What Augustine’s Baptism Can Teach Our Churches
— Tuesday, May 1st, 2012 —
I just finished reading a remarkable little book, Font of Life: Ambrose, Augustine, and the Mystery of Baptism, by Garry Wills (Oxford University Press). I’ll admit that I started the book with a bit of misplaced Baptist triumphalism, and ended it with a bit of a chastened longing.
First, for my confession of bravado. Wills, a liberal Catholic, spends an inordinate amount of time discussing the baptistry in Milan where Augustine was baptized, and the means by which the man from Africa and others were baptized into the Christian faith. The baptistry, now known to scholars, was a pool, and the candidates were, Wills offers nonchalantly, immersed fully into the water.
I say nonchalantly because, of course, Wills as a Roman Catholic isn’t trying to defend infant baptism or sprinkling or any such thing, and because there’s really no dispute about immersion as an ancient pattern of baptism. The Roman church has never denied such a thing, and Luther and Calvin (among many others) acknowledged it. They simply dispute that immersion is of the essence of baptism and thus normative for believers in all places and at all times. That debate goes on, and will for the foreseeable future.
But, as a Southern Baptist, there’s something genetic in me that wants to see Augustine’s immersion, claim him as one of ours, sign him up for Centrifuge, and so on.
Once that spell was lifted, though, I found myself rejoicing in the care with which Ambrose took in preparing candidates for baptism. Wills, pooling together the primary sources, demonstrates the Bishop’s exhaustive preparatory training of his candidates for baptism. This wasn’t a “new members’ class” or some set of hurdles to jump. Instead, Ambrose initiated them into the secrets of the faith as they moved toward the baptistry. Ambrose expected the candidates to memorize the Creed, not to show that they “meant business” but in order to show that they were now entrusted with a glorious mystery of the faith, expected to preserve this for the next generation.
Moreover, Ambrose took the moment of baptism as itself a teaching exercise, showing how in baptism the whole of redemptive history centers on Christ in his death, burial, and resurrection. He showed them the typological themes of redemption through judgment in the Flood, in the Red Sea Exodus, in the crossing of Jordan, and, of course, in the baptism of the Lord Jesus himself. This way of reading the Bible, Wills argues, formed the core of Augustine’s own method of biblical interpretation. He learned it, Wills contends, not in a classroom but in a baptistry.
In a day when, at least in my circles, baptism has become reduced to merely the person’s individual testimony, we ought to recover the drama of baptism as placing us in the story of Christ, a story told ahead of time in countless canonical life-stories and told, in the water, in our own life-story: death, burial, and resurrection as we are joined to the life of Another. And, of this Other, the voice of God himself once thundered over his wet head (and, yes I would argue, his entirely wet body, but, again, that’s another debate): “You are my beloved Son, and with you I am well-pleased.”
For years, I’ve urged people to properly interpret the Scripture the way the prophets and apostles do: first in light of Christ, and only then applied to those who are found in him. I wonder whether we miss this first in the baptismal waters, even before we miss it in our Sunday School classes and Lord’s Day sermons.
Wills argues that Augustine kept Ambrose’s biblical typology, but altered baptism to a more sacerdotal, and less pedagogical, matter, in light of his controversies with the Pelagians and the Donatists. That’s highly debatable and questionable. But, even apart from that, I wonder if even we Baptists ought to reflect on that pool in Milan and give thanks to God for giving us the perilous, watery drama of baptism. And, as we do so, we ought to protect this gift, this sign of the kingdom, for future generations.
The gospel speaks, yes. The gospel sings. But the gospel splashes too.
16 Responses to “What Augustine’s Baptism Can Teach Our Churches”
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you might find this quote meaningful from St. Ambrose concerning ‘baptism’:
““See where you are baptized,
see where Baptism comes from,
if not from the cross of Christ, from His death.
There is the whole mystery:
He died for you.
In Him you are redeemed,
in Him you are saved “
( St. Ambrose)
I have thought for a long time that as Baptists, we sure don’t make a very big deal in our churches about being baptized - most of the time the “profession of faith” is a much more celebrated event.
