Yesterday we looked at how new believers in other cultures could possibly symbolize their death and resurrection in Jesus through using the burial symbolism of their culture.

In western culture, there are two main customs on how to treat people who die: they are buried or cremated.

Burial Symbolism and Water Baptism

Water baptism is a decent picture of burial, but the image might be even better if rather than dress the baptismal candidates in robes of white, they dressed as we would a dead body, and maybe the symbolism could be enhanced if there was a burial procession on the way to the baptism, and if the baptismal tank looked less like a hot tub and more like a casket. These sorts of adjustments to water baptism would make the death, burial, and resurrection symbolism much more clear for the average viewer.

What might be really symbolic is to have an actual casket up on the stage, and have the baptismal candidate lay down in it in front of everyone. The lid is closed, and then after a short period, is reopened, and to everyone’s amazement, the body is gone! But then the person reappears at the back of the room and walks again to the front. This sort of thing is done all the time in magic shows, and while I don’t know how the magicians do it, if a church could pull this off, it would do a wonderful job symbolizing the death, burial, and miraculous resurrection of those who believe in Jesus for eternal life.

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In previous posts I have argued that the symbolism of baptism is mostly gone today. In New Testament times, nearly all people immediately understood that when someone got baptized, they were symbolically dying to their past and rising again to a new life for the future. Such a ceremony would spark questions and discussion about why the person was getting baptized.

While baptism means something similar today, most people (including Christians) do not immediately grasp the symbolism. The symbolism has to be taught. Just as a joke loses its humor when it has to be explained, so also a symbol loses its force when it is explained. We need symbols which are more naturally and immediately grasped by all people so that they are compelled to ask why you are dying to your past.

The symbols should represent a break with the past and the beginning of a new future. If possible, it would also be good to symbolize death, burial, and resurrection. One way to look for symbols is to look at the burial customs of a particular culture, and then try to find a ritual, ceremony, or symbol that mimics the burial customs.

I will begin to suggest some for our own culture tomorrow, but let us work our way toward them by considering the extreme examples from other cultures around the world.

Burial Customs and Baptism

There is group of people in the Philippines known as the Caviteño. When a Cavite person is nearing death due to sickness or old age, the person goes out into the forest and selects a tree. Then the family members build the person a little hut at the base of this tree in which they will live until they die. But they are not left alone to die. The family and friends come out to hollow out the tree trunk of the standing tree.

When the person dies, he or she is entombed vertically in the hollowed-out tree trunk. The symbolism is that just as trees give life to the tribe through fruit and wood for their fires, so when a person dies, they give their life back to the tree.

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Though there are some possible alternatives to water baptism which will be discussed in later posts, there are three reasons to continue the rite of water baptism today.

Why Water Baptism Can be Practiced Today

First, water baptism is a traditional church practice. Water baptism is what Jesus and the apostles practiced, and what nearly all believers have undergone during the past 2000 years of church history. For this reason, and this reason alone, it is never wrong for a person to receive water baptism.

Second, the symbolism in water baptism is very strong. Though alternatives will be suggested below, it may be that there is no better symbolic ritual which so wonderfully depicts the idea of being buried with Christ and being raised to a new life in Him. Water baptism is like a visual sermon. It tells the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection, and our full participation with Him. This is one reason I am somewhat opposed to the idea of sprinkling as a mode of baptism. Sprinkling with water does not so clearly depict our burial and resurrection with Jesus as does immersion.

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Romans 6 may be the most famous passage in the Bible about baptism.

It is this chapter which is most often preached at baptismal services, and these are the Scriptures people go to when they want to talk about the symbolism, necessity, and power of baptism. During baptismal classes, it is this passage that pastors use to explain the meaning and significance of baptism. And this is with good reason, since the chapter does contain some great truths about baptism.

Romans 6 is about Spirit Baptism

The problem is that Romans 6 is not exactly about water baptism. It is primarily about Spirit baptism. We know this because water baptism does not result in dying with Christ (6:4), and the parallel passage in Colossians 2:11-12 compares spiritual circumcision with spiritual baptism.

Furthermore, the flow of argument in Paul’s letter to the Romans shows that he has Spirit baptism in mind. in Romans 4–5, Paul has gone into great detail about how a person is justified before God. Justification, he says, is by faith alone, apart from works of any kind (cf. Rom 4:4-5; 5:1, 21).

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There is one passage in the book of Acts that initially seems to challenge this idea that baptisms were intended to be a public demonstration of a life-changing decision which would cause others to ask the baptized person about what they had changed. This is the passage about the Ethiopian Eunuch in Acts 8:26-40.

The Baptism of the Ethiopian Eunuch

According to Acts 8:27, this Ethiopian was a Eunuch of great authority under Candace, the Queen of Ethiopia. He had charge over the entire royal treasury, which indicates he was a high-ranking public official in the royal courts of Ethiopia.

Philip overhears him reading from Isaiah and offers to explain the Scripture. After doing so, the man believes in Jesus, and Philip takes him down to some nearby water baptize him. Note that if this man was a proselyte to Judaism, as the text hints that he was (cf. 8:27), he would have already been baptized into Judaism. Now he was getting baptized again, this time into a full identification with Jesus Christ.

How was this a Public Demonstration?

But the question is this: How could this have been a public identification with Jesus if nobody witnessed the baptism except for Philip? The way this passage is usually presented in sermons and drawings is that Philip and the Eunuch are all alone on a deserted road, and the two of them go down into the water to be baptized. If this Ethiopian Eunuch was all alone and far away from home, then nobody would have seen or known what he did on this deserted road in Israel, and therefore, his baptism could not have been a public testimony to anyone.

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This entire series on looking at baptism in the book of Acts was getting WAY too long.

The discussion on baptism in the book of Acts is nearly 4000 words already, and the section on baptism in the book of Acts was well on it’s way to becoming 6000 words or more. Yikes! That is too long, especially when I want the chapter to be less than 10,000 words.

So, as has happened frequently in the process of writing Close Your Church for G00d, I’m cutting almost everything I have written so far about baptism in the book of Acts, and am summarizing it with the following:

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Baptism in the Book of Acts

In the book of Acts, every time the Gospel is preached to a new segment of humanity, it is symbolized through water and spirit baptism. The water baptism precedes the Spirit baptism, and the coming of the Holy Spirit in signs and wonders is the outward proof to Peter that God truly has accepted this new group of people into the family of God.

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