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By Blood And Water
The True Story and Meaning of
Christian Baptism
[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4] [Part 5]
[Part 6] [Part 7] [Part 8] [Part 9] [Part 10]
PART 2 - John The Baptist: Transition Between Shadow And The Tree
2 in the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John, the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness. 3 And he came …preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Luke 3
After some 1,500 years of blood and water shadow rituals, God was ready to reveal the actual Tree of atoning salvation through Christ. To do this effectively, He felt the need to first set up a transitional ministry to “herald” Christ’s arrival. This was for awakening and preparing Israel for changeover from trust in ritual practices for atonement to trust in a Person.
For this ministry, God ordained a message of spiritual preparation (“repentance”) be joined to a renewed version of Levitical washing. This novel pairing of message and water rite introduces us to John the Baptist.
John ‘s ministry is of great importance to New Covenant believers. He prepared the way for Messiah’s real blood and water atonement out of Old Covenant ritual. But more than this, his Old Covenant-style use of water remained a part of New Covenant practice after Messiah completed the real atonement.
For this reason, we want to carefully understand the relationship between John and the new Messianic order. Especially, we want to understand John’s use of water—where it originated and what it could and could not do. For everything true about John’s baptism before Messiah will also be true of it after it is passed on to the Apostles under the Lord’s direction.
IV. The Background of John’s Ministry
To appreciate John’s use of water, we must know his background. Contrary to common belief, John’s baptism was not a new practice received by divine revelation. Baptism was a widely practiced rite stemming from the original Levitical rituals we’ve just studied. John himself was a Levite, being son of Zacharias the priest. Levitical washing was a natural part of his upbringing.
- Proselyte Baptism: Symbolic Cleansing Plus New Identity
By John’s time, the Jews had extended the uses of ritual bathing. One of these was to add it to the ceremony for inducting Gentile converts (“proselytes”) into Judaism.
The proselyte induction ceremony, based in Exodus 12:48, originally included circumcision and a sacrificial offering only. The bathing they added to it—called tevilah—corresponds to the priestly bathing of Exodus 40. Tevilah was conducted by immersion, some say self-immersion. Interestingly, by doing this, the Jews in their own way created a new linking of blood and water!
Combining tevilah and circumcision into one ceremony profoundly affected the symbolic meaning of ritual bathing. Circumcision had always indicated new identity. Bathing had traditionally symbolized purification. But by joining tevilah to circumcision, the meaning of bathing expanded to also include new identity. Henceforth, tevilah (baptism) and circumcision become interchangeably linked in the Jewish mind to symbolize cleansed new identity. (See e.g. Colossians 2:11-12.)
Once the proselytes passed through the three-fold ceremony of sacrifice-circumcision-tevilah, they were officially pronounced born again into Jewish society. The term born again was a common term at that time and actually had several meanings and applications within Jewish culture.
All told, the transforming of tevilah bathing into a sign of cleansed “reborn” Jewish identity forms the context of John’s baptizing and the message he tied to it.
- The Word “Baptize”
At this time, the Greek word baptism had come into vogue to describe Jewish proselyte bathing. The root word bapto meant to either “dip” or to “dye.” It’s intensified form baptizo meant to immerse, overwhelm or to pickle.
When something was dyed, its identification was changed. Because immersing of proselytes marked their change in identity, it was appropriate for the Greeks to use baptizo with its dual meanings of “color change” and “overwhelming” to translate the Hebrew tevilah.
Thus, the Greek baptizo corresponds to the Hebrew tevilah, which strictly means to immerse. To the Jews, John himself was literally known as Yochanan haMachbil, ie, John the Immerser (or as we might say, “John the Dipper”).
(For more detailed understanding of the Jewish cultural understanding of baptism and new birth, please consult Ariel Ministries at www.ariel.org. See also the Appendix for further commentary on the meaning of baptizo.)
V. The Novelty of John’s Baptism: What It Signified and Accomplished
Clearly, baptism was not a new thing in John’s time. But if not, what was so different about John’s baptism that anyone should pay attention to him?
John’s novelty was in that he tied an outward ceremonial washing to a message of inward spiritual reality. He also conditioned ministering that rite to people on their response to his message. Let’s look at the unique meaning, conditions and results of John’s baptism.
