What’s Water Got To Do With It?

I would like to thank Ian for taking the time to carefully respond to my initial salvo. If I am phrasing his contention appropriately, he is arguing that the "whom" question is more significant than I suggested. In Ian's mind the inclusion of a broader cross section of people in the New Covenant is directly tied to sign of the seed line (circumcision) being
made null (Gal 3:26-29). He also goes on to posit that those who belong are those who profess faith (Gal 5:6). This tied with the ending of circumcision makes the who question primary since it is no longer blood but faith that makes the covenant community. It seems that Ian has side-stepped the full implications of why circumcision is null and void,
however. The replacement of circumcision isn’t due to a dramatic shift in who belongs to covenant. Rather the expected seed/son Christ has come. He is the New Covenant and just like the old you remain in the covenant by faith. Circumcision is gone because we enter in to Christ and the New Covenant community by baptism, the new birth.

Colossians 2:10-12
And you have been made complete in Christ, who is the head over every ruler and authority. In Him you were also circumcised, in the putting off of your sinful nature, with the circumcision performed by Christ and not by human hands. And having been buried with Him in baptism, you were raised with Him through your faith in the power of God, who raised Him from the dead.

If Paul so intimately ties the sign of Old Covenant inclusion with the sign of New Covenant inclusion, are the rightful members of each respective covenant truly such a different group? It seems the who question is secondary, rather than primary. This returns us to the how question. Rather than circumcision, baptism now becomes how one enters the community of faith. In a later essay I will return to the discourse of who belongs to the covenant community, and I think Ian and I will share more territory than he anticipates.

Before we hone in on who can receive baptism, we ought to know what it is and what it does. Circumcision is not the only thing from the Old Covenant that baptism fulfills. There is a whole world of symbols and rites that baptism satisfies. This type-antitype relationship will show us that since Old Testament water rites accomplished “something”, then the new covenant water rite of baptism most assuredly does as well since it fulfills the shadow of the old.

The New Testament provides ample warrant to hop in the covenantal time machine and go back to the washing rites of old. Hebrews 6:1-2 gives an implication that where there used to be multiple washings, there is now one washing.

1Therefore let us leave the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith in God, 2 instruction about baptisms, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment.

Baptismal language is also used in multiple places to illuminate the meaning carried by past redemptive events. In Hebrews 10:19-25 we are given a parallel structure of the tabernacle, and the assembly of the church with blood and baptism. Baptism is in tandem with Jesus’s blood cleansing us, for the purpose of us accessing God’s presence. The blood
of Jesus and the water of Baptism bring you into God’s presence.

19Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Placed by the blood of Jesus, 20 by the new and living way opened for us through the curtain of His body, 21and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. 23 Let us hold resolutely to the hope we profess, for He who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider how to spur one another on to love and good deeds. 25 Let us not neglect meeting together, as some have made a habit, but let us encourage one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

We are also given two examples of God’s deliverance of His people via water. In 1Corinthians 10 we are told that the Red Sea crossing was a baptism into Moses, and en route to explaining the Lord’s Supper Paul lets us know they had the sacrament as well in the manna and rock water. That rock was Christ. This isn’t even subtle. Baptism for Israel saved them from death at the hands of the Egyptians and delivered them into new life which was then nourished by bread from heaven and drink from Jesus (the rock). The baptism of the Red Sea took them out from Pharoah and into Moses.

Peter provides us with another layer of the baptismal efficacy parfait, in 1 Peter 3:20-21.

20 Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. 21 Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,

In the light of the New Covenant, the flood is shown to be about baptism, it’s seeming quite rare to have usages of water that aren’t about baptism. Just as the flood destroys the wicked and delivers the righteous in the ark so baptism separates us from the old man and places us in the vindication of Jesus’s resurrection. Peter’s language regarding an
appeal to God for a good conscience can be confusing, thankfully we have a clearer statement from Peter in Acts 2:38 about what baptism does;

And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Baptism, according to Jesus’s apostle if that carries any weight, applies forgiveness of sins and gives the baptized the gift of the Spirit. The good conscience from 1 Peter 3:21 can now be seen more clearly as an individual with applied forgiveness of their sin and the seal of God’s presence. The gift of the Spirit turns the baptized into a Temple of God.
Thus providing them with grounds for an appeal for a good conscience, because they are forgiven and the Spirit is in them.

At this point, you may be ready to call me a papist. How could I claim to be a Protestant and say baptism does all this stuff? Water can’t make you a Temple, only God can. To which I wholeheartedly say “AMEN”! How, then, has God purified, and made people fit worshippers since time began? Maybe God enjoys using His creation to manifest His work, like the preached Word which we all believe is effective at accomplishing God’s will in space-time.

