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Some representatives of the Southern Baptist Convention announced that they’re going to push for the SBC to officially adopt the Nicene Creed. Creeds are necessary but can Baptists actually affirm the Nicene Creed in good faith? Joe Heschmeyer addresses this question and more in today’s episode of Shameless Popery.
Transcription:
Welcome back to Shameless Popery. I’m Joe Heschmeyer, and I want to explore a fascinating thing going on in the world of Southern Baptist. The Southern Baptist Convention is coming up and there’s a push to change what’s called the Baptist Faith in message, which is kind of a statement of beliefs. And I was clued into this by Matthew Barrett from Cradle Magazine who said, friends, I call your attention to a significant moment in the life of the Southern Baptist Convention next month for Southern Baptist, Andrew Brown, Steven Lawrence, Steven McKinnon, and Malcolm Yarnell will move that the messengers amend the BFM. That’s Baptist faith and message with the article, the Creed. The creed they’re referring to is none other than the Naim Creed. And in the essay below which we’re going to look at, they provide three reasons why they believe the time to do so is now. So this is great because even though I’m not a Baptist, it’s kind of nice seeing great minds battling these things out.
I’m loving the debate, great minds battling it out, and I’ve got a front row seat.
I mean, I couldn’t talk about the creed without making at least one creed reference. I wanted to make ones to the band, but I wasn’t sure if you would accept those with arms wide open. In any case, the Baptist case for the Creed. And I would second this and say it’s also the Catholic case for the Creed looks something like this. This is how Malcolm Yarnell and I might be mispronouncing his name, in which case I apologize, defends it in c Credo magazine, which is fitting because credo I believe is where the word creed comes from. He says, we wanted to share a few reasons why we believe it is necessary for Southern Baptist to adopt this ancient universal statement of the true Christian faith without delay and without qualification. Now, that’s a significant phrase. I think what we’re going to see is Baptist can actually only accept the nice and creed with some serious qualifications.
Nevertheless, I want to first agree with him and say, creed is good. Here’s why we should take the creed very seriously. He says, first, the nice and creed authoritatively articulates the primary doctrines of the Christian faith from the Christian scriptures based on extensive, careful and thorough ex of Jesus of scripture. The CRE establishes once for all that God is Trinity, that the Father is almighty, that he’s the creator of all things goes on to defend the deity and full humanity of Jesus Christ, the gospel of his death and resurrection and that his kingdom is eternal. But then he says, it also affirms the deity of the Holy Spirit, our need to worship God, the Spirit with the Father and the Son, and the reality of the church and the resurrection. We’re going to get back to that because as he rightly says, to affirm the creed without qualification is to affirm what it says about the reality of the church.
But why does this matter? I mean, it can’t just be that Malcolm Arnell thinks that it got it right because there’s plenty of writings that he’s probably convinced get good Christology, right? That doesn’t mean that they have to become part of the Baptist faith and message. Rather, he says the creed was much more substantial than a mere confession. So if you’re not familiar with that term, a lot of Protestant denominations have a confession of faith about what their particular denomination believes in and yall’s argument is even the various framers of the Baptist faith and message understood some truths were so fundamental that they must be called a creed. Creeds, they believed encapsulated the teaching of scripture required for Christianity. Whereas confessions denominated one Christian Church or group of churches from another. So in the world of Protestantism you might say, well, we’re not in full communion with this other.
We’re bap and not Presbyterian and not Methodist and not Anglican, and here’s our local confession explaining what it is we believe that makes us different than everybody else. So that’s kind of the what divides Christians and the creed is what unites Christians, the creeds, what you have to believe in order to be a Christian in the full orthodox sense of the term. That’s why he says these are the things so fundamental that they’re required for Christianity. That’s so far, I mean, great. That’s wonderful. I think it makes sense for all Christians to affirm the nice creed. That’s what it’s there for. But that then raises a question for me at least, namely, can Baptist affirm the nice creed? Now, why would I ask that? Well, let’s look at two parts of the nice creed that seem like they pose a problem for a believing Baptist.
First I believe in one holy Catholic and apostolic church. And then the immediate next line, I confess one baptism for the forgiveness of sins and I look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come unmet. So it’s the very end of the creed and they’re good on belief in the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. That’s not the issue. The issue is these two expressions, one holy Catholic and apostolic church on the one hand and one baptism for the forgiveness of sins on the other. Can Baptist affirm either of these things in good conscience? And this proposal has exposed something of a rift within the world of Baptist. So for instance, when the Center for Baptist Renewal shared news of this, they said the ecumenical creeds are symbols of the whole church.
That’s what makes him creeds properly. Again, that’s what makes him creeds and not confessions. The precise meaning of some lines is disputed baptism for the remission of sins universal. And I was confused when I said universal. I was like, oh, they’re so afraid of the word Catholic that they translated as universal. Got it. Unum san him Catholic one, holy Catholic apostolic church. They have to change Catholic to universal, which is fine. I mean universal’s not bad as a translation. It’s just a little misleading. But it shows that they’re aware. These are the two areas that there’s some dispute on the precise meaning, which is a very delicate way to put that. But they say historically Protestants and Baptists have happily affirmed them. Well, whether they’ve happily affirmed them or not is going to be an important question. But another important question is are they affirming the same thing that the writers of the creed and the church that produced the creed believed at the time it was produced?
