Why Baptism Must Be into the Membership of a Local Church!

From http://www.mctsowensboro.org

Recently, a considerable amount of discussion and debate was generated by the proposal of John Piper and his fellow elders to allow those not baptized as believers into the membership of Bethlehem Baptist church. I sympathize in some respects with the motivations which I suppose led Piper to submit such a proposal. I myself desired to find a way to allow godly paedobaptists to obtain membership in the church I helped to pastor in Grand Rapids. This proposal has subsequently, I am glad to say, been withdrawn. My conviction is that such a proposal cannot be constructed without jeopardizing or denying biblical principles of church polity.

There is, however, a common practice that bothers me even more deeply than a proposal like Piper’s. It is the practice of not a few Baptists today of baptizing people without requiring that such baptism be into the membership of a local church. Such a practice it seems to me is even more subversive of biblical church order and an authentically biblical understanding of baptism than the proposal put forward by Piper. I believe as well that it is even further outside the mainstream of the Christian understanding of the significance of baptism. Over the next several weeks, then, I want to submit ten reasons why baptism must be into local church membership. I begin with the first three this morning.

1. Because this is what the meaning or symbolism of baptism requires.
Baptism symbolizes and makes visible the inward and spiritual realities of union with Christ Romans 6:1-4). Union with Christ, however, involves participation in the body of Christ—the church (Romans 12:4-5; 1 Cor. 10:16-17; 11:24, 27, 29; 1 Cor. 12:12-27; Eph. 1:22-23; 2:16; 3:6;4:4, 11, 12, 16; 5:23, 30; Col. 1:18, 24; 2:19; 3:15). Union with Christ is, then, inseparable from or identical with union with the body of Christ, the church.

Baptism, however, is the visible sign of union with Christ. It cannot but be, then, the visible sign of union with His body—the church. The universal church becomes visible only in the local church. The local church is the visible, local expression of the body of Christ—the only appointed, visible, local expression of the body of Christ. To become a visible Christian through baptism is to become a visible member of the body of Christ. To become a member of the visible body of Christ is to become a member of the visible church. To become a member of the visible church is to become a member of the local church. Baptism=visible union with Christ=visible membership in the body of Christ=visible membership in the church=membership in the local church. Thus, to disconnect baptism and the local church is to deny that baptism symbolizes visible union with Christ. The glory of the local church is that it is the divinely appointed local, expression of the body of Christ. To disconnect baptism from membership in the local chuch is to deny the glory of the local church.

2. Because this is what the Great Commission requires (Matt. 28:18-20).
Baptists insist rightly that the order of the Great Commission requires that baptism be preceded by discipleship. Often, however, they neglect to see that the Great Commission just as clearly requires that baptism be succeeded by instruction in the ordinances of Christ. The school of Christ is the church. It is in the context of the local church that the third part of the Great Commission is fulfilled (Acts 14:21-23). It is to the local church first and foremost that pastor-teachers are given (Eph. 4:11-13). It is just as contrary to the Great Commission and just as wrong to baptize disciples and not instruct them afterwards as it is to baptize those who are not disciples before. Those baptized must be required to enroll in Christ’s school, that is, the local church.

3. Because this is what baptism’s identity as a church ordinance requires.
Baptists rightly insist that only the church and its authorized representatives have a right to baptize. Those originally charged to baptize were not all Christians promiscuously or individually, but the Apostles of Christ (Matt. 28:18-20) in their official capacity as those upon whose testimony the visible church was to be built (Matt. 16:16-18). This means, however, that baptism is an ordinance of the visible church, and, thus, an ordinance under the authority of the church. It is inconsistent and illogical to bestow a church ordinance on those who are not by this initiatory ordinance made members of the church.