Sunday, November 1, 2020

William Hendriksen and the Reformed Discomfort with Paul's and Jesus' Teachings of Water Baptism being Salvific, not Symbolic Merely

 

Rom 6:3-7 is an important text which teaches baptismal regeneration. I have discussed this text before, such as here. To see how Reformed apologists tend to speak out of both sides of their mouth when it comes to baptism having salvific effects and then, rather desperately, try to downplay such in order to survive a symbolic view of baptism, can be seen in the following from William Hendriksen (1900-1982):

 

To be baptized “into Christ Jesus” implies to be brought into personal relation to the Savior. For similar expressions see Matt. 28:19 (“baptizing into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”); 1 Cor. 1:13 (“baptized into the name of Paul”); and 10:2 (“baptized into Moses”). Paul, accordingly, points out that baptizing people into Christ Jesus implies baptizing them into—i.e., in connection with the sacrament of baptism bringing them into personal relationship with—Christ’s death, so that this death becomes meaningful to them, teaching them that by it the guilt of their sins had been removed, and that they had received power to fight and overcome sin’s pollution . . . Through baptism and reflection on its meaning these early converts, including Paul, had been brought into a very close personal relationship with their Lord and Savior and with the significance of his self-sacrificing death. The meaning of that death had been blessed to their hearts by the Holy Spirit . . . It was the desire to live this kind of new life that caused people to come forward in order to be baptized. The water of baptism, by whatever method it is applied (immersion, pouring, sprinkling) symbolizes and seals the cleansing power of the Spirit (Ezek. 36:25; 1 Cor. 6:11; Eph. 5:26; Heb. 10:22). It symbolizes and seals what God has done and is doing, and, as a result, incorporation of the person into the fellowship of God and of his church. (William Hendriksen, Exposition of Paul's Epistle to the Romans [New Testament Commentary; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book House, 2002], 195-96, 196, 199)

 

Elsewhere, on John 3:5, they try also to downplay the salvific efficacy of water baptism (while, to their credit, admitting that the “water” [υδατος] in the passage is water baptism unlike many other Reformed Protestants commentators):

5. Jesus answered, I most solemnly assure you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. The key to the interpretation of these words is found in 1:33. (See also 1:26, 31; cf. Matt. 3:11; Mark 1:8; Luke 3:16) where water and Spirit are also found side by side, in connection with baptism. The evident meaning, therefore, is this: being baptized with water is not sufficient. The sign is valuable, indeed. It is of great importance both as a pictorial representation and as a seal. But the sign should be accompanied by the thing signified: the cleansing work of the Holy Spirit. It is the latter that is absolutely necessary if one is to be saved. Note, in this connection, that in verses 6 and 8 we no longer read about the birth of water but only about the birth of the Spirit, the one great essential.

 

Now it is true that the cleansing work of the Holy Spirit is not finished until the believer enters heaven. In a sense, becoming a child of God is a life-long process (see 1:12), but in the present passage the initial cleansing implied in the implantation of new life in the heart of the sinner is meant, as is evident from the fact that we are taught here that unless one is born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot even enter the kingdom of God. (William Hendriksen, Exposition of the Gospel According to John [New Testament Commentary; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book House, 2002], 1:134)

 

To see why they are wrong about the salvific efficacy of water baptism, see:

 

Baptism, Salvation, and the New Testament: John 3:1-7

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