What Does Baptism Do For Anyone - John C. Collins

Presbyterion 38/1 (Spring 2012): 1–33

WHAT DOES BAPTISM DO FOR ANYONE?

PART I

C. John Collins*

The subject of baptism has led to many disagreements among Christians:
whom should we baptize—only professing believers, or their infants as
well? What happens to the person baptized? Is baptism even important?
There are other questions—for example, not everyone agrees on how
much water we should use, and some churches do not even practice
baptism at all—but we’ll content ourselves with those listed here.
In this essay, I intend to show that the concepts I have discussed
elsewhere, such as the world shared between an author and his
audience, worldview, membership in the people of God, and the nature
of biblical language, will help us to think clearly on topics such as
baptism that continue to cause controversy among Christians.
The Christian tradition, from its earliest stages, has held to some
kind of “baptismal realism,” that is, the view that by means of baptism
God actually effects some change in the condition of the person baptized.
We find in the tradition a variety of answers about what aspect of the
person’s “condition” is changed, and what such changes amount to.
The present tendency in my community—American Presbyterianism
with a conservative evangelical flavor—is to regard any kind of
baptismal realism with dread, as “the road back to Rome.” For example,
here is what Benjamin Warfield wrote in his influential book The Plan of
Salvation (1918):1
The exact point of difference between [the ”sacerdotalists” (such as the
Roman Catholics) and the evangelicals] turns on the question whether
God, by whose power alone salvation is wrought, saves men by dealing
* Jack Collins is professor of Old Testament at Covenant Theological

Seminary. He holds a PhD from the University of Liverpool. This article is a
slightly adapted draft of a chapter in a forthcoming book about cooperating with
Scripture. Previous chapters cover such topics as how communication works,
worldview and stories, redemptive history and the people of God, and how to
handle the different types of language we find in the Bible. This chapter is part of
the “putting these ideas to work” section of the book. Part 2 of this article will
appear in the Fall 2012 issue of Presbyterion.
1 Benjamin Warfield, The Plan of Salvation (1918; repr. Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1977), 18–19.

2 PRESBYTERION: COVENANT SEMINARY REVIEW 38/1
himself immediately with them as individuals, or only by establishing

supernatural endowed instrumentalities in the world by means of
which men may be saved. . . . [E]vangelicalism, seeking to conserve
what it conceives to be only consistent supernaturalism, sweeps away
every intermediary between the soul and its God, and leaves the soul
dependent for its salvation on God alone, operating upon it by his
immediate grace.
I have the highest regard for Warfield and consider many of his studies
to be of great value; but the bald manner in which Warfield stated his
opposition between “sacerdotalism” and “evangelicalism” will simply
not survive scrutiny. It is entirely possible that God can employ means in
saving persons and administering his people, and even do so
characteristically, without him thereby sacrificing his sovereignty.
Further, to suppose that “supernatural” implies “without means” raises
all manner of questions about the way that God works in the world
(called “metaphysics”). Suffice it for now to say that in classical Christian
metaphysics, God is acting every bit as “directly” in the “natural” events
as he is in the “supernatural” ones. Events are “supernatural” when their
outcomes exceed the natural (or created) causal powers of the things
involved.2 Thus, even though Warfield had the wholly praiseworthy
goal of protecting God’s sovereign freedom, here he has not really
helped us to do so.
It is probably also worth observing that on this subject Warfield does
not speak for the entire Reformed tradition, nor even for the Presbyterian
segment of which he was a part: the Westminster Shorter Catechism,
question 88, discusses “the outward and ordinary means whereby Christ
communicates to us the benefits of redemption,” which include the
ministry of the Word and the sacraments.
Some people argue in reply to views like Warfield’s that baptismal
anti-‐‑realism—the view that “nothing really happens” in the visible
symbol, the main benefit is what it makes us think about—is the road to
denying the goodness of the material realm, and of our embodied
existence; that is, the road to denying the goodness of something that
God has declared “very good.” Again, to steer a clear path through these
options we must come back to the principle of sola Scriptura: our goal
must be to follow the Scripture wherever it leads.
2 See my discussion of a biblically-‐‑based supernaturalism in The God of
Miracles: An Exegetical Examination of God’s Action in the World (Wheaton, IL:

Crossway, 2000), 127–34, with remarks on Exod. 14:21 at 131, and on special
divine action in human moral transformation, 101–106. For a briefer discussion,
see my Science and Faith: Friends or Foes? (Wheaton: Crossway, 2003), 167–70.
WHAT DOES BAPTISM DO FOR ANYONE? 3
In this essay I want to establish that baptismal realism of some sort is
grounded in the Bible and in its worldview; I will then go on to discuss
what sort of realism the Bible implies. My argument will take the
following shape: First, I will show that “sacramental realism” is a basic
part of the Old Testament ceremonial (or Levitical) system, and describe
the realism under that system, relating it to the Old Testament
worldview. Second, I will argue that the New Testament refers to
baptism using terms and ideas from the Levitical ceremonies, and
assumes the same creational worldview that underlies the Old
Testament. Third, we will then be in a position to look at particular
“realistic” biblical statements to ascertain the kind of realism they support.
I. OLD TESTAMENT CEREMONIAL REALISM

A. The Meaning of “Clean” and “Unclean”
Any Bible reader is familiar with the way Leviticus makes a distinction
between what is “clean” and “unclean,” although the actual function of
this system mystifies most—and is still a matter of debate among the
scholars. I do not intend here to enter into all the disagreements among
the specialists, as I really have little to offer on that score. Instead, I will
simply provide enough of a sense of how the system worked so that the
reader can appreciate how the ceremonies apply in our discussion of
baptism here.3
The classifications “clean” and “unclean” apply to a wide range of
things and situations: certain kinds of animals are “unclean,” which
means the people of Israel were not allowed either to eat their flesh or to
bring that flesh as a sacrifice. People could become unclean in a number
of different circumstances: by natural events, such as bearing a child or
making love; by events that one could hardly avoid, such as touching the
3 The following sources are helpful in this discussion: David P. Wright,
“Unclean and Clean (Old Testament),” in The Anchor Bible Dictionary, ed. David
N. Freedman et al. (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 6:729a–741b; John E. Hartley,
“Holy and Holiness,” in Dictionary of the Old Testament: Pentateuch, ed. T.
Desmond Alexander and David W. Baker (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity
Press, 2003), 420a–431b; K. E. Brower, “Holiness,” in New Bible Dictionary, ed. D.
R. W. Woods et al. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1996), 477b–478b;
Gordon Wenham, “Clean and Unclean,” in New Bible Dictionary, 209b–212a; Peter
Jenson, “Holiness in the Priestly Writings of the Old Testament,” in Holiness: Past
and Present, ed. Stephen C. Barton (London: T & T Clark, 2003), 93–121; and Jay
Sklar, Sin, Impurity, Sacrifice, Atonement: The Priestly Conceptions (Sheffield:
Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2005), especially chapter 5. Sklar in particular, both in
his writing and in personal conversation, has aided my understanding of these
matters.
corpse of a dead kinsman; by accidents, such as contracting skin

diseases; by committing a sin.
It would therefore be wrong to say that “unclean” is the same as
“sinful,” although sin does make a person unclean. Certainly to say that
an animal is unclean is not to declare it evil: for example, the raven is an
unclean bird, but not for that reason outside of God’s loving concern
(Ps. 147:9).
The categories “clean” and “unclean” correspond to the ideas of
“permitted” and “not permitted”; indeed, to try to enter God’s presence
in an unclean state puts a person in grave danger. As one scholar has put
it, “Uncleanness or impurity is basically defined as that which is a threat
to or opposes holiness, and hence must be kept separate from that
sphere.”4 We can support this with Leviticus 15:31:
Thus you shall keep the people of Israel separate from their
uncleanness, lest they die in their uncleanness by defiling my tabernacle
that is in their midst.5
Along these lines, another scholar writes:
The purpose of these rules [for clean and unclean] was to establish
boundaries in the routine of daily life in order that the Israelites might
live as a holy people serving Yahweh, who is holy. The primary
boundary was to prevent any impure person or thing from entering
sacred space; therefore, all had to be ritually clean before entering the
sanctuary lest holiness consume them. . . . The category clean/unclean,
on the other hand, primarily defined the ritual standing of people, food
and space. . . . The major danger in becoming unclean lay in coming into
contact with the holy, for holiness is powerful, consuming all that is
unclean. There was a latent moral danger: any person who failed to take
the steps leading to ritual purity committed a deliberate sin against God
and became subject to the penalties for such a wrong.6
We should qualify this just a little, by noting that the purpose of the rules
was to serve as a continual reminder for Israel “to distinguish between
the holy and the common, and between the unclean and the clean” (Lev.
10:10; this was originally spoken to priests, but they are in turn to teach
the people, according to verse 11). This pattern, which was for
distinguishing between various types of ritual purity and impurity, was
4 Wright, “Unclean and Clean,” 729a.

5
Quotations from the Bible and Apocrypha are based on The English
Standard Version Bible with Apocrypha (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).
6 Hartley, “Holy and Holiness,” 426.
to set a more general pattern for life: distinguishing between moral purity
and impurity.7
B. “Clean” and “Unclean” as Ritual or Administrative Status

Some scholars of the Levitical system use the term “ritual status” to
explain how the clean and unclean distinction worked in Israel. That is, a
clean person is eligible to participate in the religious rituals of the people
of God, while an unclean person is not.8 Another way of describing this
is to call it “administrative status” to emphasize the way in which those
who administer the people of God are to relate to the person. It is crucial
to appreciate that with these terms people are described by their status,
and not necessarily by the moral condition of their hearts. Further, a
person’s ritual status has a bearing not only on his relationship with
God, but also on his place within the community of God’s people.
Either of these terms, however, can lead a modern Evangelical to
misunderstand; we tend to dismiss “ritual” or “administrative” as
“merely ritual or administrative,” meaning that they are external only,
and have no real bearing on the heart. From the biblical perspective there
is nothing “merely” external about it: the status of being “clean” admits a
person into a web of relationships, privileges, and influences among the
covenant people, whose aim is to foster what we might call a “moral
status” of cleanness.
Similarly, the Old Testament can use the word “holy” (with its
related words “sanctify” or “consecrate”) to denote status as well: the
people of God are ritually or administratively “holy,” which means that
they are consecrated to the LORD who is himself holy in every way—and
thus they have both the opportunity and the responsibility to live in a
holy manner (the moral status). Leviticus 20:7–8 brings it all together:
Consecrate yourselves, therefore, and be holy [aim for a holy life, a
moral condition of holiness], for I am the LORD your God. Keep my
7 I have suggested, in Science and Faith, 99, that the rules on clean and
unclean serve three functions: 1) they make a distinction between Israel and the
Gentiles (see Lev. 20:24–26); 2) they provide a useful metaphor for moral impurity
(as in Ezek. 36:25–27, which we will take up below); and 3) they give Israel a
chance to apply their doctrine of creation, in allowing the Creator full rights to
instruct his people how they may or may not use the creation. Although I have
listed these as three items, they are of course closely related. See also Meir
Soloveichik, “Locusts, Giraffes, and the Meaning of Kashrut,” Azure 23 (Winter
5766 [2006]): 62–96, on point 1 above.
8 We might note that there are circumstances in which one could come into
the tabernacle in an unclean state as long as one was coming to address that state
(as in Leviticus 12, where a woman comes to be purified after childbirth).
statutes and do them; I am the LORD who sanctifies you [who makes
you administratively holy].
A person who is administratively clean or holy may or may not have
availed himself of the covenant privileges with all his heart, though he
certainly should. Thus when we are speaking of administrative or ritual
status we should recognize that the priestly language is careful, perhaps
even “technical” in its own way; but at the same time it functions much
as phenomenological language does, speaking in terms of how one
appears to the human eye, and not commenting on the inner condition of
the heart (which is not visible to us anyhow).
C. Ceremonies of Cleansing

It is fair to say, in view of this, that “the entire cultus [Levitical
ceremonial system] has to do with making it safe for God’s people to
encounter the holy God who dwells in their midst.”9 This certainly
includes addressing their ritual status, but it also includes cultivating
moral aspiration and providing moral instruction as well.
The typical way to change from unclean to clean was to use some set
of ceremonies under the supervision of the Levites. These ceremonies
often involved water rituals and sacrifices, and we will focus on water
ceremonies in keeping with our topic. For example, in Numbers 19:11–
13, a person who has touched a dead body is to be unclean for seven
days. He is to “cleanse himself” (literally, “de-‐‑sin himself”) on the third
and seventh days with water in order to become clean, and if he omits
these water ceremonies, he may not become clean, “his uncleanness is
still on him” (v. 13). Similarly, the priestly descendant of Aaron who
becomes unclean “shall be unclean until the evening and shall not eat of
the holy things unless he has bathed his body in water” (Lev. 22:6).
Compare how the people of Israel are to prepare to meet with God at
Sinai in Exodus 19. Moses is to “consecrate” the people and to have them
“wash their garments” (v. 10); in addition, Moses commands the men,
“Do not go near a woman” (v. 15). Washing their garments makes them
administratively clean, and abstaining from union with their wives
keeps them clean (compare Lev. 15:18; 1 Sam. 21:4–5).
D. Ceremonial Realism and the Old Testament Worldview

It is clear from the above discussion that the Old Testament would have
us believe that a physical ceremony, carried out under divine directives,
actually changes a person’s status. In other words, we are failing to read the
Bible adequately if we take these ceremonies as only symbolizing the
9 Brower, “Holiness,” 477b.

change in status, if by “symbolize” we mean “make a picture that can

help us think the right things.” As one scholar of Old Testament ritual
put it,
Ritual or ritualized activity does not merely communicate as a kind of
sign language. Rather, it is believed to do something that changes reality
in a way that goes beyond the constraints of cause and effect that
operate in activities belonging to the mundane physical world that are
susceptible to manipulation by the performers.10
The idea that “physical” ceremonies can mediate “spiritual” benefits
is rooted in the Old Testament worldview, particularly in its notion that
the God of Israel is in fact the God who made all things from nothing
and declared his creation “very good.” As I pointed out in my
commentary on Genesis 1–4,
God made a good world as the arena for man to live out his relationship
with his Maker. Though mankind has fallen, the goodness of the
creation remains, and it remains the arena for man’s life—but now it is
the arena for redemption. The ordinary activities of life, such as eating,
working, procreating, and breathing, are good. Any pain that man finds
in these stems not from badness of the activities but from the sinfulness
of man. Physical ordinances are a fitting means for God to work out his
purposes for his people: he ordains sacrifices, beautiful garments for his
priests, and an elaborate shrine for corporate worship, with “smells and
bells” in the liturgy. The people use their bodies, bowing, kneeling,
prostrating themselves, raising hands, and so forth, in their acts of
worship. . . .
The body is the vehicle by which we worship as well: in the Bible
people pray and sing aloud, stand, kneel, raise their hands, prostrate
themselves, use musical instruments, burn incense, perceive beauty,
receive sacraments. Some Protestants have over-‐‑reacted to abuses by
stressing the action of the heart, as if it could replace the actions of the
body (rather than work with them). The right reply is abusus usum non
tollit, “abuse does not take away proper use.”11
We can always count on C. S. Lewis to put it more colorfully,
anticipating some of our discussion yet to come:
There is no good trying to be more spiritual than God. God never meant
man to be a purely spiritual creature. That is why he uses material
things like bread and wine to put the new life into us. We may think
10 Roy Gane, Cult and Character: Purification Offerings, Day of Atonement, and
Theodicy (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2005), 15.

