A Bible History of Baptism
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It is not, however, to this washing of Aaron, that reference is usually made by the exponents of this theory. It is said that the priests entered upon their official duties at thirty years of age, and were then set apart by baptism, and that hence Jesus, when “he began to be about thirty years of age,” came to be baptized, and enter upon his official work; and reference is made to Num. iv, 3; viii, 7. But the places thus referred to are directions respecting the Levites, the priest’s servants, and not concerning the priests at all. Moreover, twenty-five years was the ordinary age of entrance upon the Levitical service. (Num. viii, 24.) The age of thirty seems to have been prescribed with reference to the special labor and responsibility incident to the carrying of the tabernacle and its furniture from place to place, during the sojourn in the wilderness. (See the whole of Num. iv.) Upon such slender foundations are theories built. The law set no limitation to the ages of the priests. The rabbins say that they could not enter on the office until twenty years old. But Aristobulus the son of Alexander was high priest when less than seventeen years old.75 On the other hand, while the definition as to the Levites was, “from thirty years old and upward even until fifty years old,” – Eli was high priest when he died at ninety-eight. (1 Sam. iv, 15.)
Christ’s baptism was not his inauguration to the priesthood. His priesthood was neither Aaronic nor earthly. For “if he were on earth, He should not be a priest; seeing that there are priests that offer gifts according to the law; who serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things.” – Heb. viii, 4, 5. If any part of the ceremonial of Aaron’s investiture was a rule of conformity to Jesus, the whole of it was equally so. But he was made a priest, “not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless life. For he testifieth, Thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchisedec.” – Heb. vii, 16, 17. Christ’s consecration to the priesthood and exercise of its functions belong to that “true tabernacle which the Lord pitched and not man.” – Heb. viii, 2. He was not installed by human hands. “For the law maketh men high priests which have infirmity. But the word of the oath which was since the law, maketh the Son, who is consecrated forevermore.” – Heb. vii, 28.
Dr. Dale understands the Lord Jesus in the above place to mean, – Thus it becomes us, by a united and public act, to announce “my entering upon my covenant work which I now declare, and am ready to begin, ‘to fulfill all righteousness.’” But, in the first place, that was not the time of Jesus’ entering on the work of fulfilling righteousness. Had it been so, it was too late. He was “made of a woman, made under the law.” – Gal. iv, 4, 5. From the hour of his birth, he was fulfilling righteousness, – in the obedience of his childhood, as truly as in the sufferings of the cross. The work on which he entered, after his baptism and anointing by the Spirit, was his prophetic office, in which he announced and offered himself to Israel as her promised King and Savior. So he himself testified in the synagogue in Nazareth. (Luke iv, 18-20.) But this office will not fit into the above exposition. Moreover, it would seem that if any words can express the idea of a thing done as a duty of righteousness those of Jesus do so. Dr. Dale says, – “It can not be claimed that the Lord Jesus was under obligation to undergo this baptism as a part of ‘all righteousness;’ (1) Because there is no righteousness in it; (2) Because what there is in it is just what he did not come to do. He did not come to repent for sinners, nor to exercise faith for sinners.” The latter argument has the fatal fault that it proves too much. Upon the same ground the Lord Jesus should not have been circumcised or purified with his mother. He should not have kept the passover, nor any of the Levitical feasts and ordinances. All these implied and required in others a state of heart and mind and exercises of repentance and faith which were foreign to the holy nature of the Lord Jesus.
