Before I became a Christian, I met many Christians who told me that if I wanted to be saved I must be “born again”. At the time I had no idea what they meant – except that they often seemed to use that phrase to refer to some highly charged spiritual experience they had had in the past, which induced them to make a personal decision to accept Jesus as their saviour. I assumed that they must be right – though at the time I did not know, or care, what the scriptural basis for their interpretation of this phrase meant. It confused me, for there seemed to be many Christians who did not refer to themselves as “born again”, and who, moreover, seemed somewhat embarrassed by the way the “born agains” used the term.
Nobody, out of either camp, ever tried to explain to me exactly what Scripture does say about being born again. The “born agains” sometimes quoted a verse which says, “No-one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again” (Jn. 3:3). But none of them could explain to me why this necessarily meant having some kind of pinpointable personal religious experience: in fact, that verse didn’t seem to me to say what being “born again” actually is! In point of fact, I did one day have an overwhelming personal religious experience which induced me to make a decision to accept Jesus as my saviour. But is that the sum total of what being “born again” means? Let’s see what the Bible says.
Jesus declared, “I tell you the
truth, no-one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.”
“How can a man be born when he is
old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother’s
womb to be born!”
Jesus answered, “I tell you the
truth, no-one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the
Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to Spirit. You
should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows
where it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from
or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” (Jn. 3:3-8)
It is interesting that Nicodemus is baffled by Jesus’s first bald statement. So was I when I heard it from my Evangelical interlocutors. The difference is that Jesus actually gives Nicodemus an answer, and it isn’t “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he has an overwhelming religious experience”! Nor even does Jesus say, “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he consciously accepts me as his personal Lord and Saviour”! No, Jesus gives a quite different answer. Instead He explains, “No-one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit.” Whatever can He mean?
We have not mentioned water much since Chapter Nine, when we listed some of the most prominent “signs” which appear throughout the Bible. We have spent a lot of time talking about flesh and blood, bread and wine; now it is time to talk about water.
Water and the Spirit
If we are to understand what the ancient Christians made of the idea of being born of water and the Spirit, we need first to put ourselves in their mindset as they read the Scriptures. We know by now that the ancients read their Bibles typologically: they saw the whole of God’s word as presenting to them a series of “types” and “antitypes”: networks of images which illuminated each other, stretching throughout salvation history. We saw in Chapter Three that issues of literalism and allegory were not interpreted the same way as they often are today: the greater reality lies in Heaven, and so it is often allegory, unshackled from the demands of literal meaning, which actually helps us to come closest to eternal truth. We also saw in Chapter Ten that the ancients did not draw clear lines of division between earthly symbols and divine realities: those holy symbols which God has made and presented to us in this world are in communion with those holy things in Heaven of which they are symbols or images or antitypes. Christ holds all these things together (Col. 1:17), because He is the Word made flesh.
If this is the framework which the ancients applied to their understanding of Scripture, how specifically did they approach the great sign of water? One New Testament writer who deals with this question head-on is Peter:
Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit, through whom also he went and preached to the spirits in prison who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water, and this water symbolises [antitypon] baptism which now saves you also – not the removal of dirt from the body but a response of a good conscience towards God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at God’s right hand. (1 Pet.3:18-22)
Now, we have dealt with some difficult verses already in this book, but perhaps this is one of the most challenging. I think it is up there with “this is my body” (Matt. 26:26, Mk. 14:22, Lk. 22:19, 1 Cor. 11:24), or “the pillar and foundation of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15). It is even more challenging because Peter is as uncompromising, and as un-modern, about his interpretation of the Old Covenant as he is about the New. Note the two strange and wondrous things he says: first, “in [the ark] only a few people... were saved through water;” next, “this water symbolises baptism which now saves you.”
My dear Baptist missionary friend who helped me with the early drafts of this book, upon reading my first version of Chapter Three, advised me:
Is it wise to include the reference to the days of Noah from 1 Peter 3:20? The interpretation of this verse is much controverted among Protestants; do Catholics not find anything puzzling about it? I'm afraid that using it here might make some people say, “Aha! Those tricky Catholics are still trying to promote baptismal regeneration! [or salvation through baptism].” Maybe you could just cut off the quotation after “this water symbolises baptism” and thus finesse the problem. [1]
My friend’s concerns were well-meant, and perhaps wise. But of course the problem is not just that Catholics (tricky though we may be!) are “still trying to promote salvation through baptism”; the problem is that this is exactly what Peter says: “baptism which now saves you also”. And then he says it again: baptism “saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ”!
So, do Catholics not find anything “puzzling” about this verse? Well, it depends. “Puzzling” is perhaps not the best word, because it implies that the puzzle can be solved. In that sense, I don’t think it is helpful to think about this verse as a puzzle – for we will never “solve” it. “Mysterious” is perhaps a better word: this verse is deeply mysterious, in the best possible way. And we cannot begin to approach this mystery without first accepting in faith the words of Peter and then working from there. Peter makes his case unequivocally, and it is made even more inescapable by the fact that he says the same thing about both Noah and Christ. Noah and his family were “saved through water”; baptism “saves us also”. The biblical testimony is stark: we cannot escape it. But how can it be true?
