What is baptismal regeneration?

The United Methodist theology of the sacrament of baptism is set forth in the document By Water and the Spirit. It really quite wonderfully states the complex relationship between the regeneration which God ordinarily accomplishes in baptism, and the inward experiences of repentance, faith and conversion, which make that regeneration active, growing and effective throughout our lives.

I look at baptism as an outward expression of one's acceptance of Christ as their savior. For my children however it's an act of prevenient grace (though I admit that one was a little difficult to wrap my head around at first - makes sense to me now).

I am struggling to understand this myself. Nazarenes affirm the Nicene Creed. I have no problem with this. Yet the phrase "we acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins" is not something I've ever seen acknowleged in church. We as a denomination have been so driven to get people to accept Jesus as their savior that baptism is an afterthought...if thought about at all. My own pastor said he was saved at 8 but not baptized until 21, and then it was on a whim. I can think of only one Nazarene pastor [or born and bred Nazarene layperson] who even believes there is a connection between baptism and regeneration. To me there seems to be a disconnect between the two beliefs that we supposedly have. Yet, no one I've asked can explain why we affirm one belief and yet believe something differernt.

Holyroller125 said:

What is baptismal regeneration?

Click to expand...

I've never seen the term used in Methodism.

Would you define baptismal regeneration as believing that salvation happens at the point of water baptism instead of confession?

Click to expand...

For Methodists, salvation is a process. An ongoing process that never stops and which can go backwards. IOW, Methodism beleives it is possible for a person to turn his/her back on salvation and go the other way.

Do Methodist believe conversion happens at the point of confession? Even thought baptism is a sacrament, water baptism is not the means and/or manner that a person is saved?

Click to expand...

No, baptism is not the means or manner that a person is saved. For many of us (those baptized as babies), it is the start of the salvation process.

"But after being born again, the very Being of God opens up to us, and we begin a journey into holiness (sanctification) that changes everything about our relationship to God and our neighbors.

Baptism by water and the Spirit is the sign, and for many (though not all!) the usual channel of this great gift of God. “By Water and the Spirit” reminds us that:

Baptism is the means of entry into new life in Christ (John 3:5; Titus 3:5), but new birth may not always coincide with the moment of the administration of water or the laying on of hands. Our awareness and acceptance of our redemption by Christ and new life in him may vary throughout our lives. But, in whatever way the reality of the new birth is experienced, it carries out the promises God made to us in our baptism… " Is the concept “saved, born-again” unique to evangelicals or Baptists? Does it apply to Methodists?

Maid Marie said:

I am struggling to understand this myself. Nazarenes affirm the Nicene Creed. I have no problem with this. Yet the phrase "we acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins" is not something I've ever seen acknowleged in church.

Click to expand...

That's an excellent point! I've never thought about it before but I agree that you have found an apparent inconsistency between the Nicene Creed and Wesley's parish. It might help to look at the essay I linked in the previous post. It explains why your pastor could be "saved" before he was baptized.

Yet, no one I've asked can explain why we affirm one belief and yet believe something differernt.

Click to expand...

If I can venture a guess, and it is only a guess, the Nicene Creed is "grandfathered" in. IOW, Chistians generally adhere to the Nicene Creed and Wesley did too. However, reflection upon scripture and theology resulted in the new belief, at odds with the old. The Nicene Creed is kept, however, because it covers the major beliefs and this is minor.

John Wesley believed in baptismal regeneration, but like Lucaspa said he also felt that salvation could be lost, which is a belief that separates Methodists from Reformed Protestants. Catholics, Orthodox, and many Anglicans believe in b.reg., but they also believe that man's free will can cause him to fall. I believe the difference between those churches and the Methodists is it is a requirment to be saved in the former and only strongly suggested in Wesleyan churches.
I'll shoot this question over to the Anglican forum. I grew up in TEC and, when younger, was under the impression that it was required to be saved. However, I never actually heard my priest (or my parents) say that.

lucaspa said:

If I can venture a guess, and it is only a guess, the Nicene Creed is "grandfathered" in. IOW, Chistians generally adhere to the Nicene Creed and Wesley did too. However, reflection upon scripture and theology resulted in the new belief, at odds with the old. The Nicene Creed is kept, however, because it covers the major beliefs and this is minor.

