The One Baptism

We have said what our modest ability allowed about the general matters that form the groundwork of the holiness of baptism. Now, again as far as I am able, I will go on to the rest of its character, taking up a few smaller questions. The baptism John announced was already a matter of dispute in its own day. The Lord himself put the question to the Pharisees: was that baptism heavenly, or merely earthly? They were unable to give a steady answer, because they did not understand — and they did not understand because they did not believe. But we, with as poor a measure of understanding as we have of faith, can still settle it. That baptism was divine in respect of the command, though not in respect of power; for we read that John was sent by the Lord to do this work. Yet in its own nature it was human. It conveyed nothing from heaven; it only prepared the way for heavenly things, since it was appointed over repentance, and repentance lies within a person’s own power. In fact the teachers of the law and the Pharisees, who were unwilling to believe, did not repent either. [a]

But if repentance is a human thing, its baptism must be of the same nature. Otherwise, if it had been heavenly, it would have given both the Holy Spirit and the forgiveness of sins. But no one pardons sins or freely grants the Spirit except God alone. The Lord himself said that the Spirit would come down on no other terms than that he should first go up to the Father. What the Lord was not yet conferring, the servant certainly could not supply. And so, in the Acts of the Apostles, we find that men who had John’s baptism had not received the Holy Spirit — they had not so much as heard of him. That, then, was no heavenly thing, since it furnished nothing heavenly. And the one thing in John that was heavenly — the Spirit of prophecy — failed so completely, once the whole Spirit had passed over to the Lord, that John presently sent to ask whether the man he had himself preached, the man he had pointed out when he came to him, really was the one.

And so “the baptism of repentance” was handled as though it were a candidate for the forgiveness and the setting apart that were shortly to follow in Christ. When John used to preach “baptism for the forgiveness of sins,” the statement was made with an eye to a forgiveness still to come — if it is true, as it is, that repentance comes first and forgiveness after. That is what “preparing the way” means. But the man who prepares does not himself finish; he gets things ready for another to finish. John himself admits that the heavenly things are not his but Christ’s. He says, “The one who is from the earth speaks about the earth; the one who comes from above is above all.” And he says again that he baptized in repentance only, but that one was coming shortly who would baptize in the Spirit and fire — of course because true and steady faith is baptized with water, for salvation, while pretended and weak faith is baptized with fire, for judgment.

But here is the objection some people make: “Look — the Lord came and did not baptize. We read, ‘He himself did not baptize; his disciples did.’” As if John had actually preached that he would baptize with his own hands! Of course his words are not to be understood that way. They were spoken in the ordinary manner of speech, just as we say, “The emperor set forth an edict,” or, “The prefect had him beaten.” Does the emperor set it forth in person, or the prefect swing the club? A man whose officers do a thing is always said to do it himself. So “He will baptize you” has to be taken as standing for “Through him,” or “Into him, you will be baptized.” [h]

And let it trouble no one that “he himself did not baptize.” Into what was he to baptize? Into repentance? Then what use do you make of his forerunner? Into forgiveness of sins, which he used to give with a word? Into himself, whom he was keeping hidden by his humility? Into the Holy Spirit, who had not yet come down from the Father? Into the church, which his apostles had not yet founded? And so it was with the very same “baptism of John” that his disciples used to baptize, as his ministers, the baptism John had used before as forerunner. Let no one think it was some other baptism, because no other exists, except that of Christ, which came later — and which at that time could not be given by his disciples, since the Lord’s glory had not yet been fully reached, nor the power of the washing established through the passion and the resurrection. For our death cannot be undone except by the Lord’s passion, nor our life restored without his resurrection.

