Three Questions About Baptism (#171)

Three Questions About Baptism

[00:00:00] If you ache for truth, goodness, and beauty, If you're hungry for a Christianity with substance and strength, if you long for a faith that's big and bold and biblical and all about Jesus Christ, if you're inspired by the idea of one church that has spanned twenty centuries, twenty four time zones, and two hemispheres, enfolding every race, nation, and language, then you're considering Catholicism.

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Welcome to considering Catholicism. To all of you regular listeners, Hey! But if this is your first time, my name is Greg, and this podcast is two years old this week. Now, whether you're a non Catholic who's [00:01:00] curious about the faith and the church, or a Catholic who wants to learn more, this show's mission is to excite and educate you about historic Catholic Christianity, and to equip you to live, share, and defend it in the 21st century. 

We've got a website, consideringcatholicism. com. And if you go there, all of the episodes have been categorized by topic. You'll find some videos there on various topics. You can listen to my story, learn who I am and why I do this and what the purpose of this whole thing is. And you can send me a comment or a question. Because I do my best, which isn't always good enough, to answer those either on the air or off. Now, before we get to today's topic, let me catch you up with some recent news about some of our regular guests.

Some of us have been praying for our guest Angie Griffith in Nashville, who [00:02:00] was in RCIA. That's like the Catholic Church's new members class. Because yesterday, she was scheduled to have her Confirmation or First Communion Mass. And, yesterday, I got a text from her, so let me read it to you. This gal is officially Catholic! Exclamation point. First communion has been had. Exclamation point. And then she has some emojis. So, for all of you who have been praying for Angie, well, it worked. And, I also know that some of you who are considering Catholicism are wondering yourselves about this process, the RCIA classes and all of that. So, Angie and I are setting up a time to record another episode where she's going to describe all of the steps that she went through to enter the church and become Catholic and what that experience was like. So, So, listen for that episode in the next couple of weeks. 

Second, you haven't [00:03:00] heard any episodes with Ed the Protestant or Corey for a month or so. With good excuse. Corey and his wife had another baby, a beautiful little girl named Helen, who is going to be baptized this weekend. he's been a little bit busy, but he and I are going to record three new episodes this week. WE're going to be talking about the most common reservations or hesitations. that people have, that keep them from becoming Catholic. Those episodes will be released sometime over the next month or so. So, if you're curious about and attracted to some aspects of Catholicism, but turned off by others, then maybe Corey and I can help you get over those hurdles. 

And, you haven't heard from Ed the Protestant lately. Now, he's fine, and he didn't have any new babies or anything, but, in fact, Ed and I have been hanging out over the holidays, having tacos, and going to movies, and getting together [00:04:00] with our wives, but, we just didn't make any time to record. But, I'm meeting him later this afternoon to record a couple of episodes because Ed has a couple of questions. He says he wants to know the difference between Protestant pastors and Catholic priests, and he wants to know why is it that Catholics don't seem to do or stress or talk about evangelism. Like evangelicals do if you've ever wondered about those things those episodes will be coming out over the next month or so All right, that's enough housekeeping and gossip and previews of coming attractions So let's get to today's topic.

On the Catholic Church's liturgical calendar. Today is the feast Actually, it's a solemnity feast Of the baptism of the Lord that commemorates or celebrates his baptism in the Jordan River by John the Baptist. And so I thought [00:05:00] we'd use this occasion to quickly take a look at three questions that I get all the time. Number one, why do Christians baptize new Christians? What does baptism signify or what effect does it produce in someone? Number two, the who, what, when, where of baptism. So, why do Catholics baptize infants while some Protestants baptize adult believers? And why do Catholics only sprinkle water on the person while some Protestants fully immerse them in water? And why do Catholics always do it in a church whereas Protestants go out to the beach or whatever? Three. Why do we have a solemnity celebrating the baptism of Jesus? Because if baptism is supposed to wash away sin, and Jesus was without sin, then [00:06:00] why did Jesus need to be baptized? 

Those are all good questions, and I could probably do an episode about each of them. In fact, Ed the Protestant and I did an entire episode on Why does the Catholic Church baptize infants? That was episode number 139. You can find it in the archives on your podcast service like Spotify or Apple podcasts or Amazon or iHeart or whatever you're using just scroll back to episode 139 or you can head over to ConsideringCatholicism. com and look in the episode archives there episode 139, but real quickly Let me try to answer these three questions for today.