We’ll get into that. But anyway, so I present this and say the Center for Baptist Renewal posted this on Twitter or X or whatever it’s called now. And at least as when I looked today, the only response was from someone who I assume is also a Baptist who says, those who agree with this statement will be condemned if they do not repent. The unadulterated divine revelation un solely by creeds is the basis for learning that which is pleasing to God. So you’ve got these two tensions. You’ve got an anti creedal movement within Evangelical and Baptist world that says, oh no creed, but Christ, any kind of creed is limiting the gospel. And so basically you’re just left to let everybody sort out the Bible for themselves on paper. Now in reality, it’s more like your local pastor tells you what to believe about the Bible and it gets even more complicated.
I want to do justice to the anti-real position, but say there is that strain of anti-real thought. But you also have these Baptists who say, no, we want to be more connected with historic Christianity. We want to believe what the early Christians believed and the early Christians tell us what they believe. Now, where do they do that confusingly, even though it’s called the Ian Creed, we don’t have an original creed from the first council of Nyia. It’s from the first Council of Constantinople. So both of these are going to be really relevant because they acknowledge that they’re drawing on what happened at Nyia, but it’s not clear that Nyia ever put together a formalized kind of creed. So really it’s sometimes called the Nino Constant Bulletin creed when you can imagine why we go with nice and creed instead it’s easier. But there’s these two moments that are really important for the creation of the creed.
The first is the first Council of Nyia in the year 3 25, and the second is the first council of Constantinople in the year 3 81. Now, why do I mention this? Because if the Creedle Baptists are right that there are Baptists who affirm the creed and Protestants more broadly who affirm the creed, but that there’s a debate over how to make sense of phrases like we believe in one holy Catholic and apostolic church, or we believe in one baptism for the forgiveness of sins, then it seems to me the logical answer is to say, what did those words mean at the time they were written and what did those words mean by the people who wrote them? If I want to understand what the Constitution means by cruel and unusual punishment, I don’t look to someone in 2024 and say, what does that expression mean to you?
That’s the idea of a living constitution. No, I would say, well, what was intended by the framers? What was intended in the Bill of Rights? What’s intended by the people who wrote it? And how would those words have been understood at the time in that culture? That’s good exegesis in general, right? That’s how you should interpret the Bible and say, what did this mean at the time and place? Not just what can I make these words mean demean, but also what do I make of the creed? How do I interpret these things? And so I have in mind here the fact that there are Protestants who affirm the creed, but only by twisting it and distorting what it means. And so I would point to Dr. Kevin de Young as someone who seems to me again as a non Protestant to be doing this kind of blatantly. Now young, I want to be really clear, is not himself a Baptist. I believe he’s Presbyterian, but what he’s doing to the creed is the kind of thing I’m warning against and would warn Baptists not to do when deliberating on whether or not to accept the creed.
But back to this question. So there’s a connection, baptism and the remission of sins. But how? Because some would read this for the remission of sins in a kind of quid pro quo relationship or a very sacramental understanding of forgiveness that you receive baptism and in some traditions of the church it washes away original sin or it affects baptismal regeneration. So baptism, when you’re baptized, you automatically have your sins forgiven. Is that what the ene creed is saying?
So there’s two things. One, it’s very clear, and I think it’ll become very clear in this video that they did affirm a sacramental understanding of baptism that the first council of naia, first council of Constantinople, I think they were abundantly clear about it. I think their contemporaries were abundantly clear about it. I think if you read any of the writings from either the bishops present there or the other sources who were present there like Eusebius or if you read any of the things written about baptism even a hundred years before or a hundred years after, anytime in there you’re going to get a very clear picture. They have a very sacramental view that baptism does something automatic is a bad way to describe it. Sacramental is a better one or miraculous, even that God does something through this. We wouldn’t say when Moses or Aaron rather changes the staff into a serpent, it happens automatically.
We would say it happens with divine power automatically is turning it into something mechanical rather than miraculous. But then the second thing he says, it’s right there at the end that he doesn’t think that that’s what they were trying to say, but also that you don’t have to read it that way. Well, that second thing is the kind of distortion that I’m seen to watch out for. I’ll give you an example. If you said, do you believe Jesus saves? And I said Yes, but in my heart I meant Jesus lozado, the pitcher for the Marlins has two saves that he’s registered as a pitcher. Well, he would say, okay, fine. You found a grammatical way to affirm the words while obviously undermining the meaning. That’s not what those words mean to the speaker. And so for me to affirm them in a way that I know they’re not meant is dishonest.