When, however, the rule is laid down that “without baptism no one can reach salvation” — chiefly on the strength of the Lord’s own words, “Unless a man is born of water, he does not have life” — some people at once raise anxious, or rather reckless, doubts: “How, on that rule, is salvation within reach of the apostles? Apart from Paul, we do not find any of them baptized in the Lord. And since Paul is the only one of them who has put on the clothing of Christ’s baptism, either all the rest, who lack the water of Christ, are prejudged to be in danger, so that the rule may stand — or else the rule is cancelled, if salvation has been appointed even for the unbaptized.” I have heard doubts of that kind — the Lord is my witness. I say so in case anyone imagines me so far gone as to think up such ideas unprovoked, in the license of my own pen, and so put a scruple into other people’s minds. [j]

Now, as far as I am able, I will answer those who claim that the apostles were unbaptized. Suppose they had undergone the human baptism of John and were longing for the Lord’s. Then, since the Lord himself defined baptism as one — saying to Peter, who wanted to be washed all over, “The man who has once bathed has no need to wash a second time,” which he certainly would not have said to a man who was not baptized — even here we have a plain proof against those who, in order to destroy the sacred rite of water, take even John’s baptism away from the apostles. Can it seem credible that “the way of the Lord,” which is John’s baptism, had not been “prepared” in the very men who were being appointed to open the Lord’s way throughout the whole world? The Lord himself was baptized, though no repentance was owed by him. Was baptism not necessary for sinners? As for the fact that others were not baptized — those men were no companions of Christ, but enemies of the faith: teachers of the law and Pharisees. And from that a further suggestion may be gathered. Since the Lord’s opponents refused to be baptized, those who followed the Lord were baptized, and were not of the same mind as their rivals — especially since, if there was anyone they clung to, the Lord had ranked John above him, testifying, “Among those born of women there is none greater than John the Baptist.”

Others make a suggestion, and a plainly forced one: that the apostles served the purpose of baptism at the time when, in their little boat, they were sprinkled and covered over by the waves, and that Peter himself was immersed enough when he walked on the sea. But it is one thing, I think, to be sprinkled, or caught, by the violence of the sea, and another to be baptized because the discipline of our religion requires it. That little boat did, however, present a figure of the church, disquieted in the sea — that is, in the world — by the waves, that is, by persecutions and trials, while the Lord in his patience seems to be asleep, until at the last extremity he is roused by the prayers of his holy ones, checks the world, and gives his own people calm again.

Now whether they were baptized in some manner or other, or whether they stayed unwashed to the end — so that even that saying of the Lord about the one bath, spoken to Peter, merely concerns us — it is bold enough, all the same, to settle the question of the apostles’ salvation. On them the privilege of being the first chosen, and after that of unbroken closeness, might well have been able to confer the grace of baptism by a short road, seeing that they, I think, followed the one who used to promise salvation to every believer. “Your faith,” he would say, “has saved you”; and, “Your sins will be forgiven you” — on your believing, of course, even though you are not yet baptized. If that was lacking to the apostles, then I do not know in the faith of what things it was that, roused by one word of the Lord, one man left the tax booth behind for good; another walked away from his father and his boat and the trade he lived by; and a third, who thought little of his father’s funeral rites, carried out, before he had heard it, that highest command of the Lord: “Whoever prefers father or mother to me is not worthy of me.”

Here, then, is where those wretched people raise their questions. They say: “Baptism is not necessary for people whom faith is enough for. Abraham, after all, pleased God by a pledge that was not of water but of faith.” But in every case it is the later things that have conclusive force, and what comes after prevails over what came before. Grant that in days gone by there was salvation by bare faith, before the Lord’s suffering and resurrection. But now that faith has been enlarged, and has become a faith that believes in his birth, his suffering and his resurrection, something has been added to that pledge: the sealing act of baptism — the clothing, in a way, of a faith that was bare before and cannot now exist without its proper law. [q]

For the law of baptizing has been imposed and the wording prescribed: “Go, teach the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” Set beside this law that definition — “Unless a man has been born again of water and Spirit, he will not enter the kingdom of the heavens” — and faith has been tied to the necessity of baptism. And so from then on all who became believers used to be baptized. That was when Paul too was baptized, once he believed; and this is the meaning of the command the Lord had given him when he was struck with the plague of blindness: “Get up and go into Damascus; there it will be shown you what you ought to do” — that is, be baptized, the one thing still lacking to him. Apart from that, he had learned and believed well enough that “the Nazarene” was “the Lord, the Son of God.”

