Your question is an excellent one. I will give you a short answer and try to post something on this topic in the future. Establishing the case that believers baptism belongs to the church is harder than doing so with the Lord’s Supper and in addition there is not chapter and verse. However, here is why I believe as I do…

1) Christ said upon this rock I will build my church and not individual believers. I think our society focuses on individualism and not the community of believers which results in a few errors.

2) Second, baptism is the public profession of faith. To whom is this profession made? In the book of Acts, it is made to the church (believers) that decides to accept or reject the candidate into their fellowship. There is no need for a personal profession as that has already happened and God knows whether it was true or not. The need is the public identification with Christ. This identification with Christ begins with baptism and continues through connection to Christ bride which is his church.

3) I believe that both ordinances rightly belong to the church. I can easily prove the Lord’s Supper from 1 Cor 5. It would be odd to have one belong to the church and the other not. In addition the community of believers determine discipline and practice Lord’s Supper so I see no reason to individualize baptism while the others are clearly not.

I could go on, but time is short. I will attempt to give a more detailed answer to you later. Thanks for the question. I hope this helps as you think through the issues.

Thomas White

Please know, I’m not disagreeing with the connection so much as I’m seeking understanding of the issue from a Biblical rather than traditional viewpoint. When we teach, disciple and mentor believers involved in church plants, we admonish them to default to a strict and literal understanding of Scripture and to be wary of mandating church traditions that are not connected to Scripture.

They study Scripture and see a young church that looks alot like theirs, they also see Baptism happening immediately, or very soon, after conversion with connections to identifying with Christ, but not a local church.

Thanks for any clarity you can lend to this.

Blessings,
Rob Stevens

Thanks for you question. If you look at the paper linked in the articles on “What is Valid Baptism” you will find an explanation of a true church and some of why I believe baptism should be connected to the local church. I do mean the local church when I state that. I will post on this further as time allows. God bless.

Thomas White

Good post, it is well written and helpful. The internet needs more voices like yours.

I tend to lean your way theologically (from what I can tell) but since moving to a new culture and dealing with issues that are more similar to what the infant / 1st century local churches faced rather than the much more mature “Western church”, I’m constantly having to go back and evaluate what is BIBLICAL and what is simply TRADITION (good and otherwise.)

Having said that, would you mind explaining the BIBLICAL basis for point #4. (clarification – when you say “true church” in this context, are you talking about “local church”?)

I ask because quite often people where I minister come to faith independent of a local church and there are very few, if any at all, options for healthy local church involvement. That means that usually the first several believers of what eventually becomes a church plant are baptized independent of a local church. Are you saying that BIBLICALLY, these baptisms, done outside the context of a local church, are invalid? How do we deal with Biblical examples of baptism that do not seem connected to any local church?

Thank you for the time and effort you put into this!

In Him,
Rob

I have seen the dialogue between Piper and Grudem. I think it is very interesting, and I am pleased that Grudem has strengthened his stance. As to Piper’s position, I think that may be worthy of a future post so I will hold off on commenting until then. Thanks for stopping by. God bless.

Thomas White