Click to expand...

I've thought it about it some since you posted and while I go around and around about it in my head, the only thing I can think of is along the lines of what you say here. The creed as a whole is good but we overlook this minor part.

But then after seeing three kids be baptized tonight at a local ECUSA's Easter Vigil, I can't help but think there's just got to be more to Baptism than what my low church background tells me. So, I will be pondering this some more...Kind of like a dog with a bone.

See the excepts below from By the Water and teh Spirit cited earlier. There are two issues, one involves baptism and the other salvation.

Jesus was really clear in his command to be baptized for the remission of sins, as we confess in the Creed. I think it unusual for a believer not to be grafted into the Body as soon as possible. One can deal with the times when Jesus will accept us as friends even we have not been baptized. I leaves that for the legalists among us. I think there are situations when we cannot be baptized as Jesus has commanded. I understand that there are those who do not believe in sacraments, but I believe that most Methodists believe that baptism is an outward sign of inner Grace.

Salvation is a process not an event. Salvation includes justification, santification and glorification. Infant baptism has been practised since the beginning. We become more conformed to God each day of our lives. Some would say that we are coinverted again every day.

And yes, we can turn back God's free gift of salvation. We are saved by God's Grace, His free gift. There are no strings at all. But we can refuse it, and we can give it back.

Finally, there are those who think it wrong for infants to be baptized since they cannot make a profession of faith. Perhaps those folks believe that babies and children are not saved and go to hell. I prefer infant baptism and relying on God's Grace and Mercy.



By Water and the Spirit: A United Methodist Understanding of Baptism

Baptism for Wesley, therefore, was a part of the lifelong process of salvation. He saw spiritual rebirth as a twofold experience in the normal process of Christian development—to be received through baptism in infancy and through commitment to Christ later in life. Salvation included both God's initiating activity of grace and a willing human response.

...
Baptism as Forgiveness of Sin. In baptism God offers and we accept the forgiveness of our sin (Acts 2:38). With the pardoning of sin which has separated us from God, we are justified—freed from the guilt and penalty of sin and restored to right relationship with God. This reconciliation is made possible through the atonement of Christ and made real in our lives by the work of the Holy Spirit. We respond by confessing and repenting of our sin, and affirming our faith that Jesus Christ has accomplished all that is necessary for our salvation. Faith is the necessary condition for justification; in baptism, that faith is professed. God's forgiveness makes possible the renewal of our spiritual lives and our becoming new beings in Christ.

Ooh, you bring up a few topics

I don't think Methodists would say that Baptism is the means by which someone is saved. Methodists fully accept the prinicples of the Protestant Reformation (Salvation by grace alone being one of these), but don't diminish the importance of baptism. As for the Nicene Creed (we acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins), I was always led to believe that this was that you need be baptised only once, and as such the Methodist Church will never rebaptise people. If you have been baptised, you may not be baptised again, as this would suggest that the first one didn't really do the job of remission. This is the same for the RCC, the Anglican Communion, the Lutherans, Moravians, and some other Reformed Churches (not Baptists though), who all recognise each other's baptisms as valid, and if you were to change church would not be expected or allowed to go through that church's baptism.

It is for this reason that we also have Confirmation, where if you were baptised as a child, you have an opportunity to publically declare your faith, in a service similar to the Baptismal liturgy, but without going through the sacrament of baptism.

The Methodist Church loosely talks of regeneration, in linking baptism to being raised to new life/the new birth.

Some lines from the baptismal liturgy;

In this sacrament...
God claims and cleanses us, rescues us from sin, and raises us to new life.

Click to expand...

Pour out your Holy Spirit
that those baptised in this water
may die to sin,
be raised with Christ,
and be born to new life in the family of your Church.
We ask this through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

Click to expand...

in the confirmation liturgy

N and N
God has constantly been at work in your life
and, at your Baptism into Christ,
offered you the gifts of his grace....

