Gospel Themes
TextCHAPTER VI
Purpose and Effects of Baptism
For the Remission of Sins.—Baptism is the divinely instituted process by which sins, when truly repented of, are remitted; that is, forgiven and washed away. All men have sinned; and in order to bring them back into his pure presence, where nothing sinful can come, it is necessary that they first be cleansed from sin. Water baptism is the beginning of the cleansing process.
Means and Accessories.—Water, of itself, cannot, of course, wash away sin. It was not water that cleansed Naaman of his leprosy. It was his obedience to the prophet who directed him to go and dip seven times in the Jordan. Had he dipped but once, or but six times, his leprosy would still have clung to him. But he did as he was told—dipped seven times, and his faith, shown by his obedience, worked the cure, bringing down the power of God for that purpose. The water was the medium through which the power operated. Likewise, when Christ anointed the eyes of the blind man, causing him to see, it was faith—the power of God—that wrought the miracle; but the clay used was an accessory, as consecrated oil was (James 5:14,15) and is still, in the healing ordinance of the Church.
Water and Spirit.—Baptism cleanses and illumines the soul, and the water and the spirit are divinely appointed means by which the cleansing and the illumination come. And they are indispensable in the process. The sick may be healed without the use of oil, without even the laying on of hands; for it is faith that heals, not instrumentalities employed; but no sinner can be baptized, without the Water and the Spirit. By baptism we are as effectually freed from sin, and our moral status changed, as by death, burial and resurrection we are liberated from mortality and ushered into a new existence. Hence baptism is termed "the washing of regeneration." Regeneration means new birth.
Two fold Nature of Baptism.—Baptism, as already explained, is twofold, corresponding to the soul of man. The body or fleshly part is represented by the water, and the spirit by the Holy Ghost. The water and the spirit are both essential in baptism, because, as previously stated, it is not the body alone, nor the spirit alone, that is baptized, but the soul, body and spirit in one.
The body, I say, is represented by the water. Science tells us that most of the human body is water. Hamlet's plaintive wish that his "too, too, solid flesh would melt—thaw and resolve itself into a dew," was not so very extravagant, therefore, from a scientific viewpoint.
Spirit baptism illumines the soul, making manifest the things of God. "Eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the great things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit; for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God" (1 Cor. 2:9,10). Thus Paul explains the office of the Holy Ghost, in one of its most important functions. The Savior had reference to the same subject when he promised to his disciples "the Spirit of Truth," to reveal things past, explain the present, and show things to come. The importance of this mighty Agent, and the part played by it in baptism, was plainly pointed out by Jesus, when he said: "Except a man be born again, he can not see the kingdom of God."
The Atoning Blood of Christ.—But there are three factors, not merely two, in the process of the soul's regeneration—the spirit, the water, and the blood. By these three man is born into the world, and by these three he is "born again" into the kingdom of God. Ordinarily but two of them are mentioned in connection with baptism, for only two are actually used in baptism; but without the third, the atoning blood of Christ, there would be no baptism for salvation. If his blood had not been shed, there would be no redemption from the fall; the banishment of Adam and Eve and their posterity would have been perpetual, and the grave's victory eternal. There would be no baptism, no remission of sins, no resurrection, but for the shedding of the blood of the Lamb of God. Hence John the apostle says: "The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin" (1 John 1:7).
The Mediator.—The water and the spirit, representing, respectively, earth and heaven, are made effectual by the blood. Man and God are thus reconciled; Christ being the Mediator and Reconciler. There are three that bear record in heaven—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. There are three that bear witness on earth—the spirit, the water, and the blood. Each group corresponds to the other; each three agree in one. Hence, when a soul is baptized, it must be by water and by spirit, made effectual by blood, and in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
Three in One.—Spirit, water, and blood-the three elements of baptism—were combined in the person of Jesus when he was baptized by John in the Jordan. Standing upon the river's brink, his sacred form dripping with the waters from which he had just emerged, he was crowned with the Holy Ghost, descending upon him from above. Yet it was necessary that his blood should be shed, that the Spirit might come unto his disciples. Not until the Mediator had hung between heaven and earth, did the Holy Ghost, as the witness of his consummated sacrifice, appear upon the scene. Not till then were the apostles endued with power from on high. Not till then did the Spirit of God move upon the waters of this world, coming, as in the first instance, that there might be a creation, a new birth, a regeneration for the human race.
