Throughout the twentieth century, it was not uncommon for individuals to so associate the doctrine of election with John Calvin that they mistakenly concluded that the concept of election had originated with him. Far from finding its origins in the Genevan Reformer, the doctrine of election has long held a place in the history of the church because it is everywhere taught in Scripture. The early church theologian Augustine, in his tractate on John 15:15–16, appealed to the clear teaching of Romans 11:5–6 regarding the doctrine of election. He wrote:
What was it then that He chose in those who were not good? For they were not chosen because of their goodness, inasmuch as they could not be good without being chosen. Otherwise, grace is no more grace, if we maintain the priority of merit. Such, certainly, is the election of grace, whereof the apostle says: “Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant saved according to the election of grace.” To which he adds: “And if by grace, then is it no more of works; otherwise, grace is no more grace.”
Augustine was underlining the importance of the unmerited nature of election. God did not choose those He would save through Christ on account of anything in them by which they could have merited that salvation. God did not foresee something in those He saves that moved Him to choose them. God did not even choose them on account of Christ. Rather, He chose them even though they had nothing with which to merit His grace and had, in fact, demerited His favor. The idea of unmerited election is encapsulated in the Calvinistic acronym TULIP under the designation unconditional election (the U in TULIP). But what do Reformed theologians mean when they speak of the unconditional nature of election? Dr. R.C. Sproul defined unconditional election in the following way: “The Reformed view of election, known as unconditional election, means that God does not foresee an action or condition on our part that induces Him to save us. Rather, election rests on God’s sovereign decision to save whomever He is pleased to save.”

Written by T. M. Suffield |
Saturday, September 3, 2022
We also learn by hearing the struggles of people who are still in the pit, describe the nightmares they’re living through, and tell us how on earth they’re continuing to worship God despite it making no sense at all. I learn as much, if not more, from these gnarled saints. Their struggles teach, and you don’t have to be out of the other side of your struggles to have learned wisdom. You see, treasure lives at the bottom of the pit, and like the inverse of Plato’s cave, those who have suffered much and still love the Lord can teach the rest of us how to live. Which shouldn’t surprise us, the Christian life is one of death and resurrection, after all.

When Christians suffer, when we experience pain, it often gives rise to doubt. We begin to wonder if it’s meant to be like this. One of the most quoted reasons to disbelieve in God is what’s usually called ‘the problem of evil.’ For most of us though it’s not the existence of conspicuous evil that’s the problem, it’s the pain in our lives and the lives of those we love. There’s a reason that C. S. Lewis formulated the challenge as The Problem of Pain.
Why does it make us doubt? I’m sure there are as many variations as there are sufferers, but broadly because if we truly believe that we are the beloved children of the most high God it raises some questions when, as best we can tell, he could improve our lot but hasn’t done so.
These questions are then painfully pressed on in many churches Sunday by Sunday as we preach a Christian life that sounds remarkably pain-free—this is certainly true in my charismatic tradition, but I’ve seen it much more broadly across evangelicalism in the UK. We preach what amounts to a prosperity gospel, where Christians are promised nice middle-classed lives.
Some readers might want to object that they haven’t heard this sort of preaching in their church, and thank the Lord if that’s the case, but for clarity I don’t mean that this is explicitly taught in the sermon, though that can happen. It’s often preached through the stories we share, through those we platform and those we don’t, through the questions our preaching does and doesn’t address, through the words of the songs we pick to sing, through so-called vulnerability that sufferers see right through, and through the reactions to those who are in acute pain.
We speak like the grand plan is that we’re all free from pain right now. Which, dear friends, it is not. You can quote Psalm 27 all you like but that isn’t what it means. There will be no more pain after the resurrection of the dead (Revelation 21), and that is a promise worth gripping to until your hands bleed. One day every ounce of existential dread, every lash of life’s cruel calumny, and every private howl you flung into the uncaring heavens, will melt in the face of the Lord Jesus as he smiles and embraces you, his little brother or sister.
And when I say it will melt, I don’t mean that as a nice verb to describe ‘going away.’ When the eyes of Jesus the consuming fire (Hebrews 12) look upon you tenderly, they will look on the root of Hell that has afflicted you with the force of a thousand suns and it will die.
One day our pain will go. But not yet. We aren’t promised that. In fact, the Bible tells us that our pain still has work to do—for suffering produces character (Romans 5). But even that can be a weight to bear, we are not responsible for ensuring we have achieved anyone’s definition of ‘adequate growth’ through our trials than the Lord’s.
Pain is required for growth. Ask any athlete. We immediately might have questions about how that death or that vile sting will cause us to grow, and it’s important to face them. They do not have clear and simple answers. Our struggles teach us.
I think I could be misread here. We often hear stories of challenge in our churches, and invariably they are told once those challenges are over, the people involved aren’t feeling the rawest edge of the pain, and it all sounds a bit neat and tidy.
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We know that the sacraments have a teaching function. They exist to encourage and edify the body of the faithful. By maintaining a standard of the appropriate mode (and therefore appropriate symbolism) for baptizing, we are shepherding our people. We are teaching them about the Lord’s nature of interacting with His people and the way He saves and revives us.