- It’s Meaning: Repentance Toward New Spiritual Identity
First, John used an outward rite to address spiritual reality. Specifically, he used a rite everyone already knew signified national identity conversion to signify the need for heart identity change. This inward change involved:
1) preparatory “self-cleansing” from sin by repentance (a change of mind now)
2) spiritual rebirth through faith in Messiah (an identity change still to come)
John’s baptism is repeatedly called a “baptism of repentance” (Mk. 1:4; Lk. 3:3; Ac. 19:4). The association with repentance gave his baptism spiritual meaning. Repentance means a “change of mind” and attitude, specifically about sin. John’s baptism portrayed this attitude change as a cleansing of the mind. This was its meaning.
But repentance was also a limiting word. It gave John’s meaning a specific scope. Strictly speaking, John associated tevilah only with the first phase of identity change—an attitude change about sin. His baptism signified one’s own “pre-wash” of the mind, much in the spirit of Joel and James:
“So rend your heart, and not your garments; —Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.” Jl. 2:13; Jms. 4:8
John did not associate his baptism directly with the full identity change of spiritual new birth. He departed slightly from the proselyte baptism model in this. Proselyte baptizing indicated “rebirth” into Judaism the moment it was conducted. But John’s baptism signified a spiritual rebirth still to come.
The self-cleansing of repentance was only preparatory to spiritual rebirth. This preparatory aspect is extremely important as it governs the meaning of John’s entire ministry, including his baptism:
27 "This is the one about whom it is written, `Behold, I send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.'” Luke 7
As a baptism of repentance, John’s baptism was a baptism of preparation. It was preparatory to the spiritual new birth to come through Messiah. John was not teaching immediate spiritual rebirth through repentance nor signifying such by his baptism. He was not preaching a “baptism of spiritual rebirth.”
- It’s Conditional Nature: Witness to Inward Change
Also new about John’s baptizing—beyond its spiritual symbolism—was his conditional applying of it. Unless a candidate first gave personal testimony and evidence of the repentance that baptism represented, John would not baptize him:
7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, "You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 Therefore bear fruit in keeping with repentance.” Matthew 3
Until this time, all ritual washing was performed in simple obedience to a legal ordinance. One’s heart attitude had nothing to do with it. But now, for the first time, a Levite was conducting an outward tevilah based on one’s state of “attitude cleansing” toward God.
It’s important to see that John didn’t believe his baptizing produced or completed one’s repentance, or effected any other spiritual change. It only signified a reality already accomplished in the heart. John saw baptism only as a preparatory witness to proven repentance in advance of forgiveness and spirit rebirth by faith in Messiah to come. This presents us the essential nature of John’s baptism, which is that of witness.
Jesus later describes John’s baptism as a witness (Jn. 5:33) as does the Apostle John (1:6-7). This was its nature. John used a rite people could understand to testify to spiritual reality they could not see. Baptism testified to the inward pre-wash in the repentant as well as to the full cleansing Messiah was to complete. But it effected neither.
- It’s Results: A Separated Corp of Disciples
John’s repentance message was aimed—not at Gentiles—but at Israel itself. By using a rite associated with conversion to Judaism, then applying it to Jews themselves based on a hidden state of heart, John’s baptism broke the natural unity Jews shared by birth:
9 and do not suppose that you can say to yourselves, `We have Abraham for our father'; for I say to you that from these stones God is able to raise up children to Abraham. Matthew 3
Until now, ritual washings had always been a sign of Jewish identity and unity. Never before had they been applied so as to spiritually divide Jews from Jews (or as Paul later described it, outward Jews versus inward Jews).
As a result, John’s baptism created a select spiritually separate body of disciples. Where proselyte baptism brought converts into the body of Judaism, John’s baptism gave visible identity to a distinct new messianic sect within Israel. It established a common badge of testimony by which John’s believers could recognizably unite to embrace Messiah as one prepared people. It divided them from everyone else who may have been looking for Messiah, but not from a spiritual perspective.
But this was the only result of John’s baptism. It was an outward—not spiritual—result. Again, John’s baptism signified attitude cleansing and was applied based on one’s evidence of self-cleansing repentance. But it did not produce any inward cleansing, much less new spiritual birth. His only result was to solidify a spiritually prepared body in expectation of the Lord.
VI. John’s Mission: Preparing for a New Order of Atonement
We have considered everything that was new about John’s baptism—its spiritual symbolism, its conditional application, and the resulting sect formed around it. But none of this answers the question: “What does baptism itself have to do with the coming of the Messiah? What do ideas like ‘attitude cleansing’ and ‘new birth’ have at all to do with announcing a new king?”
