Biblical Missions and Baptism: Part 2: What Baptism Is
This article is the second in a two-part series.
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Jesus’s Great Commission centers upon making disciples of all peoples, which means baptizing new disciples from those peoples and teaching them to obey all that Jesus has commanded. Given the fundamental role of baptism in the Great Commission, whatever role that missionaries or missionary support personnel may carry out in the church’s Great Commission obedience—church planter, theological educator, Bible translator, aviator, etc.—they must thoroughly understand biblical teaching on baptism.
Accordingly, in view of the wide range of doctrines of baptism held among Christian denominations and churches, Part 1 of this article advocates a biblical reset: a return to authoritative and sufficient Scripture, interpreted accurately, as the basis for understanding baptism. Biblical theology as sketched out in Part 1 reaches its climax in the recognition that baptism is not the sign of the new covenant (a key covenantal role gloriously performed by the Holy Spirit), and it concludes with first steps toward the theme of Part 2: that baptism is instead a sign of new covenant faith. Simply put, baptism is a (1) mandatory (2) new covenant worship act, (3) with a set form, (4) for disciples of Jesus, (5) carried out by the church, (6) which obeys the Great Commission.
Baptism Is Mandatory
The eternal destiny of the as-yet unevangelized and unredeemed peoples of the world weighs upon the missionary heart. Hence evangelical theology urgently and rightly emphasizes soteriology: the doctrine of salvation.[1] Even so, salvation is not the sum of Christian doctrine. Other doctrines may be more relevant for addressing certain theological questions, in missions no less than in other settings, especially since the missionary task includes teaching disciples everything that Christ commanded (Matt 28:20).
In particular, the right placement of salvation in theological thinking is key when providing an answer to the oft-posed question, “Is baptism necessary?” The question typically prompts a defense of the doctrine of salvation against baptismal regeneration, the concept that baptism is in some way an essential component of salvation.[2] In this scenario, the desired and expected answer is, “No, baptism is not necessary,” because for salvation one must be born again (John 3:3), through faith in Christ (John 14:6), which is a work of the Holy Spirit (Ezek 36:26–27, cf. John 6:65, Eph 2:8).
However, according to Scripture, baptism is indeed necessary! Baptism is necessary for obedience. In the New Testament, both prophets (Acts 22:16) and apostles (Acts 2:38, 10:48) command that others receive baptism.[3] These commands are normative for all believers in all times, especially in view of the disciple-making command of Jesus Christ in the Great Commission to practice baptism (Matt 28:19). Missionaries must accordingly obey Christ and baptize new converts (and other unbaptized Christians). Furthermore, the churches that missionaries plant must baptize and stand against the kinds of missiological pragmatism that would abandon baptism due to the offence it inflames within certain religious and cultural settings.[4] Of course, it is entirely possible that under God’s sovereignty, faithful missions work over the course of years or even a lifetime may fail to produce a single convert or, thus, baptism. Yet assuming appropriate conditions according to the Bible, baptism is mandatory.
Baptism Is a New Covenant Worship Act
The mandatory worship act of baptism belongs to the new covenant. This seemingly mundane observation is important for understanding baptism clearly. This clarity confronts the widespread misconception that anything traditionally called a “baptism” fulfills the biblical requirement of baptism, regardless of (a) whether those who receive the act are members of the new covenant or, relatedly, (b) what they believe the act signifies. The following subsections address these concerns.
Distinct from John’s (Old Covenant) Baptism
No baptism ritual appears in Scripture until John the Baptist appears “in the wilderness preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (Mark 1:4). John’s role in the history of redemption is unique, because he is a prophetically foretold, transitional figure who prepares the way for the Messiah, yet still under the old covenant (Luke 16:16).[5] John baptizes Jesus to “fulfill all righteousness” (Matt 3:15).[6] Yet, in line with John’s interim role, the book of Acts narrates two accounts back-to-back which demonstrate that John’s baptism was not new covenant, Christian baptism.
