BAPTISED FOR THE DEAD
E.C.Burr
This chapter is one in which Paul's view of the position of the Christian is unfolded, from the time he first heard the gospel until the day of eternity. It does not in itself give us any indication of what the interval will be between the time when we heard the gospel, "in which also ye stand, by which also ye are saved" (vv 1,2), and the time when Christ will hand over the kingdom "to him who is God and Father " (v 24) "that God may be all in all" (v 28). The time when we first heard the gospel may perhaps have receded in our minds. No doubt most of us did not believe the gospel the first time we heard it, but there came a time when we did receive the glad tidings. Paul refers both to announcing the glad tidings and to making them known and I suppose, and indeed trust, that in so far as it is not true yet, the Lord would work in all here, so that each of us may have a definitive understanding that "Christ died for our sins... and that he was buried; and that he was raised" (vv 3,4), and then that, as ascended, He was seen. These things are basic to our Christianity, and Paul surveys things in the chapter right up to eternity, when God will be all in all. That will not be before eternity, I think it would be safe to say; though the assembly is viewed as being filled to all the fulness of God, it would not be accurate to say that God is all in all until eternity, that is that there is nothing which does not reflect God to Himself - a marvellous thing that is set before us, that the end of the operations of God, in which He designs to operate in us in the gospel, culminates in the time when He will be all in all - a profoundly long view. You might have thought, as you or I naturally would (and our thoughts are now conditioned by the length of time that has elapsed) that a long time would have elapsed between the preaching of the gospel and our entrance into eternity. If you look at other scriptures you discover that in Paul's mind the interval was never longer than the life of the person he was speaking to. He says to Timothy, "that thou keep the commandment spotless, irreproachable, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ", 1 Tim 6: 14. The clear inference from that is that Timothy could expect that the appearing would be in his own lifetime - "thou keep the commandment... until the appearing". If you think of the Thessalonians, Paul refers to their being found "blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ", 1 Thess 5: 23. A local assembly, as we have often said, of youthful formation but expectant that the coming of the Lord would be in the lifetime manifestly of the persons to whom it was said, because Paul is enjoining them to keep themselves spotless, so that they would be spotless at the coming of the Lord Jesus.
While this is the way in which Paul presents the unfolding of this the Spirit's day, we have experienced that much more time has unfolded. How many generations there have been since Paul 's word to Timothy! I suppose sixty or seventy since he wrote to Timothy and to the Thessalonians. While, therefore, on the one hand, each of us would carry in our souls the expectation that both the rapture would be in our lifetime, and then. the appearing of the Lord Jesus, (and we shall need to have this expectation reinforced in us, and it is well if ministry amongst us reinforces the coming of the Lord) we have also to be prepared for the continuance of things a little longer. What I am concerned about, beloved, is that each of us should be committed to the continuation of things on the basis on which the Lord would have us.
In 2 Timothy 2 Paul says to Timothy, "And the things thou hast heard of me in the presence of many witnesses, these entrust to faithful men, such as shall be competent to instruct others also" (v 2). It may be that we are right in interpreting that as Timothy committing things as passing them from one generation to another, but it is not necessarily so, and it would not be altogether consistent with Paul's manifest expectation that the Lord would appear within the lifetime of Timothy. It may be that what Paul had in mind was the diffusion horizontally of the truth that Timothy had received from him, that Timothy was to commit it to faithful men who would then spread it out to others also, rather than its continuing in a descendent line. Nevertheless, whatever Paul had in mind, the truth has come down to us in our own day in the line of that descent through faithful men who have been competent to instruct others also. It may be that at times we cannot always discover the faithful men. There is one Man who has always been faithful and that is Christ Himself. It says of God that He abides faithful and Christ abides faithful. There has always been one faithful Man, treasuring up the thoughts of God in His heart and in His mind, and ready to communicate them to others who would be competent to instruct others also. In His own time and way He has operated in unfolding the truth and in recovering the truth, so that what He gave through Paul, and through John and others, is available on the basis of being committed through competent hands to those who are able to instruct others. The testimony, therefore, comes down to our own day, a day in which in one sense things are as weak as they have ever been. Within you can feel the strength and the vitality of what the Lord has. I commend to the brethren a remark of Mr Stoney's in his letters. He refers to a letter which a brother had written to him and says, You perhaps used these words written without any preparation but I think they comprise the principles of a true position. The brother had said, A work of smaller dimensions on a firmer and sounder basis (JBS Letters NS Vol.1 p.22). Now, if that is true of our day, thank God for it. But if the work is of smaller dimensions but on a firmer and sounder basis let us be committed to building on that foundation which remains. "The firm foundation of God stands", 2 Tim 2: 19. And if the work appears to be of smaller dimensions, let us, beloved, ensure that we are committed to the work that remains and that we see that, in spite of the smallness; none of the ornamentation and provision that is in the divine mind is in any way given up. Let us be committed to the holding of the truth.