It’s disingenuous. And so there’s no point in having a creed that unites us if one group of Christians are interpreting it dishonestly in a way contrary to how it was meant. So fine, you can grammatically find ways of exploiting the Greek to maybe squeeze your theology in there. But if you know that’s contrary to the theology that was intended, watch out for that. And I mentioned this partly because heretics at the first council of Nsea did exactly that. People like Arius, like this whole issue about Trinitarian theology. There were people who were heretical who were able to affirm the creed by internally meaning something different by those words. And I would just say, don’t do that better to just deny the creed. If you don’t believe nicely in Christianity, say that. Don’t say that you do believe it, but you’re redefining what all those words mean for all the same reasons.
I think if you’re a conservative Protestant, you would say, yeah, I wouldn’t want someone redefining marriage. I wouldn’t want someone redefining what man and what woman are any of these things. Even if they could have a completely orthodox sounding statement, if they only get there by redefining the words, that’s not how you actually arrive in an agreement that only causes confusion and dissension. So the better question isn’t what can we make the Greek mean? The better question is what did one holy Catholic and apostolic church and what did one baptism for the forgiveness of sins mean to the Christians of the fourth century and particularly to the Council of Fathers in 3 25 at the first council of CIA and in 3 81 at the first Council of Constantinople. So that’s the question I want to explore today and to see is their view harmonious with the view held by Baptist and I think more broadly by many Protestants, but because of the context I’m focusing on Baptist particularly.
So first, do Baptists agree with the creed about the church one, holy Catholic, apostolic? Briefly, what did Christians believe before the first council of Nyia? This gives us some context. How would people at the time have heard these words and understood them? And here I would turn to the reformed theologian, Louis Burkhoff in his book Systematic Theology, where he writes from the days of Cian, now that Saint Cian of Carthage, he dies in 2 58, so early two hundreds here from the days of Cian down to the Reformation, the essence of the church was sought ever increasingly in its external visible organization. The church father’s conceived of the Catholic church as comprehending all true branches of the church of Christ and is bound together in an external and visible unity which had its unifying bond in the College of Bishops. The conception of the church as an external organization became more prominent as time went on.
So obviously even from the way he’s described that Burkhoff views this as a distortion, he doesn’t think it happens until the time of cion and he views it as obviously going in the wrong direction. We don’t actually need to settle either of those questions. Whether you think this goes back to the time of Christ, whether you think it’s a good thing, those are not the question. The question is what did Christians believe in the three hundreds? The Christians might be right or wrong, but what did the Christians at the time of Nicea and before and after believe about the church? And so it’s very clear even from KO’s description that they thought of it as something that was external and it was visible and it’s organized how? Well, because there’s these bishops who are in Union one with another Thomas White in the book upon this rock of Baptist understanding of the church, which Malcolm Yarnell has another chapter in.
So Yarnell doesn’t write this part and obviously an author is not responsible for other things written in a book that they contribute to, but there’s a good chance he’s at least read this and at the very least it seems like a fair Baptist treatment of church history. Thomas White says By the late second century, we see the trend reversed to focus on the universal church and not the local. No, put that in context. He says, when Saint Ignatius of Antioch in the first 10 years of the 100, so like 1 0 7 ish talks about Ecclesia church. He most of the time means the local church, but that by the end of the one hundreds, most of the time when people say Ecclesia, they’re not thinking about the local church, they’re thinking about the global church. Now I would suggest that you can explain that supposed shift by the fact that Ignatius is writing to particular churches, whereas Erin Aeu and the other later authors tend to be writing on theological topics addressed to everybody like the church broadly.
And then if they were writing to a particular church to settle a very local controversy, then they would probably use alas and the narrower sense, but nevertheless, less. He says er in his work against heresy is written in the year 180 roughly used Ecclesia 130 times with 103 of those uses focused on a universal meaning. So church is understood as the global Catholic church and Catholic is not an synchronistic term here. Both Ignatius and Ous speak of the Ecclesia as Catholic. And so Thomas White goes on, he says, by the third century, so the two hundreds and the time of the writings of Cyprian again cian, a change occurred with references to a universal yet visible church. Cyprian used the term the Catholic church repeatedly and his famous statement indicates his emphasis on the visible Catholic church and then he quotes Cian, he cannot have God for his father who has not the church for his mother indicating that outside, excuse me, indicating that there is no salvation outside the church.
Okay, since both of these guys view Cian as being a really important figure, it’s worth looking directly at what Cyprian has to say on the subject. This is his on the unity of the church, also known as treatise one, just to be confusing and it dates to probably the year 2 51, about seven years before he died and he says whoever is separated from the church, and again he needs to say the visible Catholic church and is joined to an adulterous is separated from the promises of the church. Nor can he who forsakes the Church of Christ attain to the rewards of Christ. He’s a stranger, he is profane, he is an enemy. And then comes the line we just heard. He can no longer have God for his father who has not the church for his mother and he gives this example. If anyone could escape who is outside the Ark of Noah, then he also may escape who shall be outside of the church.
