ON BAPTISM

 With Herod dead and Archelaus deposed as king of the Jews (ethnarch), it was time for a new King. It was for a different type of king than ever before! It was time for Jesus to come out. It was mikveh time in Jewish ritual. Jesus was about to be baptized by John the Baptist.

Before, baptism is examined, consider the mikveh; it means a “collection” of water.  It “is a bath used for the purpose of ritual immersion in Judaism to achieve ritual purity” (Wikipedia 2001). 

Most forms of ritual impurity can be purified through immersion in any natural collection of water. However, some impurities, such as a zav, require "living water", such as springs or groundwater wells. Living water has the further advantage of being able to purify even while flowing, as opposed to rainwater which must be stationary to purify. The mikveh is designed to simplify this requirement, by providing a bathing facility that remains in contact with a natural source of water. (ibid) 

A ”mikveh” was usually the first utility constructed before even building a synagogue. The first “mikveh”  was the “Molten Sea” in the First Temple.

Under the pillars before the Temple was built, Hiram of Lebanon, a craftsman, built a Molten Sea, “And he made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one brim to the other: it was round all about, and his height was five cubits: and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about” (1 Kings 7:23). Therein was a collection of water in a reservoir of sorts for 2000 baths (verse 26). The Molten Sea was used for ablution of the priests.

Ablution is “ritual purification,” to not only wash away dirt, but uncleanliness of all sorts, such as menstruation, childbirth, sexual relations, nocturnal emission, unusual bodily fluids, skin disease, contact with death, and animal sacrifices but not the inner person stained with sin.

The Molten Sea was as living water in a zev as the 2000 baths flowed downward, filling the smaller baths. Ritual baths were required before coming into the presence of God behind the veil and at other less significant times. The chief priest, to be pure enough to stand in the presence of God, would have entered a bath with the collection of water flowing freely from the greater bath to the lesser to wash away outer sins so that he could enter the Holy of Holies.

In the time of Christ, even the Temple was unsuitable because it had become defiled in 168 B.C. by the Greek king Antiochus IV Epiphanes who sacrificed a pig on the altar. Jesus would have been unclean if he had bathed in the Temple as High Priest because it was defiled before His time. Thus, Jesus required natural water for His ritual cleansing and the best source of “living water” was the Jordan River (Naral Ha Yarden) — the “River of the Garden” (of Eden).

Rather than a Molten Sea of that size before there was a Temple, the Tabernacle (Tent of God) had a bronze laver for washing of the hands and feet. It’s size and mass made it transportable unlike the Molten Sea and it would suffice for that time to wash the hands and feet, and perhaps be the collector for pouring living water to wash the nocturnal emissions and such from the body.

Both the laver of the Tabernacle and the Molten Sea were baptismals, not by immersion in the latter (a mikveh) but a zev in both.

Now for a moment, consider Pontius Pilate under whose charge Jesus was crucified. He knew very little about what was going on, but he understood that his hands were dirty, not in the sense of filth but contact with the dead.

There is no evidence that Pilate touched Jesus. He probably did not. However, he touched him vicariously in his mind because he was in charge of the centurions. His hands may have looked clean but he was about to have the blood of a dead man on his hands. Jewish Law would require ablution.

Pilate did not know that, but perhaps Jesus himself had passed that thought onto Pilate. However, for some reason, Pilate washed his hands of the about to be dead man with the closest living water available, - in a laver. Unknow to him, Pilate was practicing Jewish ritual washing because his hands were dirty. It would require living, or moving water, to cleanse himself, but the Living Water from the belly of Jesus was not yet available (John 4:10).

What Pilate did was for repentance, “I am innocent of the blood of this just person: see ye to it” (Mat 27:24). He was innocent of the blood let by Jesus, but he knew that he had the power to stop it. Pilate, then doing what he had to do, scourged Jesus and had him crucified (Mat 27:26). Pilate’s hands were clean but inside he remained dirty. What had he done, though? He had repented for what he was about to do. He regretted that he had freed guilty Barabbas and caused the blood of Jesus to be shed.  As such, Pilate, the real “Caesar” and “Chief Priest,” washed his hands in the same manner as the High Priest did in the Tabernacle before he was clean enough to face God.

