This article is from pages 18 and 19 of the June 2008 Pentecostal Herald.
The article is by Matthew Shaw, who is a librarian and teaches English at Ball State University. He serves as the minister of music at the United Pentecostal Church of New Castle, Indiana. His pastor is Jeffery y. Jaco.
Ancient Writings on the Efficacy of Baptism for the Remission of Sins
The Shepherd of Hermas, a second century apocalyptic work, supports both the notion of baptism by immersion and for spiritual cleansing: “[W]e went down into the water and obtained remission of our former sins.
Water baptism is the most ancient rite in Christianity, and the New Testament is replete with examples of baptism by immersion from John’s baptism of repentance in the River Jordan to the proselytes of the Apostles to the epistlary metaphors of baptism as burial with Christ (
Romans 6:4) and Noah’s ark (
1 Peter 3:20-21). While most Christian denominations observe some ordinance of baptism, the majority of Protestants reduce the act to a mere public profession of faith, decrying the doctrine of remission of sins in baptism as salvation by works rather than salvation by grace. In fact, neither biblical exegesis, nor history divides baptism from salvation. Patristical writings, which are non-canonical, post Apostolic epistles and apologetics, provide ample credence that early Christians universally accepted water baptism as the sole mode for remitting sins.
St. Clement, purportedly the same Clement named by Paul in Philippians, asks in a letter to the Corinthians, “[S]hall we, if we keep not our baptism pure and undefiled, come into the kingdom of God?” Clearly, Clement identifies Christian baptism as the moment of cleansing. St. Barnabas examines foreshadowing of baptism and the cross in the Old Testament: “Concerning the water, it is written with respect to Israel, how that will not receive the baptism that bringeth remission of sins, but will establish one for themselves.” Further, he writes: “Learn e: having received the remission of our sins, and having hoped upon the name of the Lord, we have become new, having been again created entirely.” These passages explicitly connect the erasure of sins with water baptism, and Barnabas explains that this accompanies hoping on the name of the Lord, the most primitive apostolic baptismal formula.
The Shepherd of Hermas, a second century apocalyptic work, supports both the notion of baptism by immersion and for spiritual cleansing: “[W]e went down into the water and obtained remission of our former sins.” Hermas like Barnabas, refers to invocation of the name of Jesus in the rite: “’For before a man,’saith he, ‘has borne the name of [the Son of] God, he is dead; but when he has deceived the seal, he layeth aside his deadness and resumeth life. The seal then is the water: so they go down into the water dead, and they come up alive.’” Baptism in the name of Jesus is, in Hermas, regenerative.
Justin Martyr expanded the biblical baptismal formula to “in the name of God, the Father and Lord of the universe, and of our Saviour Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit,” but he retained the Apostolic teaching of baptism for the remission of sins; “[We] may obtain in the water the remission of sins formerly committed, and this washing is called illumination, because they who learn these things are illuminated in their understandings.”
While the New Testament doctrine of water baptism by immersion solely in the name of Christ degenerated with the increasing schisms and encroaching apostasy of the early church, the nascent Catholic communion retained the biblical connection between baptism and the remission of sins. The Roman Creed, which dates from the third century, includes a generic belief in the “remission of sins,” and the fourth century Nicene Creed says: “I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins.” Though most Protestant eschew the idea of spiritual regeneration in the baptismal ceremony, the scriptural view espoused by modern Oneness Pentecostals is greatly supported both by the primary text of God’s Word and the most ancient bishops and apologists for the Christian faith. Baptism is an indisputable element of the new birth; and b faith in the redemptive work of the blood of Jesus Christ, our sins are truly washed away in the fountain of His forgiveness.
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