BAPTISM AS INSTRUMENT OF GRACE IN BAPTIST’S INTERPRETATION

Abstract

The article proves that although usually Baptists looks like antisacramentalists, the early confession of faith clearly demonstrates the sacramental character and language of the Baptist understanding of water baptism. For the Baptist tradition, an instrumental understanding of baptism is not alien, they agree that baptism is as a means of grace, and this article clearly demonstrates it. Baptists do not really agree with the «mechanical» understanding of baptism, as a means of conveying grace, regardless of the faith and attitudes of the candidate for baptism. They do not believe in the understanding of baptism as a way of linking material ritual and spiritual reality automatically and reject the idea of conveying grace by the baptismal process itself as ex opere operato. However, they often interpret the understanding of grace as a gift, not a givenness. In Sacramental Gift, the Giver gives himself completely and without a trace, and in this sense the Baptists agree with the idea of baptism as an instrumental means of grace. But this happens only if the recipient of the Gift actively agrees. Thus, the article shows that Baptists reject only the instrumental action of grace without the faith.The author of the article draws attention to the fact that in many earlier Baptist Confessions of Faith, baptism is treated as a sign of grace, which is close to the classical understanding of this sacrament by Augustine and the entire Western Christian tradition. Thus, the explanation of baptism as a gift of grace, and not of givenness, becomes the basis for dialogue with other traditions. The consideration of baptism as Gift, in which Giver gives himself completely and without remnant, is close to theological understanding in this tradition, because in this case in the sacrament of baptism the candidate for baptism receives the Gift – Christ Himself, because He is immersed in Him.