But is it so that there was no righteousness to be accomplished by Jesus in complying with John’s baptism? The answer depends wholly upon the response to be made to the question which Jesus proposed to the Pharisees, – “The baptism of John, was it from heaven; or, of men?” If from heaven, it came with the sanction of the first clause of the Sinai covenant, – “If ye will obey;” and was entitled to obedience from every soul. John’s baptism, – Is it necessary to say it? – washed away no sin. Like all ritual baptisms, of the Old Testament and the New, alike, it affected the ritual and outward status, alone, of the party, as toward the church, and the ordinances. Moreover, his ministry was not addressed to the ungodly only. But, if there were any of the people still looking and praying for the Consolation of Israel, they, as much as others, were called upon, as being defiled by the contact of the unclean nation, to receive this baptismal seal of the covenant renewed, and their acceptance in it with God. Pre-eminently was it true of the Lord Jesus, that he was defiled by contact with the sinful nation. To ritual uncleanness, he was as liable as any man, and became thereby subject to the same obligation of ritual purifying, by which others were bound. Jesus, therefore, as a true Israelite, came to John’s baptism, as being an ordinance of divine authority; and in his answer to John indicates the fact that his omission of the duty thus resting on him as “made under the law,” would have derogated from his perfect righteousness.
Nor is this all. John was the herald of Jesus in his distinctive character as “the Angel of the covenant,” – the Mediator of that “better covenant” which was enclosed in the outward form of that of Sinai. (2 Cor. iii, 3-6.) In that better covenant, and Christ as its Surety, all the transactions relating to the Sinai covenant had their significance and end; as they were also the end of John’s ministry. The repentance which he preached was a call to apostate Israel to return from transgression to the obedience required by the covenant, and his baptism was a seal to its promises, upon that indispensable condition of obedience. In coming to John’s baptism, therefore, Jesus formally and publicly came under the bond of the covenant for obedience, and thus presented himself to Israel as her Surety therein. The baptism which he received from John sealed to him its promises on condition of his obedience, and the descending Spirit and the voice from heaven announced the Father’s approval and acceptance of him as Surety for his people, the true Israel of God. It was with a view to this office of Christ as the Messenger and Surety of the covenant, and to his own relation as the herald of Christ in that capacity, that John says, “That he should be made manifest to Israel, therefore am I come baptizing with water;” – John i, 31 – that he should be made manifest to Israel, as her covenant Surety and King; as the Lamb of God and King of Israel.
The distinction drawn between “the baptism of John” and “baptism by John,” overlooks the profounder aspects of the subject here indicated. It is true that John’s baptism addressed to sinners a call to repentance, and announced remission, on that condition. But this special form of its message, is no more than the call to obedience, in terms adapted to the particular case of transgressors. And the significance and propriety of the baptism depended upon its own essential meaning as heretofore unfolded. In the Levitical institutions, the ordinary form of the rite had its primary relation, as we have seen, to a ritual uncleanness by contact with the dead, which symbolized the judicial defilement of the Lord Jesus by contact, through birth of a woman, with our dead nature, and his consequent death under the curse. The baptism symbolized the resurrection of Christ, and of his people with him, in the renewing of their souls, and the final quickening and rising of their bodies. Both of these are identified by Paul with the resurrection of Christ. (Eph. ii, 5; and i, 19-ii, 10; Rom. vi, 2-5; viii, 11, etc.) It is by virtue of union with him, by the baptism of his Spirit, bestowed upon and dwelling in us, that we are enabled to “know the power of his resurrection” (Phil. iii, 10), by our own death to sin and life to holiness. This was the signification of John’s baptism. To the Lord Jesus it was a symbol and pledge of his own triumph over the exhausted power of the curse, in his resurrection; and of the deliverance of his people, in him, from the bondage of sin and death, by his Spirit bestowed and dwelling in them. Through this they receive repentance and remission of sins. The same meaning precisely was signified and sealed to the people by their believing reception of the same rite.
Thus, on the one hand, Jesus, as being the Son of man, one of the family of Israel, was as much bound to come to the baptism which, by the authority of God, John dispensed, as he was to obey or observe any part of the law, ritual or moral; as much as was any true son of Israel. On the other hand, by coming and receiving that baptism, he announced himself, the Surety of the covenant which it sealed, and was so certified and accepted by John, by the descending Spirit and by the Father’s voice.
