Foundations of our Faith: Baptism
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Recap
Shabbat shalom once again, everyone. Welcome to our guests, and to those joining us online. If you caught last week’s teaching, you may be wondering why Jeff isn’t up here delivering part 2 of his sermon on circumcision. We have been taking turns over the last couple months and have been alternating teaching, so he is on the docket to finish that up next week. Give me a moment to recap where we’ve been, what we’ve covered thus far, and then we will get into our topic.
The first week I spoke about identity. What it means to be a believer; how we should view ourselves individually - as those that bear the image of God - as well as corporately - as members of the covenant people of Adonai: Israel.
The second week Jeff spoke about the Gospel, or good news. The message of the kingdom of Messiah Yeshua, and how the Good News itself is more than the popular easy-believism of today’s normative Church, where you pray a prayer, get saved, and go to heaven with Jesus.
The third week I spoke about the Sabbath. The prohibition of work and the kinds of work on Shabbat, as well outlining a difference between skilled labor (creative work) and servile work, or work performed in service of someone else like your employer.
The following day was our 4th installment, which fell on Shavuot. I spoke that day as well, and I talked about the giving of the Spirit in relation to the giving of the Torah.
The 5th part Jeff covered, and that was about tithe. How should we conceptualize tithe today, since there is no physical temple or Levitical priesthood? How do we observe the commandment to tithe when we aren’t farmers growing crops anymore? At its core, tithing is an act of worship, expresses faith in Yahweh that He will fulfill His promises.
In part 6 I discussed the dietary laws, commonly - though perhaps technically incorrectly - called kashrut, or kosher laws. Specifically, the laws laid out for us in Scripture about what is and is not food. I spent some time that day covering less about the food laws themselves, and more about how we address the apparent problem passages of the NT. In particular, Mark 7, 1 Corinthians 8 and 10, and 1 Timothy 4.
In part 7, I spoke about Scripture. Specifically, why we have the books we have in our Bibles.
Part 8 was the follow-up about Scripture, touching on the authroity and the spiritual mechanics of Scripture and how we learn from it, and what purpose it serves. I touched on three primary topics: Inspiration, Inerrancy, and Interpretation.
Last week was week 9, and Jeff spoke about circumcision as a spiritual concept. About circumcision of the heart, and about covenant. Next week he should be wrapping the topic up by going into the NT, specifically into Paul’s letters, to address the apparent difficulties presented therein.
So that catches us up to where we are now. We are nearing the end of this series, so if anyone has feedback or suggestions, it is appreciated.
Now we can dive into today’s topic of Baptism, or immersion. I say “dive” on purpose, as this is a spiritually deep topic. To help orient ourselves for this study, let’s first set the stage by defining our terms. That’s how I like to kick things off. If y’all haven’t noticed yet, my teachings usually include at least a very small Hebrew and/or lesson.
Definitions
Definitions
When we speak of immersion in this Messianic movement, most people will call it mikvah. I have heard many times someone use the transliterated Hebrew word, mikvah, and turn it into a past tense participle by using the word: “mikvahed.” Instead of saying the common “I was Baptized” you’ll hear, “I was mikvahed.” But this is actually a bit of a misnomer. When people use the term this way, they mean they were immersed. The Hebrew word for immersion (or baptism) is tevilah. Not to be confused with the word used in the Torah, especially throughout Leviticus referring to the various times when one must bathe their body in water because of uncleanness. This word is rachatz.
So let’s review our Hebrew lesson real quick.
Mikvah means “a gathering” and refers to the gathering place of the waters of immersion, not to the act of immersion itself. You could fairly say mikvah means “pool.” In a literal sense, it refers to a place where water is gathered together.
Tevilah is the term used most often in Rabbinic writings for immersion, or baptism. This is a ritual performed for various reasons, not the least of which is for conversion. So tevilah is immersion for conversion.
Rachatz is the word for bathe in the Torah, when one has become unclean by some means, most often by the natural processes of life itself.