11 C. John Collins, Genesis 1–4: A Linguistic, Literary, and Theological
Commentary (Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R Publishing, 2006), 244, 274.

this rather crude and unspiritual. God does not: He invented eating. He
likes matter. He invented it.12
Some Christians have thought of bodily ordinances such as sacraments
as a concession to human weakness,13 but this is a failure to grasp
properly the creational worldview of the Bible; rather, these ordinances
endorse the goodness of human bodily existence and the goodness of the
material creation.
At the same time, the biblical worldview does not make the effect of
these ceremonies into a kind of magic. When these ceremonies work, it is
not because the results come from the natural properties of the material
elements, nor is it because God has so tied himself to the ceremonies that
he must convey benefit without regard to the subjective condition of the
worshipers; rather, it is because God in his good pleasure has added
something. The biblical authors give no in-‐‑depth explanation for how the
ceremonies work—they simply take for granted that they do work. C. S.
Lewis once offered a definition of magic that he applied to the
sacraments: “I should define ‘magic’ in this sense as ‘objective efficacy
which cannot be further analysed.’” Well, if that is all we mean by magic,
then we may apply the term to the sacraments—though usually in
theological discussions a more pejorative sense of “magic” (as some
power inherent in the material substances, or that works
“automatically”) lies behind the objections.14
Further along these lines, we indicated above that the ceremonies
must be “carried out under divine directives.” Certainly the Old
Testament assumes that a properly installed priest will officiate; it also
assumes that the requirements of the Pentateuch, both doctrinal and
practical, will be followed. But there is also a requirement on what we
may call the subjective side, that is, on the part of the person receiving
the benefits to his status: such a person is to embrace those benefits in
12 C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: Scribner, 1952), 65 (book 2,

chapter 5).
13 For example, see Heinrich Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics (German first
edition, 1861; repr., Grand Rapids: Baker, 1978), 609 (ch. 24, §28): “Hence a man
who is so strong in faith, that he can be joyfully confident of his state of grace can
do without the sacraments.” (This is Heppe’s own comment, not necessarily that
of the Reformed tradition.) Heppe has virtually reduced the sacraments’ benefit
to the good things they make us think. Try using this reasoning to ration the
hugs you give your children!
14 C. S. Lewis, Prayer: Letters to Malcolm (London: Collins, 1966), 105. He calls
the sacrament of communion “big medicine and strong magic.” One must
always pay attention to what another person means by his terms!
true faith and humble penitence, aiming to make proper use of these
benefits for his growth in moral purity.
Allow me an illustration from popular (American) culture. The film
It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) is about George Bailey, whose patience in
doing good leads him to what look like unendurable troubles. Clarence
is his guardian angel (an angel second class, hoping to earn his wings),
who grants George his wish never to have been born. When George and
Clarence go to a bar called “Nick’s” (owned by the unexpectedly nasty
Nick), Nick rings the cash register and Clarence cites the dictum, “Every
time you hear a bell ring, it means that some angel’s just got his wings.”
(He gives no causal explanation of how this can happen, or of what
happens when it is abused.) Nick is a cynical and brutal man because
George Bailey (who now had never been born) had not given him a good
influence; he has George and Clarence thrown out of the bar, and then
goes to the cash register and keeps ringing it. “Get me!” he says. “I’m
givin’ out wings!” We, the viewing audience, see Nick’s antics for what
they are: an atrocious abuse of the “divine directive” that Clarence cited,
which God is under no obligation to honor.
In traditional theological terms, these qualifications mean that the
Old Testament worldview does in fact entail some kind of distinction
between the sign and the thing signified, that is, between the ceremony
and the benefits received at the deepest level of a person’s being. There is
nothing “willy-‐‑nilly” or “automatic” in the ceremonies’ effect, if by that
we mean without regard to the way a person lays hold of the status
benefits.
Most of the Old Testament material on this topic addresses the
sacrificial system more than it does the washings, but since the principles
are the same, we can use the sacrificial references to start. Consider, for
example, Proverbs 15:8, which is typical:
The sacrifice of the wicked [here, the one who is a covenant member but
rejects the covenant in his heart] is an abomination to the LORD;
but the prayer of the upright [here, one who has really laid hold of the
covenant] is acceptable to him.15
God is fully able to tell the difference between those who have made
proper use of their status and those who have not, although in many
cases we cannot tell.
15 Prov. 21:27 is similar; compare also Prov. 14:9; 1 Sam. 15:22; Isa. 1:11–17;
29:13; Jer. 7:21–23; Mic. 6:6–8; (to list no others), which neither denounce nor
“relativize” the sacrificial system as such (which is how many evangelicals read
it), but clarify that the sacrifices were given to be used by those who embrace the
covenant from the heart. See my discussion in “Proverbs and the Levitical
System,” Presbyterion 35, no. 1 (2009): 9–34.
But though we should distinguish between the sign and the

signified, it does not follow that we are free to separate them. Consider
Psalm 51:2, 7, where the penitent person asks:
Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin! . . .
Purge [literally de-‐‑sin, as in Num. 19:11] me with hyssop,
and I shall be clean;
wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.16

This is the prayer of one who intends to employ his administrative status
for moral growth; he goes on to pray for a clean heart (v. 10).
E. Terminology
The main Hebrew words for describing the washing ceremonies are:
• rakhats (#xr), “to wash,” usually of persons or body parts, and
generally rendered in Greek with lou,w;
• kibbes (sBeKi), also “to wash,” or more often, “to launder,” commonly
rendered into Greek with plu,nw; and
• tabal (lbj), “to dip,” rendered into Greek with ba,ptw, and once with
bapti,zw (our word “baptize”).17
The words for “clean” are usually tahar (rhj) and cognates, which then
come into Greek with forms related to kaqaro,j
For example, the person being cleansed from leprosy must “wash
[kibbes, plu,nw] his clothes . . . and bathe himself [rakhats, lou,w] in water, and
he shall be clean [tahar, kaqaro,j]” (Lev. 14:8).
The Pentateuch does not apply the term tabal, “to dip,” to people
being washed; normally it uses that word to refer to dipping an
implement into a fluid in order to sprinkle that fluid (as hyssop,
Exod. 12:22, or a finger, Lev. 4:6), and its normal Greek rendering is
ba,ptw. Indeed, there is only one place in the Old Testament that uses this
Hebrew term to describe applying water to a person, and it provides
important background to any discussion of baptism: 2 Kings 5:14. This,
as it turns out, is the one place where the Greek bapti,zw renders this
Hebrew word.
In 2 Kings 5:1–14, the Syrian (and thus Gentile) general Naaman has
leprosy, and his Israelite servant girl urges him to go to the Israelite
prophet, Elisha, who will “cure” (v. 3; Hebrew ’asap [@sa], Greek suna,gw,
both literally “gather”) him from his leprosy. When the general comes to
16 Similarly, Isa. 1:16–17.

17 Greek ba,ptw generally means “to dip,” and bapti,zw is derived from it.
Elisha, the prophet changes the topic a little, from “cure” to “cleanse” (v.
10):
Go and wash [Hebrew rakhats (#xr), Greek lou,w] in the Jordan seven
times, and your flesh shall be restored [Hebrew shub (bWv), Greek
evjpistre,fw, both “return”], and you shall be clean [Hebrew tahar (rhj),
Greek kaqari,zw, passive, “become clean”].18
Naaman is offended because he expected Elisha to stand before him and
perform some great miracle; and he thinks that if it comes to washing,
why not use the better rivers of Damascus? But Naaman’s servants
overcome his objection and convince him to obey the prophet. In verse
14 we read,
So he went down and dipped himself [Hebrew tabal (lbj), Greek bapti,zw,
middle] seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of
God, and his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child, and he was
clean.
In Leviticus 14, when a leper is healed, he is then made clean by a
ceremony that includes washing. Here in 2 Kings 5, the ceremony
conveys both the healing and the cleansing. The result is that this Gentile
becomes a dedicated worshiper of the LORD (v. 17), albeit with a special
dispensation (v. 18–19).19
Let us examine two more Jewish texts from the inter-‐‑testamental
period, both of which use bapti,zw for ceremonial washings. First, there is
Judith 12:7, where the heroine Judith “bathed herself” (bapti,zw, middle)
at a spring in order to make herself clean (v. 9, “she returned clean”)
from the uncleanness she would have contracted in the camp of the
Gentile commander Holofernes.
18 Cf. Luke 17:14–15 for a similar connection of “cleanse” to “heal.”
19 It is attractive to suppose that this particular example is especially
appropriate: in Luke 4:27 Jesus cites this as an example of God’s interest in the
Gentiles, and the spreading of the people of God to include the Gentiles is a
major theme in Acts. Hence it is fitting that such a ceremony should be the mark
of entry into the people of God. It does not seem, however, that New Testament
authors make much of this, nor have I found patristic authors who pursue it. It is
worth noting that the traditional Jewish commentary of Yehudah Kiel, Sefer
Melakim 2 (Da‘at Miqra; Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1989), xqt, connects this
text to the Rabbinic maxim, “the proselyte who converts is like a newborn child”
(Yebamoth 22a and elsewhere). If this maxim had any connection to Christian
views of the new birth, then it is no surprise that baptism and new birth would
be connected, though we must be careful to discern just what these writers
would mean by “new birth” (see “Baptism and ‘Regeneration’” in part 2 of this
article).
Our second example from the inter-‐‑testamental period comes from

the book of Ben Sira (also called Ecclesiasticus), where we find the
observation in 34:25 (Greek and RSV; ESV/NRSV has it as v. 30, and the
Hebrew is not extant):

baptizo,menoj avpo. nekrou/ kai. pa,lin If someone bathes [ESV/NRSV washes]

a`pto,menoj auvtou/ after touching a dead body and
touches it again,
ti, wvfe,lhsen evn tw|/ loutrw/| auvtou/
what has he gained by his washing?

The passage refers to the regulations of Numbers 19:11–13 about being

cleansed from touching a dead body (as we noted above). Interestingly
enough, Ben Sira is at pains to remind us that one must not presume on
the ritual apart from subjective compliance; that is, he is aware of the
sign/signified distinction, and does not want anyone to presume.20
Rabbinic Hebrew, in contrast to biblical, uses the verb tabal and its
cognate noun tebilah (“dipping, bath”) for the ceremonial washings.21 For
example, the person who has bathed in the daytime and must wait until
sundown to be clean is called tebul yom (“one who has bathed in
daytime”), and there is a tractate in the Mishnah by that name, dealing
with the requirements for such a person. The idea is found in, for
example, Leviticus 15:5 (regarding cleansing after bodily discharges),
though the Rabbinic terminology is not.22 Perhaps, then, the reason why
the Greek equivalent for such settings, bapti,zw, shows up in the inter-‐‑
testamental period (which is crucial background for New Testament
20 See further verse 26, “So if a man fasts for his sins, and goes again and
does the same things, who will listen to his prayer? And what has he gained by
humbling himself?” The bodily ordinance is important, but the soul must
comply.
21 For more references, see Marcus Jastrow, A Dictionary of the Targumim, the
Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature (Brooklyn: Traditional
Press, 1975), 516–17, showing that Rabbinic Aramaic used the equivalent √t-‐‑b-‐‑l
(unlike the Syriac New Testament, which uses forms from ‘amad, “to plunge”).
Franz Delitzsch (d. 1890) translated the New Testament into Hebrew, making an
effort to mimic what he thought would be Hebrew current in the first century;
his regular words for bapti,zw and cognates are forms derived from tabal. The
Qumran sectaries did not use the verb tabal for such washings.
22 Compare also Miqwaoth 5:6, using the Qal tabal for a person bathing
himself to become clean, and Hiphil hitbil for a person bathing utensils (compare
the use of bapti,zw in Mark 7:4, as discussed below). In Yoma 7:3, 4, when a priest
washes himself to perform priestly duties, the verb is tabal. The term is frequent
elsewhere in the Rabbinic literature as well.
usage), is this development in Hebrew usage, from biblical to post-‐‑

biblical Hebrew.
This development explains why New Testament authors use the
Greek word “baptize” for Jewish ceremonial washings in Mark 7:4 (ESV
“wash . . . washing,” applied to persons and to pots, pans, and couches);
Luke 11:38 (washing before dinner); and Hebrews 9:10 (ESV “washings,”
applied to the body).23 To a Jewish speaker, then, the word will
commonly refer to a ceremonial application of water for the purpose of
cleansing. Some suggest that the word itself implies that the ceremony
involves immersing someone in the water, but that is probably not
correct: after all, Ben Sira 34:25 has Numbers 19:11–13 as its background,
where the water is “thrown.” At the same time, surely the ceremony
“drenches” the person being cleansed, and perhaps “ceremonial
cleansing by drenching” is a decent paraphrase for the Greek and
Hebrew terms.24
F. Circumcision and the Washings

We are building a case here that the proper background to Christian
baptism is the system of Levitical washings. At the same time, it is
conventional in Christian theology to see baptism as the replacement for
circumcision as the rite by which one enters the people of God. In due
course we will give redemptive historical reasons for this replacement;
for now it would be helpful to consider whether there are conceptual
parallels between circumcision and the Levitical washings.
To begin with, there is a threat of being “cut off from the people” if
either rite is not applied when required: for example, Genesis 17:14
(circumcision); Numbers 19:13, 20 (washing). Second, both are generally
23 It is possible that Heb. 6:2 (ESV “washings”) refers to such rites as well, in
view of the plural noun; but it is also possible that Christian “baptisms” (ESV
margin) are in view, since the list of verses 1–2 looks like basic Christian truths.
The alternative “baptism” finds support in the way that verse 4 mentions “those
who have once been enlightened,” using a term (tou.j fwtisqe,ntaj) that patristic
writers employ for baptism (see “Baptismal Realism in Church History” in part 2
of this article, and cf. Heb. 10:32 for further evidence that is what the author
means); further, to speak of those who “have tasted” (vv. 4, 5), surely brings to
mind the actual tasting of the Lord’s Supper.
24 The argument of Meredith Kline, By Oath Consigned: A Reinterpretation of
the Covenant Signs of Circumcision and Baptism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1968),
and followed by Michael Horton, God of Promise: Introducing Covenant Theology
(Grand Rapids: Baker, 2006), that baptism (like circumcision) is a “sign of
covenantal judgment ordeal” (Kline, 73), rather than a matter of cleansing, does
not draw at all on these vocabulary usages, and, being thus methodologically
unsound, will receive no further interaction here.
required for a person to eat safely from the various peace offerings: for
example, Exodus 12:44 (circumcision for Passover); Leviticus 7:20 (the
danger of eating while unclean).25
Third, consider Isaiah 52:1, where the prophet tells us of the restored
and renewed Jerusalem, that “there shall no more come into you the
uncircumcised and the unclean.” In this poetic context, the two
categories are probably referring to the same people (Gentile idolaters).
Thus, both uncircumcision and uncleanness “defile” or “profane” the
sanctuary: for example, Ezekiel 44:7 (admitting uncircumcised foreigners
into the sanctuary profanes [llx, khillel] the temple); Numbers 19:20 (the
unclean person defiles [amj, timme’] the sanctuary).
Finally, we can see that in both ordinances we have the
sign/signified distinction. Deuteronomy 10:16 and 30:6 warn Israel
against being content with a circumcision only of the body, and not of
the heart. Proverbs 30:12, “There are those who are clean [tahor, rwhj] in
their own eyes but are not washed [rukhats, #xr] of their filth,” recognizes
that those who use the ritual system must combine it with moral
integrity (compare Ben Sira 34:25–26 as discussed above).
II. BAPTISM AS CLEANSING

A. New Testament Terminology
When New Testament authors speak of baptism, they use Greek words
that correspond to Jewish Greek vocabulary for the Levitical washings.
We have seen how the verb bapti,zw, “to baptize” (with cognates), came
into common use in Jewish circles to denote ceremonial washings; in this
section we will see how another key term, lou,w, “to wash” (and
cognates), also appears in the New Testament to denote baptism.
For example, when Titus 3:5 refers to “the washing [Greek loutro,n] of
regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,” most take that as a name
for baptism—and thus we find discussions of whether it is a washing
that symbolizes regeneration and renewal, or one that the Holy Spirit uses
to effect it.26 (See “Baptism and ‘Regeneration’” in part 2 for more on
25 It is possible that, in some cases, the uncleanness was removed simply by
waiting until sundown; usually, however, a washing was involved.
26 Compare Calvin on Titus 3:5. Patrick Fairbairn (Scottish Free Church),
Commentary on the Pastoral Epistles (1874; repr., Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1956 ),
294, is not only emphatic about a baptismal reference here and at Eph. 5:26 (see
below), but also indicates that all ancient interpreters found baptism in both
places. Accordingly Liddell, Scott, Jones, McKenzie, A Greek-‐‑English Lexicon, 9th
ed. with revised supplement, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 1061b
(loutro,n I.2), without qualification lists these two texts as referring to baptism.
“regeneration” in the New Testament.) Regardless of the outcome to that
discussion, the term “washing” is one that we find in the rules for
ceremonial washings (as in Lev 22:6 using the cognate verb). Identifying
this washing with baptism gains credibility when we see that Ananias
tells the new convert Paul to “be baptized and wash away your sins
[avpo,lousai ta.j a`marti,aj sou], calling on his name” (Acts 22:16). One may
wish to take the “wash away” as some kind of figure, but the verb
(avpolou,w, a compound verb from lou,w) is easily put within the context of
Jewish washings; indeed, as Beasley-‐‑Murray has observed, “Josephus
prefers the compound apolouô for ritual washing.”27
Similarly, in Ephesians 5:25 we read of Christ, who loved the church
and gave himself up for her; and in verse 26 we learn his purpose:

that he might sanctify her, having i[na auvth.n a`gia,sh| kaqari,saj tw/|
cleansed her by the washing of loutrw|/ tou/ u[datoj evn r`h,mati
water with the word

