What is Baptism?
Baptism is the application of water to an individual who has come to faith in Christ sealing the promise of God to him/her.
Where does the Bible teach us about this?
The word baptism first occurs when John the baptizer began to baptize those who responded to his preaching. The practice of baptizing, however, begins in the Old Testament.
Old Testament Baptisms
Where do we find baptizing in the Old Testament?
The author of Hebrews writes:
The Holy Spirit is signifying this, that the way into the holy place has not yet been disclosed while the outer tabernacle is still standing, 9 which is a symbol for the present time. Accordingly both gifts and sacrifices are offered which cannot make the worshiper perfect in conscience, since they relate only to food and drink and various washings [or baptisms], regulations for the body imposed until a time of reformation. (Hebrews 9:8-10)
What are these baptisms in the Old Testament?
The author refers to various baptisms here. In subsequent verses, he mentions some of these.
For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? (Hebrews 9:13-14)
Where do we read about these baptisms in the Old Testament?
The ritual involving the sprinkling of the ashes of a red heifer is explained in Numbers 19.
What was the purpose of this ritual?
This was a ritual for returning a person who had become unclean to a state of ceremonial cleanness again. This ritual was specifically for people who had in some way come into contact with a dead person either by direct contact, or by being in the tent when someone had died, or even accidentally touching a corpse or human bone in a field.
What exactly was involved in the performance of this ritual?
First, the water of purification לְמֵי נִדָּה had to be prepared. This special water had ashes mixed in it. To prepare these ashes, the priest took a red heifer which had no blemish and had never been used for plowing, killed it and burned it. As the animal burned, the priest would add to the fire some sticks of cedar, a branch of hyssop, and some scarlet yarn. When all this was burned, the ashes were collected and stored in a container outside the camp.
Whenever someone became unclean in the ways described above, they entered into a state of uncleanness for seven days. In order to become clean again, someone would run and fetch this container of ashes. Some of this ash was then mixed with water, and this mixture was sprinkled on the unclean person. This sprinkling would take place on the third day and on the seventh day. If this was done, the person became ceremonially clean on the seventh day.
What is meant by being unclean or being ceremonially unclean?
A person who was unclean was not allowed to participate in the worship of the Tabernacle (or temple) and was, in a sense, placed in a temporary position of probation. If they failed to deal with their uncleanness, they would be permanently cut off from God’s people. In the above instance, Moses taught the people:
Anyone who touches a corpse, the body of a man who has died, and does not purify himself, defiles the tabernacle of the LORD; and that person shall be cut off from Israel. Because the water for impurity was not sprinkled on him, he shall be unclean; his uncleanness is still on him. (Numbers 19:13)
A person who was unclean was not necessarily a person who had sinned; many of the situations that made a person unclean involved no sin such as the above when someone died in your tent (Numbers 19:14).
What exactly was this water of purification?
In Hebrew, the term is לְמֵי נִדָּה which is literally “for a water of impurity” or water for the removal of impurity. As described above, the water itself was made from the ashes of an animal which had been killed as a sin offering. Again, the symbolism here is key.
Why does the author of Hebrews call this a baptism?
Because it involves the key idea of baptism which is purification.
What other baptisms are found in the Old Testament?
The author of Hebrews refers to “various washings” in the Old Testament ceremonial worship as baptisms. Hence, wherever there is a washing, we can conclude that this was understood by the New Testament church as a kind of baptism; cf. Leviticus 6:28; 8:5–6; 14:8–9; 15:5, 11-12. The real meaning of these rituals was understood as well; cf. Ps 51:2, 7; Jer 2:22; 4:14.
How common were these washings?
These ritual washings must have been a near daily occurrence in Israel. The ritual of the red heifer would have occurred at least as often as someone died. It is no exaggeration to say that these purification ceremonies would have been routine in the life of a typical Jew.
John’s Baptism
What is the first baptizing we meet with in the New Testament?
John the Baptizer used this ritual as a picture of the repentance that his followers needed if they were to be ready for the Messiah’s appearing.
Where does John explain the meaning of his baptism?
We can see this in the gospel of Matthew:
Now in those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea, saying, 2 “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” 3 For this is the one referred to by Isaiah the prophet when he said, “THE VOICE OF ONE CRYING IN THE WILDERNESS, ‘MAKE READY THE WAY OF THE LORD, MAKE HIS PATHS STRAIGHT!'” (Matthew 3:1-3)
In a subsequent verse, he announces:
As for me, I baptize you with water for repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, and I am not fit to remove His sandals; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clear His threshing floor; and He will gather His wheat into the barn, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” (Matthew 3:11-12)
So John’s baptism was to prepare people for the coming One, but what precisely did John’s baptism mean? What was it a picture of and how were the people to understand it This is one of the puzzling things of John’s baptism. Apparently, John assumed that all his hearers already understood its meaning, and there was no need for him to explain it. Warfield writes:
It is argued that there is no evidence from the New Testament notices that Christ was instituting a rite that was new in the sense that its form or mode was a novelty; or that when John called on the people to come to his baptism, he needed to stop and explain to them what this “baptism” was and how they were to do it. On the contrary, it appears that Christ and John expected to be thoroughly understood from the beginning, and only implanted a new significance in an old rite, now adapted to a new use. The Archaeology of the Mode of Baptism, page 635
Lightfoot on John’s baptism. source
Why is this important for our understanding of baptism?
It means that John was not introducing something entirely new or some never seen before practice. Evidently, this was something that both John and his audience already understood. MacLeod writes:
Some have argued that he [John the Baptizer] borrowed the practice [baptizing] either from Old Testament ablutions/washings, Jewish Proselyte (i.e., convert) baptism, or the washings of Qumran, the community of the Essenes near the Dead Sea. However, John’s practice was different from them all. For one thing, he immersed the people himself, while Old Testament ablutions and proselyte baptisms were self-administered. … In short, John’s baptism was original and unique. It was a radically new thing. David J. MacLeod, “Herald of the King: The Mission of John the Baptist (Matthew 3:1-12),” Emmaus Journal 9, no. 1 (2000): 19.