In other words, the church is Noah’s Ark. It is passing through water, the whole baptismal imagery using First Peter three that’s going on that Rin doesn’t even touch on it explicitly there, but other church fathers do that. This church, this visible body through the water in the wood because they saw the gopher wood as a prefigurement of the cross, this visible body is the means of salvation. And then if you decide to break away from the church, you might as well just dive off of Noah’s Ark. You are consigning yourself to eternal death. Sapr goes on to say this unity we ought firmly to hold and assert, especially those of us that are bishops who preside in the church, that we may also prove the episcopate, that’s the bishops itself to be won and undivided. Now I say this because it’s really important. In the 14 hundreds you get this idea that the troop church is in an invisible body spiritually of just all the saved.
That is not what early Christians believed at all. They believed it was a visible body and a visible body that had presiding bishops in it. CPR goes on to address matics as who break unity in the church and he says, does he think that he has Christ who acts in opposition to Christ’s priests who separates himself from the company of his clergy and people he bears arms against the church? He contends against God’s appointment, an enemy of the altar, a rebel against Christ’s sacrifice for the faith, faithless for religion, profane, a disobedient service, an impious son, a hostile brother, despising the bishop and forsaking God’s priests. He dares to set up another altar to make another prayer with unauthorized words, to profane the truth of the Lord’s offering by false sacrifices and not to know that he who strives against the appointment of God. That is to say the clergy appointed by God is punished on account of the daring of his temerity by divine visitation.
Cian is extremely clear that it’s not just a matter of believing the right things, it’s also being in union with the bishops and priests set up by God and not having some rival worship service where you invent your own style of worship or invent your own prayers. That is I think, exceedingly clear and I don’t think I’m alone in this Malcolm Yarnell. You know the guy who wrote the article about why we should have the creeds in an interview he did back in 2007? So this is a long time ago. I assume he still believes the same thing. I don’t know why this would’ve changed, but nevertheless, he says, I want my students, while they appreciate the brilliant contributions of the early church theologians to see that they were not perfect like theologians today, they have their blind spots. What Protestant are free churchmen can truly justify the Sacra dot system that’s like priestly system constructed by cian, a system that has distracted many from the ones for all sacrifice of Christ on the cross by focusing upon the sacrifice of the priest.
So notice Alchem Yarnell thinks Cian is at best he’s got the blind spot or worse he’s distracting us from the action of Christ. Cyprian in contrast would view Malcolm Murel as an impious son and a rebel in someone who is risking damnation by his actions against the true sacrifice the one offered in union with Christ by the bishop and his priests. And what I mean to suggest is those guys can’t both be right and their conception of the church is such that if Cian is right, Al Yarnell has a tenuous relation with the church at best and is cut off from the church at worst that to say I believe in one holy Catholic and apostolic church. If by that you mean what cyprian means, then you’re saying you believe the Catholic church is the true church and then become Catholic. Now you might say, okay, but that’s the two fifties.
How do we know people still believe that 75 years later? I don’t think anyone’s arguing that the Christians and 300 became more Protestant. You just get ever increasingly clear Catholic statements as you go. But nevertheless, what did the first council of NAIA teach about the church here? I would point you to Canon eight. If you want to know what the first council of NAIA taught and believed, you can find the cannons of the council and they’re dealing with the Cathars and they say concerning those who call themselves cathar like the pure, if they come over to the Catholic and apostolic church, the great and holy sin declares that they who are ordained shall continue as they are in the clergy, but it is before all else necessary. They should profess in writing that they will observe and follow the dogmas of the Catholic and apostolic church.
So notice there, this is not a local church, it’s just like though the Catholic church is just the church around the corner or the church of my town, the Catholic church is the universe church, but moreover, it’s a visible church that has cleared dogmas and the bishops repeatedly at Nsea declare that they’re speaking on behalf of the Catholic church. And so you have to agree with the bishops on these issues of faith and morals to be able to say yes, you will observe and follow the dogmas of the Catholic and apostolic church. That is what they meant pretty clearly by the church. Okay, what then about baptism? That’s the one that de young suggested. Maybe there’s some wiggle room where Protestants could affirm it. Let’s look at that first. What is the Christian belief about baptism before Nyia? Well, I would suggest we actually get a clear articulation of that in the New Testament when St. Paul has the road to Damascus moment, he’s struck blind and Anais comes to him and says, brother Saul receive your sight. And he’s able to see at that moment and then he says, the God of our fathers appointed you to know his will, to see the just one and to hear a voice from his mouth, for you’ll be a witness for him to all men of what you’ve seen and heard. And now why do you wait, rise and be baptized and wash away your sins calling on his name.
That seems to be pretty clear that there’s baptism for the forgiveness of sins, right? That baptism involves the washing way of sins, and that’s not the first or last or only time we hear about that. This is rather a recurring theme throughout the New Testament and throughout the early church. Now I’ve quoted him before, but the Protestant theologian, Everett Ferguson has a book called Baptism in the early Church History Theology and Liturgy in the First five Centuries. And he says on page 8 52, I mentioned this on page 8 52 for two reasons, one of which is to say he really does his homework here he spends hundreds of pages compiling and commentating on what the early Christians believed. And here’s what he says. Although in developing the doctrine of baptism, different authors had their particular favorite descriptions. There is a remarkable agreement on the benefits received in baptism and these are present already in the New Testament texts.