These are our three primary Hebrew terms: mikvah, or pool; tevilah, or immersion for conversion; and rachatz, or bathing for matters of uncleanness.
This is the part where I say that many of the popular teachings on immersion in the Messianic movement today are insufficient. They conflate tevilah, conversion immersion, with rachatz, purification of uncleanness. Every morning when you get up and get ready for work, you take a shower. (Or evening; people have different schedules). When you take your daily shower, do you have a conscious intent to get clean, or to ritualistically convert to being a follower of a different faith? Very clearly the former, right? That’s why we can’t conflate these concepts.
I understand the desire to see all NT practices stay rooted in the commandments of the Torah. There is certainly a case to be made for that. But in this instance, we need to accept that the answer is often more nuanced than that, and I will demonstrate that today. I think (hope).
When we study the topic of immersion, we typically have two starting points. Either with John the Baptist - and lemme just go ahead and say, I find it offensive that we have historically thrust that denomination on him when he was clearly non-denominational - either with John the Immerser (eh?) and the Baptism for repentance, or with the Laws of Leviticus. But I want to paint a slightly different picture today, both more broad as well as more nuanced.
I want to start by offering this statement, which will be clarified more as we move along: Immersion is a symbolic act of crossing from death to life. I’ll repeat: immersion - Baptism - is a symbolic act, of crossing from death to life.
Death to Life
Death to Life
Go ahead and turn to the very beginning, Genesis 1, if you have your Bible with you. And if you don’t, well…you should.
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 And the earth was a formless and desolate emptiness, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. 3 Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness He called “night.” And there was evening and there was morning, one day.
6 Then God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” 7 God made the expanse, and separated the waters that were below the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse; and it was so. 8 God called the expanse “heaven.” And there was evening and there was morning, a second day.
9 Then God said, “Let the waters below the heavens be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear”; and it was so. 10 And God called the dry land “earth,” and the gathering of the waters He called “seas”; and God saw that it was good.
In the beginning was darkness and chaos and…water. The Ancient world viewed the waters of chaos as being representative of the untamed and unknown. In ancient Egyptian texts, these pre-Creation waters are called “the non-existent.” (Walton, Lost World of Genesis One). They represented a time of lifelessness, and disorder.
God created and divided and built and established in Creation. It was out of the death and darkness of these waters that God formed all that is. His Creation culminated with humanity being created to walk in the Garden with Him.
5 chapters later, we read of the impending flood. Let’s flip over to
17 Now behold, I Myself am bringing the flood of water upon the earth, to destroy all flesh in which there is the breath of life, from under heaven; everything that is on the earth shall perish. 18 But I will establish My covenant with you; and you shall enter the ark—you, your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives with you. 19 And of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every kind into the ark, to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female.
Adonai’s decision to flood the earth was not merely to destroy mankind, but to recreate. What once sprang from lifeless water would again be covered by water, to be recreated. In the Creation account God forms the animals, and prepares the land and seas. In Noah’s account, God prepares the animals and ocne again the land and seas. That’s why verse 9 kicks off with saying that Noah was a righteous man, blameless, and...”walking with God.” Noah was going to be Adam 2.0, once again the father of humanity, caretaker of the animals. Noah even goes and plants a vineyard, tending to the fruit just as Adam was tasked with so doing.
This theme, this idea, of water and chaos and creation and life, continues.
Turn to Exodus 1 and 2, we’ll jump between these two chapters for a moment. You may already see where this is heading.
Exodus 1 tells us of Pharaoh’s plot to destroy the people of Israel, by having any male children thrown into the…water. The Nile river, verse 22. Yet this is the very means by which Moshe is brought into the house of Pharaoh.
Exodus 2:1-6:
1Now a man from the house of Levi took as his wife a daughter of Levi. 2The woman conceived and gave birth to a son. Now when she saw that he was delightful, she hid him for three months. 3But when she could no longer hide him, she took a basket of papyrus reeds, coated it with tar and pitch, put the child inside, and laid it in the reeds by the bank of the Nile. 4His sister stood off at a distance to see what would happen to him.