First is the story of Apollos preaching in the Ephesian synagogues (Acts 18:24–28). Although Apollos was “speaking and teaching accurately the things concerning Jesus,” he was “acquainted only with the baptism of John” (v. 25). The deficiency of Apollos’s understanding of baptism was troubling enough to prompt Priscilla and Aquila to correct him (v. 26), which correction he apparently received, and after which his ministry carried him onward to Corinth (Acts 19:1). This story of the correction of Apollos’s theology indicates that baptism is an important enough doctrine that teachers must get it right. In other words, if missionaries realize that their understanding of baptism is not in accord with the Bible, they must be willing to change. Furthermore, baptism is a sufficiently significant doctrine as a component of the Great Commission and as a new covenant worship act that new churches on the mission field cannot internally hold competing views of baptism in tension. Put another way, church planting missionary teams on the mission field must hold a united, biblically grounded understanding of baptism.
The second story comes after Apollos’s departure from Ephesus. Later Paul arrived there as well, and he came upon “about twelve men” (Acts 19:7), whom Luke identifies as “disciples” (v. 1). Paul may wonder whose disciples these men were, for he asks a diagnostic question: “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” (v. 2). Note that his question cuts straight to the matter of whether these men are disciples of Jesus in a fully realized, New Testament sense. Their response indicated that indeed they had not received the Holy Spirit. Therefore, Paul preached Christ to them, they believed, and then he baptized them (vv. 4–5). Here there is no question of the Ephesian men being “re-baptized” after having already received John’s baptism, for baptism (even properly as immersion) without faith in Christ and reception of the Holy Spirit is not new covenant baptism.[7] This point is important enough to restate in another way: baptism is an act of worship for members of the new covenant.
Preaching the New Covenant Gospel
Baptism is a symbolic act that dramatically communicates the union of Christ with his people in the gospel. Key biblical passages that convey this concept are Colossians 2:12 and Romans 6:1–7, for they both speak of spiritual baptism in the very same term as physical baptism (baptizō, “immerse”) and they speak of it as reflecting the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ.
Of course, Colossians 2:12 immediately follows 2:11, which we saw in Part 1 concerned the “circumcision made without hands”:
11 in [Christ] you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh, in the circumcision of Christ, 12 having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.
Part 1 of this article established that the “circumcision made without hands” is the circumcision of the heart performed by the Holy Spirit as He regenerates people to faith in Christ. Union with Christ in His death then appears in v. 12, where Paul further explains the verb “you were circumcised” (perietmēthēte) with a participle of means “having been buried” (syntaphentes). He calls this circumcision both a burial with Christ “in baptism” and a raising up with Christ, thus identifying the believer in death and resurrection with Him. Crucially, this resurrection happens “through faith in the working of God.” Since the circumcizer of the heart is the Holy Spirit and since death and resurrection take place concurrently with that heart circumcision, Colossians 2:11–12 refers not to circumcision or baptism performed by human hands but to those performed by the Spirit.
Romans 6:1–7 similarly testifies that baptism “into Christ Jesus” entails being baptized “into his death”:
3 Or do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? 4 Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection.”
Like Colossians 2:12, the baptism of Romans 6:1–7 must be a baptism the Spirit performs, because with the same directness, Paul in verse 6 writes that believers have been crucified with Christ. That is to say, in Colossians 2 and Romans 6, circumcision (a physical act of cutting off a body part), crucifixion (a physical act of execution), and baptism (a physical act of plunging into water) are each vivid metaphors for regeneration that the Spirit performs upon believers—a distinctively new covenant ministry (Rom 2:29; 2 Cor 3:6; Titus 3:5–7; cf. Isa 59:21; Jer 31:33; Ezek 36:26–17).
The act of the Spirit in regeneration is astoundingly good news (gospel), for it means that believers are “born again,” “born of the Spirit” (John 3:7, 8). Believers are set free from sins that would otherwise lead to death—sins past, present, and future—through faith in Christ. In faithfully obeying Christ, these whom the Spirit has circumcised, crucified, and baptized are then commanded to receive water baptism (Matt 28:19; Acts 10:48), an act that fuses these spiritual gospel metaphors with corresponding physical gospel proclamation.
Baptism Has a Set Form
A pervasive and perennial error in many Christian baptism theologies concerns the concept of the “mode” of baptism. In brief, while “mode” may be a well-established means of categorizing denominational practices in systematic theologies, there is no concept of “mode” in the Bible. There is no “mode” in the Bible because the plain meaning of the baptism verb in Greek (baptizō) is “to immerse,” and the concept of immersion thus has a clear conceptual definition.[8] To illustrate why “mode” is an invalid concept from the standpoint of biblical theology, consider that given only solid item A and liquid item B in the diagram below (Figure 1), to immerse solid item A, one must place solid item A into liquid item B.
