The proper administrator for Baptism

I'm okay with that. From whom did you get permission to baptize?

We had a girl in our church whose parents ask if a former pastor could baptize her. The church voted okay.

Do you require the 'baptizer" to be a member of your church? Or can it be any church? Who decided this. The church? Your pastor? You? Somebody had to give their approval to this practice. Just wondering where such authority came from.

 

What does this have to do with the authority to baptize? Where in the New Testament do we have any priest performing baptism on a believer; and where in the NT do we find such authority for the priests to baptize?

Jesus, the ultimate Priest, High Priest, never baptized.

 

We had a pastor of a sister church baptize three new converts of his own church, in our building. That is because his building doesn't have a baptistry. But I doubt if anyone would object to that.

 

Get permission! :laugh: If I were stranded in the middle of the desert with with a another person and I witnessed to him, and he believed and accepted Christ... and he asked to be baptized before we perished...and if all I had was my own spit I would prayfully use it across his forehead and he would be just as baptized as IF SOMEONE IN "AUTHORITY" FROM TOM BUTLER'S VERY OWN CHURCH HAD GIVEN ME PERMISSION TO DO SO! :laugh: So there! :laugh:

 

Do you mean he would perish spiritually, if he was going to perish physically if he wasn't baptized? I know the RCC believe that, but.....??

 

No, I mean if he asked/wished to baptized before he physically perished. I would not deny him...and it would be a real baptism. Now, the RCC wouldn't buy that I had the "authority" to do that...do you believe the same as them?

 

I believe all things should be done decently and in order and God is pleased in that.
Secondly, I believe that the ordinance of baptism is given to the local church and not individuals. Therefore if one is not there who has been given the authority by the local church to baptize I would not baptize. Remember the thief on the cross was not baptized. I don't believe he would lose any reward for not being baptized or you would lose any reward for not baptizing him.

I wasn't baptized until two years after I was saved. I never doubted my salvation. I was mixed up in an interdenominational organization that never stressed the necessity of baptism and therefore was never brought up as anything that one needed to pay attention to. I wasn't even a member of a local church during that period of time.

 

Well, let's see how that would work. Your new convert and you are out in the desert and he says to you "Gee, I want to be baptized, but there's no water around."

You reply, "No problem, a little spit will do ya."

You rub the spit across his forehead and say "I immerse you in spit in the name of.....etc."

Now, let's say, just for discussion's sake that before you headed for the desert, you sought permission to baptize any converts; they happily agreed.

So you return to your home church and tell them your story.

"Gee, guys, I woulda dunked him, but there was no water available, so I just rubbed some spit on his forehead. That'll work won't it?"

You continue: "I know, I know that baptize means to immerse. But I couldn't immerse because there was no water. What was I to do?"

Let's say they didn't approve. Your response would be, "Look, I'm a believer and a priest and that means I don't need either your permission or your approval. I'll baptize whoever I want to, any way I want to, anywhere I want to. So there."

Ah, you say, I'm putting words in your mouth. So I am. So you tell me what you would say.

 

Benjamin got bent out of shape when I asked the question "From whom did you receive permission to baptize?"

You have hit on the answer: First, decently and in order. Second, it's an ordinance given to the church, not individuals.

What happens if you have more than one person who wants to baptize a new convert? What if a member simply gets up and says "I wanna dunk him." Another says "Naw, I wanna do it."

The first guy walks up the steps down into the baptistry, pushes the pastor out of the way, graves the baptizee by the scruff of the neck and pushes him under (saying the proper words at the same time).

The pastor floats to the surface, sputters and spits and says "What in the world are you doing!!?"

The first guy says, "why, I'm exercising my right as a believer to baptize. Jesus gave me the right."

The second guy arrives at the baptistry and he's not happy. He wanted to baptize, but the first guy outmaneuvered him and got there first. "I'm gonna do the next one, so step aside."

Now, I made this up to make DHK's point of decency and order. For order's sake, somebody has to decide. Nobody would really do this, would they? Benjamin?

The other point is, by claiming Jesus' Commission as your authority to baptize, you have conceded the necessity of authority. Now, we'll argue from whom the authority comes.

 

Butler, first, you've may remember a discussion with Brandon Jones about the meanings/significance of baptism; I believe similar to him (that the experience is more than simply an ordinance) therefore that is one reason I would not deny a believer that wished to be baptized... now.

Second, I don't believe in any specific power in the water, or how it is administered will make a difference of if a person recieves (whatever you believe he recieves, doesn't recieve, that it is just a local church ordinance act...whatever) but I do believe in the power of the HS and only One Mediator between me and God and what the Word tells me about access to Him.

