Have You Not Read S2E4 - Legitimate Baptizer

Welcome to Have You Not Read, a podcast seeking to answer questions from the text of scripture for the honor of Christ and the edification of the saints.

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I'm Dylan Hamilton, and with me are Michael Durham, Kyle Smith, and Chris Kiesler. Today we have another question sent in to us on the website from one of our listeners.

The question reads, I just recently attended a church that had a few baptisms as part of the service. This is a conservative

Baptist church with male eldership. In this church, fathers can baptize their children. However, one of the new

Christians asked a woman who she respects to do it. She does not come from a Christian family. The church leadership said it was perfectly legitimate, so they did it during the service.

Can women baptize other women? Can mothers baptize their children? Is there an issue of authority here if a woman baptizes a man?

Michael, you wanna start us off? Sure, so we're part of a church as well that encourages fathers to baptize their children when they profess faith.

And we have rejoiced many times over in that special blessing.

And this is not something that is novel. It's not something that is out of bounds, especially in the history of Baptist life.

Back in the First London Baptist Confession of 1644, they take the time in a rather brief confession to point out in the section on the priesthood of all believers that any man who is a professor professing

Christ may baptize another. So we stand in a tradition that is centuries old and has been thought about by Baptists for a while about what does it mean.

It's interesting, I mention this because when I was a pastor of a church in Tennessee, I brought that custom to that church.

And we talked about why that was, and we went through the scriptures and thinking through that.

And this was in contrast to another church in the area that was

Baptist and quickly moving to be fully reformed, which means they're gonna start baptizing their babies.

And when the pastor of that church found out that one of my deacons, this was before we were able to establish eldership, when he realized that one of my deacons had not been officially properly ordained with other ordained men laying hands on him, he was apocalyptic, he questioned the validity of our church.

And this is something that is very Romish, that's something that kind of harkens back to you have to have anointed or ordained priesthood to validate others of the same priesthood versus a

Baptist conception of matters in which we have the priesthood of all believers, we are anointed by the

Holy Spirit, we are called into the ministry of the church. Now we all have different roles, which

I think we're kind of getting at here in this question. And I went and looked through every instance of the word baptized, baptized, baptized, baptizing, baptizes, so on and so forth throughout the scriptures and just to kind of see the dynamics of what happened when people were baptized.

And time and again, what we have are those who are professing repenters,

I would guess would be the best way to put it, that professing repenters are baptized. This was true of John the

Baptist, though this was an initial kind of ministry pointing the way forward to the baptismal ministry of Christ as he began to preach the gospel.

But even throughout the book of Acts and in the descriptions that we have throughout the rest of the New Testament, we have several examples of men being baptized and even women being baptized, but we don't have any examples of a woman baptizing anybody.

And I went and checked, I mean, I went to read about Dorcas, whose name was Tabitha. I went to go look at Lydia.

I went to go look at Priscilla. I went to go look at all these different notable women who were of great value in Christ's church, mentioned especially in Acts and elsewhere.

And we never find them baptizing anybody. We do find apostles baptizing people.

We find deacons baptizing people. And we find that sometimes there's so many people being baptized, it's my guess it's understood that it wasn't being handled by one person.

Okay, it's actually a very encouraging kind of study when you begin to read that because what you're looking at is the way that Jesus is growing his church and building his church, and it's very encouraging.

But we need to consider the nature of what baptism is. And one of the two ordinances that was given to us by our

Lord, something that signifies that someone has repented of their sins, repented of their old religion, and they have turned to Christ as he is the way, the truth, and the life.

They're identifying with him, and they're being baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. It is an identifying kind of ordinance that typically happens once in a believer's life.

And this is to be followed up and paired with the other ordinance of communion, the Lord's Supper, which is to be a regular, also identifying type of ordinance in which we are constantly identifying in our unity in Christ, coming together around the reality of our risen

Lord's sacrifice for us. He's the one who brings us together and unifies us in love, and we are made right with him and with one another through his work.

