The Childers-Childers Debate
A Virtual Cross-Time Debate Between Jeff Childers 1996 and Jeff Childers 1998 About the Identity of the New Testament Church
1998 First Answer
(Resolved: The Church founded by Jesus Christ is the Holy Roman Catholic Church, not the Protestant denomination, the Church of Christ.)
A closer look at the passages which my former self cited will demonstrate that they do not insist on a literal burial in water.
First, the passage from Romans:
"What shall we say? Shall we persist in sin that grace may abound? Of course not! How can we who died to sin yet live in it? Or are you unaware that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were indeed buried with him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life. For if we have grown into union with him through a death like his, we shall also be untied with him in the resurrection. We know that our old self was crucified with him, so that our sinful body might be done away with, that we might no longer be in slavery to sin."
In this passage, St. Paul is exhorting the Roman Christians to be faithful to their calling. They live under grace, but they must not allow this to give them license to sin. He then discusses their conversion in symbolic language. Their turning away from sin is compared to death by crucifixion. Their baptism is compared to burial. Their Christian lives after baptism are compared to resurrection in new life. St. Paul has captured profound Catholic truth: In the sacraments, we reenact the life of Christ in our own lives.
To insist that the burial must be literal, while the death and resurrection are figurative, is inconsistent. Even the literal interpretation of burial fails to prove the necessity of immersion. The passage says we are baptized into death, not into water. It is impossible to logically give this passage-so rich in its symbolism-a literal interpretation.
The same holds true for the passage in Colossians. St. Paul here calls baptism the Christian's circumcision-a figurative statement-then writes that we are buried with Christ in baptism and raised with him through faith-another figurative statement. It is illogical to insist that the statement in the middle be literal where those that surround it are symbolic.
Immersion is a valid and acceptable mode of baptism. The Church recognizes that immersion best symbolizes the powerful reality of salvation through Jesus. However, Christians have always accepted pouring, sprinkling, and immersion as equally valid means of administering this sacrament.
These passages are beautiful reflections on the Christian life. Our unique callings from God and our own journeys of faith are compared to that or our Savior. To use these passages as proof-texts for a doctrine absent from the first milennium and a half of Christian history does great injustice to the Word of God.