Two fundamental blessings are often repeated. The person baptized receive forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit. So the first of those two, the baptism of sort of the forgiveness of sins, as he’s saying through 500 years you have recurring clarity on this issue. It’s not like there’s two major schools of thought, one that says it’s just a symbol and one that says it’s actually for the forgiveness of sins. No, this is something the early Christians appear to be basically unanimous on uniform, on united on one Lord, on faith, one baptism. This is something that brought Christians together once upon a time and then he goes on to say the two fundamental doctrinal interpretations of baptism are sharing in the death and resurrection of Christ with its benefits and responsibilities and regeneration or rebirth from above with its related ideas. Now that’s not an either or, but liturgically, some of the prayers focus more on being spiritually reborn, some focus more on dying and rising with Christ. Those are the two major biblical themes that are brought out in the theology and liturgy of the dearly Christians.
He goes, honestly, the New Testament and early Christian literature of virtually unanimous in ascribing a saving significance to baptism. The extreme sacramentalism that de young suggested the early Christians were trying to push away from that is what they unanimously or nearly unanimously believed in. If anything, Ferguson says the early church exaggerated this aspect of baptism significance. That is you would sometimes get people who’d go so far as to say even a baby who wasn’t baptized would not be able to go to heaven, that they took these things to a really radical extreme beyond what Catholics and Orthodox would affirm today. But that was the issue, not that they didn’t believe in the necessity of baptism for salvation, but they might’ve believed in it in such an a nuanced way, in such a radical way that we would actually say, yeah, that’s true, but that doesn’t apply to those who’ve never heard or incidentally haven’t been baptized because they didn’t have a chance to.
And Ferguson goes on to say the main variation among mainstream Christian authors was in how strongly different individuals affirmed the necessity of baptism for salvation. So in other words, they agree baptism is necessary for salvation, but what about the hard cases? The major explicit exception is martyrs who died for the faith prior to baptism. So in the period of time when baptism is sometimes a three year process before you could get baptized, Christianity is being persecuted and you might well die a martyr for Christianity before you’ve even been baptized. And so the radical exaggerated view of baptism is to say, well bad luck guys, even though you died as a martyr for Christ because you didn’t get baptized, you can’t go to heaven. The moderate position is no, you have a baptism of blood as they call it because you died for the faith and it wasn’t your fault.
And later this is more clearly articulated to say as well, even if you died of natural causes, you have a baptism of desire that you have the intention to be baptized. And so the fact that you didn’t actually receive the sacrament through no fault of your own is not held against you, but through no fault of your own is doing some heavy lifting because if you just decide not to get baptized, that’s on you and you bear that eternally. That’s the view. And again, whether you agree with it or disagree with it, when the creed is saying one baptism for the forgiveness of sins, that is the context in which we should understand this. Now I mentioned all of this being on page 8 54 because in one of the reviews, Roy Zuck, who I’ve spoken about before, he’s done some work or did some work, he’s deceased now on biblical literalism, acknowledged the work that Everett Ferguson had done in this book that we just looked at.
He lamented, he said his book takes no account of the scores and scores of Bible verses that clearly state that salvation is obtained simply by faith in Christ apart from any works. Now, nevermind the fact that Everett Ferguson is looking at baptism in the early church. His point isn’t to just inject his own theology, but to understand what the early Christians believed. Also on the very same page that Zuck is responding to, Everett Ferguson does acknowledge this. He says Baptism was not seen as a human work, but as God’s work and the salvation in baptism was premised on the saving effect of Christ’s death on the cross and as victorious resurrection. In other words, and this is really important, if you’re a Baptist who’s saying, oh, this sounds like salvation by works. This is not salvation by works first. It’s not a work of the law, it’s not the mosaic law.
This is not like keeping kosher. Second, it’s not even what we’d normally call a good work. No non-Christian for instance is like, I’m really impressed with you. I give to a food kitchen, but you got baptized. No, because this is only a good work in the sense of cooperating with Christ. But for that there would be no way to talk about it either as a good work or a work of the lives. It’s just not those things in the ordinary meaning of either of those expressions. So when the Bible talks about how you’re not saved by works of the law, it does not mean a good works or B baptism. Now you’re not saved by your good works. We can leave aside the whole pian controversy and just say baptism is not a work biblically and it’s not understood as a work by early Christians.
So if you respond to the overwhelming evidence about all the verses talking about baptism and all of the early Christians talking about what baptism does by saying, well here’s some verses not about baptism but about how you’re not saved by works. You’ve missed the boat and the early Christians would’ve recognized that you missed the boat, that you’ve thought of baptism as something you are doing for God as if you are spiritually purifying yourself. For him, no, the whole point of baptism is he is spiritually purifying. You can’t do that to yourself if you’re the recipient of a miracle. No one’s like, well that’s a good work, you shouldn’t have done that. No, this is divine action at work. So I mentioned that because I think it’s important for those many of the Baptists I’ve spoken to on this issue will often go to, but works are bad, which is a bad understanding.