Figure 1
There is no other way to accomplish the immersion of A under given conditions. Put another way, to propose other “modes” of immersion necessarily entails that immersing does not happen. For example, the act of taking some of liquid B and placing it upon solid A is an entirely different action, not another way of accomplishing immersion. See the second diagram (Figure 2) for comparison with the previous diagram.
Figure 2
Regarding the action of immersion specifically, to immerse A requires manipulating A. There is no manipulation of B in the act of immersing A. That is to say, whatever incidental or intentional manipulation of B that one performs, it is irrelevant to the act of immersing A. Now returning from conceptual abstraction to baptism, the baptizer puts the one receiving baptism fully into the water. The immersion having taken place, the one receiving baptism comes out of the water. There are no alternatives or “modes” of baptism that accomplish these actions, nor could alternative actions symbolically reenact at once both a burial and resurrection with Christ and the regenerative washing by the Spirit.
Another way to conceive of the fallacy of baptismal “mode” is by analogy with the celebration of the Lord’s Supper. Suppose that some imaginary denomination asserts that the fundamental meanings of “to eat” and “to drink” are not relevant to how one carries out the acts of eating and drinking commanded in Scripture. In this line of thinking, using a related perceptive sense like “smelling” is acceptable instead, so one partakes of the Lord’s Supper through the “mode” of smelling. At this point it is important to note that in this example, the bread and cup as elements of the Lord’s Supper are each present. This is simply a matter of what action to take. Smelling is indeed an action by which one can experience the elements, but the bottom line is, smelling is not a “mode” of eating and drinking. Therefore, employing the smelling “mode” means that the Lord’s Supper, according to its biblical definition, is not happening at all.
Just as the Lord’s Supper cannot take place without performing its defining actions, baptism is only an unrealized concept if its defining action of immersion is absent. Alternative baptismal “modes” are invalid, not due to the seemingly trivial consideration of the quantity of water the ceremony uses, such as the difference between a few droplets of water (for sprinkling), a pitcher of water (for pouring), or gallons of water (for immersion). Alternative baptismal “modes” are invalid because they have to do with the placement of water upon the body, an entirely different action than placing the body into water. Moreover, it is not actually correct to call alternative “modes” of baptism “invalid baptisms”; they are not baptisms—immersions—at all.
Baptism Is for Disciples of Jesus
The Great Commission in Matthew 28:18–20 casts baptism as an act of disciple-making. One becomes a disciple (a follower, a learner) of Jesus through faith in Him, then the new disciple receives baptism and embarks upon the lifelong journey of learning from Jesus among the people of God in the church. All baptisms in the New Testament follow this Great Commission pattern.
It is necessary briefly to address a line of argumentation against the statement above. This is the “household baptism” deduction that there must have been infants present in households for which Scripture indicates that all household members received baptism. There are five reports of “households” receiving baptism in the New Testament: the families of Cornelius (Acts 10:24, 44–48; 11:13–14), Lydia (Acts 16:14–15), a jailer in Philippi (Acts 16:30–34), Crispus (Acts 18:8), and Stephanas (1 Cor 1:16). Now the same argument from silence applies to every text, in that no infants appear explicitly in any of them. Some accounts are extremely brief like the mere mention of Stephanas’s household baptism, and others are relatively well-developed narratives, such as those of Cornelius and the Philippian jailer. Yet, observations on these longer texts sufficiently demonstrate that deducing the practice of infant baptism in any of them is unwarranted.
For example, the Cornelius story actually has to do with a gathering of “relatives and close friends” rather than only those over whom he had authority as household head (Acts 10:24). The Holy Spirit fell, specifically, upon “all those who were listening to the word” (v. 44). Peter was astonished that Gentiles were receiving the Holy Spirit and exclaimed, “Can anyone refuse water for these to be baptized who have received the Holy Spirit just as we did?” (v. 47, emphasis mine). Later Peter recounted this incident by narrating what an angel said to Cornelius beforehand, which included the promise, “He will speak words to you by which you will be saved, you and all your household” (11:14, emphasis mine). Importantly, the salvation promise has to do with proclamation and reception of the word; Peter’s words would be to Cornelius (singular “you”), Cornelius would be saved (singular “you”), and then his household would be saved. The narrated sequence in the story is then: (1) hearing (i.e., listening to) the word, (2) being saved, (3) receiving the Spirit, and then (4) getting baptized—a chain of actions impossible for infants.
