Reformers didn’t place through the Biblical sieve. I am rather struck by the those of a Reformed bent or are sympathetic to said thought, who run out their “sola” statements (sola fide [by faith alone], sola gratia [by grace alone], soli Deo Gloria [glory to God alone], solus Christus or solo Christo [Christ alone], and sola scriptura [by Scriptures alone]) proudly and hoist them high for all to see. The last one is what really gets me, for you see, I do agree with these statements. It is by Scriptures alone. This is the first of the Biblical distinctives that Baptists hold dear. The Bible is our sole authority for faith and practice. So why didn’t the Reformers really practice that and why don’t its adherents practice it today? A case in point is Ulrich Zwingli who indeed in 1523 stressed that it would be the Bible only by which beliefs would be judged, not men, not traditions, not creeds, or churches. To quote from Armitage’s Baptist history;

When Zwingli took lead in the Swiss Reformation, he demanded obedience to the Word of God in all Christian matters, and resolved to reject what it did not enjoin. When debating with Dr. Faber, before six hundred Catholic dignitaries at Zurich in 1523, he laid down this foundation principle. Faber demanded who should judge between them on the matters in dispute, and Zwingli pointed to the Hebrew, Greek and Latin Scriptures, which lay before them. Instead, the doctor proposed that the issue should be decided by the universities of Paris, Cologne, and Freiburg. Zwingli replied that the men in that room could tell better what the Scriptures taught than all the universities. ‘Show me’ he demanded, ‘the place in the Scripture where it is written that we are to invoke the saints.’ When Faber defended that doctrine by the Councils, Zwingli showed that as these erred, nothing was binding but the Bible, and said that he would go to the universities if they accepted the Bible as the only judge. Dr. Blanche said: ‘You understand the Scriptures in one way, and another in another. There must be judges in order to decide who has given the right interpretation.’ But Zwingli refused to give any man a place above the Scriptures. Many of his hearers had strong Baptist tendencies and took in this radical doctrine. Educated by so skillful a general, they turned his own weapons upon him when they took issue with him on other subjects; and he was powerless, being obliged to appeal to the sword drawn from the Catholic armory. He was the most advanced of all the reformers biblically, but the moment that he fell into controversy with his own Baptist disciples, he broke with his fundamental principle and made the magistrates of Zurich the decisive judges in the disputes. (p. 330)

As Armitage notes, followers of Zwingli followed that understanding that the Bible is the only authority and in 1525 refused to baptize their infants. They were removed from church and hunted down as heretics. Many eventually were martyred. Why were they killed? Because they accepted that last sola and stated that baptism was for believers only, that infants were incapable of salvation and thus should not be baptized. If the teaching of believer’s baptism is worthy of men like George Blaurock, Felix Manz, Conrad Grebel, and Balthazar Hubmeyer to suffer and die for, then why is it relegated to the backwaters of importance by a president of a supposedly Baptist institution of higher learning? Dr. Olson in his series of articles stated that the mode of baptism was a ‘functional distinctive’ of churches/para-church organizations. Then why did our Lord Jesus Christ declare that baptism was part of the Great Commission?

As I stated at the beginning, I fully understand that believer’s baptism is not a “fundamental of the faith.” With that said, neither is it some obscure, vague teaching of the Bible that is shrouded from clear view. There is no obscurity in the above mentioned passages concerning who is the proper candidate and the timing of their baptism.

I bring this to our attention to voice my continued concern with Dr. Olson and the direction he is taking NIU. He has tried to deftly relegate vital Biblical truth to some low rung of unimportance. His trajectory is moving NIU from its once historic fundamentalist position very rapidly. To his growing list of compromised, evangelical men, Dr. Olson is adding Conrad Mbewe, having invited him to speak at the upcoming Heart Conference. Maybe Dr. Doran gave the suggestion since he had Mbewe in for services a couple years ago. It is tragic to see an institution go the wrong way.