A Baptist Reflection on Baptism
Part 1 - Introduction

Irby Wallace

April 6,2025

As a lifelong Southern Baptist, when I study the scriptures around baptism, I come away with a lot of questions. I have really struggled to find suitable answers to these questions from Southern Baptist sources. The typical Southern Baptist’s theology of baptism can be summed up as the following statements:

1. Baptism is only for those who have trusted in Christ Jesus through faith.
2. Baptism is by immersion.
3. Baptism is the prerequisite to church membership and the Lord’s Supper.
4. Baptism is an outward sign of an inward reality which God is working in the believer.
5. Baptism is a public confession of the salvation God has worked upon us.
6. Baptism is an act of obedience to Jesus Christ.
7. Baptism is a symbol that signifies our being united with Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection.

Though my own views may be nuanced differently in a few areas, my issue is not that I disagree with these statements, but that scripture teaches a deeper understanding about baptism than currently held in many Southern Baptist churches. Our explanations of baptism are not incorrect, but they are incomplete.

When Southern Baptists talk about the scriptural verses regarding baptism, we tend to outright deny what seems to be a plain reading of text. We remove any trace of water which might be present making passages to be references to the baptism of the Holy Spirit. In other passages, we force baptism to become mere symbolism where the ordinance seems to actively do something for us. Baptists care deeply for God’s Word and want to glorify God in their beliefs, but the answers given to the scriptural passages about baptism seem to be shaped by Southern Baptist doctrine rather than allowing our doctrine to be shaped by scripture. Through past centuries, Baptism seems to have become one of our major theological blind spots.

We also disregard the views of baptism throughout Church History, even our own Baptist History. History is not a very strong source to turn to for most modern Baptists because we do not know our own history. However, we can benefit greatly from the believers who came before us. We do not live in a vacuum, and the Holy Spirit has worked through two thousand years of faithful Christians to explain the doctrines of our faith.

What has happened to cause us to reject Church History and to deny a deeper understanding of baptism? We have become so anti-Catholic in our theology that we have over-corrected. We do (and should) reject the Roman Catholic teaching of baptismal regeneration which teaches that original sin is removed from us through the waters of baptism causing our regeneration to righteousness. The denial of saving justification in baptism and the propitiatory sacrifice of the Lord’s Supper were two of the major doctrinal debates in the Reformation. The Reformers believed that it was by faith alone that we are made righteous in Christ and that the ordinances could not add to the work of making us righteous that Christ had completed through faith. However, the Reformers still taught the ordinances as means of grace and the saving works of God, views which Baptists continued to believe after the Reformation. Modern Baptists have gone beyond the Reformation and done away with the work of God in the ordinances altogether. Where Rome took the work of God in baptism too far, we have gone too far in the other direction by removing God’s work.

John Calvin gives two definitions of the ordinances of God.[1] The first is that an ordinance is “an external sign, by which the Lord seals on our consciences his promises of good will toward us, in order to sustain the weakness of our faith, and we in our turn testify our piety toward him, both before himself, and before angels as well as men.”[2] The second is a shorter definition which says that an ordinance is “a testimony of the divine favor toward us, confirmed by an external sign, with a corresponding attestation of our faith toward him.”[3] Both definitions are beautiful explanations of the wonderful gifts God has given us in both baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Due to our shallow views on baptism, Southern Baptists completely miss the mighty work God is accomplishing in the water which God has given us to strengthen our faith.

In this series of essays, I am going work out my theology of baptism in writing as I look at the various New Testament passages speaking to baptism. You may not agree with me, but I hope these studies on baptism will enrich your faith and give you even more reason to glorify God for the good things He has given us. I would love to hear your thoughts on these essays. What I seek is to have correct theology that brings glory to God and greater understanding to His people as they live for His glory. The only way for us to accomplish this is to have charitable conversation as brothers and sisters in Christ.

[1] Calvin uses the word “sacrament” in his writings, but I am choosing to use “ordinances” for now because I understand the sensitivity around that word. In a later essay, I will speak to the Baptist sacramental view of baptism.

[2] Calvin, John, Institutes of the Christian Religion (Hendrickson Publishers, 2008), 843.

[3] Calvin, Institutes, 843.