Pilate had made himself clean to be in the Presence of God. He was about to realize just who it was that he was sacrificing. So, according to ancient Jewish customs, Pontius Pilate was performing the Jewish ritual and the laver was a zev. Jesus had baptized nobody, ostensibly with water — “The Lord knew how the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John, though Jesus himself baptized not, but his disciples… (John 4:1-2). At last, Jesus was about to baptize!

He caused Pilate to wash his hands. Jesus baptized Pilate as vicariously as Pilate killed Him. Then, there were perhaps two others that Jesus would baptize that day: the repentant thief and the centurion who pierced Him and caused living water to flow from the belly of Jesus, Dismus and Longinus, respectively.

All three repented of what they were doing. Dismus repented, and it is assumed (by me) that the water and the blood of Jesus — living water — sprinkled on him. It need not be by immersion, but aspersion, given the situation, with moving and alive waters from the belly of Jesus.

It is obvious that Longinus would have been sprinkled as well… “One of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water” (John 19:34). There were others who saw it as well, “Now when the centurion, and they that were with him, watching Jesus, saw the earthquake, and those things that were done, they feared greatly, saying, ‘Truly this was the Son of God’” (Mat 27:54). Others may have experienced the waters from Jesus! Those around Longinus would have been “baptized” in the same manner as Jesus, and because of the water and blood of Jesus, they were persuaded that Jesus is God in the flesh.

The point herein is that John the baptizer said, “Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Mat 3:2), and then the multitude were baptized. They were coming clean and were vicariously washed of their inside “dirt,” dirty or not on the outside. The Jordan was their zev because its waters were alive... or moving. They knew they were repenting to allow them to be in the Presence of God who would be there presently (verse 13).

How is it known that their baptism was for repentance? John revealed it to them to supplement what they already knew about the ritual cleaning, “I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance. but He that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire.” (Mat 3:11).

There are not three “baptisms” there are two types but with one effective: the Baptism of John that is done as a ritual in both ancient and modern times and the Baptism of the Holy Ghost which was only done with the advent of Jesus death, presuming that I am correct about the baptisms of those around Jesus at the crucifixion. Even so, at least on the day of Pentecost in Acts chapter two: “…there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of the and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost… (Acts 2:3-4)

Those in accord with each other under Christ were baptized with the Holy Ghost in the same manner that John the Baptist mentioned years before. Which of the two is the “one baptism” (Ephes 4:5). Is it your choice, or is there only one efficacious baptism (done by the one Christ)?

John’s baptism was for “repentance for the remission of sins” (Mark 1:4). Repentance is vicariously washing of the sins within; not the washing of the flesh as the Jews thought they were doing. Water baptism was a method of preparation for what? Experiencing Jesus as Matthew indicated. How is Jesus experienced since he is no longer here in bodily form? By the “Living Waters” of the Holy Ghost of Jesus who came down after Jesus arose — the Comforter — the “bodily shape of Jesus” in spiritual substance (Luke 3:22).

Jesus said that salvation is not by blood alone but blood and water, “This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth” (1 John 5:6). The “blood” in that passage is the Blood of Jesus. What is the “water”? John’s water baptism or the Holy Spirit of Jesus spilled from the body of Jesus onto those around Him?

I believe it is the Holy Spirit — Living Water — that has efficacy and not the moving water from a zev whether it be from a laver, in the Jordan, the Molten Sea, or even in a stagnant church baptismal.

The Living Water is the Holy Ghost. By requiring water, whether moving and deep, even stagnant, displeased the Holy Ghost who is the Baptizer sent by God… and “He that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation” (Mark 3:29).

So, the question remains, whose baptism is effective for the remission of sins… John’s water baptism in a zev, or the Baptism of the Holy Ghost from God? Which leads to another question, Was it the water from the belly of Jesus that persuaded onlookers to become Christians, or did they see the manifestation of the Holy Ghost leaving Jesus and baptizing them vicariously at that time?

Those who rely on water baptism for the remission if sins are like the early believers, believing that John had the Power that Jesus had. Water baptizers for the remission of sins are indeed good Jews and follow their ritual to a tee.

(picture of Molten Sea; Wikipedia)