Dimensions of Baptism Biblical and Theological Studies

350 Dimensions of Baptism

return to those statements about worship as an expression of the Church

and the ecclesial significance of the sacraments. What new understanding

of the baptism of believers is made possible when, instead of asking about

its meaning in relation to the one being baptized we ask about its meaning

in relation to the Church?

The Sacramental Function of Baptism

While Baptists have varied in their interpretation of baptism, there has

been a high level of unanimity in seeing baptism as a divinely ordained

vehicle for responding to the gospel of Jesus Christ. This unanimity has

probably been possible because it is describing a God-ward human action.

Baptists have tended to be modernist in their suspicion of mystery and have

been cautious about what they claim God is doing in baptism. I cannot

deal with this debate here.^42 However, by approaching baptism through

worship, and by presenting the sacraments as actions of the Church, I am

attempting to widen the horizons of baptismal interpretation without en-

gaging in a debate about divine sacramental activity. Of course, all wor-

ship may be understood as an activity which takes place within the life of

God^43 and all prayer as an action which has the Holy Spirit as its subject.^44

However, it is helpful to enquire as to what it is the Church is doing when

it baptizes people, not simply in relation to those people but in relation to

itself.

What might it mean for us to speak of the baptism of believers as 'an

instrumental act of meaning'? If, as Kelleher argues, the Church in its

liturgy 'creates itself as a community of meaning', what does this mean in

relation to baptism? There are two levels at which we can attempt an

answer.

First, we have noted that the baptism of believers is an expression of a

believer-Church ecclesiology. We have seen that both historically and

42. See Ellis, 'Believer's Baptism and the Sacramental Freedom of God', pp. 35-42,
    for a contemporary attempt to address the sacramentality of the baptism of believers.


43. See, for example, C. Cocksworth, Holy, Holy, Holy: Worshipping the Trinitar-
    ian God (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1997), and J. Corbon, The Wellspring of
    Worship (New York: Paulist Press, 1988).


44. Rom. 8.26-27 has often inspired those who write about prayer and worship.
    See, e.g., J. Bunyan, 'I will Pray with the Spirit and with Understanding also', in R.L.
    Greaves (ed.), The Doctrine of the Law and Grace (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976),
    pp. 229-303.