The Voice Of One Crying Out In Suburbia

More from Piper on baptism

The second sermon from Dr. Piper on baptism and church membership is available online here. It is a good summary of the biblical doctrine of believer's baptism, but he still ends with a question about admitting people into church membership who have not been Biblically baptized.

So now after two sermons, we have two things that are important. Baptism is important. And the nature of the local church as a sacred expression of the universal body of Christ is important.

Failing to be baptized is serious. Excluding genuine believers from the local church is serious.

There are godly, Bible-believing, Christ-exalting, God-centered followers of Jesus who fail to see the dreadfulness of not being baptized as a believer. And there are godly, Bible-believing, Christ-exalting, God-centered followers of Jesus who fail to see the dreadfulness of excluding such people from church membership.

The question we should ask is not only hard to answer, but it is hard to formulate. Perhaps the Lord in his mercy will show us how to do both in a way that will cut this knot for his glory. May the Lord grant a wisdom like Solomon’s or, even better, a wisdom like the One who is greater than Solomon.

To his credit, Piper does reject categorically infant bapstism. A good summary of his points were published on the Desiring God blog...

The drama of baptism gets its meaning from the gospel.

It pictures the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. It's not mainly about ritual or tradition but Jesus and his magnificent saving work of dying for sinners and rising again in triumph.

Baptism is:

a command of Jesus,
that expresses union with him,
by immersion in water,
in the name of the Father, Son, and Spirit,
for believers only.

A sense of the continuity of the old and new covenants leads some people to baptize infants. But the argument for infant baptism doesn't work textually or covenantally.

Textually, the apostle Paul makes plain that baptism is for those who have been raised with Jesus through faith (Col. 2:12) and are sons of God through faith (Gal. 3:26–27). Baptism is not for those who don't have faith in Jesus—whether adult unbelievers or infants.

Covenantally, while the old-covenant sign of circumcision was administered to males after their physical birth into the national people of God, the new-covenant sign of baptism is to be administered to both males and females after their spiritual birth into the international people of God. New birth by the gospel now provides entrance into the people of God, not physical birth, and is marked by believer baptism, not circumcision.

I pray that the elders of Bethlehem Bapist continue to insist on obedience to the Gospel command and admit into the body only those who submit to Biblical baptism.