Understanding Baptism by Jonathan Leeman & Bobby Jamieson

Author:Jonathan Leeman & Bobby Jamieson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Religion/Christian Ministry/Pastoral Resources
Publisher: B&H Publishing Group
Published: 2016-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 4

Why Is Baptism Required for Church Membership?

Some of you may be reading this book because you want to join a church and you have to be baptized in order to join. But why do churches require baptism for membership in the first place? Is that really a biblical practice? Won’t that exclude some true Christians from membership, since not all Christians agree about what counts as baptism?

This chapter addresses all these questions by presenting a biblical case for why baptism is required for church membership. To be clear, by “baptism” I mean the baptism of a believer, not an infant. As we saw in the previous chapter, infant “baptism” simply is not baptism.

This chapter is also addressed to church leaders, those who have the most immediate influence over whether their church will require baptism for membership. My goal is to persuade you that you should. I’ll make the case in seven steps, then address the strongest objection.7

Seven Reasons Why Baptism Is Required for Church Membership

There’s no proof-text that speaks directly and definitively to this issue. So in order to discern why baptism is required for church membership, we need to weigh up and weave together lots of biblical material. This chapter will get a bit technical at times, but the argument here simply deepens and unpacks the definition of baptism we explored in chapter 1. Here then are seven factors that, taken together, demonstrate that the Bible makes baptism a requirement for church membership.

1. Baptism is where faith goes public.

Remember the definition of baptism we set out in chapter 1: baptism is a church’s act of affirming and portraying a believer’s union with Christ by immersing him or her in water, and a believer’s act of publicly committing him or herself to Christ and his people, thereby uniting a believer to the church and marking off him or her from the world.

In other words, baptism is where faith goes public. The Christian life is a life of public witness to Christ (Matt. 10:32–33), and that witness begins at baptism. At Pentecost those converted by Peter’s preaching stepped out from the crowd, declaring allegiance to Christ as Lord and Savior by submitting to baptism (Acts 2:38–41). In baptism we “out” ourselves as Christians. We publicly identify with the crucified and resurrected Christ and with his people.

As we’ve seen, Jesus commanded his disciples to make disciples by preaching the gospel to them, baptizing them, and teaching them to obey everything he commanded (Matt. 28:19). So it’s no surprise that at Pentecost Peter commanded his hearers, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins” (Acts 2:38 esv). If you claim to follow Christ, this is the first of his commands that you must obey. After trusting Christ, baptism is the first thing a new believer does. If you haven’t been baptized, you’ve not yet crossed off the first item on Jesus’ discipleship to-do list.

Why is baptism required for church membership? Because baptism is where faith goes public.

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