Dimensions of Baptism Biblical and Theological Studies

ELLIS The Baptism of Disciples 341

Here is a view of the Church which both attributes saving faith to a gift of

God through the work of the Holy Spirit, while also acknowledging the

need for a human response through the obedience of a holy life and the

gathering of saints into societies of believers who will pattern their church

life on the pattern and ordinances of Scripture.

The link between Church and kingdom is important. The Church is not

primarily seen as 'the ark of salvation' whereby sacramental membership

provides an assurance of eternal bliss and safety. Rather, eternal security is

to be found in the notion of 'election' and members of the elect may be

outside the visible Church, just as membership of that same Church is seen

as no guarantee of being part of the elect. The Church is the ekklesia, a

community formed by the calling of God to worship, obedience and ser-

vice. Fundamental to this ecclesiology is the belief that a company of

believers, in faithful obedience to God, comprises the Church. This was

seen as quite distinct from a national church to which all citizens were

deemed to belong or an hierarchical organization whose members were

passive recipients of sacramental grace dispensed by priests who stood

with the power of Peter between believers and God. Here is an instrumen-

tal ecclesiology where the Church is useful to God and in which all

members are called to play their part. Henry Cook argued in 1951 that this

was a basic principle for the Free Churches:

Every believer, by virtue of his acceptance of Christ becomes a partaker of

grace, and every believer by that very fact is called upon to play some part

in the spiritual function of the church.^23

This shared ecclesial responsibility and a commitment to the baptism of

believers only is brought together in the relatively modern^24 Declaration of

Principle of the Baptist Union of Great Britain. It contains only three

clauses: the first acknowledges that authority for faith and practice in the

Church lies solely with Jesus Christ and that each church has liberty, under

the guidance of the Holy Spirit, 'to interpret and administer his laws'. The

second is a clause defining baptism as the baptism by immersion of

believers only and the third is a claim that every disciple has a duty 'to

23. Henry Cook, 'The Place of the Layman in the Spiritual Function of the Church'
    (An address delivered at the Free Church Federal Council Meetings, April 1951;
    London: Carey Kingsgate Press, 1951), p. 2.


24. First adopted in 1873, it was revised a number of times, reaching its present
    form in 1938. See Richard L. Kidd (ed.), Something to Declare: A Study of the
    Declaration of Principle (Oxford: Whitley Publications, 1996).