ELLIS The Baptism of Disciples 337
This paper attempts to illustrate this claim by examining the interaction
between a Baptist understanding of the Church and its worship and the
practice of believer's baptism.
Baptism as Liturgical and Sacramental Action
Despite recent emphases on baptism as part of the process of Christian
initiation, the exploration of its meaning has tended to be punctiliar, either
by concentrating on its place within the process, or by interpreting its
meaning for the one being baptized. However, if we understand baptism as
a liturgical action, an expression of worship and a part of worship, then we
are led to explore its meaning in relation to the gathered assembly and,
therefore, to the Church itself.
Edward Schillebeeckx, in his Christ the Sacrament of the Encounter
with God, suggests that, 'every supernatural reality which is realized his-
torically in our lives is sacramental'.^13 From this broad statement he
identifies the incarnation as the primordial sacrament of God's saving
encounter with humanity:
The man Jesus, as the personal visible realization of the divine grace of
redemption, is the sacrament, the primordial sacrament, because this man,
the Son of God himself, is intended by the Father to be in his humanity the
only way to the actuality of redemption... Human encounter with Jesus is
therefore the sacrament of the encounter with God.^14Schillebeeckx argues that the word sacrament should operate in three dis-
tinct, though related, ways. The first is to denote Jesus Christ as the bodily,
sacramental, presence of God coming in saving power and inviting a
human response. The second is to speak of the Church, the body of Christ,
as a sacrament of encounter in which Christ is manifest in the people of
God, graciously accessible in saving power. The third use is the traditional
one which refers to 'the sacraments' celebrated by the Church, which he
claims are in reality the action of Christ. If the incarnation of the eternal
Word in the historic Jesus of Nazareth is the primordial sacrament of the
encounter with God, these sacraments of the Church become the earthly
vehicle of this encounter in the present:- Edward Schillebeeckx, Christ the Sacrament of the Encounter with God
(London: Sheed and Ward, 1963), p. 5 - Schillebeeckx, Christ the Sacrament, p. 15.