Our Protestant friends will often tell us that they hold to the perspicuity of the Bible. While there is, no doubt, many passages of the Bible which are “clear,” one will find that our Protestant (esp. Reformed) friends will reject very clear readings, not because they are actually difficult texts, but because they conflict with their theology, even when a prima facie reading of the text is obvious (or "perspicuous,” to borrow their terminology).
Take 1 Pet 3:19-21, a text that clearly
teaches baptismal regeneration:
By which [Christ]
went and preached unto the spirits in prison; which sometime were disobedient,
when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark
was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.
The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us (not the
putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience
toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
In this pericope, the apostle Peter
teaches that, just as the flood waters in Noah’s time was the instrumental means
by which evil was destroyed, water baptism, being the antitype thereof, is the instrumental
means by which our personal evils (our sins) are destroyed by God.
Now, before I continue, let me make a note
about different “causes,” as many will retort, ignorantly, that defenders of
baptismal regeneration believe water baptism have an efficacy in and of itself.
•
Final cause: the purpose or aim of an action or the end
(telos) toward which a thing naturally develops.
•
Efficient cause: an agent that brings
a thing into being or initiates a change
•
Formal cause: the pattern which determines the form
taken by something
•
Meritorious cause: the foundation/source
of the “power” behind the action
•
Instrumental cause: the physical
means/instrument through which the action is brought about; it exercises its
influence chiefly according to the form and intention of the principal
efficient cause
Such differentiation of "causes"
is known in the Reformed tradition. In paragraph 2 of Chapter 11 of the
Westminster Confession of Faith, there is a differentiation between the
"meritorious" and "instrumental" causes of justification:
Faith, thus receiving
and resting on Christ and His righteousness, is the alone instrument
of justification . . .
In other words, Reformed theology itself
teaches that, while the meritorious cause of justification is solely the
atoning sacrifice of Christ, it must still be applied, and the instrumental
means of its application is by (saving) faith. Just as it would be fallacious to claim, therefore, that they believe "saving faith" has an energy/power independent of the atonement and that it downplays or depreciates the redemptive sacrifice of Christ, so, too, is it fallacious to claim that baptismal regeneration does the same (therefore, appeals to texts such as 1 John 1:7 are not problematic to the doctrine).
So, let us tie this to water baptism:
•
Meritorious cause: the atoning sacrifice
of Jesus Christ
•
Efficient cause: God the Father
applying the merits of Christ and the Spirit operating through the physical
water
•
Instrumental cause: water baptism (N.B.:
this is important as this means baptism, in and of itself, has no “energy”
or “power” to save—it is dependent upon the meritorious cause [Christ’s redemptive
sacrifice] for its efficacy)
•
Formal cause: the baptised person being regenerated and
receiving a remission of their sins (past and then-present)
•
Final cause: the glorification of God in the salvation
of souls
As the instrumental cause of regeneration, baptism is dependent
upon (not independent of) the atoning sacrifice of Christ (the sole
meritorious cause of salvation) for its efficacy. Belief in baptismal
regeneration is not “adding” to the work of Christ—it is the instrumental means
of its initial application. This refutes the claim that “baptismal
regeneration . . .teaches that the meritorious work of
water baptism . . .achieves regeneration” (Edward L. Dalcour, A Definitive
Look at Oneness Theology, p. 39) and similar arguments by critics of
baptismal regeneration.
Now, back to 1 Pet 3:19-21.
In verse 20, we read of how the “water”
from the flood “saved” (σωζω) Noah and his family, and how baptism, said to be
the fulfilment of this Old Testament type (antitype [αντιτυπος]) “now save us”
(νῦν σῴζει [“now saves you”]). Antitypes are always greater than their Old
Testament types. Consider the brazen serpent in Num 21:8-9—those who looked at
the serpent were healed, but only temporarily, and only members of the nation
of Israel. Christ is likened to this serpent, but one brings about salvation,
and not to Israel only, but all the nations (John 3:14-17).
This fits with the definition of αντιτυπος
provided by Lexicons such as Johannes E. Louw and Eugene A. Nida, Greek-English
Lexicon: Based on Semantic Domains, 2d ed.:
ἀντίτυπος, ον:
pertaining to that which corresponds in form and structure to something else,
either as an anticipation of a later reality or as a fulfillment of a prior
type - 'correspondence, antitype, representation, fulfillment.' ὃ καὶ ὑμᾶς ἀντίτυπον
νῦν σῴζει βάπτισμα 'which corresponds to baptism which now saves you' 1 Pe 3.21
. . .
Therefore, just as Noah et al. were
(temporarily) saved “by water” (δι᾽ ὕδατος), we are saved by means of baptism,
with baptism saving us in a greater manner, that is, salvifically (thus it
being an antitype).
Some try to explain this away, arguing
that it was the ark, not the water from the flood, that saved Noah. However,
this ignores the fact that Peter is offering a typological interpretation of
the flood water. Furthermore, Peter is rather explicit in linking baptism to
the instrumental means of being saved.
This still begs the question as to why one
would link the flood water with the water of baptism? The answer is that, just
as the water from the flood destroyed all evil, the water of baptism brings about
a forgiveness of our personal evils (sins), fitting this typological approach
to the flood narrative in Genesis.