First, why do Christians baptize new Christians? Well, the simplest answer is because Jesus told us to. The last [00:07:00] thing that he said in the Gospels, really his final instructions to us before he ascended into heaven, is known in Protestant or Evangelical circles as the Great Commission. Catholics don't really call it that it's kind of funny since I entered the church a couple times I refer when I'm teaching in class or something to the Great Commission and I get these blank stares, but every Protestant or Evangelical knows that Matthew chapter 28 verses 18 through 20 is the Great Commission.

So Jesus said to his apostles before ascending into heaven, this is after, he rose from the dead and before he ascended, he said, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the father and of the son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always [00:08:00] to the end of the age. SO, our mission, given by Jesus, is to make disciples with two conditions. First, that we baptize them, and second That we teach them to obey everything that he has commanded.

Baptism is the essential rite. That's rite, R I T E as in a ceremony, not rite like R I G H T, like your rites. It's the essential ceremonial rite. That marks someone entering the church and it begins the process of them learning everything that Jesus commanded so that they, hopefully, can become obedient to those commands.

Therefore, all Christians baptize new Christians because, well, Jesus said to. He made it the threshold, the door [00:09:00] into the church. But, beyond that though, what exactly happens in a baptism? Is it just a ceremony? No, it's not just a ceremony.

It's a sacrament. The difference is that a ceremony is on the surface. It's something visible that you do. But a sacrament is a visible sign of an invisible, fundamental change that occurs inside of a person. So, all Christian churches and denominations recognize sacraments, although they don't all understand them in exactly the same way.

But all Christians recognize that the sacraments begin with baptism. Catholicism understands the invisible change that takes place in the sacraments as an ontological transformation in the person. Now, [00:10:00] ontological is a fancy word in philosophy that means the being or the essence of a thing, what it is. And so the sacraments bring about a fundamental transformation of the being or essence of a person and their soul. That's why in Catholicism, marriage isn't just a contract. It's a sacrament. Because a married man or a married woman is a fundamentally, ontologically different kind of person than an unmarried man or woman. The sacrament of confession isn't just a counseling session in which you unburden yourself. The sacrament itself occurs when the priest absolves you of your sin. And you become reconciled with God because a soul that is reconciled with God is a fundamentally different soul than one that is in mortal [00:11:00] sin and alienated from God. So baptism is a sacrament because it produces this fundamental shift in a person, body and soul. Before baptism, they were not a part of the mystical body of Christ, which is the church.

But after baptism, or in baptism, they become part of that body. That can never be undone. You may stop attending church. You may stop believing in God. You may renounce your baptism, but you can never un ring that bell. God has put his mark on you. And it will mark your soul forever. Because of that mark, If you do neglect or wander away from or abandon the church, then you will be neglecting or wandering away from or abandoning the promises of Christ and the [00:12:00] union with his mystical body, the church, that was sealed in your baptism. In the same way that, because marriage is a sacrament in Catholicism, a man who abandons or divorces his wife and takes up with another woman is not a single man, he's an adulterer.

You see, because the sacraments transform our identity in an ontological way. 

So let's move on to the second question for today or it's really a sort of set of questions. Who what when and where. In other words, who gets baptized, infants or believers? Why do some denominations fully immerse the person in water and some, like the Catholic Church, only sprinkle it on the forehead of the person being baptized? And where should someone get baptized? In a swimming pool, or at the beach, or in a church. 

Now, to answer those questions, let's start by going a little deeper on the, , [00:13:00] internal ontological transformation that baptism signifies.

Think of it this way. The most obvious interpretation of baptism is what? Washing. Right? I mean, you get in the water, and the water, you know, washes away your sin like washing away dirt off your skin. Right? That's the most obvious way to look at it, but it's not right. Now again, I could do a whole episode on just this one point, but to condense it, according to scripture and the ancient teaching of the church, baptism isn't a ritual washing.

It's a ritual drowning. Baptism doesn't represent cleansing. But death and rebirth. Baptism isn't a bath, it's a burial. [00:14:00] What do I mean by that? Let's back up. The Hebrews were a desert people, and for them, waters or deep waters or the waters represented death. So, think of the Old Testament prophet Jonah.

He's in rebellion against God, so he's running away, he's in sin, he gets on the ship, God's anger is being poured on him, and he ends up being cast into the sea and descending into its depths, to the bottom of the sea for three days, only to be spit out and emerge as God's servant.

