For Christ did not send me to baptise but to proclaim the gospel, and not with eloquent wisdom, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its power. (1 Cor 1:17 NRSV)
1 Cor 1:17 is one of the most commonly cited “proof texts” against the salvific efficacy of baptism. I have previously addressed this passage elsewhere in this blog:
In this post, I would like to add some further information for consideration on this verse.
As previously discussed, what Paul meant it not to depreciate the salvific efficacy of baptism; instead, his primary function of his ministry was preaching the gospel--Paul was an evangelist, not a baptiser. Indeed, to claim that Paul rejected baptism being salvific would result in a contradiction of Rom 6:1-4 and other texts in the Pauline corpus that clearly states otherwise. To quote one Protestant New Testament scholar on Paul’s theology of baptism:
The explanatory γαρ in 6:5 links the verse with his previous comments about the believer’s death with Christ through water-baptism in 6:3-4. His argument appears to be that believers died to sin and should no longer live under its power (6:2). Their water-baptism proves that they participate in the death of Jesus and experience a spiritual death to the power of sin (6:3). Therefore, Paul concludes that believers have been buried with Jesus through their participation in water-baptism, a baptism that identifies them with the death of Jesus (their representative [5:12-21]) and thereby kills the power of sin in their lives, so that they would live with Jesus in the resurrection just as Jesus presently lives in the power of his physical resurrection (6:4). Believers who died to the power of sin by being baptized into Jesus’ death will certainly (αλλα και) participate in a physical resurrection just as Jesus died and resurrected, because those who died to the power of sin (just as Jesus died = τω ομοιωματι του θανατου αυτου) will participate in a future resurrection (just as Jesus has already been resurrected) (6:5). (Jarvis J. Williams, Christ Died for Our Sins: Representation and Substitution in Romans and their Jewish Martyrological Background [Eugene, Oreg.: Pickwick Publications, 2015], 178).
A helpful text indicating that Paul did stress the importance of baptism is 1 Cor 3:6-10:
I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. The one who plants and the one who waters have a common purpose, and each will receive wages according to the labour of each. For we are God's servants, working together; you are God's field, God's building. According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building on it. Each builder must choose with care how to build on it. (NRSV)
In this pericope, Paul explains his words in 1:17 as well as the nature of his ministry: Paul was the messenger spreading the Gospel; Apollos (and others) were the instructors, guiding the recipients of the Gospel; and God watched over all of them.
Joseph Fitzmyer, commenting on 1:17 and 3:6-10, writes:
17. For Christ did not send me to baptize. This startling statement is not meant to undermine the value of baptism or liturgical actions. It reveals only how Paul understands his own authorized mission: cultic or liturgical ministry was not as important to him as that of preaching the gospel. Others can baptize, but he must preach, because he was called by God to preach his son “among the Gentiles” (Gal 1;16); now he ascribes his call and sending to Christ himself (Christos without an article, hence Jesus’ second name).
But to preach the gospel. i.e., to proclaim the good news (euangelizesthai) of salvation that comes through Jesus Christ . . .
9. For we are God’s fellow-workers . . . In the first clause, Paul regards both Apollos and himself as synergoi theou, a title that he used also of Timothy in 1 Thess 3:2. The phrase synergoi theou has been understood in two ways: (1) “God’s fellow-workers,” i.e., those who work together with God and are engaged in a common endeavor with God himself, who is the principal worker . . . (2) “Fellow workers in God’s service,” or “God’s servants, working together” (NRSV), or “fellow workers who belong to God,” i.e., Paul and his colleagues are those who work together and thus serve God by such shared labor . . .[v.10] Paul’s preaching has laid what he calls themelion, “a foundation,” for what he achieved thereby was fundamental for the Corinthian church, but he does not call himself the foundation. It is, however, the basis of the authority that he now exercises over the community, and to it he will return in 9:1-2. Paul calls himself architekton, “builder,” a title found only here in the NT. For the idea of a “foundation of the community,” see 1QS 7:17. (Joseph A. Fitzmyer, First Corinthians [AB 32; Garden City, Doubleday, 2008], 147, 195-96, 197.)
Anthony C. Thiselton, a Protestant biblical scholar, commented on 1 Cor 1:17 thusly:
Since baptism and the Lord’s Supper also, for Paul, proclaim the gospel of Christ’s death and resurrection (Rom 6:3-11; 1 Cor 11:24-27), the contextual meaning of βαπτιζειν has been conveyed by translating it to perform baptisms, with its emphasis on ministerial agency. (Anthony C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians [NIGTC; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2000], 143 [emphasis in original].)
Much more could be said, but the claim that 1 Cor 1:17 refutes the doctrine of baptismal regeneration is, exegetically-speaking, grasping at straws.