"I had just asked Mr. Garland if he believed a person was saved simply by believing, and he remarked that he did not. I would like to ask Mr.
Garland this question: What about the inquiry that the Philippian jailer put to Paul and Silas? You remember that when the jailer was converted he came in trembling before Paul and Silas and said: "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" And what did they answer? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved." Not one word, you see, about baptism."
"You would think," said Dorothy, "that they would have said "believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and be baptized and thou shalt be saved", would you not, Mr. Garland?"
"Yes, but you notice that just a little while afterwards that very night the jailer was baptized. You see the baptism had to come. In fact, baptism always came immediately after believing. It was a necessary part, and the work was not complete until the baptism had taken place."
"But does that prove that the baptism was a part of the man"s conversion or salvation?" asked Sterling. "Suppose the person had fallen dead just after he had believed and before any baptism was performed on him, would he not have been saved? If so, I think it proves that he was saved simply by believing, and that baptism is simply a matter of obedience."
"By the way, Mr. Sterling," said Dorothy, "you remember that pa.s.sage in Romans where it speaks of being buried by baptism. We found that baptism was a picture of something that had already taken place in the person"s heart and life--that he had been buried to his old life and risen to a new life. It is not baptism, therefore, that helps to make the change in a person, but it simply pictures the change that has already taken place."
"What is the use of a person being baptized?" asked Mr. Garland, "if he can be saved without being baptized?"
"Mr. Garland, I trust that I have already been saved by believing in Christ. I want to be baptized, however, not to help me to be saved, for if I am not saved now I certainly do not think my going down into the water will make me any more saved. I simply want to be baptized because Christ was baptized and because he commands all who believe in him to be baptized, and because all those who claimed to believe in him in the days of the apostles were baptized. I reckon I will find from the Bible that there are a great many other things besides baptism that I must do, but that does not mean that the doing of all these things is a part of my conversion or salvation."
"I guess you take up these duties because you are already a Christian and already saved. If you were not already a Christian I guess you would not feel like doing them," said the father.
"I do not exactly agree to that," remarked Mr. Garland, "and yet I do not think we are very far apart. There are some people of our denomination who go to an extreme and declare that the water does wash away sins, and they seem to put more stress on the baptism than on the believing. My doctrine is that every believer must be baptized, and that unless he does become baptized he has no right to consider himself saved."
"But that is different," said Dorothy. "Of course, if a person refuses to be baptized, although he believes that Christ commands it, why, such a person has no right to claim to be converted. I can"t imagine a converted person flatly refusing to do what he believes Christ commands.
I cannot understand, Mr. Garland, just what your doctrine about baptism is."
"We have another doctrine which I am sure you will like," said Mr.
Garland.
"What is that?" asked Dorothy, who was eager to learn everything possible about the denomination.
"We believe in what is called open communion rather than in what is called close communion."
"I don"t understand what you mean."
"I mean this. The Lord gave two ordinances to the church, baptism and the Lord"s Supper."
"Yes, that is what Mr. Sterling told us."
"Now as to communion, one of the questions of the day about which Christians are divided is the question as to who ought to be admitted to the communion."
"Let me understand clearly about the Lord"s Supper. I have read about it in the New Testament, but I wish you would explain it to me fully."
"Christ, on the last night that he spent with his apostles, inst.i.tuted this supper of bread and wine."
"Yes, I have read that."
"He told them that the bread typified his body that was that night to be broken for them, and that the wine poured out typified his blood that was that night to be poured out for them, and that when he was gone they must repeat that ceremony, and they must do that in remembrance of him; and that as often as they did that they would show forth his death until he should come again."
"What a beautiful thought! And so that is why the people in the church have the communion? I see it clearly now. What, then, do you mean by open communion?"
"I mean that we throw the door to the communion table open. We do not say that n.o.body but members of our denomination should come to our communion table, but that anybody who loves the Lord may come."
"You mean anybody who is a Christian?"
"Yes."
"Well, that would certainly seem proper. Does the Bible specify who ought to come to the communion?"
"We simply have to take the practice of the apostles and early Christians. It looks as if all people who loved the Lord were welcome to the table."
"Don"t all people believe alike on that point?" asked Dorothy.
"Yes, all except the Baptists. They believe that none but Baptist people have any right to the communion."
"Oh, how selfish!"
"They believe that unless you have been immersed you must not come to the table," said Mr. Sterling, "and they will not let anybody come to the table when they have it in their church unless he has been baptized in their way."
"Why not?"
"I don"t know, unless it be because they are so ignorant and narrow."
"Maybe they believe," ventured Dorothy, "that a person ought to be baptized before he takes the communion."
"Of course," said Sterling, "that is just what they do believe; and since I come to think of it, our church holds the same position as to baptism. Our church believes that a person must first be baptized."
"You mean," said Dorothy, "that your church and the Baptists believe alike on the communion question?"
"Not exactly. We both believe that baptism must come before the communion, but we differ as to what const.i.tutes baptism."
"Does the Bible teach that a person must be baptized before he can commune?"
"The Bible teaches that all who believed were immediately baptized. That always seemed to be the first thing they did."
"It seems the natural thing to me," said the father, "for baptism to come first, and before the other duties of the Christian life. In the pa.s.sages which we have studied baptism seemed to follow on the heels of believing. The question is, however, does the Bible have anything to say on that subject? Does it teach that baptism must come before the communion?"
"I think it would look strange for a person to be going to the communion table before he was baptized," said Dorothy.
"Excuse me, Miss Page," said Mr. Garland. "Is it a question as to what you or I might think ought to be done, or is it a question as to what the Bible teaches? I affirm that the Bible does not state that baptism is a prerequisite to the communion."
"That is a somewhat new question to me," said Dorothy, looking at Mr.
Sterling, as if he were the proper one to give the answer.
"We do not have from the lips of Christ the actual words," said Mr.
Sterling, ""ye must be baptized before partaking of the communion", but I think it is definitely implied in Scripture. In the first place, take the command of Christ: "Go ye into all the world and disciple all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you." There you have first baptism, and next observing all things that Christ has commanded, and the Lord"s Supper is one of these things."
"Very true," said Mr. Garland, "but you exclude the great body of Christians from the table simply on your interpretation of that one verse."
"Isn"t this the proof?" asked Dorothy. "In nearly all the pa.s.sages about baptism we have read we found that baptism always came immediately after the believing; and father, I feel that I must not delay my baptism.
What shall I do, and whom shall I ask to baptize me? I think, Mr.
Garland, that I ought not to go to the communion table until I have been baptized. That seemed to be the custom in the days of the apostles."