The Lord has, as I say, continued things down to our own day and in one way they are externally as weak as any one could find them. I expect there are plenty of people who would say that, if even a fox went up, it would knock it down. That is what they said in Nehemiah's day (see Neh 4: 3). I think we are committed to the fact that little foxes spoil the vines, but they are not going to be given the access that would permit them to knock things over. The Lord would have us committed to the continuance of things; and one thing I feel the need of is to be maintained in the assurance that things will continue in the same way that the Lord has recovered them. There is always a danger as things pass from one generation to another that they become transformed as they pass. You find this in what goes on in other areas. I do not apply this to what goes on in the circle of the saints, but, for instance, if you look at government and those who are in government and then look at another younger generation who will one day be the government, you feel that as one generation gives way to another the nature of government will change. Now things are not to be in the assembly in that way. Things are to be handed from one generation to another so that they are carried on in the way that the Lord recovered them to the preceding generation. While in spirit we would always maintain the truth in a way that is current in the day to which it is given, the Spirit is not concerned to change the substance of what has been recovered so as, for instance, to make it more fitting for a later day, that in which we ourselves live. The committal to the handing on of the truth in the way in which the Lord has given it to us is something to which we all should be devoting ourselves. It is important for the grandparent generation, and for the parental generation, to see that things are carried to the next generation in a way that does not in any way deny the substance of what the Lord has done so far.
Now I have alluded to this particular verse in 1 Corinthians 15 because one thing we can be sure of is that the Spirit does not use words carelessly, and Paul under the direction of the Spirit does not use words at random or aimlessly. If Paul uses a word by the Spirit he uses the word that is intended for the purpose, and what I want to draw attention to is that Paul does not say, for instance, those that come into the assembly and make up the number in place of the dead. He is contemplating, as we can see, that saints die. They depart to be with Christ which, he says elsewhere, is very much better. They are sown as he says in this chapter, in corruption, in weakness in dishonour and so on. Paul does not just say that he is concerned as to those that will make up the number of those who die. We are thankful for numbers, we are thankful for those that the Lord is recovering to the truth in the present day. Paul does not just say, those who will believe the gospel in place of those who have died. What he says is "the baptised for the dead". Now I venture to suggest to the brethren that that is the key to the handing on of things from one generation to another, that the next generation apprehends what it is to be baptised for the dead. Baptised - not converted or coming into fellowship, although that will follow, but baptised for the dead. He says If Christ is not raised and the dead are not raised, then why are they baptised for them? He does not say, Why do they believe the gospel? but, Why are they baptised? I think this has much to say to us even at the present day. Whether we apprehend that our own place in the testimony at the present time is related to having been baptised for the dead.
Now baptism has two particular aspects - an external aspect and an inward aspect. I think that the external aspect is that which we have to understand first. It may sound trite to say that and the more so because we have been brought up against the background of having been baptised as infants. (We trust we are brought up in the light of that fact that we were baptised as infants and we are then in an atmosphere where the doctrine and the truth as to baptism is unfolded to us). But I think there is less apprehension amongst us of what baptism means in the public sense than there was, for instance, with the believers in the beginning of the Acts where persons were baptised many years before the doctrine of baptism was unfolded. I feel convicted of the necessity for the reality of baptism in the public sense to be borne in upon us and ourselves to be committed to it if the recovery that the Lord has worked in is to be continued in men and women who will be faithful to it. It is easy to see, if you go back to the beginning of the Acts, that the bearing of baptism publicly was something that was resolutely taken on, something that was clearly, definitively known and something that could not be gone back on. I wonder how many of us actually apprehend that our committal to Christ is of that quality. The tendency with ourselves is to allow ourselves to be drawn back into the world out of which we have been baptised, and its influences are continuous. They are continuous on young people, but they are continuous on people like me, and on old people. The drawing back of the world is a continuous activity of the prince and god of the world. If you went back to the beginning of the Acts you would understand that you were there in a world in which the Lord Jesus had been publicly crucified only a few weeks earlier, and the effect of baptism as you committed yourself to it would be that plainly and irrevocably you had committed yourself to the testimony of the Man that the world had crucified.
