The Baptist and Reflector is persistent in
its efforts to establish as a fact that salvation is a gift of grace
bestowed upon the sinner before and without obedience to the gospel.
Since Baptists believe this, I have no quarrel with their persistence in
teaching it. Nearly every issue of the Baptist and Reflector features it
in one way or another. Since I do not believe it and think it a hurtful
theory calculated to make void the grace of God, I owe nobody any
apology for pitching into its advocates as often as I think the cause of
truth demands it. The Book says, "he became the author of eternal
salvation unto all them that obey him." (Heb. 5:9) I believe it.
Such obedience is the "obedience of faith" and in no wise contradicts
what the scriptures say about salvation by grace. It is said that "a
great company of the priests were obedient to the faith." (Acts 6:7)
This obedience was necessary to their salvation. Peter asks the
question: "What shall the end be to them that obey not the gospel of
God?" (I Pet. 4:17) Does the Baptist and Reflector seriously
think that their end will be salvation? Paul says that when the Lord
comes he will take vengeance on them "that obey not the gospel of our
Lord Jesus Christ." (2 Thess. 1:8) This does not look like
salvation by faith before and without obedience to God. As "Rev. W. J.
McDaniel" says on the front page of the Baptist and Reflector "God is
consistent and the Bible is consistent. There is no contradiction to be
found in the Word of God." I believe that "By grace are ye saved through
faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works,
lest any man should boast" and that the specified obedience that the
Lord requires is consistent with this grace, faith and the gift that is
involved. Here is an issue, the issue in fact.
Naturally, the fight is over whether or not
baptism can have any thing to do with salvation. I believe it to be a
divinely stated condition of the remission of sins. The Baptist and
Reflector with its views of grace, considers such a position absurd and
a reflection on the grace of God, if not something worse. One main point
that we insist on is uniformly overlooked, or ignored, and it has often
been called to the attention of the advocators of salvation by faith
before and without baptism. We propose to keep on pressing that point as
long as the need requires. I shall arrive at it shortly, but first a
word from the Baptist and Reflector:
"Baptism is a 'figure' (symbol,
illustration) of saving truth (Rom. 6:3-5; I Pet. 3:21).
Therefore, it does not have any saving virtue. It is not a sacrament.
Likewise, in the Lord's Supper 'ye do show the Lord's death' (I Cor.
11:26). It, too, is only a picture. It is not a sacrament." We do
not use the term "sacrament" in connection with either baptism or the
Lord's Supper but accept exactly what the Bible teaches about each and
both. Editor Taylor defines a "sacrament" as "an ordinance or observance
interpreted as having a saving significance, as being conditional to or
contributory to salvation. It is a Roman Catholic idea which has been
accepted by many." He sidesteps the issue as far as we are concerned. We
do not entertain the Catholic idea. Is the editor afraid to step up and
meet the real issue? Baptism is a condition of remission of sins when
properly submitted to, because the Lord has by divine fiat made it so.
There is no "saving virtue" in water, or in any act that a man may
perform, be he saint or sinner. There is no such virtue even in the
faith that a man exercises. Believing is something that a man does. The
virtue is in the blood of Christ and salvation is by the grace of God.
God who saves has the right to propose the conditions to be performed by
man in order to be the recipient of the proffered salvation. "He that
believeth and is baptized shall be saved, said the Lord. "Repent ye, and
be baptized every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, unto the
remission of your sins."
It is often urged and that sometimes
boisterously, that God can save a sinner without water and that a sinner
does not have to take a dip into the tank to find Christ. Baptists have
not always refrained from ridicule in discussing this question. Is that
meeting the issue? I trow not! We are told that; "By faith the walls of
Jericho fell down, after they were compassed about seven days." (Heb.
