John’s baptism; a new house for creation

One week ago we had our usual Wednesday night bible study. Richard led it ably, and there was good discussion & exploration of John’s gospel, particularly the first chapter. John introduces Jesus through the ministry and testimony of John the Baptist, who began baptizing Israel out in the desert, probably when Jesus was in his mid-late 20s, and (as Matthew records) excoriated the religious leaders when they came for baptism after enquiring what he thought he was doing. And the question arose - what was the nature of John’s baptism? What was it achieving? Why did he do it? In particular, is there anything about it that helps us decide whether children or adults should be baptized? More generally, how does it relate to our own baptism?

These questions have fascinating answers, and we made a good beginning in giving them.

Background

We noted, first of all, that Israel looked for a Messiah, one who would bring that great and terrible ‘day of the Lord’ - the day when YHWH would visit Israel and - she hoped - restore her to favour as the chosen people in relation to the other nations. This desire became particularly pointed in light of her continuing subjugation under the Roman gentiles, echoing her old subjugation under the Egyptians - from which Moses delivered her. We accepted that, both in prophecy and in precedent, this day of the Lord would be one of judgment as well as deliverance. And we noted John’s adoption of the prophecy of Isaiah to describe his own role as the one who announces the coming of the Lord, and his pointing to Jesus as the one who bought with him the primary symbol of deliverance: the Holy Spirit, the new breath of God that would signify a re-creation (compare the making of Adam from dust with the effects of exile and Ezekiel's prophecy of Israel's resurrection).

We noted, further, that in this context of expectation John went out into the desert and began baptizing: a new enactment of escape from Egypt and a new passage through the Red Sea. In other words, John began to offer the new exodus. Here and now, John was saying, Israel is delivered again: those who come out to me in the desert are the true Israel of God.

It is hard for us to appreciate now, 2000 years later, just how explosive this imagery was. John was placing national Israel, revolving around the revered symbols of Torah, Temple, family and land, in the position that hated Egypt had occupied. That position, if you recall, was etched into the national psyche, memorialized in the national Passover deliverance feast, when the lambs were slaughtered. And so what does John say of Jesus? “Look, the lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” While enacting the new exodus away from Temple, Torah, and national Israel, John identifies Jesus as the new Passover lamb: the one whose blood, dabbed on the doorposts of the house, will save the true Israel.

Understanding John

This is exactly how John was understood. The Jews of Jerusalem deputized Priests and Levites to ask which name John claimed, of the three most powerful figures of prophetic literature - Messiah, Elijah, or Moses? Only one of these had the audacity to do what he was doing. But John, denying that he was any of these, points beyond himself, to Jesus, the one whose sandals he wasn’t worthy to untie. Someone far greater than Moses is here, says John.

This is exactly how John understood himself. Matthew records John’s interaction with the Pharisees and Sadducees who came to be baptized (presumably after their investigation of him). But John declared judgment on them:

"You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not think you can say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father.' I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me will come one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not fit to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire."

Among other themes, John was invoking the prophecy of Malachi, the last recorded Old Testament prophet, 400 years earlier:

"'They will be mine,' says the LORD Almighty, 'in the day when I make up my treasured possession. I will spare them, just as in compassion a man spares his son who serves him. And you will again see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not. Surely the day is coming; it will burn like a furnace. All the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble, and that day that is coming will set them on fire,' says the LORD Almighty. 'Not a root or a branch will be left to them. But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings. And you will go out and leap like calves released from the stall. Then you will trample down the wicked; they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day when I do these things,' says the LORD Almighty. 'Remember the law of my servant Moses, the decrees and laws I gave him at Horeb for all Israel. "See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the LORD comes. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers; or else I will come and strike the land with a curse.'" (emphasis mine)

John's own view, then, was that he was announcing the great and dreadful day of the Lord. His baptism was the symbolic enactment of a new exodus, the beginning of judgment and deliverance; the inaugural announcement of the day. If John was correct, then for him to call Israel into this baptism meant something inescapable: the time had come and sides had to be taken.

So, in a time when the religious and the political were understood to be indivisible (in our time we have forgotten that this is so), John commits almost unthinkable treason on both counts. He strikes at the heart of Israel’s self-conception as the chosen people of God oriented around the sacrificial Temple cult, awaiting a deliverance every bit as politically religious as the first one. He subverts the motifs of exodus to label Israel the new Egypt. This is high, high drama.