Let us quote some scholarly sources affirming
that this text clearly teaches baptismal regeneration:
21* This verse is
joined to its predecessor by the relative pronoun ὅ, which, together
with ἀντίτυπον (“antitype”) and βάπτισμα (“baptism”) serve
as a compound subject of the verb σῴζει. It is the interrelationship of
the pronoun and the two nouns that constitutes the syntactic problem of the
first phrase of the verse. If, as seems likely, the relative pronoun is the
subject of the verb, then the two remaining nouns stand in apposition to it There
have been attempts to resolve the phrase differently: to take ἀντίτυπον as
adjectival (“antitypical baptism saves you”); to take it as appositional
to ὑμᾶς; to understand βάπτισμα as a proleptic antecedent to
the ὅ; to include the first phrase with the end of the preceding verse,
that is, “ … saved through water which even in reference to you (is) a pattern.
Baptism now saves, not …”; to substitute the dative (ᾧ) for the nominative
relative pronoun, accepting the reading of a few minor texts. The
complexity of the sentence is, however, in all likelihood the result of the
complex attempt to relate Noah and the flood as a means of deliverance to
Christian baptism as a means of salvation, and ought thus to be allowed to
stand. (Achtemeier, P. J., & Epp, E. J. (1996). 1
Peter : a commentary on First Peter (p. 266). Minneapolis, Minn.:
Fortress Press; emphasis added)
I would construe the
pronoun ὃ, referring to water, with “antitype,” understood as a noun, and refer
both to baptism. To give a more literal rendering than the above, “[W]ater,
which antitype [the antitype of which], is baptism, now saves also you,” or
“[W]ater, which in its antitype, baptism, now saves also you.” The former makes
clearer that baptism saves, the latter puts more emphasis on the water in
baptism as saving, but both renderings convey the idea that grammatically
baptism, not the water of the flood, “saves you.” (Everett Ferguson, Baptism
in the Early Church: History, Theology, and Liturgy in the first five centuries [Grand
Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2009], 190-91)
A new means of
salvation marks the new era: “For Christ also suffered for sins once for all,
the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He was put to
death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit” (3:18). A reference to “the
days of Noah” and the eight persons who “were saved through water” turns the
thoughts of our author to baptism. “And baptism, which this prefigured, now
saves you—not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a
good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into
heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers
made subject to him” (3:20-22). Baptism in the name of Christ means
participation in the atoning work of Christ, and hence the enjoyment of eternal
salvation. (Donald A. Hagner, How New is the New Testament?
First-Century Judaism and the Emergence of Christianity [Grand Rapids,
Mich.: Baker Academic, 2018], 153, emphasis added)
The flood is,
therefore, a cleansing destruction, purging the earth of that which is
corrupt. This helps to explain why Peter sees it as an antitype of that
which baptism symbolizes, particularly if we accept that his understanding
of baptism may actually agree with that of Paul: the flood, as a purging
judgement, prefigures the death of ‘flesh’ in Jesus and the establishment of a
new order by the Spirit. It is worth mentioning that other literature of
the time, notably The Book of Watchers, understands the flood as a
cleansing and restorative event, prefiguring the eschatological judgment
(particularly 1 Enoch 10, where the same theme of purging is
encountered).
This requires,
though, that Jesus’s identification as the sin-bearer is not simply representative
but is also participatory, putting to death the old order of sins in which we
used to participate and establishing a new order of righteousness in which we
now participate. (Grant Macaskill, Union with Christ in the New Testament [New
York: Oxford University Press, 2018], 277-78, emphasis in bold added, comment
in square brackets added for clarification)
1 Pet 3:19-21 teaching baptismal regeneration
also ties nicely into Peter’s words in Acts 2:38, which also teaches the same.
For more on this, see:
Refuting
Douglas Wilson on Water Baptism and Salvation
Indeed, the Protestant Reformers had to
make distinctions about the nature of perspicuity that went beyond the
subjective “difficult” and “clear” distinction, including external vs. internal
perspicuity of the Bible itself. As Robert Fastiggi noted:
Luther
concedes that there are certain passages of Scripture which “are obscure and
hard to elucidate, but that is due not to the exalted nature of their subject,
but to our own linguistic and grammatical ignorance” (Bondage of the Will; Dillenberger, p.
172). However,
he maintains that, since revelation of Christ, “the entire content of the
Scriptures has now been brought to light, even though some passages which
contain many unknown words remain obscure” (Ibid.) If people find the contents
of Scripture obscure, Luther contends that this is due “not to any lack of
clarity in Scripture, but to their own blindness and dullness, in that they
make no effort to see truth which, in itself, could not be Plainer” (Ibid., p.
173)
Luther goes on to make a distinction between
the external perspicuity or clarity of Scripture and the internal perspicuity.
As he sees it, the external clarity of Scripture must be affirmed. He maintains
that “nothing whatsoever is left obscure or ambiguous, but that all that is in
the Scripture is through the Word brought forth in the clearest light and
proclaimed to the whole world” (Ibid., p. 175). However, the external clarity
of the Bible is only perceived by those who have been given the gift of internal
perspicuity by the Holy Spirit. As Luther writes: “the truth is that nobody who
has not the Spirit of God sees a jot of what is in the Scriptures” (Ibid., p.
174). Those without the Spirit “can discuss and quote all that is in
Scripture,” but “they do not understand or really know any of it” (Ibid.) This
is because “the Spirit is needed for the understanding of all Scripture and
every part of Scripture” (Ibid., pp. 174-175). (Robert Fastiggi, "What did
the Protestant Reformers Teach about Sola Scriptura?" in Robert Sungenis,
ed. Not By Scripture Alone: A Catholic Critique of the Protestant Doctrine
of Sola Scriptura [2d ed.; Catholic Apologetics International Publishing,
2013], 295-334, here, p. 301)
For more on the broader topic of Sola
Scriptura and the formal sufficiency of the Bible itself, see:
Not
By Scripture Alone: A Latter-day Saint Refutation of Sola Scriptura