Digging up an Ancient Practice with Modern Meaning

Dating back to the time of Christ, baptism is a Christian ceremony, says David Edgar, that’s deep with meaning.

Rrecently pofessor Richard Freund, director of the Maurice Greenberg Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Hartford in Connecticut, announced that human remains found in Qumran (the same area as the Dead Sea Scrolls) might be those of John the Baptist. Although tests confirmed the skeleton as from the period of the Second Temple (536 BC to 70 AD), Freund later admitted its identity remains a mystery.

Tradition holds that in 29 AD Herod Antipas, ruler of the Galilee and Perea districts in Palestine, imprisoned John the Baptist at Machaerus, a fortress east of the Dead Sea. Herod executed him some time later and John’s disciples buried him in an undisclosed site (Matthew 14:12).

John, called by Jesus one of Israel’s greatest prophets (Matthew 11:11), baptised Jesus along with multitudes of Jews and Gentiles, in the Jordan River (Matthew 3:13). John was a fiery and forthright preacher who summoned Israel to repentance, fearlessly labelling its powerful religious leaders “a brood of vipers” (Matthew 3:7)
He was also a social revolutionary who ignored Rabbinic laws and traditions. For example, he ordered those with two coats to give their spare to someone with none. This included the outcast Gentiles. As well, Jewish tax collectors were to collect no more than was due (see Luke 3:7-14). In The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, Alfred Edersheim says it had “never before . . . been proposed that Israel should undergo a baptism of repentance.”

baptism of repentance
Repentance means to think differently, or turn one’s life around. Israel was travelling in the wrong direction and needed reformation. It was essential to their future as a nation chosen by God. Security would come only if they accepted John’s second emphasis—the belief in Jesus Christ as the Messiah.

In Acts 19:4 the apostle Paul told some of John’s followers living in Ephesus that John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance, telling the people “to believe in the one coming after him, that is, in Jesus.” John also said that the Messiah’s baptism would be different to his, saying that while his was with water (for repentance), the Messiah would baptise “with the Holy Spirit and with fire” (Matthew 3:11).

As the forerunner to Christ, John fused the links between the Old Testament prophecies of Jesus Christ and their New Testament fulfilment. He revealed new meanings at a time when the common people had little faith in their religious leaders, Herod or Caesar. John’s baptism not only filled a void but prefigured and revolutionised a simple earthly ritual washing into a heavenly symbol showing acceptance and the ultimate promise of transport to the kingdom of God.

Many doubt the importance of water baptism in the plan of salvation, but God is specific. For example, in Acts 2:38 the apostle Peter repeats John’s call to Israel and 3000 are baptised in one day. Ananias, after receiving instructions from the Lord, baptised Paul (Acts 9:18). The Roman centurion Cornelius received water baptism despite the fact he’d already received the baptism of the Holy Spirit (Acts 10:47). In Ephesus, Paul rebaptised some of John’s disciples.

It’s clear that God considers baptism necessary, not only for new converts, but also for believers who accept major new truths and enlightenment to be rebaptised. This is one reason many modern Christians submit to rebaptism when joining a new church.

Jesus’ baptism a key
Many think baptism is the sign of the new covenant, but that sign is reserved for the Holy Spirit (see Ephesians 1:13). Baptism is the Christian’s figurative re-enactment of Christ’s death, burial and resurrection. Paul wrote: “We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life” (Romans 6:4). Jesus’ death on the cross becomes ours at baptism.

Renowned theologian and writer Charles Hodge, who for some 50 years lectured on Paul’s letters to the church, says that our act of faith in baptism becomes Christ’s death in us. When Jesus died, His old life—the life that became “sin for us” (2 Corinthians 5:21)—disappeared, and the sin that killed Him is never to re-appear. When He resurrected to newness of eternal life, He walked in a new world.

Similarly, as we go down into the waters of baptism, we spiritually drown to our old life of sin—we’re dead. When we come up we share in Christ’s walk, anticipating, but walking by faith, in the world He is preparing for us.

At conversion a new power generates obedience to God. Our conscience, desensitised to sin, dull of understanding and rebellious to God (see Acts 7:51), becomes discerning and enlightened by His Spirit. The will and the Word of God (revealed in the Bible) now actively work in us to walk in Jesus’ steps (see Philippians 2:13).

That great Reformer Martin Luther said, “As the dead and buried Christ appeared in the eyes of the Jews, so also the spiritual person (that is, one who is buried with Christ by baptism into death) must appear in his own eyes and the eyes of others.” Christ followers live differently from the world because they think differently. On show for Christ, love replaces anger, generosity replaces selfishness, peace replaces turmoil and hope replaces despair.

It’s said that baptism is an outward expression of an inward and, sometimes, new conviction. This conviction is crucial to our experience in Jesus Christ, for without it we will never fully understand His Passion or the grace of God. It drives our desire to be closer to Him through the study of His Word and leaves us yearning for more of Him. As we move to greater knowledge in Him, we appreciate more fully the cost of our salvation and comprehend why our salvation is complete in Jesus.

baptism and salvation
Paul explained this notion when writing to the Colossians. He uses a word originally meaning to “be covered over” (2:10), translated here as “fullness,” that is, complete. In other words, the Colossian Christians needed look no further than Jesus for their full salvation. In Jesus, then, we are set free—“justified”—from our sins (Acts 13:39) and our right to heaven is secured.

In Jesus we are made holy by the Spirit (1 Peter 1:2), and thus our suitability for heaven is complete. This means that the moment we confess our sins and accept Jesus as our personal Saviour, following Him in baptism, our salvation is complete and we can never be more “saved” than at that moment.

Not only are we accepted (and therefore, saved) in God’s sight because of faith in His Son, He begins the process of recreating us into His spotless image. “Now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life” (Romans 6:22), Paul states.
As Hodge says, we’re “subject to His controlling influences by the power of His Spirit” (Commentary on Romans). Paul says that by claiming Jesus as our personal Saviour and being obedient to His will we, someday, will walk with Him in the realms of glory (Colossians 2:12 ff).

Baptism symbolises, as no other ceremony can, our union with Jesus in His Passion and victory. This is the reason the Holy Spirit directed baptism by immersion.

Although 1 Peter 3:21 says that baptism saves us, we’re saved only because of our faith in Jesus and our willingness to follow Him in His death as well as His life. 1 John 1:7 reveals that it’s the blood of Jesus—not the actual water in a baptistery—that cleanses from personal sin. Baptism is a symbolic ceremony. This means that, although it is an important act of faith, the Bible doesn’t say it bestows grace on the believer.

John the Baptist preached repentance and belief in Jesus to a collapsing society—a failed state, we might call it today. Rome, with its military power, pompous ceremony, sensual excesses and religious syncretism, eventually fell victim to its own ideology. Hellenism’s culture of learning and literature turned reality into esoteric meaninglessness while Judaist legalism bankrupted the culture and religion of the “chosen people.” If the world ever needed its God, it was when John the Baptist baptised in the wilderness.

Professor Freund’s unidentified skeleton from the Judean desert is relevant to the gospel story because it adds to the knowledge of a sect of Jews called Essenes, an isolationist group not unlike John, who lived when Jesus walked the dusty roads of Palestine. Identification is not, however, an issue for believers who follow Christ in baptism. They are sure of their identity because, in returning to Christ, they’re coming home.

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