The other lengthier narrative is the account of the Philippian jailer. It also includes “you and your house” language for those who would receive salvation (Acts 16:31). Paul and Silas “spoke the word of the Lord” to the jailer and “all who were in his household” (v. 32), and baptism followed for him “and all his household” (v. 33). Once again, the pattern is hearing the word, believing the word, then receiving baptism: an impossibility for infants.
Certainly, in theory one could grant that while there may not have been infants in Cornelius’s household, nor in the Philippian jailer’s household, there could have been infants present in, say, Stephanas’s household (1 Cor 1:16). Yet if there were an actual apostolic practice of baptizing those who cannot believe the gospel due to infancy, to retreat to the three most terse texts out of the five on which one could base that deduction is to add the logical fallacy of special pleading onto that of arguing from silence. Furthermore, Acts 11:14 for Cornelius and Acts 16:32 for the Philippian jailer require applying the “you and your household” logic to salvation. Yet infants cannot express faith in Christ and repent of sin, as even the advocates of water rites for infants acknowledge (e.g., Calvin).[9] Effectively one would have to say, then, that the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in one person through faith (e.g., Cornelius, the Philippian jailer) somehow brings the Holy Spirit to regenerate and indwell others in a household who do not believe (e.g., their children, or even their spouses!). Yet again, this is simply not how the new covenant works. Baptism can only be for believing disciples of Jesus.
Baptism Is Carried Out by the Church
Jesus initially grants His Great Commission in Matthew 28:18–20 to at least eleven disciples (v. 16). He casts His commands in plural forms, so that just as “make disciples of all the nations” is not a task scaled for a single disciple to accomplish, neither is baptism (v. 19). The principle of church “ownership” of baptism is well established across denominational lines. Accordingly, systematic theologies typically treat the doctrine of baptism under the rubric of ecclesiology, the doctrine of the church.[10] Yet some contemporary missionaries baptize without any connection with a local church, whether their sending church or a church on the mission field, as if the church’s involvement in the act of baptism were optional or irrelevant. This should not be so.
For one thing, if baptism is an act of new covenant worship as shown above, then that worship benefits from the full, understanding participation of the new covenant community of God’s people (the church). For example, the baptizer glorifies God through preaching the gospel and sharing biblical teaching on baptism to all present. The disciple receiving baptism glorifies God through confession of faith in Christ and testimony of His saving work in his or her life. The gathered covenant people glorify God with rejoicing hearts and through their pledging to carry out and join with the lifelong discipleship of the newly baptized Christian.
Additionally, from the first report of water baptism taking place in the book of Acts, the author Luke directly connects baptism with the church. For example, at Pentecost about three thousand people received Peter’s preaching, were baptized, and were added.[11] (Acts 2:41). In light of the stunning expansion of the church at Pentecost, it is important to consider what at first glance appears to be a violation of the principle that baptism is an act of the church: the account of the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8:26–39. Philip had a one-on-one encounter with this court official as he was seated on his chariot and traveling back to Ethiopia. In common with the converts at Pentecost, the eunuch received the gospel message (8:35). Also, like the “devout men from every nation under heaven” who were in Jerusalem at Pentecost and believed the gospel (2:5), he was baptized (8:38–39). However, Luke records no explicit statement of this baptism being an act of Philip’s Jerusalem church.
Yet the account of the Ethiopian eunuch is actually quite helpful for understanding how the church’s practice of baptism applies rightly to the mission field. Philip was a deacon (Acts 6:5) and evangelist (21:8) from the Jerusalem church. He had received Jesus’s Great Commission command to His church: “you shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the end of the earth” (1:8), and Philip carried out that command. He had preached the gospel to Samaritans in the immediately previous story in Acts 8:4–13, with the result that some of them joyfully believed and were baptized (vv. 8, 12). Philip worked hand-in-hand with the apostles Peter and John whom the Jerusalem church subsequently sent to Samaria in verse 14. Then in vv. 26–27, an angel of the Lord dispatched Philip to the desert road, where he met the Ethiopian. In short, whether he served in Jerusalem, Samaria, or beyond, Philip was acting as a cooperating member of the Jerusalem church. The modern analogue of Philip’s baptism of the Ethiopian eunuch is the first baptism that a church-sent missionary carries out on the mission field, which is then a foundational act in the establishment of a new church.[12]
A final implication of the principle of baptism as the domain of church practice is particularly salient. First, again, baptism is not a culturally bound practice; it is the universal practice of the church. There are no sociocultural conditions in the world that warrant replacement of baptism with some other ritual or that justify withholding baptism from Jesus’s disciples. No persecution, social pressure, philosophy of missions, or even policies of a missionary sending agency should be permitted to lead disciples into disobedience to Christ.