That this is incorrect can be seen from Numbers 19:18 where the baptism was clearly not self-administered. Whately remarks:
But in this and in several other points also, difficulties, and sometimes serious mistakes are likely to arise from want of sufficient care to view the Gospel through the medium of the Law to recollect that is not only that the Mosaic Dispensation itself was the forerunner and type of the Christian which fulfilled and extended it but also that Christianity was first preached by and to men who had been brought up Jews; and that accordingly we must carefully consider and steadily keep in mind what were the habits and modes of thought of Jews of that Age and Country and in what way they would be likely to understand and to act upon the precepts and doctrines delivered to them. For the interpretations which were the most obvious to them will be often different from what may be the most obvious to us of the present day. And again it will often happen that what were to them the greatest difficulties as for instance the admission of the Gentiles to be fellow heirs will be to us no difficulties at all. And whatever meaning presented itself to their minds may be presumed to be the right one whenever they were not taught otherwise by their inspired guides, the Apostles, who were at hand to correct any mistakes they might fall into. source
Where would John and his audience have learned about baptizing?
The Bible does not explicitly answer this question, but certainly the most obvious answer is that John and his audience retained their understanding of baptizing from the Old Testament practice. Axtell writes:
John’s baptism breaks in upon sacred history like a meteor at night. Without a single definition or explanation the word comes suddenly forward in the Gospels, and is recognized and accepted by all as the appropriate name for John’s great work. The sudden appearing of the word in the Gospels does not seem so strange, however, when we remember that the Jews had long been familiar with the word as a name for ceremonial purification, and had always thought of the ceremony as bringing them into a condition of holiness and favor with God. Moreover, they all understood that special occasions in religious service required special purifications. They had learned this from the consecration of Aaron and his sons, and from the frequent purifications of the priests when entering the Temple service. They had learned it also from the consecration of the tabernacle and its vessels, and from the dedication of the Temple. They had seen the same truth in the anointing of the kings and in the holy lives of the prophets, and they had been taught that special purifications were necessary as a preparation for every religious service and for the fulfilment of all religious vows. Baptism, which was the name of these purifications, did not, therefore, in John’s time need any definition or explanation. source
Are there any other reasons for believing that John’s baptism was linked in meaning and practice to the Old Testament practice?
Yes, we know that John was the son of a priest (Luke 1:5) and thus would have had an intimate knowledge of these purification rituals. If these practices would have been routine for the ordinary Jewish person, they would have been doubly so for John.
Assuming all this to be true, then we would be led to believe that the central idea behind John’s baptism was purification.
Yes, it was a purification ritual to prepare his hearers to receive the coming King who was mightier than he and whose sandals, he was not worthy to loose. (Matthew 3:11) The gospel of John also makes this clear.
What is taught us about John’s baptizing in the gospel of John?
John writes that the ministry of Jesus was bearing fruit, and the disciples were busy baptizing many people.
After these things Jesus and His disciples came into the land of Judea, and there He was spending time with them and baptizing. John also was baptizing in Aenon near Salim, because there was much water there; and [people] were coming and were being baptized–for John had not yet been thrown into prison. (John 3:22-24)
In this context, John records, “Therefore there arose a discussion on the part of John’s disciples with a Jew about purification.” (John 3:25)
What was the point of dispute?
The gospel author does not tell us. There are two reasons to believe that some unnamed Jew was comparing Jesus’ baptism with John’s in favor of Jesus’ baptism. John’s disciples were irritated by this and the dispute was on. Note first the “therefore” at the beginning of v25. It shows that as a consequence of Jesus’ baptizing so many, this dispute arose. It stands to reason that Jesus’ increased popularity here prompted this dispute.
Second in the following verse (v26), the disciples of John express their concerns that Jesus is attracting more disciples than John. This seems to be their real concern and likely what sparked the debate in the first place. Hence, we conclude that the dispute was centered around the comparative superiority of the baptisms of John and Jesus. Lenski writes:
What the actual question of the dispute was the evangelist does not say since his concern is something more important. All we can gather from the complaint of the Baptist’s disciples in v26 is that the Jew maintained the superiority of Jesus’ Baptism over that of the Baptist, which the disciples of the latter refused to admit as it would also involve that men should leave the Baptist and go to Jesus. Lenski on Jn 3:25 also Vincent
Why is this important?
It shows that in the in the mind of the gospel author, purification (John 3:25) and baptizing (John 3:22, 23) are near synonyms. It again shows that John’s baptizing was essentially a Jewish purification ritual.
Jesus
What can we learn about Jesus practice of baptizing?
We learn from John 4 that Jesus Himself did not baptize anyone. His disciples did this.
When therefore the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John (although Jesus Himself was not baptizing, but His disciples were)… (John 4:1, 2)
Why did Jesus not baptize Himself?
The Bible does not answer this question. Chrysostom writes:
Yet the Evangelist farther on says, that “Jesus baptized not, but His disciples”; whence it is clear that this is his meaning here also. And why did Jesus not baptize? The Baptist had said before, “He shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.” Now he had not yet given the Spirit, and it was therefore with good cause that he did not baptize. But His disciples did so, because they desired to bring many to the saving doctrine. source
Does Jesus give any instruction about baptism?
The command to baptize comes from Jesus:
And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20)
This teaches us that all those who become disciples of Jesus are to be baptized in His Name. Those who are not disciples of Jesus are not to be baptized.
What does it mean to be baptized in the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit?