The terms “sanctify” (that is, consecrate to God, render administratively
holy), “cleanse” (that is, change from an unclean to a clean state),
“washing,” and “water” all point to this ceremonial background, and the
common identification of this with baptism makes good sense.28
27 G. R. Beasley-‐‑Murray, “lou,w,” in New International Dictionary of New
Testament Theology ed. Colin Brown, 4 vols. (Grand Rapids: Regency Reference
Library), 1:151. For examples from Josephus, see Jewish War 2:129 (describing the
Essenes); Antiquities 11:163 (describing Nehemiah’s presumed custom of washing
before going to the Persian king). On page 152 Beasley-‐‑Murray avers, “In Acts
22:16 apolousai indubitably refers to baptism. The similarity of language in 1 Cor.
6:11 indicates that it, too, has in view the cleansing of sins in baptism.”
28 Compare the commentary of Calvin on Eph. 5:26. Charles Hodge
(American Presbyterian), Commentary on the Epistle to the Ephesians (1856; repr.,
Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, n.d.), 318–19, says, “Commentators, however, almost
without exception understand the expression in the text to refer to baptism. The
great majority of them, with Calvin and other of the Reformers, do not even
discuss the question, or seem to admit any other interpretation to be possible.
The same view is taken by all the modern exegetical writers. This unanimity of
opinion is itself almost decisive. Nothing short of a stringent necessity can justify
anyone in setting forth an interpretation opposed to this common consent of
Christians. No such necessity here exists.” Nevertheless some commentators
have dissented, and Frank Thielman, Ephesians, Baker Exegetical Commentary on
the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2010), 383–84, provides the best
argument for a “metaphorical reference to the cleansing power of the gospel.”
However, he considers it “a spiritual rather than a physical washing,” without
explaining why this opposition is meaningful or necessary, and thus the

Consider how Hebrews 10:22 admonishes its audience of Jewish
Christians:
let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our
hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with
pure water [kai. lelousme,noi to. sw/ma u[dati kaqarw/|].
That this is likely a reference to Christian baptism (as opposed to a
metaphorical reference to inner cleansing only) follows from two
factors:29 first, the mention of the body being washed with water seems to
imply a bodily rite; second, the term “washed” appears elsewhere in the
New Testament with reference to baptism (as above).30 But consider
what must lie behind this way of speaking: the idea of washing the body
draws on Levitical terminology (e.g., Lev. 15:13; Num. 19:7–8; Deut.
23:12 LXX), and “pure [or clean] water” evokes Ezekiel 36:25–27, which
employs cleansing imagery for what we have come to call
“regeneration”:
I will sprinkle clean water [u[dwr kaqaro,n] on you, and you shall be clean
[kaqarisqh,sesqe] from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I
will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will
put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh
and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and
cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.
I say more on this text from Ezekiel in “Ezekiel 36:25-‐‑27, John 3:5, and
Baptism” in part 2; for now we simply notice that the terminology
explicitly evokes the Levitical washings. All of this supports William
possibility of a “physical” ceremony providing “spiritual” benefits does not enter
into his discussion. In light of the Levitical ceremonial background for loutro,n, it
appears to me that Andrew Lincoln, Ephesians, Word Biblical Commentary
(Dallas: Word, 1990), shows why the tradition is probably right: “The explicit
mention of water suggests not simply an extended metaphor for salvation . . . but
a direct reference to water baptism” (375). Further, since the object of the verbs is
“her” (auvth,n), that is, the church under the image of a bride, a reference to an
ecclesiastical (namely, corporate, covenantal, and ceremonial) ordinance is
indeed fitting.
29 Compare the following commentaries, just for a sampling: William Lane,
Hebrews 9–13 Word Biblical Commentary 47b (Dallas: Word, 1991), 287; Paul
Ellingworth, The Epistle to the Hebrews: A Commentary on the Greek Text, New
International Greek Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993),
523–24; A. B. Davidson, The Epistle to the Hebrews (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1882),
212.
30 See “Baptismal Realism in Church History” in part 2 of this article, which
shows that patristic authors likewise described baptism as a washing.

Lane’s comment, “The reference in [Heb. 10:22b] is almost certainly to

Christian baptism, which replaces all previous cleansing rites.”31
Finally, we may add 1 Corinthians 6:11, where Paul tells his
audience:
But you were washed [avpelou,sasqe], you were sanctified [h`gia,sqhte], you
were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of
our God.
Not everyone agrees that this refers to the rite of baptism; but it makes
sense against the backcloth of the Old Testament if we take “washed” as
in Acts 22:16, and “sanctified” as in Ephesians 5:26 (made administra-‐‑
tively holy, which is not the usage of the term in systematic theology).
B. The Jewish Origin of Christian Baptism

It seems reasonable to suppose, as the Gospels imply, that the Christian
rite of baptism has its direct historical antecedent in the practice of John
the Baptist. Debates continue over whether John received his practice
from the washing ceremonies practiced at Qumran or from some other
quarter (such as the Jewish practice of “baptizing” Gentiles who become
proselytes).32 The question is an interesting one, but for our purposes we
do not need to have a definitive answer; we can instead recognize the
world of thought behind all these rites, namely, the Old Testament and
Jewish ideas of ceremonial washings. We are able to say that John, in
baptizing, was telling his contemporaries that they were unclean and
31 William Lane, Hebrews 9–13, 287. Peter Leithart, “Womb of the World:
Baptism and the Priesthood of the New Covenant in Hebrews 10.19–22,” Journal
for the Study of the New Testament 78 (2000): 49–65, finds in this passage not only a
baptismal reference, but also a foundation of baptism in the ordination of
Levitical priests. Hence he takes baptism as the Christian’s “ordination.” I would
say that the washing language that the New Testament uses is not restricted to
priests; and if the allusion to “clean water” takes us to Ezek. 36:25–27, as it seems
to, then the relevant cleansing is likely the cleansing from touching a dead body
(see “Ezekiel 36:25–27, John 3:5, and Baptism” in part 2 of this article). Hence
Lane’s observation, based on a more general washing, stands.
32 Many doubt whether proselyte baptism was actually in existence early
enough to have shaped John’s ministry; see D. S. Dockery, “Baptism,” in

Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, ed. Joel B. Green, Scot McKnight, and I.
Howard Marshall (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 1992), 55a–58b, at 56b:
“There is, however, no clear evidence prior to A.D. 70 that proselytes underwent
baptism as a requirement of conversion.” Further, according to Hermann
Lichtenberger, “Baths and Baptism,” in Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. L.
H. Schiffman and J. C. VanderKam (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000),
85b–89a, “It cannot be proved that John derived his baptism from the Qumran
rituals” (86a).
must not rely merely on their Jewishness to be ready for the One Who
Comes. If we take a passage such as Luke 3:7–14 as an indicator, he was
declaring that their uncleanness stemmed from presuming on the
privileges of the covenant, when they did not translate those privileges
into covenant reality. This left the people just as unclean as the more
obvious practices of idolatry that Ezekiel denounced (Ezek. 36:25). John’s
solution, like Ezekiel’s, was not to downplay the cere-‐‑monies; instead he
sought the benefits that the ceremonies were given to mediate.
Thus we are able to say that the New Testament idea of baptism
comes from an Old Testament and Jewish world of thought in which a
ceremony with water effects a change of what we can call ritual or
administrative status—from unclean, and thus not permitted into God’s
presence without great danger, to clean, that is, permitted into God’s
presence. An obvious difference between the Old Testament washings
and Johannine and Christian baptism is the fact that the old washings
were done repeatedly as needed, while baptism is done only once. This
difference is one reason why I am concerned primarily with the world of
thought behind both ceremonies, rather than trying to trace a direct
antecedent.33
C. Baptism as a Parallel to Circumcision

It is common to say that baptism has replaced circumcision as the rite by
which a person enters the people of God, often appealing to passages
such as Colossians 2:11–12:34
33 Eckhard Schnabel has provided a lexical study: “The Language of
Baptism: The Meaning of bapti,zw in the New Testament,” in Understanding the

Times: New Testament studies in the Twenty-‐‑First Century: Essays in Honor of D. A.
Carson on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday, ed. Andreas J. Köstenberger and Robert
W. Yarbrough (Wheaton: Crossway, 2011), 217–46. He concludes that “immerse”
is a pretty handy gloss for the Greek verb in contexts ceremonial and otherwise;
he also thinks that passages such as Rom. 6:3–5 use “extended and metaphorical
senses” of bapti,zw, not necessarily referring to water baptism (see below).
Schnabel’s results are undermined by the absence of any discussion of 1) the
related words, such as lou,w; 2) the usage of these terms in the LXX; and 3) the
ceremonial world of thought, both in the Old Testament and in the New. (For
more on why I think Schnabel’s points are misguided, see footnote in section
III.A below.)
34 I have all my life encountered this as a traditional Christian position. One
can find this argument in Aquinas, Summa Theologica III, Q.70, article 1; Calvin’s
commentary on Colossians 2:12, and, after a fashion, in N. T. Wright, Colossians
and Philemon, Tyndale New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids; Eerdmans,
1986), 104–106.
In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without

hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of
Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also
raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who
raised him from the dead.
The “circumcision of Christ” (v. 11) is the union with Christ on display
through baptism (v. 12). Baptism, then, is the way in which someone
enters the people of God in the present era; this is why the Gentile
audience of Colossians do not need to go further and become proselytes
to Judaism.
This conventional parallel has its detractors, however. For example,
Everett Ferguson, in his monumental work Baptism in the Early Church ,35
several times contends that patristic writers reject a genuine connection
between baptism and circumcision, and he agrees with the rejection. He
tells us that Cyprian and his predecessors “treat circumcision and Jewish
baptism as separate institutions with separate fulfillments in
Christianity.”36 The fulfillment of circumcision is “spiritual
circumcision,” which baptism conveys. But surely a better explanation
for this distinction is to recognize the seeds of a position stated clearly in,
say, Aquinas, namely, that the sacraments of the “old law” only signified
grace, while those of the “new law” convey grace.37 And it is easy to see,
in just about every case that Ferguson examines, the view that Christian
baptism is superior to circumcision because it offers superior benefits.38
Further, I would guess that the language of “sealing” that the patristic
writers so commonly use for baptism (which Ferguson amply
documents) probably owes something to the Pauline term “seal” applied
to circumcision (Rom. 4:11)—a point that Ferguson does not even raise.
35 Everett Ferguson, Baptism in the Early Church: History, Theology, and Liturgy
in the First Five Centuries (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009). For more assessment
of this important work, see “Baptizing Infants” in part 2 of this article.
36 Ferguson, Baptism in the Early Church, 273.
37 See, e.g., Aquinas, God’s Greatest Gifts: The Commandments and the
Sacraments (Manchester, NH: Sophia Institute, 1992), 83, on the sacraments in

general.
38 J. P. T. Hunt, “Colossians 2:11–12, the Circumcision/Baptism Analogy, and
Infant Baptism,” Tyndale Bulletin 41, no., 2 (1990): 227–44, surveys the patristic
material and concludes that early writers do not make an analogy between
baptism and circumcision. Hunt himself allows some analogy between the two
rites, but wants to deny that the analogy should be extended to include infants as
proper recipients. Neither Hunt nor Ferguson considers the way in which the
“household baptisms” echo the institution of circumcision in Genesis 17 (as
described here).
Support for a true parallel between baptism and circumcision comes

from the “household baptism” passages (e.g., Acts 16:15; 1 Cor. 1:16),
which echo the “household circumcision” passage, Genesis 17:27 (see
more discussion in “Baptizing Infants” in part 2). Further, baptism is
explicitly said to incorporate someone into the people of God (e.g., Rom.
6:3–5, see discussion below), just as circumcision did.
In an earlier section we considered the conceptual parallels between
circumcision and cleanness, and thus we have a conceptual world in
which a ceremony that makes someone ritually clean can serve in place
of circumcision to mark entry into the clean and holy people of God. We
might offer a redemptive historical reason for why baptism is more
suited to the Christian era. In the era before Jesus, membership in the
people of God was generally tied to ethnicity (with some notable
exceptions)—and circumcision, applied to the male organ of generation,
fits that pattern. With the resurrection of Jesus and his coronation as the
heir of David, the people of God are “internationalized” in a way unlike
the previous era; for such a situation, circumcision would not be fitting,
while a rite of cleansing that can be widely applied, in a variety of
settings, is.39
Further along these lines is the likelihood that a rite of washing
would be readily intelligible to most of the audience of this spreading
Christian faith. The second-‐‑century Christian apologist Justin Martyr
(First Apology, 62) mentions the way that pagan Gentiles wash
themselves in connection with worship, finding in this practice a
demonic anticipation and corruption of the true washing that would
come with Christianity. And a reader of Herodotus (Greek historian,
fifth century BC) discovers that various pagan peoples—such as
Babylonians (1.198) and Egyptians (2.86)—practice ceremonial washings
at various junctures. Presumably the Greeks who read the passages
would also grasp the idea. Hence, Beasley-‐‑Murray’s claim, “washing for
ritual purification was common among ancient peoples of the Orient,” is
well founded.40 I can easily imagine that a rite applicable to women as
39 I have mentioned above the tantalizing case of Naaman. We might also
add the relative indifference to ceremonial fine points that we find in Didache 7,
where the water source (running or not), temperature (cold or warm), and even
amount (enough for a bath, or only for pouring on the head) are treated with
equanimity: this, too, allows for application in a wide range of physical
environments, which vary in how much water is available.
40 Beasley-‐‑Murray, “lou,w,”151. Consider also Josephus’ assumption that
Nehemiah would have washed before going to serve drink to the king of Persia
(Antiquities 11.163). See further the entries in Gerhard Kittel, Theological Dictionary
of the New Testament, trans. and ed. Geoffrey Bromiley, 10 vols. (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1964–1976) 4:295–300 (lou,w); 1:530–535 (bapti,zw). The classic study is
well as men would also be suited to the spread of the people of God
beyond previous ethnic boundaries, since women might believe in Christ
apart from their husbands (1 Cor. 7:13).
D. Initial Conclusions
Several conclusions follow from our discussion of the ideological
background to baptism. The first is that it is easy to see how baptism can
be applied to the infant children of church members, marking their entry
into the people of God much as circumcision did in the old era. But this
is of course controversial among Christians, and I have given an outline
argument for infant baptism in “Baptizing Infants” in part 2 of this
discussion.
Second, there is good reason to suppose that the worldview factors
discussed above in relation to ritual and moral status apply as well to
baptism as they did to the Old Testament ceremonies. That is, we may
suppose that realism of some sort is a proper expression of the worldview
of the Bible, since the New Testament presupposes the same creation-‐‑
based worldview; the changes in our era have to do with advancing
God’s purposes for all mankind through the kingly reign of Jesus, and
this advance develops what the Old Testament itself had foretold. The
saving purpose for mankind takes for granted our common humanity by
virtue of creation as well as God’s continuing commitment to his
material creation.41
Further, we can see that Paul can denote people by their
administrative status every bit as much as Leviticus can: in Ephesians 1:1
he calls his audience “saints” (that is, “holy people”), using the Old
Testament term. What is striking about this letter is the way that Gentile
believers in Christ share the same standing with Jewish believers
(a feature of the letter: compare the “inheritance” terms in 1:11, 14,
previously reserved for the native-‐‑born Israelite). He goes on to tell his
Gentile readers that they are “no longer strangers and aliens,” but they
are “fellow citizens with the saints” (that is, with believing Jews).42 The
now J. Ysebaert, Greek Baptismal Terminology: Its Origin and Early Development
(Nijmegen: Dekker & Van de Vegt, 1962).
41 For more on this, showing how dependent New Testament thought is on
the creation-‐‑based worldview of the Old, see my Genesis 1–4, 94–100, 129–132,
141–145, 185–186, 269–278.
42 Paul uses terms from the Old Testament that describe the Gentile
proselyte, who has a “second-‐‑class” standing among the covenant people: for
“stranger” and “alien” compare Lev. 25:35 (ESV “sojourner”), Ruth 2:10 (ESV
“foreigner”). The category, Paul says, is abolished, and Gentile believers are full
citizens of the people of God—this is the great “mystery” that had been kept
largely hidden (Eph. 3:6).
house (or household) of God “grows into a holy temple in the Lord” (v.
21).43
In the biblical worldview the cleansing ceremony effects a change in
one’s administrative status—a change that should be accompanied by
moral vitality, and thus we have the sign/signified distinction (but not
separation) with baptism as we did for the Old Testament ceremonies.
Evangelicals will often say that in texts like Ephesians, Paul is
addressing people with “the judgment of charity”; that is, he assumes that
his readers are “holy” and “fellow citizens” unless and until he should
have good reason for thinking otherwise. Now, nothing in the texts
themselves invites us to discover such a device in these passages; but,
more positively, once we recognize how Paul is using terms from the
Old Testament world, naming these Jewish and Gentile believers in the
way that Israel was named in the old era, we can see that Paul’s
language is administrative. In this way we do not have to suppose that a
“non-‐‑elect” reader in the Ephesian church is “not really holy,” and we
just did not know it before; we can say instead that he has failed to take
hold of the benefits of his administratively holy status. Once again, we
are faced with recognizing the difference between what biblical authors
mean when they use their terms, and what we would mean if we used
the equivalent terms. As we shall see, this will help us with the
apparently indiscriminately realistic statements about baptism that we
find in the New Testament itself.
III. BAPTISMAL REALISM

