Miscellaneous
Writings Vol. One
HOUSEHOLD BAPTISM.
WE enter now upon another inquiry, namely, as to the
subjects of baptism. There is question really only as to one point. We have
seen that in the Christian form of the kingdom, as distinct from the Jewish,
the national birthright title has failed with Israel's being (for the time)
Lo-Ammi. The scanty proselyte entrance of those days is become now the
rule,-discipling to the kingdom. But this raises immediate question: if in the
old form, the children of proselytes were circumcised with their parents, and
what we have called the grace of the law has become the rule in the kingdom of
grace, must not the families of proselytes be received still with them, as of
old they were, and the baptism of households be in this way the rule in
Christianity?
Here reasonings perhaps do not count for much; nor do we
desire them to count for more than they are worth; but it is well, surely, to
compare the past with the present, and trace, if we may, the substantial unity
of the divine plan all through. In the new form of the kingdom circumcision
drops out and baptism takes its place. In accordance with the larger grace of
the kingdom, male and female being but one in Christ, women are baptized as
well as men. What as to households?
In the meaning of baptism is there
any indication that families are to be shut out now, as they were formerly
admitted? Circumcision had been, in the person of the one who first received
it, a "seal of the righteousness of faith" (Rom. iv. ii); yet that did not
hinder its application to the thirteen-year-old Ishmael, nor to the
eight-day-old Isaac. Yet if baptism were a seal of life, a life now proclaimed
spiritual and eternal, there might be still difficulty. But it is burial, the
confession of death, and not of life, and so understood all is easy. Then
notice that circumcision is the "putting off of the body of the flesh" (Col.
ii. ii); the true circumcision "have no confidence in the flesh." (Phil. iii.
3.) How near this is to the "burial " of baptism! In both dispensations the
entrance into the kingdom of God is marked by the renunciation of self as
worthless, that He may have real supremacy.
That baptism is discipling
is no difficulty; for in a school in which Christ is Master, who can tell how
soon His grace may begin to teach? Of John the Baptist it was said, "He shall
be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother's womb." (Luke i. is.)
Finally, if baptism is the putting on of Christ, even this does not necessarily
imply any voluntary activity; for so it is said that "this corruptible puts on
incorruption, and this mortal immortality;" and man in dying puts off his
tabernacle.
Yet this is all only preparatory: we must have positive
Scripture if we are to go further. Here, then, the baptism of households comes
in to reassure us. In Acts xvi. we have Lydia and her household, the jailer and
all his, baptized. Of Lydia's household we have no certain knowledge; but the
baptism of her house is put as if it were part of her own faithfulness, which
she pleads: "A certain woman named Lydia heard us, whose heart the Lord opened;
and when she was baptized, and her household, she besought us saying, 'If ye
have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house.'" From the point
of view already indicated, one would certainly conclude that her household was
baptized upon her faith.
In the case of the jailer, who asks, "What must I
do to be saved?" Paul and Silas answer with the assurance, "Believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house." Here the salvation of
his house is clearly put as the normal result of his own believing. Nor have we
any thing of their faith in what follows, but only of his; though we are told
that "they spake unto him the word of the Lord, and to all that were in his
house." He was baptized, he and all his, straightway; and he rejoiced greatly,
with all his house,- but this is an adverb, "domestically," - having believed
in God. It is "he" rejoiced, "he" believed.
In chap. xviii. Crispus of
Corinth believes with all his house; and the expression is quite different.