To be baptized in anyone’s name means to become a disciple of that person. Thus, to be baptized in God’s Name means to be marked as a follower or disciple of God.
Pentecost
What baptism took place at Pentecost?
The first thing to note is that the entire event of Pentecost is described by Jesus as a “baptism.” (Acts 1:5) Jesus had ascended into heaven and had received the Spirit of God from the Father. (Acts 2:33) Now, Jesus baptizes His people in this blessed Spirit. This was the inauguration of the new covenant for which the people of Israel had been waiting and looking for so many years. (Acts 2:16) This was an event of such massive significance in the history of God’s redemption that it was accompanied by various signs and many miracles. (Acts 2:2-4, 43)
What can be said about this baptism for our understanding of the church’s practice of baptism today?
First, this Pentecostal baptism shows that we must distinguish between baptism with water and baptism with the Spirit. (1 Corinthians 12:13)
Second, this Pentecostal baptism shows us that a “baptism” in Scripture is not limited to one specific mode such as immersion. Baptists insist that no baptism is valid unless it is a full dipping or immersion into water. Yet here, the church is said to have been baptized with the Spirit but the mode is clearly a pouring (Acts 2:17-18, 33), not a dipping. Fortner poses the question of how baptism is to be performed. He answers:
The answer to that question is so obvious in Scripture that the question itself is ridiculous. Baptism cannot be performed except by immersion. Not only is it true that none were baptized in the New Testament by any other means, the very word “baptize” means “to immerse.” Immersion is not a mode of baptism. Immersion is baptism. Without immersion, there is no baptism (Matt. 3:13–17; Acts 8:38; Col. 2:12). Basic Bible Doctrine, 525.
This is clearly false. Ferguson says that the pouring out of the Spirit was not itself the baptism.
God poured out the Spirit, but that pouring (a figure for God’s action in sending the Spirit) was not itself the baptism of the Holy Spirit but made the baptism possible. The baptism was the result of the coming (the pouring out) of the Holy Spirit, who filled the house (surrounding each), rested upon each, and filled each. How a medium (in this case the Holy Spirit) comes to be in a container (in this case the room) is distinct from what is done to a person in the medium (the baptism). Ferguson, Baptism in the Early Church, 167.
This distinction, however, is not in the text itself; and therefore, we hold that a baptism can be performed by pouring.
Third, that the promise of the gospel (and therefore the right to baptism) extends to believers and their children.
Where do we learn that the promise of the gospel extends to children?
Because at the close of his sermon, Peter announces that the promise of receiving the Holy Spirit is for all who repent and their children as well.
Now when they heard this, they were pierced to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brethren, what shall we do?” Peter said to them, “Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call to Himself.” (Acts 2:37-39)
What is Peter calling his audience to do here?
First, Peter is calling them to own the fact that they had crucified their Messiah (Acts 2:36) and to confess this guilt to God. Then to hate that sin, to turn from it, and to find forgiveness in Jesus. Second, he calls them to be baptized in water as a public display of the fact that they had renounced their old religion of Judaism and given their full allegiance to Jesus. The reason they should do this is because of God’s promise.
What is this promise?
This is the promise which is at the heart of the gospel. In one sense, we could say that this promise is the gospel. It is a conditional promise in that God promises salvation to all who have faith in Jesus. An example of this promise was given by Peter when he quoted the prophet Joel that everyone who calls on the Name of the Lord will be saved. (Acts 2:21) In Peter’s sermon here, the promised benefits are the forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38) which are just other terms for what we call salvation. Now this promise is the reason why people should repent and turn to Jesus. That’s why Acts 2:39 begins with the word “for” or “for this reason.” We could paraphrase the text this way:
Peter said to them, “Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Now the reason you should repent is that there is a promise for you and your children and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call to Himself.” (Acts 2:38-39)
When they do this, they are saved from all the punishment which their sin deserves.
So this text implies that all those who repent and believe in Jesus are to seek baptism.
This is true, but Peter goes on to say that the promise is not only for those present but also for their children.
Why is this reference to children so important?
Because the words “…and for your children” are a formula by which the Jewish audience would have understood that the household principle was to continue under the new covenant.
What makes you think that these words are a formula?
Because the ideas, and even the language, are so commonly used in the context of covenant making. Note the language given below:
- Behold, I establish my covenant with you and your offspring after you… (Genesis 9:9)
- All the holy contributions that the people of Israel present to the LORD I give to you, and to your sons and daughters with you, as a perpetual due. It is a covenant of salt forever before the LORD for you and for your offspring with you. (Numbers 18:19)
- and it shall be to him and to his descendants after him the covenant of a perpetual priesthood, because he was jealous for his God and made atonement for the people of Israel. (Numbers 25:13)
- I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your descendants after you. (Genesis 17:7)
Now compare this with what Peter announces:
For the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call to Himself. (Acts 2:39)
Peter’s Jewish hearers would certainly have understood these words as indicating a continuity between God’s administration of the covenant in previous dispensations and the new covenant which God had just enacted by baptizing the people with the Holy Spirit. Some refer to this as the genealogical principle.
What is the genealogical principle?
This is the practice of treating a family as a single unit. Thus, when God makes a covenant with the head of the family, the rest of the family are also counted as participants in that covenant and receive the covenant sign. Some call it the “household principle” or “corporate personality.” This was God’s practice in both the Abrahamic and Mosaic covenants and the dispensations which they governed. Willison writes that infants
are to be ranked among believers being the children of believing parents for infants are but parts of the parents wrapped up in another skin and to be accounted but one person with them as the root and branches are but one tree according to Rom 11:16. We are to judge of children by their parents till they come to the use of reason and be capable to choose their own way…” source
So when Peter says that the promise is to you and your children, he is to be understood as teaching that the genealogical principle is still the way God administers His covenant in the new dispensation which had just begun?
