We Acknowledge one Baptism, Resurrection and New Life

By Willam H. Lazareth

This is the sixth of eight articles on the Trinitarian foundations of the Christian faith. In these essays our attention focuses on the Biblical revelation supporting the adoration and praise of the Holy Trinity: one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The doctrine of the Holy Trinity was only later defined by universal Councils as the Church’s official dogma.

The documentation in these essays, in condensed and excerpted form, is mostly derived and simplified from the original ecumenical convergence texts produced over decades by the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches. They are specifically:

• “Confessing the One Faith: An Ecumenical Explication of the Apostolic Faith as it is Confessed in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed” (No. 153, 1991), and
• “Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry” (No.111, 1982).

Explicating the Text of the Creed: “We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.”

In the original version of the Nicene Creed, the use of the Greek term “acknowledge” (homologoumen) indicates that baptism does indeed belong to the confession of faith, but not in the same way as the three persons of the Trinity, in whom we “believe” (pisteuomen eis). The Church acknowledges only one unrepeatable baptism, which is inseparably connected with the confession of faith in one divine God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Baptism is the only sacrament of the Church mentioned in the Creed, and it is closely related to the forgiveness of sins. In the early Church, baptism was considered to be the incomparable occasion when our sinful life is radically transformed by a rebirth to a new life that liberates us from our former sinful nature.

By its strong emphasis on baptism as the sacrament for the forgiveness of sins, the Creed exhorts us to take our baptism seriously; indeed, to regard it as the decisive and essential change in our life history.

In addition, the affirmation of the Creed reminds us that even later repentance, confession, and absolution should be considered in relation to our baptism, as a re-appropriation of what happened once-for-all (ephapax) in our baptism. It is not simply a passing institutional ceremony, but rather one that provides the basis for the continuity of the Christian life, within the communion of the family of the Triune God (cf. Eph.2:19).

The Biblical Witness

Jesus submitted himself to John’s baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins (Mark 1:4) in order “to fulfill all righteousness” (Matt. 3:15). Jesus’ baptism took place as an act of solidarity with sinners; in it the Son heard the voice of the Father, and the Spirit descended upon him (Mark 1:10 and par.). It led Jesus on to the path of the Suffering Servant (cf. Mark 10: 38-40).

John’s baptism of Jesus became the model for Christian baptism (“into Christ Jesus”) (Rom. 6: 3-6), which began only after Easter. The Risen Christ’s command to baptize was passed on in the tradition (Matt: 28:19f. Mark 16:16).

In the Old Testament, circumcision was the sign of the covenant of God with his people, in which all the members of Israel were included (cf. Gen. 17:11-14). References to the saving experience of the people of Israel (e.g., passage through the Red Sea) are used in some cases in the New Testament in connection with baptism (e.g., I Cor. 10:1f), while the fundamental pattern for the understanding of baptism is found in the death and resurrection of Jesus.

In the New Testament, it is by baptism that believers are made members of Christ and his Church. Buried with Christ in baptism, they will also live with him because of his resurrection (Rom.6:1-11; Col.2:11-12). To confess baptism into Christ is to confess that through Christ who died for our sins, we receive assurance of a share in his resurrection (Rom.8:9-11), together with the forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit.

This confidence implies the hope that in the eschatological fulfillment, those who have been baptized and believe will be citizens of the New Jerusalem (Rev. 21:1-4) and partakers of the life of the world to come.

The New Testament unfolds the meaning of baptism in various images which express the riches of this sacrament. Baptism is a washing away of sin (I Cor. 6:11);, a new birth (John 3:5); an enlightenment by Christ (Gal. 3:27); a renewal by the Spirit (Tit. 3:5); the experience of salvation from the flood ((I Pet. 3:20-21); an exodus from bondage (I Cor. 1):1-2); and a liberation into a new humanity in which barriers of divisions, whether of sex or race or social status, are transcended (Gal. 3:27-28; I Cor. 12-13).

This one baptism is administered by water with the promise of the Spirit to be given to those who receive baptism according to Christ’s word: “Unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God” (John 3:5).

Ecclesial Implications

The gift of God granted in baptism requires in every instance the human response of faith if it is to impart reconciliation effectively. This is true in every case, also for those who are not yet able to answer for themselves.

Here we are thinking first of all of the faith of the community within which the baptism takes place, but also of the future faith of baptized persons once they have grown up. In the case of the baptism of those who can answer for themselves, no one denies that God has already acted graciously before their baptism and that their response has already begun to be a response of faith.

In both cases, baptism itself is an efficacious sign of God’s grace evoking the lifelong response of faith. The administration of baptism within the worship of the congregation also reminds its members of their own baptism and of its continuing blessing and obligation.

In various contexts among divided churches now, the relationship between baptism and Church membership needs further doctrinal clarification. The true Church is not simply identical with the number of baptized persons. The actual institutional church suffers (in every denomination) from many kinds of distortion.

Nevertheless, this must not lead to an underestimation of baptism. All those who have been baptized and even those who have deliberately separated themselves from the Church remain under its care. The Church also has the responsibility of leading to baptism those who have been moved by the gospel but have not yet had their faith sealed by baptism in the Church.

Explicating the Text of the Creed: ”We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the age to come. Amen.”

The last words of the Creed are about hope. Indeed, Christians are people of hope; the Church is a community of hope. Empowered by the Holy Spirit, Christians have the assurance that in Christ and his resurrection, God has opened up for them a future and a hope which looks beyond the vicissitudes and predicaments of this time, life and world. Yet this transcendent hope already now becomes a source of strength, perseverance and expectation, and is able to bear fruit in the way people live and act.

