Let me preface this piece
with a little insight into the life of a country priest. I just finished an
unfortunate but necessary extra finance meeting for the parish. Church furnaces
(in the plural!) are out of order, and at least one of them is going to be replaced as
of tonight’s meeting. I further have a list of maintenance needs that I really
need to get on top of, at least sending requests for assistance since I can’t
get these jobs done any time soon. I need to send an important planning email
to my school principal, and get ahead of ten other letters and communications/ pieces
of paperwork that should have been done a week ago.
And yet there is something
else on my mind that is finally spilling forth, and I need to get it in writing.
It is a theological, biblical, and historical question all rolled into one. It
has been on my mind for months, in part for years, and only recently (as I have
tried to make some connections with Protestant pastor acquaintances and
friends regarding the Reformation anniversary) have my thoughts made any
progression on the question. As of this day, I realized that there was a clearly
important historical reference that I had never checked. I just checked it, and
I finally need to put this into a piece of writing, and so I am starting right
now, when it is late and I am hungry.
Let me give you the
context of the question. It is the historical record of the Church’s baptismal
practice. When preaching on the Creed I like to point out that our earliest versions
of the Apostles’ Creed come to us in the form of liturgies, whereby the Church
was performing baptisms, according to the Creed that Apostles instructed us to
use, when performing baptisms. That is, people were baptized “in the Name of
the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,” as they professed their believe
in the Trinity in the baptismal ritual of the second century (see the Apostolic
Tradition of St. Hippolytus, ca. 215AD). I just today checked out The Didache of the Twelve Apostles,
which is a document from around the year 100 AD, and it is absolutely clear
that, as the name of the Didache suggests,
baptism “in the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,” is
an Apostolic Practice, which was happening while at least some of the Apostles
were still alive. For, the Didache
reads,
And concerning baptism, baptize this way: Having first said all
these things, baptize into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the
Holy Spirit, in living water. But if you have no living water, baptize into
other water; and if you cannot do so in cold water, do so in warm. But if you
have neither, pour out water three times upon the head into the name of Father
and Son and Holy Spirit. But before the baptism let the baptizer fast, and the
baptized, and whoever else can; but you shall order the baptized to fast one or
two days before.
And here your Scripture
student of any devotion and acumen whatsoever might point out that this is
exactly what one would expect, since it is the verified historical record, of
the Gospel writers of the inspired Scriptures, that our Lord himself instructed
the Apostles to perform baptism in this manner. Let us read the whole of the Great
Commission given at the time of the Ascension.
Matthew 28: 16-20. The eleven disciples went to
Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had ordered them. When they saw him, they worshiped, but
they doubted. Then Jesus approached and said to them, “All
power in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 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, teaching
them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am
with you always, until the end of the age.”
Of course the Apostles
baptized in this manner. And of course they instructed their followers, their
successors, and the whole early church to baptize in this manner. All of
Christianity, except for some modern off-kilter pastors who thought it nice to
re-invent baptism, always performed baptisms in the way that Jesus himself
instructed us, by invoke the whole Trinity: the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Spirit.
So here is my question, if Jesus was so clear in
Matthew 28:19, and the inspired Gospels record his very words on how to
baptize, and the historical records from around 100 AD, and 200 AD both confirm
(as a historical record) that the early church did invoke the whole Trinity for
every baptism, why is it that the one inspired Scriptural book of the Bible, whose sole purpose it is to give us a “history” of the Apostolic Church from
the time of the Ascension of Jesus to the proclamation of the Gospel at “the
ends of the earth,” does not seem to affirm this practice exactly as it was
commanded in the Gospel and then performed in the early Church? The question is
why the Acts of the Apostles, as a divinely inspired book of history, never
speaks about baptism “in the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy
Spirit.” Not. Once!
Why is the description of baptism, which is categorically
used in the Acts of the Apostles (save the direct quotation of the Gospel
promise of being "baptized with the Holy Spirit,” Cf. 1:5, 11:16), only that of being baptized
“in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.” I pulled all the references to baptism,
so you can see for yourself.
NAB Acts 1:5 for John baptized with
water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the holy Spirit."
1:22
beginning from the baptism of John until the day on which he was taken up from
us, become with us a witness to his resurrection."