But they roll back an objection taken from that same apostle, since he said, “Christ did not send me to baptize” — as if by this argument baptism were done away with! If so, why did he baptize Gaius, and Crispus, and the household of Stephanas? And even if Christ had not sent him to baptize, he had given the other apostles the command to baptize. But these words were written to the Corinthians about the circumstances of that particular moment, when divisions and quarrels were being stirred up among them, one man crediting everything to Paul, another to Apollos. That is why the peacemaking apostle, for fear he should seem to claim every gift for himself, says he was sent “not to baptize, but to preach.” Preaching comes first; baptizing comes after. So the preaching came first — but I think that baptizing was lawful too for the man to whom preaching was. [t]

I do not know whether any further point is raised to bring baptism into controversy. Let me recall something I passed over above, so that I do not seem to break off in the middle the run of thoughts still coming. There is for us one baptism, and only one, both according to the Lord’s gospel and according to the apostle’s letters, since he says, “One God, and one baptism, and one church in the heavens.” [u]

Still, it must be granted that the question is worth treating: what rules are to be kept with regard to heretics? For it is to us that the statement about one baptism refers. Heretics, however, have no share in our discipline; the plain fact that they have been cut off from communion shows them to be outsiders. I am not bound to recognize in them a thing that is enjoined on me, because they and we do not have the same God, nor one — that is, the same — Christ. And so their baptism is not one with ours either, because it is not the same. Since they do not have it properly, they doubtless do not have it at all; and what is not had cannot be counted. So they cannot receive it either, because they do not have it. But this point has already had a fuller discussion from us in Greek.

So we enter the washing once; sins are washed away once, because they ought never to be repeated. But the Jew of Israel bathes every day, because he is defiled every day; and it was to keep that from being practiced among us as well that the rule about the one bathing was laid down. Happy water, which washes away once for all — which does not mock sinners, and which is not infected by repeated filth, so that it never defiles again the people it has washed!

We have, in fact, a second washing as well, itself one with the first: a washing of blood. The Lord spoke of it when he had already been baptized: “I have a baptism to be baptized with.” [x]

For he had come “by means of water and blood,” just as John has written, so that he might be baptized by the water and glorified by the blood; and so that we, in the same way, might be called by water and chosen by blood. These two baptisms he sent out from the wound in his pierced side, so that those who believed in his blood might be washed with the water, and those who had been washed in the water might also drink the blood. This is the baptism which stands in place of the washing with water when that has not been received, and which restores it when it has been lost.

To bring this small subject to a close, it remains to remind you also of the right way of giving and receiving baptism. The right of giving it belongs to the high priest, who is the overseer; then to the elders and deacons, yet not without the overseer’s authority, for the sake of the church’s honor — and where that honor is preserved, peace is preserved. Beyond these, even laymen have the right, for what is equally received can be equally given. Unless overseers, or elders, or deacons are on the spot, other disciples are called to the work. The word of the Lord ought not to be kept hidden by anyone; and in the same way baptism, which belongs equally to God, can be administered by all. [z]

But how much more is the rule of reverence and restraint binding on laymen, seeing that these powers belong to their superiors — so that they may not take to themselves the function set apart for the overseer! Rivalry over the overseer’s office is the mother of divisions. The most holy apostle has said that “all things are lawful, but not all are useful.” Let it be enough, then, to fall back on that right in cases of necessity, if at any time the circumstances of place, or of time, or of person compel you. For then the steady courage of the rescuer is exceptionally allowable, when the situation of the person in danger is urgent, since he will be guilty of losing a human being if he holds back from bestowing what he was free to bestow.

But that impudent woman, who has usurped the power to teach, will certainly not give birth to a right of baptizing for herself as well — unless some new beast comes along like the last one, so that, just as the first abolished baptism, some other should confer it in her own right. And if the writings that wrongly go under Paul’s name claim Thecla’s example as a license for women to teach and to baptize, let them know that in Asia the elder who composed that writing, as though he were adding to Paul’s fame out of his own store, was convicted, confessed that he had done it out of love for Paul, and was removed from his office. For how credible would it seem that the man who would not permit a woman even to learn with too much boldness should give a woman the power of teaching and of baptizing! “Let them be silent,” he says, “and consult their own husbands at home.”