A. Baptism and “Union with Christ”
So far we have only spoken of “realism of some sort” for baptism and
begun to indicate what sort that might be. Now let us see if that allows
us to make sense of the New Testament passages about baptism.
Paul’s statements seem to invite a realistic reading, do they not?
Consider the following sampling:44
43 Perhaps this category of administrative status helps explain the ideas

behind 1 Cor. 7:14, where the unbelieving spouse is “made holy” because of the
believing one, and the children of such a union are not “unclean” but are instead
“holy.”
44 Eckhard Schnabel, in “The Language of Baptism”, 235–39, contends that
the case of Rom. 6:3–5:3 is an instance of “metaphor,” describing “the spiritual

reality of death to sin and life to God” (238), and hence is not a matter of water
baptism; he prefers the gloss “immersed” for “baptized.” Of course in making
this an either-‐‑water-‐‑baptism-‐‑or-‐‑spiritual-‐‑death-‐‑and-‐‑life situation, Schnabel is
assuming things about physical ceremonies! More to my point, though, is
Schnabel’s lack of ceremonial categories altogether, and his assumption that
Romans 6:3–5. Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized
into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried
therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ
was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk
in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like
his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.
1 Corinthians 10:2–5. [A]nd all [those who came out of Egypt] were
baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same
spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank
from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ.
Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were
overthrown in the wilderness.
Galatians 3:27. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have
put on Christ.
Colossians 2:12. [H]aving been buried with him in baptism, in which
you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of
God, who raised him from the dead.
Ephesians 5:26. [T]hat he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the
washing of water with the word, . . .
being “united to Christ” must mean the kind of union had by what we call “the
regenerate.”
Schnabel goes on to suggest that 1 Cor. 10:2–5 is likewise not a reference to
water baptism, but again some kind of metaphor (241–42). He says, “Since Paul
presents a typological interpretation of Israel’s wilderness wanderings, a
translation that preserves the clearly metaphorical meaning of bapti,zw is ‘all were
immersed into Moses.’” However, this does indeed miss the burden of Paul’s
argument, probably because Schnabel has hampered himself with the word
“metaphorical.”
In 1 Cor. 10:1, Paul speaks of “our fathers” having “passed through the sea,”
a reference to crossing the Red Sea dry-‐‑footed. Their passage constituted a kind
of “baptism,” an appropriate image either because they went between the walls
of water on either side, or were wetted by the spray; they were thus incorporated
into the people of whom Moses was the leader and representative. But the point
is that “nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased” (v. 5), because
they did not have true faith—a situation that possibly confronts the Christian
congregation in Corinth. The Corinthian Christians, like the Israelites before
them, enjoyed privileges due to their membership in God’s people, and these
privileges obligate them to true faith. (See section III.B below for more on this
dynamic.) Further, the New Testament authors so commonly speak realistically
about baptism and its effects, including the ideas of cleansing and consecration
(cf. Acts 2:38; Eph. 5:26; Titus 3:5; 1 Pet. 3:21), that we may properly speak of
baptism as the ceremony of incorporation into the people. Hence it appears that
Schnabel is mistaking realistic ceremonial statements for metaphorical ones.
Titus 3:5. [H]e saved us, not because of works done by us in

righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of
regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, . . .
Theologians have put these together to say that baptism “grafts” us into
Christ, or brings us into some kind of “union” with Christ.45 Consider,
for example, the Scots Confession of 1560, article 21, an example of early
Reformed thinking:
Wee assuredlie believe that be Baptisme we ar ingrafted in Christ Jesus,
to be made partakers of his justice, be quhilk our sinnes ar covered and
remitted.
(We assuredly believe that by Baptism we are ingrafted into Christ
Jesus, to be made partakers of his righteousness, by which our sins are
covered and remitted.)
This is all that the article says of the sacrament; the rest of it goes on to
extensive discussion of the Lord’s Supper, which was probably more
controversial at the time. This is fair to the language that Paul himself
used—provided we know what we mean by “union” or “ingrafting.”
However, in Reformed theology “union with Christ” has come to
have a very specific meaning; in other words, it is scientific language for
a specific theological concept. It carries the notion of lasting participation
in the life of Christ, on the part of the elect, and hence it cannot be
dissolved. For example, the Westminster Larger Catechism, question 66,
speaks of “that union which the elect have with Christ.”46 I am sure that
this idea is both valuable and true; at the same time, if we read the
Pauline texts with this definition of union in mind, we cannot explain
such obvious pastoral issues as how a baptized person can commit
apostasy (the concern of Paul in 1 Corinthians 10), or why parents must
see to it that their baptized infants lay hold of the faith they profess.47
45 See “Baptismal Realism in Church History” in part 2.

46 Taking the restrictive clause (“that . . . which”) as allowing for other kinds
of union.
47 Some have interpreted Paul’s “realistic” language in Romans 6 as
referring not to water baptism, but to Spirit baptism (seeing a parallel with
circumcision of body and circumcision of the heart). The reason I do not think
that this is valid is two-‐‑fold: First, the language of Romans 6 is parallel with that
in other texts, and its simple sense seems to be the rite of baptism. (This
straightforward realism is also why I do not find another approach, namely, to
suppose that these passages use the sign as a metonymy for the signified,
compelling.) Second, the terms baptism and filling with the Spirit, as I shall show
in another essay, refer not to the inner life (either regeneration or sanctification,
to use conventional terms), but to being equipped and empowered for tasks in
the service of the people of God. I admit that this is a distinction that Paul
The explanation comes from realizing that Paul did not generally
speak the way a Reformed systematician would do. Rather, according to
Paul’s normal usage, to be a baptized member of the people of God is to
enjoy familial privileges and spiritual influences (as another author
would also put it, Heb. 6:4–6), advantages that obligate us to respond
with living and lifelong faith. Union with the people of God, which is
Christ’s body, is therefore union with Christ, understood this way; in
other words, the technical definition of “union” given above, which
includes the question of indissolubility, does not really correspond to
Paul’s pattern of usage. We may get analytical and classify different
levels of union, and this may help us; but Paul himself has not generally
spoken this way.
In chapter 4 of the work of which this article is part, I made the case
that generally in biblical language to be “in” someone is to be a member
of the people that has that person as its covenant representative. I also
made a few observations about John 15:1–8, where Jesus, in calling
himself the “true vine,” is claiming to embody the people of God: he is
the true people of God, and to be a member of that people is to be “in
him.” The key in John is that one must “abide” (or remain) in Jesus, and it
is possible that some will not (vv. 2, 6), in which case they must be
removed. We do not have to suppose that John and Paul mean quite the
same thing by their uses of “in Christ” terminology, although they seem
pretty close; but they both can be taken as referring to someone
administratively as a member of the people of God.
Christian theologians have been aware of the pastoral problem
mentioned above, namely, when baptized people do not live as disciples;
they appeal to “the judgment of charity” to warrant Paul’s terms, just as
with the “sainthood” terms in Ephesians. As with Ephesians, I do not
think this quite captures what Paul is saying, however, and it may be
taken to imply that “nothing happens” at all in those who are not elect,
and that their union with the people of God is only external. I would
prefer to say that Paul is speaking administratively, and not probing into
himself does not make; my promised essay will have to show why we need it
anyhow.
Because my fuller treatment is yet to come to the light, at this point I will
simply note that Acts 2 is the fulfillment of the promise in 1:5, 8, and Peter’s
speech is in the realm of what Paul calls “spiritual gifts.” Further, “filled with the
Spirit” is an Old Testament expression, appearing in Exod. 28:3; 31:3; 35:31; Deut.
34:9; and probably Mic. 3:8. It pertains to being equipped and enabled to serve
the purposes of the people of God (which is what spiritual gifts are). See my
“Ephesians 5:18: What Does plhrou/sqe evn pneu,mati Mean?,” Presbyterion 33, no. 1
(Spring 2007): 12–30.
the inner workings of the union and how it might be different for the
elect and non-‐‑elect—but that does not imply that the union is not a real
one. The appeal to the “judgment of charity” is based on, first, a
recognition of the unqualified realism that we find in Paul; and second,
the assumption that the realistic language bears the senses in which we
are accustomed to using the words, an assumption that I think needs
challenging.48
B. Baptism and Membership in the People of God

Perhaps we can see this better in the following diagrams. Here we see
that the people of God are those who are marked out as his by the
ordinances of the covenant—say, by circumcision and the sacrifices, or
by baptism and the Eucharist. However, not everyone who has the
external seals has the lasting internal reality of the covenant
(circumcision of the heart). That is, we have two groups: those marked
out as the people of God, and the subset who have the lasting reality:

PEOPLE OF GOD

GENUINE BELIEVERS

The distinction we have already acknowledged, between the “sign” (the
physical ceremony) and the “thing signified” (the spiritual benefit),
recognizes this: circumcision or baptism would be the sign here, while
genuine and lasting participation in the life of the people of God would
be the thing signified (at its deepest level). Not everyone agrees that this
distinction is valid, however: the Greek Orthodox theologian Alexander
Schmemann considers it a part of the “Western captivity” of the church,
48 In my view M. F. Sadler, The Second Adam and the New Birth (1862; repr.,
Monroe, LA: Athanasius Press, 2004) makes the valid point that Paul’s language
is just too realistic for us to be happy with this kind of “judgment of charity.”
Sadler uses the term “regeneration” to denote one’s entry into the people of God,
and distinguishes it from “conversion,” at which one comes to a personal faith.
This may have patristic antecedents; see “Baptismal Realism in Church History”
in part 2 of this essay. I think my way of stating it captures the Pauline emphases
without adding the further confusion of what these terms might mean in various
theological schemes. I further contend in “Baptismal Realism in Church History”
in part 2 that my treatment of this topic allows us to account for the very strong
kind of “realism” that early Christian writers attached to baptism, without just
dismissing it.
representing a post-‐‑patristic mental stance.49 It does seem to be the case
that the patristic writers rarely if ever make such a distinction, although
it is hard to tell whether that is due to their contentment with the
language level of the Bible, or to their possibly over-‐‑realistic reading of
that language (see “Baptismal Realism in Church History” in part 2). In
any case the features of life in the people of God (discussed in chapter 3
of the fuller work) virtually force the distinction upon us, and we have
already seen how the distinction underlies biblical discussions of the
ceremonies. The statement of Paul in Romans 2:28–29 is only a summary
of what the prophets had insisted on:
For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision
outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a
matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from
man but from God.
As already noted, we must distinguish between the sign and the signified,
but we must not fall into the common Western evangelical trap of
separating the two. That is, the sign serves the purposes of God in
bestowing, at some level, what is signified. In the case of the rite of
initiation, it serves that purpose by incorporating someone into those
who are marked out as the people of God.
Consider now the disputes about what the rite of baptism does,
particularly with infants. Those who advocate “baptismal regeneration”
(if we use “regeneration” in the sense current in Protestant systematic
theology)50 would say that baptism puts a person into the inner circle;
this alone, they say, does justice to the biblical language:

x

49 Alexander Schmemann, For the Life of the World: Sacraments and Orthodoxy
(Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1988), 135–51. Cyril of Jerusalem,
however, in his Lectures on the Christian Sacraments (mid-‐‑fourth century AD),
describes Simon Magus as having been baptized, but not enlightened—allowing
that one can receive the sign without the signified (see “Baptismal Realism in
Church History” in part 2 for text).
50 We should note, since we are aware of the varieties of language, that there
are other senses of the term “regeneration” in the biblical and theological
literature, as I discuss in “Baptism and ‘Regeneration’” in part 2.
The obvious objection to this is that it raises the question of what

happens when a baptized person fails to live out the faith: How can
“regeneration” be lost?
Hence there are many who practice infant baptism who wish to
solve the problem by saying that all covenant children must be
converted after their baptism. In other words, the baptism puts the infant
in the outer circle but not yet in the inner:

x

A serious objection to this is its likely impact on Christian child-‐‑rearing if
carried through logically, namely, we could not presume to teach our
children to pray, since we “know” that they are not “really” believers!
Further, it makes baptism mean something different for an infant than it
does for a professing adult.51 Finally, this way of looking at it ignores the
obvious realism of the biblical passages in order to address a pastoral
problem.
Actually, neither of these two approaches does justice to the biblical
language or thought world. The fact is, though we can assert that there is
an inner circle and that God knows who is in it and who is out, we
humans are not ordinarily privy to such information. In other words, we
see just the people of God, who are phenomenologically and
administratively described as those in union with Christ.52 And baptism
puts a person, infant or anyone else, into the only circle that we can see:
51 I acknowledge the influence here of Sinclair Ferguson, John Owen on the
Christian Life (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1987), 215: “It is significant that [John
Owen’s] definition [of baptism] is serviceable both for the baptism of adults upon
profession of faith, and of infants of believing parents—a matter of some
importance which was on occasion forgotten in the later development of the
doctrine of baptism within the tradition of Owen’s theology.” In footnote 4
Ferguson supplies some examples of those who forgot this principle.
52 In other words, the principle of 1 Sam. 16:7, “man looks on the outward
appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart,” simply summarizes an aspect of
the Creator-‐‑creature distinction. We creatures should be content with our
creaturely status.

x

Everyone who is a member of this people of God—baptized infant and
adult alike—has the responsibility to lay hold of the covenant blessings
from the heart, and to grow and persevere in faith and obedience.53 In
some cases, and perhaps many depending on the condition of the people
of God, this will require the baptized child to “come to faith” in a
decisive manner. I do not see that as being normative, however; the Bible
leads me to expect that a covenant infant’s faith normally begins earlier
than adults are able to discern its presence (Ps. 22:9–10; 71:5–6; 139:13–
16).54
Consider Galatians 3:26–27 from this perspective of membership in
the people of God. There Paul tells his readers (most of whom are Gentile
Christians):
[F]or in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many
of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
Verse 27 is explaining verse 26 (“for”), and thus the baptism brings them
into a standing where they are God’s “sons” (uiòi,). Since Paul goes on in
verse 28 to insist that their standing is not determined by their ethnicity,
social position, or gender (“neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free,
no male and female”), it looks likely that Paul focuses on a change in
God’s administering of his people, borrowing his terms for describing
this relationship from the Old Testament way of depicting ethnic Israel
as God’s “sons” (see Deut. 14:1; Isa. 1:2; 43:6; 45:11; cf. Mal. 1:6, all using
uiò,j in LXX). I suspect that this usage derives from Israel’s position as
God’s “son” (Exod. 4:22–23, etc.), with the members therefore called
53 Thus, for a baptized person to fail to live out a genuine faith is apostasy,
which means that it incurs a far worse judgment than for a non-‐‑believer from
outside the covenant. The anomaly is horrifying because it is so offensive to the
God of the covenant. It is also mystifying: how could it happen in the face of so
many benefits and privileges?
54 There is no biblical reason to identify the presence of faith either with our
ability to detect it or with a person’s ability to articulate it well—although of

course such articulation is desirable as a pastoral goal. See further my essay,
“Psalm 139:14: ‘Fearfully and Wonderfully Made,’” Presbyterion 25, no. 2 (1999):
115–20.
“sons.” Sonship of this sort is an administrative status, and does not

