Tuesday, August 07, 2007

What are your thoughts on baptism? Is immersion the only acceptable mode? What about age…does it matter how old you are? What about re-baptism, from sprinkling to immersion or child to adult?

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Total dunking is the only way. If batism is our way of showing others our total death and new life in Chirst, than it is all or nothing. Now baptism does not save you. The only way to eternal life is through Jesus Christ, and excepting him as Lord and Savior. The batism is how we show others the commitment we have made. Are we not to tell the whole world about the good work Christ has begun in us? Lets get it on.
The age thing, it is believers batism, so when you believe the Lord is your Savior and ask Him into your life, than that is the time. I believe it is different for each person.

Pastor Doug said...

What if an adult was baptized as a believer by a form other than immersion (full dunking), does that person need to be re-baptized, does their original baptism count? Traditionally, Baptist would never re-baptize a person. What do you think?

Anonymous said...

I was baptised as a baby in the Reformed church. In order to take commmunion & become a member of the Reformed Church, I would have had to make confession of faith as a (young) adult. I never did that. Something about what was going on the in church at the time turned me off. I was churchless for several years. Finally, after attending several different churches of various denominations, I joined the Methodist Church. What I've found in all the churches that I've attended is that the basic premise is the same; parents dedicate their children to God and later those kids need to make the own committment. Some babies get splashed & others wait until they're older to be dunked. Either way, the person needs to make a conscious decision later in their life to accept Christ as their person Lord & Savior.

This is probably one of the things that divided the early church and can still divide us today.

Pastor Doug said...

Great post! You’re right, this has caused a lot of division in the church.

Anonymous said...

Yes you need to be re-baptized to join a Baptist Church. If you were not baptized by immersion then it does not count. You cannot become a member of a Baptist Church without being baptized by immersion after your salvation.

Pastor Doug said...

Interesting that the Baptist tradition would strongly disagree with anyone being re-baptized. I think I know what you mean though...you believe that they have never been baptized if it was not immersion. I wonder?

Anonymous said...

Yes the only type of baptism that counts is by full immersion. Also mnay people were baptized thinking they were saved at an early age and come to know Jesus later on in life. If this person was not truly saved when baptized then you have to baptize again because the first came before salvation.

Pastor Doug said...

What about the adult that has come to faith in Christ but attended a church that did a non-immersion type baptism. If that adult did that baptism with a full understanding that he/she was being obedient, would you say they need to be rebaptized and that it did not count?

Anonymous said...

Yes, I know as a Southern Baptist that to join a local church you must be baptized by immersion.

RogueLightBearer said...

Just stumbled across this blog on the website and although it is an old topic figured I would still post. It seems to me that we are focusing on details when the answer I would expect to hear from Jesus would tell us not to be so focused on details that we miss the larger picture and that He is the way. Is the character of Jesus such that He will turn away someone in the wilderness who delivers their heart to Him based on such a triviality as no one "qualified" being there to baptize the individual, or an "incorrect" method? Why are we to impose trivialities when God is the ultimate judge of a man's (or woman's) heart? The whole process is to signify your understanding of the spiritual rebirth, which by logical conclusion to most accurately depict it would be immersion, and would only be done with the participant's total understanding as it would need to be their own choice to have any meaning. As far as church membership goes, I believe if our hearts are in the right places it will be evident by the way we treat others and by our acts, not solely on baptism and a proclamation. Hopefully most churches have multiple criteria for becoming a member to avoid re-baptizing people.

Anonymous said...

You made a few excellent points there. I did a search about the topic and barely got any specific details on other websites, but then happy to be here, seriously, thanks.

- Lucas