I was asked this yesterday at Presbytery in casual conversation and realized I have no idea. I know the Nicene Creed (“one baptism for the remission of sins”) is appealing to Ephesians 4 with Acts 2 and Peter’s call for repentance in the first sermon of the Church. But I have never researched if there is any contemporary evidence for some agreed upon theory about the hows and whys and whens of baptism and the remission of sins. I simply have no information about what the average Christian at the time of Nicea believed about baptism and forgiveness and all things related.

I do know that during the Reformation there was a debate about the forgiveness of sins and baptism between the Protestants and the Roman Catholics. Since it is commonly believed the Lutherans and the Reformed disagreed with each other about this issue, I’ll limit my remarks to what was held as being the difference with the Roman Catholics on the part of the Reformed.

John Calvin explained it this way:

I know it is a common belief that forgiveness, which at our first regeneration we receive by baptism alone, is after baptism procured by means of penitence and the keys. But those who entertain this fiction err from not considering that the power of the keys, of which they speak, so depends on baptism, that it ought not on any account to be separated from it. The sinner receives forgiveness by the ministry of the Church; in other words, not without the preaching of the gospel. And of what nature is this preaching? That we are washed from our sins by the blood of Christ. And what is the sign and evidence of that washing if it be not baptism? We see, then, that forgiveness has reference to baptism. This error had its origin in the fictitious sacrament of penance, on which I have already touched. What remains will be said at the proper place. There is no wonder if men who, from the grossness of their minds, are excessively attached to external things, have here also betrayed the defect, not contented with the pure institution of God, they have introduced new helps devised by themselves, as if baptism were not itself a sacrament of penance. But if repentance is recommended during the whole of life, the power of baptism ought to have the same extent. Wherefore, there can be no doubt that all the godly may, during the whole course of their lives, whenever they are vexed by a consciousness of their sins, recall the remembrance of their baptism, that they may thereby assure themselves of that sole and perpetual ablution which we have in the blood of Christ (John Calvin, Institutes, IV, 15, 4; emphasis added).

The Council of Trent actively assaulted the Reformed on this very point. The condemning sentence reads:

If anyone says that by the sole remembrance and the faith of the baptism received, all sins committed after baptism are either remitted or made venial, let him be anathema.

Of course, many times in Trent one finds only a charicature of Reformed Doctrine being condemned. But in this case, the Reformed identified this cursing as a cursing of true doctrine. This basic position was still considered orthodox and Reformed as late as the time of Francis Turretin:

Does baptism… take away past and present sins only and leave future sins to repentances? Or does it extend itself to sins committed not only before but also after baptism? The former we deny; the latter we affirm against the Romanists.… II… [T]he Romansists teach… “The virtue of baptism does not reach to future sins, but the sacrament of penitence is necessary for their expiation.” Thus, the Council of Trent expresses it: “If anyone shall say that all the sins which are committed after baptism are either dismissed or made venial by the recollection of faith of the received baptism alone, let him be anathema (session 7, Canon 10, Schroeder, p. 54)….

XII. …However, we maintain that by baptism is sealed to us the remission not only of past and present, but also of future sins; still so that penitence (not a sacramental work and what they invent, but that which is commanded in the gospel) and especially saving faith is not excluded, but is coordinated with baptism as a divinely constituted means of our salvation (Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, vol. 3).

So the difference between the Reformed and the Romanist seems to be that the Roman Catholics limited baptism’s efficacy more than the Reformed thought was right. Also, the Reformed saw no conflict between faith and baptism whereas the Romanists seemed to divide these things so that faith became understood as insufficient for salvation.

Now the reason why God authorized men to use a rite of this nature, involving immersion or washing or sprinkling with water and received at the hands of the official ministers of religion, as the means of obtaining the washing away of their sins and hence also as the regular mode of initiation to the service of God, is to be found in his purpose to confirm and stimulate to greater vigor in them by this procedure the first and foremost principle of our salvation, namely, faith in the remission of sins, that is, in our unmerited justification. For God himself formed us in such a way that whenever we are seriously promising or conferring invisible realities our natural inclination is to do so by means of signs perceptible to the senses. The same procedure can be observed among all peoples in important transactions of every kind, for it is in this manner that treaties are concluded, kings installed, marriages contracted, and sales executed.