Keep Peter’s words about Noah and the flood in mind for a while, and now compare them with another great water typos: the passing through the Red Sea:
I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers, that our forefathers were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea. They were all baptised into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ... Now these things occurred as examples [typoi] to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things. (1 Cor. 10:1-4,6)
Baptised into Moses in the cloud and the sea? Well, that’s a tough one, isn’t it? How can anyone be baptised into Moses? And how can anyone be baptised “in the cloud”? Again, we will only make progress in our understanding of this mystery if we accept Paul’s analysis: “These things occurred as typoi”. So, if we want to understand what Paul is saying about Moses, or Peter about Noah, we need to approach these passages typologically: we need to examine not just the “plain” meaning of these passages in isolation, but we need to look at the networks of images they conjure up in the mind of a Jewish Christian steeped in Scripture.
First, then, we need to recognise that Paul here is echoing (or perhaps anticipating) both Peter’s letter and John’s account of Jesus’s words to Nicodemus. For in the context of Exodus which Paul is discussing, “cloud” means nothing less than God’s Shekhinah. We have not mentioned cloud much since Chapter Nine. There we saw that the Israelites are led through the desert by a pillar of cloud (Ex. 13:21-22), and that God comes to Mount Sinai (Ex. 19:9) and to the Tent of Meeting (Ex. 33:9-10) in a cloud. The cloud marks out the Tabernacle (Ex. 40:34-38), and later the Temple (1 Kgs. 8:10, 2 Chr. 5:14), as God’s dwelling-place. The cloud indicates God’s presence: it is a visible sign of His breath – in Hebrew, ruakh, spirit. So when Paul speaks about “the cloud and the sea”, he is directly echoing Jesus’s words: “water and the Spirit” (Jn. 3:5).
Elsewhere in the Bible, other ways of expressing these paired signs, water and the Spirit, are used in connection with baptism. After Jesus’ baptism by John, He sees “the Spirit of God descending like a dove” (Matt. 3:16, cf. Mk. 1:10, Lk. 3:22, Jn. 1:32-33). Water and the dove represent, once again, water and the Spirit. Peter, when talking about Noah’s salvation “through water”, uses the same symbol, the dove – even though without directly mentioning it. He doesn’t need to, for both he and we know the story of Noah, and how after the flood the arrival of the dove with an olive leaf in its beak signals the end of the flood and the beginning of the renewal of the world (Gen. 8:10-11). The flood and the dove: water and the Spirit.
We saw in Chapter Nine that when the Bible says the same thing several times over in different ways, we are probably looking at a concept which is not just a one-off, but which represents a coherent theology. And so let us examine the parallelisms between all these passages:
1 Pet. 3:20 “a
few people… were saved through water…”
1 Cor. 10:2 “they
were all baptised into Moses in the cloud and in the sea”
Jn. 3:5 “no-one can enter the kingdom… unless
he is born of water and the Spirit”
1 Pet. 3:21 “now saves you also” “baptism”
What these passages all have in common is their insistence that the process of salvation involves water and the Spirit. Water and the Spirit are part of God’s chosen means to save His people. Why water and the Spirit? Because this is how God creates. At the first Creation, “the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters” (Gen. 1:2). The “waters” are the raw material of Creation: they represent unformed matter, the world as it is on the first day, before God has done His work on it. This first Creation is accompanied throughout by the constant refrain of God’s word, his breath (ruakh/Spirit): “Let there be…” and “God saw that it was good” – culminating in the creation of Adam, into whom God breathes His Spirit (Gen. 2:7).
As with the first Creation, so with the second. Adam is a “type” of Jesus Christ (Rom. 5:14, 1 Cor. 15:45). Christ is the new Adam, and so His revelation to the world in baptism is also achieved by the Spirit of God hovering over the waters (Matt. 3:16, Mk. 1:10, Lk. 3:22, Jn. 1:32-33). He comes to make us a new Creation (2 Cor. 5:17), to remake us in His likeness (2 Cor. 3:18, Col. 3:10, 2 Pet. 1:4). We are made anew in exactly the same way that God creates Heaven and earth: by water and the Spirit.
Thus the stories of Noah’s ark and the crossing of the Red Sea are both links between the Old Creation and the New. In the story of the flood, the world is purified of sin by water. Humanity, in the person of Noah and his family, is “saved through water”, attended by the Holy Spirit, symbolised by a dove. Crossing the Red Sea, the people of Israel are “baptised into Moses in the cloud and in the sea”. They are thereby saved from slavery to their enemies and proceed on their journey to the Promised Land. Throughout history, therefore, God creates and re-creates, saves His people, and admits them to His kingdom, through water and the Spirit. Is it too much to think that He continues to do so today, through baptism – as Jesus, John and Peter all say?