Yes, precisely. Further evidence for this is Paul’s teaching in Galatians 3:14 where he identifies the Holy Spirit as that which God promised to Abraham.
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us–for it is written, “CURSED IS EVERYONE WHO HANGS ON A TREE”–in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we would receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. (Galatians 3:13-14)
This teaches us that the pouring out of the Holy Spirit was one of the blessings which God had promised to Abraham. Again, we see further support for the idea that the new covenant is in continuity with the covenant God made with Abraham and his seed. Peter makes this same connection again in Acts 3.
It is you who are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant which God made with your fathers, saying to Abraham, ‘AND IN YOUR SEED ALL THE FAMILIES OF THE EARTH SHALL BE BLESSED.’ (Acts 3:25)
What is taught us in Acts 3:25?
Here Peter identifies His audience as “sons of the prophets.” The Jewish people often used the term “son of” in a figurative way to show that something was closely connected with something else; see many examples of this in letter 6 of Stuart. In this context, “son of the prophets” means that these Jewish people were the recipients of what the prophets had promised and predicted so many years ago. Furthermore, these Jews are also participants in the covenant which God made with Abraham or, as Peter calls it, “sons of the covenant which God made with Abraham.” Again, all this shows that we are to understand the baptism with the Spirit which took place on Pentecost as in direct continuity with the prophecies of the prophets regarding a new covenant and the covenant that God made with Abraham
Why is this significant?
Because the covenant sign in these dispensations was given to infant children. Absent any explicit command to change the way we deal with our infants, we are obliged to continue the practice which God originally gave to Abraham. God has not given us any indication that we are to act differently under His new covenant dispensation, and the above Scriptures show that the new covenant is simply the Abrahamic covenant coming to its fulfillment.
But did not God change the covenant sign from circumcision to baptism?
Yes, this is certainly taught in the New Testament. We are clearly commanded to change the sign, but there is no command to stop giving the covenant sign to the infant children of believers.
Does it make any difference that Peter here extends God’s promise to children but not necessarily to infants?
The word “children” here (or τέκνοις) is a broader term than infant (βρέφος or νήπιος). It implies children of all ages including newborns; see Revelation 12:5. The real question, however, is this; what would Peter’s audience have understood when they heard this phrase “…and to your children.” Watson puts it very plainly:
They [Peter’s hearers] had been accustomed for many hundred years to receive infants by circumcision into the Church; and this they did, as before observed, because God had promised to be a God to Abraham and to his seed. They had understood this promise to mean parents and their infant offspring, and this idea was become familiar by the practice of many centuries. What then must have been their views, when one of their own community says to them, “The promise is unto you, and to your children?” If their practice of receiving infants was founded on a promise exactly similar, as it was, how could they possibly understand him, but as meaning the same thing, since he himself used the same mode of speech? This must have been the case, unless we admit this absurdity, that they understood him in a sense to which they had never been accustomed. source
If the new covenant is new, however, then is it not likely that the genealogical principle may have been terminated?
This could certainly have been the truth if we had a word from God teaching us this. There is no such word, however, and therefore, we are bound to believe that it continues. Furthermore, Paul teaches that the new covenant is new relative to the Mosaic covenant, not the Abrahamic covenant.
Where does Paul teach that the new covenant is new relative to the Mosaic covenant, not the Abrahamic covenant?
Paul teaches this in Galatians 3:
Brethren, I speak in terms of human relations: even though it is only a man’s covenant, yet when it has been ratified, no one sets it aside or adds conditions to it. Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He does not say, “And to seeds,” as referring to many, but rather to one, “And to your seed,” that is, Christ. What I am saying is this: the Law, which came four hundred and thirty years later, does not invalidate a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to nullify the promise. (Galatians 3:15-17)
Here Paul teaches that the Abrahamic covenant is not nullified by the Mosaic covenant which came 430 years after God’s covenant with Abraham. On the contrary, the Abrahamic covenant remains in effect even after the enactment of the Mosaic covenant with all its laws and regulations and its subsequent removal at the coming of Jesus. In fact, the Abrahamic covenant is, in substance, the new covenant. That is why the new covenant is more accurately called the renewed covenant since it is in substance the renewal of the Abrahamic covenant with the additional burden of the Mosaic laws removed. Believers in Galatia (and believers everywhere) are participants in Abraham’s covenant, and they should not seek to come under the law; i.e. to place themselves under the strictures of the Mosaic covenant. Jeremiah also, in his classic prophecy of the new covenant, clearly places the new covenant over against the Mosaic covenant, not Abraham’s covenant.
Behold, the days come, says Jehovah, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was a husband unto them, says Jehovah. (Jeremiah 31:31-32)
Why do you say the Abrahamic covenant is “in substance” the new covenant?
Because they are not exactly the same. One obvious difference is that the covenant sign has changed from circumcision to baptism. Also, the people under the Abrahamic covenant looked forward to the coming of the Messiah; we under the new covenant look back on it.
Sum up then, what we can learn about baptism from Peter’s sermon here.
- There is a difference between being baptized with the Spirit of God and being baptized with water;
- The genealogical principle continues under the new covenant dispensation.
- Baptism can be administered by way of pouring.
Paul
Did Paul baptize anyone?