Now, in the Gospels, Jesus said that the sign of Jonah was a foreshadowing of his, Jesus own death and resurrection. This generation will receive the sign of Jonah, just as Jonah went down into the depths of the sea for three days, so the Son of Man will go down into the [00:15:00] grave for three days, only to rise again, reborn or resurrected.

But actually the Old Testament story that is most often linked to baptism. In scripture, in the church fathers, throughout history, is the story of the Israelites crossing through the Red Sea to escape the armies of Pharaoh. Think of it this way. They were in slavery and bondage, and as they come up to the Red Sea, they're facing certain death. But God took them down into the depths of the waters, only to use those waters to destroy Pharaoh and his army, thus, in a sense, destroying death for them, and then brings his people out again. Out of the waters of the Red Sea, up where they would receive the covenant, and be, in a sense, reborn as his people, his new nation of Israel. So, in baptism, we are not given a holy shower, but [00:16:00] we're united with Christ in his death and burial. Just like the Israelites going down into the depths of the Red Sea to escape bondage and death only to emerge in a sense remade as his people and so we go down in baptism To unite with Christ in his death and burial his three days in the grave only to emerge United with him in the promise of his resurrection Okay, that's why baptism is the threshold, it is the gateway sacrament into the church, which is itself the mystical body of Christ.

So to be united with Christ, we are united with him at the beginning, and his death, and resurrection. See, in baptism, we are born again, we are transformed, not in the flesh, but in the spirit. We enter into the community of faith that's formed by his resurrection. Alright? Hope that made sense. [00:17:00] 

Now, with that theological background, who should get baptized? Infants, who are too young to say they believe, or adults, or teenagers, or whatever, who are old enough to make the choice and have, believer's baptism. Well, during the lives of the apostles in the book of Acts, the children of believers were being baptized.

So, in the Book of Acts, Peter baptized the Roman centurion, Cornelius. The first Gentile convert and when Cornelius was baptized, his entire household was baptized with him. So, Cornelius came in and he brought his household with him. Now, of course, in the ancient church, if you were converted as an adult, as Cornelius was, then you were baptized as an adult. But, from those ancient times, beginning with the generation after the apostles, all Christian churches baptized the children of believers. Of course, they baptized adult [00:18:00] converts, but once people became Christians, their children were baptized. If they had children after they became converts, those children were baptized and so on and so forth.

So, withholding baptism from the child of a believer until that child can grow up and make the choice for themselves, that was never a thing. Until the reformation 1500 years later, and even then it was only a thing for some Protestants, right? I mean, Lutherans practiced and still practice, infant baptism, the reformed churches, all the Calvinist churches, infant baptism, Church of England the Anglicans, infant baptism. So as much as some Protestant evangelicals want to act as if withholding baptism from Christian children was or is the default for biblical Christianity, it just isn't historically true. 80 percent of the churches in the world today and all of the churches before 1500, all around the [00:19:00] world, all baptized the children of believers. 

Why? Well, as we just saw, baptism isn't about washing away your sins. It's about being united into the body of Christ, that is the church, and inheriting the promises of Christ's death and resurrection. And that covenant promise of being part of the people of God is for believers and their children. Because our children are born into the church and are marked with the promises of Christ.

Consider this in the old covenant of the Old Testament. The relationship for salvation that God had before the death of writ and resurrection of Christ. Circumcision was the ritual mark of being born into the community of God's people. So, the Israelites were instructed to circumcise their male children. And through [00:20:00] them, future generations that would be born, or to put it sort of, I'll try to put it delicately, future generations that would be generated through their circumcised body parts. Showed that the promises of God were for them and for their children and for their children's children. I mean, that was the promise of God to Israel, 

Now, in the New Testament, we have a new covenant that is made in Christ Jesus, a covenant formed by his death and resurrection. And baptism has replaced circumcision As the mark of the new covenant, the mark that is given to God's people, that the promises of God are for them and, future generations.

So when we think of infant baptism, think of it as the new circumcision. I mean, Paul says in, uh, the New Testament pretty clearly that [00:21:00] circumcision, the mark of the old covenant, is no longer a requirement for Christians. That's been replaced by baptism, and it's given to children, again, to mark the generational promise of God, 

now, we've been talking about the transformation, the ontological transformation, the mark of the covenant that baptism gives, and what effect it makes, how it changes us. What the Catholic Church teaches is that baptism removes the inheritance of original sin. That's the sin of Adam and Eve. And we are all born with that original sin.