It is understandable that this understanding of baptism can be hard to accept. For, it may be argued, if indeed we believe that baptism “saves” us, then that can raise all sorts of spectres: of people “getting baptised” in order to secure their salvation, without any heed to faith or love and even good deeds; or, conversely, claims that those who are not baptised will go to Hell regardless of their faith. Doesn’t this contradict the biblical idea of salvation through faith? Well, let us unpick some of these issues, and see.
Process and product
I would suggest that the ancient understanding of baptism which we have outlined above makes good sense if we have a sound concept of what salvation is. And so let us think over some of the conclusions we came to in Chapters Seven and Eight, when we discussed the ways in which God saves us.
First, remember that salvation is a process, an on-going journey. If we insist upon salvation occurring at a single pinpointable moment in the Christian journey, then any claim that baptism “saves” us becomes untenable. However, we have seen that there is a strong biblical testimony to the effect that salvation is journey, not an over-in-a-moment single event: it demands and entails faith, trust, loyalty, duty, commitment and perseverance. In the Old Testament, the Exodus is the greatest image of this process, a long and complex journey of faith from slavery to the Promised Land – and there is no doubt that “baptism” (1 Cor. 10:2) is an essential part of that journey.
In the New Testament, salvation vocabulary occurs in great “bunches” of concepts, as we saw in Chapters Seven and Eight:
But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. (1 Cor. 6:11)
Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. (Eph. 5:25-27)
He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Saviour, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life. (Tit. 3:5-7)
In all these verses Paul describes the process of salvation by routinely mixing together and juxtaposing words such as “washed”/”washing”, “cleansing”, “word”, “Spirit”, “sanctified”, “justified”, “saved”, “rebirth”, “renewal”, “grace”, “hope”, “holy”, “blameless”. Peter does likewise in this passage:
Make every effort to add to your
faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and
to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness,
brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. For if you possess these
qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and
unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But if anyone does not
have them, he is short-sighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been
cleansed of his past sins.
Therefore, my brothers, be
Here “cleansed”, “calling”, “election”, “welcome”, “faith”, “goodness”, “knowledge” and “love” are explicitly linked: they are all essential parts of the salvation process.
From our examination above of the symbolism of water, we can now see that these writers’ use of the words “washed” or “washing” or “cleansed” is possibly not purely symbolic: Paul and Peter are referring, amongst many other things, to the washing/cleansing in water which takes place at baptism. Put these quotes next to the ones we looked at above, and the parallelism becomes clear:
1 Pet. 3:20 “a
few people… were saved through water…”
1 Cor. 10:2 “they
were all baptised into Moses in the cloud and in the sea”
Jn. 3:5 “no-one
can enter the kingdom… unless he is born of water and the Spirit”
1 Pet. 3:21 “now saves you also” “baptism”
Tit. 3:5-7 “He saved us… through the washing of rebirth and… the… Spirit”
1 Cor. 6:11 “sanctified… justified… in… Christ” “washed…
by the Spirit of our God…”
Eph. 5:26-27 “to make
her holy and blameless” “cleansing… washing… water… word”
2 Pet. 1:5-11 “calling…
election… rich welcome” “cleansed of his past sins”
Again and again, we see this scriptural pattern: words and phrases like “saved”, “sanctified”, “justified”, “rebirth”, “election”, “born again”, and “enter the kingdom” on the one hand are intimately associated with “water and the Spirit”, “cloud and the sea”, “washed… by the Spirit”, “cleansed”, “washing with water” on the other. The spiritual realities and the material symbols are joined. Baptism in water and the Spirit is an integral part of the process of salvation, of our cleansing from sin, which itself entails and demands faith, perseverance, and love. Baptism is not a substitute for these things. Nor does it, on its own, divorced from the rest of our faith journey, guarantee salvation. But it is a God-given part of the salvation process. That is why Peter, at the first Pentecost, preached neither: “Repent, for the forgiveness of sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit,” nor: “Be baptised, for the forgiveness of sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit,” but:
“Repent and be baptised, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” (Acts 2:38, my emphasis)
And so, when Ananias says to Paul in Damascus, “Get up and be baptised, and wash your sins away, calling on His name” (Acts 22:16), he is speaking more plainly than perhaps we may imagine. For Ananias, and for Paul who told this story, and for Luke who told Paul’s story, baptism involves a washing away of sins.
