Tuesday, April 5, 2022

Edmund Schlink (Lutheran): "The church as instrument of the baptizing God"

  

The church as instrument of the baptizing God

 

In the New Testament baptismal texts it is noteworthy at the same time that there is very little if any interest in the person of the baptizer. Although the accounts in Acts repeatedly mention the name of the baptizer, it is clear that neither his person nor his status in the church has any significance for the validity and effect of Baptism (apart from the special problems connected with the account in Acts 8:12-17). In the frequent references of the epistles to Baptism as antecedent for exhortation, the person of the baptizer plays no role whatsoever. When various factions developed in Corinth and appealed to those who had baptized them, Paul condemned this attitude in the strongest terms. “ . . . each one of you says, ‘I belong to Paul,’ or ‘I belong to Apollos,’ or ‘I belong to Cephas,’ or ‘I belong to Christ.’ If Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? I am thankful that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius; lest any one should say that you were baptized in my name. (I did baptize also the household of Stephanas. Beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized any one else.)” (1 Cor. 1:12-16). So little did Paul think of Baptism as being determined by the person or office of the baptizer that he added, “for Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the Gospel” (v. 17). This sentence does not justify the conclusion that Paul disparaged Baptism or was ignorant of a tradition of the baptismal command, but it does suggest that he usually left the baptizing to the congregation. The name of the baptizer is immaterial, the name of Christ means everything. The baptizer is only an instrument.

 

If the church is spoken of as the baptizing church, “the mother of the faithful,” then she must also be spoken of as only an instrument. Like every individual baptized by her, the church herself was created by the Spirit of God. Not only her members, but the baptizing church herself has been baptized, as Eph. 5:25-32 uniquely states. By giving Himself up for the church Christ did it “that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the Word, that He might present the church to Himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.” The church’s holiness and glory are those of the Christ who is active and gives Himself to her. Only as the one baptized by Christ is the church the organ of His baptizing, His cleansing, sanctifying, glorifying. Only because of the Head is the church the body of Christ growing in all dimensions—growing toward Christ, growing in the fellowship of her members with each other, growing in the advance of the message into the world and through the addition of those who stand afar off. As the one baptized, the church by her baptizing is the growing body of Christ whose fullness permeates all things and is the new all in all. (Edmund Schlink, The Doctrine of Baptism [trans. Herbert J. A. Bouman; Sant Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1972], 116-17, emphasis added)

 

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