5Then the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe, while her maidens walked along by the riverside. When she saw the basket among the reeds, she sent her handmaiden to fetch it. 6When she opened it, she saw the child—a baby boy crying! She had compassion on him and said, “This is one of the Hebrew children.”
She drew him out of the waters that had brought death, and restored him to life.
Now flip a few more chapters over to
21 Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea. Adonai drove the sea back with a strong east wind throughout the night and turned the sea into dry land. So the waters were divided. 22 Then Bnei-Yisrael went into the midst of the sea on the dry ground, while the waters were like walls to them on their right and on their left.
23 But the Egyptians pursued and went in after them into the midst of the sea, all Pharaoh’s horses, his chariots and his horsemen. 24 Now it came about during the morning watch that Adonai looked at the army of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and cloud and caused the army of the Egyptians to panic. 25 He took off their chariot wheels and caused them to drive heavily, so that the Egyptians said, “Get away from the presence of Israel! For Adonai fights for them against the Egyptians!”
26 Then Adonai said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the sea, so that the waters come back upon the Egyptians, over their chariots and their horsemen.” 27 So Moses stretched his hand out over the waters, and the sea returned to its strength at the break of dawn. The Egyptians were fleeing from it, but Adonai overthrew them in the midst of the sea. 28 The waters returned and covered the chariots, the horsemen and the entire army of Pharaoh that went after them into the sea. Not one of them remained.
Israel was brought safely through the sea, while the Egyptians were caught up in it and killed.
We could continue going through Scripture, almost book by book throughout the Tanakh, and see examples of this same motif. Water from the rock, the trial by ordeal of the suspected adulteress, crossing the Jordan with Joshua, and so on. But I think the picture is a little clearer now.
We can very clearly see the image of immersion throughout the Tanakh. But what we do not see is a prescriptive statement for conversion rituals. Right? We don’t have a commandment from Leviticus or Deuteronomy that when a foreigner comes in, he is to be immersed in water when he decides to follow Yahweh. We have circumcision, and the requirement for those that join themselves to Israel to be circumcised before they can participate in certain rites such as the Passover lamb while the Temple still stood. I’m not going to rehash everything Jeff spoke about regarding circumcision last week, as he’s already covered that. But suffice it to say, we do not have a commandment to immerse someone in water, to baptize them, upon their confession of faith, in the Tanakh.
So why, then, do we have it in the NT?
It was a developed theme from, as we have seen, long before Moses even wrote the Torah. This idea of a symbolic act of going from death to life made its way into Judaism even before the NT was written. Non-Jews were considered defiled, unclean, as we see from Peter’s comments in Acts. Because of this, not only were male converts to Judaism during this time required to be circumcised to enter the covenant, they were also required to undergo tevilah, immersion. The Talmud records this in tractate Yevamot 46-48, among other places.
The interesting thing to note from the Talmud’s comments is that not only is this immersion said to remove ritual uncleanness - which again, to them, gentiles inherently had - but also is connected to life from death. That is, after all, what the whole thing is about: life from death. The Talmud notes in Yevamot 48b that undergoing tevilah was symbolic, as “one who has become a proselyte is like a child newly born.” This is related to how children are born from the waters of birth, and the Rabbis similarly draw this conclusion.
Additionally, there was immersion for repentance from sin, that also was not directly derived from the Torah. This is what John the immerser was doing: immersing for the repantance from sin. This practice was not an innovation; John didn’t invent it. The Dead Sea community at Qumran also practiced immersion as an outward act of repentance, and even admitted that such immersion did not make the worhsiper spiritually clean, but was a symbolic and outward act, undertaken only when accompanied with sincere repentance. This, too, is a different but related sort of immersion.