We inherit it. It is part of the legacy of being human. But in baptism, that guilt is lifted, and we are initiated into the community of the church. Now, that doesn't mean that we aren't going to acquire personal sin, right? Just because we [00:22:00] or our children are baptized doesn't mean that we or they aren't going to fall away from God, that we aren't going to sin, that we aren't going to rebel against the Lord, right?

Those are sins that we need to account for. Baptism is not intended to wash away all of our personal sins because, right, we're going to continue to personally sin. That's why we have the sacrament of confession and reconciliation. But baptism is that one time thing that happens in our lives that in a sense frees us of the guilt of original sin. 

A baptized child is received into the church and baptismal promises are made by the parents and the church, the congregation, the parish, to raise that child within the community of grace. that's why when someone is baptized, whether infants or adults, they're dressed in white.

Because those garments represent, I mean, it's weird, the white garments of baptism simultaneously represent their burial clothes [00:23:00] and their resurrection clothes, okay? Here's a super interesting side note. Do you know why brides wear white at their wedding? Well, I mean, now it's just become culture and fashion and all that, but in the church, why, uh, bridal gowns were white? It's the same reason that They were white at their first communion and at their confirmation because all of those garments recall the promises of their baptism So as they progress through the sacraments during their lives, from baptism to Confirmation to wedding as they move through those sacraments the baptismal promises are being kept and realized and that white wedding gown recalls Just as the confirmation dress doll does recalls the baptismal promises that they inherited that are now being fulfilled through the other sacraments, just interesting side note.

So here's another one. Why doesn't the Catholic [00:24:00] Church fully immerse? The person being baptized in the water. Because if baptism represents drowning, burial, and resurrection, then why does the priest only sprinkle or pour or touch a small amount of water to the forehead? Wouldn't full immersion in the water better represent the meaning of the sacrament of going down into the waters, being buried with Christ, and rising up? Well, yes, in many ways it would be a better symbol, a better physical symbol to represent what's going on. In fact, that's why the ancient Eastern Orthodox churches do fully immerse even infants in baptism. Fact, in baptism, even for infants, they do it three times. So the priest dunks the kid once in the name of the Father, kind of pulls him up, dunks him again in the name of the Son, kind of pulls him up, and dunks him again in the name of the Holy Spirit.

And, and by the way, that's not just to represent the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but it also represents the three days that Jesus spent in the tomb. One, two, three. Right. So you see [00:25:00] how this is coming together in the sacrament. It's representing the promises of God. It's representing, union with Christ and his three days in the tomb is resurrection.

It's representing removing the stain of original sin, right? It's representing the persons of the Trinity. It all kind of comes together in this really powerful way. But then someone would ask, why doesn't the Roman Catholic church in the West do the same thing and fully immerse? Well, uh, it, it did in the first centuries and it stopped doing it, but not really for doctrinal reasons. It was more a liturgical practice that I'm kind of developed for kind of practical reasons, a sort of practical evolution that kind of just became a, a cultural norm.

So I've heard it explained a lot of different ways, um, right in the ancient Mediterranean, you know, it's warm a lot, but, in Western Europe, parts of Western Europe can get really, [00:26:00] really cold. So, uh, and churches in the middle ages or whatever didn't have central heat. So if you're in Northern France in February, in a stone cathedral with a stone font full of water, that's about 35 degrees.

Because there's no heat in the cathedral, sort of giving infants a cold plunge wasn't really practical. And also as church architecture in the West developed, baptismal fonts in churches evolved architecturally and artistically to just to be more shallow. So you couldn't fit a person in there all the way.

And you know, in places water wasn't always clean, much less warm. And I've heard it pointed out that during the Black Death, or different plagues that came along, it was, urgent to baptize children as soon as possible before they died. So, by the High Middle Ages in the 1300s, the Western [00:27:00] Roman Church had more or less kind of come to the conclusion that what was important in baptism, the essential thing, was the touching of the water to the forehead three times. So the water was there, touching the head three times, and the name of the Trinity. And that that physically represented the meaning of the sacrament enough to be effective. And so, in the 1300s, I think it was the Council of Ravenna, , declared that that was sufficient and it just developed into liturgical practice, in the Roman Catholic Church in the West.

So, there's not really a doctrinal reason why the Roman Catholic Church doesn't fully immerse, but that's our sort of liturgical practice, okay? And that brings me to the last of these, uh, who, what, when, and where questions, um, the where.

So, why do Roman Catholics baptize inside the church when evangelicals get to do it in cool outdoor locations like swimming pools and lakes and beaches and whatnot? [00:28:00] Well, if you've been listening, I hope the answer is kind of obvious, right? Because baptism is the sacrament marking the entry into the church.