Consequently, as far as this use of symbols is concerned, God deals with us in terms of our own practice, as he is accustomed to do in other respects as well. And since the whole of the covenant he has made with us and our entire salvation (which is his primary consideration in all his dealings with us) have their beginning and basis in our persuasion that he pardons our sins, in his wisdom he has willed to confirm and stimulate our faith in this pardon principally by his own symbol, and particularly at the time when men consecrate themselves to his service in a special way. For on that occasion they reflect more closely on their own unworthiness and his goodness, and as a result more fully forsake self and dedicate themselves to him for a life of complete holiness and a true readiness to serve the needs of all men.

His purpose, however, to present the remission of sins through the agency of public ministers of religion was not determined solely by the fact that it is appropriate for physical symbols to be conferred at the hands of men. It was also his aim by this means to knit his own more closely together and to each other, and to bind them more securely to submission to religious instruction and admonition in the congregation. This should result from their realizing that the men from whom they received the counsels of salvation and to whom they must cleave as fellow members in the same body are able to shut or to open heaven to them, and to retain or to remit their sins. The Church of God, of course, has always possessed this power, and God has never failed to make use of its exercise for the salvation of his own whenever the Church has languished in spirit and the light of knowledge.

It should now be clear from what we have said why God has required his Church in every age to use baptism and in this manner to introduce men to his service.

Source: Martin Bucer, “Baptism,” Martin Bucer, Courtenay Reformation Classics IV, pp. 287, 288.

I recently saw a textbook that attempted to explain John’s baptism in terms of what “water” represented. This won’t work. John didn’t baptize with “water” in general; he baptized with the water of the Jordan.

The Jordan River was the official Eastern boundary of the Promised Land. Even though the Israelites were permitted to take territory on the east side, the Jordan River was understood to mark the east side of the official promise to Abraham. Joshuah led the people of Israel into the Promised Land through a miraculous crossing in which the waters piled up so that they walked on dry ground. At that point they also resumed circumcision, which they had not practiced for a generation.

So coming out to the wilderness and being baptized by John was significant. Among other things, it helps explains why John is identified with Elijah. As I wrote many years ago:

we are explicitly told that John the Baptist is not literally Elijah (John 1:21), but that he fulfills the prophecy that Elijah will precede the Messiah (Mal 4:4-6; Matt 11:14; 17:10-13; Mark 9:11-13; Luke 1:17). But why Elijah and not some other prophet? Why is Elijah singled out as John’s primary prototype? Vos gives some account for this, saying that Elijah is tied to repentance, but this, in my opinion, does not go far enough. Something makes Elijah unique among prophets to be the type of John the Baptist and to foreshadow his role in preparing the way for Jesus.John the Baptist as the Final Moses

Let’s start with some seemingly random observations about John the Baptist. Notice that John confronts a king (Matt 14:3; Mark 6:17; Luke 3:19) and stays in the region of the Jordan (Matt 3:5; Luke 3:3) in the wilderness (Mark 1:4) across from the Promised Land (John 1:28; 10:40).

Now a few of these details do remind us of Elijah. He too confronted an evil king (1 Kin 17:1; 21:17-19) and spent a lot of time outside of Israel proper (1 Kin 17:3, 9). But he also did more. He called down plagues on the Land (1 Kin 17:1), called down fire on his sacrifice (1 Kin 18:38), was fed by angels in the wilderness (1 Kin 19:4-7), and met God at Mt. Sinai (1 Kin 19:8-14).

I don’t think it is too hard for people who know their Bibles at all to begin thinking about Moses when they notice these things. Moses confronted Pharaoh and called down plagues on Egypt. Also, he’s the first person in the Bible to call down fire from Heaven onto an altar (Lev 9:24).

So far, this has been pretty sparse, but I do think that Elijah stands out among Old Testament prophets as a new Moses. No one else I know of was met by God at Mt. Sinai. It is a unique marker in the Bible. Incidentally, both Moses and Elijah end their careers by ascending-Moses up a mountain to die and Elijah in a fiery chariot. In both cases, this happened across the Jordan from Jericho (Deut 34:1; 2 Kin 2:4-8).

There is more to the connection between Moses and Elijah and John, however, when we consider their successors.

