The doctrine of justification by faith is clearly annunciated and defined in Paul’s epistle to the Romans. What he defined in Romans, he defended in Galatians. Unfortunately, this doctrine, so critical to one’s understanding of true Christianity, is virtually lost sight of in the late second-fourth centuries. Threatened by the Roman government from without and heresy and schism from within, many Church leaders sought to defend and define Christianity on a philosophical, rather than a biblical/theological basis. 

What emerged soteriologically was a salvation based upon supposed magical and mysterious capabilities of water baptism to take away sins and the elements of the Lord’s table to provide eternal life. Ecclesiologically, the church became a saving institution, the sole mediator of rituals that "save"! Only the bishops could administer these sacraments. Goodbye, justification by faith. 

How did this come about? How long did it take for these spurious ideas so contrary to scripture to become commonly accepted? In this article, we will examine the growth and spread of sacramentalism and sacerodotalism in post-apostolic times and some influences that led to their acceptance.  

"Sacramentalism" is the belief that "sacraments" were intended for, hence necessary to, one’s salvation. In the Christian church, there were only two at this time (and they were not called "sacraments" until the time of Tertullian, ca. 200 AD): water baptism and the Lord’s Table.¹ Early in the second century, the Lord’s Table came to be known as "The Eucharist." 

"Sacerodotalism," from "sacerodos," Lt. for "priest," is the belief that priests are endowed with powers and privileges unique to their craft: in short, priestism. In ancient times, all pagan religions practiced exclusive priestism. Even the Old Testament system in accord with the Law of Moses had an exclusive Levitical priesthood. The New Testament declares, however, that all believers are priests (1Pet. 2:9; Rev. 1:6); that is, that there is no unique, exclusive, priesthood within the believing family of God in this Church age. Despite this clear teaching in the New Testament, sacerodotalism found inroads into Christianity in the second century and came on strong in the third. Because many of the post-apostolic fathers failed to rightly divide the Scriptures, they saw themselves as successors to and a continuum of the Levitical priesthood. 

Only one more step was necessary in this line of reasoning for the Church to become a "saving institution:" the Bishops, the Episcopate, seen as "the Church." That step occurred in the fourth and fifth centuries. Follow the logic: water baptism and the Eucharist have mysterious and magical powers to take away sins and impart eternal life; only priests, a special, exclusive few among the believers in Christ, have the right to administer these "sacraments" since only they can effectively call forth the grace resident in the ritual; and only the clergy, i.e., the bishops and the priests, are the true Church. THEREFORE, APART FROM THE CHURCH, THERE IS NO SALVATION! The seeds of error snowballed in post-apostolic times: the product by the fifth-sixth centuries was the Roman Catholic Church. 

Most good pastors of Bible believing churches spend their energies in the study of the scriptures and the public exposition thereof, hence have read little in the Church fathers of post-apostolic times. And the average evangelical Christian has read even less. Our interest, as should be, is in what God has said, not what men say God has said; therefore we tend to ignore the post-apostolic fathers. 

So before I quote what some of these men have said on this subject, permit me to address a few remarks about the times and the sources of these statements. 

First of all, most pastors in post-apostolic times, 100-325 AD, did not write or, if they did, their writings have not survived. They served the Lord in times of severe persecution; most had to work outside the church to support their families; survival was a priority. Parenthetically, though applicable: how many of the hundreds of Bible-teaching pastors in America are writing today? Not many, and we live without persecution in a time of unparalleled prosperity with all kinds of labor-saving devices! My point simply is that when a few post-apostolic writers are quoted, it does not necessitate that their writings represent what the majority of contemporary pastors believed. My quotes are given to illustrate the propagation of ideas that will later become almost universal doctrine in the Western Church whether scriptural or not. These quotations represent idea-seeds that bear fruit later on. 

Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, who was martyred under Emperor Trajan in ca. 117 AD said this about baptism in his Epistle to Smyrna : "Let no man perform anything pertaining to the Church without the bishop… he who honors the bishop honors God… it is not permitted to baptize or hold a love feast apart from the bishop." I wonder if Ignatius ever read Acts 8:36-39 where Philip baptizes the

Ethiopian eunuch without consulting anyone, much less a bishop!  