Why does Yeshua need to be immersed by John, if He was without sin? The answer is as we’ve been seeing: it wasn’t just for repentance from sin. But we’ll come back to this.
So John immerses for the forgiveness of sins, and then later, Yeshua takes the practice of immersion and also imposes it as a standard for the covenant community. Matthew 28:19, the great commission, where Yeshua commands the apostles to go and immerse people from among the nations, the gentiles. We see them doing exactly that in the book of Acts.
Into the book of Acts - you can go ahead and turn to the end of chapter 2 - we find immersion taking place quite a bit, which leads us to the most common understanding of immersion among the normative Church: believers baptism.
37 Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the emissaries, “Fellow brethren, what shall we do?”
38 Peter said to them, “Repent, and let each of you be immersed in the name of Messiah Yeshua for the removal of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Ruach ha-Kodesh. 39 For the promise is for you and your children, and for all who are far away—as many as Adonai our God calls to Himself.”
40 With many other words he warned them and kept urging them, saying, “Save yourselves from this twisted generation!” 41 So those who received his message were immersed, and that day about three thousand souls were added.
Now to Acts 8:26-38. Just as we saw with the new believers in Acts 2, we find another such example of a new professing believer in Acts 8.
26 But an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip, saying, “Get ready and go south to the road that descends from Jerusalem to Gaza.” (This is a desert road.) 27 So he got ready and went; and there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure; and he had come to Jerusalem to worship, 28 and he was returning and sitting in his chariot, and was reading Isaiah the prophet. 29 Then the Spirit said to Philip, “Go up and join this chariot.” 30 Philip ran up and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet, and said, “Do you understand what you are reading?” 31 And he said, “Well, how could I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. 32 Now the passage of Scripture which he was reading was this:
“He was led like a sheep to slaughter;
And like a lamb that is silent before its shearer,
So He does not open His mouth.
33 “In humiliation His justice was taken away;
Who will Describe His generation?
For His life is taken away from the earth.”
34 The eunuch answered Philip and said, “Please tell me, of whom does the prophet say this? Of himself, or of someone else?” 35 Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning from this Scripture he preached Jesus to him. 36 As they went along the road they came to some water; and the eunuch said, “Look! Water! What prevents me from being baptized?”38 And he ordered that the chariot stop; and they both went down into the water, Philip as well as the eunuch, and he baptized him.
Next in Acts 10. After all of Peter’s arguing over the vision he had - the sheet let down, covered with unclean creatures and all - he finally understands the point.
34 Then Peter opened his mouth and said, “I truly understand that God is not one to show favoritism, 35 but in every nation the one who fears Him and does what is right is acceptable to Him. 36 You know the message He sent to Bnei-Yisrael, proclaiming shalom through Messiah Yeshua—He is Lord of all. 37 You know the message that has spread throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee after the immersion that John proclaimed. 38 You know how God anointed Yeshua of Natzeret with the Ruach ha-Kodesh and power—how He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, because God was with Him. 39 We are witnesses to all He did, both in the Judean countryside and in Jerusalem. They put Him to death by hanging Him on a tree, 40 but God raised Him up on the third day and caused Him to be visible— 41 not to all the people, but to us, witnesses who were chosen beforehand by God. We ate and drank with Him after He rose from the dead. 42 And He commanded us to proclaim to the people and to testify that He is the One ordained by God as Judge of the living and the dead. 43 All the prophets testify about Him—that everyone who puts his trust in Him receives forgiveness of sins through His name.”
44 While Peter was still speaking these words, the Ruach ha-Kodesh fell on all those hearing the message. 45 All the circumcised believers who came with Peter were astonished, because the gift of the Ruach ha-Kodesh had been poured out even on the Gentiles. 46 For they were hearing them speaking in tongues and magnifying God.
Then Peter answered, 47 “Can anyone refuse water for these to be immersed, who have received the Ruach ha-Kodesh just as we did?” 48 So he commanded them to be immersed in the name of Messiah Yeshua. Then they asked him to stay for a few days.