Jesus the Greater Joshua

Elisha accompanied Elijah when he crossed the Jordan from Jericho (2 Kin 2:4-8; 15). When he ascended into Heaven, Elisha was granted a “double portion” of his spirit (2 Kin 2:9-11). Elisha then walked through the Jordan on dry ground (2 Kin 2:14)

Centuries earlier Joshua walked through the Jordan on dry ground, leading the Israelites into the promised land to conquer Jericho (Josh 3:14-17; 6). Just as Elisha was Elijah’s successor, Joshua was Moses’ successor. Furthermore, before Moses had ascended to his death, he laid his hands on Joshua so that he “was filled with the spirit of wisdom” (Deut 34:9; Num 27:18-23). Moses also prophetically gave Joshua his new name, which had originally been Hoshea (Num 13:16).

The similarities between Elisha and Joshua also show interesting redemptive-historical contrasts. Elisha, too, marched through parted waters to Jericho. But he miraculously healed the water there so it was fit to drink (2 Kin 2:19-22).

Now in the Gospels, Jesus goes to the Jordan to be baptized by John, and there the Spirit comes upon Him visibly (Matt 3:13-17). Like Moses and Elijah before him, John says that he must become lesser as Jesus becomes greater (John 3:26-30). Just as Joshua entered the Promised Land, leaving Moses behind, and just as Elisha re-entered the Promised Land with a double-portion of the Spirit, so Jesus as the true successor to Moses and all the prophets begins His ministry after being baptized by John (see Matt 11:7-15). Jesus is the true Joshua, going into Israel conquering and to conquer–though here we see an even greater transition from wrath to grace since Jesus conquests were over demons and disease by His word and Spirit, not over people by fire and sword as was done by the first Joshua.

Baptism as ReEntry

The association between John and Moses, Jesus and Joshua will help us understand the meaning of John’s baptism. The Israelites originally entered the land by a baptism in the Jordan and into Joshua (Josh 3:14-17; compare 1 Cor 10:2 & note Josh 5:1-12). The significance of John’s choice of the Jordan River as a place to baptize should not be minimized. It was not a convenient place from which to reach people. The journey to the Jordan-border of the Holy Land must have had some sort of meaning. Why else was John a desert dweller?

People coming to be baptized by John in the Jordan were re-entering Israel. Confessing that they had failed as covenant-keepers, they were getting a second chance before the Day of the Lord.

Once we understand the implications of being baptized in the Jordan, we can extrapolate for Christian baptism that does, indeed, use water in general without reference to a particular river. Once we see the implications of John’s baptism we see that Christian baptism is a boundary marker. It delineates that a person has been officially transferred into the Kingdom of Christ. Inside the Church, we find new life and salvation and reconciliation. For outside the visible Church, there is ordinarily no possibility of salvation. Excommunication, for example, is treated as a handing of a person back to the accuser–Satan–in the hopes that he might repent and return. As Paul writes to the Corinthians:

For though absent in body, I am present in spirit; and as if present, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing. When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus, you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.

Outside the Church is the domain of darkness but inside the Church is the Kingdom of light under Christ. Since God has established an actual society to be the new city of  God, it only makes sense that he has established a means for officially ushering those who seek refuge in him across the border from the world to the church.

Take again the doctrine of justification by faith. It is not expressed in the Creed. This of itself makes nothing against it; for the Creed does not pretend to set forth all Christian doctrines; it is an outline simply of what Christianity is in its primary, fundamental facts; leaving room for much to follow in the way of confessional superstructure. It is enough, if the doctrine before us be in the symbol by implication. But this at once serves, as we may readily see, to limit and define at the same time its proper conception. To be true at all, the doctrine must be held in union with the general system of the Creed, and not as something independent of it, and bearing to it only an outside relation. To conceive of justification by faith as a thing having no connection whatever with the objective world of grace brought into view by the Creed, a thing pertaining to the general idea of man’s relations to God in the order of nature, instead of being bound in any way to the mysterious organization of the Church—the common error of the Puritanic mind—is to turn the doctrine into a fiction, which contradicts the symbol, and virtually sets aside its authority, bringing in indeed a new scheme of Christianity altogether. There can be no true faith, in the view of the Creed, which does not begin by owning and obeying the mystery of godliness proclaimed in its own articles; no true justification, which does not come from being set thus in real communication with the objective righteousness of Jesus Christ, as the power of a new creation actually present in the Church. No wonder, the theory which makes justification by faith to be a mere abstraction, and that also which resolves it into justification by fancy or feeling, find little or no satisfaction in the old Christian confessions. Their theology here, most assuredly, is not the theology of the Apostles’ Creed.

John Williamson Nevin, “Thoughts on the Church,” Second Article, The Mercersberg Review, vol 10, pp. 394, 395.