The Free Will Baptist Treatise defines baptism as the “immersion of believers in water in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”[1] For this reason, Free Will Baptist churches cannot accept candidates for membership who have not received believer’s baptism by immersion. During my years in ministry, people occasionally have asked why we would not accept the infant baptism of someone who had clearly accepted Christ as their savior and exhibited the fruit of the Spirit. Such conversations can tempt us to downplay the differences between infant and believer’s baptism. However, baptism isn’t just about water.
Thomas Helwys faced these same dilemmas as the first generation of Baptists tried to work out their doctrine of baptism. In 1608 a large Separatist congregation left England seeking religious freedom in the Netherlands. Helwys, who financially underwrote and managed the exodus, led a section of the congregation to Amsterdam where they soon abandoned paedobaptism (infant baptism) in favor of credobaptism (believer’s baptism) and started the first Baptist congregation.
The remainder of their emigrant group, led by John Robinson, found shelter elsewhere in the Netherlands but continued to practice paedobaptism. As the doctrine of the two groups began to diverge, Robinson and Helwys wrote against one another, particularly regarding the nature of baptism. Their debate highlights the importance of situating baptism within the full revelation of God and considering its connection to the broader framework of our theology.
A Covenantal Misunderstanding
Fundamentally, Helwys argued, the practice of paedobaptism reflects a misunderstanding of the new covenant. The Separatists argued that baptism in the new covenant correlates to circumcision in the old and that it conveys saving grace to infants. Thus, as historian Marvin Jones notes, Helwys, following fellow Baptist leader John Smyth on this point, founded his opposition to the Separatist position in a covenantal debate.[2]
Helwys opened this discussion by commenting on Hebrews 9, highlighting the differences between the old and new covenants. He wrote that the old covenant had a “worldly” sanctuary and that “the services of the tabernacle only stood in ‘meats and drinks and diverse washings, and carnal rites.’”[3] These rites “purified the flesh, but did not purge the conscience.”[4] Rather the “carnal” rites of the old covenant were foreshadowing the new covenant that the arrival of the Messiah would inaugurate.
In contrast, Helwys contended that the new covenant has no “worldly sanctuary,” nor does it consist of “carnalities which do not purge the conscience.”[5] He argued forcefully that “Christ’s kingdom is a spiritual kingdom and that his ordinances are spiritual ordinances.”[6] Building from Ephesians 4:5 and Galatians 3:27, he quickly asserted that baptism chronologically follows accepting Christ and reflects the physical and spiritual nature of the ordinance.[7]
The new covenant is sealed by a perfect sacrifice in Jesus Christ, who also serves as the mediator for this new spiritual covenant that includes a tabernacle (the believer) and ordinances (the commands of Christ including baptism).[8] Because baptism is a spiritual ordinance mediated by Christ, only believers can partake of true baptism. Further, baptism is the physical manifestation of a spiritual action in which the believer has—though faith—spiritually died unto themselves, been buried, and risen again in Christ.
With this in mind, Helwys concluded that, if the Separatists continued to “have infants baptized, that is, washed with water and certain words,” then they would bring “in a carnal rite, which does not purge the conscience.” Further, they were attempting to “make the new covenant and ordinances carnal, like the old.”[9] By linking baptism to circumcision, the paedobaptists were rejecting Christ’s fulfillment of the law and were seeking to bring the old covenant into the new. Practicing paedobaptism also led the Separatists into further theological and logical conundrums, which Helwys did not ignore.
It’s Just Water: The Midwife’s Baptism
Not only did the Separatists continue to practice paedobaptism, but also they did not re-baptize anyone who left the Church of England. Helwys was astounded that Robinson was not rebaptizing his congregants since they agreed that the Church of England was apostate. If the church was not a valid church, how could their baptism be acceptable? According to Helwys, Robinson argued that these earlier baptisms were “naked” in their “essential causes: the matter, water, form, washing with water into the name of the Father, etc.”[10]
This “naked baptism,” as Helwys termed it, reduces baptism to the material elements, which, as Helwys noted, left Robinson confessing “true baptism in both England and Rome.”[11] Then, with tongue firmly in cheek, Helwys made an Edenic allusion warning that anyone who adopted Robinson’s “naked baptism will be found naked at the day of Christ’s appearing though you piece it and patch it with green leaves.”[12]
Reducing baptism to its material elements left Robinson’s position open to possibilities that were even more ridiculous. If water and the recitation of certain words are all that baptism requires, Helwys sardonically asserted that Robinson had made even “the midwives’ baptism a good and holy ordinance of God in the essential causes.”[13] Midwives who washed the newborn in water and blessed him in the name of the Father were performing a valid baptism according to Robinson’s doctrine. Clearly, something was wrong here.
