In a booklet for people preparing for baptism, I wrote, “Baptism is a dramatic way of declaring that we belong to Jesus. The only prop needed is a large quantity of water. The spectators are asked to imagine that this water is a watery grave.
“So when you go under the water, you will identity yourself with Jesus who died and was buried, as for one split second you will disappear, like Jesus, off the face of the earth (in most Baptist churches as you are baptized, you will be taken backward into the horizontal position of a coffin!). Then like Jesus, you will symbolically rise from death. In baptism then, you will in effect be saying, ‘Yes, Lord, you died for me. Yes, Lord, you rose for me.’
“Baptism is more than a dramatic statement of belief. From Paul’s declaration of the newly baptized as rising to “live a new life” (Romans 6:4, Good News Bible), it is clear that there are ethical implications too. As you go under the water, you will be declaring your resolve to die to your old way of living and, as you rise from the water, you will be declaring your resolve to follow Jesus’ pattern for living.
“The implications for your attitude, for instance, to work, to money, to sex and to relationships are enormous. It is no exaggeration to describe baptism as a revolutionary act.”
Yes, I know there is more to baptism than this. Baptism is the place where God’s grace meets our faith; it is where the believer responds to the grace of God. In baptism, God blesses us with his Spirit; through baptism, we become members of Christ’s church.
Baptism too is the moment when hands are laid on us and prayer is made that we may be filled afresh with God’s Spirit for witness and service. But in this blog, the aspect of baptism I wish to highlight is “the cost of discipleship.”
In the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer: “When Christ calls a man [or woman], He bids him [or her] come and die. It may be a death like that of the first disciples who had to leave home and work to follow Him, or it may be a death like Luther’s, who had to leave the monastery and go out into the world. But it is the same death every time – death in Jesus Christ, the death of the old man [or woman] at his call.”
It is precisely because of this understanding of baptism that Baptist churches in the United Kingdom do not baptize children – although I gather that in parts of the U.S. some “Southern Baptists” can baptize children as young as 6 or 7.
Baptism is much more than simply saying, “I love Jesus”; rather, it is the great moment when we nail our colors to the mast and declare that we belong to Jesus, for now and for eternity.
Baptism goes way beyond the gospel truth of John 3:16; rather, it is our response to the call of Jesus to deny self, to take up our cross and to follow him (Mark 8:34). Baptism is not just for believers; it is for disciples.
Baptism is not for children who have no understanding of the cost of discipleship, rather, it is for those who have begun to feel the weight of the cross.
It is this understanding of baptism that underlies the fact that in a small survey of retired Baptist ministers I discovered the average age for baptism was 17.
Over the years, I have baptized hundreds of people; only rarely did I baptize somebody under 14 years of age.
I wanted to ensure that my baptismal candidates appreciated that to be a Christian is to go against the stream (see Romans 12:2).
Of the 20 people in the survey, 13 had been brought up in a Christian home. I would imagine that for most – if not all – of these 13 people, there had never been a time when they did not love Jesus. Nonetheless, they had to wait until they were older before they were baptized.
I am glad, for instance, that although I “opened my life to Christ” when I was 8 years old, I was not baptized until I was 13. At 8, I was not ready for baptism, for I had yet to become clear about the demands of Christian discipleship.
By the time I was 13, as a result of living in Switzerland for two years, I was well aware of the thousands of Anabaptists who had been burned at the stake.
Indeed, I was baptized in Zurich only a stone’s throw away from the River Limmat where Ulrich Zwingli, the great Swiss Reformer had drowned hundreds of Anabaptist women on so-called “ducking” stools (the men were burned). I had non-conformity etched on my soul.
It would be interesting to do a survey of the ages of people being baptized in Baptist churches today. I have a feeling the average age for young people could be significantly lower.
Some argue that if “the age of discretion” is 12, churches should not hesitate to baptize 12-year-olds. This, of course, is the age for a Jewish boy or girl to become a “son” or “daughter” of the law (bar or bat mitzvah).
Others argue that even by the age of 12 children from Christian families are beginning to realize that following Jesus today is no soft option – certainly in terms of sexual mores 12-year-olds are much more “savvy” than many of us were.
Or could it be that many British Baptists today have “dumbed down” the significance of baptism?
Waiting for a young person to reach their mid-teens could bring down the minister’s baptismal statistics!
One final thought: Presumably, the same arguments apply to the age when people should consider confirmation?
Editor’s note: A version of this article first appeared on Beasley-Murray’s website. It is used with permission.
Paul Beasley-Murray retired after 21 years of ministry as the senior minister of Central Baptist Church in Chelmsford in the United Kingdom. He is currently serving as the chairman and general editor of Ministry Today U.K. and as the chairman of the College of Baptist Ministers. He is the author of numerous books and articles, including “Living Out the Call,” a four-volume series on pastoral ministry.