And when we think about that, I think it's important to recognize what happens at baptism.

Baptism is not an instrument whereby saving grace is injected into somebody.

So it's not in the operation of it proper that brings about any kind of salvation.

It has primarily a declarative function.

It's declaring something, just like the Lord's Supper declares something.

So for example, in 1 Corinthians 11, in the instructions and qualifiers that come with Paul's description of the

Lord's Supper, he says in verse 26, and we can even back out of just, you know, verses 23, starting with verse 23, for I received from the

Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which he was betrayed took bread.

And when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, take each, this is my body, which is broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me.

So there's something about the engaging in this action that is bringing about remembrance, okay?

There is a declarative function in the act of communion, the ordinance of communion that is to activate a remembrance in us.

In the same manner, he also took the cup after supper saying, this cup is the new covenant in my blood. This do as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.

Obviously, this is to be a very holy function. The Holy Spirit is to be fully involved. He's the one who brings to mind, brings to remembrance all that Christ has done for us, all that Christ has said to us.

And so this is a declarative, only to underscore this, verse 26, for as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the

Lord's death until he comes. So this is why it's so vitally important that the

Corinthian church not get the Lord's supper wrong. Because if they do, if they work out in visual active fashion, the

Lord's supper in a way that is profaning and blasphemous, then they're guilty of that action.

And that's a very severe chastisement and judgment that Paul talks about in regards to that. As much as if somebody were preaching a false gospel.

And I think that when we consider baptism, we find the same declarative function in that we are baptized, note, in the name of the

Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Sometimes it is summed up and shortened as in the name of Jesus Christ.

Well, there's meaning to the name of God. There is meaning to the name of Jesus Christ. The name of God stands for all who he is and all that he has done.

So there is a declarative function going on in this ordinance. So when we consider the nature of what's happening in the water, what's happening at the table, that declaration of the gospel of Jesus Christ is going on, that remembrance is to be activated, that instruction is being given,

I think this falls under the heading of presenting and giving a message to the church.

So to me, that therefore falls under the heading of the instructions that we have in scripture about proper order of worship of who is supposed to be giving the message.

Right, because whoever's giving the message is standing in for somebody else, right? So just like the bread and the wine, they stand in as representation of body and blood.

Whoever's doing the baptizing stands in for something else, right? That there's a meaning to whoever's baptizing, like you were talking about earlier.

There's a meaning behind the message of each character there. Yeah, and I think definitely it's meaningful.

Again, we believe in the priesthood of all believers, so any one of us can get on our knees and pray to God immediately, right?

We don't have to go through somebody else. Nobody at our church should feel the need to have to come to my office, confess sins to me, and go directly to Christ, and go directly to the

Father, by the Spirit through the Son, and that's what it means in the priesthood of believers, in the most practical, most immediate sense, okay?

But what instructions have we been given in the Bible about who is to be teaching and preaching in the church?

That's my main, I guess, question in my mind when we talk about baptism in general. The person doing the baptizing, that action, are they preaching the gospel visually by doing that?

That's a question I'll just throw out there. Yeah, and that's a good question because it's so often just stated as kind of an observed fact that the,

I'm gonna put it this way, there was a great book that was written, came out of Nine Marks and Endeavor, and then someone,

Paul Alexander, I think, wrote a book called Deliberate Church, well over a decade ago, and in Deliberate Church, what they wanted to talk about was the way we do church has to be centered around the

Word of God, right? So Jesus is the head of the church. He has all the authority. It's not about a preacher or a body of elders having the authority, let alone a matriarch or a patriarch kind of running things behind the scenes.

We are to do church deliberately submitting to the scepter of Christ's lordship, which is

His Word, and therefore, everything in the life of the church should be deliberately thus.

We are to preach the Word, we are to read the Word, we are to hear the Word, we are to sing the Word, pray the

Word, and then what about the ordinances? It see the Word, right?

We're seeing something that is declaring the truth of the gospel, the truth of God's Word.