Helwys illustrated his point by digging deeper into the Separatist claim that baptism is linked with circumcision. Since the Separatists held that “baptism comes in the head of circumcision,” Helwys asked if they would hold that circumcision “administered by an unlawful person, upon no right subject, and in no true communion, could . . . ever have been approved as the true ordinance of God in its essential causes.”[14] For him, the form of the circumcision was essential to its practice. He contended, “If a Babylonian had circumcised a Babylonian in their Babylonish assemblies, that circumcision had not been in any respect the ordinance of God, and such a one could upon no condition have been admitted to the Passover by that circumcision.”[15]
As Jones notes, Helwys regularly referred to the Church of England as Babylon.[16] However, his point in this instance is not related to the falsity of the church administering the baptism. Rather, using circumcision as a type or illustration, he was arguing that baptism has a proper form that can be carried out only within the community of the saints.[17] Otherwise, Helwys asserted, Ezra and Nehemiah had been wrong to cause the “people to put away the children that were born of strange wives in Babylon.”[18] Thus Helwys maintained that circumcision has a proper form: Israelites administering the ritual on the children of the covenant.
Unlike Robinson and the Separatists, Helwys did not hold that baptism was the seal of the new covenant but that both baptism and circumcision were ordinances with spiritual aspects beyond the physical rites. As Brian Haymes states, for Helwys, “the Holy Spirit, a lawful minister, a right party to be baptized, and a faithful congregation of the baptized” were all necessary for true baptism.[19] Though Helwys believed that these elements were essential to a proper baptism, the qualification for the “lawful minister” was faith rather than apostolic succession. He made this point clear when John Smyth attempted to join the Waterlander Mennonites for that reason.[20]
Perhaps Helwys’s concern about the mode of baptism seems overly contentious. However, we should note the reason for his vehemence. Helwys emphasized that disobedience was the true danger in the Separatists’ paedobaptism. He warned them that they were opposing the “evident word of the Lord,” which he cautioned would lead “to [their] utter destruction.”[21] Ultimately, paedobaptism rejected the need for personal faith and relied upon communal membership sealed by baptism for salvation. However, Helwys wasn’t simply interested in winning an argument or passing judgment on his former congregants. Rather, he called them to abandon their paedobaptism in repentance, thereby saving their souls.
Conclusion
The doctrine of baptism is an integral part of our theological framework. It is intertwined with our understandings of covenants, salvation, ecclesiology, and more. For these reasons, the proper form of baptism is no minor matter. Helwys and the early Baptists suffered no small amount of ridicule for their commitment to believer’s baptism. Yet Helwys was not afraid to make a clear, cogent, and robust defense for their position. Though he laced his arguments with humor and sarcasm, his ultimate goal was restoration. He wanted his friends and former church members to realize the error of their ways so that they would conform to God’s Word.
As modern Free Will Baptists, we may want to minimize the
importance of our doctrine of baptism. In a time when evangelical believers are
happy to float between various denominations with little sense of underlying
doctrinal differences, we may be inclined to waive our forefathers’ commitment
to believer’s baptism. However, to moderate our commitment to this matter, or to
treat it as a mere formality, denies its deeper importance. Therefore, we
should embrace and celebrate this doctrine and encourage prospective members to
understand believer’s baptism as an act of Christian obedience that will enrich
them and the church.
[1]A Treatise of the Faith and Practices of the National Association of Free Will Baptists, Inc. (1935; rev., Nashville, TN: National Association of Free Will Baptists, 2016), XVIII, 1.
[2]Marvin Jones, The Beginning of Baptist Ecclesiology: The Foundational Contributions of Thomas Helwys (Eugene: OR: Pickwick, 2017), 129.
[3]Thomas Helwys, A Short Declaration of the Mystery of Iniquity, in Joe Early Jr., ed., The Life and Writings of Thomas Helwys, Early English Baptist Texts (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2010), 277.
[4]Ibid.
[5]Ibid.
[6]Ibid.
[7]Anthony R. Cross, “The Adoption of Believer’s Baptism and Baptist Beginnings,” in Exploring Baptist Origins, ed. Anthony R. Cross and Nicholas J. Wood, Center for Baptist History and Heritage Studies (Oxford: Regents Park College, 2010), 19. Cross rightly notes that, even though Helwys did not refer to John Smyth in his argument, Helwys’s thinking on the nature of baptism had strong similarities to Smyth’s position in Character of the Beast.
[8]In this context, Helwys was discussing baptism, but he clearly understood other commands of Christ as ordinances.
[9]Helwys, 277.
[10]John Robinson quoted in Helwys, 255.
[11]Helwys, 255.
[12]Ibid., 256.
[13]Ibid., 259.
[14]Ibid., 258.
[15]Ibid., 259.
[16]Jones, 122.
[17]Thanks to Jesse F. Owens for helping me think through this particular nuance.
[18]Helwys, A Short Declaration of the Mystery of Iniquity, 259.
[19]Brian Haymes, “Thomas Helwys’ The Mystery of Iniquity: Is it Still Relevant in the Twenty-First Century?” in Exploring Baptist Origins, ed. Anthony R. Cross and Nicholas J. Wood, Center for Baptist History and Heritage Studies (Oxford: Regents Park College, 2010), 67.
[20]See Jesse F. Owens, “A Brief Exploration of General Baptist Origins,” Helwys Society Forum, November 7, 2016; http://www.helwyssocietyforum.com/a-brief-exploration-of-general-baptist-origins/; accessed March 10, 2020; Internet.
[21]Helwys, 277.
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