Paul certainly did baptize some people. It must be said at the outset, however, that Paul was not much interested in the ritual of water baptism. It’s not that he regarded it as unimportant. Rather, Paul says that he did not believe that God had called him to baptize. He tells the Corinthians that he remembered baptizing Crispus and Gaius and Stephanus’ family but then writes, “Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel…” (1Cor 1:17) Robertson writes:
Now there are two passages in Paul s Epistles that to my mind are decisive on this point and render it impossible to class Paul with the sacramentarians on the subject of baptism. The first one is 1 Corinthians1:14-17. Here Paul expresses gratitude that he baptized none of the Corinthian Christians save Crispus and Gaius. Then he recalls the household of Stephanas and beyond that he cannot recall whether he baptized any others. Certainly this attitude, almost of indifference, is not that of a man who attached saving efficacy to the ordinance of baptism. But v17 settles the matter. … Here Paul deliberately interprets his permanent mission as an apostle of Christ in language that leaves baptism to one side, and in contrast with his real work of preaching the gospel. I do not see how it is possible to understand that Paul could write thus if he held to baptismal regeneration. Certainly Paul was not making light of baptism, but he did not consider it his task. source
Was Paul baptized?
Yes, Paul was baptized when he become a believer in Jesus. (Acts 9:18) Ananias came to see him and announced God’s intentions towards Paul. Upon hearing this, Paul received the Holy Spirit and was then baptized. In Acts 22, Paul is speaking to the mob in Jerusalem and explaining himself. In the course of this speech, he mentions his conversion on the way to Damascus:
A certain Ananias, a man who was devout by the standard of the Law, and well spoken of by all the Jews who lived there, came to me, and standing near said to me, ‘Brother Saul, receive your sight!’ And at that very time I looked up at him. “And he said, ‘The God of our fathers has appointed you to know His will and to see the Righteous One and to hear an utterance from His mouth. ‘For you will be a witness for Him to all men of what you have seen and heard. ‘Now why do you delay? Get up and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on His name.’ (Acts 22:12-16)
Here Paul clearly sees baptism as a washing or a purification ritual just as was common in Old Testament worship.
Does Paul speak in other contexts of baptism as a purification ritual?
This depends on whether one sees a reference to baptism in Eph 5 and Titus 3.
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless. (Ephesians 5:25-27)
He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, (Titus 3:5)
Does Paul teach us anything else about baptism?
Yes, the Old Testament covenantal practice is most clearly seen in Paul’s practice.
What is the Old Testament covenantal practice?
This is the practice we find in both the Old and New Testaments where the entire family of an individual is brought under the privileges of the covenant when the family-head comes under the covenant. The entire family is reckoned to be one with the family-head.
Where do we find this practice in the Old Testament?
It is most clear in the practice of circumcision. This cutting, which was a seal of the righteousness which one has by faith (Romans 4:11) was applied to adult Israelites as well as to all their children. (Gen 17:10) These infants were not able to make any personal decision for themselves. Rather, the children were bound up with the choice of their parents, and the parents’ choice was reckoned to be the decision of the child(ren).
Where do we find this practice in the New Testament?
This is what Paul teaches us. Paul only baptized those who professed to be disciples of Christ. When such a person was baptized, however, Paul would also baptize the entire family in keeping with this covenantal principle. This appears to have been standard apostolic practice. We see this principle in two other New Testament stories:
- When Zacchaeus was saved, Jesus announced, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he, too, is a son of Abraham.” (Luke 19:9) Note that Jesus says that salvation has come to the entire family because the head of the family has become a son of Abraham.
- So also the nobleman of Capernaum believed the gospel and John tells us that “…he himself believed and his whole household.” (John 4:53)
Why do you say this was “standard apostolic practice?”
Because nearly every time a family was present, Paul baptized them:
- Lydia (Acts 16:15),
- the Jailer (Acts 16:33),
- Crispus (Acts 18:8; 1Cor 1:14),
- Stephanas (1Cor 1:16),
- It is not stated explicitly, but it seems likely that Cornelius also would have been baptized with his entire family. (Acts 10:2, 47)
The Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8:38) and Paul (Acts 9:18) would have had no family. The families of the Caesareans (Acts 10:47), the Samaritans (Acts 8:12), Gaius (1Cor 1:14), and John’s disciples (Acts 19:5) are not mentioned. It is noteworthy in this context that when Peter called the repentant Jews to be baptized, he included this comment, “…for the promise is to you and your children.” (Acts 2:39)
Explain the baptism of Lydia.
We read that Lydia was a worshiper of God meaning that she was either a Jew or a proselyte to the religion of Judaism. We read further that God had opened her heart to respond to the things spoken by Paul. (Acts 16:14) Then she was baptized, but Paul didn’t stop with just baptizing her. We read:
A woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple fabrics, a worshiper of God, was listening; and the Lord opened her heart to respond to the things spoken by Paul. And when she and her household had been baptized, she urged us, saying, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house and stay.” And she prevailed upon us. (Acts 16:14-15)
Here we see that where a family was present, Paul baptized the individual along with his/her entire family.
Who would have been included in “family?”
This is a broad word that would included the parents, any children, and slaves. It could possibly have included members of the wider family as well such as uncles, aunts, nieces, nephews, etc.
Explain the baptism of the jailer.
After the conversion of Lydia, Paul and Silas were imprisoned for reasons given in Acts 16:6f. While in this prison, God sent an earthquake which He used to bring the jailer to a sense of his sin and need for a Savior. When the jailer came to believe in Christ, we read again that Paul baptized him and his entire family. In fact, the covenantal principle mentioned above is especially clear in the verses which give us this account. Note the references to the jailer’s family in these verses:
Acts 16:31 And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you shall be saved, you and your household.”
Acts 16:32 And they spoke the word of the Lord to him together with all who were in his house.
Acts 16:33 And he took them that very hour of the night and washed their wounds, and immediately he was baptized, he and all his household.
Acts 16:34 And he brought them into his house and set food before them, and rejoiced greatly, having believed in God with his whole household.
Notice that every verse repeats this covenantal idea. The grammar of the last verse also supports this idea.
What is the grammar of v34 which shows the covenantal idea?
Because all the actions taken here are the jailer’s.