The sceptic may demur that this interpretation of “washing” and “cleansing” as referring to baptism is by no means inescapable. Couldn’t Peter and Paul, and Ananias and Luke, and Jesus and John for that matter, have been using these words purely metaphorically? Once again, yes, of course that is possible. But we have seen already how alien the concept of “pure metaphor” was to the ancients. And the possibility recedes to almost nil when we begin to read the writings of those early Christians who followed in the footsteps of these first disciples. Here is our old friend Justin Martyr (c. 100-165 A.D.), whom we met in Chapter Ten, describing baptism in the middle of the second century, i.e. within c. 50 years of “Bible times”:
Then they are brought by us where there is water, and are
regenerated in the same manner in which we were ourselves regenerated. For, in
the name of God, the Father and Lord of the universe, and of our Saviour Jesus
Christ, and of the Holy Spirit, they then receive the washing with water. For Christ
also said, “Except ye be born again, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven”
[Jn. 3:5]. Now, that it is impossible for those who have once been born to
enter into their mothers’ wombs, is manifest to all. And how those who have sinned
and repent shall escape their sins, is declared by Esaias the prophet, as I
wrote above; he thus speaks: “Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your
doings from your souls; learn to do well; judge the fatherless, and plead for
the widow: and come and let us reason together, saith the Lord. And though your
sins be as scarlet, I will make them white like wool; and though they be as crimson,
I will make them white as snow” [Is. 1:16-18]…
And for this [rite] we have learned from the apostles this
reason… In order that we may not remain the children of necessity and of ignorance,
but may become the children of choice and knowledge, and may obtain in the water
the remission of sins formerly committed, there is pronounced over him who
chooses to be born again, and has repented of his sins, the name of God the
Father and Lord of the universe. [2]
Justin is clear: As far as he is concerned, baptism is part of a process of “regeneration”, being “born again”, “making you clean”, “putting away evil”, and “remission of sins”. Elsewhere he refers to baptism as “the washing that is for the remission of sins, and unto regeneration”. [3] He is using exactly the same vocabulary as Paul and Peter and John (and Ananias and Luke). Since he has clearly inherited their baptismal vocabulary, it is not unreasonable to guess that he may have inherited their baptismal theology: “washing” and “cleansing” and “being born again”, for Justin, as for his Christian predecessors, refer to that salvation journey which is rooted in baptism.
A generation later, Irenaeus (c. 120-202 A.D.), that great scourge of heretics, had this to say about baptism:
For as a compacted lump of dough cannot be formed of dry wheat without fluid matter, nor can a loaf possess unity, so, in like manner, neither could we, being many, be made one in Christ Jesus without the water from heaven. And as dry earth does not bring forth unless it receive moisture, in like manner we also, being originally a dry tree, could never have brought forth fruit unto life without the voluntary rain from above. For our bodies have received unity among themselves by means of that laver which leads to incorruption; but our souls, by means of the Spirit. Wherefore both are necessary, since both contribute towards the life of God. [4]
We are made clean, by means of the sacred water and the invocation of the Lord, from our old transgressions; being spiritually regenerated as new-born babes, even as the Lord has declared: “Except a man be born again through water and the Spirit, he shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven” [Jn. 3:5] [5]
The consistency of early Christian thought on the subject of baptism is clear. From Jesus to John, to Ananias, Paul and Peter, to Justin, to Irenaeus: they all say the same thing:
Jn. 3:5 “no-one
can enter the kingdom… unless he is born of water and the Spirit”
Acts 2:38 “forgiveness of your sins” “Repent
and be baptised… gift of the Holy Spirit”
Acts
22:16 “wash away your sins” “be
baptised”
Tit. 3:5-7 “He saved us… through the washing of rebirth and… the… Spirit”
1 Cor. 6:11 “sanctified… justified… in… Christ” “washed… by the Spirit of our God…”
Eph. 5:26-27 “to make
her holy and blameless” “cleansing… washing… water… word”
1 Pet. 3:21 “now saves you also” “baptism”
2 Pet. 1:5-11 “calling…
election… rich welcome” “cleansed of his past sins”
Justin “regenerated” “the
washing of water” [6]
“remission of sins” “in
the water” [7]
“remission of sins… regeneration” “washing” [8]
Irenaeus “unity…
incorruption” “laver… by means of the Spirit” [9]
“made clean… regenerated” “spiritually… by means of the sacred water” [10]
Grace
If we are still struggling with the biblical notion that baptism “now saves us also”, then it may help us to remember another thing from Chapters Seven and Eight: that we are saved by grace. Salvation is a free gift from God. Therefore baptism, like every other aspect of the salvation process – like faith, like love, like good works – is a free gift from God. We have seen that there is no such thing as self-generated faith, or self-generated works of righteousness (Eph. 2:8-10). Similarly, there is no such thing as self-granted baptism. The biblical testimony of Paul is clear on this: “He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal of the Holy Spirit”; the justification we receive through baptism is “by his grace” (Tit. 3:5,7, my emphasis). And Jesus emphasises the sheer gratuity of the new birth by water and the Spirit by reminding us that “the wind [i.e. the Spirit] blows where it pleases… You cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit” (Jn. 3:8).