When it comes to Cornelius, we start seeing plural language. “They” and “them” in reference to those who feared God, those who accepted Peter, those who believed, and those who were immersed. We see even more of this, explicitly, in Acts 16.
13 On Yom Shabbat, we went outside the gate to the river, where we expected a place of prayer to be. We sat down and began speaking with the women who had gathered. 14 A woman named Lydia—a seller of purple cloth from the city of Thyatira, a God-fearer—was listening. The Lord opened her heart to respond to what Paul was saying.
15 When she was immersed, along with her household, she urged us, saying, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come and stay at my house.” And she insisted.
Right here is where we get a little controversial and uncomfortable. Lydia was immersed “along with her household.” Just a few verses later we see this again with the jailer: he was immersed, along with his household.
See, when we think of salvation and/or baptism - being thought of as a public proclamation of salvation - we think of it individually. Which isn’t new, that’s been the way of looking at things at least since the Reformation era. But what we need to understand in order to fully grasp the significance of what was transpiring here, is that this was a people group who didn’t think in terms of hyper-individualism. They thought in terms of communities and countries and nations. We see someone believing and being immersed “along with their household.” In the Greco-Roman world, the manager of the household decided the religion practiced by that household. This included everyone who lived under your roof. You, your parents, your servants, your children, anyone else that was in your care. When Lydia believed, her and her household were immersed, because her household now had a new “household religion.” The same goes for the jailer.
This is why we see very early on in Church history, that they baptized infants. We can see this from very early on in Church history, well before the councils and Constantine and all that. This is why some denominations still do to this day. Anglicans, Catholics, Orthodox, Lutherans, Presbyterians, and so on. To be clear (before someone gets offended), there is no verse in the entirety of the Bible that speaks about an infant being baptized. That is a simple fact. But it is nonetheless not an unfair assumption since we do have evidence of cases where entire households are all immersed, and it would be a bit silly to assume each of these cases involved no children.
Similarly, at least according to the Talmud, when a proselyte converted to Judaism, not only would he undergo tevilah, but so would his household, including his children. There’s actually a Rabbinic discussion about what age this goes up to, and the general understanding was they would immerse the children of converts only up to age 12, at which point they would have to be interview about conversion of their own. Though admittedly, these references comes from a time after the NT.
So again: if there were people who had not fully committed, or made a personal proclamation of faith - just like an infant cannot - then how or why were they baptized? Similarly, how could this take place, if immersion is for repentance, if the immersed such as a child could not yet make a confession of repentance?
This brings us back to the question about Yeshua’s immersion. He was not being immersed because He needed to be cleansed of sin. Nor was it because of ritual impurity - as that wasn’t John’s purpose either. Rather, it was because He was launching His ministry. It was the starting point of a sort of new birth, a new creative life from death.
So too is immersion seen by Yeshua’s disciples as a start of new life, and especially for non-Jewish believers, as a means of recognizing they no longer express their loyalty to Caesar or Zeus, but to Yeshua and Him alone. In this case, it would be: conversion with immersion was subversion. A subversive act and declaration against Rome and its gods.
Paul draws a sort of literary parallel between circumcision and baptism in Colossians 2.
Holy Scriptures: Tree of Life Version Chapter 2
9For all the fullness of Deity lives bodily in Him, 10and in Him you have been filled to fullness. He is the head over every ruler and authority.
11In Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision done not by hand, in the stripping away of the body of the flesh through the circumcision of Messiah. 12You were buried along with Him in immersion, through which you also were raised with Him by trusting in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.
You see these parallels in his language. This is actually a common “proof text” used by infant baptizers, to prove that Paul replaced circumcision with baptism, and therefore infants should be baptized on the 8th day, or in some cases on the 30th. This logic is greatly flawed. This passage says nothing of replacing circumcision. However, it is an interesting parallel to make, since both practices do in fact share similar concepts.