- he brought them into his house
- he set food before them
- he rejoiced greatly
- he having believed in God (the participle here is singular)
Then, the jailer’s family is attached to him in the final phrase with his whole household. Again, the entire family is bound up with the action(s) of the family-head.
What about the adults in the jailer’s family? Would not Paul have required them to give some kind of profession of faith before he would give them baptism?
It isn’t stated here what Paul required of them, but we can conclude from Paul’s practice elsewhere that he would have. Of course, such a profession of faith would have been exceedingly simple and primitive these gentiles not having received any kind of previous instruction in the things of God.
What about the infants in these families? Would they also have been baptized?
Yes, they also would have been baptized just as the infants of old covenant families were circumcised.
What does it mean to be baptized into someone’s name as Paul did in Acts 19:5?
To be baptized into someone’s name is to make a visible profession of being a disciple of that person. Thus to be baptized into the name of Paul would be to make clear that you were now a disciple of Paul. (1Cor 1:13) To be baptized into the name of Moses, means to be a disciple of Moses. (1Cor 10:2) cf Clarke
Romans 6
Does Paul mention baptism in his letters?
He does. The first is in Romans 6 where Paul writes:
What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it? Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with [Him] in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be [in the likeness] of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin. (Romans 6:1-7)
Paul here shows that when we are united to Christ, we die to sin. This means that we will have nothing to do with sin any longer. A picture of this union with Christ is given us in baptism where we are visibly baptized or joined to or identified with the holy Name of Jesus.
What does this teach us about baptism?
First, we should remember that Paul did not plant the church in Rome, yet he clearly assumes that his readers will know what baptism is. From this, we can conclude that baptism must have begun very soon after the death of Jesus.
Does Paul’s language of being “buried with Him through baptism” imply that Paul understood baptism to be an immersion into water?
We note that Paul also uses this language in Col 2:12. This point is disputed. There appear to be three different ways of understanding Romans 6:4.
What is the first?
The first is to see this verse as referring to water-baptism and that Paul is using the mode of baptism as an illustration of our union with Christ in His death and resurrection. The verse in Greek is:
συνετάφημεν οὖν αὐτῷ διὰ τοῦ βαπτίσματος εἰς τὸν θάνατον, ἵνα ὥσπερ ἠγέρθη Χριστὸς ἐκ νεκρῶν διὰ τῆς δόξης τοῦ πατρός, οὕτως καὶ ἡμεῖς ἐν καινότητι ζωῆς περιπατήσωμεν. (Rom 6:4)
A more literal translation would be:
Therefore, we were buried with Him through baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, in this manner even we in newness of life might walk. (Rom 6:4)
Headlam paraphrases the text:
Surely you do not need reminding that all of us who were immersed or baptized, as our Christian phrase runs, “into Christ,” i.e. into the closest allegiance and adhesion to Him, were so immersed or baptized into a special relation to His Death. I mean that the Christian, at his baptism, not only professes obedience to Christ but enters into a relation to Him so intimate that it may be described as actual union. Now this union, taken in connexion with the peculiar symbolism of Baptism, implies a great deal more. That symbolism recalls to us with great vividness the redeeming acts of Christ — His Death, Burial, and Resurrection. And our union with Christ involves that we shall repeat those acts, in such sense as we may, i.e. in a moral and spiritual sense, in our own persons. When we descended into the baptismal water, that meant that we died with Christ — to sin. When the water closed over our heads, that meant that we lay buried with Him, in proof that our death to sin, like His death, was real. But this carries with it the third step in the process. As Christ was raised from among the dead by a majestic exercise of Divine power, so we also must from henceforth conduct ourselves as men in whom has been implanted a new principle of life. “For it is not to be supposed that we can join with Christ in one thing and not join with Him in another. If, in undergoing a death like His, we are become one with Christ as the graft becomes one with the tree into which it grows, we must also be one with Him by undergoing a resurrection like His, i.e. at once a moral, spiritual, and physical resurrection.
In this case, the immersion into water is very much a part of Paul’s point. His thought requires an immersion. This is also Fitzmyer’s understanding:
Through baptism into his death we were indeed buried with him. The baptismal rite symbolically represents the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ; the person descends into the baptismal bath, is covered with its waters, and emerges to a new life. In that act one goes through the experience of dying to sin, being buried, and rising to new life, as did Christ. Fitzmyer on Romans 6:4.
What is the other way to read this verse?
Others also see this as a reference to water baptism but not making any reference to the mode of baptism. A paraphrase might go like this:
The truth is that we are one with Jesus. We died with Jesus, we were buried with Jesus, and we were raised with Jesus. In fact, this is the meaning of your baptism. When you were baptized, you were visibly and publicly united to Christ by being baptized into His Name. Now if you are truly one with Jesus, then you are also one with Him in His death to sin. That is why it is so foolish to talk of sinning in order to magnify the grace of God. Furthermore, being one with Jesus in His death not only means that you died and were buried with Him but also that you rose up out of that grave. When God the Father raised His Son Jesus from the dead, then He also raised you. This means that all your sins are left behind in that stinking grave, and you have risen to an entirely new kind of life. A life marked by holiness and honoring God.
In this case, baptism is understood theologically as a public union with Christ. In this understanding, how the baptism took place is not important.
What is the third way of understanding this verse?