The Fathers Understood.—The Greek fathers of the Christian Church held correct ideas concerning baptism. This is shown in the terms used by them to describe it—"initiation," from its introductory character; "regeneration," from its being regarded as a new birth; "the great circumcision," because it was held to have superseded the circumcision of the Mosaic law; "illumination," and "the gift of the Lord," with reference to the Holy Ghost. Other synonyms for the sacred ceremonial were "consecration" and "consummation." Those baptized were understood to have consecrated their lives to God, and to have consummated or completed their preparation for communion with the Church of Christ. Only to such as had been baptized was the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper administered.
Early Greek Christians.—The Greek Christians of the early centuries, like the Saints of New Testament times, baptized for the remission of sins. They have been censured by modern critics for magnifying the importance of water baptism, and at the same time insisting on the purely ethical or spiritual nature of the rite; for confounding the sign with the thing signified, the action of the water with the action of the Spirit, in the process of regeneration. But they were not any more insistent upon these points than the apostles themselves.
Augustine's Theory.—St. Augustine is complimented by the same critics for formulating the first strict scientific theory of the nature and effects of baptism. He drew a sharp distinction between what he called "the outward sign"—water baptism—and the inward change of heart resulting from the operation of the Holy Ghost. Yet even he is charged with laying too much stress upon the value of "the outward sign," which he held to be essential to salvation.
Protestant theologians have been commended for keeping the "sign" in due subordination to "the thing signified," for justifying themselves by faith, and ignoring to a great extent outward ordinances.
But the Greek Christians, whatever their defects, were nearer right than St. Augustine; and the Catholic St. Augustine was nearer right than the Protestant theologians who followed him. Baptism, as taught in the New Testament, is not the mere "outward sign of an inward grace." The action of the water and the action of the Spirit are not to be separated in any analysis of the nature and effects of baptism. Both are essential in the soul-cleansing, soul-enlightening, process, modern critics to the contrary notwithstanding.
CHAPTER VII
Mode and Meaning of Baptism
Use of the Figurative.—When Jesus told Nicodemus that a man must be born again—born of water and of the Spirit—he virtually declared the meaning of the ordinance and prescribed the mode of its administration. Our Savior was not a mere rhetorician, ornamenting his speech for the mere sake of ornament. A true son of the Orient, naturally given to the use of figurative language, he was not a flourisher of phrases, a flaunter of vain show. His parables are poems, but they teach the truth in plainness to the wise; and because he recognized, as all great teachers do, the power of poetic symbolism to illustrate and impress the truth, he used it as a medium of instruction. But symbols are not arbitrarily invented by those who use them. They are already in existence, awaiting recognition. Poetic genius recognizes and applies them—that is all. God has built his universe upon symbols. In every department of creation the lesser symbolizes the greater and leads up to its comprehension.
Like Suggests Like.—What said the Lord to Moses? "All things have their likeness, and all things are created and made to bear record of me, both things which are temporal, and things which are spiritual; things which are in the heavens above, and things which are on the earth, and things which are in the earth, and things which are under the earth, both above and beneath: all things bear record of me" (Moses 6:63).
Man is a symbol of God, and is destined to become God; Earth is typical of heaven, and will yet be converted into a heaven. "If two things exist, and there be one above the other, there shall be greater things above them" (Abraham 3:16). Plato grasped the idea: "All things are in a scale, and begin where we will, ascend and ascend, and what we call results are beginnings."
