The evolution of Alexander Campbell's understanding of baptism
As noted in my first post on this subject, Thomas and Alexander Campbell labored and studied extensively before reaching the conclusion that immersion was God's will. Being convicted of that, they submitted to baptism at the hands of Matthias Luce, a Regular Baptist preacher, in June 1812 [Robert Richardson,
Memoirs of Alexander Campbell, 1.395]. Yet, almost a decade later, at the time of the Campbell-Walker and Campbell-McCalla debates, we find that Alexander Campbell was
still studying and that his understanding of the design (i.e. the purpose) of baptism was still developing. Richardson himself hints at this when he says, at the end of chapter 18 of the
Memoirs: "The full import and meaning of the institution of baptism was, however, still reserved for future discovery" [1.405]. It was only during the 1820s, a full decade after his baptism, that Campbell came to the conclusion that baptism was "for the remission of sins."
Several questions come to mind at this point for brother Hafley:
1) Campbell, it is well known, was never re-baptized, even after he came to the understanding that baptism was "for the remission of sins." Why not? Was his first baptism, done in obedience to the command of God, valid?
2) What about Matthias Luce, the Baptist minister who baptized him? Does the fact that he was a Baptist invalidate Campbell's baptism? To put it another way, do the beliefs of the baptizer in any way determine the validity of the baptism? I don't want to read too much into brother Hafley's article, but I have often heard it said on this topic that "one cannot be taught wrong and baptized right." Is this true? (Campbell, after all, taught himself on this subject.) If it is true, what does it say about the power of God?
3) Should Campbell have undergone re-baptism many years later when he understood that God, in baptism, effects the remission of sins? Campbell clearly did not think so. Roderick Chestnut, in an article entitled "John Thomas and the Rebaptism Controversy," [in
Baptism and the Remission of Sins, ed. David Fletcher, Joplin, MO: College Press, 1990] discusses Campbell's views on this very point. Campbell likened baptism to a wedding ceremony. Working off of 1 Corinthians 3.21-23, he asserts that the believer who is "in Christ" through baptism has all things:
"Because we are Christ's, we have all things. . . .Among these 'all things' we can easily find the forgiveness of sins. . . .Some persons have thought that because they did not understand the import of christian immersion, at the time of their immersion, they ought to be immersed again in order to enjoy the blessings resulting from this institution; but as reasonably might a woman seek to be married a second, third, or fourth time to her husband, because at the expiration of the second, third, and fourth years of her marriage, she discovered new advantages and blessings resulting from her alliance with her husband, of which she was ignorant at the time of her marriage" [Campbell, "Ancient Gospel -- No. VI [:] Immersion," Christian Baptist 5 (2 June 1828): 447].
This is not to say that Campbell thought that all baptisms were necessarily valid. He does think that there are reasons for baptism that are invalid. But it is clear that, in Campbell's view, perfect understanding was not necessary for a baptism to be valid. In other words, God remits sins in baptism whether we fully understand that at the time of our baptism or not.
