Contents
In the Bible John is the first person of whom we read that he baptized people.
Please read carefully through the arguments and counterarguments.
Interpretation 1: The proselyte baptism
Summary:
John’s baptism was a humiliating application of the baptism of proselytes from the Gentiles, now administered to God’s covenant people.
Arguments in favour of this view:
1. The Jews already applied a form of baptism to proselytes, to Gentiles who wanted to join Judaism. It served as a symbol in addition to their circumcision and the sacrifice they had to bring.
2. By also administering this baptism to the children of Abraham (see Matthew 3:9) John made Jews—who boasted of being far above the uncircumcised Gentiles—to realize that they too needed a thorough cleansing from their sins in order to enter God’s coming kingdom.
Arguments against this view:
It cannot be proven that proselyte baptism was already in use at the time of the New Testament. Rather, it is more likely that it was introduced to Judaism as a reaction to Christian baptism.
Interpretation 2: Drowning with no rights
Summary: John deliberately chose the Jordan River for his baptismal symbolism. At one time God’s people had entered the Promised Land through this Jordan on dry ground (Joshua 3:1–17). In a symbolic way that same people are now symbolically drowned in the water of that same river. It is to make them realize that they have no right to the coming kingdom of God. Abraham's children are like citizens who have to turn in their passports and then are shot at the border,
as one commentator writes.
Arguments in favour of this view:
1. The Jordan River was on the border. The Israelites had once entered Canaan through the bedding of this river, where the waters had been stopped by God’s intervention (Joshua 3:13–16).
2. The Greek word “baptizein,” usually translated as to baptize
actually means: to immerse, to push under without bringing it back up.
Arguments against this view:
1. If John had especially wanted to recall the passage through the Jordan when taking possession of the Promised Land, it might have been expected that he would have chosen a place in the Jordan area near Gilgal for his baptismal symbolism. God’s people were brought back to that very place more than once during the OT, to recall their beginning in the Promised Land (Judges 2:1; 1 Samuel 10:8; 1 Samuel 11:14–15; 1 Samuel 13:4; 2 Samuel 19:15).
2. John baptized in the area across the Jordan, in Bethany (John 1:28). He would then have first had the people come to him through the Jordan River and then he would have taken them back into the Jordan water where he drowned
them, as it were. This does not seem logical for the symbolism.
3. In John 3:23 we read that John had moved the place of baptism to Aenon near Salim, west of the Jordan (John 3:26). This place, according to most commentators, was many kilometres north of Gilgal, and therefore far removed from the place where Israel had once entered the Promised Land. Moreover, this new place, which is not across the river, must have meant a change in the people’s sense of its baptismal symbolism as well.
4. Forcing the actual meaning of the Greek word baptizein in such a way that it would mean to push under without being brought up again, does not fit with the reality of John’s baptism. For in fact, he does lift up the people he baptized, as a sign that they would be allowed to enter a new life in God’s kingdom thanks to the King of that kingdom whose coming he announced.
Interpretation 3: The washings in the Mosaic laws
Summary:
John’s baptismal ceremony recalled the washings prescribed in the Mosaic laws after someone had become unclean.
Arguments in favour of this view:
1. Uncleanness, according to God’s law, did not mean that a person had become unclean externally, or that they were in danger of infecting someone else’s health. The reasons someone was declared unclean were things that were obvious consequences of man’s fall into sin. Examples included diseases that caused vomiting or diarrhea, a sore that burst open, the death of a human or animal etc.
A person’s uncleanness implied that he or she had to stay away from God’s sanctuary in the midst of the people. Only after a washing—both of the clothing as well as the body—was the uncleanness removed, at the end of the day (see Leviticus 15:1–33).
2. In John 3:25 the baptism is also called a ceremonial washing.
3. By completely immersing people under water, John emphasized that we are totally unclean before God and need to be washed completely clean in order to enter God’s kingdom. All the ceremonial washings according to the Mosaic law were not sufficient, there had to be a more thorough cleansing.
4. No great leap of thought would be necessary for the persons being baptized to understand the meaning of baptism.
Arguments against this view:
This explanation is acceptable, but it does not answer the question of why the Holy Scripture explicitly states in all four gospels that John baptized in the Jordan River.
Interpretation 4: The immersion of Naaman
Summary: John’s baptismal ceremony recalled the immersion in the Jordan River prescribed by the prophet Elisha for the Syrian general Naaman.
Arguments in favour of this view:
1. The Jews in those days knew their Bible and the history described in it—including the account that involved Naaman.
2. In the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Hebrew OT), the word baptizein is also used with regard to Naaman for his immersion in the Jordan (see 2 Kings 5:14). (Incidentally John’s nickname (John the Baptist
) is also derived from baptizein: Iōannēs ho Baptizōn.)
3. Naaman was unclean. He had the most severe and long-lasting form of uncleanness, which required people to remain outside the community of God’s people and far from God’s sanctuary for a long time. John’s baptism compared every Jew with such a person!
4. When Naaman came up from the water after his immersions, his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean
(2 Kings 5:14). He was, as it were, born again! That is also necessary to be able to enter God’s kingdom.
5. Naaman had to immerse himself in the Jordan seven times. This demand tested his faith. The baptism of John also demanded faith—even though we do not know whether he also immersed the people seven times—that this humbling ceremony was nevertheless the gateway to a new life.
5 Then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan were going out to him,