So obviously, I also don't believe the same way you do about the church and I certainly don't recognize any authority there in your building that I would feel obligated to "ask your permission" for anything.

So, I'm afraid you simply wouldn't understand how I see the baptism working and I will certainly never understand what makes you think I would need to bow to your (or a local church) authority to fullfil the GC.

edit: BTW, I know DHK's view on the church, he is a dispensationalist, I am not and don't time to begin that battle, and as far as I know you are not a dispensationalist but just to say if we did go there (this area) I don't see your local churchthingy holding water at all without you holding to dispensationalism. Seems to me you have picked an allie out of convenience on this one, but would have big problems if we time to go through all this.

 

Benjamin, I'm sorry I don't remember the Brandon Jones discussion. It's my advanced age. I can remember events of 50 years ago, but not events of last month. So feel free to refresh my memory.

The fact that you do not believe baptism is a local church ordinance explains the basis for your Lone Ranger view of baptism. I hope that my view that it is a local church ordinance will help explain my opinion.

Speaking of bowing to authority, you may not think you need to do so, but if you visit my church (or thousands of other Baptist churches), you will indeed need specific permission baptize their new converts. Even our pastor could not baptize in our church without specific authority from the congregation.

You my test my view by walking into your own church tomorrow and telling your pastor you intend to baptize the next convert. Let me know what his reaction is. If he says no, be sure to tell him you need neither his permission nor that of the church. Let the Baptist Board folks know how it comes out.

 

Here is some, sorry don't have the links:

 

Okay, friend, thanks for the refresher.

If you agree with Brandon on communion, it helps explain your view of baptism.

 

See Butler, this is where we are so far apart, the converts don't belong to "them" and neither does the authority.

 

Read his first sentence in the first quote I gave you. He is giving more than a veiw on communion.

 

So he doesn't see sacraments as having saving efficacy. Interesting, because just about every faith group I know which calls them sacraments do assign saving efficacy to them, or call them a "means of grace."

He seems to have redefined the word to make it more palatable to Baptists.

So I read the refresher posts. Now refresh my memory as to your point. Old age is a wonderful excuse for not remembering.

 

One, I'm not going pick up BJ's argument all over again here (which BTW, I think you got your Butler kic...err ...Nevermind... ) because seems how you say you don't remember these things and by my previous observations of you constantly repeating things that have already been answered, as if you haven't heard it before... (remember when I told you that before?) ... like when he said words to the effect that Baptist have moved away from the deeper meanings in baptism to avoid reference to RCC and cannot "palate" anything more than it being an ordinance. Enough of this...


Two, don't use that excuse too often, some might begin to believe it is being used as a cover-up for some poor behavior while trying to impress the audience with little persuasive inserts that have been hashed out in detail many times before and ignoring past discussions in a disingenuous way.

Three, here's the point:
(I'll highlight it for you, cuz I got empathy for your situation...:saint

 

Benjamin,
You said:

I don't understand your position here. You first say that you don't believe that there is any specific power in the water, or in how it is administered, etc. But then you say, "I do believe in the power of the HS...and what the Word tells me about access to Him."

What does the Holy Spirit have to do with baptism, the water, who administrated it, etc.?

In any Baptist Polity book, or book that teaches Baptist distinctives, one would find this distinctive:
Baptists believe that there are two ordinances given to the local church: baptism and the Lord's Supper.
That distinctive has been standard fare for Baptists throughout centuries.

We use the word "ordinance" because the word "ordinance" as in the ordinances of a city simply means command. The Lord commanded it; we obey it. It is the first command of obedience that a believer should do after he is saved. Thus we do not use the word sacrament which does have the meaning "means of grace." There is no grace that can come through the ordinance of baptism.

What does baptism do for a person?
It gets him wet. That is all.
It is obedience to a command.

The significance is in the symbolism of obeying the command, in that it pictures the death of a believer to his old life and his resurrection to a new life in Christ. It is purely symbolic. It is not a means of grace, and thus the word sacrament should not be used. It is an ordinance, a command to be obeyed, and one that has symbolic meaning.

 

DHK, we’ll have to disagree on baptism being mere naked symbolism in an ordinance as well as the uniformity of belief involving Baptist polity. This is another topic that not only do I not have time for but it has been discussed here before (Tom Butler, seems to have forgotten) by someone with more knowledge about the Baptist history (some sources and scriptures listed below) and is more articulate about the subject of a “means of grace/not salvific but another kind of grace” than I can be without doing a lot of homework that I don’t have the time for now to open another tread and discuss.

 

Whew! I am so relieved. I thought I was the only one who didn't understand what Benjamin was saying.