But, if all this be true, as baptism is the initiatory Christian rite admitting us to the service of God and to the knowledge of Christ, it may not improbably have been called (pioTiapoc, and afterward Quraytoyia, as having reference, and as admitting to the mystery of the Gospel, and to Christ himself, who is the Mys- tery of God.
V "We pass to a few of the more prominent pas-
sages, not already considered, in which baptism is re- ferred to.
1. John iii, 5 — il Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God" — has been a well-established battle-field from the time of Calvin. Hooker states that for the first fifteen centuries no one had ever doubted its applica- tion to baptism {Feci. Pol. v, lix). Zuinglius was probably the first who interpreted it otherwise. Cal- vin understood the words "of water and of the Spirit" as 'iv did cvolf, "the washing or cleansing of the Spir- it" (or rather perhaps " by the Spirit"), " who cleanses as water," referring to Matt, iii, 11 ("He shall bap- tize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire"), as a parallel usage. Stier (Words of the Lord Jesus, in loc.) observes that Liicke has rightly said that we may re- gard this interpretation by means of a heudi id;/.', which erroneously appealed to Matt, iii, 11, as now g( n rally abandoned. Stier, moreover, quotes with entire ap- probation the words of Meyer (on John iii, 5) : "Jesus speaks here concerning a spiritual baptism, as in chap. vi, concerning a spiritual feeding ; in both places, how- ever, with reference to their visible auxiliary means." That our Lord probably adopted expressions famili.r to the Jews in this discourse with Nicodemus may be seen by reference to Lightfoot, Ilor. Heb. in loc.
2. The prophecy of John the Baptist just referred to, viz. that our Lord should baptize with the Holy Ghost and with fire (Matt, iii, 11), has usually been interpreted by that rhetorical figure (kmdiadys) which designates one thing by a double expression. Ben- gel thus paraphrases it : " The Holy Spirit, with which Christ baptizes, has a fiery force, and this was once even manifest to human sight" (Acts ii, 3). The fa- thers, indeed, spoke of a threefold baptism with fire : first, of the Holy Ghost in the shape of fiery tongues at Pentecost; second!}', of the fiery trial of affliction and temptation (1 Pet. i, 7) ; thirdly, of the fire which at the last day is to try every man's works (1 Cor. iii, 13). It is, however, very improbable that there is any allusion to either of the last two in Matt, iii, 11. There is an antithesis in John the Baptist's language between his own lower mission and the divine author- ity of the Saviour. John baptized with a mere earth- ly element, teaching men to repent, and pointing them to Christ ; but He that should come after, 0 tp\opn'oe, was empowered to baptize with the Holy Ghost and with fire. The water of John's baptism could but wash the body; the Holy Ghost, with which Christ was to baptize, should purify the soul as with fire. See Baptism with Fire.
3. Gal. iii, 27 : "For as many as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ." In the Avhole of this very important and difficult chapter Paul is rea- soning on the inheritance by the Church of Christ of the promises made to Abraham. Christ — i. e. Christ comprehending his whole body mystical — is the true seed of Abraham, to whom the promises belong (vcr. 1G). The law, which came afterward, could not annul the promises thus made. The law was fit to restrain (or perhaps rather to manifest) transgression (ver. 23). The law acted as a pedagogue, keeping us for and leading us on to Christ, that he might bestow on us freedom and justification by faith in him (ver. 21). But after the coming of faith we arc no longer, like young children, under a pedagogue, but we arc free, as heirs in our Father's house (ver. 25; eon p. ch. iv, 1-5). "For ye all are God's sons (filii emancipati, not ~(;7t~:c, but viol, Bengel and Ellicott) through the faith in Christ Jesus. For as many as have been bap- tized into Christ have put on (clothed yourselves in) Christ (see Schottgen on Pom, xiii, 14). In him is neither Jew nor Greek, neither 1 ond nor free, neither male nor female ; for all yc are one in Christ Jesus" (ver. 26-28). The argument is plain. All Christians are God's sons through union with the Only-begotten. Before the faith in him came into the world, men were
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BAPTISM
held under the tutelage of the law, like children, kept as in a stal ■ of bondage under a pedagogue, lint after the preaching of the faith, all who are baptized into < 'liri-t clot he t hemselves in him ; so they are esteemed as adult sons of his Father, and by faith in him they may be justified from their sins, from which the law could not justify them (Acts xiii, 37). The contrast is between the Christian and the Jewish Church: one bond, the oth r free ; one infant, the other adult. The transition point is naturally when by baptism the service of Christ is undertaken and the promises of tin- Gospel are claimed. This is represented as put- ting on Christ and in him assuming the position of full-grown men. In this more privileged condition there is the power of obtaining justification by faith, a justification which the law had not to offer.