Circumcision of the flesh is an outward act that demonstrates one’s entrance into the covenant. Parents are charged with circumcising their male infants to show that the child is also a covenant child. Yet would anyone make the claim that a child circumcised on the 8th day, could never apostatize? Never leave the covenant? Clearly not. There were plenty of men who were circumcised and yet denied Yeshua. That act alone did not ensure that they remained in covenant.
Immersion, as we have seen, is also an outward act that demonstrates one’s entrance into the covenant. Not a replacement for circumcision, but as a separate ritual. So it’s not unfair to see how and why the early Church came up with the idea that infant baptism replaced infant circumcision.
Getting back to the original point, though, let me re-read verse 12 from Col. 2 again.
You were buried along with Him in immersion, through which you also were raised with Him by trusting in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.
We see at last a direct tie to immersion and death and resurrection. That’s ultimately what immersion is about: going from death to life. Not that immersion itself grants eternal life, but that it is one of the acts we perform that demonstrates we are in covenant with Adonai. We see this covenant entrance language elsewhere as well. I’m gonna go through, quickly, a few other Pauline references that demonstrate this. 1 Cor. 12:12-13
Holy Scriptures: Tree of Life Version Chapter 12
12For just as the body is one and has many parts, and all the parts of the body—though many—are one body, so also is Messiah. 13For in one Ruach we were all immersed into one body—whether Jewish or Greek, slave or free—and all were made to drink of one Ruach.
27 For all of you who were immersed in Messiah have clothed yourselves with Messiah. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female—for you are all one in Messiah Yeshua. 29 And if you belong to Messiah, then you are Abraham’s seed—heirs according to the promise.
3 Or do you not know that all of us who were immersed into Messiah Yeshua were immersed into His death? 4 Therefore we were buried together with Him through immersion into death—in order that just as Messiah was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.
1 Cor. 12 states that we are one body, this is corporate language. Galatians 3 says we were all immersed in Messiah, and are co-heirs of Abraham, this is covenant language. Romans 6 says we are to walk in the newness of life.
A practical word
Without a doubt, people will get to this point in the teaching and think, “Okay, so…when do I need to be immersed?”
That is a great question. So I have prepared a few helpful tips.
Immerse upon entrance to the covenant: when you have a new profession of faith. Doesn’t have to be when you’re “renewing” or “rededicating” but that doesn’t hurt.
Immerse during big life events, when there’s some sort of newness of life. Getting married, having a child, being ordained into ministry, these are all huge life events. It’s interesting to note that in Judaism, you are considered as undergoing a “new birth” at various stages of life. When you’re born, you’re born of water (the waters of birth). You’re considered born “again” when becoming an adult, such as Bar Mitzvah, and again if you became a member of the Sanhedrin, and again if you were made president of a Yeshiva or school, and so on.
Immerse leading into the Feasts. Some of them have this as a common practice anyway, such as Shavuot. Which I find particularly meaningful, since Shavuot was accompanied by the immersion of the Ruach.
Immerse your children as outward covenant members. Or don’t. We can see a Biblical precedent for this happening in the time of the Apostles, and we have no instances where they instructed to the contrary. That is, telling someone not to do it. I would say though, that anyone making a confession of faith, even those immersed as children, should still be immersed. But that’s because immersion should not be a once-in-a-lifetime thing.
Use mayim chayim, “living water” whenever possible. There’s a fascinating 1st century book called the Didache, which lists a hierarchy of precedent and methodology. Mind you, this book well predates any councils or Catholic practices:
Living water first
Then other water
Then warm water
Then pour water on the head three times
So to summarize it all: immersion, baptism, is about going from death to life. Going under the water to join with Messiah Yeshua in His death, and rising up to join Him in life. We recognize that the water itself doesn’t have magical properties. It can cleanse physical impurities, but not spiritual ones. It is the act of repentance that handles that. We immerse because we want to be participants in the covenant and the Kingdom. We want to identify and join with our Messiah.
Shalom.