"Brothers, Magnify the Meaning of Baptism" -John Piper

I've been reading Piper's Brother's, We Are NOT Professionals. I just came to the chapter titled as my above title reads. I'm not going to talk much about how Piper's current position on baptism actually contradicts magnifying baptism (there has been enough said about that), but rather, I'm going to comment on something Piper talked about.

His professor, Leonhard Goppelt, argued from Romans 6 against only believer's baptism. Piper writes

[Romans 6] was Professor Goppelt's favorite weapon, because it contains not a word about faith or about any conscious response to God until verse 11; and there the response came after baptism. So he used Romans 6 as a defense that the essential meaning of baptism does not involve prior faith. I think most would agree that this text is not decisive for either view--except that it points toward immersion as the normal mode in the early church (we were buried with Him through baptism).

There is a real problem with Professor Goppelt's argument, however. In fact, his argument inadvertantly leads to an (unrealized) anathema heresy. (Because this is not explicit, but rather paedobaptists believe that one must believe in Christ to be saved, I am NOT suggesting that they are not saved because they are paedobaptists--rather, they have a fallacy that they thankfully hold).

Romans 6:1-11, though it does not specifically speak of believing in Christ, it does say "all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death[.] Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walkk in newness of life. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we beleive that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. EVEN SO CONSIDER YOURSELVES TO BE DEAD TO SIN, BUT ALIVE TO GOD IN CHRIST JESUS."

This text is speaking of those who are united to Christ (v.5). We are united to Him in baptism in this way: we are united to Him in His death and His resurrection (quite explicitly in the text). In being united to Christ, we take part in His death (He tastes death on our behalf) and we take part in His resurrection (He raises, and so we do to)--He has eternal life, and so do we in union with Him.

The problem with Professor Goppelt's argument is that it teaches salvation without faith in Christ. The text says that those who are baptized (Prof. Goppelt believes in baptizing infants) are baptized into Christ's death (He takes their penalty), and that they are thus raised with Christ (they have eternal life--"if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection," and "If we have died with CHrist, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again").

Thus, to argue upon this text for infant baptism, one is actually arguing that infants are saved, that is, regenerated in baptism. It doesn't matter if they come to believe in Christ. Why? Because they have died with Christ, and thus they are raised with Christ--they have eternal life. Those who have participated in Christ's death and resurrection are saved--that is why Christ died and rose again. Romans 6 explictly teaches this!

But the problem with the paedobaptist view is that it neglects to see that faith is mentioned (implicitly) in the text: "we have become united with Him." How does one become united with Christ? Through repentance and faith.

As Peter tells us, "Baptism now saves you." But it is not physical baptism, but rather what phystical baptism signifies: "an appeal to God for a good conscience." Baptism is the act of being identified with Christ, and salvation comes through our death (immersion into the waters of God's wrath--God's wrath is removed at the cross in Christ's baptism there (cf. Colossians 2:11-12), we take part in Christ's baptism through faith); and not only through His death and ours, but "through the resurrection of Jesus Christ" (when we rise from the immersion in water, we are confessing our trust that we are raised to newness of life in/with Christ) (1 Peter 3:21). It is not the removal of dirt from the body that saves us, but that we are brought through the flood waters of God's wrath, just as Noah and his family were, in the ark.

We baptize believers because, in the days of the New Covenant in Christ, "they will not say again, 'the fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge.' But everyone will die for his own iniquity; each man who eats the sour grapes, his teeth will be set on edge" (Jeremiah 31:29-30). In other words, a person will not be responsible for the sins of his parents, but for his own. Or, to take it to its full meaning in redemptive history, a person is not considered a member of the covenant people of God on accout of his/her parents (cf. John 1:12-13), but rather on accout of his/her own belief. Jeremiah says this: God says, "But this is the covenant [the new covenant in Christ's blood] which I will make with the house of Israel after those days...I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. 'They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them...for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.'" (Jer. 31:31-34).

God's covenant in Christ is with those who "know the LORD." This is what Jer. 31:29-30 is teaching. They are His people, and all who are members of this covenant know God, and thus their sins are forgiven. What is the sign of the covenant? Baptism. So who is to be baptized? The members of the covenant--believers in Christ. Who are baptized? Those who have believed in Christ and have been immersed (baptized) in the name of the Triune God (Matt. 28:18-20). It is a command: "Repent and be baptized"--turn from your sinful ways, and be identified with Christ in His death and resurrection.