Biblical Interpretive Paradigms: Part 3

To continue...

I'd now like to look at another aspect of the group's interpretive paradigm, namely, the idea that unless you are baptized in water (in the name of Jesus, as the last entry discussed), you are not going to make it to heaven.

First of all, I believe the group has rightly ascertained that Acts 2:38 treats receiving the Spirit as a part of coming to Christ in Acts 2. I feel my Wesleyan background, using its own interpretive paradigm, has often associated the Day of Pentecost with a work of grace subsequent to becoming a Christian (entire sanctification, following the lead of John Fletcher rather than John Wesley). It took me years to listen to the biblical text on this one. I agree with the group that Acts treats reception of the Holy Spirit as an essential component in coming to Christ, not as a work subsequent to conversion.

Indeed, I would say that Paul, Acts, and Hebrews treat the reception of the Spirit as the defining element of becoming a Christian (cf. Rom. 8:9; 2 Cor. 5:5).

But is baptism in water as essential as "baptism in the Spirit" or the reception of the Spirit, terms that Luke-Acts seems to use interchangeably. Some groups, including some in my own tradition, make fine distinctions between phrases like "baptism in the Spirit," "filling with the Spirit," "receiving the Spirit," and the "fulness of the Spirit." But these are moves made from the outside of the text looking in. The text does not make any explicit distinctions of this sort--they are read into the text rather than out of it.

Jesus in Luke foretells baptism in the Holy Spirit. Acts implies that Pentecost is the fulfillment of this prediction. The Day of Pentecost is thus baptism in the Holy Spirit. Acts 2:38 equates receiving the Spirit with the Pentecost experience. They are said to have been filled with the Spirit on this day (2:4). Finally, the phrase fulness of the Spirit does not even occur in the New Testament. Once again we see that the definitions and dictionary a person brings to the text determines the meaning you see in the text.

So how essential is water baptism? It is clearly important. Acts 2:38 treats it as normative. The first words out of the Ethiopian eunuch's mouth after Philip convinces him of the gospel relate to water for baptism (Acts 8). Suffice it to say, the idea of a Christian group forbidding water baptism or even not encouraging it would have been foreign to the book of Acts.

But is it as important and essential as "baptism in the Holy Spirit"? Will an unbaptized Quaker or Salvationist miss heaven over this? What about someone who dies before they get to a baptismal? The group in question is keen to point out that Acts 2:38 says that the baptism is "for the forgiveness of sins." The reception of the Holy Spirit is not mentioned here as the mechanism of cleansing--the water baptism is.

On the other hand, this is a lot of weight to put on the preposition "into" in the Greek. Words like these can have many different nuances, and the group is taking these words in a very, very narrow sense, probably much narrower than they were originally meant.

Thus Acts 15:8-9 speak of the purification coming by way of the Holy Spirit: "God who knows the heart witnessed to them by giving them the Holy Spirit just as He also gave to us, and he showed no difference between us and them when he cleansed their hearts on the basis of their faith." The coming of the Holy Spirit in the incidence to which Peter refers took place before these Gentiles had been baptized (Acts 10). This fact demonstrates that the two "baptisms"--baptism in the Holy Spirit and water baptism--are separable experiences.

Indeed, at Samaria they were baptized and did not receive the Spirit (Acts 8). This incongruous situation led Peter and John to make a special trip to Samaria, presumably to "fix" this "problem" (although here more interpretation is involved on my part).

Paul can associate joining together with Christ with baptism (Rom. 6:4). But more often than not it is the Holy Spirit he focuses on as the boundary marker between sonship and non-sonship (e.g., Rom. 8:9; 2 Cor. 1:22; 5:5; cf. Eph. 1:14; Heb. 6:4-6). In 1 Corinthians he actually downplays the significance of baptism because of local problems there: "Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel..." (1:17).

In short, baptism in water is clearly associated with the cleansing of the heart in Paul and Acts. But 1) since water baptism and Spirit baptism are separable experiences in Acts, 2) since when the distinction is not made the spiritual seems to take precedence, and 3) since the spiritual is more often mentioned and water baptism is not, on the whole water baptism seems secondary to Spirit baptism.

So would a Spirit baptized person who was not water baptized go to heaven? The NT doesn't directly address this question. True, the thief on the cross was never baptized, but the Holy Spirit had not yet been given at that time. He was like an Old Testament saint in that regard.

I'm not sure I have a knock down drag out argument except to say that it is not the baptism that the NT authors emphasize as the operative element in conversion. 1 John speaks of the heart, for example.

True, Paul does have followers of John the Baptist become rebaptized at Ephesus (Acts 19). But the reason was because John's baptism did not involve receiving the Holy Spirit. There may also be other features involved here, historical factors leading Acts (cf. John) to emphasize that following the message of John the Baptist and following Jesus is not the same thing.

So I probably cannot prove what any NT author would say about the unbaptized Quaker or the person who gets in a car accident on their way to their baptism. But would God have accepted any of the Gentiles in Acts 10 after they received the Holy Spirit before they were baptized? I think He would have, although this is an inference. And while I cannot absolutely prove it, it seems to me that the baptism of the group in this passage (Acts 10:47) is almost a kind of after-the-fact ratification of that which the Holy Spirit had already done in them.

So inferences are involved on both sides of the issue. I have to infer what the NT authors would say about an unbaptized Quaker. I'm trying to do so on the basis of what the text says. The group in question is also inferring an answer to this question. In particular, they are inferring that all the relevant passages that don't mention water baptism while talking about the Spirit in conversion assume it as equally essential. All in all, their interpretation centers primarily on a rigid reading of one verse (Acts 2:38), whose interpretation is then inferred in all other places in the NT.

But we cannot assume that Paul has the same precise theology as Luke--or even that Luke is giving us Peter's exact words on the Day of Pentecost (there's significant evidence to conclude that the sermons of Acts give us as much of Luke as they do of the historical sermons in question). That means that the group's case is built on 1) the "normal" process of conversion in Acts (without any comment on the unusual) and 2) inference from the "normal" examples of Acts. The NT makes no direct comment on the "unusual" circumstances we are addressing.

In my next post I'll address the question of whether Acts/the NT present tongues as the evidence of having received the Holy Spirit.