Baptism debates are constantly rumbling through the Christian church. Who are the proper recipients of baptism? Should baptism be performed by total submersion, or is pouring water over the head a proper baptism? Does God genuinely do something in baptism, or is it a wet testimony of the faith that I have professed in Christ that accomplishes anything regarding forgiveness of sins, union with Christ, or the reception of the Spirit? Is baptism the work of God or the work of man?
Another debate that sometimes arises when discussing baptism is whether genuine baptism is visible or invisible. Some will say that real baptism is the invisible baptism of the Spirit. Visible water baptism is only an inert witness to this invisible baptism. Scriptures such as Romans 6 are approached with presuppositions that deny the possibility that in water baptism, we truly are buried with Christ into his death and are raised by the glory of the Father (Rom 6:4). “Water can’t do that. Paul is referring to a “spiritual baptism,” by which they mean an invisible baptism, a baptism performed by the Spirit in conversion apart from water.
For this presupposition, these proponents may call John the Baptizer to witness. He baptizes with water, but there is one coming after him who will baptize with the Holy Spirit (Jn 1:32-34; cf. also Mt 3:11; Mk 1:8; Lk 3:16). The contrast is obvious. John baptizes with mere water. Jesus will baptize with the Spirit, the same Spirit that descended from heaven and rested on him in the form of a dove at his baptism.
The initial and great baptism of the Spirit of which John speaks happened at Pentecost. The Temple, which is Jesus’ body, was destroyed and rebuilt in three days (Jn 2:19). As God did with the Tabernacle and Solomon’s Temple, he vindicated this Temple by sending his glory and lighting the altar fire. The altars are the disciples of Christ, members of his body, upon whom the tongues of fire sit. Jesus is baptizing with the Spirit and fire.
See, there is no water.
Not quite. At the end of his sermon, Peter calls the people to repentance and tells them to be baptized for the forgiveness of their sins so that they may receive the gift of the Spirit (Ac 2:38). The way they receive the Spirit is through baptism.
The contrast that John is making is not a wet v. dry baptism but a type v. antitype, shadows v. reality baptism. Baptisms are everywhere in the Hebrew Scriptures, beginning with creation. God creates through water. According to Peter, the flood of Noah’s day was a baptism (1 Pt 3:18-22). Passing through the Red Sea was a baptism, according to Paul (1 Cor 10:1-4). Baptism from the bronze laver was an integral part of the Tabernacle and Temple worship. John’s baptism is something of the apex and culmination of all those baptisms. They were baptisms that anticipated the baptism to come. The priest, climbing up to retrieve water “above the firmament” in the bronze laver to bring it down to baptize, looked forward to baptism with waters from above. They were all types and shadows. They were sufficient for the time, but they were not God’s final word concerning baptism.
Jesus is the first to be baptized from above, and his baptism from above happens when John baptizes him in the Jordan River. The Spirit is not scared of water. He is the one who hovers over the original creation waters and uses them to form and fill the creation. On the second day of creation, he took waters from the earth and put them above the firmament in heaven. One day in the future, he would join heaven and earth by pouring out these waters from above. This is what he begins to do at Jesus’ baptism.
Jesus receives the Spirit in his baptism. We receive the Spirit by being baptized into Christ’s body, the church. This is what Peter means in Acts 2 when he says that we receive the gift of the Spirit in baptism. Baptism unites us to the body of Christ, where the Spirit lives. To be a part of the body of Christ is to live in the realm of the Spirit. In our water baptism, we receive the waters from above, uniting us with heaven in a way that John’s baptism never could. We are united with heaven in baptism because we are united with the Word made flesh, the one who joins heaven to earth in his body.
John’s contrast is not wet v. dry but shadow v. reality. Baptism is still water, but it descends with the Spirit from heaven.
