Searching the Scriptures: The Subjects of Baptism
Searching the Scriptures:
The Subjects of Baptism
Judson received his theological education under the interpretative hermeneutic of covenant theology, which concludes that the relationship between Abraham, Israel, and the church is without substantial distinction. As Judson approached the practice of baptism, he was forced to reinvestigate the relationship between these three entities. Were they analogous? Were the covenantal rites of circumcision and baptism identical? Judson’s conclusions to these arguments provided him with the answer to the question that had been troubling him: who are the rightful participants in Christian baptism? He wrote to his home church regarding his discoveries:
When I proceeded to consider certain passages, which are thought to favor the Pedobaptist system, (1 Cor. 7:14; Acts 2:39; Matt. 19:14, 18:3; Acts 16:34; 1 Cor. 1:16) I found nothing satisfactory.
In a word, I could not find a single intimation, in the New Testament, that the children and domestics of believers were members of the church, or entitled to any church ordinance, in consequence of the profession of the head of their family. Everything discountenanced this idea. When baptism was spoken of, it was always in connection with believing. None but believers were commanded to be baptized; and it did not appear to my mind that any others were baptized.[22]
Here, then, appeared a striking difference between the Abrahamic and the Christian systems. The one recognized the membership of children, domestics, and remote descendants of professors, and also tended directly to the establishment of a national religion. The other appeared to be a selective system, acknowledging none as members of the church, but such as gave credible evidence of believing in Christ.
This led me to suspect, that these two systems, so evidently different, could not be one and the same. And now the light began to dawn. The more I read, and the more I meditated on the subject, the more clearly it appeared to me, that all my errors and difficulties had originated, in confounding these two systems.[23]
I cannot describe to you, dear brethren, the light and satisfaction, which I obtained, in taking this view of the matter, in considering the two churches distinct, and in classing my ideas of each in their proper place. I became possessed of a key, that unlocked many a difficulty, which had long perplexed me. And the more I read the Bible, the more clearly I saw, that this was the true system therein revealed.[24]
But on the other hand, if you adopt and practice the Abrahamic system, you will inevitably confound the church and the world; you will receive into the church multitudes who are destitute of those qualifications, which are represented, in the New Testament, as requisite to constitute a member of the kingdom which Christ set up; you will ultimately establish a national religion; and this will be as contrary to the system laid down in the New Testament.[25]
These excerpts from Judson’s letter reflect the major interpretative shift in his hermeneutic. It also indicates the reason Judson became not only an immersionist, but a post-conversion immersionist. Because post-conversion immersion is the primary distinction of the Baptist church, in a word Adoniram Judson became a Baptist.