144 Dimensions of Baptism
from the rite of baptism; it is the "baptism of the Spirit" in association
with the laying of the Name of Jesus on a believer in the rite of baptism'.
Later he writes: 'in the New Testament faith and baptism are viewed as
inseparables whenever the subject of Christian initiation is under discus-
sion, so that if one is referred to, the other is presupposed, even if not
mentioned.. An the New Testament precisely the same gifts of grace are
associated with faith as with baptism. Forgiveness, cleansing and justifi-
cation are the effect of baptism... '^92
Understanding 'baptism' in 1 Cor. 12.13 as an example of synecdochemakes it possible for us to see here a reference to both Spirit- and water-
baptism. This interpretation of baptism, here and elsewhere (e.g. Mt. 28.19;
Gal. 3.27; Eph. 4.5; and 1 Pet. 3.21), can also help us to understand why
Luke does not seek to standardize the order of the elements involved in the
conversion of the first converts to the Christian faith as reported in the book
of Acts. He does not need to because they are all elements in the 'process'
of conversion-initiation, and in synecdoche any part of the process can
legitimately be employed to represent the whole. Neither do Luke or the
other New Testament writers have to refer to all the elements in conver-
sion-initiation because a part of the process can represent the whole of it.
It is further possible that there is an unwillingness on the part of some to
associate Spirit- and water-baptism because of a reluctance to recognizethat God uses material means to work in people's lives. This might, on
occasions, underlie the refusal to see water-baptism (a physical experience
and event) as the occasion at which the Spirit is imparted to the believer (a
spiritual experience and event).^93- Beasley-Murray, Baptism, pp. 174 and 272 respectively, italics his.
- Cf. the discussion over the spirit-matter dichotomy in Beasley-Murray,
Baptism^. 168. AlsoP.E. Thompson, 'Toward Baptist Ecclesiology in Pneumatologi-
cal Perspective' (PhD thesis, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, 1995), p. 224, who
comments that one of the results of the 'functional centrality of the human being in
baptist theology has been furthur reduction or subordination, of the "means of grace,"
when means have been spoken of at all, to truth. Accompanying this has been the
devaluation of physical creation and God's use of it.' See also his detailed discussion
of this issue on pp. 247-51,253 (especially in n. 335 on pp. 300-301 and the literature
cited there) and pp. 436-49; P.S. Fiddes, 'Baptism and Creation', in P.S. Fiddes (ed.),
Reflections on the Water: Understanding God and the World through the Baptism of
Believers (RSG, 4; Oxford: Regent's Park College; Macon, GA: Smyth & Helwys,
1996), p. 47: 'the sacraments are pieces of matter that God takes and uses as special
places of encounter with Himself; and C.H. Pinnock, 'The Pysical Side of Being
Spiritual: God's Sacramental Presence', in A.R. Cross and P.E. Thompson (eds.),
Baptist Sacramentalism (SBHT, 5; Carlisle: Paternoster Press, 2002).