About Our Confusion About Baptism

If you have followed my study of Jesus' conversation with Nicodemus in John 3, you have come across some common words and phrases used by Christians. These include born again, born from above, water, Spirit, flesh. Confusion and disagreement about these words and their meanings continue among us Christians. We argue back and forth about water baptism versus Spirit baptism, one baptism versus many baptisms, about which baptism saves, the baptism of children, making a decision for Christ before being baptized and so forth.

I do not suggest that my comments will bring an end to these arguments. Each of us must make his or her own decisions about these matters. Instead, I will summarize what I have shared in my earlier blogs about this important conversation and invite you to draw your own conclusions.

1. Nicodemus and his party saw Jesus as a Rabbi, but failed to see Him as the LORD, YHWH, God with us, Emmanuel, the Word (logos), the Son of God.
2. To gain this insight and faith, one must be reborn.
3. This rebirth comes from above; it is the work of God's Holy Spirit. Like the wind it is outside human control or decision making.
4. These reborn are chosen by God to be members of the royal family of Jesus Christ (Messiah), priests of God, members of Jesus body and of the Father's eternal family. 
5. Water plays a critical role in this rebirthing work of the Holy Spirit. It points to the long history of God's chosen people Israel and to their Exodus journey from slavery to the promised land. 
6. In, with and through this water (baptism) the Spirit declares us reborn to be members of God's chosen people, forgiven for all sins for the sake of Christ and promises that God will raise us up with Him in the new creation.
7. This powerful Word connected with the water (baptism) both creates and sustains the Spirit's new life within us as we continue on our journey to the promised land.

If indeed you are a reborn member of God chosen people, you personally know and understand what I have summarized above. You are not like Nicodemus who asked, "How can these things be?" (John 3:9). You also understand that these are but earthly things. Knowledge about heavenly things still awaits us (John 3:10-13). however, the center, the crux of the matter, the most important point at issue in the whole conversation is to be found in these words of Jesus:

And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. - Jhn 3:14-18 ESV

Jesus purposely draws a parallel between what was to happen to him upon the cross and the bronze serpent Moses was commanded to raise up as he led the Israelites on their journey to the promised land (Numbers 21:7-9). You see, they complained again about the misery of the wilderness. There was no food, no water and they had come to loathe the daily supply of Manna, calling it "worthless food". To awaken them to their sin the LORD sent venomous snakes among them. Many died. This led to their confession and plea, "Pray to the LORD, that he take away the serpents from us." So Moses did and the LORD heard their prayers.

And the LORD said to Moses, "Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live." So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live. - Num 21:8-9 ESV

This bronze serpent event, said Jesus, points beyond itself to the cross upon which Jesus was to be raised up. And it is all God's doing, God's gracious gift. Just as the wilderness people did not die from the snake bites, so all who believe that Jesus was judged, condemned and killed upon the Roman cross on the hill of Calvary for us and for all, will not die. They will be saved from the eternal wrath of God and receive instead a resurrected body and a new life that will never end.

That, as I said, is the crux of the matter, what its all about. Nothing else matters more than this. It is all about God's grace, unearned and undeserved. And faith to believe it is all the working of God's Spirit, sent from above and beyond us, working through this Word of grace. This is the rebirth Jesus speaks about, for which we shall praise him and the Father to all eternity.

I shall wrap up this discussion in my next post.

Water, Word And God's Spirit

We continue our meditation upon Jesus' conversation with Nicodemus in John 3:1-21.

Water, water, every where,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink.

The very deep did rot: O Christ!
That ever this should be!
Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs
Upon the slimy sea.

So goes the famous words from Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. The mariner and all onboard waited in vain for a wind to blow that would take them to land where they might find drinking water. Without water to drink only death awaited them.

And every tongue, through utter drought,

Was withered at the root;

We could not speak, no more than if

We had been choked with soot.

Through water God's Spirit brings new birth, new life, new hope, said Jesus in His nighttime conversation with Jewish Sanhedrin member Nicodemus. 