Why is the utter gratuity of baptism important? For the same reason that it is essential that we remember the utter gratuity of our salvation. If we forget that everything is gift, then we can pretend that our faith, or our works, merit God’s salvation. And if we forget that baptism too is gift, then we can fool ourselves into thinking that by merely getting baptised we can somehow merit salvation. But if we accept that all aspects of our salvation – faith, love, works, baptism etc. – come to us as God’s free gift, then we will not feel tempted to separate baptism from faith, or baptism from love, or baptism from good works: we will welcome them all from God – whenever and however and in whatever order He chooses to grant them to us.
This is why, from the earliest days, Christians have been happy to baptise the children of Christians. [11] Children, to be sure, are just at the beginning of their faith journey. They have little or no explicit faith in Christ. They most emphatically do not deserve baptism. But then think: Do we adults deserve baptism? The answer is no. Do I deserve baptism? Most certainly not. For both adults and children, baptism is an undeserved gift; that children can receive it too is a reminder to us adults that we too stand unworthy before God, dependent for everything upon His gracious mercy. If we resent the idea that God can grant baptism to children, then will we also resent the idea that God can grant faith to children, or that God can inspire children to works of love? No, children are baptised for exactly the same reason that adults are baptised: out of the sheer mercy of God. Cyprian (200-258 A.D.), episkopos of Carthage, puts it like this:
The mercy and grace of God is not to be refused to any one born of man… Among all, whether infants or those who are older, there is the same equality of the divine gift… If anything could hinder men from obtaining grace, their more heinous sins might rather hinder those who are mature and grown up and older. But again, if even to the greatest sinners, and to those who had sinned much against God, when they subsequently believed, remission of sins is granted – and nobody is hindered from baptism and from grace – how much rather ought we to shrink from hindering an infant, who, being lately born, has not sinned. [12]
Oikos
The tradition of infant baptism also reminds us of another aspect of our salvation which we have discussed in previous chapters: that we are not saved in isolation, but as part of a people, a household, God’s oikos. When God baptised Israel in the cloud and the sea (1 Cor. 10:2), was it because every individual Israelite deserved it? No. Was it because He knew that every single Israelite had faith in Him, would grow in that faith, stay the course, and definitely reach the Promised Land? No. God chose to baptise both the righteous and the unrighteous, both the faithful and the faithless, both the obedient and those whom He knew would rebel. He baptised them by grace, out of love for His chosen people. He baptised them together, because He knew they needed each other.
We too are His chosen people. If God chooses to baptise any one of us, He does so not merely out of love for us as individuals, but out of love for us as members of His household, which is the Body of His Son. How can this be? Because God knows that, just as we cannot be saved apart from Christ, we cannot not be saved apart from His Body. Because we are baptised in communion with the other members of His Body, other Christians’ faith journeys, in this world or the next, can be aided not just by our prayers, not just by our actions, not just by our faith, but also by our sacramental life. It is as John Donne recognises: “The church is Catholic, universal, so are all her actions; all that she does belongs to all. When she baptizes a child, that action concerns me; for that child is thereby connected to that body which is my head too, and ingrafted into that body whereof I am a member.” [13]
Does this sound unfair? Yes, it can, if we think of baptism either as a privilege extended only to individuals who have “earned” it by faith, or as a merely self-made act made by individuals who wish to demonstrate their faith. But then we are failing to accept the depth of God’s mercy. Mercy always seems unfair, especially to those who mistakenly feel that they “deserve” it. But mercy is never deserved; else it would not merit that title! If I resent the idea that those apparently short of faith can sometimes be baptised, then the chances are that I foolishly believe myself to have “enough” faith to “merit” baptism. I am attempting to “buy” baptism by my faith, and I am judging others’ faith in a manner which the Lord prohibits (Matt. 7:1-5, cf. Lk. 6:37-42). If on the other hand I recognise the depth of my own faithlessness, then I will instead stand at the Temple and say, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner” (Lk. 18:13). And I will rejoice in the knowledge of a God who has mercifully called me into His oikos, the Church – and extends the free gift of new birth even to me. Remember God’s words to the workers in the vineyard:
“My friend, I am not being unjust to you… Take your earnings and go… Have I no right to do what I like with my own? Why should you be envious because I am generous?” Thus the last will be first, and the first, last. (Matt. 20:13-16, NJB)
Reconciliation
Baptism is not, of course, the end of our faith journey; it is but part of the process. The Israelites, fresh from their “baptism” in the Red Sea, still had a long way to go to the Promised Land. Similarly with any Christian who has been granted baptism: like the Israelites in the desert, we will all stumble and fall, complain and rebel, many times on the way. Many times we will reject God’s laws and worship idols. What then? How does God deal with his “stiff-necked people” (Ex. 33:4, Deut. 9:6), whether under the Old Covenant or the New?
