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The One Baptism as a Category of New Testament Soteriology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2009

J. A. T. Robinson
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Extract

‘I Acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins’ ‘There is one body and one Spirit, … one Lord, one faith, one baptism’ (Eph. 4.4 f). What precisely is here the significance of the word ‘one’ ? It would clearly be inadequate to see this unity simply as a matter of Church order—though it may yet be more significant than we have allowed that, in spite of everything, divided Christendom still today recognises a single baptism. We should be nearer the heart of the matter to say that baptism is one because it makes one. Just as it is ‘because there is one bread’ that ‘we, who are many, are one body’ (I Cor. 10.17), so it is baptism which in the first place creates this unity: ‘In one Spirit were we all baptised into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether bond or free’ (I Cor. 12.13); ‘for as many of you as were baptised into Christ … are all one man in Christ Jesus’ (Gal. 3.27 f).

Yet there are other elements in the NT doctrine of baptism which suggest that even this does not exhaust the meaning of the phrase. To be baptised ‘into Christ’ is not merely to find a new and given unity among ourselves. It is to be ‘baptised into his death’ (Rom. 6.3), to be ‘circumcised … in the circumcision of Christ’ (Col. 2.11).

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Articles
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Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 6 , Issue 3 , September 1953 , pp. 257 - 274
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1953

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References

page 257 note 1 Flemington, W. F., The New Testament Doctrine of Baptism, p. 72Google Scholar.

page 258 note 1 Such a statement, of course, immediately raises many important questions about the relation of this single ‘world baptism’ to the Church and its sacramental action. It is not the purpose of this article to pursue these. Suffice it to say that the general baptism already undertaken for all men has to be made savingly effective, through faith, in all men. The instrument through which the work of Christ, already universal in extent, is made universal in obedience is the Church (Eph. 3.10), which is abo the pledge and first-fruits of the whole of creation as it will be (Jas. 1.18). The baptism of all men in the work of Jesus can therefore be described equally as the baptism of the Church (e.g., at Pentecost or in Eph. 5.25–7). By that is not meant that only a section of mankind is after all affected—for the Church is, intentionally and eschatologically, the whole of humanity renewed in Christ. Rather, it is only as mankind becomes the Church, and, this side of the Consummation, only in the Church, that what has been universally achieved is individually effective. A man must therefore be incorporated in the Church if the general baptism is to become savingly his own. Hence the vital place occupied by the sacrament of baptism, as that which, by grafting the individual into the very body of Christ, is for him through faith ‘the actualisation of the Christ-event’ (Cullmann, O., Les sacrements dans I'évangile johannique, p. 47Google Scholar). It should therefore be clear that emphasis on the general baptism wrought in Christ's completed work is in no way detrimental to a high doctrine of the sacramental action of the Church, but gives to it rather its decisive theological significance.

page 259 note 1 Cf. Luke 12.49 with Matt. 10.34 In the latter instance Matthew's version of Q, is verbally much closer to Luke 12.49 than is Luke's own in 12.51. It looks as if Luke, having put the two sayings together, has altered (and very much weakened) the second for the sake of stylistic variation.

page 261 note 1 Cited by W. F. Flemington, op. cit., p. 42.

page 261 note 2 ProfessorLampe, G.W.H., in his article ‘Baptisma in the New Testament” (Scottish Journal of Theology, June 1952)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, draws attention to the significance of this word ⋯υαβαíυεlυ in the baptismal narratives (Mark 1.10; Matt. 3.16; cf. Acts 8.39), which occurs seven times in the NT of the Ascension of Christ. At His Baptism Christ ‘goes up’, possessed of the promised Spirit which He will pour forth upon the Church after the Ascension (Acts 2.33). In Eph. 4.4–10 there fa a similar connexion between the ‘one baptism’ and the ascended Christ as the giver of the gifts of the Spirit.

This may also underlie the apparently abrupt transition in John 3.9–13 (on which vide O. Cullmann, Les sacrements dans I'évangile johatmique, p. 47). To Nicodemus' question, ‘How can these things be?’ (i.e. rebirth through baptism), Jesus replies, ‘No man hath ascended into heaven, but he that descended out of heaven, even the Son of man, which is in heaven’. The birth from above (ᾄυωθευ) means, looked at the other way round, and ascent into heaven. But that is possible only by union with the crucified Son of man (3.14), who alone can ascend. It is this that baptism affords, namely, participation in the whole descent and ascent of Christ, which was enacted proleptically in the water-baptism of Jesus Himself. There is a similar connexion in the ensuing passage (John 3.22–36), where, in contrast with John's baptism which is ‘of the earth’, the Christ (as the true Baptist) comes ‘from heaven’ bringing the gift of the Spirit which he has received of the Father.