To the Corinthians Paul writes his first epistle, learning of divisions
beginning among them, and thankful he had not baptized enough of them to form a
party for himself. "Were ye baptized unto the name of Paul? I thank God I
baptized none of you but Crispus and Gaius, lest any should say I had baptized
unto my own name. And I baptized also the household of Stephanas: for the rest,
I know not that I baptized any other." (i Cor. i. 14-16.) Now the common
thought is, that in the last statement Paul is correcting his first one. It was
not just the truth that he had baptized only two of the assembly. He had
baptized a family beside; perhaps more: he is not clear. But this would go some
way toward upsetting the very thing he was thankful for. If we look closer we
may find that there is no mistake at all. "None of you" is absolute, save
Crispus and Gaius. Too small a number to make a party in the assembly. But what
about the perhaps half-a-dozen more? They were not in the assembly; they were a
baptized household, in the kingdom only, And so if he had baptized even others
here, it was no matter at all. The distinction between household and
individual, kingdom and assembly, clears up the difficulty and gives absolute
consistency throughout.
However, we learn at the end of the same
epistle that the house of Stephanas had addicted themselves to the ministry of
the saints (chap. xvi. 15). Were these not in the assembly? Surely they were.
But is not here, then, a contradiction to the former statement, and a certain
proof that Stephanas' house were grown men ? Again, one must look more
narrowly; and then it will be found that the Spirit of God uses for this word
"house" or "household," two different words, although very near akin. Is it
without a purpose? I, for one, cannot think so. In the first chapter of the
epistle the word is olkos; in the last, oikia: differing only in the last two
letters, but still differing.
A difference in meaning has been
suggested by some, but which is not generally admitted, and must, therefore, be
scrutinized with the more care. Greek has many dialects, and New Testament or
Hellenistic Greek is not the classic. The Septuagint translation is well known
to be for the most part the storehouse of New Testament words. In it oikos
seems the word invariably used for a man's own family, the general thought
indeed where "house " is used for the inmates. But there are exceptions: "house
" seems also used in a wider sense, so as to include servants, and here we have
the use of oikia. Thus in "the eldest servant of { Abraham's] house," "house"
is olkia. And while at the passover they took every one a lamb according to the
oikos of their fathers, yet (because the servants ate it with their masters) it
is said, "a lamb for an "oikia," and "if the oikia be too little for the lamb."
When Joshua says, "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord," it is again
oikia: for those who serve him are to serve with him.
The passages, no
doubt, are very few in which the word is used; but the use is none the less
distinct, and in the New Testament it is exactly similar. Olkos is used for the
"house of Jacob," "of Israel," "of David," "of Judah," and in the baptismal
passages. Oikia is never used in this way. The lost rich man in hades would
send Lazarus to his father's house: it is oikos; for he has five brethren. The
bishop is to rule his own house (oikos) well, having his children in subjection
with all gravity. Noah prepared an ark to the saving of his house. And if five
in one house are divided (Luke xii. 52, 53), they are father and mother and son
and daughter and daughter-in-law.
Notice that Matthew and Mark speak of
a house divided against itself, and here it is oikia; but there is nothing
about the inmates in this way. Passages are much less numerous - again as in
the Septuagint,- but we are told that "the servant abideth not in the house
forever; and of him who left his house, and gave authority to his servants to
watch; and of the saints that are of Caesar's household - clearly not his
children; and under this word comes that household of Stephanas who have
addicted themselves to the ministry of the saints. Certainly in Scripture the
distinction is maintained, which being confirmed, makes all clear as to the
baptism of households. It is the family of the disciple that is baptized with
the head,- not the servants: a distinction which in itself suggests that the
relationship rules in this matter of reception into the kingdom in the
Christian as in the legal dispensation.
22. "OF SUCH IS THE
KINGDOM."
THIS might be by itself conclusive. It proves that there
was a class of the baptized, at least, outside the Church altogether,- that
baptism was not into the visible Church, and that the class consisted, in part
at least, of the families of believers. We can go further, however, and show by
the authority of the Lord Himself, that children belong to His kingdom. The
words we are all familiar with, but their significance has been greatly
disputed. It is, let us remind ourselves, when "there were brought unto Him
little children, that He might put His hands on them and pray; and the
disciples rebuked them. But Jesus said, 'Suffer little children to come unto
Me, and forbid them not; for of such is the kingdom of heaven.'"