This was a difficult question for the early Christian Church, for the testimony of Scripture appears on first examination to be mixed. In Chapter Eight, we examined some passages which suggest that God’s mercy has its limits, and that there may come a point when God says that enough is enough, and the sinning Christian’s luck runs out:
I give you this instruction… so that by following them you may fight the good fight, holding on to faith and a good conscience. Some have rejected these and so have shipwrecked their faith. (1 Tim. 1:18-19)
If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire. (Heb. 10:26-27)
If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning. For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them. (2 Pet. 2:20-21)
There are other passages which suggest that, though God always punishes sinners in this world for their transgressions, they can eventually be reconciled with the community they have sinned against, and readmitted into the communio sanctorum:
Aaron turned towards [Miriam] and
saw that she had leprosy; and he said to Moses, “Please, my lord, do not hold
against us the sin we have so foolishly committed…”
So Moses cried out to the LORD,
“O God, please heal her!”
The LORD replied to Moses…,
“Confine her outside the camp for seven days; after that she can be brought
back.” So Miriam was confined outside the camp for seven days, and the people
did not move on till she was brought back. (Num. 12:10-11,13-15)
Most importantly, there are passages which tell us that, though individuals may sin against Him, and though they may be punished for doing so, out of love for His chosen ones God will surely save his people. In other words, salvation is not purely dependent upon the faith of individuals, but also on their relationship to the oikos:
They will pay for their sins because they rejected my laws and abhorred my decrees. Yet in spite of this, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them or abhor them so as to destroy them completely, breaking my covenant with them. I am the LORD their God. But for their sake I will remember the covenant with their ancestors whom I brought out of Egypt in the sight of the nations to be their God. (Lev. 26:43-45)
These are the principles which guided the early Christian Church in dealing with its members who sinned. One of the most vivid examples of this occurs in Paul’s letters to the Corinthians, in reference to a Christian brother who has had sexual relations with his own father’s wife. Paul’s instructions are, apparently, uncompromising:
Shouldn’t you rather have been filled with grief and have put out of your fellowship the man who did this? Even though I am not physically present, I am with you in spirit. And I have already passed judgment on the one who did this, just as if I were present. When you are assembled in the name of our Lord Jesus and I am with you in spirit, and the power of our Lord Jesus is present, hand this man over to Satan, so that the sinful nature may be destroyed and his spirit saved on the day of the Lord. (1 Cor. 5:2-5)
Some time later however, Paul’s hard-line stance appears mollified:
The punishment inflicted on him by the majority is sufficient for him. Now instead, you ought to forgive and comfort him, so that he will not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. I urge you, therefore, to reaffirm your love for him… If you forgive anyone, I also forgive him. And what I have forgiven – if there was anything to forgive – I have forgiven in the sight of Christ for your sake, in order that Satan might not outwit us. (2 Cor. 2:6-8,10-11)
This incident provides us with some important biblical principles regarding how to deal with Christians’ sins. First, there is no distinction between sinning against God and sinning against the Christian community. The Church is the Body of Christ, and therefore to sin against God’s law is to damage one’s relationship with that Body. Consequently, both the punishment meted out and the forgiveness offered by the community are “in the name of our Lord Jesus” (1 Cor. 5:4) and “in the sight of Christ” (2 Cor. 2:10). The inevitable result of serious sin is that one is “put out of fellowship” with the Body – in Old Testament terms, “confined outside the camp” (Num. 12:15): one is, for a while, no longer a full member in good standing of the communio sanctorum. Further, by damaging our relationship with the Body, the sinner also affects the community’s relationship with God. In the story of Miriam quoted above, note that “the people did not move on till she was brought back” (Num. 12:15, my emphasis)! Miriam’s sin delayed their journey to the Promised Land – and yet they waited for her, sacrificing their spiritual progress to the demands of the community.
Second, Paul, as an apostle, has the authority to direct his Christian community in the application of these principles. “I have already passed judgment on the one who did this,” he says. And in another context he “hands over to Satan” those who “have shipwrecked their faith” by rejecting “faith and a good conscience” (1 Tim. 1:19-20). In both these instances he is merely applying the words of Jesus which we examined in Chapter Four:
“Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.” (Jn. 20:22-23)
Paul has, apparently, no doubt of the significance of Jesus’ words: the apostles have the right to forgive sins, or to withhold forgiveness, on God’s behalf.
Third, reconciliation for the Christian sinner is not something which it is always right for the community to express instantaneously or automatically. A staged process is followed. First, there is a “punishment inflicted on” the sinner. Then he expresses “sorrow”. And then he can be forgiven and comforted, and the love of the community for him reaffirmed.
