(1) Regeneration and Baptism. Baptism es sentially denotes the regeneration of him who re ceives it. his participation both in the divine life of Christ and the promises rested on it. as well as his reception as a member of the Christian community.
Each of these momentous points implies all the rest, and the germ of all is contained in the words of Christ (Matt. xxviii :19; Comp. Neander, flistory of the Planting, etc., ii) : The details are variously digested by the apostles ac cording to their peculiar modes of thinking. John dwells—in like manner as he does on the holy communion—almost exclusively on the internal nature of baptism, the immediate mystical union of the Spirit with Christ ; baptism is with him equivalent to 'being born again' ( John iii :5, 7). Paul gives more explicitly and completely the other points also. He understands by it not only the union of the individual with the Head, by the giving one's self up to the Redeemer and the receiving of His life (Gal. iii :27), but also the union with the other members (ib. 28; t Cor. xii: 13; Eplies. iv:5; v:26). He expresses a spiritual purport by saying that it intimates on the part of those who have received it their being joined with Christ in his death and raised with him in his resurrection.
As regards the relation between the external and the internal, the normal condition of baptism required that the ceremony should be combined with regeneration in him who received it, while he who administered it should have a perfect knowledge of the state of the baptized, and should aim at strengthening and promoting the new life in him. There is no doubt that when Christ himself gave the assurance that He had received some one into His community, whether with or without baptism, such a declaration of His choice was met by the individual with a disposition al ready prepared to begin the new life. But the church is not in a state of perfection, and being deficient both in knowledge and will, she cannot fix the moment of regeneration in order to com bine with it the act of baptism. She nevertheless places both in a necessary mutual relation, and considers baptism only then complete when re generation takes place; the church therefore either delays baptism until after regeneration, or admin isters it beforehand, confiding in the assurance that the agency of the church will also produce in him regeneration, provided always that the indi vidual has the will for it.
In the apostolic times the church was in a less mixed state ; a comparatively large number, per haps an actual majority, of the whole body of the baptized might at that time have passed for con verts, as the inward and outward conditions of baptism were then not so far removed from each other as they afterwards became. The necessity of examining the comparative merits of both con ditions separately grew with the growing imper fection of the community. The apostles did not yet feel it; they considered both only in the light of their necessary union with each other as Paul, for instance, says (Tit. iii :5; Comp. Mark xvi. 161 of the external symbol, what belongs only to the union of both. To ascribe the promises to baptism without that inward union would be mak ing it an opus operation and its efficacy a magic power, but, on the other hand, since the insti tution of Christ comprises also the external signs, it cannot be complete without them, and he who would abolish these external signs would de prive the church of an essential tie of fellowship. The Catholic church rather favors the former doc trine, and a few mystical sects, the Quakers, etc., the latter.
(2) Recipients of Baptism. The command to baptize was coupled with that of preaching the gospel to all nations (Matt. xxviii :191.
To be admitted to baptism in the apostolic age there needed no further development of Christian knowledge than a professed belief that Jesus was the promised Messiah. On this principle the apos tles acted (Acts ii :37; :12, 37, 38; xvi:15, 33)• To be baptized in the name of the Messiah meant to receive baptism in the belief that the power and dignity contained in the idea of a Messiah was realized in Jesus. The profession of faith (i Pet. iii :21) probably was such as to convey this idea, and next also the formula of baptism in the name of Christ, or, according to Matt. xxviii :19, of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, when the whole body was immersed in water. Christ did not intend by these words to institute a fixed formula of baptism, but merely meant to indicate thereby the substance of the essential re lations of baptism, since in his lifetime people could not yet be baptized in the name of the Holy Ghost. As the church, however, knew of no better compendiary text for the article of faith. she declared herself early for that formula, which was already in general use at the time of Justin Martyr.