Mark adds
that He was "much displeased ;" that He took them up in His arms, showing how
little they were, and that He added the solemn words, "Verily I say unto you
that whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall
in no wise enter therein." (Matt. xix. 13, Mark x. 13-16.)
This last
expression (which Matthew omits) is nevertheless believed by many to be the
gist of the whole matter. It is "of such" as children that the kingdom is, but
not of children themselves! We may well ask in wonder, Are not little children
"such as" little children? Or when the apostle, after naming certain sins,
declares that "they that do 'such' things shall not inherit the kingdom of
God," does he mean that people might commit those things, but not others like
them?
Why, too, should He give this as His reason for blessing those
children, that people who resembled them were fit for the kingdom?
But
one need not add arguments. We see at once now how this underlies the baptism
of households, which is really Christ's blessing perpetuated for those who
would still bring their children to Him and beseech His blessing. Here He
sanctions fully what they do, and gives the little ones a special place under
His own rule and teaching. We are thus bound, in Christianity, to bring them up
in the nurture (or discipline) and admonition of the Lord" (Eph. Vi. 4),- that
is, as disciples. For the word still holds, "Train up a child in the way he
should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." This is the
practical faith, which, acting on the promises of God, secures the
blessing.
And here we see why the Lord says "of such" simply. Not all
children can be discipled: not because He has not love and desire, but because,
if baptism imply such training, for the children of unbelievers it could mean
nothing. Faith alone could realize the blessing.
NOW ARE THEY
HOLY.
THUS we may see also why, going beyond the law, the children
even of a marriage where one remains an unbeliever can be called by the apostle
"holy." The words run thus (i Cor. vii. 13, 15) :- "And the woman that hath an
unbelieving husband, and if he be pleased to dwell with her, let her not leave
him. For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by ("in") the wife; and the
unbelieving wife is sanctified in the husband. Else were your children unclean,
but now are they holy."
The use of the word "unclean" explains the
corresponding word "holy." It is not vital holiness that he is thinking of, but
external position. According to the law the children of such a marriage could
claim none; but grace goes altogether beyond law. It is not said of the
unbeliever that he or she is "holy," as the child is; merely sanctified in the
believer. The child has an acknowledged place as " holy" or "clean;" and this
he takes to show that the marriage stands; for if the children were unclean,
the marriage itself would be. Baptism gives this acknowledged place, a place in
the kingdom of God, which under different forms runs through the
dispensations.
24. CONCLUSIONS.
IT remains only to add a
few brief remarks upon some points not formally taken up as yet, but which it
is hoped will not now present much difficulty.
As to the mode of
baptism, that it should be by immersion results from the primary meaning of the
word, connected with the thought of "burial" which we have plainly given to it.
Yet that even sprinklings are called "baptisms" in Hebrews destroys that
argument often made that only immersion can be called that. It is plain also
that the word is used in other places where there was none, as at the Red Sea,
and that the stress is laid not upon mode, but upon what it effects. It would
be impossible, I believe, to prove in any single instance that immersion was
the scriptural mode, much more to show that all depends upon this.
There is no command to all to be baptized, such as would render it imperative
that every believer should for himself fulfill it. The universal command is
only to the baptizer, leaving room for it to be differently applied in
different cases. "Whosoever believeth and is baptized shall be saved" is added
to the injunction to preach the gospel, which accounts for the form; but one
baptized in infancy and believing afterwards, has both these requisites. That
the force is on believing the gospel is plain by the close, that "he that
believeth not shall be damned." No one would apply this to children.
That
baptism is not into the church shows that it is not into the house of God,
which is the church. It shows also why a difference of judgment as to it cannot
exclude from the Lord's table, which is the sign of membership in the "one
body" of Christ. (i Cor. x.17.) Baptism is individual: the Lord's Supper, a
fellowship. May He give His people grace "to keep the unity of the Spirit in
the bond of peace."
HOUSEHOLD BAPTISM.
A REVIEW OF OBJECTIONS.
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