More Adventures in Baptism: Gospels

I thought I would wander through the NT and think about baptism for a few entries.

I thought the gospels were a fair enough place to start... and a pretty easy place to start, really.

In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the baptism mentioned is primarily that of John the Baptist. We would not, as Christians, consider this baptism to be Christian baptism. Matthew 3:11 does predict that Christ will baptism with the Holy Spirit and fire. Mark 1:8 similarly mentions a coming baptism with the Holy Spirit.

But of most interest to us of these is Luke 3:16, which also predicts that Christ will baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire.<1> This prediction in itself is not unique, but in the case of Luke we have Acts to give us what Luke understands to be the "rest of the story." Of greatest interest to us here is Acts 19:1-7, where Paul clearly does not consider baptism by John to be Christian baptism because it did not include baptism with the Holy Spirit. Paul insists that this group of twelve men be baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.

Baptism in Matthew, Mark, and Luke thus is more indirectly related to our subject than directly. John the Baptist of course baptized Jewish individuals who repented of their sins with a view to forgiveness and in preparation for the coming of the Messiah. For JB this was a one time act of preparation, but baptisms were not uncommon, repeatable things in Jewish life at this time. Miqvaoth were cleansing pools that you can find in any number of places in the Holy Land (e.g., at Qumran, Masada, etc...).

John is a little more complicated, for John is the only gospel that says Jesus' disciples baptized before JB was arrested (John 3:22, 26; 4:1-2). Are we to understand these acts as Christian baptisms? Certainly not in the world of Luke-Acts, for the Holy Spirit does not come until the Day of Pentecost. In that sense Jesus "baptizes" no one until that day and we cannot properly even speak of any Christians until that day. Paul agrees in his own way: "If someone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they are not his" (Rom. 8:9).

But I think John also agrees in his own way with these ideas, for he makes it a point to say that Jesus himself did not baptize (4:2). John also teaches that Christ will baptize with the Holy Spirit (1:33) and symbolically presents the beginning of such baptism after the resurrection (20:22).

So what do we learn from any of these gospels about contemporary issues relating to baptism?

1. Mode: It seems more likely than not to me that JB immersed or dipped people in the river water. I suppose it is possible that he poured water over their heads. The text doesn't really say and I don't really buy the argument that the word baptizo in Greek itself proves it was immersion. This seems a kind of root fallacy that insists the root must dictate how a word is used in practice. But words take on a life of their own and often leave the root or etymological building from which they came. Nevertheless, I have no problem with the usual suggestion that JB probably immersed in the river. Again, this does not take us yet to the question of what a Christian mode of baptism might be.

2. Infant: It seems to me very likely that all or at least nearly all of those who came to JB were adults. They were preparing Israel for the Messiah by purging it of its sins. Of course, I would not say absolutely that no children were involved. It seems a little difficult logistically in that they would have to travel out to the river from wherever. I also wonder how many women he would have baptized. I wonder if there were many.

Does this impact the discussion of Christian infant baptism? We'll have to wait for the argument that baptism involves repentance and therefore does not apply to an infant. For the moment, we will simply note that JB's baptism is not Christian baptism and therefore that it is somewhat of a unique moment in salvation's history that does not directly affect our discussion of Christian baptism.

3. Repeatable? I doubt that JB's baptism was meant to be repeatable, although baptism in general was in Jewish culture at the time. JB was preparing for the Messiah. That would normally have been a one time act I think.


<1> By the way, the story of John the Baptist is one of those rare places where Matthew and Luke agree in wording against Mark. Given the extra stuff that Matthew and Luke have in common in this story, it is often suggested that the JB story was in Q.