Click to expand...

and from the Methodist Catechism

15. What is the New Birth?

New birth, regeneration and conversion are all terms used to describe the process by which we are brought by God from the state of sin into the new life in Jesus Christ, in which we grow through the working of the Holy Spirit in us.

Click to expand...

Methodists would probably also use the experience and witness of Wesley to know about when conversion happens and would say that it can happen after baptism, as Wesley was baptised as child, will have been confirmed as an adolescent but wasn't converted till later in life, even after becoming an Anglican Priest The Methodist Church in Britain | Assurance of God's love

11. What is Conversion?

It is the change which God works in us as we respond to his grace in repentance and faith.

Click to expand...

Thanks all for your replies. I wil have to ponder this some more. One thing though that I did figure out today is why Nazarenes aren't bothered by this part of the creed. That is because I doubt that most of them are familiar enough with it to care. Unlike TEC, the CotN is mostly a non-liturgical denomination in which the Nicene creed is not repeated everyday. At most, the apostles' creed will be recited if one is to be recited.

I might suggest that it is our understanding and "new ideas" that are deficient, rather than Wesley's understanding of Scripture and the Creed.

Eastern Orthodox have a tradition of treating the sacraments as mysteries, rather than trying to explain them in every detail I though that this was the UMC tradition also.

The Nicene Creed is not a general desciption of our faith. It is much more.

lucaspa said:

.
If I can venture a guess, and it is only a guess, the Nicene Creed is "grandfathered" in. IOW, Chistians generally adhere to the Nicene Creed and Wesley did too. However, reflection upon scripture and theology resulted in the new belief, at odds with the old. The Nicene Creed is kept, however, because it covers the major beliefs and this is minor.

Click to expand...

mark1 said:

I understand that there are those who do not believe in sacraments, but I believe that most Methodists believe that baptism is an outward sign of inner Grace.

Click to expand...

When I took my membership class (all those years ago!) I was told Methodism had just 2 sacraments: baptism and communion. And indeed both were "an outward and visible sign of an inward and invisible Grace". I do remember the formula after all these years.

Finally, there are those who think it wrong for infants to be baptized since they cannot make a profession of faith.

Click to expand...

I was taught that the adults in the congregation were making the profession for the infant. We were taking upon ourselves the responsibility to teach the child as it grew so that he/she could eventually make the profession for him/herself.

mark1 said:

I might suggest that it is our understanding and "new ideas" that are deficient, rather than Wesley's understanding of Scripture and the Creed.

The Nicene Creed is not a general desciption of our faith. It is much more.

Click to expand...

I've been reading thru the thread and I'm confused. Mark, it looks like you and Lucaspa are saying the same things.

You said: "I think there are situations when we cannot be baptized as Jesus has commanded." Do you believe our sins are forgiven if, for some reason, we are never baptized?

Every week in the Methodist Church I attend we have a Confessional Prayer where we confess our sins (often ones we have committed since last Sunday ) and ask for forgiveness. Why would we have to do that if "We acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins."?

It looks to me like the discussion hinges on what that phrase means. Does it mean:
1. One baptism remits all our sins forever? Or does it mean
2. There is only one baptism for the remission of sins and we do not undergo a new baptism every week for forgiveness?

Much of the Nicene Creed is structured as it is to exclude various heresies, particularly about the nature of Christ. I wonder if there was a movement in early Christianity that had mutiple baptisms?

"Baptism as Forgiveness of Sin

Click to expand...

. In baptism God offers and we accept the forgiveness of our sin (Acts 2:38). With the pardoning of sin which has separated us from God, we are justified—freed from the guilt and penalty of sin and restored to right relationship with God. This reconciliation is made possible through the atonement of Christ and made real in our lives by the work of the Holy Spirit. We respond by confessing and repenting of our sin,"

Click to expand...

But don't we do this continually thruout our life? I'm confused again.

theistic evol said:

I've been reading thru the thread and I'm confused. Mark, it looks like you and Lucaspa are saying the same things.

