Baptizing my Baptist Views of Baptism: Pt 6

“And so John came, baptizing in the desert region and preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him.  Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River. And this was his message: ‘After me will come one more powerful than I, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie.  I baptize you with water, but he  will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

Luke 3:3
“He went into all the country around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”

John’s baptism was not exactly Christian baptism.  Remember John was a Jew and was using the ceremonial washings of Judaism to accomplish his purpose, to have people repent of their sins and to prepare the ways of the Lord.  But we see here too a connection with forgiveness of sins and a foreshadowing of being baptized with the Holy Spirit.

Matthew 3:13-17
“Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, ‘I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?’ But Jesus answered him, ‘Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfil all righteousness.’ Then he consented. And when Jesus was baptized, he went up immediately from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and alighting on him; and lo, a voice from heaven, saying, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.’

John 1:32-34
“Then John gave his testimony: ‘I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him.  I would not have known him, except that the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, “The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is he who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.”  I have seen and I testify that this is the Son of God.’”

A few quick notes on the baptism of Jesus.  

• Jesus said he should be baptized to fulfill all righteousness.  Not because Jesus had sin of course.  This may be alluding to making the ceremonial washings of the OT something holy for the Church.  This may refer to Christ making the element of water “holy” for his purposes.  
• The Holy Spirit is present here at Christ’s baptism in a miraculous way, showing the favor of God and adding strength to the belief that we receive the Holy Spirit at baptism.  

Born of water and the Spirit

John chapter 3 might be the most well known chapter in all the Bible, mostly thanks to the presence of John 3:16, a beautiful verse showing us how faith is linked to our salvation.  But perhaps you didn’t know that the context of this chapter is practically dripping with references to baptism (nice pun, huh?).  It is important to remember what just happened in the story above to help set the context of John 3.  

John 3:1-5:
Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.”

Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”

“How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!”

Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit…”

This is the same conversation Jesus has with Nicodemus when Scripture unleashes John 3:16, so bear that in mind.  Now before you go crazy this verse never says “baptism.”  It says born of “water and the Spirit.”  Water is obviously a metaphor here but every metaphor has a meaning so we need to figure out what it means.  

My notes on this verse are quite long, but I feel it is extremely important.  There are many symbol-only explanations of this verse, but I have found none of them convincing.  

One  explanation is to say that “water” refers to the amniotic fluid of physical birth.  Basically, amniotic fluid is when “your water breaks.”  So under this explanation being born of water is another way to say “being physically born.

• However, the phrase “born of water” is, in all my research NEVER used to talk about this amniotic fluid.  Ever.  Not once in the Bible.  Not once in all of Koine Greek or secular Greek literature does it ever refer to that.  
• Also, it would be redundant for Jesus to say this.  He really would have to mean, “You must be born…” to be saved.  Well, duh, thank you for that.  
• On top of that (this was pointed out to me by a very smart priest online) if Jesus said “you must be born of amniotic fluid” then what about babies who die in the womb?  If we were to be consistent, then under this thought babies who die in the womb could not be saved because they had not been born “of water.”  A good point I thought.
• Also, in the following verse Jesus goes on to talk about the differences of being born “of the flesh” and of “the Spirit.”  Jesus’s use of metaphors would be very confusing… he most likely would have stuck with the word “flesh” in both verses if he had meant “physical birth”.  I see the loopholes in this explanation to be insurmountable.

Another symbol-only explanation is to say that “water” refers to the Scriptures.  I guess they connect water with Scripture somehow… I gotta be honest, I could never bring myself to seriously consider this option.  They claim that because in Genesis the Spirit hovered over the waters and in just the same way He hovers over Scripture therefore He is in Scripture like the waters and water is a metaphor for Scripture.  There are some other connections, but I find this whole line of thinking a bit arbitrary and contrived and I cannot personally see the sense in it, although there are some good  Christians who do.  It is far from an obvious explanation in my opinion.

Thirdly, another symbol only response is to say that water refers to the Spirit Himself.  They are right, water and the Spirit are often combined… think about creation where the Spirit of God hovered over the water and so forth.  But this explanation seems to miss a few big points…

• When else is the the Holy Spirit associated with water? Oh yeah, baptism!!!  We just saw this not 10 seconds ago in John 1.
• Also, if water means Spirit in this passage then Jesus is really saying, “you must be born of Spirit and Spirit.”  It is redundant and nonsensical.
• Also, the word “water” is never used on its own, anywhere else to mean “the Spirit.”  Water never means Spirit elsewhere that I can find, although the two “water and Spirit” are often linked together. 

The only other logical explanation I can think of, is for water to here mean “baptism.”  In my opinion this makes the best sense. There is, however, a symbol-only reply… They say that if Jesus had meant water = baptism, then it was not a helpful answer to Nicodemus for Christian baptism wasn’t instituted until after Jesus’ death and resurrection.  Fair enough… but…

• As you already know in the earlier context we do see baptism already in John chapter 1.  Nicodemus was no idiot.  He knew of John the Baptist and his baptism.  He knew that Jesus was baptizing.  
• Furthermore this objection assumes that Nicodemus didn’t know about Baptism… you can’t prove that he didn’t.  He most likely did and as word about Jesus was spreading around the country they would surely mention both his baptism by John and, of course, the baptism ministry of John the Baptist.
• Also, baptism was a well known practice.  The Jews had many “ritual washings” during this period in their history as we discussed in Part 2.  Of these groups the Essenes practiced a form of baptism and the Essenes would have been on everyone’s mind as John the Baptist was one of them.  Baptism wasn’t a totally new concept to Nicodemus.
• And let us not forget that this Gospel was written by the Apostle John perhaps as late as AD 90, a good 50-60 years after this event.  The Church was spreading through Roman Empire and Christians were obviously baptizing as they went along.  This Gospel was written for Christians; how could they not see the obvious allusion to baptism here and what did John mean as he wrote those words to those original questions... how did he intend for them to understand it?

Another interesting point is that while we think the phrase “born again” is the only thing this verse says, it can also be translated as “born from above.”  Okay, why would that be important?  Because we just saw at Jesus’ baptism, the Holy Spirit coming form… above!  By itself this connection does not prove baptismal regeneration, but it is a powerful reminder of the context.  

John 3:22

After this, Jesus and his disciples went out into the Judean countryside, where he spent some time with them, and baptized.
Okay, wow… after finishing his talk with Nicodemus Jesus does what?  Baptizes!!!  The context of John 3 is crawling with references to baptism.  Now that doesn’t “prove” that being born of “water and Spirit” means baptism… but it seems to me like a very strong clue and it makes baptism, to me, the most likely meaning to that phrase.  I know that for me to interpret John 3 as teaching a symbol-only baptism I would have to try very hard to ignore the allusions baptism and practice some serious exegetical tomfoolery.