The notion that baptism is the Christian's participation in the descent and ascent of Christ, giving victory over the entire gamut of cosmic forces in heaven and earth and under the earth, is probably the meaning of 1 Peter 3.18–22 (vide E. G. Selwyn, Commentary ad loc). The little sermon on the meaning of baptism in vv. 20 f reads like an interpolation into a creed which recites the descent and ascent of Christ shortly to become the candidate's own:

‘Christ …

Being put to death in the flesh,

But quickened in the spirit,

In the which also he went and made proclamation to the spirits in prison (i.e. the angelic forces of darkness);

Who is on the right hand of God,

Having gone into heaven,

Angels and authorities and powers being made subject to him.’

Cf. the closely parallel creed in I Tim. 3.16.

page 262 note 1 Leenhardt, F. J. (Le baptême Chrétien, 2nd ed., pp. 27–29Google Scholar) sees this psalm rather than the Servant Songs as decisive for the interpretation also of the Baptism narrative. It is true that it has made its way into the Western text of Luke 3.22 (‘Thou art my beloved Son, today have I begotten thee’), but this cannot be accepted as more than an assimilation. Cullmann is surely right in saying that ‘Christ at His Baptism is not yet proclaimed King but only the Servant of God. His Lordship reappears later, after His Resurrection’ (Baptism in the New Testament, p. 17).

page 264 note 1 The significance of this passage is lost when it is the act of ‘bathing’ rather than ‘dipping’ which is taken to correspond to Christian baptism. Thus Cullmann (Urchristentum und Gottesdienst, pp. 102–6; Les sacrements dans l'évangile johannique, pp. 73–6) (and he is followed blindly by A. J. B. Higgins in The Lord's Supper in the Mew Testament, pp. 84 f) interprets the passage as meaning that he who has once been baptised (Łλɛ λυμέυos) requires only the eucharist for post-baptismal sin. I find this most unconvincing. I fail to see how the expresssion ‘needeth only to wash his feet’ can naturally describe the eucharist, to which indeed there seems to me no allusion in this incident.

page 266 note 1 The grounds for doubting that Cornelius and his friends were in fact baptised with water are valid only if the saying which substitutes Spirit- for water-baptism is understood to refer to the sacramental action of the Church. As we have seen, there is no basis for this. It is true that Cornelius' baptism is not recorded explicitly in the second account; but Peter's words in 11.17, ‘who was I that I could withstand God?’, surely imply the consequent action taken in 10.47 f.

page 267 note 1 Following the translation of the R.V. margin, which I believe to be the interpretation of the words required to make sense of the description of the Cross as a circumcision. I have argued the point in detail in The Body, p. 41 f.

page 267 note 2 Who can say, for instance, whether in Eph. a.i-io the Apostle is referring to the once and for all action in Christ or to the moment of Christian initiation?

page 270 note 1 The author seems to be conflating the two ideas that the Cross is the dedication (a) of the new covenant (cf. 9.18: ‘Even the first covenant hath not been dedicated () without blood’) and (A) of the new temple (the Encaenia as a technical term (cf. John 10.22) goes back to the rededication of the Temple in I Mace. 4.54–9, and the whole argument of chapters 9 and 10 leads to the climax that Jesus has now ‘opened’ the new sanctuary in the temple of His body).

page 271 note 1 If R. H. Charles (Commentary ad loc.) is right, the previous verses, 15–18, are an interpolation and óᾃ γγεɛλos here is inserted by the same hand. V. 19 would then follow very naturally on v. 14 and the Son of man Himself be the one who gathers the vintage of the earth into (His own) winepress. This would add force to the interpretation given below.

page 272 note 1 The significance of the figure of 1600 furlongs is probably that of utter universality. ‘Four is the complete number of extent, covering the four points of the compass (as seven is the complete number of quality); the square of four indicates entire completeness. It is multiplied by a hundred as a sign of greatness’ (R. H. Preston and A. T. Hanson, op. cit., p. 105).

page 272 note 2 The reading βɛβαμμ⋯νον is certainly to be preferred to ῥɛραντισμ⋯νον. There is every reason why the new word which the author deliberately introduces should be assimilated to the Isaianic ‘sprinkled’ but none for the opposite change.

page 272 note 3 An idea I owe to Professor T. F. Torrance, who is not, however, responsible for the interpretation I have given to it.