You said: "I think there are situations when we cannot be baptized as Jesus has commanded." Do you believe our sins are forgiven if, for some reason, we are never baptized?

Every week in the Methodist Church I attend we have a Confessional Prayer where we confess our sins (often ones we have committed since last Sunday ) and ask for forgiveness. Why would we have to do that if "We acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins."?

It looks to me like the discussion hinges on what that phrase means. Does it mean:
1. One baptism remits all our sins forever? Or does it mean
2. There is only one baptism for the remission of sins and we do not undergo a new baptism every week for forgiveness?

Much of the Nicene Creed is structured as it is to exclude various heresies, particularly about the nature of Christ. I wonder if there was a movement in early Christianity that had mutiple baptisms?



But don't we do this continually thruout our life? I'm confused again.

Click to expand...

Why yes there was, or rather "there were" because there was more than one of them. However, they all pretty much amounted to the same thing.

Everybody got their jammies on and a last drink of water? All right then, let's begin

Once upon a time, a long time ago, sort of off and on from time to time, somebody in authority in the Roman Empire would get all het up about those rotten Christians. They didn't sacrifice to the gods of the Roman Empire, which made the gods angry, and so the gods rained down punishments: crop failures, storms, pestilence, losses on the battlefield, that sort of thing.

These authorities would reason to themselves thusly: "If the gods are mad because they aren't getting their due, then we need to see to it that everybody makes the gods happy and then all of this ugliness will come to a screeching halt. So that's what they did.

Every so often, in various cities and provinces - and a couple of times throughout the whole of the Empire, the authorities would see to it. Sometimes they would just round up the Christian leaders and make them surrender the holy books and objects used in worship (communion chalices, incense burners & such). If they didn't comply, sometimes they'd be publicly whipped, sometimes they'd have their property confiscated, sometimes they'd be jailed & sometimes they'd be executed.

Sometimes, instead of going to the trouble to round up the Christian leaders, the authorities would have at it from the opposite direction. They'd declare a day, or a week, or a month, during which everybody in the city (or province or Empire) must perform sacrifice to the gods. Then you got a cool little receipt proving that you were a good, patriotic Roman. Then they compared the list of people who'd gotten receipts to the list of people from the last census & knew who to go after. Also, you needed your receipt to buy or sell anything, or to bring a case in court, or to pay your taxes, or basically to do anything.

So - of course - a lot of Christians just went ahead and did what the Romans asked. Some burned incense to the gods. Some sacrificed animals. Some turned over the holy books and objects used in worship (ask me about St. Lawrence sometime - it's a great story!) and some just bought forged receipts.

Once the famine, pestilence, battle, bad weather was over, then the Roman authorities got over themselves and went back to business as usual. The Christians, however, had a problem on their hands. What to do, what to do, what ever to do with the Christians who had given in in the face of the persecution. This was no small problem. Conservative estimates indicate that around 80- 85% of Christians gave into the temptation to "go along to get along" to one degree or another.

What the Church decided to do was to let them repent a bit, and then forgive them. By "repent" I mean they had to go to church, stand outside on the porch begging the forgiveness of those who had stood firm, then go in, listen to the scripture & the sermon, then leave before communion. There was also probably some personal wailing & gnashing of teeth, perhaps a bit of sackcloth and ashes, etc.

Some people had to do a couple years of this. Some people had to do lots of years, and some people had to do it for the rest of their lives, finally receiving Communion on their deathbed.

This solution to the problem was, of course, not good enough for the more hard-nosed among us. First a bunch of folks called Novationists, and later a similar bunch of folks called Donatists insisted that once you'd "sinned away" the grace of your baptism, That. Was. It.

Furthermore, they insisted that any converts to the faith who had been baptized by a Bishop (only Bishops did the baptizing in those days) who was on the more forgiving side were not, in fact, truly baptized. So - if they got hold of them, they baptized them again.