Now, beloved brethren, we are here known, or we used to be known, by the world as persons who were committed to a rejected Christ. Are we still so now? Are we known more as persons who hold exclusive doctrines (and exclusivism is right in itself, the exclusion of evil is a thing that no Christian rightly instructed could deny) or are we actually known as persons who are committed to a rejected Christ? Suppose you had lived in Jerusalem and were amongst those who in Acts 2 accepted what Peter said and had been baptised; every one would know that you were a person who was devoted to the Man that had been rejected and that you counted all things loss for the excellency of His knowledge.
Now, beloved, if the testimony is to be continued on the basis of persons being baptised for the dead, that groundwork in every person who wanted to be committed to the testimony is inescapable. There is no continuance of the testimony as it has been recovered unless the reality of baptism in its public sense is not only apprehended objectively but is the definitive commitment of every one of us. As I say, Paul does not use these words lightly and, if he says baptised for the dead, it involves that our public position is that we are committed to a rejected Christ. You can easily see from this that matters of association and social links and worldly conduct fall into their place. If they do not, take a rejected Christ into them and see how the things stand up, If you are associated in something, take a rejected Christ there and see whether they will have Him arid, if they will not have Him, remember that you are baptised to the name of the Lord Jesus. Which are you going to have? Are you going to have the association or the Christ? Which will you have? If you are drawn into social links with persons who are in the world, persons who say, Come With us, as they do in Proverbs 1. let us have one purse, let us enjoy ourselves, take a rejected Christ there and see how He fits in. We need to look at the whole range of links which we allow ourselves to form socially in the light of the fact that we are amongst those that are baptised for the dead, not amongst merely believers On the Lord Jesus. Thank God we are that. We are not merely amongst those who have a particular doctrinal or church position, we are among the baptised for the dead. That is something that is distinguished from just believing on the Lord Jesus. You are in the world at the present time as a person who has been baptised and, if you can take a rejected Christ somewhere, go. If you can join Him to something, join Him to it. If you cannot, do neither. If you are drawn into worldly behaviour, worldly customs, consider whether they suit Him. There are a lot of worldly customs: marriages seem to be an occasion for the demonstration of worldly customs. Beloved, a marriage between two persons who are among the baptised for the dead has all the joy of a marriage, but it has an underlying solemnity, because here are two persons committing themselves to another household in which that rejected Man is to have the prime place. Let these things affect us. Let us know that we are not in the world merely as believers on the Lord Jesus. We are that, and thank God for the work that has given us that faith in Him, but we are here as persons who are baptised. Remember it, and if you forget what it feels like, put yourself back in your mind into Acts 2 and think of a world of which the whole city was characteristically murderous and you said, I will stand with the Man who was murdered. That is the public position of the testimony, that is what being baptised involves.
One hardly needs to refer to 2 Timothy 2 if baptism and its significance publicly is really grasped in the soul and, therefore, I say that if the testimony is to be continued in the way the Lord recovered it (not in the way that men have handled it and what men have made of it) it must be in persons who know what it is to have been baptised in its public sense. We have had a lot of history that has been very sorrowful. I suppose none of us who thinks about it and has had any prominent part in it, ever thinks of it without some feeling of self-consciousness and guilt, although the Lord in His grace has dealt with all that. Thank God He has, and it has left men free to go on with the Lord. Let us remember that it is not the history of recovery as man has made it but what the Lord would have, and it requires the present bearing of baptism on every one of us, that is, I am defined in the world, not just as a good converted man. Mr Stoney would never have the expression, a Christian man. He says if you want to speak about a Christian, speak about a Christian, but a Christian man is seeking to add something to what a man is himself. Let us remember that the continuance of the testimony, in the way Paul alludes to it here, depends on persons being thoroughly committed to the fact that Christ has been rejected by the world and we, therefore, with Him.