For the big picture of what this Levite was about, let’s look at the fuller record of his message:
And [John] came …preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. —… saying, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."—“…`Make straight [prepare] the way of the Lord,' as Isaiah the prophet said." Lk 3:3; Mt. 3:1-2; Jn 1:23
"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.”—The next day he saw Jesus coming to him and said, "Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” Mt 3:11; Jn.1:29.
In John’s day, many were already expecting Messiah to come. They looked for a king, a deliverer—someone to free them from Rome. But as a spiritually illumined Levite, John understood something few understood about Messiah. He understood that Messiah would not just bring new rule to Israel, but would fulfil the entire priestly order of atonement established under Moses.
John preached not just a new kingdom, but the kingdom of heaven—a kingdom of the heart, a kingdom that merged the kingly and priestly roles of Israel into one office. Where Israel was expecting a king, John was expecting a new priest-king!
By connecting a spiritual message to a well-known priestly water rite, John used his Levite credentials to move an entire national consciousness toward a new priest-king order of atonement—an order in which the Priest Himself is the source of forgiveness. He sought to move Israel from faith in rituals for atonement to faith in a Person. Faith in a Person for forgiveness was not part of anyone’s thinking, certainly not in regard to Messiah. Israel was looking for a new king, not a Sacrificial Lamb!
Playing the priestly part, John acted out the role of those before him, like Samuel, like Jehoida, who “blew the trumpet” and anointed the new king. (His baptizing of Jesus—discussed later—was really a type of anointing of the new king.) But unlike those before him, John was not only announcing the king’s coming, but the king’s take over of his own priesthood! He was a priestly “Jonathan” giving way to a New Priestly “Son of David.”
This merging of kingdom and priesthood into one Person is what gave baptism any relevance to announcing the Messiah. John used a Mosaic rite to explain that all Mosaic washing was about to be replaced by a more Real Baptism of the heart—replaced by supernatural atoning Water in Messiah Himself. This is the change for which John’s baptism was preparing Israel.
VII. Relating John’s Baptism, Repentance and the Forgiveness of Sins
It’s crucial to note the relationship between John’s baptizing of repentant followers and the actual forgiveness of their sins—specifically, that nothing in John’s baptizing actually effected their forgiveness.
Luke and Mark both say that John came—
preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Lk 3:3 / Mk. 1:4
At first glance, it appears (according to these writers) that John preached baptism as the means “for receiving the forgiveness of sins.” But John’s own testimony and the rest of his ministry shows this is not what he meant nor could it have been possible. There are several reasons for this:
First, John’s ministry was preparatory for the Messiah. He was preaching an order of atonement still to arrive. Watch this again in his own words:
"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;—The next day he saw Jesus coming to him and said, "Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! Mt 3:11; Jn.1:29.
Notice how John himself deletes reference to forgiveness regarding his own baptism but defers it to the Lamb of God who is to “take away sin.” John links his baptism to repentance only. By John's own testimony, forgiveness of sins was to be found in the One to come, not in his baptism of repentance.
This is reinforced by Paul’s statement about John to the Ephesian disciples:
4 "John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in Him who was coming after him, that is, in Jesus." Acts 19
[As a critical aside, when John says he baptizes “for repentance,” he does not mean that his baptizing caused repentance, only that it testifies to it. We already saw that John would only baptize after repentance was proven. The same intent inescapably applies to Luke and Mark’s extension of John’s words when they add “for the forgiveness of sins.” They no more mean to quote John preaching that his baptism caused forgiveness than John meant to say it caused repentance.]
All told, when Luke and Mark add “for the forgiveness of sins” to the description of John’s baptism, it’s clear they mean it in the same deferred and non-causative way John meant it—“in witness to the forgiveness of sins to come.” Read correctly, their statement says:
“John came—preaching a baptism of repentance in preparation for the forgiveness of sins.”
A comparison of Matthew’s version only confirms what Luke and Mark meant. Luke and Mark describe John preaching “repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” But Matthew (3:1-2) has him preaching: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." These are parallel versions of the same message. “Forgiveness” and “the kingdom” are alternate descriptions of the same reason to repent.
Notice how the kingdom is said to be “at hand.” It is “near,” but not yet “here.” Because this is one message, what applies to the kingdom also applies to the forgiveness. It is near, but not yet here. Restated, John is preaching, “Repent for the forgiveness of sins which is at hand.”
Taken all together, John’s own testimony, as well as Paul’s, with Matthew’s alternate description of John’s message—clarifies that John directly associated baptism only with repentance (and that non-causatively), and only indirectly with forgiveness before the fact—and that this is what Luke and Mark meant to convey as well. Had forgiveness been the immediate result of his baptizing, John might have said, “As for me, I baptize you with water for receiving forgiveness.”