Section LIX. —The Anointing of the Lord Jesus
The Scriptures inform us of three distinct bestowals of the Spirit, upon the Lord Jesus, by the Father. The first, was that whereby he was begotten through the Holy Ghost, and his humanity so invested with the Spirits influences, as to be born and live in perfect holiness, so that he was designated by the angel, “that holy thing.” – Luke i, 35. The second was the anointing bestowed at the time of his baptism by John. And the third was that endowment of the Spirit, which was conferred on him, at his ascension to the throne. The intimate relation of his anointing to his baptism by John, and the close analogy which is traceable between baptism and anointing, bring the latter within the purview of the present inquiry.
Immediately after his baptism, as he was praying, “the heaven was opened, and the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon him, and a voice came from heaven, which said, Thou art my beloved son: in thee I am well pleased.” – Luke iii, 21, 22. The Baptist adds some facts: – “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him. And I knew him not. But he that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending and remaining on him the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost. And I saw and bare record that this is the Son of God.” – John i, 32-34. This anointing of the Lord Jesus with the Holy Spirit fulfilled a three-fold purpose.
1. It was a manifestation to Israel of the long-expected Messiah, – a confirmation from heaven of John’s testimonies respecting him, and a designation of him, the coming One, as being Jesus of Nazareth. From the whole account given in the first chapter of John, it seems evident that the Baptist and his disciples had distinctly in mind the language of the second Psalm, which determined the form of their conclusions, deduced from the scene at the baptizing. “Why do the heathen rage … against the Lord, and against his Anointed?.. Yet have I set my King upon my holy hill of Zion. I will declare the decree: the Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee.” The glorious personage here announced is, thus designated by three titles, – as the Lord’s Anointed, his King, and his Son. It was as herald of this King that John came preaching, the kingdom of heaven. And when, with his own eyes he saw the anointing Spirit descend upon Jesus, he identified the Anointed with the Son. He saw and bare record “that this is the Son of God.” So, John’s disciple Andrew says to his brother Peter, “We have found the Messias, which is, being interpreted, the Christ,” – the Anointed. Not only so, but, at the same time and by the same token, John recognized in Jesus “the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world!” Thus fully, by this anointing, was Jesus certified to Israel; and therein the chief intent of John’s ministry was accomplished.
2. The anointing was an attestation and seal to him of the Father’s favor, in view of the spotless righteousness of his character as already proved in the life which he had lived, as a private person, the carpenter of Nazareth. Of his earlier youth, it is said that he “increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.” – Luke ii, 52. And now, in the fulness of his manhood, in connection with his anointing, a voice from heaven testifies, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” – Matt. iii, 17. To this, the Psalmist refers his anointing. “Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever; the sceptre of thy kingdom is a right sceptre. Thou lovest righteousness and hatest wickedness: therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.” – Psa. xlv, 6, 7. “The joy of the Lord is your strength” (Neh. viii, 10), said Nehemiah to Israel; and in the joy of his Father’s favor, testified in the anointing, Jesus fulfilled his ministry to the close.
3. It was his endowment for the prophetic office, as he himself testified in the synagogue of Nazareth. “He found the place where it was written, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and the recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised… And he began to say unto them, This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears.” – Luke iv, 18-21. From the same source he derived the miraculous powers, which attested his word. (Matt. xii, 28.) “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power.” – Acts x, 38. Of the relation of his anointing to the fulfillment of his priestly office, in view of which John called him “the Lamb of God,” Paul says that he “through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God.” – Heb. ix, 14. His anointing was not his consecration to the priesthood, but his endowment with grace, by which he was qualified to perform that priesthood, to prepare and offer an unspotted, sufficient and acceptable sacrifice on the altar of justice. And, having completed that work, by the same Spirit was he raised from the dead. (1 Pet. iii, 18; Rom. viii, 11.)