The Biblical Witness

For the most part, the Old Testament has little to say about life after death. The realm of the dead is a place of shadows from which no one returns (II Sam. 12:23); a place without light; Jes. 10:21); a place where no one praises God (Ps. 6:5; 30:9; 115:17).

The prophets looked forward to a new age, a future time of blessing and peace, when a new David would reign in Jerusalem (Isa.9 and 11). In time, this future hope became detached from the present world and its historical future. Rather than being a continuation of this world, it appeared to involve a radical break and discontinuity. Only occasionally in late texts, do we hear in the Old Testament and in the intertestamental literature of a resurrection of the dead (Isa.26:19; Dan. 12:2).

In contrast to the Old Testament, the hope of the resurrection of the dead, a matter of dispute between the Pharisees and Sadducees at the time of Jesus, is clearly attested in the New Testament.

According to Paul, it is inextricably linked to the resurrection of Jesus Christ himself, as the first-born of the dead (I Cor. 15:12ff.). We are born perishable, but raised imperishable (I Cor: 15:42; 53-54). Belief in the resurrection of the dead is a comfort for those who mourn the loss of friends (I Thess. 4:13ff.).

According to Acts, Paul’s preaching of the resurrection of the dead in Athens was a subject which gave rise to special offense (Acts 17:32). In the Gospel of John, this hope is linked to the certainty that the dead become alive at the voice of the Son of God (John 5: 24ff.).

Eternal life is described in the New Testament as a personal existence with Christ (Phil. 1:23), but also portrayed as a fellowship in the kingdom of God united in the praise of the eternal God (Luke 13:29; Mark 14: 25; Rev. 22:37:12). The Old Testament figure of “the new heaven and the new earth” is adopted and taken further. We hear of the new city in which God will wipe away every tear from our eyes (Rev. 21:1ff.). Eternal life will be a life in the presence of God in which we shall see “face to face” (I Cor. 13:12) what God is like (I John 3:2).

Fundamental to the New Testament is the fact that such life is not simply the object of hope, but is also a present reality (cf. John’s Gospel). The kingdom of God is already among us (Luke 17:21); new life is already given in baptism, and we experience it in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit (Rom. 6:3 and 14:17). The gracious year of the Lord proclaimed by Isaiah as a promise for the future has already been fulfilled in the coming if Jesus (Luke 4:16-21).

So to live by faith is to live in hope. The ground of our hope is Jesus Christ. As first-born from the dead, Jesus Christ is the realization and manifestation of the new humanity. In his life and work, death and resurrection, God manifests the future he intends for the world through the Spirit. In him, life eternal enters our lives, lifting them out of our bondage to death and bringing them into communion with God.

The Spirit poured out by the Risen Christ is the seal of our hope, which is a hope for what is beyond human capacities and expectations (Heb. 11:1), a hope against hope. But it is a confident hope because it rests on the powerful promise of God.

The focus and basis of our hope for life with God beyond death (I Thess. 4:13-18; Matt. 25:31ff.; I Cor. 15:3ff.) is the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and the promise that those who have died with Christ will live forever with him.

For Christian faith, resurrection means that human beings in their individuality and wholeness, body-soul-spirit, have a future beyond death, and that therefore human existence from its beginning to the death of the individual has an eternal significance in accountability to the triune God.

This hope is a protest against the skepticism of those for whom death is the limit to all life. Transience and death are not the last word on human life; rather God has bestowed a unique dignity on human existence through promising eternal life. Resurrection implies for Christian faith that after death the human person has a future.

According to God’s purpose, creation will be radically transformed in ways that are still a mystery. In Christ, God sets forth his “plan of the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth” (Eph. 1:10).

Thus the wholeness of creation will not be separated from the final fulfillment of the kingdom of God. Some elements of creation, like the water of baptism and the bread and wine of the Eucharist, are already now used by the Holy Spirit to give us the first fruits of the kingdom. In the “new heaven and the new earth” (Isa.65:17; Rev.21:1), the new humanity will see and praise God face to face (I Cor. 13:12). God will be all in all (I Cor. 15:28).

The kingdom is the fulfillment of the prophecy to Israel (Isa.11:1-11; Micah 4:3) of the establishment of justice, righteousness, and peace—God’s will alone on earth as in heaven. The kingdom of God is the reality in which the sovereign reign of God is realized by the power of the Holy Spirit through his Son, Jesus Christ.

Under God’s sovereign reign, the forces of evil, sin, and death, the principalities and powers of the age (I Cor. 15:22-24; Col.2:15; etc.), are overcome through the cross and resurrection of Christ (Phil. 2:5-11). To God be glory from age to age. “He who testifies to these things, says, ’surely I am coming soon.’ Amen. Come. Lord Jesus” (Rev. 22:30).

The Nicene Creed also ends with the “Amen.” Already in the Holy Scriptures, this “Amen” is used to signify that the people of God receive a proclamation, and by this reception confirm it. In the early liturgies, what had been proclaimed and professed by the ministers in their specific office in the Church of God, was also received and confirmed by the whole assembly, expressing its trust in what has been confessed.

Today when the whole assembly proclaims and professes the Creed together with the ministers, it likewise signifies the communion of the whole Church of God in the faith transmitted through the apostles. The “Amen” of the assembly confidently expresses its “yes” to the Triune God revealed to us as the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.