It has also its bearing inwardly, perhaps easier to speak about than it is to produce in testimony. In one sense the public aspect if C|hristianity is easier than the inward aspect because, to use an illustration, I may be invited to go somewhere and I say, I will not go and that is that. But inwardly, if I allow something of the old man, in a moment it doubles, in a moment it quadruples, then it is up to eight and in a few moments you are filled, perhaps for a moment, with some malicious spirit that is an unbaptised condition. Envy is perhaps something that we judge less easily, the desire that what what somebody else has might be mine, the place, the readiness, the spirit of being ready to speak; and so on; I may envy all these things. But there are other aspects of what is inward and natural to which baptism has to refer. Such things as natural sentiment and a feeling that it would not be nice to do so and so, sometimes even the feeling of Peter in relation to the Lord who was going on to death: "This shall in no wise be unto thee" Matt 16: 22. It sometimes works out that the allowance of this kind of thing prevents matters being dealt with in our assemblies that ought to be dealt with, because there is some consideration based on feelings that went into the grave with Christ Himself. "As many as have been baptised unto Christ, have put on Christ", Gal 3: 27. But what went into His grave with Him was every feeling and emotion which cannot find a foundation in His death and His present life, and the remarks of Peter to the Lord which I quoted too often find an echo in us, that we would rather not touch or deal with something because of whom it will offend or whom it will upset or what the consequences will be. That is not the basis on which the testimony will be continued in those who have been baptised for the dead. They are able to rally themselves in relation to the fact that they have experimentally proved what it was for these things to go into Christ's grave with Him, and they come out in newness of life with none of these old things clinging to them, none of them having an operative part in their present activities of whatever kind they may be. So Paul would have us learn that the old man and his deeds lie there, they lie in Christ's grave where He has been for us, as delineating for us what baptism involves. There is circumcision, which has much the same effect in its private bearing, but baptism has necessarily a public bearing. It has a bearing on us in relation to these less tangible things that I speak of, and which are essential to be judged as having been dealt with in Christ 's death, if the testimony is to be continued in the way it has been handed down to us.
I have referred to these things, beloved, because I feel that PauI does not use the words carelessly. He does not use them merely as a kind of synonym for something else. When Paul says "baptised for the dead" he means "baptised for the dead", and he means the full bearing of baptism to be working in us. I believe that, if we wish, as surely we do, the testimony to be continued in the way it has come down to us in the Lord's grace and in spite of much failure on the part of men, and most notably on the part of ourselves, we must apprehend the reality of baptism in its full significance in judging what is unsuitable to Christ. It helps us also in putting His things first; but Paul looks for the testimony to be continued, not merely in believers, not merely in those who have the gain of Christ's death, not merely in those who are hoping to go to heaven when they die. Persons who have relegated their Christian history to going to heaven when they die are pretty well useless as far as the present testimony is concerned; they postpone everything and will have the world for the present time. What Paul is looking for, if the testimony is to be continued, are persons who have apprehended baptism.
The teaching of baptism is very well known amongst us. There are many persons here who could speak about it far better than I could. One thing that impresses me often is the way in which the generations preceding my own, my father's generation and my grandfather's generation, could speak about these things as the common currency of their language. You hardly ever went to a meeting without hearing something that had an inward effect on you being spoken about by men who appeared to be familiar with it. That is perhaps something that we have in a diminished way at the present time, and it may be that as individuals we have not committed ourselves thoroughly enough to the substance of the truth which brethren two generations ago actively and freely entered into in intercourse with one another and which affected everything that they did. Many things belonged to that generation which one does not hear now. You heard brothers who could speak about the types of the tabernacle as if they were meat and drink to them. They lived them, they talked them, they could unfold them. It is easy to say that the day when that kind of thing was needed is past. We may think it is past because we are not competent to maintain it. Beloved, we can always improve our competency in the truth. There is one thing that the Lord would impress upon us, and I feel this very much as I look at the next generation here today. Thank God for all the children here; may they be brought up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. But I would encourage parents to keep their children in their own house as long as they can; brethren should not allow their children to go to school before their time. Do not send your children out of your own care before you have to. I feel it is almost a betrayal of the young children if they are sent into the world before they have to be. But bring them up, look at them. Do you have confidence that the things that you received from your father will be manifested in these children in twenty years time? If you do, beloved, then I have confidence that the testimony will continue. But I feel that there may be a need for our reinforcing one another in some of the more fundamental aspects of the truth, both in its public and its private bearing, if the Lord is going to have, if He leaves us here for another generation, persons in it who are worthy of the fulness of the light He has given.
Well, beloved, let us encourage one another. I would never like to minister in a way that brought depression or anxiety to the brethren, but if we have our eye on the things that matter most, the Lord will help us in committal to them. And if we anticipate, as we some times do, that the Lord may leave things here for a little bit longer, let us be sure that we are setting an example in our own generation, and nurturing in the next, the attitude of being baptised for the dead, which is the security, I think, of things continuing until the appearing. May the Lord help us.
PETERHEAD
8 March 1975