Such and so signal was the meaning and intent of that fact from which Jesus derived the name of, the Christ. Its close relation in many respects to the doctrine of baptism, is apparent. As to the question of mode, a few points may here be noted.
1. In it the Holy Spirit was given to the Lord Jesus, as an indwelling fountain of all gifts for his ministry.
2. It came by a descent from the opened heavens.
3. It was in the form of a dove, – beautiful symbol of the kindness of God, and the “meekness and gentleness,” the “grace and truth” of the Lord Jesus!
4. It abode on him.
5. As the result, he was filled with the Holy Spirit (Luke iv, 1), brought under his active control and guidance, and endowed with his extraordinary gifts, for the fulfillment of his ministry.
6. The symbol which by divine appointment represented it was the pouring of oil upon the head and person. (Lev. viii, 12, 30; 1 Sam. x, 1; xvi, 1, 13; 1 Kings i, 34, 39; xix, 16; 2 Kings ix, 6.)
Section LX. – “The Baptism that I am Baptized with.”
It was his resurrection from the dead. We have seen that the Mosaic baptism was a symbol and seal of the imparting of life to the dead. We have seen it so referred to by Paul in his argument in proof of the resurrection. The fact has been pointed out that the Lord Jesus in receiving the baptism of John, not only fulfilled the law of righteousness as a faithful Israelite, but received, therein, a symbol and seal of his own resurrection and triumph over death and the curse, under which he was already held. Twice, in the course of his ministry as reported by the evangelists, did Jesus refer to his resurrection under this figure of baptism. Matthew thus records one of these occasions, “Then came to him the mother of Zebedee’s children with her sons, worshipping him… And he said unto her, What wilt thou? She saith unto him, Grant that these my two sons may sit, the one on thy right hand, and the other on the left, in thy kingdom. But Jesus answered and said, Ye know not what ye ask. Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of, and to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with? They say unto him, We are able. And he saith unto them, Ye shall drink indeed of my cup, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with; but to sit on my right hand, and on my left, is not mine to give (all’ hois ētoimastai), save to those for whom it is prepared of my Father.” – Matt. xx, 20-23. Luke records a similar expression. “I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I if it be already kindled? But I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened till it be accomplished! Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, nay; but rather division. For from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three. The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother in law against her daughter in law, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.” – Luke xii, 49-53. Of these expressions, expositors have proposed two interpretations. According to one, the cup and the baptism are equivalent figures meaning the sufferings and death of the Lord Jesus. Hence, Baptist expositors would explain it as an immersion in sorrow; but they do not show by what example or argument the word “baptism” can be made, thus, of itself, to signify such an immersion. A conclusive objection lies against this interpretation. In both the gospels the distinction between the cup and the baptism is carefully preserved, in Christ’s original question, and in his rejoinder. “Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of, and to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” “Ye shall indeed drink of my cup, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with.” It can not be admitted that a second clause, so particular and detailed in statement, and so carefully repeated in the rejoinder, is a mere blank, adding nothing to the meaning already expressed. But it is agreed that the figure of the cup indicates all that suffering by which the Lord Jesus made atonement for our sins.