Jesus: following John

Well, John was a true prophet. When Jesus began his public ministry, he announced the kingdom and the need to follow himself as the one who was actually bringing it: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!" "Repent, and follow me!". Jesus, then, positioned himself in word and deed as the one through whom YHWH was acting to achieve the new exodus, to constitute the new, true Israel. This is why he healed, cast out demons, and announced in the Temple the year of the Lord's favour: because these were unmistakable signs that 'the day' had come. This is why he offered to rebuild the temple in three days, because he was offering himself as the replacement for the Temple. "Turn from following your own agendas", he said, "stop being Israel the way you have been doing it, and follow me: do it my way". And Jesus’ way, of course, was the cross, that most despised thing among the Jews and the sign of curse: "cursed is any man who hangs on a tree". It was also the very opposite of their constantly-simmering plan to revolt in arms against Rome, to achieve the kingdom by force. And this, fundamentally, was why his ministry was so dangerous and controversial: because even more than John the Baptist, Jesus set himself in opposition to all the proud motifs and badges of election: Torah, Temple, family, and land (while interesting, tracing all these out is not what this post is about).

Can you feel the intense drama of these times? The tension, the sense of turmoil, the amazement of the people at Jesus, teaching and acting with such authority! So we have now gone far enough to see that the relationship of John’s to our baptism is not straightforward. For a start, we are not Jews, being called to enact a new exodus as a specific, historical event. What we find, though, is that throughout the apostolic era of proclaiming Jesus as the risen King, gentiles were welcomed into the gathering kingdom through baptism. This is the specific way that the enthronement of Israel’s God was made to extend to gentiles: they were welcomed into the formation of the new Israel, the bride of Christ, through the same baptism by which the Jews were welcomed. And thus Paul wrote to the Ephesian, gentile church: one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all.

The progress of redemptive history

We are still, though, not quite there in terms of a one-to-one relationship between John’s baptism (or Jesus’, for that matter) and ours. For, the period during which an invitation to join the new exodus was extended came to a definite end with the destruction of Jerusalem in AD70. This destruction was the fire of the day of the Lord that John announced; it was the other side of exodus, the judgment accompanying deliverance. It was the plagues of Egypt, intensified and delivered to God's apostate people. It was this that John, Jesus and the apostles constantly warned of, the terrifying judgment that was delayed by God’s patience (Him not wanting any to perish) for a period of 40 years’ desert wandering for the people who identified with Christ. But at the end, when God’s patience ran out, the exodus ‘slammed home’, as it were, and the new Egypt was not just struck with plagues, but was utterly destroyed by God’s Son and King.

And of course, we acknowledge that this period of invitation must be ended, because we no longer treat national Israel as having any genuine covenant status. We are not as Paul was, having to grapple in his time with a period of overlap, when there were two instituted ways to cite favoured status before God: circumcision and Torah, or baptism and Christ. It isn't possible for us to say now, as Paul did then, that he who lets himself get circumcised is obliged to obey the whole law. Torah isn't even an option now. It, and all its works, have ceased to mean anything at all. And the reason we can say this is that we have God's certificate of divorce, delivered in wrath and tribulation in the crushing victory of the Roman armies over Jerusalem in AD70. Israel's covenant status was removed from her, and thus reserved entirely for the people of Christ. At least until that time, though, national Israel stood, officially, as the chosen of God, having, as Paul wrote, the privileges of adoption as sons.

Thus, we come to our age, when the exodus is past and well established. The marriage of God to His new bride is done, and the place of worship and knowledge of God is everywhere. We should understand, then, the ways in which this progression of covenant history makes our practice of baptism less sharp and cutting than was previously true. But please note that I do not say, "baptism means nothing". Please note that I do not say, either, "covenant history has ended". Please note that I do not say that the specific, historical application of all this biblical imagery means that there is "nothing left for us". These sorts of conclusions would be quite, quite wrong.

The differing applications of baptism

What we do have to do, though, in a certain sense, is chose our own meaning for baptism. Now please don't get me wrong; I'm saying in a certain sense. For, as we've already established, we aren't actually participating in the great act of historical exodus, identifying ourselves with Christ over against the Temple, with Christ against Israel. Yet we personally participate in 'shadows', in 'types' of this exodus all the time. We exit the destructiveness of exilic lives and take up new ones; we leave the horrors of lives damaged and torn apart by sin to start again with Christ, rising from the grave. These sorts of things continue in redemptive history, precisely because it isn't over.