But in any case, baptism isn’t a work. Alright? But I want to turn down to Malcolm Yarnell who we’ve been looking at. He says, while indebted to the theological contributions of the early fathers, he means early church fathers here and the Protestant reformers, the believers churches, that’s people who only baptize believers. They don’t baptize babies so like Anabaptist and then later Baptists transcend them as they go beyond them by demanding radical yieldedness and discipleship to Jesus Christ often by reserving baptism for true believers. Now whether you think this is a positive thing that they’ve transcended them, they certainly oppose them, they certainly disagree with them. You can’t harmonize what a Baptist believes with what an early Christian believed or what a Protestant reformer believed. Now I’ve got no truck in defending the reformers, but they are right on this one. So I mentioned this to say Malcolm Yarnell knows that his belief about baptism doesn’t match the belief of early Christians, and he seems to basically be acknowledging that Steve McKinnon, one of the other guys who is pushing for the creed to be accepted, seems to be making an argument that believers baptism was actually done by the early church.
Now this is not a position I see anyone other than Baptist making because it’s not a strong argument historically, but I want to acknowledge it in case you’ve heard this argument or are inclined to make this yourself. McKinnon says There are several types of documents that inform us of early Christian attitudes toward baptism. Their works dedicated to the topics such as Churchillian of Carthage is on baptism or ciprian of Carthage. Epistle 58 announcing in African sin is decision regarding baptism. So I want to say he acknowledged he cites these two sources as being works on baptism. Why does that matter? Because if you’re trying to figure out baptismal theology, it’s probably good to look at an entire work on baptism rather than just like somebody’s throwaway reference to baptism because I might mention baptism in passing and you don’t have a full view of what I believe about it, but if I dedicate an entire work on baptism, you’re more likely to have an accurate vision of my beliefs.
So with that in mind, I want to look at the two sources that Steve McKinnon cites to the first trillion on baptism. Here’s how McKinnon describes it. He says Trillion of Carthage apologist and the founder of Western theology wrote the earliest ex extent treatise on the subject of baptism. In fact, his work entitled Appropriately on Baptism is the only surviving treatise on the ordinance of baptism from the time before the first ecumenical council. That is before the Council of naia. So if we want to know what did Christians believe about baptism at the first council of naia, a good place to look, it makes sense would be Tuan work on baptism and how does that work begin? Here are the opening lines. Happy is our sacrament of water in that by washing away the sins of our early blindness, we are set free and admitted into eternal life.
That is not a bap view, this is just an ordinance. He’s very clearly describing this as a sacrament that actually washes away our sins and actually liberates us and brings us into eternal life. Now, he might disagree with that view, but let’s not pretend that Tullian held the opposite view of the one that he opens the entire treatise by announcing that he holds and notice he doesn’t even seem to treat this as controversial. He’s just happy about it. So if we said praise God for the resurrection, I’m not assuming that you disagree about the resurrection. Likewise, when he says happy indeed is our sacrament of water, he’s not assuming that you don’t know about the sacrament so that you don’t have a sacramental view. He’s assuming seemingly that you do. So that’s from the opening lines. We’ve got a red flag that maybe he’s not interpreting tertullian correctly, but then he says, Tertullian claims that sound faith is secure of salvation.
He does have that line. It’s just not taken in proper context here because McKinney says no stronger statement could be made to divorce the rite of baptism in say inherently from saving faith. Salvation is not procured by baptism and faith is your indicator of salvation. In other words, for Tuan, salvation is by faith alone even when devoid of a subsequent baptism. That’s his claim based on like eight words and tullian treatise. Now Tullian has an entire section in his treatise on baptism about why baptism is necessary for salvation, which remember like Everett Ferguson who has this whole work looking at the early Christians says basically everybody agrees on this and Tullian is part of that. Basically everybody he grants, he says Grant that in days gone by, there was salvation by means of bear faith before the passion resurrection of the Lord. He’s looking specifically the fact that Abraham believes God in its credited to him as righteousness and he’s not baptized.
So he’s like, sure Abraham is saved without baptism, no problem. But he says now that faith has been enlarged and becomes a faith which believes in his Jesus’s nativity passion, resurrection, there’s been an amplification added to the sacrament, namely the ceiling act of baptism, the clothing in some sense of the faith, which before was bare and which cannot exist now without its proper law. So bear faith apart from baptism, he does not say is enough for salvation by itself. He says the exact opposite he goes on to say for the law of baptizing has been imposed and the formula prescribed go, he says, teach the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and the son of the Holy Spirit.
So that I think is pretty clear that he actually does view baptism as necessary for salvation. Baptism is for the remission of sins. Baptism actually does the thing that the first council of men says it does that the first council of Constance and Noble says it does. It does. The thing that Everett Ferguson said, the dearly Christians believe it does. Does the thing that Ananias tells St Paul that it does, it does the thing that Churchillian opens his treatise on baptism by declaring that it does. Now, I do want to concede one point to McKinnon, which is that Tertullian does discourage infant baptism kind of but significantly his reasons for discouraging it is because he doesn’t seem to think that original sin by itself is going to send a kid to hell. Here’s his argument. He says, the Lord does indeed say forbid them not to come unto me.