The Resurrection Foreshadowed.—It was to prepare the way before a greater and higher principle, that Christ taught and exemplified the principle of baptism. That greater and higher principle was the resurrection, a doctrine difficult for even the apostles to comprehend, and one that he repeatedly impressed upon them, both before and after he arose from the dead. Hence he compared baptism to a birth—the entry, and the only one, into mortal life; and this pointed forward to the resurrection—the entry, and the only one, into immortal glory. Men should therefore be prepared for something suggestive of a birth, of a resurrection, in the ordinance prescribed by him as the means of admittance into his kingdom. That suggestion is fully realized in the true form of the baptismal ordinance—immersion.
Why the Savior was Baptized.—Baptism was made universal, and became the doorway to the Church of Christ, the kingdom of God on earth, because it symbolizes the resurrection, which is also universal, and without which no man can enter into the heavenly Church and Kingdom.
Here we touch, I think, the real reason, or at least one of the principal reasons, why Jesus was baptized. He was the Exemplar of the Resurrection—the first to rise from the grave: and as baptism represents the resurrection, it was fitting and appropriate that he should also undergo that sacred ordinance.
Immersion.—"Born of water" means to come out of the water, and coming out of the water, presupposes going into the water. This is why we are baptized by immersion, which means sinking, dipping, burying, plunging. Immersion is the only mode of baptism that symbolizes a birth. Jesus was baptized by immersion. He must have gone down into the water, for when he was baptized he "went up straightway out of the water" (Matt. 3:16). When Philip baptized the Eunuch, "they went down both into the water." John baptized "in Anon, near to Salim, because there was much water there," a proof presumptive of baptism by immersion, that being the only mode requiring "much water" for its performance.
Paul's Concept.—Paul compared baptism to burial and resurrection: "Buried with him [Christ] in baptism," wrote he to the Colossians (2:12), "wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead." Again—this time to the Romans: "Know ye not that so many of us as are baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore, we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection" (Rom. 6:3-5).
Note also Paul's words to the Corinthians, already quoted: "Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? Why are they then baptized for the dead?" In other words, why use the symbol of the resurrection, if there be no resurrection—if the symbol does not symbolize?
Paul discovered, by symbolical reasoning, or had it revealed to him more directly, that the children of Israel, "our fathers," were all baptized in passing through the Red Sea, on their way to Canaan (1 Cor. 1:2): an idea which suggests that the Brother of Jared and his colony may have been baptized in like manner, for they underwent a similar experience in passing through ocean deeps on the way to their promised land (Ether 6:6).
The New Testament Mode.—That immersion was the mode instituted by John the Baptist and perpetuated by the apostles, is a plain and reasonable inference from the teachings of the New Testament. But, in addition, we have the statements of philologists, archeologists, and historians, who declare that baptism, in the early ages of Christianity, was a dipping or submersion in water. The English word "baptize" comes from a Greek word meaning to immerse. Monumental remains in Asia, Africa, and Europe show that immersion was the act of baptism. The many ancient baptisteries now remaining on those continents were built and used for the purpose of immersion.
The Mode Changed.—The Christian churches of the Orient—Greek, Russian, Armenian, Nestorian, Coptic, and others, have always practiced immersion, and allow nothing else for baptism. The western churches preserved this form of the ordinance for thirteen centuries, and then gradually introduced pouring or sprinkling.
Clinic Baptism.—Baptisms of this kind were exceptional in the early ages of the Christian Church. They were called clinic baptisms, because administered, as a rule, to the sick, who could not be taken from their beds to be immersed: but they were rare, and were regarded only as quasi baptisms. The first recorded case of clinic baptism is mentioned by Eusebius as having occurred in the third century.
Immersion Made Optional.—Baptism by immersion was practiced regularly in the Roman Catholic church, until the year 1311, when the Council of Ravenna authorized a change, leaving it optional with the officiating minister to baptize either by immersion or by sprinkling. Even infants were baptized by immersion, until about the end of the thirteenth century, when sprinkling came into common use.