It's not a private event to do in your backyard swimming pool or an extracurricular event to do at the lake or the beach. In baptism, the church welcomes and initiates new members. And so the sacrament is performed by a priest of the church within a liturgy within the church.

Now, are there extraordinary circumstances in which someone could be baptized in an unconventional place, not as a part of a liturgy and not by a priest, and the church would still recognize that as a valid baptism? Well, yes, there are those unique situations. And I personally was one of them. So, if you listen to my story, which is in the archive, it's episode 169.

I wAs baptized by some 19 year old guys in a college swimming pool with no pastor, priest, [00:29:00] or church, and decades later, when I entered the Catholic Church and I was going through RCIA, I explained the circumstances of my baptism and it was recognized as valid. So there are those extraordinary circumstances, but the norm is to do it in a church.

Okay, so the purpose of this episode was to take on three big questions, kind of three Roman numerals. Why do we baptize? Uh, the who, what's, when's, and where's, and why's, and all that, which we just kind of did, that's Roman numeral two.

And that brings me to Roman numeral three, the last sort of mega question for this episode, and that is this. Why was Jesus baptized? I mean, he had no sin, so why did he need baptism? That's a great question. In fact, when Jesus showed up at the Jordan River and asked John the Baptist to do it, John was puzzled. It says in the [00:30:00] Gospels that he said, in essence, How or why should I baptize you? It's you that should be baptizing me. 

Well, I hope that after all that we've talked about today, you might see where this is going. Because baptism isn't about washing away our sins, as we've seen. It's about uniting us with the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. So to say that because Jesus had no sin, he didn't need to be baptized, sort of misses the point of baptism.

But it does raise a follow up question, which is, well, why did Jesus need to be united with his own death, burial, and resurrection, which hadn't even happened yet? Good question. Here's how I'll answer that. Jesus went first. In his baptism in the Jordan River by John, he accomplished several [00:31:00] things.

First of all, he modeled righteousness. HE set an example. As our great high priest, he demonstrated the humility and submission of God that he asks of us. You know, Jesus never asks anything of us that he wouldn't and didn't do himself. And in his baptism, he demonstrates, he models the kind of righteousness and the humble submission to God that he asks us to do and shows us the way.

Second, in his baptism, he foreshadowed what was to come. He pointed out the path to salvation. He said, the path to salvation will lie through my death, burial, and rising. And I'm, you may not completely understand what's happening here at the Jordan River, but someday you'll look back on it and see that as I came down and accepted this, as I went down into the water and came up again and received the favor of [00:32:00] God, someday you will do the same because that's the path to salvation 

So if we follow that path that he marked out, that he trailblazed for us, then we'll be following him. aNd I think for a third thing he sanctified that path that he pointed out. So by going first, by being baptized first in the way that he wants us to do, he made our own baptism holy, 

the Incarnate Son of God, the Christ, Second Person of the Trinity, the Lord of all, was baptized in the waters. And he asks us to do the same thing, but because, in a sense, he went in first, he made those waters holy. He made the sacrament of baptism holy by being the first one to go through it. I mean, ultimately, it is always God who acts, who initiates [00:33:00] the transformation in all the sacraments. We step forward, but he makes it real. And In Jesus's own baptism, he made it a holy sacrament for all time, for all of us, who would subsequently go through it. 

So, baptism is a major topic in Christian theology. It's a major topic in Catholic doctrine. And it's one that Christian denominations argue about and can't get on the same page about for a lot of different reasons. And there was so much more that I could have said and clarified about everything in this episode. As I'm sitting here, I just feel like I, I skimmed the surface on the topic of baptism, the doctrines of baptism, and I hope I didn't just create more questions than I answered. I hope that I gave you today enough so that you understand baptism a little better.

But you'll want to continue to study to learn and to grow in your understanding. And there [00:34:00] are a lot of great resources for that. A lot of great people you can tap, including talking to your own pastor, your own priest. If you, if you're in a parish or, or seeking out someone, or, or if you have a follow up question, you can write me.

An email at consideringcatholicism at gmail. com and maybe I'll do a follow up episode or two and and explore baptism a little bit more. But that's all we've got time for today. Before we go, though, can I ask you to do three things for me? First, subscribe to the podcast on whatever podcast service you're using.

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It really is really making a big difference. Thank you. God bless and Hopefully you learned a little bit more [00:37:00] about baptism today 

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