Baptism Obeys the Great Commission
Distinguishing between those who only claim to follow him from those who go on to endure in faith, Jesus Himself said, “If you abide in My word, then you are truly My disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free” (John 8:31b–32). Hence true disciples of Jesus obey His true, liberating word. Jesus’s emphasis upon obeying Him by abiding in His word coheres with His Great Commission, for as shown in Part 1, the irreducibly minimal acts of Great Commission disciple making are baptizing and teaching to obey everything Jesus commands. Therefore, to carry out the Great Commission rightly, missionaries must themselves be baptized and they must baptize—immerse new disciples—in obedience to Jesus.
This purely biblical-authority-grounded justification for biblical baptism has sparked controversy throughout the history of modern missions. It was a stark reality that American missionaries Adoniram and Ann Judson faced as they set sail from Salem, Massachusetts to Calcutta, India in 1812.[13] In a sense, they struggled to reconcile the missionary charge preached to them days before at Adoniram’s ordination service with the missionary charge of Jesus in Scripture. In that sermon preached by Leonard Woods, he praised the “harmonizing spirit” among Christians of various denominations and expressed hope that “Christians of every name [denomination] shall be so completely occupied with the Redeemer’s cause, as to forget their own.”[14] Minutes later Woods then urged the missionaries “to apply the seal of the covenant [baptism] to the children and domestics of believers, agreeably to the practice of Abraham the father of the faithful, and the subsequent friends of truth, who tread in his steps.”[15]
Woods’s tendentious characterization of those who would disagree with him as outside the circle of “friends of truth” is helpful for understanding the Judsons’ focus upon “truth”—truth found in Scripture—as their decisive criterion of belief. Upon arrival in India, Ann wrote to her parents regarding baptism, that Adoniram “determined to read candidly and prayerfully, and to hold fast, or embrace the truth, however mortifying, however great the sacrifice,” and indicated that she felt similarly.[16] They had become convinced Baptists en route to the field. Shortly following the Judsons’ baptisms on September 6, 1812,[17] Adoniram preached on the subject of baptism, and in closing he urged his listeners to “prize truth above all other things.”[18] He posted this sermon to his original sending church, the Congregational Third Church of Plymouth, Massachusetts, and concluded in an accompanying letter, “May the God of truth lead you and me into all the truth; and may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all, is the prayer of your affectionate brother.”[19] Due to the antagonism of the British East India Company toward American missionaries in India the Judsons had to depart on short notice, and the only destination they could find passage to was Burma.[20]
A fruit of Judson’s concern for the communication of biblical truth, his translation of the Bible was a work of linguistic and theological scholarship that became the standard Bible for Burmese-speaking Christians.[21] Judson’s Bible is notable for using immersion terminology in reference to baptism—which, interestingly, was the one word that the British and Foreign Bible Society insisted be altered in some way in order to print it.[22] In a spirit reflecting Judson’s concern for truth, the corresponding secretary of the American Baptist Missionary Union responded, “We cannot, we dare not, deliberately obscure or neutralize any word of Christ.”[23]
Given the central place of baptism in Great Commission obedience, the depth of controversy over baptism in missions is lamentable. As seen in the life experience of the Judsons, the competing perspectives of Christian missionaries, their sending organizations, and their churches have either historically prioritized catholicity—ecumenism—on the one hand, or biblical doctrine on the other. The catholicity position unavoidably entails setting biblical convictions aside in favor of “broad evangelical unity.”[24] Ironically, however, “agree to disagree” arrangements in missions inevitably grow more rigidly sectarian than any denominational doctrine, for “neutrality” becomes an inviolable rule of faith that flatly denies the truth claims of every other position. “Agreeing to disagree” requires setting the Bible aside.