So notice already the standard debate is going like the usual argument for infant baptism is Jesus says, let little children come unto me. Do not restrict them or do not restrain them and baptism is the means of infants coming to Christ, so we should baptize babies. That is a good argument. Churchillian says, let them come then when they’re growing up, let them come while they’re learning, while they’re learning wither to come, let them become Christians. When they have been able to know Christ, why does the innocent period of life hasten to the remission of sins? Notice even in this two things, even as he’s encouraging people to delay baptism, which is bad advice, he acknowledges that this is for the remission of sins and this is how you become a Christian. So Trillian is a very strange person to point to if you’re a Baptist because he doesn’t believe the same thing you do about baptism.
He believes the opposite. But the second person that Steve McKinnon point Steven McKinnon points to is Saint Separative Carthage in what’s called a epistle 58, and this is an even stranger place to look because this is all about why we should baptize babies Sapr of Carthage again, remember he dies in 2 58. This is written about 2 53. He says it’s written to announce the decision of an African Senate in 2 53 to require the baptism of infants cran relays to his readers disagreements among the bishops of the Senate over the relationship between baptism and circumcision. He does not, the addressee of the letter believed that baptism should be performed on the eighth day commiserate with the practice of circumcision. The Senate did not make a pronouncement on this because of the disagreement over the relationship. One might inquire as to whether some of the bishops rejected the belief that infant baptism is a Christian replacement of Jewish circumcision, but none of that is true.
Oh, I mean I guess the basic fact is true. It is written in 2 53 and there is a synod talking about the need to baptize babies, but that’s the whole question. You can read it from Cian himself. Cian says at the beginning of EPIs 58, in respect of the case of the infants which you say ought not to be baptized within the second or third day after their birth, and that the law of ancient circumcision should be regarded so that you think one who is just born should not be baptized and sanctified within the eighth day. We all thought very differently in our council. In other words, two things. One, the council is not divided. They all thought that the person proposing you wait until day eight to baptize your baby is wrong. Instead, two, they’re unanimous that you should baptize your baby even if it’s before the eighth day.
So notice it’s not one group is saying delay till adulthood. One group is saying, since baptism is a new circumcision, you should wait until the eighth day. The other group is saying No, let them come right away. They agree. In other words, on what baptism is, the entire question is on what day to baptize your baby. And here’s how Sipan explains it. He says, friend, this course which you thought was to be taken, no one agreed, but we all rather judge that the mercy and grace of God is not to be refused to anyone born of man. In other words, baptize all the babies. You don’t have to wait until they’re eight days old, they’re all united. They were not. He does not report. We couldn’t decide if baptism was a new circumcision or not. He says the opposite, that baptism, the replacement of circumcision is not like circumcision of old restricted to the eighth day.
Rather anyone who wants to receive the mercy and grace of God can receive. And so we shouldn’t refuse anyone, even very tiny babies. Why? He says, as the Lord says in his gospel, the son of man does not come to destroy men’s lives but to save them. So as far as we can, we must strive that if possible, no soul be lost. He goes on to say for his reason, we think that no one is be hindered from obtaining grace. Notice what he thinks it does from attending grace by that law which was already ordained and that spiritual circumcision ought not to be hindered by carnal circumcision. In other words, both Rin and the guy he’s disagreeing with agree that baptism is spiritual circumcision. It is the entryway into the new covenant. Just as for males, physical circumcision was the entry into the old covenant.
That’s not what the dispute is. Contrary to what Steven McKinnon claims, you could read Cian for himself agreeing with the person he’s talking to on that point and then disagreeing only on when to do it and why does he disagree? Not because he should wait for adulthood, but he says Absolutely every man has been admitted to the grace of Christ and so we’re not bound by the Mosaic law. Everybody, even those who haven’t yet reached eight days old, can be brought into the family of God and then Cian makes a powerful point. He says, if even the greatest sinners, those who would sin much against God when they subsequently believed remission of sins is granted and nobody’s hindered from baptism, from grace, excuse me, how much rather ought we to shrink from hindering an infant who being lately born has not sinned except in that being born after the flesh?
According to Adam, he’s contracted the contagion of the ancient death at his earliest birth. In other words, he hasn’t sinned, but he has original sin who approaches them more easily on this very account to the reception of the forgiveness of sins that to him are remitted, not his own sins but the sins of another. In other words, you can read in Cian a response to the argument that Churchillian is making. Churchillian is like babies don’t need baptism because for the forgiveness of sins and they don’t have sins. Rin is like all better. They only have original sin. And if even a horrible sinner can be forgiven by God, how much more easily can a baby who has never committed an actual sin but only has original sin? Now again, you might disagree with the Christians on this, but recognize this is what early Christianity believed. Cyprian goes on to say, therefore dearest brother, this was our opinion and counsel that by us no one ought to be hindered from baptism and from the grace of God who is merciful and kind and loving to all. So does Cian believed that baptism for the forgiveness of sins, he does do the other bishops and the local council with him, they do does the guy he’s writing to. He does. That is not what’s in dispute.
