2. In Eph 5'-" the Church is said to be cleansed by the w,-isliing (or laver, rif XoiTpi^) of water with the word, baptism being regarded as the seal and symbol of a spiritual experience which is mediated by f.aith in the gospel.
'3. The writer of Hebrews (9") says that water was used along with blood — either to prevent coagulation or as a symbol of purity — at the in- stitution of the ancient covenant, a detail which is not mentioned in Ex 24"'^-. It is a striking fact tli.at in his review of the Levitical ordinances this writer never quotes the LXX plnvase I'Sup /Sopricr/ioO, ' water of sprinkling,' which occurs four times in Nu 19, but coins in its place the phra.se aTfx.a ^avrur- fioO, ' blood of sprinkling' (He 12-^). It is his con- viction th.at, while the blood of go.ats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer (.according to a Scripture which he does not question) cleanse the tiesh (9"), and while water purilies the body (10--), only the blood of Christ can sprinkle the heart from an evil conscience (9'* 10"). He does not, as F. Delitzsch (Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews, ii. [Edinburgh, 1870] 179) thinks, suggest that the water of baidism has cleansing virtue becau.se ' sacramentally impregnated' with the blood of Christ. Just as he altogether ignores the sacra- mental value of the Leviti(-al rites which he enumer- ates, it is not his task to give a i)hilosophy of the Christian sacraments. His distinctive doctrine, to the enforcement of which he devotes his whole strength, is that, while all ritual is at the best but outward and syrnbolic, the spiritual approjiriaticm of Christ .and His atonement by faith has virtue to penetrate and purify the whole personality, beginning with the heart.
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4. Peter sees a parallel between the water of Noah's lloDcl ami that of baptism (1 I' 3'-"), and Paul finds a mystical and sacramental meaning in the sea and the cloud, in both of which the Israel- ites may be said to have been baptized into Moses (1 Co lu^).
5. It is the teaching of John that Jesus Christ came by (5id) water and blood, not with (^i*) the water only, but witli the water and the blood (1 In ")"). Historically the baptism and death of the Messiah were crises in His activity, occurring once for all at the beginning and the end of His ministry, but spiritually He ever abides with and in the water and the blood, which are ' the two wells of life in His Church, His baptism being repeated in every fresh act of baptism, and His blood of atone- ment never failing in the communion cup' (H. J. Holtzmann, Uandkumm. zum NT, Kreiburg i. B., ISOl, ii. 236).
6. James (3"-'^) illustrates the moral law that the same heart cannot overflow in both blessings and curses by the natural law that the same foimtain cannot send forth both sweet water and bitter — a variation on Christ's words in Mt
-Jlti. 17
7. The prophet of the Revelation (recalling Ezk l-"" 43-) once compares the voice of Christ (1^^), and twice that of the great multitude of the redeemed (14- 19"), to the voice of many waters, in the one case thinking perhaps of the music of waves quietly breaking, in the other of the thunder of great billows crashing, around the yEgean island which was his j>lace of exile. He constantly uses fountains of water, and clear rivers, as symbols of spiritual life and blessing. Per contra, he imagines ' the angel of the waters' turning Rome's rivers and fountains of water into blood (16'') ; for, as she has shed the blood of saints like water, it is but just that she should have to drink blood — a grim species of poetic justice. The great star Wormwood falls in Earth's sweet waters, turning them to worm- wood, and those who drink of them die because they are so bitter (S'*'"). The waters of the Euphrates are to be dried up, like the Jordan before Joshua, that the powers of the East — Parthia and her con- federates— may come to the invasion of the Roman Empire ( 16'-). The great harlot, Rome, sits proudly upon many waters — ruling peoples and nations by many rivers and seas (17'- ''') — but her day of judg- ment and dethronement is in sight (17').
James Strahan. WAY (o5(is). — A striking peculiarity of the Book of the Acts is that in several passages the Christian religion itself is called 'the Way.' Saul, if he finds at Damascus 'any that were of the Way' {i6,v TLva^ ei'ipji rrjs oSou 6vTat), is to bring them to Jerusalem (9^). ' Some were . . . speaking evil of the Way ' ; ' there arose no small stir concerning the Way ' ; 'I persecuted this Way unto the death ' ; ' Feli.v, having more exact knowledge concerning the Way ' (19"- ^^ 22* 24«=). The idiom, though found only in the Acts, must have been familiar. We do not wonder that a word lending itself so easily to figurative use should be applied to religion as frequently as is the case in Scripture, and that Christianity should be called pre-eminently 'the Way.' It is an interesting parallel that in Taoism, the second indigenous religion of China, Tao means 'Way'; Tao-teh-kitig =' Book, of the Way of Virtue.' In the NT we are familiar with 'way of the Lord,' 'of salvation,' 'of God,' 'of truth ' ; 'I am the way ' ( Jn 14*) ; ' the narrow and the broad way' (Mt 7'^'). The phrase is even more common in the OT than in the NT, as a reference to the art. in ffDB (iv. 899) will show. It is specially frequent in the Psalter: 'The way of the righteous . . . the way of the wicked ' (Ps l"). Other notable passages are Is 30^' 35". The