And, in continuity with the imagery of circumcision under Torah and baptism under John and the apostles, we Reformed folk baptize our children. For a fuller treatment of this (and to help clarify what follows), see my previous post on Covenant Baptism. To quote in part:

"The application of covenant thinking can be compared to someone building a house for your mother and father when the old one burned down. The Reformed view would let you and your brothers and sisters live in the new house; the typical believers' baptism view would only let the parents in. So, when the Reformed baptise an infant, we are saying that God has made Himself God to that child by providing a house for the entire family."

So the point for us Reformed folk in baptising infants is to highlight the character and grace of God in making provision for entire people-groups, of which a family is the smallest example. God welcomes all generations into relationship with Himself. This, we say, is the pattern of His covenant love. Thus, in our baptism practices, we Reformed are chosing to be consistent with the 'inclusive' history of covenant-making. And I am personally convinced that this is the more appropriate or useful approach. It teaches us that God's restoration is not just of isolated self-aware individuals, but for an entire order of life - life in its full relational complexity. And so we see the entire cosmos in the microcosm of the inter-generational household: politically, economically, and socially, in all its aspects settled in restoration to God. Thus, in the rest given to animals under the Mosaic Sabbath, and the rest given to the land every Sabbath year, the creation too finds its rest under restored households within the redemption of God. And this reaches its heights in Christ: as the new head over all creation, the second and obedient Adam, the whole creation finds its rest by grace in Him. At its heart, then, covenant baptism reflects the love of God for the entire order of creation.

No cause for ill feeling

Our Reformed inheritance of such a tradition does not, however, entitle us to accuse others who practice believer’s baptism of breaking the covenant or of disobedience. It would be even worse to actually cease table fellowship with them over the difference. There are two reasons. Firstly, the character of baptism no longer has the sharp edge of a symbolism that signifies including ‘these-and-none-others’ in it. For, we are not the Israel of Torah, defined as the people of God solely in terms of blood and kin, nor the emerging counter-Israel, set against the old by affiliation with Christ, demonstrated in the ritual washing and new passage through the sea. Both these entities stood against the background of a creation in exile, whose king and head was Adam, whose relationship to God was estranged. Thus, against that background it was only the circumcised, or only the baptized, who could reasonably claim to have been restored to God’s favour - to formal diplomatic relations, we might say now.

Secondly, the Baptist tradition has chosen to highlight different, but not wrong, matters in the application of the sign - primarily, the response of each member of the house, as they come to recognize that they too have a role in doing the housework. And this definitely has its own value: just like our Profession of Faith, it can help prevent a kind of laziness that, all too easily, turns into a dangerous ‘squatter’ mentality that likes being in the house but cares nothing for its upkeep. This often results in eviction.

The restoration of creation & the cause for unity

So we are now part of a creation returned, under Christ the second Adam, to wholesale acceptance by God, because it is administered by a faithful and never-to-fall (everlasting) king. The first, faithless Adam has been replaced. That is, we are now part of a humanity that is more privileged, in a corporate sense, than it has ever been before: having been brought by grace back into a restorative relationship with its Creator. Thus, any given person has a remarkable claim to make: that they in Christ, as part of the creation included in his kingship, have been restored to formal diplomatic relations with God. And this is the glory of the gospel: that God has restored the creation to Himself in Christ; Christ is king.

‘Wholesale acceptance’, however, and ‘formal diplomatic relations’, do not mean ‘unconditional acceptance’, ‘anything-goes acceptance’, ‘do-what-you-like-now-that we are friends again’. Relationship and friendship means certain obligations and ways of behaving. And thus the call of all people is to act as God originally intended: as faithful representatives of Himself, as bearers of His image over the creation. And God loves His creation; He will not let it go to rack and ruin. Thus we must stand fearfully as God’s friends, because He is not merely one of our peers, with preferences we can ignore if we chose. He is God, the great I AM. He will continually act to vindicate those who truly bear His image from those who do not.

In this common call, then, we stand as one with the Baptists. Our positions are not really at odds at all, in any way that really counts. Reformed baptism is a sign that we commit ourselves and those whom we represent to the conscious, faithful image-bearing of God. The Baptist makes it a sign of self-conscious assumption of that imagebearing, the acceptance of the task. Thus, as communities recognizing their calling to bear God’s image, to constantly repent of exilic ways of life and to accept the invitation to be new Israel, it is entirely appropriate that we welcome, encourage and sit at our Lord's Table with one another, looking to advance the redemption of God in our new, promised land. We should work and sit together, recognising, respecting, and valuing one another's commitments, and cultivating the land of promise side by side.