I remember hearing a former IMB missionary to China talking about their baptisms in bathtubs, and how when they were baptized, it was a serious moment, because they might very well die because of the choice.
Love the delve into church history! Thanks!
Augustine, looking back on his life, wished he would have been taught these things sooner, when there was opportunity, but instead his baptism was pushed off.
From Augustine’s “Confessions”:
“My cleansing was therefore deferred on the pretext that if I lived I would inevitably soil myself again, for it was held that the guilt of sinful defilement incurred after the laver of baptism was graver and more perilous…
…Why is it that we still hear nowadays people saying on all sides of another person, “Let him be, let him do as he likes, he is not baptized yet”? Where bodily health is at stake we do not say, “Let him be, let him go on injuring himself, he is not cured yet.” How much better it would have been if I had been healed at once, and if everything had been done by my own efforts and those of my family to ensure that the good health my soul had received should be kept safe in the care of you who had given it. Yes, how much better it would have been!”
We must make discipleship a priority in baptism instead of using baptism as simply a means to increase our church roster, and we must utilize every opportunity God gives us to do so.
long time subscriber, few times commenter.
just wanted to take a moment to tell you i particularly enjoyed this post. as a church of Christer, i always appreciate teaching on baptism which presents it as more than a command to be fulfilled.
i often teach baptism as a play in which the performer acts out the story of Jesus Christ, publicly proclaims it to be true, and declares to all that it is, too, his story. baptism is a play about two deaths, two burials, and two resurrections.
@JamesBrett, That’s profound. Thanks for sharing. My own people know that, very often, I am going to paraphrase 2 Cor 5:15: “Jesus died for us, therefore we must live for Him.” Baptism illustrates it.
An excellent post, Dr. Moore, and it would be wonderful to see baptism as more of a teaching exercise, of the enormous measure and weight of sin and the need of Christ’s redemptive work. Teaching like this is not something a church can do with a baby…
Too often, I see the act of baptism being minimized as just an act of obedience rather than a sacred event. We line folks up and run them through as if on an assembly line. Perhaps if we held it in greater esteem, my wife might see immersion differently, and she might be compelled to finally take this step rather than be offended that her infant baptism isn’t accepted in our church.
So when should we go ahead and propose a motion from the floor of the convention that our SBC churches (and baptismal candidates especially) be catechized?
Because we should. ;)
Just yesterday we baptized a young man in a cattle trough. As I lowered him into the water, symbolizing his burial with Jesus, how fitting it was that the trough’s shape reminded us all of a coffin.
Enjoyed the article. No baptism can give new life. Only the
power of God can do that. Romans 6:4 “Therefore we are buried
with Him by baptism into death:(many people will disagree, but
I’m convinced this is not a water baptism. Water baptism cannot
do what Paul is talking about here.) 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.” Now I understand we often quote this scripture when we baptize someone in the water.Paul does not say this is water baptism, I am convinced maybe contrary to to the way I was taught in my earlier years, this is Baptism of the Holy Spirit which comes with salvation. A baptism
that human hands cannot touch; it’s a baptism that a lost person can have no part in. In water baptism, we can never be sure of a person’s salvation. Paul in 1 Corinthians 12:12-13 referring to the Body of Christ. :For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body.” Paull writes to believers. What’s the next word? all
not just to a few, or a special elite but how many ? ALL .
I’m sorry but our roots are not found in Rome they are found in Israel. For the life of me I cannot understand why Augustine, Martyr, Luther etc are even considered to be church fathers. They were divisive, wrongly claimed that G-d was finished with the Jews, and were racist and filled with hate for G-d’s people. Because of the likes of these men we have stripped every piece of our Jewish heritage out and thus sanitized a Jewish Jesus. Men today with this sort of rhetoric would not even be considered a “Christian” let alone a church father and yet we in our Western culture have allowed it. It’s no wonder the Jews today want nothing to do with our so called “Christianity”. My friends, Jesus Christ came to finish an old religion…not start a new one.
@Buffie,
I would claim that the Bible states that we as Christians are the sons of God, and that those who reject Christ are of their father satan. The Gospel is offensive to the Jew and gentile alike, and I would be worried that we were preaching another Gospel if Jews really were not offended- by the message that is not the messenger.