Jesus answered, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. - Jhn 3:5-6 ESV

Nicodemus knew of the importance of water in the history and in the rituals of Israel. By water the LORD had rescued them from slavery in Egypt as Pharaoh's armies were drowned in the Red Sea (Exodus 15:4). When nothing but desert threatened the LORD twice gave them water from a rock Moses struck with his rod at the LORD's command (Exod. 17:6; Num. 20:8-11). Water was used to clean clothes, to wash feet, to sprinkle on dwellings, to pour on unclean people, on altars, etc. (e.g. Lev. 8:6, 21; 11:32-38; 14:6-9, etc.). The waters of the Jordan river parted when Israel finally marched into the Promised Land (Joshua 3:15-17), "and all Israel was passing over on dry ground until all the nation finished passing over the Jordan."

Every year the people celebrated their Exodus journey from slavery to freedom during the Feast of Booths or Tabernacles in the seventh month in the Jewish calendar (Sept.-Oct.), the time of the year when the fall harvest was gathered (Deut. 16:13-16). For an entire week they lived in booths (sekhakh) as they praised their LORD for bringing them safely through the wilderness to their prosperous land and for giving them another year of His blessings. On the eighth and final day of the feast, the high priest, in a great processional made up of priests and thousands of worshipers, descended from the Temple Mount to pause briefly at the Pool of Siloam. A pitcher was filled with water, and the procession continued via a different route back to the Temple Mount. Once back in the Temple, with great ceremony the high priest poured the water out of the pitcher onto the altar.

In this way the people were reminded of God's continued blessings and deliverance from slavery and death. This ceremony was also intended to invoke God's blessing on the nation by providing life-giving water for the coming year. In Israel rains normally stop in March and there is little or no rain for almost seven months! If God did not provide the "early" rains in October and November, there would be no spring crop, and famine would again be at the doorstep. On the last day of that feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out,

"If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, 'Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.'" Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. - Jhn 7:37-39 ESV

As God provides water to quench thirst and grow crops, so He gives His Spirit to bring new life to all His children. In this way water and the Spirit are intimately tied together. This is the new birth that Jesus speaks about in His conversation with Nicodemus. Or course, it is not the water itself that gives new birth.  By itself water cannot work such a wonder. It is the Spirit of the Living God at work in the water, the Spirit speaking God's life-giving Word, the Word that glorifies Jesus. And how does the Spirit glorify Jesus in the hearts of those upon whom water is poured? The Spirit tells those so washed (baptizein in Greek) that Jesus has taken them with Him into death and from death to life eternal. He has gathered them together and brought them safely out of bondage and slavery. Now He is leading them through the wilderness of this world to the security of the promised land.

We have adopted the Greek word baptism to speak about this wondrous creative activity of God's Spirit. More about this next time.

The Water Is Getting Deeper And Deeper

There are some conversations that simply will not go away. I find myself thinking about them over and over again. What did he mean when he said that? Might he have responded in another way? So it is with the conversation between Jesus and the learned Pharisee Nicodemus. The implications are so profound that I must persist again this week to ponder them. Please join me once more.

Nicodemus could not grasp what Jesus spoke about when he said one must be born again (or better from above) in order to see the kingdom of God (John 3:3-5). By the way, John quotes Jesus speaking about the kingdom of God only in this conversation. Beyond that, there is no mention of God's kingdom in John's Gospel.

A word about seeing as John uses it. In John's first chapter Philip invites Nathanael to come and see Jesus. So he does and when he comes Jesus tells him, "When you were under the fig tree, I saw you." This comment so impressed Nathanael that he at once declared Jesus to be the true Son of God and King of Israel, all because Jesus saw him under the fig tree. That, said Jesus, was a small thing compared to what Nathanael would one day see, namely heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man (John 1:43-51).

Obviously seeing, in Jesus' usage, involves a lot more than seeing somebody standing under a fig tree with your eyes. One day Nathanael would see heaven opened and angels ascending and descending on the Son of Man. That is an open allusion to Jacob's vision at Bethel as he fled from the wrath of his brother Esau. In his dream Jacob heard the LORD tell him that He is the God of Abraham and Jacob's father Isaac (Gen. 28:11-17). Jesus' point: one day Nathanael would gain insight and an inner conviction that Jesus of Nazareth is indeed that very LORD (YaHWeH), the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and all the children of Abraham. He would believe in his heart that Jesus is Immanuel, God with us in human flesh.