Luther and Calvin Disagree.—Luther sided with the immersionists, and sought, against the tendency of the times, to restore immersion; but Calvin held that the mode of baptism was of no consequence. Even he admitted, however, that the word "baptism" signifies immersion; and he said: "It is certain that immersion was the practice of the ancient Church."
Methods in Various Churches.—Pouring is the present practice in the Roman Catholic church; sprinkling in the Church of England, and in the Methodist church. A choice of modes is permitted by the Presbyterians, though sprinkling is the regular form. The Baptists, as their name implies, are strong advocates of immersion. The Quakers repudiate baptism altogether.
It was the custom in early ages to immerse the candidate three times—once for each name in the Godhead; but heretics took advantage of this practice to argue against the unity of the Trinity, and the three-fold immersion was abolished.
Authorized Practice.—The practice of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in baptism is indicated by the following passages from the Book of Mormon:
"Verily I say unto you, that whoso repenteth of his sins through your words, and desireth to be baptized in my name, on this wise shall ye baptize them: behold, ye shall go down and stand in the water, and in my name ye shall baptize them.
"And now behold, these are the words which ye shall say, calling them by name, saying,
"Having authority given me of Jesus Christ, I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
"And then shall ye immerse them in the water, and come forth again out of the water.
"And after this manner shall ye baptize in my name, for behold, verily I say unto you, that the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, are one; and I am in the Father, and the Father in me, and the Father and I are one.
"And according as I have commanded you thus shall ye baptize. And there shall be no disputations among you, as there hath hitherto been; neither shall there be disputations among you concerning the points of my doctrine, as there hath hitherto been;
"For verily, verily I say unto you, he that hath the spirit of contention is not of me, but is of the devil, who is the father of contention, and he stirreth up the hearts of men to contend with anger, one with another." (III Nephi 11:23-29.)
Modern Revelation.—The Latter-day Saints derive their knowledge of baptism not mainly from the Bible, nor from the Book of Mormon, nor from any other ancient record of God's dealings with man. That knowledge came directly to Joseph Smith. Through him was restored that which was lost. He brushed aside the cobwebs and dust concealing the precious jewel of Truth, and by new revelation brought back the knowledge of the "one Lord, one faith, one baptism" of the ancients.
It was the fifteenth of May, 1829. Joseph Smith, with his scribe, Oliver Cowdery, at the little town of Harmony, Susquehanna county, Pennsylvania, was translating the plates of the Book of Mormon. Coming upon a passage referring to baptism for the remission of sins—a doctrine well-nigh obsolete in Christendom—they inquired of the Lord concerning it, retiring into a grove for that purpose. While they were praying, a messenger from heaven descended in a cloud of light, and laying his hands upon their heads, spoke these words:
"Upon you, my fellow servants, in the name of Messiah, I confer the Priesthood of Aaron, which holds the keys of the ministering of angels, and of the gospel of repentance, and of baptism by immersion for the remission of sins; and this shall never be taken again from the earth, until the sons of Levi do offer again an offering unto the Lord in righteousness" (D&C 13).
Restoration of the Priesthood.—The heavenly messenger told the two young men that he was John the Baptist, and that he acted under the direction of the Apostles Peter, James and John, who held the keys of the Melchizedek Priesthood, which should in due time be conferred upon them. The Aaronic Priesthood gave them authority to baptize with water, but the Melchizedek Priesthood, which was greater, would give them authority to baptize with the Holy Ghost. Agreeable to the angel's direction, Joseph and Oliver immersed each other in water, for the remission of their sins. Subsequently they received, under the hands of Peter, James and John, the higher priesthood, and were themselves ordained apostles and baptized with the Holy Ghost. They in turn baptized others, and this was the beginning of divinely-authorized baptismal work in this dispensation.
The Church Law.—The standing law to the Church upon this subject is as follows:
"Inasmuch as parents have children in Zion, or in any of her stakes which are organized, that teach them not to understand the doctrine of repentance, faith in Christ the Son of the living God, and of baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of the hands, when eight years old, the sin be upon the heads of the parents;
"For this shall be a law unto the inhabitants of Zion, or in any of her stakes which are organized;
"And their children shall be baptized for the remission of their sins when eight years old, and receive the laying on of the hands." (D.& C.68:25-27.)