The more forgiveness-minded wing of the church, on the other hand, recognized the validity of the baptisms performed by their more hard-nosed bretheren, and so did not rebaptize converts who had been baptized in the other branch, and then later found their way to the forgiveness party.

In the general clean-up of doctrine that was the 4th Century, this was one of the little things that got cleaned up.

And that, Virginia, is why we say "we acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins."

Very interesting!

1) I don't think Lucaspa and I disagree on any doctrine discussed here. I was somewhat surprised with his statement implying the the Creed was an approximation of the faith and that our new ideas and understandings have superseded the Creed.

2) We are saved by the Grace of God. We are forgiven through the Grace of God. No act of man (including water baptism) can constrain God to do anything, not even forgive our sins. Pelagianism was a serious heresy. God is indeed sovereign.

So, yes be can be forgiven of our sins by God even if we are not baptized. Jesus decides who will be his friends and who will have eternal life. he does not ahve to follow man's rules.

There are two issues here.

First, the lack of baptism should be an extremely unusual situation within Christain countries. Baptism is a sacrament isntituted by Jesus. He has commanded us to be baptized and to baptize others. Sure there can be situations (perhaps mental illness, perhaps a person who is becoming a Christain and dies, perhaps a baby who dies before being baptized). But IMHO to not be baptized because I decided to wait is a serious trangression of what God has providfed for us.

Th second issue is that the one baptism is not about eternal life. Baptism is an initiation rite, a sacrament of obedience. It is the beginning of the salvation process. It is about marking someone as a member of God's family. Baptism removes the stain of original sin, although this in itself is a complicated issue. Eternal life is about prevenient Grace and our acceptance of the free gift of eternal life. We are justified, we have eternal life, by Grace through faith in Christ Jesus. As I daid before, Jesus can choose to accpet who he will. Certainly we hope and expect that he will accept children who have yet to believe.
============

The last issue that you raise is the need to confess our continuing sin. This was not well understood at all by early Christians. Perhaps this is what Lucaspa was referring to with regard to the Creed. Baptism does not remove our inherited human nature, and our ancestral heritage of being sinful creatures. Accepting Jesus as Lord and Savior does not remove our tendency to sin. We spend our lives struggling with sin. We are converted each day. Each day we become more Christ-like. This is one of Wesley's great gifts to the Western Church, an understanding of sanctification as a lifelong process. The Orthodox call this "theosis".

theistic evol said:

I've been reading thru the thread and I'm confused. Mark, it looks like you and Lucaspa are saying the same things.

You said: "I think there are situations when we cannot be baptized as Jesus has commanded." Do you believe our sins are forgiven if, for some reason, we are never baptized?

Every week in the Methodist Church I attend we have a Confessional Prayer where we confess our sins (often ones we have committed since last Sunday ) and ask for forgiveness. Why would we have to do that if "We acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins."?

It looks to me like the discussion hinges on what that phrase means. Does it mean:
1. One baptism remits all our sins forever? Or does it mean
2. There is only one baptism for the remission of sins and we do not undergo a new baptism every week for forgiveness?

Much of the Nicene Creed is structured as it is to exclude various heresies, particularly about the nature of Christ. I wonder if there was a movement in early Christianity that had mutiple baptisms?



But don't we do this continually thruout our life? I'm confused again.

Click to expand...

mark1 said:

The second issue is that the one baptism is not about eternal life. Baptism is an initiation rite, a sacrament of obedience. It is the beginning of the salvation process. It is about marking someone as a member of God's family. Baptism removes the stain of original sin, although this in itself is a complicated issue.

Click to expand...

The part I bolded is for me what is finally making the most sense to me. Others have tried to explain this to me before I know but it was too much of a switch in understanding for me to wrap my mind around to get it.

The part in green is not a Nazarene understanding of the concept of original sin or baptism, but I don't need to worry about it since it is not in the Nicene or Apostles' Creed. So I won't feel like I am being inconsistent.

The part about it being an initiation rite and making a child a part of God's family is how I sell the concept to a denomination that allows for it in polity but in practice generally prefers the anabaptist view.