Final line from Cian, which since it is to be observed and maintained and respect of all, we think it to be even more observed in respect of infants and newly born persons. You can say infants and newborns fine. Okay? So not just infants but very newly born persons who on this free account deserve more from our help and from the divine mercy that immediately in the very beginning of their birth lamenting and weeping, they do nothing else but in treat. There’s a subtle point that he’s making there that I think is really beautiful, which is that you will sometimes hear people argue you can’t let an infant receive baptism because they don’t have faith. And faith is the in treaty that we make to God. Ian’s point is that babies live by faith that the way that a baby cries, all they do is cry out in their helplessness, which is what faith is.
It’s us realizing our helplessness and crying out for help from God. A baby spiritually gets that, whether they intellectually get that or not. The fact that they’re crying out, maybe they can’t give you some sort of intellectual treatise on why do I cry? Well, because I know I’m helpless and I know another’s out there who can help me, who loves me, but that is what faith is. And a baby gets that at an intuitive level because that’s why they cry. And you get these horrible cases, these stories in like the Romanian orphanage where children were so neglected and so abused that they stopped crying. There’s something horrific about that. They destroyed the faith as it were of these babies. And Cyprian’s point is this natural faith that God has given them, disposes them. Well for baptism, baptism is not something we do for God when we get enough intellectual understanding about him.
Baptism is something that God does for us while we helplessly and treat him for divine aid. And babies are well positioned to do that as any of us, if we’ll humble ourselves are well positioned to do that. Okay, so those are the people that McKinnon points to. Now he has some other ones, but those are the two treatises that he points to and they both clearly contradict him. They both clearly contradict the idea of believers baptism and the idea that baptism is just a symbol that you do once you’re already a believer. That’s not his view at all. What about the first council of Nice? Then what does the first Council of Nsea teach about baptism? When it says one baptism for the forgiveness of sins, did it suddenly become bap or does it believe the same thing everybody before it had believed about baptism?
Well, you can read in Canon two of the first Council of Nyia where it says, for as much as either from necessity or through the urgency of individuals, many things have been done contrary to the ecclesiastical canon. So that men just converted from heathenism to the faith and who have been instructed but a little while are straightaway brought to the spiritual laver. And as soon as they have been baptized or advanced to the episcopate or to the presbyterate, it has seemed right to us for the time to come. No such thing shall be done. What does that mean? What’s going on there? They’re saying in the past, remember, these are emergency circumstances where Christianity has been persecuted. There are people who are getting baptized and ordained right away, and that is not a good idea. We should rather delay this, let people be formed so you’re not just baptizing someone and then immediately ordaining them.
But notice in that description it treats baptism as a spiritual laver. The spiritual laver is the rite of baptism, which then we know because it then says as soon as they’re baptized, it refers to it as being baptized and as a spiritual laver. So it is a spiritual rebirth. It’s a spiritual washing. It is, in other words, a washing away of sins. That’s the view it has. That’s the view the people alive at the time of the council of NAIA had. That’s the view of these bishops in their own individual writings have. That’s the view that people had in the two hundreds that we saw before. That’s the view people have in the four hundreds that when the first Council of NAIA talks about this is not rejecting sacramentalism, it believes in that it’s later Protestants who reject sacramentalism, not early Christians. So final thoughts.
How should Baptist respond and more broadly, how should Protestants respond? I think I’d make two points here. Number one, Yarnell McKinnon. The other guys who are pushing for the creed to be adopted Baptist faith and message are right to see the importance of the creed. In fact, one of the Baptist who disagrees with those guys, Jordan, Stefan, he says, Janelle and McKinnon remind us in 0.1 that creeds and confessions are different. We shouldn’t take the Westminster confession of faith, the SE declaration, the Philadelphia confession or any other confession as the bedrock ecumenical document that all Christians must believe that is reserved for creeds like the one produced at Nyia. Few would disagree. We saw some of those few, I don’t know how few they actually are, some of those few kind of anti creedle Christians on Twitter. But the fact is there’s a broad consensus even among Protestants that unlike their own denominational confessions, which you can disagree with and still be a Christian in good standing, Christians must agree with the first council of Sia and the Sian Creed that the creed matters.
It’s not an optional thing. And then if you reject the creed, you are threatening your standing as a Christian. That’s the first kind of closing point. It is a basic litmus test for Christian orthodoxy. It’s long been recognized as such, including by Baptists. And number two, as I hope I’ve shown here on the two major points, one, baptism for the forgiveness of sins and one Holy Catholic and apostolic church. Baptists cannot in good conscience affirm it, neither can many other Protestants because they disagree with either a baptism actually doing something. It is sacramental, it is regenerative, it forgives your sins and or B, that we should all be part of the visible Catholic church with its union of bishops. Those are the things taught by the Council of Nsea. Those are the things taught by the Nicene creed. And so if we’re going to seriously endorse it without distorting and perverting and changing the words of the creed, this is the common faith that we should be celebrating together. for Shameless Popery, I’m Joe Heschmeyer God bless you.