Yeah, and it would seem like you're saying in this statement, I baptize you in the name of, oftentimes, men seem to stand, not in the place of, but like with the command, husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church.

We're supposed to be that example. And in the question, it says, is there an issue of authority here if a woman baptizes a man?

I had the question, is there any commanding, admonishing, or practicing authority over anyone in the act of baptism?

And you're declaring in the name of, so you're standing as someone who is declaring this over the person?

Yeah, absolutely. Because it's not only about authority to the person that you're baptizing, because what you're doing, you're supposed to be, whoever is standing in the pulpit on any given

Sunday is not, I hear people praying for me this way all the time, and I understand the sentiment, and I appreciate it.

But when they pray that God will help me share with everybody what's on my heart,

I better not. You don't wanna know what's on my heart. Yeah, yeah. As long as you're responding, the heart is a sleepfully wicked, and you're good to go.

That's the Calvinist in me. But again, I should be meditating.

I should be meditating and full of meditations upon God's word and what it has to say. But I'm in a position there, only as the servant of Christ, the body has many different parts, all kind of doing what their role is.

If I'm gonna stand up in front of people and declare the word of God, I could only do that because, number one,

God has given me the grace to do it, but also, God has established that role for me to do,

I have to be according to what qualifiers he's given. So he has said in his word what a pastor is or what a preacher is or what a teacher is and how preaching and teaching is to be done inside the church.

And the instructions that we have in the word of God are pretty clear, that those who teach, first of all, in the church are to be men and that women are not to exercise authority over a man in the life of the church.

And the reasons given by Paul, both in Timothy and Corinthians, are rooted in creation, rooted in family design, rooted in God's good provision of the variety of roles in the interest of proper order, in the interest of maximal good to the body of Christ.

He's looking after us in this and we need to trust that our Heavenly Father knows how things are supposed to happen amongst us.

The question here about, can a woman baptize somebody else in front of the whole church? Not just baptize a man, but even baptizing another woman in front of the whole church, she's standing in the position of declaring something.

She's standing in the position of declaring authoritatively what the gospel is. And the same goes when we get to the

Lord's Supper. Serving the Lord's Supper, so on and so forth, talking about what it means, drawing everyone's attention biblically to communion and what's going on here, that would be the very same thing.

So if you have women baptizing in your church, then they should be able to serve the Lord's Supper in your church, I think by principle.

I don't see that as the emphasis in the scriptures. So I would say that it's probably less than 100 % clear, but I would say everything leans the other way.

You mentioned earlier the priesthood of the believers. Yes. I think some might quibble with this and you're saying priesthood of the men by making the statement.

But even when you go back to the priesthood, you have a hierarchy there. You have a high priest and you have other priests and they didn't all have the same role.

They did different things. So this is in no way negating priesthood of the believers, but it does demonstrate that there are different roles.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it's not some sort of monolith as soon as we all have some status in Christ that means that there's absolutely no difference between us.

Well, when we're talking about the priesthood of all believers, aren't we talking about access to the throne of God as well and not necessarily order of worship?

Is that different? Well, the idea of a priest in its essence is gonna be a mediatorial office.

So when we think of someone being a priest, you understand that you're standing in between.

That's the whole idea of a priest. And truly the same with prophet and king. King mediating the authority of God to those to whom he's made steward over.

The prophet mediating the truth of God to those he has been put in front of. And the priest mediating the holiness of God among those with whom he lives.

And in this, when we think about the priesthood of all believers, we get that language from a variety of sources in scripture, but we certainly see it in Peter, in 1

Peter. We also are assured of the Holy Spirit's active, empowering, equipping life in all believers.

When we consider, as you've already been pointing out, there was a diversity in the priesthood in the Old Testament, that's a signal that there's a diversity of the priesthood in the

New Testament as well, which we're told. There's a body, there's different parts of the body. They do different things.

And I am very grateful for the, and here's a really bad new word, priestessly actions, for instance, there are several women in our church who are interceding all the time, just praying to God for people who are in need, people who are hurting.