NAB Acts 2:38 Peter (said) to them,
"Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for
the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the holy Spirit.
2:41
Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand persons
were added that day.
NAB Acts 8:12 but once they began to
believe Philip as he preached the good news about the kingdom of God and the
name of Jesus Christ, men and women alike were baptized.
8:13
Even Simon himself believed and, after being baptized, became devoted to
Philip; and when he saw the signs and mighty deeds that were occurring, he was
astounded.
8:16
for it had not yet fallen upon any of them; they had only been baptized in the
name of the Lord Jesus.
8:36
As they traveled along the road they came to some water, and the eunuch said,
"Look, there is water. What is to prevent my being baptized?"
8:38
Then he ordered the chariot to stop, and Philip and the eunuch both went down
into the water, and he baptized him.
NAB Acts 9:18 Immediately things like
scales fell from his eyes and he regained his sight. He got up and was baptized,
NAB Acts 10:37 what has happened all over
Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached,
10: 47 "Can anyone withhold the
water for baptizing these people, who have received the holy Spirit even as we
have?"
10:48
He ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.
NAB Acts 11:16 and I remembered the word
of the Lord, how he had said, 'John baptized with water but you will be baptized
with the holy Spirit.'
NAB Acts 13:24 John heralded his coming
by proclaiming a baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel;
NAB Acts 16:15 After she and her
household had been baptized, she offered us an invitation, "If you
consider me a believer in the Lord, come and stay at my home," and she
prevailed on us.
16: 33 He took them in at that hour of
the night and bathed their wounds; then he and all his family were baptized at
once.
NAB Acts 18:8 Crispus, the synagogue
official, came to believe in the Lord along with his entire household, and many
of the Corinthians who heard believed and were baptized.
18:25
He had been instructed in the Way of the Lord and, with ardent spirit, spoke
and taught accurately about Jesus, although he knew only the baptism of John.
NAB Acts 19:3 He said, "How were you
baptized?" They replied, "With the baptism of John."
19:4
Paul then said, "John baptized with a baptism of repentance, telling the
people to believe in the one who was to come after him, that is, in
Jesus."
19: 5 When they heard this, they were baptized
in the name of the Lord Jesus.
NAB Acts 22:16 Now, why delay? Get up and
have yourself baptized and your sins washed away, calling upon his name.'
See even more. Some of St. Paul’s
letters seem to suggest that he was in on this let’s-correct-our-Lord’s-own-wording-for-baptism
scheme. For example,
NAB Romans 6:3 Or are you unaware that we
who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?
NAB Galatians 3:27 For all of you who
were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.
It’s like the Apostolic Church went
schizophrenic for thirty years, and after the Ascension the Apostles immediately decided just to drop
two persons of the Trinity out of baptism, and then the Church, in the year 100
AD, immediately set to work remedying this terrible omission of the Father and of
the Holy Spirit. Certainly this wasn’t
the case.
Maybe there were shorthand expressions employed
in Acts, whereby one just needed to write one of three names, and everyone knew that they
were supposed to read all three names into the literal reference. It
is after all much shorter and cheaper on the ancient ink budget to write “baptized in the name of Jesus Christ” than “baptized in the name of the Father,
and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” But surely the
explanation of all of this is not that the Apostles were just trying to save
some drops of ink by using some consensus recognized shorthand. I say surely
this is not the explanation, and I say so because I believe I know part of the
real explanation. I believe that there is a real gap in the Christian faith
itself if this cannot be explained in a more meaningful way. And I believe that
there is something very important deep down in this seeming inconsistency in
the Scriptures and in Church History.
I confess that I will
not do justice to an answer, but I think I have the start of one. There are
some key scripture passages at stake, and I wish I had the time to research all
of them just to get another insight or two into this question. It has probably
been done by some real scholar somewhere already. Any of the good Catholic exegetes out there are surely way ahead of me of understanding baptism in the Acts of the Apostles. But I don’t have the time to
look for such research, and so I will bang out in a short while what it has
taken me a few months to come up with from my own musings. It will have to be another post, which I promise to write within a few weeks. Promise. I hope and pray the very work I just put into phrasing the question leads me to new insight into my partial answers.
And not just insight. But gratitude, and devotion, for such a great gift as I have received, through the gift of baptism.