The Laying On of Hands.—The laying on of hands is the divinely-authorized method of administering spirit baptism, in other words, imparting the Holy Ghost. It is plainly taught in the Scriptures. For instance:
"Then laid they their hands on them, and they received the Holy Ghost."
"And when Simon saw that through laying on of the apostle's hands the Holy Ghost was given, he offered them money,
"Saying, Give me also this power, that on whomsoever I lay hands, he may receive the Holy Ghost." (Acts 8:17-19.)
The laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost was an ordinance in the Christian church for centuries. The ordinance remained with the church much longer than did the Holy Ghost. Cyprian mentions it in the third century; Augustine in the fourth. Gradually, however, it began to be neglected, until finally some of the sects repudiated it, while others, retaining the "form of godliness," denied "the power thereof."
So much stress having been laid upon immersion, as the proper mode of baptism, one might be led to inquire, Why are we not immersed in the Spirit, as well as in the water? I answer: How know you that we are not? To which the reply may be: We see the water, and are put under it by the priest: but when we are confirmed or baptized with the Spirit, the elders lay their hands upon our heads and say, "Receive ye the Holy Ghost." There is no immersion about that; we are not dipped or plunged: the Spirit is poured upon us.
Be not too sure that there is no immersion about it. The fact that you do not see it is no conclusive argument against the proposition. We see the water because it is a temporal element: but spiritual things are discerned by the Spirit. As to the pouring process—may not enough of an element be poured upon a person to bury him therein? Or must that in which a person is buried necessarily come from beneath? It was not so in the days of Noah, when it rained forty days and forty nights that the earth might be buried in water. As much water came from above as from beneath at that time.
John the Baptist, when proclaiming the Christ, said: "There cometh One mightier than I after me, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose. I indeed have baptized you with water; but he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost" (Mark 1:7,8). More than one baptism is here mentioned, but it is baptism in each case; and baptism signifies immersion. The candidate for baptism cannot well be dipped or plunged in the Spirit, since the Spirit is above, while the water is beneath; but he may be covered by or "clothed upon" with the Holy Ghost, nevertheless. The essential point in baptism is not the dipping or plunging, but the burying and bringing forth.
Baptism, a Symbol of Creation.—Baptism symbolizes creation. Earth, created for Adam and his seed, was baptized—"born again"—for Noah and his posterity. Baptized with water in that day, it will yet be baptized with the Holy Ghost and with fire. The laying on of hands and the descent of the Spirit from above, may possibly typify the glorious baptism that earth will yet undergo, when the Spirit is poured out upon her from on high, and she is covered therewith as completely as with water in the days of Noah. "I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh," said the Lord by the Prophet Joel (2:28). When that prophecy is fulfilled, earth will receive her spirit baptism, and in due time be ready for her baptism of fire.
Fire and the Holy Ghost.—God "dwells in eternal fire" ("Joseph Smith's Teachings," p. 82), where no mortal could approach him unconsumed. But mortals may receive the Holy Ghost with safety. Again: the inhabitants of the telestial world receive the Holy Spirit through the ministrations of the terrestrial; "but where God and Christ dwell they cannot come, worlds without end." By her fiery baptism, earth will be consumed; her mortal elements will melt with fervent heat, and the purified remains, immortal and in a state of resurrection, will be converted into a celestial sphere, a glorified abode for the righteous.
Baptism Symbolizes Birth.—Every resurrection is a birth, and every birth implies a previous burial. No seed germinates till it dies, or appears to die, and is buried. The farmer plants that there may be a springing forth of new life from the germ of the old. Every seed sown in the likeness of Christ's death shall be in the likeness of his resurrection; that is, if it be a good seed, properly buried in good ground.