imply that each “son” has profited from God’s grace as he or she should
have done. Probably this explains Paul’s reference to Israel’s “adoption
[as sons]” (uiòqesi,a) in Romans 9:4—a privilege that Galatians is at pains
to insist now comes to Gentile believers as much as it does to Jewish
believers (cf. Gal. 4:5).
The baptized have the help of God to persevere, particularly as that
help is mediated through their fellowship with the people of God. By
“fellowship” I mean more than simply “companionship”: I mean
“mutual participation in the life of the body,” which includes a share in
the covenant ordinances and the grace on display there.55 A wise
Presbyterian elder, Mr. Frank Brown of St. Louis, expressed the idea
perfectly. In regard to the effect of baptism he asked, “Why can’t we just
say that this is all in God’s hands?” In other words, those who want to
work with the inner circle part of the diagram—in either of the two
models mentioned above—are probing beyond what is accessible to
them and would be better off silent. Indeed, the fact that the Bible goes
no further than this could be taken as God’s guidance for us to be
satisfied with this way of seeing it, to rest content with our creaturely
condition.
Another critique that applies to both the “baptismal regenerationist”
and the “conversionist” models is that they are too individualistic. If we
follow a redemptive-‐‑historical approach, we will prefer to think in terms
of the people of God and the notion of membership in it, and the
privilege and responsibility of participation from the heart that each
member has (as described above).
I suggest that looking at things this way also allows us to understand
1 Peter 3:21, which says bluntly, “Baptism saves you.” Here it is in
context:
because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the
days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is,
eight persons, were brought safely through water. Baptism, which
corresponds to this, now saves you [u`ma/j . . . nu/n sw,|zei ba,ptisma], not as a
removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good
55 In saying this I have not tried to slip in a “paedocommunion” position,
though I do in fact hold to it. It is possible to argue that one exercises those
privileges in a manner appropriate to one’s age, though I do not think that one
can really disprove paedocommunion with such an argument. My position is
based on my understanding of the covenant rite of the Eucharist as the Christian
peace offering, on which see my essay, “The Eucharist as Christian Sacrifice:
How Patristic Authors Can Help Us Read the Bible,” Westminster Theological
Journal 66 (2004): 1–23 (esp. 16–17).
conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into
heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and
powers having been subjected to him.
As Charles Bigg noted, “sw,|zei ba,ptisma [baptism saves] is a strong
phrase.” This is indisputably true; but more controversially, Bigg goes on
to conclude, “Baptism is not merely an outward and visible form, but an
inward and spiritual grace.”56 Donald Carson provides a common recourse
for those of more evangelical convictions: “Christian baptism . . .
regularly stands by metonymy for salvation,” that is, the symbol is used
for the thing signified.57
Actually, I do not think either of these alternatives is adequate,
because they assume a sense of “save” that is more technical than the
context of 1 Peter requires. If we recognize that the term “save” in the
Bible can have a wider range of meanings than it does in modern
Christian usage, then we can recall that it can be used in reference to
membership in the people of God (see chapter 5 of the fuller work). This
gives us an intelligible reading: baptism brings “you” into the people of
God, the sphere of “salvation.” This makes sense of Peter’s reference to
the risen Christ, who is the now-‐‑installed Davidic king and
representative of this people.
In the same way, when Peter in Acts 2:38 tells the crowd, “Repent
and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the
forgiveness of your sins” (metanoh,sate kai. baptisqh,tw e[kastoj u`mw/n evpi. tw/|
ovno,mati VIhsou/ Cristou/ eivj a;fesin tw/n a`martiw/n u`mw/n), he means that the
baptism is the way of entry into the new people of God, which is the
place characterized by the forgiveness of sins. That is, we should not
understand Peter as implying that baptism automatically conveys
forgiveness in an individualistic sense, but that it ushers one into that
people whose very life depends on forgiveness.58
56 Charles Bigg, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistles of St. Peter
and St. Jude, International Critical Commentary (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1901),
165 (italics added).
57 Donald A. Carson, “1 Peter,” in Commentary on the New Testament Use of
the Old Testament, ed. G. K. Beale and D. A. Carson (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007),
1015–45, at 1039a (italics added).
58 A modern evangelical would stress the first command, “repent,” as the
key condition for forgiveness. If Peter’s concern were a strictly individual one,
that might make sense; but since he goes on to require baptism in addition to
repentance as the means of entry, the explanation given here works better. In any
event it is clear that Peter would not have shared the bias of many modern
evangelicals that the heart (“repent”) is what matters and the ceremony (“be
baptized”) is not particularly important.
We can run into further linguistic difficulties with the word

“efficacy.” If we take the term in its ordinary language sense, we can say
that proper baptisms are objectively “effectual” in that they ritually
incorporate a person into the people of God. However, there is a
technical sense alongside of the ordinary one, as in the Westminster
Confession of Faith 28.6: “the efficacy of Baptism is not tied to that
moment of time wherein it is administered.” The technical sense is that
of conveying the thing signified in the deepest way, namely,
“regeneration.” But this technical sense does not entail the unbiblical
position that “nothing at all happens” with the non-‐‑elect (see further
“Baptismal Realism in Church History in part 2).
What, then, of the traditional practice of calling baptism a
“christening,” and of saying that the baptized are “Christians”? Is this
way of talking biblically justified? As usual, it all depends on what we
mean by our words. For starters, we should recognize that the actual
word “Christian” only appears three times in the New Testament (Acts
11:26; 26:28; 1 Pet. 4:16), each time designating one who professes faith in
Jesus. Modern evangelicals use the expression “to become a Christian” to
mean “to be converted”; that is, the phrase denotes entry into the inner
circle in our people-‐‑of-‐‑God diagram. But whereas we should of course
recognize the way people will hear what we say, and we should avoid
misunderstanding as much as we can, we do not have to allow modern
evangelical usage to have a monopoly on how we use our terms,
provided there is something to be gained by swimming against its tide.
In the case of baptism, I suggest that there is a gain. Baptism is what
marks a person out as a member of the people of God, and thus it
corresponds to “God’s name being called over someone”; that is, the
people “over whom God’s name is called” (typically rendered as “called
by God’s name,” compare 2 Chron. 7:14; Acts 15:17 [using Amos 9:12];
James 2:7) are those who have received the sign of incorporation.59 We
may think of the name of Christ being called over the one baptized,60 that
is, we may call such a person a Christian. This phrase refers to
administrative status, to membership in the people for whom Christ is
their Master.
IV. CONCLUSION
By now it should surprise no one that I think that C. S. Lewis has made
the most helpful observations on this subject as on so many others:
59 See also Isa. 63:19; Jer. 14:9; 15:16; Dan. 9:19.

60 Compare Justin Martyr, First Apology 61.10, who describes the name of
God being pronounced over the one baptized.

Now if once we allow people to start spiritualising and refining, or as

they might say “deepening,” the sense of the word Christian, it too will
speedily become a useless word. In the first place, Christians themselves
will never be able to apply it to anyone. . . . We do not see into men’s
hearts. We cannot judge, and indeed are forbidden to judge. It would be
wicked arrogance for us to say that any man is, or is not, a Christian in
this refined sense. . . .
We must therefore stick to the original, obvious meaning. The name
Christians was first given at Antioch (Acts xi.26) to “the disciples,” to
those who accepted the teaching of the apostles. There is no question of
it being restricted to those who profited by that teaching as much as
they should have. . . . When a man who accepts the Christian doctrine
lives unworthily of it, it is much clearer to say he is a bad Christian than
to say he is not a Christian. 61
Indeed, in the light of our study here, we are far better off saying that
those baptized who fail to embrace the covenant for themselves are
properly called “apostates” rather than “pagans.” Thus there can be a
gain in calling a baptism a christening, because it can impress upon all
those present the obligation that all members of the people of God have,
namely, to see that they and those they love lay hold of the grace of God
and abide in the life of faith, repentance, and obedience.
61 C. S. Lewis, “Preface,” Mere Christianity, 10–11.

Presbyterion 38/2 (Fall 2012): 74–98

WHAT DOES BAPTISM DO FOR ANYONE?

PART II: ADDITIONAL STUDIES

C. John Collins∗
I. BAPTISMAL REALISM IN CHURCH HISTORY

I asserted in part I of this essay that the Christian tradition has held to
some kind of baptismal realism. In this brief survey I will offer
substantiation for that, both from the early patristic period and from the
developing Reformed stream.
There are good treatments of the topic for the patristic period in
J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines (San Francisco: Harper & Row,
1978); see pages 193–99 for the earlier period, and 207–11 for
developments in the third century. Another source is Philip Schaff,
History of the Christian Church, 8 volumes (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980
[1910]), 2:247–65. I do not aim to add to these or to revise them; my
discussion is focused on the aspects of the subject that touch on the
language used. A helpful discussion for the Reformed confessions is
E. V. Gerhart, “Holy Baptism: The Doctrine of the Reformed Church,”
Mercersburg Review 15 (1868), pages 180–228, which argues that
baptismal realism is part of the Reformed tradition.
A. Greek Patristic Sources

First, consider the early patristic period. Justin Martyr (about AD 100–
165), in his First Apology (about AD 152), describes the Christian
sacraments. In 61:2 he tells us that the one who has been persuaded
and come to believe will receive “forgiveness of past sins” (tw/n
prohmarthme,nwn a;fesij, cf. 61:10), while in 61:3 the person will be “born
again” (avnage,nnhsij, avnagenna,w, cf. 61:10); one receives both benefits at
baptism. In 66:1 Justin speaks of the person baptized as “the one who has
∗ Jack Collins is professor of Old Testament at Covenant Theological

Seminary. He holds a PhD from the University of Liverpool. This is the second
part of a two-‐‑part article adapted from the draft of a chapter in a forthcoming
book about cooperating with Scripture. Previous chapters cover such topics as
how communication works, worldview and stories, redemptive history and the
people of God, and how to handle the different types of language we find in the
Bible. This chapter is part of the “putting these ideas to work” section of the
book. See C. John Collins, “What Does Baptism Do for Anyone? Part I: Exegetical
Background,” in Presbyterion 38, no. 1 (2012): 1–33.
been washed with the washing that is for forgiveness of sins and unto a
second birth” (o` lousa,menoj to. u.`pe.r avfe,sewj a`martiw/n kai. eivj avnage,nhsin
loutro,n). Justin also calls the baptism an “enlightenment” in 61:12: “this
washing is called enlightenment” (kalei/tai tou/to to. loutro.n fwtismo,j).
Justin’s language reflects the New Testament when he calls baptism
a “washing” (loutro,n, lou,w: 61:4, 10, 12, 13; 66:1). The idea of entering
into forgiveness also appears in the Bible, where baptism is “into or for
forgiveness” (eivj a;fesin): compare Mark 1:4 (John’s baptism), “a baptism
of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (ba,ptisma metanoi,aj eivj a;fesin
a`martiw/n); Acts 2:38 (Christian baptism), “Repent and be baptized every
one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins”
(metanoh,sate kai. baptisqh,tw e[kastoj u`mw/n evpi. tw/| ovno,mati VIhsou/ Cristou/
eivj a;fesin tw/n a`martiw/n u`mw/n). To connect baptism with “new birth” is
also biblical, although Titus 3:5 uses the term paliggenesi,a (“the washing
of regeneration,” loutro.n paliggenesi,aj) rather than avnage,nnhsij for the
idea. (For a discussion of New Testament terms for “regeneration,” see
section III below.) The New Testament uses “enlightenment” terms for
conversion (Eph. 1:18); and perhaps a baptismal reference occurs as well
in Hebrews 6:4 (“those who have once been enlightened” [tou.j a[pax
fwtisqe,ntaj]), in a passage describing the horror of apostasy in view of
the privileges enjoyed; and Hebrews 10:32, which looks back to the
earlier days of the audience’s discipleship.1
Like Justin, Irenaeus (died ca. AD 202) uses the term “regeneration”
(avnage,nnhsij) to describe baptism (see section IV below); in fact, he uses it
in apposition. In his Against Heresies 1.21.1 (ca. A.D. 180), some people
have been instigated by Satan “to a denial of baptism, which is
regeneration to God” (eivj evxa,rnhsin tou/ bapti,smatoj th/j eivj qeo.n
avnagennh,sewj).
Moving forward, we find stark realism as well in Cyril of Jerusalem’s
(about AD 310–386) Lectures on the Christian Sacraments. For example, he
calls those about to be baptized “those being enlightened” (fwtizo,,menoi,
Procatechesis 1; compare Justin). At the same time Cyril is able to warn his
audience about the danger of hypocrisy by recounting the episode of
Simon Magus (Procatechesis 2):
Simon Magus once came to the prosh/lqe, pote kai. Si,mwn tw|/ loutrw/|
washing: he was baptized, but he o` ma,goj\ evbapti,sqh( avllV ouvk
was not enlightened; and though evfwti,sqh\ kai. to. me.n sw/ma e;bayen
his body he dipped in water, yet u[dati( th.n de. kardi,an ouvk evfw,tise
his heart he did not enlighten pneu,mati\ kai. kate,bh me,n to. sw/ma(
1 The Syriac New Testament uses the term ma῾mûdîta᾽ (“baptism”) in both
places.
WHAT DOES BAPTISM DO FOR ANYONE? PART II 3
with the Spirit; and though his kai. avne,bh\ h` de. yuch. ouv suneta,fh
body went down, and came up, Cristw/|, ouvde. sunhge,rqh
yet his soul was not buried with
Christ, nor was it raised with
[Christ]

Cyril uses purification terms when he says that “baptism is a cleansing of
sins” (ba,ptisma . . . evstin a`marthma,twn kaqarth,rion, Catechetical Lecture 2:6).
Cyril is like Justin in his use of “enlightenment” terms, and in his
calling baptism a “washing” (loutro,n). He also mimics the New
Testament appropriation of “cleansing” language (although his specific
word, kaqarth,rion, does not appear in the New Testament or LXX). As
already mentioned in the first part of our study,2 he does provide a sense
of distinction between the sign and the signified in his warning about
Simon Magus. By his use of suneta,fh (“buried with,” from sunqa,ptw) and
sunhge,rqh (“raised with,” from sunegei,rw) Cyril is evoking Romans 6:4
(about baptism).3
Finally, consider the Nicene-‐‑Constantinopolitan Creed (AD 381),
which says, “we confess one baptism for the forgiveness of sins”
(o`mologou/men e]n ba,ptisma eivj a;fesin a`martiw/n); again, this is using
wording along the lines of the New Testament itself.
We can indeed see that the Greek Patristic authors in general held to
a form of baptismal realism in which baptism conveys “new life,” or
“union with Christ.” I am sure that it is possible to read these statements
as implying that what we would call “baptismal regeneration”—the
benefit of “regeneration,” which in our contemporary evangelical usage
is something that cannot be lost—is “automatically” conferred by
baptism. But we should be careful of supposing that these writers mean
the same thing by their words that we would mean if we said them. To
2 See “What Does Baptism do for Anyone? Part I,” 27 (point III.B).
3 For a recent and thorough study of Cyril, see Donna R. Hawk-‐‑Reinhard,
From Cristianoi, to Cristofo,roi: The Role of the Eucharist in Christian Identity

Formation according to Cyril of Jerusalem (PhD thesis, St Louis University, 2011). On
pp. 303–17, for example, Hawk-‐‑Reinhard examines the terminology that Cyril
uses for those who are being baptized—a discussion that displays the strong
realism that ran through Cyril’s sacramental theology. The context of Cyril’s
treatment will of course favor an optimistic stress, namely, the expectation that
those baptized will live worthily of their privileges. At the same time, as Hawk-‐‑
Reinhard notes, the right response is crucial: “baptism with water alone was not
sufficient to enter the kingdom of heaven: the person who was baptized must
also be found worthy of receiving the Holy Spirit so that he or she is born of both
water and the Spirit” (314). That is, Hawk-‐‑Reinhard confirms the observations
above about Cyril’s version of the sign-‐‑signified distinction.
begin with, Justin’s work is an apology, and thus would by the very
nature of the case lack the kinds of nuance we would need for a full
“doctrine” of baptism. Further, the Nicene-‐‑Constantinopolitan Creed
does make technical distinctions in Christology, using terms not found in
the Bible; but in its statement about baptism it does not go beyond the
Bible itself (probably its interests lay elsewhere than in defining the
effects of baptism). And finally, in a work aimed at catechumens, Cyril
explains that baptism as a ceremony does not have an automatic effect.
For these reasons it seems more likely to me that these authors use
“new birth” language, not for what we call “regeneration,” but for the
new life of a member of the people of God—that is, their language
reflects the administrative character of the Bible. Thus the questions we
ask would not have been before them in quite the same way as they are
before us. I do not doubt that some people from this period did in fact
take this administrative language and treat it as if it said more than it
does; I cannot be sure what these authors themselves would have said if
presented with the questions we have faced. But in any event my
reading of the biblical language as administrative or phenomenological
adequately accounts for what we find in the patristic period.
B. Reformed Confessions
The Scots Confession of 1560, cited earlier,4 says simply this about the
effect of baptism (Article 21):

Wee assuredlie believe that be We assuredly believe that by
Baptisme we ar ingrafted in Baptism we are ingrafted into
Christ Jesus, to be made Christ Jesus, to be made partakers
partakers of his justice, be quhilk of his righteousness, by which our
our sinnes ar covered and sins are covered and remitted.
remitted.