This is also what Jesus says to Nicodemus. Our God reigns. His throne is in heaven and He laughs at puny earthly kings who try to storm against Him to overthrow Him. Moreover, the LORD, has set His King on Zion and given him "the ends of the earth" as his possession. All earthly kings are wise to serve the LORD and His Son lest they kindle His wrath (Psalm 2:1-12).

But who is this King and how does He reign? N.T. writers and Jesus refer to Psalm 110:1-7, another of King David's psalms (Matthew 22:42-46). When His authority was challenged, Jesus pointed out that all Jewish teachers agreed that the Messiah or the Christ, the anointed one, would come from King David's lineage. "How is it then," asked Jesus, "that David, in the Spirit, calls his son (his descendant), his Lord?" Further, this Lord is given all authority in heaven and earth, because he sits at the LORD God's right hand and is declared by the LORD to be an eternal priest after the order of Melchizedek.

These are but two of the many, many references in John's Gospel to the divinity of Jesus, God's Son, the One with all authority in heaven and earth, the One who is the Word made flesh (John 1:1-14). Those who receive Him, John writes, are children of God, new born or reborn, not by human decision or human flesh, but born of God. This new birth is God's doing. It is He who gives the reborn their rights and high
status as children of God (John 1:12-13). So this is what Jesus refers to when he tells Nicodemus,

"Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. - Jhn 3:5-6 ESV

I do so pray that you are not getting into water too deep for you, for there is much, much deeper water yet to come. We shall have to talk about water and the Spirit next time.

Wading In The Water of John

"Shallow enough for a child to wade in and deep enough to drown an elephant." So goes a description of the Gospel of John, attributed to Rev. Charles Spurgeon. John's Gospel remains a favorite of millions, yet it continues to confound scholars. Its nuances, double meanings and symbols are familiar even to new converts, but puzzle old preachers like me. For the next several posts I will take you wading with me and pray that you do not drown with this old pachyderm. Lets start with this very familiar quote:

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. - Jhn 3:16 ESV

The quote is from a discourse by Jesus with Nicodemus, a member of the Great Sanhedrin, the 71 judges of the Jewish supreme court of that day, meeting in Jerusalem.

Though there is no clear source of information about this Nicodemus outside the Gospel of John, the Jewish Encyclopedia and many Biblical historians have theorized that he is identical to Nicodemus ben Gurion, mentioned in the Talmud as a wealthy and popular holy man reputed to have had miraculous powers. Christian tradition asserts that Nicodemus was martyred sometime in the first century.

When  Nicodemus came secretly by night to visit with Jesus, he called this young man Rabbi, a title of great respect that means my honorable sir, similar to the modern Reverend. Normally a Rabbi was trained in a theological school and formally ordained or certified as a teacher. Since Jesus was neither formally trained nor ordained, the title offered by such an esteemed leader was most unusual. Yet this respected judge saw Jesus as a teacher (John 3:2). As Matthew makes clear, others gave him the same title out of respect, but sometimes in mockery (Matt. 12:38).

Nicodemus goes even further as he acknowledges Jesus to be sent by God. He has concluded that Jesus' signs point to God being with him. For a further discussion of Jesus' signs see my earlier post. John emphasizes that Jesus was not a mere teacher come from God. No indeed. He was Immanuel, God with us. All the signs pointed to this fact. Nicodemus obviously was not prepared to acknowledge such an astounding claim. No mere man could ever make such a claim. It was blasphemy at the highest level, a crime so heinous that it deserved death (Matthew 26:63-66). No man dare claim to be the Messiah and the Son of God. By such a claim Jesus made himself God (John 10:33). Anyone uttering such blasphemy must surely be put to death. This was the law of the land and ultimately the judgment of the Sanhedrin as they dragged Jesus before the Roman Prefect, demanding his death (John 18:31).

Whoever blasphemes the name of the LORD shall surely be put to death. All the congregation shall stone him. The sojourner as well as the native, when he blasphemes the Name, shall be put to death. - Lev 24:16 ESV

Nicodemus may have acknowledged Jesus as a Rabbi, but he did not at that time recognize him as the Son of God. He was not prepared to give him a divine title or to recognize the mystery of what we Christians later called the Trinity, the fact that God is three persons and yet remains but one God! To acknowledge this is indeed to wade into water deep enough to drown any elephant or as Jesus said,

"Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God." - Jhn 3:3 ESV

More on water and rebirth and seeing next time.