The letter of James describes this process in greater detail – though as a true ancient James does not separate out the process of healing the soul from the process of healing the body:
Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders [presbyterous] of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. (Ja. 5:14-16)
James tells us here that the process of being forgiven for sins [14] involves confessing those sins to the Christian community, and then being prayed for by that community, in particular by its leaders, the presbyteroi of the Church. The importance of both confession and the prayer of the community is also emphasised by John:
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. (1 Jn. 1:9)
If anyone sees his brother commit a sin that does not lead to death, he should pray and God will give him life. (1 Jn. 5:16)
These biblical principles form the basis of how the universal Church has, since ancient times, dealt with the challenge of the sins of Christians. If a Christian sins against God, he has sinned against the Body of Christ. Therefore, the right thing for him to do is to confess those sins to the Church community (or a representative thereof). It is important that he receive a temporal punishment, part of which might involve his being separated from the Church community for a while. Then, through the prayers of the community, often represented by the “elders” (presbyteroi), he may be forgiven by God and by the community, and his eternal salvation safeguarded. Jesus Christ himself has granted to His apostles, and therefore to their successors the episkopoi and their deputies the presbyteroi, the authority to make the delicate judgments required by this process, and to manage this balance between punishment and forgiveness.
We see this mechanism at work in the early centuries of the Church, where this rubric for dealing with Christians’ sins develops in continuity from the biblical principles outlined above. That first-century Church manual, the Didache, tells Christians:
In church, make confession of your faults, and do not come to your prayers with a bad conscience. That is the Way of Life. [15]
The same document makes it clear that full participation in the communio sanctorum is dependent upon reconciliation with the community: an unrepentant sinner should not, for example, receive the Eucharist – for to do so would “profane” it:
Assemble on the Lord’s Day, and break bread and offer the Eucharist; but first make confession of your faults, so that your sacrifice may be a pure one. Anyone who has a difference with his fellow is not to take part with you until they have been reconciled, so as to avoid any profanation of your sacrifice. For this is the offering of which the Lord has said, “Everywhere and always bring me a sacrifice that is undefiled, for I am a great king, says the Lord, and my name is the wonder of nations” [Mal. 1:11,14]. [16]
During the early centuries of our faith, many different rubrics for reconciliation were used, some more rigorous than others. Tertullian (c. 145-220 A.D.) describes one particularly harsh style:
We confess our sins to the Lord, not indeed as if He were ignorant of them, but inasmuch as by confession… repentance is born… And thus exomologesis [confession]… commands [the penitent] to lie in sackcloth and ashes, to cover his body in mourning, to lay his spirit low in sorrows, to exchange for severe treatment the sins which he has committed; moreover, to know no food and drink but such as is plain – not for the stomach’s sake, to wit, but the soul’s; for the most part, however, to feed prayers on fastings, to groan, to weep and make outcries unto the Lord your God…; to enjoin on all the brethren to be ambassadors to bear his deprecatory supplication [before God]. [17]
We may be shocked at the physical rigour of such an approach – but we must accept that it is in accord with the biblical testimony. The sinner confesses, repents, is punished for a while, prays and fasts, and is prayed for by the brethren – just as Paul, James and John advise – in order to be readmitted to full communion with the Body of Christ.
The Catholic Church has preserved the essence of this biblical pattern to this day – though these days with less physical rigour, and with more subtlety and discretion. A Christian who has committed a serious sin may find himself temporarily “put out of fellowship”, just like the sinner in Corinth – sometimes in the form of not receiving the Eucharist for a while. He may confess his sins – usually to a representative of the community in the person of a presbyter. Part of his temporal punishment may involve making some kind of reparation for his sin, sometimes through prayer – as James recommends. And he is reassured of his eternal salvation by a presbyter, acting on behalf of both the community and the apostles – in harmony with the biblical injunctions.
Is all this really necessary? Can’t a Christian simply confess his sins to God, make amends to the one he has wronged, and emerge with a clear conscience? Well, yes, certainly that is possible: and for minor sins that has always been normal practice. [18] But I can speak from personal experience and say that there is something quite different about physically speaking out loud the details of my sins. Confessing privately to God in the silence of my heart, whilst definitely a good thing and a necessary thing, doesn’t quite concentrate the mind, I find, as much as having to name my sins out loud, sometimes hearing them spoken back to me, and physically doing something to make amends – even if only in a symbolic way. It brings home the fact that there is no such thing as a sin which is just “between me and God”. Every sin I commit is an offence against the Body of Christ. And so it is only right that that Body – “assembled in the name of our Lord Jesus”, with Paul and the apostles there “in spirit”, and “the power of our Lord Jesus… present” should have some hand in my reconciliation, in reforming my “sinful nature” and saving me “on the day of the Lord” (cf. 1 Cor. 5:2-5,13).