The (French) Gallican Confession of 1559 is similar to the Scots
Confession, though a little longer; in Article 35 it says,5
baptism is given as a pledge [or ”testimony,” témoignage] of our
adoption, for by it we are grafted into the body of Christ, so as to be
washed and cleansed by his blood, and then renewed in purity of life by
his Holy Spirit.
4 “What Does Baptism do for Anyone? Part I,” 24 (point III.A).
5 Compare the German Heidelberg Catechism (1563), answer 74: Infants “are
also by Baptism, as a sign of the covenant, to be ingrafted into the Christian
Church.”
The English Puritan Westminster Confession of Faith (1647; hereafter

WCF), chapter 28, is much longer, taking seven paragraphs. The
Westminster theologians said that baptism is “not only for the solemn
admission of the party baptized into the visible Church, but also to be
unto him a sign and seal of the covenant of grace, of his ingrafting into
Christ, of regeneration, of remission of sins, and of his giving up unto
God, through Jesus Christ, to walk in newness of life” (para. 1). The
Divines include a more technical notion of “efficacy” than what we find
in ordinary language (para. 6):
The efficacy of baptism is not tied to that moment of time wherein it is
administered; yet, notwithstanding, by the right use of this ordinance
the grace promised is not only offered but really exhibited and
conferred by the Holy Ghost to such (whether of age or infants) as that
grace belongeth unto, according to the counsel of God’s own will, in his
appointed time.
The language of the WCF, no doubt due to conflicts in the intervening
years, is more analytical than that of the earlier ones (which is more
ordinary and phenomenological); it is working with a specific idea of
regeneration as the beginning of the Christian life, the point at which one
is effectually called. Further evidence of this increase in technicality is
the connection with election in paragraph 6: it seems to be concerned
with explaining cases in which the baptism does not “take,” showing
that they were still valid baptisms.
The earlier Reformed confessions (in this case the Gallican and the
Scots) use “realistic” language in talking about the effects of baptism: by
it one is grafted into Christ or his body (and perhaps these are taken to
be equivalent). If we suppose—and it seems reasonable to me to do so—
that the makers of the WCF saw themselves as being in continuity with
their predecessors, then we may suggest that the added qualifications
are not intended to correct the earlier confessions or to disagree with
them, but to clarify distinctions.6 The realistic language of the earlier
confessions is closer to the language of ordinary religion, which means
that it reflects the way that ordinary Christians should normally view
their baptism; that is, with gratitude, confidence, and obligation. The
more analytical language of the WCF reflects the way that theologians
must think about the subject, and the way that pastors must handle the
anomalies presented by delayed conversion of a covenant child, or even
apostasy. It is widely held that the WCF gives more emphasis to divine
6
This intended continuity with the rest of the Reformed churches is a
running theme throughout Robert Letham, The Westminster Assembly: Reading Its
Theology in Historical Context (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2009); Letham’s
chapter 14 specifically addresses the sacraments.
election than do the earlier confessions. I hardly think that this

represents a conviction about the subject different from that of the earlier
Reformers; they were all “Calvinists,” after all. But in practical terms, the
idea of election comes in as an explanation after the fact; that is, it explains
why I should have believed in spite of all my sin. This after-‐‑the-‐‑fact
recognition is the only way in which God’s decrees are normally
accessible to human beings: we are creatures, and we know as creatures,
not as the Creator.
Taken in this light, we can speak of membership in the people of
God as “union with Christ” (because the church is his body), as the
earlier confessions do, in order to recognize the privileges into which
baptism has admitted us and our children. At the same time, if we need
to get analytical we can speak of “that union which the elect have with
Christ” (Westminster Larger Catechism 66), especially when we need to
explain difficulties or to warn against complacency.
Further, we have noted that Westminster uses a technical definition
of “efficacy,” namely, the bestowing of living and lasting participation in
Christ. In this sense a baptism is “efficacious” only for the elect, even
when the person comes to faith later than the time of the baptism.
Therefore baptism for the non-‐‑elect is not “efficacious” in this sense; it
does not follow, however, that Westminster denies efficacy in every sense.
That is, one commonly hears from evangelical Presbyterians that
“nothing happens” when a non-‐‑elect person is baptized; but that is not
what the WCF itself says. The Puritan confession has not denied what
the earlier Reformed confessions affirm, namely, that a proper baptism
really does join a person to the people of God, and in this way to Christ
himself, and thus ushers him into a web of relationships and influences
through which he may participate in the life of Christ mediated through
the people of God. The Westminster language clarifies that there is some
aspect in which this union is different for the elect and non-‐‑elect, but it
wisely does not pretend to give us criteria by which we humans can
distinguish the two.
The language of Westminster is not anti-‐‑realistic about the
sacrament, mind you: it does speak of grace as “not only offered but
really exhibited and conferred by the Holy Ghost,” in accord with God’s
own plan. Nor does Westminster in any way deny the possibility that
infants of believing parents may indeed be “regenerated” and have a
faith of their own. (Even when the Larger Catechism 177 requires that
those who partake of the Lord’s Supper must be “of years and ability to
examine themselves,” this does not deny that genuine faith can be
present in those below this age, nor even that it might be normally
present in children of pious homes.)
The Assembly that produced the WCF also published a Directory for
the Publick Worship of God; its section on baptism allows ministers to
speak along very realistic lines of a child that has been brought for
baptism:
That children, by baptism, are solemnly received into the bosom of the
visible church, distinguished from the world, and them that are
without, and united with believers; and that all who are baptized in the
name of Christ, do renounce, and by their baptism are bound to fight
against the devil, the world, and the flesh: That they are Christians, and
federally holy before baptism, and therefore are they baptized.
These words, being the language of everyday religion, are closer to the
way the Gallican and Scots confessions described the benefits of baptism.
At the same time, the WCF (28, para. 5) sets a limit on how far an
allowable realism may go; it denies that baptism is either an absolute
requirement for “regeneration” or an infallible bestower of
“regeneration”:
Although it be a great sin to condemn or neglect his ordinance, yet
grace and salvation are not so inseparably annexed unto it, as that no
person can be regenerated, or saved, without it: or, that all that are
baptized are undoubtedly regenerated.
I conclude from all this that the realistic language of the earlier Reformed
confessions is like the language of the Bible, and even like the language
of the early church (if I have read that correctly). That is, the realism
refers to ritual or administrative status, and should be taken
phenomenologically.7 It serves a valid purpose, and so does the technical
language of the WCF; the point is that each serves a different purpose,
and thus they should not be played against each other.
We should note as an aside that Reformed writers have varied in the
meaning they assign even to the term “regeneration.” Nowadays we take
it to refer exclusively to the event at the beginning of genuine Christian
life on the part of an individual. That seems to be the sense of the word
in the Westminster language. However, the Dutch theologian Gisbertus
Voetius, writing in 1648, said: “Regeneration is instantaneous, or
7 This is why I see no need to appeal, in the case of baptism, to the principle
of WCF 27:2, where the “sacramental union between the sign and the thing
signified” results in “the names and effects of the one [being] attributed to the
other,” since I read the biblical texts as speaking primarily about ritual status. I
note that the WCF itself neither specifies any baptismal texts to which we should
apply this principle, nor does it invoke the principle in its chapter on baptism—
unlike what it does with the body and blood of Jesus in the Lord’s Supper (WCF
29:5).
happens in an instant. When it is termed successive by some, this is to be
understood of the whole complex or collection of the term in the first few
moments.”8 This indicates that, at least before Voetius’ time, the
definition of the term had not become fixed, and Calvin (Institutes 3.3.9)
is an example of wider usage of the term, referring to the whole of what
we call “sanctification.”9
II. EZEKIEL 36:25–27, JOHN 3:5, AND BAPTISM

Through the prophet Ezekiel, the Lord declares that after the people of
Judah return to the land from the Babylonian Exile, he will address the
spiritual and moral conditions that led to the Exile in the first place.
Chapter 36 is given over to the subject, and verses 22–31 provide us with
the flavor of the promises:
22“Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord GOD: It is not
for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake
of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which
you came. 23And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which
has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned
among them. And the nations will know that I am the LORD, declares
the Lord GOD, when through you I vindicate my holiness before their
eyes. 24I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the
countries and bring you into your own land. 25I will sprinkle clean
water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and
from all your idols I will cleanse you. 26And I will give you a new heart,
and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of
stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27And I will put my
Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful
to obey my rules.
8 Cited in Heinrich Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1978

[German original 1861]), 519.
9 The texts and translations in this section come from the following sources.
The English of the relevant portions of Justin Martyr are available in Schaff,
History of the Christian Church, 2:247–48; and J. Stevenson, A New Eusebius
(London: SPCK, 1968), 65–66. The Greek is cited from Edgar J. Goodspeed, Die
Ältesten Apologeten: Texte mit kurzen Einleitungen (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck &
Ruprecht, 1984), 70–71, 74. For Irenaeus, I use the Ante-‐‑Nicene Fathers edition for
English, finding the Greek in Migne’s Patrologia Graeca. The Greek text for Cyril
of Jerusalem is in St Cyril of Jerusalem, Lectures on the Christian Sacraments, ed. F.
L. Cross (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1995 [1951]). The creeds
and confessions come from Philip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom (Grand
Rapids: Baker, 1998 [1931]), vol. 2, The Greek and Latin Creeds, and vol. 3, The
Evangelical Protestant Creeds. The English given above is a mixture of these
English renderings and my own.
28You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you
shall be my people, and I will be your God. 29And I will deliver you
from all your uncleannesses. And I will summon the grain and make it
abundant and lay no famine upon you. 30I will make the fruit of the tree
and the increase of the field abundant, that you may never again suffer
the disgrace of famine among the nations. 31Then you will remember
your evil ways, and your deeds that were not good, and you will loathe
yourselves for your iniquities and your abominations. 32It is not for your
sake that I will act, declares the Lord GOD; let that be known to you. Be
ashamed and confounded for your ways, O house of Israel.
There are many prophetic themes for us to notice here: the interest in the
nations (Gentiles), among whom Israel was called to vindicate the
holiness of the LORD’s name, so that these nations would come to know
the true God; God’s people living in God’s land under his rule and
protection; God’s intention to honor his own name; and the importance
of true piety—that is, covenant reality—among the people of God.
For our purposes I will focus on verses 25–27, especially since that is
thought by many to be the background for John 3:5, “born of water and
the Spirit.” Note that the prophet speaks of “sprinkling clean water” on
the people; this is likely an image based on the water used for cleansing
after touching a dead body (Num. 19:13, 20, where “water” is
“sprinkled” or “thrown” [Hebrew zaraq (qrz)]), the idea being that the
“idols” defile like a dead body (since they are themselves dead). The
result of being cleansed in this way will be moral cleanness, with the
Spirit causing the people actually to live in obedience to their God.
Other texts that associate moral impurity with uncleanness include
Numbers 5:19 (adultery); Jeremiah 32:34 (abominable idols make the
temple unclean); Ezekiel 22:15 (a whole range of wrong doings, vv. 1–
13); 24:13 (generally Jerusalem’s unfaithfulness, especially idolatry and
bloodshed); 36:17 (idolatry and bloodshed); 39:24 (unfaithfulness to the
covenant); and Zechariah 13:2 (idols and false prophets). In Ezra we find
“uncleanness” used to describe the idolatrous and immoral practices of
the Gentiles: 6:21 (one who “separated himself from the uncleanness of
the peoples of the land,” that is, a Gentile convert to the Lord); 9:11 (the
abominations of the Canaanites before the Israelite conquest).
The theme in Ezekiel 36 is that Judah has been exiled because the
people have been unfaithful to the covenant, and have thereby defiled
the land and profaned the holy name of the Lord among the nations;
nevertheless this will not be the end of Israel’s story, as the Lord intends
to return them to the land and to renew covenant faithfulness within
them, with a view toward bringing the Gentiles to know the true God.
Specifically, Ezekiel calls this renewed situation a “new heart” in verse
26, which the Lord will give them (compare 18:31, where they had been
exhorted to get a new heart in order to avoid exile). The very similar
11:19 refers instead to “one heart” (leb ekhad dxa bl), probably meaning
that it will no longer suffer from divided loyalties (compare Jer. 32:39;
2 Chron. 30:12; Ps. 86:11). This will result in God’s Spirit dwelling within
(or among) the people, moving them to lives of obedience, the very thing
that the covenant had aimed at to begin with.
Ezekiel uses the image of “clean water” sprinkled on the people as
the means by which God effects this change. We may refer to this as
“symbolism” employing the Levitical cleansing ceremonies, but we
would not be cooperating with the prophet if we say that the water is
merely symbolic; that is, Ezekiel, a priestly prophet, shows a clear sense
of both the sign-‐‑signified distinction (witness the judgment on the house
of the Lord in chapters 6–10), and the purpose of the ritual system to
foster moral holiness (witness the restored sanctuary after the exile,
37:26–28; chapters 40–48). Therefore, we should see Ezekiel not as
discarding the sign and thus breaking the nexus between administrative
status and moral status, but as pledging the thing signified by the
ceremony.
Does this help us understand John 3:5 (as the Nestle-‐‑Aland margin
suggests)? Consider the context:
2 [Nicodemus] came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know
that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that
you do unless God is with him.” 3Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I
say to you, unless one is born again [eva.n mh, tij gennhqh/| a;nwqen] he cannot
see the kingdom of God.” 4Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be
born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s
womb and be born?” 5Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless
one is born of water and the Spirit [eva.n mh, tij gennhqh/| evx u[datoj kai.
pneu,matoj], he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6That which is born of
the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7Do not
marvel that I said to you [singular], ‘You [plural] must be born again.’
8The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do
not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone
who is born of the Spirit.”
9Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” 10Jesus
answered him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not
understand these things? 11Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what
we know, and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not
receive our testimony. 12If I have told you earthly things and you do not
believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?”10
10 Italics in Scripture quotations indicate emphasis added.

Several observations are in order here: First, the expressions “be born
again” (or from above) and “be born of water and the Spirit” are equivalent,
as we can see from the strong parallelism between verses 3 and 5.
Second, the matter of being “born of God” has already appeared in
John’s Prologue (1:13, evk qeou/ evgennh,qhsan), which is the text that
previews the themes that the whole Gospel expands on. There it refers to
the special provision by which God enables one to believe in Jesus (see
also 1 John 5:1).
Third, we note that Nicodemus is a Pharisee, and that this Gospel
presents the Pharisees as the guardians of the people’s moral and
theological well-‐‑being (as in 1:24, interviewing John the Baptist; 7:47–48,
setting the example for the whole people of disbelief in Jesus; 9:13,
examining the man born blind whom Jesus had healed; 12:42, having
influence to put someone out of the synagogue for believing in Jesus).
The Pharisees are concerned with seeing and entering the kingdom of
God, but Jesus says to Nicodemus that they (note the plural “you” in v.
7) must themselves be “born again,” which seems to indicate that Jesus
did not consider the Pharisees to have a living participation in the life of
the covenant (compare 5:46–47: he says the Jewish leaders do not really
believe Moses, otherwise they would believe him, too).
Fourth, Ezekiel 36:25–27 connects “water” (v. 25) and “the Spirit” (v.
27), and refers to God’s work of enabling his people to have a genuine
participation in the life of the covenant; in fact, Jesus expresses surprise
that “the teacher of Israel” does not understand these things (v. 10),
which implies that these matters were part of the Old Testament
background that he shared in common with them.
All these considerations make it reasonable to suppose that Ezekiel’s
prophecy is indeed the interpretive backcloth for these words of Jesus.11
Perhaps the idea is that the down-‐‑payment that we read about in Ezra
and Nehemiah, where the people of restored Judah (sixth and fifth
centuries BC) really did commit themselves to the covenant, hardly
guaranteed that their descendants in the time of Jesus would
automatically have that same reality. Indeed, the work of John the
Baptist, with his cleansing ceremony, was a way of preparing the people
for the One Who Was Coming; that is, it addresses their uncleanness and
calls them to repentance and cleansing. Thus we can see John as
11 For agreement, see A. J. Köstenberger, “John,” in G. K. Beale and D. A.