In the Didache, authorship unknown, but which claims to be "The Teaching of the Twelve," and is dated ca. 125 AD, we read, "Baptize in living water, but if you have not living water, baptize in other water, and if thou canst not in cold, in warm. If you have neither, pour water thrice on the head in the name of the Father and Son and Holy Spirit." The author(s) of the Didache would be hard pressed to substantiate pouring as a mode of baptism from our true Apostolic records, the Scriptures. The triune application, however, is significant, since there is substantial evidence that baptism by triune immersion was the norm at this time.³ Philip Schaff, famous church historian, states that immersion of confessing adults was the normal mode of baptism, though not necessarily triune, until the thirteenth century.⁴  

So far, we would merely question Ignatius about his inflated view of the bishop, and the author(s) of the Didache about their compromise in the mode of baptism. But with Justin Martyr, we have a much more serious issue. His statements written in ca.150 AD in Apology I are some of the earliest on the issue of baptismal regeneration. Read closely: 

Justin Martyr was trained in pagan platonic philosophy: after conversion, his defense of Christianity was philosophical in nature, not exegetical or biblically theological. As a poor exegete, he becomes a forerunner of the superstitious idea that the waters of baptism somehow magically regenerate an individual. To his credit, he was martyred ca. 165 AD in an heroic defense of Christianity as he understood it. 

Justin Martyr reads into John 3:5, Mark 16:16, and Acts 2:38 the erroneous concept of baptismal regeneration: others will follow. Irenaeus, writing about 185 AD will boldly assert, "Baptism is the new birth and regeneration." Their reasoning totally ignores or distorts the clear teaching of justification by faith alone in Christ alone in the Pauline letters, especially Romans and Galatians, and in the Book of Acts. If water baptism is the means of forgiveness of sins and regeneration, the Apostle Paul did not know it! He clearly states "Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the Gospel"(1Cor. 1:17). The Gospel (which tells us how our sins are forgiven) and water baptism are two separate and distinct doctrinal entities in Paul’s mind. Mix them and you confuse the issues. Either the Apostle Paul was right in emphasizing the Gospel to the exclusion of baptism and the apostolic fathers were wrong on baptismal regeneration, or vice-versa. Do you have to guess who was right?

Back to the progress of the erroneous idea that water baptism magically washes away sin: Tertullian, writing On Baptism in ca. 200 AD, raises the question, what sins? Are you ready for this: Pandora’s penitential box is about to open… "Only those sins prior to water baptism," reasoned Tertullian. What of those committed after baptism? Tertullian and Cyprian, the Bishop of Carthage (ca.250 AD), were the first to suggest that post-baptismal sins required self-imposed penitential exercises and good works for satisfaction. Thus the starting point for the Roman Catholic Church’s doctrine of penance, much later to become a sacrament. 

And parishioners of the third century reasoned, "If baptism only washes away sins prior to it, why not wait until death before receiving it?" Many, like Emperor Constantine, put it off until they were about to die! Death-bed baptisms were then what death-bed repentances are now. 

The degeneration of the true meaning of water baptism continued. Perceived as essential to salvation, Clement of Alexandria, Hermas of Rome, and others in the third century, taught that even the saints of the Old Testament were baptized in Hades by Christ or the Apostles!  

And what about children? This is a subject that requires more attention than we can give in this paper. Suffice it to say that adult baptism only after conversion was the general rule until the age of Constantine (dies 337 AD), but catechetical schools had already sprung up to indoctrinate children into the faith. Precisely when the first baby was baptized, we do not know, but we do know that Augustine, famous Bishop of Hippo in the years 395-430 AD, was the first to clearly enunciate the doctrine that all unbaptized infants go to Hell. 

The heresy had run its course: from the erroneous idea in the second century that water can wash away the sins of the repentant, to the unimaginable doctrine in the fourth century that babies were saved by the same ritual even though they had no capacity to repent.  

(To be continued)

In the next edition of The Grace Family Journal, Ron Merryman will deal with "The Mystification of the Lord’s Supper" in this continuing series on "Justification by Faith & Its Historical Challenges." 

Ron Merryman served the Lord in Bible colleges for 11 years, 3 of those as Acting President of Western Bible College. He also pastored Holly Hills Bible Church in Denver, Colorado, for 14 years. Ron currently teaches in the G.I.B.S., a ministry of Duluth Bible Church.

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