They do all manner of things that accord with being a priest. And to say that somehow that's denigrated or that's to be seen as inadequate because they can't baptize somebody or serve the

Lord's Supper or stand in the pulpit and preach, to say that because they can't do those things in the name of proper order, that the rest of everything else that they can do and God has equipped them to do and that they're very, very gifted at, to say that that's worthless in light of role distinction,

I think is a misnomer. Yeah, it's a category error, right? Because the priesthood of all believers, we're talking about something altogether different than the roles in proper order of worship.

Yeah, they work together in harmony, right? So not everybody does the same thing.

We get told that a lot in the Bible. But that's always the argument that comes up, right? Like the priesthood of all believers, that's kind of, they use it as like the trump card every time this should work.

That is a signal of the infection of paganism where everything has to be one, where there can't be any kind of distinctions.

Right, everything is just leveled out. Exactly. So again, it makes sense that a young woman without a

Christian background being led to the Lord and discipled by a lady at this church would instinctively want this important person in her life to baptize her.

And it's understandable that a church rejoicing in the saving of this lost sheep brought into the fold would want to see this meaningful moment play out in this young lady's life and to nurture that discipling relationship going on.

But yet, I think we can recognize that there is a discipleship opportunity here that is lost about this young woman's need to be brought into the fold of the whole church and the authority of the elders and how beneficial it will be for her long -term.

And again, I don't think it's like a tragic error, but that's where I would land. And so the way you would pitch that to that young lady would be, we understand the sentiment and we fully get why you would want her to baptize you, but we want to please

Jesus in what we're doing here rather than please you. And you should want that too, right?

We're kind of like pushing her towards that era, but that's what we're looking at, right?

And I would think that in this case, you would have a discipleship chain that would need to take place where the elders being the shepherds and foreseeing some things that needed to happen needed to be discipling the discipler and helping that woman understand where you need to help this young lady towards regarding her baptism and so on.

And here's the good of it. Here's the goal of it, because we desire for things to be in proper order and we think that this is an opportunity to help even more firmly establish her in the faith.

Well, I think we about wrap that up for today. Michael, do you want to start us off with what are we thankful for? I am thankful for calamine lotion.

Amen. Yeah, yeah. You're rocking it, why? Yes, because I'm covered in poison ivy.

But I'm thankful for calamine lotion, good old fashioned pink goo that dries wonderfully and turns itching into stinging that I can bear.

Praise God. Kyle. I'm thankful for God maturing my kids over the years.

Today happens to be October 24th and it's the day right between two of my boys' birthdays.

And so Hudson had his 15th birthday yesterday and tomorrow we're looking forward to celebrating Luke's seventh birthday.

So had a lot of opportunity over the course of the past day and even week to just kind of think back and Holly and I talking and reminiscing over how the

Lord has answered prayer for them in their lives. And we continue just to have faith in that regard.

So thankful for God's faithfulness to my kids. Amen to that. Chris, what about you?

And how about you introduce yourself since we just had a new voice pop in on the podcast. Tell us who you are.

I'm Chris Kiesler. I'm a member here at Sunnyside and I'm glad to be here and a part of this first time.

It's pretty exciting. I think I would be grateful for answered prayers that God hears us in the big prayers and then also in specifics and how he answers those prayers, things that maybe you had on your mind but you didn't specifically ask for because you've got this list.

Like, well, I've asked him for enough. And then he goes ahead and answers those concerns that you had. So I'm just grateful for his thoughtfulness in answering prayer.

Amen to that. Oh, I'm thankful for the season that we're in, the autumnal season, the rain that we've got today that we've been needing so sorely, especially during the growing season.

But I'm not gonna be bitter about it. I had loads of rain to watch today and I enjoyed it.

We're very thankful for the change in season and all the cold and flannel that it's gonna bring because that's all

I walk around in from about November to March is a flannel. So good luck catching me in anything else.

And that wraps it up for today. We are very thankful for our listeners and hope you will join us again as we meet to answer common questions and objections with Have You Not Read?