Carson, eds., Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament (Grand
Rapids: Baker, 2007), 415–512, at 434b.
implementing this part of Ezekiel’s message (John, like Ezekiel, was a

prophet from a priestly family): the people needed again to be cleansed.12
There is thus a sense in which John 3:5 does indeed have a
“baptismal” implication, since John the Baptist was employing a
ceremony with water. If the Christian church adapted John’s ceremony
into Christian baptism, then the common Christian reading of John 3:5 as
referring to Christian baptism (as found, for example, in Chrysostom’s
Homily 25 on John) has an explanation. But we are getting ahead of
ourselves.
We may observe that John’s particular usage of “born again”
terminology comes close to what is now the standard sense of
“regeneration” in Reformed theology. We can see that from the fact that
both Ezekiel and Jesus are speaking within the people of Judah, and are
referring to the way particular persons lay hold of (or are laid hold of by)
the realities of the covenant. That is, it is possible that other places in the
New Testament that use “new birth” language—such as 1 Peter 1:3, 23
(using avnagenna,w) and Titus 3:5 (using paliggenesi,a)—are speaking of the
new life a person enjoys as a member of the people of God, without
delving into what we would mean by the “personal regeneration
question”; but the stress here in John 3 (and likely the other texts in the
Johannine material about being “born of God”) is on the particular
person and his appropriation. (Section III below discusses this further.)
Further, we can speak of the water as “emblematic” of the personal
transformation so long as we do not smuggle in the qualifier merely. That
is, we certainly should recognize that both texts (Ezekiel 36 and John 3)
have in mind a supernatural action, and that it is conceivable to receive
the sign but lack the signified. Indeed, divine promises do not cancel out
the personal responsibility of covenant members. At the same time, there
is no reason why the water cannot convey the blessing, nor is there any
reason why God cannot have planted the “new heart” in a person before
the water ceremony.
12 Gary T. Manning Jr., Echoes of a Prophet: The Use of Ezekiel in the Gospel of
John and in the Literature of the Second Temple Period, JSNTSS 270 (London: T&T
Clark International, 2004), 186–89, discusses John 3:5. Manning concludes that
Ezek. 36:25–27 is part of the backcloth, along with Isa. 44:3 (“I will pour water on
the thirsty land . . . I will pour my Spirit upon your offspring”). He takes John as
primarily using water as a symbol of the Spirit, based on his reading of John
7:37–39; hence he interprets John 3:5 as “born of water, that is, of the Spirit.” This
is grammatically, and even stylistically, possible for John, though I do not think
Manning’s point on John 7:37–39 quite captures what John is saying there; but
that is another matter.
Christian audiences, I have said, have read John 3:5 as speaking of

baptism; perhaps the very first audience of this Gospel did the same. I do
not see how they could avoid it except by a tour de force. In the sense that
baptism is an heir of the washing promised by Ezekiel, that is legitimate.
At the same time all of our qualifications about the sign and the signified
apply.
III. BAPTISM AND “REGENERATION”

What, then, is the best way to describe the connection between baptism
and regeneration? Does the act of water baptism bestow regeneration,
does it symbolize how regeneration takes place, or is it testimony to an
already-‐‑accomplished regeneration—or is there some other relationship?
People from a variety of Christian perspectives have offered
explanations for a text such as Titus 3:5 (“by the washing of regeneration
and renewal of the Holy Spirit”) along each of these lines.
There are several difficulties inherent in the way we ask the
question. What do we mean by “regeneration,” and do the Bible writers
mean the same thing as we do? What is the relationship between
regeneration and saving faith—and what exactly is “saving faith”? Why
are contemporary evangelicals reluctant to attribute beneficial “spiritual”
effects to a “physical” ordinance? The discussion in part I of this essay
has offered some thoughts on the latter two questions; here we will
attend to the first one.
There are three expressions in the New Testament for “regeneration”
or “being born again”:
• paliggenesi,a (Titus 3:5, “regeneration”; Matt. 19:28, “regeneration /
new world”)13
• avnagenna,w (“to cause to be born again”: 1 Peter 1:3 [active], 23
[passive])14
• genna,w (“to beget”; passive “to be born / begotten”) with either a;nwqen
(“again / from above”: John 3:3, 7) or evk [tou/] qeou/ (“of God”: John 1:13;
cf. 1 John 3:9; 4:7; 5:1, 4, 18)
There is no reason why all of these terms must refer to exactly the same
thing, nor is it entirely clear that they correspond to what has now
13 Formed from pa,lin,“again,” with genesi,a (feminine of gene,sioj “pertaining

to birth”; cf. Matt 14:6). Not used in LXX.
14 Formed from genna,w, “to beget,” with prefix avna- (which can imply
repetition). Not used in LXX.

become the meaning of “regeneration / new birth.” Reformed theologian

John Murray defined “regeneration” this way:15
Regeneration is a change wrought by the Spirit in order that the person
may savingly respond to the summons, or demand of the call,
embodied in the gospel call. God’s call is an efficacious summons and
therefore carries with it, carries as it were in its bosom, the grace that
ensures the requisite response on the part of the subject.
It is the result of the “effectual calling.”
As mentioned in section II above, the use of genna,w with a;nwqen or evk
tou/ qeou/ in the Johannine material corresponds to Murray’s definition of
“regeneration”: their focus is on the particular person and the new
capacities God works into his life. This kind of new birth is necessary if
someone wishes to “enter the kingdom of God” (John 3:5), or if he is to
“believe in the name” (John 1:12; cf. 1 John 5:1). Such a person is
distinguished by his “practicing righteousness” and rejecting sin (1 John
2:29; 3:9; 5:18); his love, especially for fellow Christians (1 John 4:7); and
his overcoming the world (1 John 5:4). We may call this “regeneration in
the narrower sense.”
As indicated in section I, when an early writer such as Justin Martyr
or Irenaeus spoke of baptism bringing a “new birth,” he used the noun
avnage,nnhsij (which is related to avnagenna,w); it seems plausible that the
“new birth” he was describing was the entry into the new life, the new
web of relationships that baptism bestows by initiating a person into the
covenant people. We may call this “regeneration in the ritual or
administrative sense.” So the question is: do all the New Testament texts
and terms use the narrower sense, or do some allow the administrative
sense of “regeneration”? I will argue that a “new birth” in the ritual or
administrative sense fits the usage of paliggenesi,a and avnagenna,w in the
New Testament.16
Consider Titus 3:5:
[God] saved [e;swsen] us, not because of works done by us in
righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of
regeneration and renewal [dia. loutrou/ paliggenesi,aj kai. avnakainw,sewj] of
the Holy Spirit.
15 John Murray, Collected Writings of John Murray (Edinburgh: Banner of
Truth, 1977), 2:172.

16 The Talmud contains the declaration that “one who has become a
proselyte is like a child newly born” (Yebamot 22a), in a context dealing with his
legal relationships; perhaps this echoes an earlier Jewish usage of “new birth”
language in an administrative mode, similar to the New Testament.
Since the context (vv. 1–10) is the good order of the Christian community
that Titus is serving, it is reasonable to take the term saved in its
membership-‐‑in-‐‑the-‐‑saved-‐‑people sense (cf. the discussion of 1 Peter 3:21
in part I),17 and regeneration as “entry into the new life of the
community,” a new life into which baptism ushers a person. That is, the
administrative sense suits Paul’s discussion.
Consider 1 Peter 1:3, 23:
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to
his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again [avnagennh,saj h`ma/j] to a
living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, . . .
since you have been born again [avnagegennhme,noi], not of perishable seed but
of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God.
Here we have the verb, avnagenna,w, “to regenerate”; the term that Justin
Martyr and Irenaeus use for the “regeneration” produced at baptism
(avnage,nnhsij) is the noun related to this verb. Justin’s and Irenaeus’ use is
compatible with the emphases of 1 Peter, if we take them both as
administrative, and this fits the context of 1 Peter.18 In context, 1 Peter is
addressing members of the Christian community, who are to “grow up
to salvation, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good” (2:2–3), that
is, to enter into eternal glory through a life of persevering faith and
obedience. Perhaps the audience consists largely of people in the early
stages of their Christian commitment,19 since 1 Peter likens them to
“newborn infants” (2:2), probably picking up the idea of the “new birth”
in 1:3, 23.20 The author expects his audience to embrace the privileges
and responsibilities they have by virtue of their place in the Christian
community, as he says in 1:14–16 (using Lev. 11:44):
As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your
former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in
all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”
As the Leviticus reference indicates, the “newborn infants” are to make
sure that they lay hold of their ritual status from the heart, and live it
out.
17 See “What Does Baptism do for Anyone? Part I,” 30–31 (point III.B).
18 I am leaving out all discussion of whether to take 1 Peter as a baptismal
homily (an idea once popular but now largely rejected); my conclusions are
intended to be independent of the outcome of that argument.
19 See Jeffrey de Waal Dryden, Theology and Ethics in 1 Peter: Paraenetic
Strategies for Christian Character Formation (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006), 45:
“1 Peter is addressed to young converts in this liminal phase, as evidenced in the
emphasis on conversion.”
20 Dryden, Theology and Ethics in 1 Peter, 110.
In order to discuss the relationship of baptism to “regeneration,” we
need to clarify which sense of “regeneration” we have in view. If we
mean it in the ritual or administrative sense, i.e., entry into new life as a
member of the people of God, there is no conceptual or theological
difficulty with saying that baptism brings about “regeneration” (as in the
circle diagrams I used to illustrate this idea in part I).21 If we mean
regeneration in the narrower sense, i.e., as the result of effectual calling,
then the only affirmation possible is that it is in God’s hands: further
than that we ought not go.
IV. BAPTIZING INFANTS

Certainly as a Presbyterian I embrace what is called “infant baptism,”
that is, I insist that the sign of membership in the people of God is rightly
applied not only to previously unchurched adults professing their faith,
but also to the newborn children of believers. There are, however,
several versions of what such a practice means for the baptized person,
as discussed in part I. But it will perhaps be of use to say why the
perspective I am advocating here favors the practice in general.
In this section I will focus primarily on the positive case for baptizing
Christians’ infant children. Of course, there is much literature out there,
some of it good and lots of it unhelpful. In the background of this
presentation, I have kept in mind those scholars who have argued
capably for the “believer’s baptism” position, and I count among the best
of those recently produced the collection of essays edited by Thomas
Schreiner and Shawn Wright, Believer’s Baptism: Sign of the New Covenant
in Christ (Nashville: B&H Publishing, 2006). For the sake of space, and in
view of my own goals here, I will simply make a few brief comments on
the relevant essays, rather than supply an extensive review and reply.
The most important essays in this collection for my purposes are:
• Robert Stein, “Baptism in Luke-‐‑Acts” (35–66)
• Thomas Schreiner, “Baptism in the Epistles: An Initiation
Rite for Believers” (67–96)
• Stephen Wellum, “Baptism and the Relation between the
Covenants” (97–162)
• Steven McKinion, “Baptism in the Patristic Writings” (163–
188)
Stein’s essay repeats the common “no mention of children in the
household baptisms” line of argument, without engaging the echoes that
21 See “What Does Baptism do for Anyone? Part I,” 26–29 (point III.B).
I will argue for here. Schreiner’s essay does not really account for the
occasional nature of the New Testament letters, in which baptism is not
their topic; hence, in my judgment, one cannot draw out a full “doctrine”
of baptism from these letters. McKinion’s essay, which treats the second
century (pp. 169–73), simply overlooks the key passages in Polycarp,
Justin, and Irenaeus (see below).
Although I will give a fuller treatment to Wellum’s argument
elsewhere,22 as it relates to the idea of the “new covenant,” it is
worthwhile to mention a few points here.23 In Wellum’s understanding,
Jeremiah’s prophecy (Jer. 31:29–34) “entails that all those within the ‘new
covenant community’ are people, by definition, who presently have
experienced regeneration of heart and the full forgiveness of sin” (105,
italics his). That is, the circles I used in part I (point III.B, “Baptism and
Membership in the People of God”) no longer apply in the “new
covenant community.” Now quite apart from the exegetical question of
whether that does indeed follow from Jeremiah (as opposed to, say,
being a description of the ultimate fulfillment, which is still future),
Wellum’s description certainly does not match what we find as the New
Testament authors deal with the actual churches to which they write. For
example, Paul can cite examples from Israel’s wandering in the
wilderness, examples whose very point is that one can be a member of
the people without the heart reality of true faith (1 Cor. 10:1–5). In fact,
Paul goes on to say that “these things took place as examples for us, that
we might not desire evil as they did” (1 Cor. 10:6). Paul can also remind
the churches that the members must “continue in the faith, stable and
steadfast,” if they wish finally to be presented “holy and blameless and
above reproach before” God (Col. 1:22–23). The author of Hebrews
insists that “good news came to us [first-‐‑century Jewish believers in
Jesus] just as to them [the people of Israel following Moses],” and he is
concerned that “no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience” (Heb.
4:2, 11).
Hence, it does not follow that the empirical Christian communities
are “by definition” only composed of people “who presently have
experienced regeneration of heart and the full forgiveness of sin.” Jesus’
Parable of the Sower and the Soils (Luke 8:4–15 and parallels) explains
22 This will appear in the larger work to which the two parts of this essay
belong, in a chapter devoted to “The New Covenant and Redemptive History.”
23 My previously published comments on the “new covenant” idea include
“Echoes of Aristotle in Romans 2:14–15: Or, Maybe Abimelech Was Not so Bad
After All,” Journal of Markets and Morality 13:1 (Spring 2010): 123–73, at 134–36;
“The Eucharist as Christian Sacrifice: How Patristic Authors Can Help Us Read
the Bible,” Westminster Theological Journal 66 (2004): 1–23, at 11–13.
why this is so: there are people who “receive the word with joy,” but
only “believe for a while” (Luke 8:13). There is no hint that a human
administrator of God’s people could have told the difference between
these and the fruitful ones, nor that he should even try to erect a pattern
of church life designed to do so; therefore Wellum’s thesis fails.
A full study on the whole of the patristic evidence on baptism comes
from Everett Ferguson, Baptism in the Early Church: History, Theology, and
Liturgy in the First Five Centuries (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009).
Besides giving a comprehensive treatment of its material, the book also
supplies a sustained apologetic for several Church of Christ distinctives,
especially full immersion as the right application of the Greek word
bapti,zw; no analogy between baptism and circumcision; and a strong
kind of realism, in which baptism becomes a necessary part of the
Christian life (one might not even be a “Christian” or “regenerate” in the
narrow sense without it). This book deserves first of all our gratitude for
its exhaustive coverage; it surely ought to become a standard work on
the subject. It also deserves a full review, which I hope to provide in due
course. Ferguson relies on common baptistic theological arguments (such
as, since Acts does not say there were children in the households that
were baptized, we are not at liberty to assume that children were
present), which I find unsatisfactory; but his handling of the patristic
evidence (which I consider below) is surprisingly biased as well.24
Because Ferguson is convinced that infant baptism is actually an
aberration from the New Testament pattern, and from the early Christian
practice right after the New Testament, he must seek an explanation for
its rise and eventual dominance in the Christian world. He proposes that
it derives from the emergency baptisms of the sick and dying, which
were then applied to sick infants, and soon to all infants (just in case).
This proposal leads him to read the evidence in odd ways. For example,
in discussing Chrysostom (p. 545), he asks, “Are the infant baptisms
defended by Chrysostom [quotations on pp. 544–45], therefore,
emergency baptisms?” Ferguson goes on to cite a passage in
24 My discussion here focuses on the question of whether infant baptism has
precedent in the early church, and therefore I am not engaging Ferguson’s

argument that “immersion” is the mode that the Jewish, New Testament, and
early patristic sources imply. I will simply note that, by the treatment in part I,
one cannot substantiate immersion as the right sense of the relevant words.
Nevertheless, since “ceremonial drenching” appears well-‐‑supported by the
Jewish evidence, my interaction with Ferguson’s argument does supply a
critique of what we might call a “sacramental stinginess” that is rampant in
many churches that I know, namely, the idea that somehow we may be satisfied
with the barest minimum of the physical elements in the sacraments.
Chrysostom’s Homilies on Acts (Homily 23, on Acts 10:23–24), which has
the following line:
those who have been enlightened [baptized], whether because they
received it as children or having received it in sickness and recovered.
In his footnote giving the reference, he says, “One should note the linking
of child baptism and sickbed baptism” (emphasis added).
This assertion is astonishing, even to the reader of the passage in
English. There is no explicit linkage; rather, they look like elements in a
list. (By the way, I certainly agree with the interpretation of
“enlightened” as “baptized”; see section I above.) And when one checks
Chrysostom’s Greek, the impression from the English becomes certainty:
the construction is oi` me.n . . . oi` de,. These are two elements in a list; the
only “linkage” is what makes them items in the list. (Perhaps it has to do
with the perceived level of awareness or dependency on the part of the
baptizand, since Chrysostom goes on to refer to those who received
baptism in health.) The whole context is about how baptism obligates
one to live dia theon, for the sake of God, regardless of how one received
the sacrament.
In this example, then, and the others he offers, Ferguson’s case for
the aberrant origin of infant baptism sounds like special pleading.
Finally, I mention an article by Anthony N. S. Lane, “Did the
Apostolic Church Baptize Babies? A Seismological Approach,” Tyndale
Bulletin 55:1 (2004): 109–30. Lane surveys many of the same patristic
passages that I will cover below, and offers a helpful methodology,
based on the pattern of “seismic” effects of the apostolic practices on
later centuries. After noting that even when patristic authors object to
infant baptism they do not object to it in principle (that comes many
centuries later), he concludes that the best explanation for the patristic
data is that there was some variety of practice in the apostolic era. My
only addition to his case is that the possibility of such variety does not
imply the apostolic legitimacy of that variety.25
25 I will leave out of consideration the idea that George B. Caird advanced in
his New Testament Theology (L. D. Hurst, ed.; Oxford: Clarendon, 1994), namely:
“In the first century baptism was administered exclusively to converts, who were
then baptized with their whole household. But children born to parents already
Christian were not baptized in infancy or later in adulthood, because they had
already been born into the household of faith” (224–25). I know of no evidence in
the patristic writers for such a program, and it is hard to believe that an apostolic
practice of this significance would be lost so quickly, leaving no traces.
A. Biblical and Theological Arguments

It is often said that there are no biblical texts that say, one way or the
other, whether the infants of believers should be baptized; therefore, the
argument goes, the case for infant baptism or exclusively believer’s
baptism is an inferential one. I do not grant this point so readily, but I
acknowledge how difficult the whole argument is. The first point to
establish, then, is where the burden of proof lies. I will suggest that it lies
on those who wish to deny the sign of membership to the infants of
Christian believers. Consider John Frame’s version of this burden-‐‑of-‐‑
proof position:26
We can assume continuity with the Old Testament principle of
administering the sign of the covenant to children, unless New
Testament evidence directs us otherwise, and this is the paedobaptist
approach. Or we can assume that only adult believers are to be
baptized, unless there is New Testament evidence to the contrary, and
this is the antipaedobaptist (=“baptist”) approach. On the first approach,
the burden of proof is on the baptist to show New Testament evidence
against infant baptism. On the second approach, the burden of proof is
on the paedobaptist to show New Testament evidence for it. In this case,
deciding the burden of proof pretty much decides the question, since
there is little explicit New Testament evidence on either side and since
the two parties are essentially agreed on the Old Testament data. It
seems to me that the first approach is correct: the church of the New
Testament is essentially the same as the church of the Old.
I intend to fill out and strengthen Frame‘s argument, both by
establishing the continuity principle he asserts, and by showing that
some of the New Testament evidence is more explicit than Frame is
aware.
To begin with, God’s covenant with Abraham was for him to be God
both to Abraham and to his offspring (Gen. 17:7). In such a context the
infant (male) children receive the sign of covenant membership
(circumcision in Genesis 17), with the glad prospect that one’s own
children will be heirs of the covenant, and thus part of the means by
which the promises to bring blessing to the whole world through the
family of Abraham will come to fruition (cf. Ps. 100:5; 103:17–18).
Because that fruition requires the faithful embrace of the covenant on the
part of the particular members of the people, the children are thus
obligated to love, trust, and obey God (cf. Gen. 18:19). Christians are the
proper heirs of Abraham (Rom. 4:11–12); and Gentile believers are
26 John Frame, The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God, A Theology of Lordship
(Phillipsburg,NJ: P&R, 1987), 270.