On the contrasting side of missionary theory that prioritizes biblical doctrine, there are some missionaries who hold to usually non-immersive and non-disciple baptism practices due to sincere conviction. In theory, such a conviction should not object to other missionaries practicing the immersion of disciples alone. However, attempting to cooperate in church life across this convictional divide is untenable, and in practice reverts to prioritization of catholicity over biblical doctrine. Instead, missionaries should examine the truth claims of all doctrinal positions on baptism, including their own convictions, under the light of the authority and sufficiency of Scripture.[25]
Conclusion
Parts 1 and 2 of this article share a concern for baptism within the biblically faithful practice of missions. The unique challenges of both planting new churches and supporting existing churches on the mission field require that missionaries be the most doctrinally solid baptizers in the church. This requires properly aligning missions under the authority of the written Word and grasping the integral role of baptism in the Great Commission. Indeed, missionaries must employ grammatical-historical biblical interpretation, which submits to the control of Scripture rather than to personally favored theological systems, traditions, or theologians. Hence grammatical-historical interpretation equips missionaries to know both what baptism is not (Part 1) and what baptism is (Part 2) according to Scripture. Specifically, Part 2 has developed the concept that baptism is a mandatory new covenant worship act, with a set form, for disciples of Jesus, carried out by the church, which obeys the Great Commission.
Indeed, missionaries go to the nations obeying Jesus’s Great Commission, trusting in the authority and sufficiency of Scripture, and depending upon the power of the Holy Spirit. To the ends of the earth, may they glorify God, heeding the call of Christ to “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them...” (Matt 28:19).
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[1] MacArthur and Mayhue call soteriology “the pinnacle of Christian theology.” See John MacArthur and Richard Mayhue, eds., Biblical Doctrine: A Systematic Summary of Bible Truth (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2017), 485.
[2] Olson cites Cyprian’s first letter to Donatus (written approximately AD 246) as one of the first affirmations of baptism as an act that effects salvation. See Roger E. Olson, The Story of Christian Theology: Twenty Centuries of Tradition & Reform (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 1999), 118. For the letter itself see Cyprian of Carthage, The Epistles of Cyprian 1, esp. §§3–4 (ANF 5: 275–80). Denominations that adhere to baptismal regeneration include: Roman Catholicism (United States Catholic Conference, Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd ed. [New York: Doubleday, 1997], §1213), Eastern Orthodoxy (Thomas Hopko, The Orthodox Faith, Vol. 2: Worship [Yonkers, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1981], 30, 32–34), Lutheranism (Robert Kolb and Timothy J. Wengert, eds., The Book of Concord, trans. Charles Aland, et. al [Minneapolis: Fortress, 2000], 38; The Augsburg Confession, Chief Articles of Faith, Chapter 2), Anglicanism (The Episcopal Church, The Book of Common Prayer [New York: Seabury, 1979], 306), and Church of Christ (Alexander Campbell, The Christian System [Nashville, TN: Gospel Advocate, 1956], 42).
[3] See the place of baptism within apostolic preaching in Alan J. Thompson, Acts of the Risen Lord Jesus: Luke’s Account of God’s Unfolding Plan, NSBT 27 (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2011), 91.
[4] See for example Richard Taylor, “On Acknowledging the Lordship of Jesus Christ without Shifting Tents,” Religion and Society 19 (1972): 59–68.
[5] See Old Testament prophecies cited as pointing to John the Baptist in Mark 1:2–3 (Mal 3:1, Isa 40:3); Luke 1:17 (Mal 4:5–6); Luke 3:4–6 (Isa 40:3–5); and Matt. 3:3 and John 1:23 (Isa 40:3). John’s own testimony to his role of preparing the way for the Messiah appears in Matt. 3:11–12; Mark 1:7–8; Luke 3:16–17; and John 1:26–27 (cf. John 1:30).
[6] That is to say, it was right for John to baptize Jesus, and it was right for Jesus to receive John’s baptism, despite the fact that Jesus did not require baptism to signify repentance (see Matt 3:14). Jesus’s baptism was the occasion for God’s dramatic, public endorsement of John’s role as forerunner of the Messiah, for the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus and a heavenly voice proclaimed, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased” (Matt 3:17).
[7] Bock discusses that either these “disciples” were John’s disciples or those who began following Jesus in the “special situation” of transition between covenants. See Darrell L. Bock, Acts, BECNT (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007), 599. Indeed, Jesus’s original twelve disciples began following Him before His defeat of sin and death by His resurrection and before the coming of the Holy Spirit upon all who believe in Him. Thus, they had personally experienced the dawning of the new covenant. Yet again, Paul’s question cuts to the heart of the matter: whether these men had yet come to faith in Christ and received the Holy Spirit.