The sacrament of baptism is perhaps the most widely debated topic in the Protestant church world. There is no shortage of fraternal disagreements on this topic, especially within the Reformed evangelical setting. However, debates around baptism often focus around who should be baptized. Is baptism reserved for believers alone? Or are the children of Christians to be baptized as well? Comparatively less ink is spilled debating about the mode of baptism, or how people are to be baptized. The nature of the debate over whether biblical baptism should be administered to families of believers can often distract from this all too important topic. This can lead to misunderstandings about why certain traditions hold the practices they do, or assumptions that one’s own practice is right, without prompting any further investigation into the matter. It has even led to some considering this issue of no consequence at all.
What do the scriptures teach about the mode of baptism? How are believers to be baptized? Unfortunately, there is no “gotcha” passage in the New Testament that points us to a quick resolution of this, but as we tread beyond the usual stomping ground of whether baptizo means to immerse (and only to immerse), we should find a deeper meaning for baptism. Just as what we do with the bread and wine matters for observing communion, what we do with the waters of baptism matters as well.
Signs and Wonders
The Westminster Confession of faith opens its 28th chapter by defining baptism as a sacrament, and listing its many benefits:

Baptism is a sacrament of the New Testament, ordained by Jesus Christ, not only for the solemn admission of the party baptized into the visible church, but also to be unto him a sign and seal of the covenant of grace, of his ingrafting into Christ, of regeneration, of remission of sins, and of his giving up unto God through Jesus Christ, to walk in the newness of life: which sacrament is, by Christ’s own appointment, to be continued in his church until the end of the world.—WCF 28.1

So what is baptism all about? Well, it is a sign (or a symbol) of the Christian’s regeneration and the remission of their sins. Baptism displays, in symbolic visual form, the new birth that is experienced by the believer and wrought by the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 12:13). For once we were dead in our tresspasses and sins, but God “made us alive, together with Christ–” (Eph. 2:5) God has given His church baptism to show us that in Christ we are made alive.
This baptism verifies the promises of the Gospel in scripture. God promised to revive, and so he showers us with the water of life through His Spirit. God promised to cleanse, and so he washes us of our sin & iniquity. It is the Gospel in picture, for the person being baptized and for all who witness the event and consider the sign. More than an empty ceremony, it gives testimony to the promise of redemption; it shows God as he holds out a righteousness that can be had by faith. In this way, baptism is similar to circumcision in that it preaches to those who receive it, although baptism does this more than circumcision ever could. Circumcision as a sign showed Christians in the Old Testament that they, by their sin, were fundamentally broken as creatures and needed their wickedness removed in order to stand in the light of a holy God. Baptism shows us more, as the washing with water pictures our Savior who was covered by our sin and cleansed as he rose again on the third day.
And yet, baptism does even more. It shows us, as Chad van Dixhoorn writes, not only redemption promised and redemption accomplished, but redemption applied.1 Baptism points us to something real, something that happened. This sign represents to us the way in which we were brought into the house of God, and the relationship between our spiritual baptism and our righteous standing with Christ before God. Paul says as much in Galatians: “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” (Gal. 3:27) Just as Christians are joined to the visible church at their baptism, so they are ushered into Christ’s arms when they are resurrected through spiritual baptism.
Problems With Immersion
The question then becomes, what does this symbolism have to do with the mode of baptism? This particular moment is where many well-meaning Baptists ride down the hill as the cavalry coming to the rescue, declaring with every fiber of their being that immersion (or dipping) is the appropriate mode, and in fact, the only biblical mode. They are not without reason to have such confidence in immersion, as it conveys much through its symbolism. They derive their meaning from the language of being buried with Christ from places in scripture like Romans 6:4 and Colossians 2:12. The Baptist connects these passages with what he sees as the “burial” in water during an immersion baptism, or the “watery grave” as the prominent preacher Adrian Rogers called it, and there consider the matter to be ended.
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