Let’s revisit Noah’s flood, particularly the part where the flood happens (Gen 7:18-23). The waters destroy all flesh, except the flesh in the ark. The old world is killed, judged, destroyed, annihilated, gonzo...you get my point. God’s Word of judgment is effectively carried out by water. Not only that, but the righteous are justified by the water. They are
delivered from the wicked, they are saved from being judged along with the world by water. Their conscience is cleared in the water. A similar story is told in Exodus 14, at the Red Sea crossing, which I have already mentioned in our 1 Corinthians discourse. Israel goes from slavery to freedom, death to life, and Pharoah to Moses, because of their baptism in the Red Sea.

Before I proceed, notice that the accomplishment of work does not only involve the application of water. There is an entire ritual, and whole event: Noah’s ark and God’s intention with the water. At the Red Sea, similarly, Moses leads as God’s representative, and God’s presence in the cloud brings them through the Sea on dry land. If your contention is, water can’t do that, you are right, but we aren’t only talking about the water we are talking about God’s work in and through water. The medium of God’s work is His creation.

The final texts we need to synthesize into our holistic theology of water rites are the passages in Leviticus that deal with ritual washings. There are three instances where a water ritual is used; first the washing of an ascension offering (Lev 1:9), second the ordination of priests (Lev 8:5-9), lastly the cleansing of leprosy from people and tents (Lev 11:28,32,40, 12:6, 13:58, 14:1-9,47,52, 15:5). All three of these are rites that allow a person to have closer access to God. The ascension offering is the offering that unites with God in the smoke cloud, it is entirely burned up and becomes a pleasing aroma. The priests must be washed before they minister in God’s presence and before they can enter the tabernacle. To draw near they must pass through a watery firmament, a flood, a sea, etc. Finally, leprosy is when the flesh is exposed (death becomes the garment) and thus the leper must be sent away from the camp and the tabernacle until he is washed clean. The most complete description of the leprous washing shows up in Leviticus 14:1-9;

1 The LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “This shall be the law of the leprous person for the day of his cleansing. He shall be brought to the priest, 3 and the priest shall go out of the camp, and the priest shall look. Then, if the case of leprous disease is healed in the leprous person, 4 the priest shall command them to take for him who is to be cleansed two live[a] clean birds and cedarwood and scarlet yarn and hyssop. 5 And the priest shall command them to kill one of the birds in an earthenware vessel over fresh water. 6 He shall take the live bird with the cedarwood and the scarlet yarn and the hyssop, and dip them and the live bird in the blood of the bird that was killed over the fresh water.

7 And he shall sprinkle it seven times on him who is to be cleansed of the leprous disease. Then he shall pronounce him clean and shall let the living bird go into the open field.

8 And he who is to be cleansed shall wash his clothes and shave off all his hair and bathe himself in water, and he shall be clean. And after that he may come into the camp, but live outside his tent seven days. 9 And on the seventh day he shall shave off all his hair from his head, his beard, and his eyebrows. He shall shave off all his hair, and then he shall wash his clothes and bathe his body in water, and he shall be clean.

Obviously, there is much more happening here than just washing. There is blood, hyssop, birds, yarn, and cedarwood. Our intention is to just observe the role of the water rite here. The prescribed washing is the rite that finalizes his passage into cleansing. Because of the washing he is free from the curse of death and can now access the tabernacle and make sacrifices. Therefore, Paul says there is now one baptism (Ephesians 4:5), there used to be many washings but now one washing covers them all. Baptism, like the leprous cleansing, declares us clean from death. We have access to the Lord’s Table as washed priests. We have right standing before God clothed in Jesus’s innocence. Our sins are forgiven. We are given a new name, God’s own Triune name.

Am I Alone?

There is a valid question whenever you hear someone spouting theology; has anyone else ever said this? It is shaky ground to make claims about God and The Bible that have never been said before in Church History. This is not to say anything said by a Church Father is true, but it is to say that if Scripture and the Fathers attest to something, it’s worth
chewing on. A few of the Fathers that lived closest to the Apostles end up using language about baptism that is eerily similar to the positions I identified in the Scripture passages above.

Irenaeus, who knew Polycarp (a disciple of the Apostle John) has this to say about baptism:

First of all, it bids us bear in mind that we have received baptism for the remission of sins, in the name of God the Father, and in the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who was incarnate and died and rose again, and in the Holy Spirit of God. And that this baptism is the seal of eternal life, and is the new birth unto God, that we should no longer be the sons of mortal men, but of the eternal and perpetual God.

The Holy Spirit, through whom the prophets prophesied, and the fathers learned the things of God, and the righteous were led forth into the way of righteousness; and who in the end of the times was poured out in a new way upon mankind in all the earth, renewing man unto God. And for this reason, the baptism of our regeneration proceeds through these three points: God the Father bestowing on us regeneration through His Son by the Holy Spirit.

Notice he defines regeneration as being brought into the new life of the Trinity. This ties us to the language in Galatians that in baptism we put on Christ, thus through the Son by the Spirit we have new life.

Tertullian, who was writing in the early 200’s AD starts his treatise on baptism like so;

Happy is our sacrament of water, in that, by washing away the sins of our early blindness we are set free and admitted into eternal life!