There are those who do not see here any reference to water baptism at all. Paul is only thinking of baptism by the Holy Spirit. Godwin, for instance, argues that Paul cannot possibly be referring to the actual ritual of baptism here. “Little religious instruction and experience preceded the rite during the ministry of Christ and the apostles; and no special spiritual efficacy is ever by them attributed to it.” Surely Paul would extolled baptism very highly if he thought it had some kind of spiritual efficacy. Instead, we find the opposite. “Circumcision is nothing,” he writes. “I thank God I baptized none of you but Crispus and Gaius” and Paul’s strongest statement of all, “Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the Gospel.” (1Cor 1:14, 17) source Robertson also has a chapter where he argues that Paul was no sacramentarian. A possible paraphrase would be this:
The truth is that we are one with Jesus. This happened when we first believed the gospel, and the Holy Spirit baptized us into Christ (1Cor 12:13). When this baptism took place, you could say that we were so closely identified with Jesus that not only did we die with Him, but we were even buried with Him. Why does God do this to us? So that God can also bring us back to a new life and bring us out of that grave an entirely new person. This is what God the Father did in great glory and power to His Son Jesus; and if you are one with Him, then He did it to you too. Now when you were brought out of that grave with Jesus, what was left behind that grave? All your sins and all your old ways of living were left behind in that stinking grave, and you came out of it a new person! A new person means a new life, a life marked by holiness and honoring God. Therefore, let’s not talk anymore about sinning in order to magnify the grace of God. It makes no sense whatsoever for the baptized Christian.
Here, the verse is no longer about the ritual of water baptism but about being united to Christ by a Spirit worked baptism.
Which of these is correct?
It is very difficult to decide this especially because the weight of the baptism controversy puts a heavy bias on any exegete to decide a certain way.
1 Corinthians 1
What other references are there to baptism in the letters of Paul?
In Paul’s letter to Corinth, he writes the following:
Has Christ been divided? Paul was not crucified for you, was he? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, so that no one would say you were baptized in my name. Now I did baptize also the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized any other. For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not in cleverness of speech, so that the cross of Christ would not be made void. (1 Cor 1:13-17)
What does this teach us about baptism?
It shows us Paul’s lack of interest in the ritual of water baptism. cf Robertson
1 Corinthians 7
Does Paul’s teaching in 1 Corinthians 7 speak to the issue of baptism?
In this chapter, Paul is giving instruction regarding marriage and divorce. He tells married couples that they should not divorce in keeping with the teaching of Jesus. Then Paul speaks to those women or men who came to Christ and were saved but their spouse remains an unbeliever. To these, he writes:
But to the rest [i.e. to those who find themselves married to an unbeliever] I say, not the Lord [Jesus], that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he must not divorce her. And a woman who has an unbelieving husband, and he consents to live with her, she must not send her husband away. For the unbelieving husband is sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified through her believing husband; for otherwise your children are unclean, but now they are holy. Yet if the unbelieving one leaves, let him leave; the brother or the sister is not under bondage in such [cases,] but God has called us to peace. For how do you know, O wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, O husband, whether you will save your wife? (1 Corinthians 7:12-16)
Here we note that Paul regards the unbelieving spouse as in some sense “sanctified” by the faith of the believing spouse. He bases this thought on the assumption that the children are “holy.” Note that Paul does not attempt to persuade his readers that children are holy; he simply assumes it as a fact on which they are all agreed.
Why is it important to Paul’s argument here that the children are holy?
Consider:
- Those spouses who found themselves married to unbelievers were thinking that they were defiled by this union. This thought would have been reinforced by their reading of verses like Deuteronomy 7:3 and the common practice in the Jewish religion of being rendered unclean by touching a dead body, etc. Now the believing spouse would be rendered unfit for entering into God’s presence and participating in the Christian worship services.
- Because of this, many of these Christians would have thought that it would be best for them to leave their unbelieving spouse and divorce him/her. This is what Ezra commanded the Israelites. (Ezra 10:3-5)
- Paul vigorously denounces this as a wrong way of thinking. On the contrary, far from the believing spouse being defiled by the unbelieving spouse, the reverse is the case. The unbelieving spouse is sanctified by the believing spouse. Perhaps, Paul is thinking here of Moses’ teaching that whatever touched the altar was rendered holy. (Exodus 29:37, Leviticus 6:18)
Now Paul gives a supporting reason for the principle stated in #3. This must be the case, says Paul, because otherwise the children of these marriages would also be defiled by the unbelieving spouse and would be unclean as well as the believing spouse. On this reasoning, the spouse should also abandon her/his children as well the spouse. Paul, however, appeals to their common understanding that the children of believers are not unclean but holy. Evidently, it was unthinkable for the apostle and his readers that the children of believers were to be considered pagan children until they came to an age when they could articulate their own, personal faith. On the contrary, the covenantal principle articulated above was Paul’s modus operandi, and he appeals to it here to prevent Christians from seeking a divorce from their unbelieving spouse. Godet puts the argument:
The argument is this: If it is a thing admitted by you all, that notwithstanding their original pollution, your children, who are not yet believers, are nevertheless already consecrated and holy in the eyes of God, and that in virtue of the bond which unites them to you, their parents, why would you make a difficulty about recognizing also that an unbelieving husband may be regarded as consecrated to God in virtue of his union with his believing wife, and that by the fact of his desire to remain united to her? source
What is meant by “children” here?
These children would have been infants since the Corinthian believers could not have been believers for long, and these children would have been born to them after they had come to Christ. Witherington, Troubled Waters, 48.
What does Paul mean here by “holy?”
In the Bible generally, this word is often used to refer to the Holy Spirit. If we set aside this usage for now, then we find that the word can either refer to an objective holiness or a subjective holiness. The latter is what God works in the life of a person via regeneration, faith, repentance, and the like. The objective meaning is in use when objects are consecrated to God. For example, we read references to a holy city (Matthew 4:5), giving what is holy to dogs (Matthew 7:6), the holy place (Matthew 24:15), holy covenant (Luke 1:72), and the firstborn being holy (Luke 2:23). In Matthew 27:52 and Mark 6:20, we find the idea of a subjective holiness included. Candlish writes that the word rarely makes reference to a person’s moral character.