Second, the idea that a water ritual could work forgiveness was contrary to what John was trying to show. Israel already believed they were righteous by keeping washing ordinances. This is exactly what John wanted to dispel, and why he insisted on the evidence of repentance first before baptizing anyone.
Remember again John’s mission to prepare for a new priesthood. Had John really taught his baptizing effected forgiveness, why the need for a new priesthood through Messiah? John would have nullified his own stated purpose as a forerunner. Israel needed only to come to him for forgiveness. He would have increased, not decreased. He could have started the new priesthood with his baptizing and become the Messiah himself—something he strenuously denied doing! (Jn. 1:20; 3:28.)
Third, had John indeed declared people forgiven by receiving his baptism, he would have been stoned as a blasphemer. As the Pharisees rightly surmised, “Who can forgive sins but God alone?” We have evidence the religious leaders did not believe in John’s call to repentance. But we find no charge of blasphemy against him for declaring people forgiven by receiving his baptism.
In light of the whole, it’s plain that when Luke and Mark describe John’s “baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins,” they intend to directly link baptism and repentance, with a secondary deferred link between repentance and forgiveness still to come. They do not intend any direct link between baptism and forgiveness. [For deeper study of forgiveness and repentance apart from baptism, please see the Appendix on Repentance.]
**********
By this time you’re wondering, “Why spend so much time on this? Everybody knows that John’s baptism didn’t forgive sins. Everybody knows it just pointed to Messiah. What’s the beef?”
The reason that the obvious here is so vital to us is because John’s baptism—beyond foreshadowing the Tree of Forgiveness through Messiah’s Baptizing Sacrifice—forms the basis for the later reflection-witness of Messiah’s Sacrifice through Apostles Baptism. John’s intent now will govern the Apostles’ understanding then. Luke and Mark’s statement about John’s baptism will be the same words used of Apostles Baptism later, so will be especially important when we approach that topic.
VIII. Summing Up John’s Baptism
John the Baptist awakened Israel to a new spiritually based priest/king Messianic order of atonement; and the need for an inner identity revolution in order to join it. He adapted Old Covenant proselyte baptism to promote heart repentance ahead of spiritual conversion through Messiah. As a visible witness to inner faith, John’s baptism divided Israel, rallying a spiritually “pre-washed” repentant body of disciples to receive the One John would identify as Messiah.
John portended the unforeseen but impending end to the Old Covenant itself. His empowered message and use of tevilah to build a new Messianic sect triggered a spiritual earthquake that marked the birth pains of Messiah’s new priestly order—an order that would completely replace his own, including its Levitical baptismal rites.
John showed how close the Old Covenant shadow was now to the Real tree in Christ. He effectively bridged the shadow to the tree, sealing the gap between Old Covenant washing and Real Baptism in Messiah (to be discussed). And he founded what is to become through the Apostles the reflective after image of Real Baptism.
- Yet Still a Shadow
Still, John could not substitute for the Tree itself. He could only point the way to the “better sacrifice,” one that also included water. Hebrews is so clear:
9:8 The Holy Spirit is signifying this, that the…tabernacle [incl. the laver] … 9 …is a symbol for the present time. Accordingly…sacrifices are offered which cannot make the worshiper perfect in conscience, 10 since they relate only to …various [lit.] baptisms, regulations for the body imposed until a time of reformation. 23Therefore it was necessary for the copies of the things in the heavens to be cleansed with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. 10:4 For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats [mingled with water] to take away sins.
John’s Old Covenant tevilah could not “make the worshipper perfect in conscience.” It couldn’t wash away sin or cleanse the heart. Nor could it produce the rebirth of spiritual identity—any more than the proselyte baptism from which it came. As son of an Old Covenant priest, his ministry was descended from that priesthood. So for all his anointing, his could only be a shadow baptism.
Later, we will see how John’s before-the-fact witness of Messiah’s Real baptism morphed into its after-the-fact witness under the apostles. But first, we want to proceed directly to the Real Baptism of the Lord Jesus—the one true atoning Sacrificial Baptism to which John and all the Levitical washings pointed.
[In Part 3: Reality Baptism from the Tree of Christ]
Chris Anderson
New Meadow Neck, Rhode Island
First Love Ministry
- a ministry of Anglemar Fellowship
http://www.firstloveministry.org4/04
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