[8] See Liddell-Scott and BDAG, s.v. “βαπτίζω.”
[9] E.g., Calvin, Instit. 4.16.17–22, esp. §§19–20.
[10] See for example Adam Harwood, Christian Theology: Biblical, Historical, and Systematic (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2022), 682–694; John MacArthur and Richard Mayhue, eds., Biblical Doctrine: A Systematic Summary of Biblical Truth (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2017), 782–786; Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 622–643; Charles C. Ryrie, Basic Theology (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1986), 421–425.
[11] Acts 2:41 uses the “resumptive” expression μὲν οὖν, entailing a summary of the previous narrative and a transition to a new section. See F. F. Bruce, The Acts of the Apostles: The Greek Text with Introduction and Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1951), 70; Nigel Turner, A Grammar of New Testament Greek by James Hope Moulton, Vol. 3, Syntax (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1963), §25.1 (p. 337); Herbert Weir Smyth, Greek Grammar (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1920), §2901 (pp. 655–656).
[12] Church fathers Irenaeus and Eusebius write that the Ethiopian eunuch of Acts 8:26–39 was the first missionary to his people and thus became the founder of the church in his land. See Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3.12.8, 4.23.2 (ANF 1:433, 494–95), and Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 2.1.13 (NPNF2 1: 105).
[13] For an accessible account of the Judsons’ conversion to baptistic beliefs see Gregory A. Wills, “From Congregationalist to Baptist: Judson and Baptism,” pages 149–163 in Jason G. Duesing, ed., Adoniram Judson: A Bicentennial Appreciation of the Pioneer American Missionary, Studies in Baptist Life and Thought (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2012).
[14] Leonard Woods, Sermon Delivered at the Tabernacle in Salem, Feb 6, 1812, on Occasion of the Ordination of the Rev. Messrs. Samuel Newell, A.M. Adoniram Judson, A.M. Samuel Nott, A.M. Gordon Hall, A.M. and Luther Rice, A.B. Missionaries to the Heathen in Asia under the Direction of the Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (Boston: Samuel T. Armstrong, 1812), 24.
[15] Ibid., 35.
[16] Edward Judson, The Life of Adoniram Judson (New York: Anson D. F. Randolph & Co., 1883), 40.
[17] Ibid., 41.
[18] Adoniram Judson, A Sermon on Christian Baptism, with Many Quotations from Pedobaptist Authors. To Which are Added a Letter to the Church in Plymouth, Mass., and an Address on the Mode of Baptizing, 5th ed. (Boston: Gould, Kendall & Lincoln, 1846), 94.
[19] Ibid., 111.
[20] Judson, The Life of Adoniram Judson, 51.
[21] John deJong, “A Nineteenth-Century New England Exegete Abroad: Adoniram Judson and the Burmese Bible,” HTR 112 (2019): 319–339.
[22] A record of years of controversy over baptism terminology in Judson’s translation appears in Judson's Burmese Bible: Correspondence Between the British and Foreign Bible Society and the Baptists (Rangoon: American Baptist Mission Press, 1900).
[23] Letter of J. N. Murdock to William Wright, Baptist Missionary Magazine 67/7 (1887): 213–215, esp. 214.
[24] See “Introduction to OMF International,” OMF International, October 1, 2021, https://omf.org/resource/introduction-omf-international/. According to OMF, “broad evangelical unity” must prevail over theological disagreement on baptism, church government, eschatology and charismatic gifts.
[25] To add a personal note at this point for context, I (the author, Scott Callaham) am deeply grateful for the kind invitation of China Reformed Theological Seminary in 2024 to teach a World Missions course at their Taipei campus in Mandarin Chinese. Studying Scripture, praying, and worshiping with Chinese students both in the classroom and all over the world online was a holy experience. Furthermore, a key relationship forged at the seminary facilitated the publication of the Chinese edition of my missions textbook World Mission in Taiwan several months later: 簡思德 與 黃義信，合編《普世宣教：神學、策略與最新議題》（臺中：浸宣出版社，2024）. All this is to say, despite the requirement that I agree not to teach on baptism due to doctrinal disagreement, the seminary administrators and I found a way to serve the Chinese church and promote missions without implying that one should set aside faithfulness to the Bible to do so.