It does not necessarily imply any inward goodness or good quality at all. It is commonly used simply as a term of outward relationship; denoting the use, destination, office, or official character of a person or thing;—having reference to the light in which God may be pleased to regard any one,—the treatment which God may bestow upon him,—the footing on which God may place him;—and not to what he really and personally is. source
Clearly, Paul’s meaning is the objective sense.
What else can be said about this “being sanctified?”
Whatever this “holiness” may have been, we should note the tense of the verb “sanctified” ἡγίασται in v14 “…for the unbelieving husband is sanctified…”. The meaning of this verb form here is that of a completed and finished action that has results extending into the present. This is why it is not correct to interpret this holiness as something that might come to pass in the future. Paul makes reference to this in 1Cor 7:16. Beet writes:
The Christian wife lays her heathen husband upon the altar of God; and in all her intercourse with him acts as God’s servant, striving ever to accomplish His purposes. Therefore, whatever the husband may be in himself, he is sanctified in the wife: i.e. in the subjective world of her thought and life he is a holy object; and her treatment of him is a sacrifice to God. source
Certainly, there is an element of truth in this, but it does not give enough weight to the completed aspect of the verb “sanctified.” Meyer writes that the unbelieving spouse is not brought into the moral holiness of the new birth, but the holy consecration of that bond of Christian fellowship which forms the church of God. The non-believer is, as it were, affiliated to the holy order of Christians by his union of married life with a Christian person, and, so soon as his spouse is converted to Christ and has thereby become holy, he too on his part participates in his own person (not “simply in his married relationship,”) in his spouse’s holiness, the benefit of which he receives in virtue of his fellowship of life with her, so that he is no longer ἀκάθαρτος [unclean] as before but—although mediately after the fashion described—a ἡγιασμένος [sanctified]. source Here the idea is that “holiness” is the equivalent of being included in the fellowship of the church.
A better explanation of this “holiness” is to see it as another example of the Old Testament covenantal practice which we articulated above and which Paul carried over from the Old Testament. In light of this principle, Paul is not referring here to what we often call a subjective holiness brought about by regeneration, but an objective holiness brought about by birth to Christian parents or, in the case of the unbelieving spouse, marriage to a Christian. This “holiness” is a consecration to God
Is this what some writers have called a federal holiness?
Yes, the words “federal” and “covenant” are synonyms in this context; see here. The Directory for Public Worship contains these words:
That children, by baptism, are solemnly received into the bosom of the visible church, distinguished from the world, and them that are without, and united with believers; and that all who are baptized in the name of Christ, do renounce, and by their baptism are bound to fight against the devil, the world, and the flesh: That they are Christians, and federally holy before baptism, and therefore are they baptized: That the inward grace and virtue of baptism is not tied to that very moment of time wherein it is administered; and that the fruit and power thereof reach to the whole course of our life; and that outward baptism is not so necessary, that through the want thereof, the infant is in danger of damnation, or the parents guilty, if they do not contemn or neglect the ordinance of Christ, when and where it may be had. source
1 Corinthians 12
Previously, you referenced 1Cor 12:13. What is Paul teaching here about baptism?
In this verse, Paul is not speaking about the ritual of water baptism. Rather, he is speaking about baptism by the Spirit of God into the body of Christ.
For even as the body is one and [yet] has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. For the body is not one member, but many. (1 Corinthians 12:12-14)
Why do the translations differ on whether to translate as “in one Spirit” or “by one Spirit”?
The ASV translates: “For in one Spirit were we all baptized into one body…”. The NASB changed this to, “For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body…”. Both translations are possible; the issue is
- whether we understand Christians to be baptized into the Spirit, or
- whether we understand the Holy Spirit to be the agent or the one who is doing the baptizing.
The latter is most likely correct in light of the previous verse which clearly shows the Holy Spirit as working: “…one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually just as He wills.” (1Cor 12:11)
Baptism for the Dead
In 1Cor 15, Paul speaks about baptizing for the dead. What does this mean?
This too is a very difficult verse to understand. Paul writes: Otherwise, what will those do who are baptized for the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why then are they baptized for them? Why are we also in danger every hour (1Cor 15:29-30)
Many different interpretations have been given to this verse. One possibility is Edwards’ understanding (see page 1062 here). He would understand the text this way:
ἐπεὶ τί ποιήσουσιν οἱ βαπτιζόμενοι ὑπὲρ τῶν νεκρῶν εἰ ὅλως νεκροὶ οὐκ ἐγείρονται τί καὶ βαπτίζονται ὑπὲρ αὐτῶν
Translation: Otherwise, what will they do who are being baptized for the dead if dead ones are not really raised? Why even are they baptized on their behalf?
Paraphrase: Now if there is no resurrection from the dead and believers enter death as a permanent state, then what are we to think of those who are being baptized in the Name of Jesus? We claim that their baptism represents their union with Christ in His death and His resurrection (Rom 6:4); but if Christ is not raised, then believers are not raised either. (1Cor 15:12-19) So what is the point of our baptizing them into the Name of Jesus? It’s all a fraud!
In favor of this interpretation is its obvious consistency with what Paul had already said in this chapter about the close connection between the resurrection of Jesus and that of believers. There are two problems with this interpretation, however.
First, it strains the meaning of the plural “for the dead νεκρῶν”. Edwards’ meaning is possible but highly unlikely that dead here is referring to a single person; i.e. Jesus as Edwards understands the text.
Second, it also strains our understanding of the preposition “for” which usually means “on behalf of” or “for the advantage of”. Again, Edwards’ meaning is possible, but not what we would typically expect.
What other way is there to understand this text?
Robert Louis Dabney proposed a way of understanding this text which he claims to have learned from Rev. J. B. Ramsey of Lynchburg, Virginia.