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Baptism: A Matter of Obedience, Part Three

By John MacArthur

Copyright 1998

Now, when you look at baptism in the New Testament, you’re going to come across some other baptisms that are not water baptisms—there are times when the word baptizo is dry. There are times when the word baptizo isn’t talking about water at all, but we use it that way. We talk about people going through a baptism of fire, right? We mean, by that, that he was immersed in a very difficult situation. John the Baptist talked about a baptism of fire in John, chapter 3. What he was talking about was the immersing of unbelievers in the full fury of God’s fiery wrath.

There is a baptism by Christ, with the Holy Spirit, into the body of Christ, I Corinthians 12, "We’ve all been baptized with the Holy Spirit into the body of Christ." When you became a Christian, you were immersed into the communion of the redeemed. So, there is the immersing of the believer into the body of Christ. There is the immersing of the unbeliever into the full fury and wrath of God under which he is completely submerged.

In I Corinthians, chapter 10, verse 2, it says, "The children of Israel were immersed into Moses." It’s talking about solidarity. They were joined unto Moses in his leadership. What he did, they did. What he said, they followed. They literally…he was their leader and they were immersed into Moses. Where he went, they went. You could say, "I was immersed in my work. I was immersed in thought." Those kinds of expressions don’t necessarily refer to water, but they refer to using the idea of water as a metaphor for being engulfed in something. So, there are times in the New Testament, when you read about a baptism, that isn’t a baptism by water; there are other times when, of course, it is as we’ve seen—a baptism by water.

2. What has been the history of baptism? How are we to understand its history?

Well, let’s go back, before the New Testament and we’ll get at least a portion of the history of baptism. There were a number of washings in Israel, a number of cleansings and ceremonial washings of the hands that the priests went through and the people went through and the washing of pots and things like that…that were certain kinds of immersings were necessary that depict cleansing.

But, Christian baptism has at least one very important sort of a precursor and that is Judaistic proselyte baptism. Before the New Testament…let’s say a Gentile had come to the knowledge of the true God. Now, he would have to go through a three-stage ceremony… the Jews had developed a ceremony by which a proselyte would enter into privilege in the covenant community.

First of all, the first phase is called mela (sp.) and that amounted to circumcision. Because circumcision was a God-ordained sign, any male who came in, even in an adult, would need to be circumcised. He would need, therefore, to identify himself with the people of God by this unique circumcision ceremony.

The second thing that would happen to him, would be tebula (sp.)—mela (sp.) was the first one, tebula (sp.) was the second one—and that was an immersion. He would be dunked in water, submerged in water, in order to demonstrate this—this is what they said—it was to demonstrate that they were dead as to their old life. They were dead as to their old customs, their old habits, their old traditions, most of all their old idolatry, and their old iniquity. That was now gone; they were burying it. That submersion into water depicted the death of that old life. They would come out of that water, having arisen to walk in a cleansed and new life with God’s community—God’s family.

The third part of that three-phase induction of a Gentile into the people of God, was called corban (sp.) and it had to do with the sacrificial animal. They were to bring an animal to be slaughtered and the reason for the slaughtering of the animal was to remind that Gentile that their forgiveness—the forgiveness of their sin…they were coming into the community of God’s people…they were repenting and confessing the true and living God—that forgiveness of sin which God would grant to them would only come to them through death. So, here was the death of a substitute animal to picture the fact that there would have to be a substitute to die for their sins. So, any Gentile who wanted to come in, would be circumcised, would be immersed, and would have to offer a blood sacrifice which was an open confession that their sin was going to require the death of a substitute. That, of course, looked forward to the Messiah who was that substitute.

Now, into this Jewish community comes John the Baptist and John comes preaching, and he comes preaching repentance, and then, he comes baptizing. That’s not surprising. That’s not surprising that John would come baptizing; they were used to that; they had gone through the ceremony; they were used to seeing people baptized, but what was shocking—what was devastating, what was remarkable—was that John the Baptist was asking Jews to be baptized. It was an amazing thing. He was in effect saying to them, you are as what? You’re as Gentiles. You’re outside the covenant, you’re without hope in the world, you’re without God, you need to be immersed as a symbol that you have died to the old life, been washed, and brought into the cleansed family of God.

But, here comes John the Baptist and he says to them, "You need to be immersed!" and he’s treating them as if they are in the same condition as Gentiles outside the covenant. But, you know what? He preached repentance and he must have been a powerful preacher because he was very convincing and people began to repent, didn’t they? They really began to repent; this is a powerful man.

But, all Israel was coming out there and here were all these people who basically were being redefined as if they were Gentiles—outside the covenant, outside the promise, outside the hope, outside salvation, and needing to repent of their sin—died of the old life of legalism and self-righteousness and all the Judaistic trappings, and to come to the true understanding of their sin and cast themselves on the mercy of God, and go into this baptism as a symbol that they wanted a new life and they wanted to be ready for the Messiah. So, he preached repentance and righteousness and he called for people to turn from iniquity to holiness, from the old life to a new one. In order to symbolize it, he selected baptism and Matthew 3 shows him, in the first 8 verses, baptizing people. "They were confessing their sins," it says, and they were confessing that they were worthy of death, they were worthy of burial, and they needed a new life, and that was depicted in their immersion. So, the baptism of John the Baptist really did mark a turning point in the heart of a sinful Jew who wanted to be ready to face the Messiah and knew he wasn’t.