A Battle with Baptism

The following is an excerpt from my study , The Parting of the Waters, and reflects the intense struggle I had in my baptism as a believer. I have deep respect for my infant baptism friends and do not share this testimony to prove a theological point. The purpose here is to show the personal struggle I faced when asked to die to my self and my long held ideas and beliefs. Even after many years, I still remember the setting. 

Some students had gathered in a room at the Bible School where I was attending. Somehow, the subject of baptism came up. The words I heard that day still haunt me: “How could any Christian believe in infant baptism?” I took those words personally and felt deeply hurt by them.

As time went on, I continued to hear people commenting to me on this subject. They would tell the joke about a book called “What the Bible Teaches about Infant Baptism,” which only had blank pages when you opened it. They would laugh and move on, leaving me frustrated and angry. While I never really expressed it to them, I felt hurt and rejected because of what I believed. I felt that I was a second-class Christian because I believed what I did.

The opportunity came for me to do a research paper on the subject for a theology class. Knowing all the arguments favouring infant baptism, I determined that I would examine each one individually to see if it brought clear evidence of the practice in the Bible. That paper was probably one of the most difficult I ever wrote. It challenged my position and what I had believed for many years.

Now I want to confess something here. It is one thing to come to a conviction about what you feel the Bible is teaching, and quite another to act on that conviction. As a result of that research paper, I believed that baptism in the New Testament was for believers. However, it would not be for years that I would have the courage to act on what I felt the Bible was teaching. There were a couple of reasons for this.

First on my mind was the fact that I had grown up with the tradition of infant baptism. I had a call from God to full-time ministry. In my mind, that call implied working as a pastor in my denomination. If I could not stand behind the denomination’s key distinctive, I had no chance of being ordained as a pastor in that denomination. This threw the plans I had for my future into chaos.

Second, infant baptism was the position of my family. I struggled deeply to go against what my family had believed for generations. How would they respond if I took a stand against their firmly held beliefs? This grieved me deeply.

Third, I must admit, my heart still harboured anger against those who ridiculed my infant baptism convictions. I was reluctant to join them and hear them rejoicing over the fact that I had finally surrendered to their position.

For years after that, I held believers’ baptism but refused to be baptized as a believer. As the years rolled by, I would often feel a gentle conviction in my heart to follow through with what I believed the New Testament taught. This seemed to come to a head on one occasion, and I felt the need to speak to the pastor of the Baptist church I was attending. I made an appointment and sat down with him in his office. I have no idea how long I talked and can’t even remember what I said that day, but I started from the beginning and explained how and why I had come to a conviction about believers’ baptism. The pastor sat quietly, listening to me without interrupting. I ended that conversation by saying, “I think I need to do something about this.”

When I finished talking, the pastor said: “Well, there is nothing that I can say. You have covered everything.” He went on to say to my absolute horror: “It just happens that on Sunday we have a baptismal service; would you like to be part of it?”

There was nothing he could have said that would have floored me more than those words. He was giving me the opportunity now to do something about my belief. I still remember my hard response: “I don’t know.”

The Lord now had my full attention. I was immediately struck by the way these two verses were connected. The first verse posed a question and the second answered it – “you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

There was one more verse the Lord gave me in the library earlier that day. I looked that up as well, and it read:

19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, – Mt 28:19

I cannot convey, in words, the impact this final verse had on my spirit. It was as if the very presence of God stood before me that day. It broke my heart, and, with tears in my eyes, I cried out, “Lord, here I am, I’ll go.” Understand here that there was no self-confidence in this cry. I had no idea how this would take place. All I knew was that God was speaking to me that evening, and I needed to respond.

As my heart cried out, “Here I am,” I was reminded of a verse of Scripture where another person said something similar. I wasn’t quite sure where that verse was, but determined to look it up as well. Looking down at my open Bible before me, with that intent, the very first verse I saw read as follows:

8 And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here I am! Send me.” – Isa 6:8

Tears flowed down my cheeks that evening. The Lord stopped me in my work when my Bible was opened to the very verse He wanted me to see, and only showed it to me when my heart cried out in response to His call.

That moment was very sacred to me. Forty-some years later, I still remember it clearly.

As the years have passed, I have also seen how God has been fulfilling that call on my life in ways that amaze me. He has opened doors around the world in ways I could never have imagined. We are translating books into languages I have never heard of. I am not the one making this happen. He goes before me, opens the doors of His choosing, and provides all that is necessary. All I can do is go through the doors He opens. He does the rest.