It would be nice if I could say that I like going to confession. But I don’t. In fact, I dread it – and often make up any excuse to avoid it. I am not the first to do so: even in Tertullian’s time
most men either shun this work, as being a public exposure of themselves, or else defer it from day to day. I presume [as being] more mindful of modesty than of salvation; just like men who, having contracted some malady in the more private parts of the body, avoid the privity of physicians, and so perish with their own bashfulness. [19]
I think that my reluctance is probably a sign that I need
it. That is why Scripture says, “confess your sins to each other and pray for
each other so that you may be healed” – assuring me that if I have sinned, I
“will be forgiven” (Ja. 5:15), and God will give me life (1 Jn. 5:16). In
Tertullian’s words, “while [confession] abases the man, it raises him; while it
covers him with squalor, it renders him more clean; while it accuses, it
excuses; while it condemns, it absolves.” [20] It
is wise biblically-based advice.
SCRIPTURAL SUMMARY of
Chapter Twelve
born again of water
and the Spirit
Gen. 1:2, 2:7, 8:10-11; Ex. 13:21-22, 19:9, 33:9-10, 40:34-38;
1 Kgs. 8:10, 2 Chr. 5:14, Is. 1:16-18, Matt. 3:16, Mk. 1:10, Lk. 3:22; Jn. 1:32-33,
3:3-8; Acts 2:38, 22:16; 1 Cor. 6:11, 10:1-6; Eph. 5:25-27, Tit. 3:5-7, 1 Pet.
3:18-22
a new creation
2 Cor. 3:18, 5:17; Col. 3:10, 2 Pet. 1:4-11
baptism – an act of
grace
Matt. 20:13-16, Lk. 18:9-14; Acts 2:39, 16:15, 16:33, 18:8;
1 Cor. 1:16
reconciliation
Lev. 26:43-45, Num. 12:10-15, Jn. 20:22-23, 1 Cor. 5:2-5, 2
Cor. 2:6-11, 1 Tim. 1:19-20, Ja. 5:14-16;
1 Jn. 1:9, 5:16
[1] William N. McElrath, personal
e-mail, 28 Dec. 2010
[2] Justin Martyr, First Apology LXI, in Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1, ed. Phillip
Schaff (T&T Clark, Edinburgh), on www.ccel.org
[3] Justin Martyr, First Apology LXVI, in Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1, ed. Phillip
Schaff (T&T Clark, Edinburgh), on www.ccel.org
[4] Irenaeus, Against Heresies III.XVII.2, in Ante-Nicene
Fathers, vol. 1, ed. Phillip Schaff (T&T Clark, Edinburgh), on www.ccel.org
[5] Fragments from the Lost Writings of Irenaeus XXXIV, in Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1, ed. Phillip
Schaff (T&T Clark, Edinburgh), on www.ccel.org
[6] Justin Martyr, First Apology LXI, in Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1, ed. Phillip
Schaff (T&T Clark, Edinburgh), on www.ccel.org
[7] Justin Martyr, First Apology LXI, in Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1, ed. Phillip
Schaff (T&T Clark, Edinburgh), on www.ccel.org
[8] Justin Martyr, First Apology LXVI, in Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1, ed. Phillip
Schaff (T&T Clark, Edinburgh), on www.ccel.org
[9] Irenaeus, Against Heresies III.XVII.2, in Ante-Nicene
Fathers, vol. 1, ed. Phillip Schaff (T&T Clark, Edinburgh), on
www.ccel.org
[10] Fragments from the Lost Writings of Irenaeus XXXIV, in Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1, ed. Phillip
Schaff (T&T Clark, Edinburgh), on www.ccel.org
[11] a fact not proved by, but entirely
consistent with e.g. Acts 2:39,
16:15, 16:33, 18:8; 1 Cor. 1:16. The earliest absolutely incontrovertible
reference to infant baptism that I can find is from c. 215 A.D., in Hippolytus
of Rome, The Apostolic Tradition 21:4,
trans. Kevin P. Edgecomb, on www.bombaxo.
[12] Cyprian, Epistle LVIII: To Fidus, On the Baptism of Infants 2,3,5,
in Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 5, ed. Phillip
Schaff (T&T Clark, Edinburgh), on www.ccel.org
[13] John Donne, Meditation XVII from Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, on www.online-literature.com
[14] and healed from illness – for, as
we have seen already, there is no dichotomy between body and soul in Jewish
thought.
[15] The Didache 4, in Early
Christian Writings, ed. Maxwell Staniforth (Penguin, London, 1988)
[16] The Didache 14, in Early
Christian Writings, ed. Maxwell Staniforth (Penguin, London, 1988)
[17] Tertullian, On Repentance IX, in Ante-Nicene
Fathers, vol. 3, ed. Phillip Schaff (T&T Clark, Edinburgh), on
www.ccel.org
[18] J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines (A. & C.
Black, London, 1965), p. 216
[19] Tertullian, On Repentance X, in Ante-Nicene
Fathers, vol. 3, ed. Phillip Schaff (T&T Clark, Edinburgh), on
www.ccel.org
[20] Tertullian, On Repentance IX, in Ante-Nicene
Fathers, vol. 3, ed. Phillip Schaff (T&T Clark, Edinburgh , on
www.ccel.org
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