Every birth, I say, implies a previous burial. This is true of time in its relations to eternity. Coming into this life involves departure out of a previous life, and burial in this life implies birth into the next. The sun, setting upon the western hemisphere, rises upon the eastern; and sets upon the eastern to rise upon the western. The setting and rising of the sun; sleep followed by waking; winter with its icy fetters and shroud of snow, succeeded by spring in garments of green, with its bright flowers, singing birds, and laughing streams; all these suggest burial, and resurrection—and consequently baptism.
Born of God.—To be "born of God" literally means to come forth from God. "Born of woman" has a like significance. We have a Father and a Mother in heaven, in whose image man was created, male and female. We came forth from them—were begotten and born of them in the spirit, as much so as we were afterwards begotten and born in the flesh; and we must be begotten and born again, in the similitude of those other begettings and births, or we cannot regain the presence of our eternal Father and Mother.
"Children of My Begetting."—Baptism signifies the creation of souls for the kingdom of God. The priest who immerses, or the elder who confirms, is the spiritual progenitor of the person baptized. "Children of my begetting," Paul terms those receiving the gospel through his instrumentality. To baptize is to perform, in a spiritual way, the functions of fatherhood. Motherhood is the sacred symbol of the baptismal font. Hence, baptism must be by divine authority—must have the sanction of heaven upon it. There must first be a marriage, a union between heavenly powers and earthly agents; otherwise the baptism will be unlawful, the birth illegitimate, the act of begetting a crime! Baptisms, like marriages, performed without divine authority, will have no effect when men are dead.
Suggestive Symbolism.—The significance of baptism is suggested by the very career of that Divine Being whose descent from heaven to earth, and whose ascent from earth into heaven, is the sum and substance of the Gospel story. His experience from the time he left his celestial throne, to the time he returned thither, was it not a descending below, and a rising above, all things? Did he not lay down his life and take it up again, as the Father had done before him? Is it not just possible that baptism was instituted to symbolize this mighty birth, this mortal burial, with its immortal resurrection?
When the Gods sat in council to consider the creation and redemption of this planet, what was their great thought and the theme of their deliberations? Was it not a going down and a coming back—not only on their part, for creative and redemptive purposes, but also on the part of their offspring, for purposes of experience and progression? What wonder, then, if in the gospel plan, whereby the spirits of men and women might accomplish this foreordained descent into, and ascent out of, the world, there should be an ordinance symbolical of the vast vicissitude?
Moreover, in the symbolism of the scriptures this world is represented by water. "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, and the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." Here, at the very dawn of creation, are the two principles or elements—spirit and water—with which baptisms are performed—one creative, the other creatable; one representing heaven, the other, earth. Note the reference in Daniel (7) to beasts, representing earthly governments, coming up from the sea. Note the Savior's parable, likening the kingdom of heaven to a net cast into the sea; the sea symbolizing the world, the fishes, the souls drawn out of the world. Note also Revelation (13) where a beast representing anti-Christ, rises out of the sea: and (17) where a woman, the Mother of Harlots, representing a great city reigning over the kings of the earth, is described as "sitting upon many waters"—the waters signifying "peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues."
Much of the body of this world—the physical frame of a spiritual creation—is water, even parts of it that seem solid. Science so affirms, and who can gainsay it? Walt Whitman, that eccentric poetic genius, speaks of "the slumbering and liquid trees." Thales, the founder of Greek philosophy, started out with the proposition: "All things are water." He ascribed to water the powers of creation, supposing that he had found in it the primal element, or great first cause. He omitted the real creative principle—the Spirit of God, which in the beginning "moved upon the face of the waters," or as Milton says, "dove-like sat brooding on the vast abyss." Thales being a physicist, took no account of the spiritual. Geology asserts that the earth was once submerged in water. The scriptures also declare it, and without reference to the deluge. "Let the dry land appear!"—the very words suggest baptism, birth, creation—the emergence of a primitive planet from the womb of the waters. Water, symbolically if not literally, represents the temporal part of creation, including the body or mortal part of man.