The other interpretation proposed is but a modified form of that here given. It discriminates between the cup and the baptism, by interpreting the latter of Christ’s sufferings viewed as “consecrating sufferings – sufferings by which he was to be separated unto God’s service as a royal priest.” “That the reader may understand how Christ could use such language in the sense which we give it, let him consider such passages of Scripture as these: ‘Unto him that loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever, Amen.’ – Rev. i, 5, 6. ‘And Jesus said unto them, verily I say unto you, that ye which have followed me, in the regeneration, when the Son of man shall sit on the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.’” – Matt. xix, 28.76
The Scriptures cited by this respected author do certainly prove that the royalty and priesthood of the saints in heaven are the purchase of Christ’s blood and the gifts of his love. But they do not even hint at the idea, much less prove it, in support of which they seem to be cited; to wit, that the sufferings and death of Christ were his consecration to the priesthood. On the contrary, they are in harmony with all the Scriptures, which testify that those sufferings were an offering for our sins, made by a priest already consecrated. “For every high priest is ordained to offer gifts and sacrifices: wherefore it is of necessity that this man have somewhat also to offer.” – Heb. viii, 3. Here, it appears that, inasmuch as he was a priest, he must have an offering; the very reverse of the theory that his offering was in order to his consecration to the priesthood. This man who by the word of the oath, was consecrated a priest forevermore, needed not, like those priests to enter often into the holy place with blood. “For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world,” the original date of his priesthood. “But now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.” – Heb. ix, 26. Of Christ’s sufferings, in their atoning character, the Scriptures are full and explicit. And, of them, the cup is the undoubted symbol. But of “consecrating sufferings,” and especially, of such contradistinguished from the others, as here supposed, we fail to find a trace. Is it asserted that although they are the same sufferings, yet are they viewed in a different light? Still the distinction is without warrant in the Scriptures. But, even conceding that point, can it be imagined that the Lord Jesus, in the circumstances of the case as relating to James and John, would pause upon and emphasize that distinction, by separate definitions, requiring distinct consideration and answer, by them, when at last the sufferings in question were one and the same? Nothing but an absolute necessity could justify such an interpretation.
In order to a right solution of the question here considered, let us ascertain what were the facts and conditions necessarily present in the mind of the Lord Jesus, in making his answer to James and John.
1. Their application immediately followed, and was no doubt suggested by a statement made by our Lord, in reply to a question from Peter. Upon occasion of the sorrowful turning away of the young ruler, Peter said to Jesus, “Behold we have forsaken all, and followed thee; what shall we have therefore? And Jesus said unto them, Verily I say unto you, that ye which have followed me, in the regeneration, when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” – Matt. xix, 27, 28. Here are several indications of the time of enthronement. (1.) It is the time “when the Son of man shall sit on the throne of his glory.” This phrase, “the throne of his glory,” is not used in the Scriptures to designate the invisible throne of majesty and power in the heavens, now occupied by the Son of man; but that revelation to men of his glory, of which he said to his disciples, “the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father, with his angels.” – Matt. xvi, 27. To this time he expressly refers that throne. “When the Son of man shall come in his glory and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory.” – Matt. xxv, 31. So Paul declares that the Lord Jesus “shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom;” and in view of his own finished course, exults in the fact that, “Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord the righteous Judge shall give me at that day; and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.” – 2 Tim. iv, 1, 8. (2.) It is the time of the judgment. The apostles shall sit with him, judging the tribes of Israel. (3.) It is the period of “the regeneration.” Some expositors, indeed, refer this word to the preceding clause, which they read, “Ye which, in the regeneration, have followed me.” According to this reading, the regeneration means, the introduction of the gospel, as being the beginning of a new life to the world. But others understand, by it, the resurrection of the saints which precedes the final judgment of the world. According to this, which I take to be the true interpretation, the resurrection is called the regeneration, because, in it, the quickening power of the Holy Spirit, first experienced, in the renewing of the souls of believers, and in making their bodies his temples, will then take full possession of the whole man, quickening and transforming our vile bodies into the likeness of Christ’s glorious body, and reuniting soul and body in glory. In like manner, and at the same time, the work of “restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began” (Acts iii, 21), will be accomplished. Beginning, as it does in the spiritual world, in the preaching and triumphs of the gospel, it will be consummate in the regeneration of the physical system, in the new creation, the new heavens and the new earth. That the thrones promised to the apostles could only be possessed after the resurrection, is evident from the fact that, physical death being an element of the curse, the blessedness of the saints may, indeed, be unspeakable, even in a disembodied state; but there can be no properly royal triumph, so long as the bodies are in the bonds of corruption and the grave.