If you are familiar with Tertullian you may point out that later in the same treatise, he says babies should not be baptized. He says this, however, because he does not believe baptism washes away certain future sins. His concern is to save all the power of baptism for later so it can clean the maximum sin and you don’t risk irrevocably staining yourself
afterward. This flies in the face of Jesus’ remarks to Peter that once you have been washed (baptized) you need only wash your feet (regular repentance). Nonetheless, his cautions are all considering how potent baptism is.

Clement of Alexandria remarks in his work The Instructor:

Being baptized, we are illuminated; illuminated, we become sons; being made sons, we are made perfect; being made perfect, we are made immortal.

This may be good evidence for a Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox, but what about the true-blue Protestant? While the fathers belong to Protestants as much as Romanists or Eastern Orthodox, I will indulge the skepticism. Here is what the three major streams of the Protestant Reformation have to say about baptism:

Augsburg Confession (Lutheran)

Of Baptism they teach that it is necessary to salvation, and that through Baptism is offered the grace of God, and that children are to be baptized who, being offered to God through Baptism are received into God’s grace.

Belgic Confession (Continental Reformed)

So ministers, as far as their work is concerned, give us the sacrament and what is visible, but our Lord gives what the sacrament signifies—namely the invisible gifts and graces; washing, purifying, and cleansing our souls of all filth and unrighteousness; renewing our hearts and filling them with all comfort; giving us true assurance of his fatherly goodness; clothing us with the “new self” and stripping off the “old self with its practices.” For this reason, we believe that anyone who aspires to reach eternal life ought to be baptized only once without ever repeating it—for we cannot be born twice. Yet this baptism is profitable not only when the water is on us and when we receive it but throughout our entire lives.

39 Articles of Religion (Anglican)

Baptism is not only a sign of profession, and mark of difference, whereby Christian men are discerned from others that be not christened, but is also a sign of Regeneration or new Birth, whereby, as by an instrument, they that receive Baptism rightly are grafted into the Church; the promises of the forgiveness of sin, and of our adoption to be the sons of God by the Holy Ghost, are visibly signed and sealed; Faith is confirmed, and Grace increased by virtue of prayer unto God. The Baptism of young children is in any wise to be retained in the Church, as most agreeable with the institution of Christ.

I will simply leave these citations as a vindication of my Protestantism.

Shadows and Substance

The relationship between Old and New Covenant can be compared to the relationship between shadow and substance. The Old was the shadow, the mystery, the shade of what was to come. Jesus and the New Covenant is the substance, the fullness, the more effective iteration of what was. If the baptism of Moses truly saved Israel from Pharoah and drowned God’s enemies, how much greater is baptism into Jesus? The apostles seem convinced of this, and the earliest fathers agree. The continuation of effective signs and seals from Old Covenant to New is a continuation with increased potency, not less.

To reiterate, the Scripture presents baptism as a rite that truly does the following;
1) Applies forgiveness of sins (cleansing us from spiritual leprosy).
2) Clothes us as priests so we can eat at God’s Table.
3) Purifies us to be pleasing living ascension offerings to God.
4) Regenerates (understood as places us in a new generation, takes us out of our fleshly lineage in the First Adam/Pharoah and puts us in the Second Adam, the better Moses, Jesus)
5) It justifies us by clothing us in Jesus (Gal 3:27 Romans 6:3-5). We are justified in that we are declared righteous by our participation in the death and resurrection of Jesus through baptism.

The final two items here seem to call into question sola fide, and a host of other soteriological issues. Let me briefly address those concerns. I affirm sola fide, and faith is the mechanism by which these gifts are possessed by the baptized. Every baptism objectively accomplishes these five things for the baptized, but if they do not possess the gifts through faith in Jesus they are lost. This accounts for warning passages like John 15:1-6. A real connection to Jesus is lost in John 15 by the one who does not abide in Jesus. Our sacramental theology therefore must be willing to bend to what the Bible says about it and let it shift our systems if need be. This simplifies our question. If baptism does all this, and faith is the mechanism by which these gifts are possessed then all we need to determine is who can have faith. This will be where the how meets the whom, this awaits us in part three.

Footnotes:
[1]: Irenaeus. “Pg 42, 44.” On the Apostolic Preaching, St. Vladimir's Seminary Press,
Crestwood, NY, 2003, pp. 42–44.
[2]: Roberts, Alexander, et al. “On Baptism.” Ante-Nicene Fathers the Writings of the
Fathers down to A.D. 325. Volume 3, Latin Christianity: Its Founder, Tertullian ..,
Hendrickson, Peabody, Mass, 1995, pp. 669–669.
[3]: Of Alexandria, Clement, et al. “The Instructor.” Ante-Nicene Fathers: The Writings of
the Fathers down to A.D. 325, vol. 2, Hendrickson Publishers, Peabody, MA, 2004,
pp. 215–215.