“grafted in” and “share in the nourishing root of the olive tree,” that is,
of the people of God (Rom. 11:17).
This is a common argument, and I think it is right. But we can take it
a little further when we consider some New Testament statements that
clarify the relationship of the old era and the present one. In Romans
4:13, Paul says that the promise to Abraham and his offspring was that
“he would be heir of the world” (to. klhrono,mon auvto.n ei=nai ko,smou). If we
search for texts in Genesis that speak of Abraham being an “heir”
(klhrono,moj and related terms), the best candidate is Genesis 15:7, where
God says that he brought Abraham out from Ur of the Chaldeans “to
give you this land to inherit” (w[ste dou/nai, soi th.n gh/n tau,thn
klhronomh/sai). In other words, the Romans reference represents (Gentile)
Christian believers as heirs of the promises made to Abraham, but those
promises have been expanded from “this land” (Palestine) to “the
world.” The relationship is therefore continuity with expansion. This is
clear as well in Peter’s words in his Pentecost speech (Acts 2:39):

For the promise is for you and for u`mi/n ga,r evstin h` evpaggeli,a kai. toi/j
your children and for all who are te,knoij u`mw/n kai. pa/sin toi/j eivj
far off, everyone whom the makra,n\ o[souj a'n proskale,shtai
Lord our God calls to himself. ku,rioj o` qeo.j h`mw/n\

When he says it is “for you and for your children,” he is adapting words
from the Old Testament (Deut 29:28):

But the things that are revealed ta. de. fanera. h`mi/n kai. toi/j te,knoij
belong to us and to our children . . . h`mw/n

This is an expansion, then, and not a revision: it keeps the older system
(“for you and for your children”) and adds the inclusion of the Gentiles
(“all who are far off”; see Acts 22:21; Mic. 4:3; Joel 3:8; 1 Kings 8:46) into
the offer.
Further, there are several places that speak of a “household” being
baptized (e.g., Acts 16:15; 1 Cor. 1:16), and of promises to households
(Acts 11:14; 16:31) and household conversions (Acts 10:46–48; 18:8; 1 Cor.
16:15). This use of the word “house” (usually oi=koj, as “household”)
reflects Genesis 17:27, where the males of Abraham’s “house” (oi` a;ndrej
tou/ oi;kou auvtou/) received the sign of circumcision. Add to this the
assumption that children of believing parents are members of the people
(Acts 21:5; Eph. 6:1–4; Col. 3:20–21; 1 Tim. 3:4–5; Titus 1:6) and the unity
of the household in blessing (2 Tim. 1:16; 4:19; cf. 1 Cor. 16:15), and we
can see why it is right to admit the infant children of believers to

membership in the covenant family.
It is worth pointing out that these New Testament passages repeat a
strongly attested pattern from the Old Testament. For example, consider
Acts 11:14 and 16:31, “you will be saved, you and [all] your
household”(swqh,sh| su. kai. [pa/j] o` oi=ko,j sou). The “you” in the verb
inflection is singular, and is addressed to the head of the household; the
rest of the “household” is included with him. Compare Genesis 7:1, “Go
into the ark, you and all your household” (ei;selqe su. kai. pa/j o` oi=ko,j sou
eivj th.n kibwto,n); Deuteronomy 14:26, “rejoice, you and your household”
(euvfranqh,sh| su. kai. o` oi=ko,j sou); Deuteronomy 15:20, “you shall eat it, you
and your household” (fa,gh| auvto. . . . su. kai. o` oi=ko,j sou). Compare further
Deuteronomy 26:11, “you shall rejoice in all the good that the Lord your
God has given to you and to your house.”27 The household is included,
not simply in the general privilege of association with covenant
members, but in the specific privilege of covenant membership and
therefore of covenant participation. Jeremiah’s expectation of the
“everlasting (or new) covenant” includes the idea of covenant reality that
blesses the children of covenant members: “I will give them one heart
and one way, that they may fear me forever, for their own good and the
good of their children after them” (Jer. 32:39).
One implication of this discussion is that the frequently raised
question of whether there were any young children actually present in
these household episodes is irrelevant: Luke has employed the Old
Testament way of describing the events in order to invite his readers to
interpret the events in the light of the Old Testament principles.
Therefore it does not matter whether or not children were present: we
cooperate with Luke’s use of the Old Testament manner of speaking by
seeing these events in their continuity with the Old Testament pattern.
We see this further in the way that believing Gentiles, once
“alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the
covenants of promise” (Eph. 2:12) have been made “fellow citizens with
the [Jewish] saints and members of the household of God” (Eph. 2:19).
Since we are members of this same people of God as the believing
descendants of Abraham, it stands to reason that we enter this people
just as they did; at least, if there was a change in the way of entry, we
might have expected a clear discussion of it—together with an
explanation of why the love of God has been contracted so as to exclude
our children.
27 For the opposite side, namely, of inclusion in punishment, cf. Gen. 12:17,
“The LORD afflicted Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai,
Abram’s wife.”
B. The Early Patristic Evidence

It is clear that by the time of Chrysostom (d. AD 407) and Augustine (d.
AD 430), the churches were regularly baptizing their members’ infants.28
Those who think of this as an aberration from the apostolic pattern must
then explain how it came about in the first couple of Christian centuries.
However, on close inspection the evidence, which is largely inferential,
supports the conclusion that the early church baptized its infants and
counted them as Christians from as early as the apostolic period itself.
The church father Polycarp was a disciple of the apostle John and
suffered martyrdom for his Christian faith somewhere between AD 155
and 167.29 The imperial official presiding at his execution urged him to
“revile Christ” and thus avoid death, but the elderly Polycarp replied, “I
have been serving him for eighty and six years, and he has done me no
wrong; how can I blaspheme my King who saved me?” This would take
us back to between AD 69 and 81 for the beginning of this service, when
John was still alive. In Polycarp’s day one dated his discipleship from his
baptism, and, since most take the “eighty and six years” to be Polycarp’s
age at his death, we are on solid footing if we suppose that Polycarp
began his discipleship with his baptism as an infant during the age of the
apostles.30
Justin Martyr (AD 103–165), in his First Apology (ca. AD 150–55), tells
us that “many, both men and women, who have been Christ’s disciples
from childhood, remain pure at the age of sixty or seventy years” (15:6).
The phrase translated “who have been Christ’s disciples from
childhood,” however, would be better translated, “who were made
disciples to Christ from [when they were] children” (oi] evk pai,dwn
evmaqhteu,qhsan tw/| Cristw/|); it uses the passive form of the verb in Matthew
28:19 (“make disciples [maqhteu,sate] . . . baptizing them”). That is, the
baptism is what “makes them disciples” (in the administrative sense we
28 Lane, “Did the Apostolic Church Baptize Babies?” 120, indicates that “No
one seriously doubts that infant baptism was practiced by the beginning of the
third century.” However, it is not clear that this was the uniform practice until
later.
29 See Michael W. Holmes, The Apostolic Fathers: Greek Texts and English
Translations (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1999), 223, for the difficulties in dating.
30 McKinion, “Baptism in the Patristic Writings,” omits all mention of
Polycarp (perhaps he was looking for what he took to be explicit references).

Ferguson, Baptism in the Early Church, 363, suggests that this need not mean any
more than the date of Polycarp’s conversion—even though Ferguson himself has
presented the evidence for how the early Christians dated the beginning of their
discipleship from the time of baptism!
have already discussed), and it did so while they were yet young
children.31
Irenaeus (d. ca. AD 202) wrote his great work Against Heresies (ca.
AD 180) especially to refute the various forms of incipient Gnosticism.
Although he wrote in Greek, there are parts of the work for which only a
Latin translation survives. In a famous passage from this Latin portion,
Irenaeus tells us (2.22.4):
For He came to save all through means of Himself—all, I say, who
through Him are born again to God—infants, and children, and boys, and
youths, and old men. He therefore passed through every age, becoming
an infant for infants, thus sanctifying infants; a child for children, thus
sanctifying those who are of this age, being at the same time made to
them an example of piety, righteousness, and submission; a youth for
youths, becoming an example to youths, and thus sanctifying them for
the Lord. So likewise He was an old man for old men, that He might be
a perfect Master for all, not merely as respects the setting forth of the
truth, but also as regards age, sanctifying at the same time the aged also,
and becoming an example to them likewise. Then, at last, He came on to
death itself, that He might be “the first-‐‑born from the dead, that in all
things He might have the pre-‐‑eminence,” the Prince of life, existing
before all, and going before all.
The phrase “who through Him were born again to God” may suggest
their conscious conversion (the sense in which we often use the
expression in evangelicalism), although the mention of “infants” should
make us hesitate. The Latin for “were born again to God” is renascuntur
in Deum. The editor of this section of the Ante-‐‑Nicene Fathers edition (A.
Roberts) comments here,
Renascuntur in Deum. The reference in these words is doubtless to
baptism, as clearly appears from comparing book iii. 17, 1.
That this editor is right appears from the passage he refers to (3.17.1, also
in Latin):
Giving to the disciples the power of regeneration into God, Jesus said to
them, “Go and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.”
The editor for this passage (W. H. Rambaut) explains “the power of
regeneration into God” (Latin potestatem regenerationis in Deum) with
reference to a passage from earlier in the work, which had used the
31 Ferguson, Baptism in the Early Church, treats this text the same as he does
the passage from Polycarp, without considering the force of the Greek. McKinion
does not mention it at all, focusing instead on a passage in First Apology 61—a
focus that treats an apology as if it were a systematic theology!
expression “the regeneration to God” as a paraphrase for baptism

(1.21.1). The chief difficulty for this identification comes from the fact
that the Greek of book 1 survives, and “the regeneration to God” is h` eivj
qeo.n avnage,nnhsiõ (see section I above). This Greek expression
undoubtedly lies behind the Latin regeneratio in Deum in 3.17.1; no doubt
Irenaeus’ Greek for “the power of regeneration to God” was something
like th.n du,namin th/j eivj qeo.n avnagennh,sewj. But how do we justify
connecting the phrase renascuntur in Deum (2.22.4) with these, since there
is a verb, regenero (“I regenerate”), to which the noun regeneratio is
related, and 2.22.4 uses the verb renascor (“I am born again”)? The syntax
of both 2.22.4 and 3.17.1, where Latin in Deum perfectly renders Greek eivj
qeo,n, moves us strongly in that direction. And then when we realize that
the Latin Bible translates the active form of Greek avnagenna,w with
regenero (1 Peter 1:3), and the passive form with renascor (1 Peter 1:23), we
see that we must agree with these editors: surely Irenaeus’ Greek at
2.22.4 used some passive form of avnagenna,w (perhaps something like
avnagennw/ntai eivj qeo,n, using the present passive to match the Latin).
Thus we come back to what Irenaeus had said in 2.22.4: “all, I say,
who through Him are regenerated to God—infants, . . .” According to
Irenaeus’ own usage, this refers to infants who were baptized and
thereby made members of God’s people.32
CONCLUSION
The presentation I have given in part I of this study, on the meaning of
baptism, together with my analysis of how important figures from the
early church thought about the rite (section I here), fits well with my
understanding of how infants are to be brought ritually into God’s
family by baptism; it also explains well the early patristic testimony to
infant “regeneration” by means of baptism.
In view of this discussion, I conclude that we are thinking biblically
when by baptism we bring the infant children of Christian believers into
membership in the people of God.
32 Ferguson, Baptism in the Early Church, 363, allows that this passage from
Irenaeus might refer to infant baptism, but decides that on the whole it probably
does not. Ferguson concludes (308), based on the differing Latin verbs, that
Irenaeus is not talking about infant baptism in 2.22.4; but he shows no awareness
of the likely explanation for the two Latin verbs, as evidenced by their rendering
in the Vulgate (1 Peter 1:3, 23). McKinion omits this passage altogether.

What Does Baptism Do For Anyone - John C. Collins

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Presbyterion 38/1 (Spring 2012): 1–33

WHAT DOES BAPTISM DO FOR ANYONE?

* Jack Collins is professor of Old Testament at Covenant Theological

Eerdmans, 1977), 18–19.

himself immediately with them as individuals, or only by establishing

2 See my discussion of a biblically-­‐‑based supernaturalism in The God of

Miracles: An Exegetical Examination of God’s Action in the World (Wheaton, IL:

I. OLD TESTAMENT CEREMONIAL REALISM

3 The following sources are helpful in this discussion: David P. Wright,

corpse of a dead kinsman; by accidents, such as contracting skin

4 Wright, “Unclean and Clean,” 729a.

B. “Clean” and “Unclean” as Ritual or Administrative Status

C. Ceremonies of Cleansing

D. Ceremonial Realism and the Old Testament Worldview

9 Brower, “Holiness,” 477b.

change in status, if by “symbolize” we mean “make a picture that can

Theodicy (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2005), 15.

Commentary (Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R Publishing, 2006), 244, 274.

12 C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: Scribner, 1952), 65 (book 2,

But though we should distinguish between the sign and the

wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.16

16 Similarly, Isa. 1:16–17.

Our second example from the inter-­‐‑testamental period comes from

baptizo,menoj avpo. nekrou/ kai. pa,lin If someone bathes [ESV/NRSV washes]

The passage refers to the regulations of Numbers 19:11–13 about being

usage), is this development in Hebrew usage, from biblical to post-­‐‑

F. Circumcision and the Washings

II. BAPTISM AS CLEANSING

27 G. R. Beasley-­‐‑Murray, “lou,w,” in New International Dictionary of New

shows that patristic authors likewise described baptism as a washing.

Lane’s comment, “The reference in [Heb. 10:22b] is almost certainly to

B. The Jewish Origin of Christian Baptism

enough to have shaped John’s ministry; see D. S. Dockery, “Baptism,” in

C. Baptism as a Parallel to Circumcision

33 Eckhard Schnabel has provided a lexical study: “The Language of

Baptism: The Meaning of bapti,zw in the New Testament,” in Understanding the

In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without

Sacraments (Manchester, NH: Sophia Institute, 1992), 83, on the sacraments in

Support for a true parallel between baptism and circumcision comes

39 I have mentioned above the tantalizing case of Naaman. We might also

III. BAPTISMAL REALISM

43 Perhaps this category of administrative status helps explain the ideas

the case of Rom. 6:3–5:3 is an instance of “metaphor,” describing “the spiritual

Titus 3:5. [H]e saved us, not because of works done by us in

45 See “Baptismal Realism in Church History” in part 2.

B. Baptism and Membership in the People of God

The obvious objection to this is that it raises the question of what

51 I acknowledge the influence here of Sinclair Ferguson, John Owen on the

ability to detect it or with a person’s ability to articulate it well—although of

“sons.” Sonship of this sort is an administrative status, and does not

55 In saying this I have not tried to slip in a “paedocommunion” position,

We can run into further linguistic difficulties with the word

59 See also Isa. 63:19; Jer. 14:9; 15:16; Dan. 9:19.

God being pronounced over the one baptized.

Now if once we allow people to start spiritualising and refining, or as

61 C. S. Lewis, “Preface,” Mere Christianity, 10–11.

WHAT DOES BAPTISM DO FOR ANYONE?

I. BAPTISMAL REALISM IN CHURCH HISTORY

A. Greek Patristic Sources

∗ Jack Collins is professor of Old Testament at Covenant Theological

From Cristianoi, to Cristofo,roi: The Role of the Eucharist in Christian Identity

The English Puritan Westminster Confession of Faith (1647; hereafter

election than do the earlier confessions. I hardly think that this

2 See my discussion of a biblically-‐‑based supernaturalism in The God of

Our second example from the inter-‐‑testamental period comes from

usage), is this development in Hebrew usage, from biblical to post-‐‑

27 G. R. Beasley-‐‑Murray, “lou,w,” in New International Dictionary of New