11:30) Did the children of Israel have "virtue" in themselves to
believe the walls down, or to march them down? God tore down those walls
when the people "by faith" did what they were told to do. Does the
Baptist and Reflector think there was any sacramental value in marching,
shouting and blowing trumpets? Would those walls have fallen had the
people not obeyed God? Was it a matter of "grace through faith?" Did
they make void the grace of God when they obeyed God? Why? Naaman, the
leper, had the sentence of death written in his body. No human help
could reach him. He sought divine aid and was told to dip himself seven
times in the river Jordan and he would be healed. Was there any
sacramental "virtue" in the water that flowed in the channel of the
river Jordan? Naaman rebelled against the idea and thought it foolish
and absurd. He remained a leper until he obeyed God. Did he make void
the grace of God when he dipped? Who healed Naaman anyway and why? It
would be real refreshing to have the Editor of the Baptist and Reflector
march up and make some sort of an attempt to meet the real issue. When
he does, I promise to make it interesting for him. The cry of "baptismal
regeneration" will not help him any as far as we are concerned. The fact
that the baptism of a proper subject brings to him the promise of
remission of sins, while the dipping of an improper one leaves him just
wet, properly disposes of that false charge. Baptism is for the
remission of sins, only to a penitent believer, and that only because
God says so. It "is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which
are saved it is the power of God."
We are told that baptism "does not have any
saving virtue" because it is a "figure," and I Peter 3:21 is
cited. This text states positively that baptism "doth now save you." The
play that is made on the term "figure" is a glaring perversion of the
teaching of the text. The apostle affirms of Noah and his family that
"eight souls were saved through water." The fact that their salvation
was "through water" does not argue that it was not by grace through
faith. The grace of God in the whole proceeding is obvious. It is
clearly stated that "By faith Noah, being warned of God concerning
things not seen as yet, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark to the
saving of his house." (Heb. 11:7) The apostle makes the salvation
of these "eight souls through water" a type of baptism. The Baptist and
Reflector gets things "hind part back'ards" and gets his "figure" in the
wrong place. A straight look at the text spoils the Baptist theory.
"Eight souls were saved through water: which also after a true likeness
doth now save you, even baptism..." God saved Noah and his family by
grace through faith, but not without water. It was "through water." This
water is a type. What is the anti-type? "Which also after a true
likeness doth now save you, even baptism." God saves today by grace
through faith, but it is not without baptism but through baptism.
Editor Taylor missed the main point in all
this. All efforts to prove that baptism does not save, do not explain
Peter's statement but contradict it, and constitute a very vicious form
of interpretation. Peter explains in the same connection that baptism is
"not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the interrogation
of a good conscience toward God..." It is not a carnal ordinance such as
Jewish washings to cleanse from carnal impurities. The man who submits
to baptism is in all good conscience reaching out toward God for the
promised blessings. His is the obedience of faith. Of such Jesus says:
"He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved." All talk of "saving
virtue" in the water or in the act is beside the point and designed to
confuse. If God, who saves, proposes to do it "through water," it is
most unbecoming in men, especially editors and preachers, to set up a
howl of protest about it.
It is inferred for some unaccountable
reason, that if baptism is a "symbol, illustration" it can "therefore
not have any saving virtue." Romans 6:3-5 is cited and it proves
to be an unfortunate citation for one who is almost frantically
interested in eliminating baptism as a condition of remission of sins.
Why should it be thought incongruous that "a picture" of the burial and
resurrection of the Lord should be made a condition of remission of past
sins to an alien sinner who had believed in the Lord and repented of
those sins? Baptists are meriting a rather wide reputation for begging
the question in this connection. "It is only a picture, exclaims Editor
Taylor. Let Paul express himself. "Are ye ignorant that all we who were
baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?" Paul says that
water baptism brings us "into his death" that we are "baptized into
Christ Jesus." Can a man be saved out of Christ or without coming into
his death? A lot of loose talk about pictures and symbolism will not
serve to obscure the facts in the case.
Bible Banner – Jan 1942
Other Articles by Cled E. Wallace
Saved and Sure of Heaven
Only a Few Months to Live
What We Baptist Believe
Vital Points in Worship
Present Day Church
Problems (Part 1)
Prayer
Put Up Thy
Fist, Brother
The Simple
Power of the Lord's Supper
The
Entrenched Position of Religious Error
- Caffin,
B.C. (1950), II Peter – Pulpit Commentary, H.D.M. Spence
and Joseph Exell, eds. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans).
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