Faith, Contamination and Belonging

After I posted my last blog based on the first part of Matthew 3 which, among other things, dealt with what “bearing fruit in keeping with repentance” might look like, a friend pointed out that I had not included faith in that list of fruit.  I chewed on that for a while.

Those baptized with John’s repentance-baptism were not professing their faith in Jesus.  They were not baptized in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  John’s was a different baptism than that with which we, as Christians, are familiar.  In fact, it was different from anything with which the Jews were familiar as well. 

Prior to this time, there were primarily two situations where Jews would have experienced something akin to what we consider baptism.  One was for those who became defiled by coming into contact with something that was considered to be contaminating, e.g., a dead body.  In order to cleanse themselves of their defilement, they were required to immerse or “dip” themselves in water collected in a pool.

Water purification was also one of the three requirements for the conversion of a proselyte to Judaism.  In that sense, it was a membership ritual.  Converts had to be immersed before they could “belong”.  

The individuals themselves performed both of these ritual cleansings.  John’s repentance-baptism, by contrast, was administered by John, who acted in a priestly role, and seemingly in competition with the temple rite of purification through sin offerings. 

In the instituted sacrificial system, the person bringing the sin offering would confess to the priest the specific sin for which the offering was being made and then he would place his faith in the sufficiency of the sacrifice for the forgiveness of his sin.  I can’t say with certainty, but I can imagine that, despite the fact that its intention was the opposite, this system, because of the fallen nature of mankind, would foster the belief that one was paying for his own sins.  ‘I committed a sin for which I am bringing one of my own possessions as payment.  I, therefore, can have faith that God will accept this transaction and forgive my sin.’

John’s proclamation of repentance-baptism took the people out of the familiar and gave them a completely new perspective.  All sin was now placed in the context of contamination.  They were all defiled—as unclean as if touched by death.  Their sin also placed them on the outside, looking in, as surely as if they were foreigners.  They could see that their ancestry did not ensure their belonging.  Forgiveness of sin could no longer be viewed as a pay-as-you-go transaction.  Repentance could not be a public apology for show.  It was now permanently fused with the need for water cleansing, which must be administered by another.   Repentance called for a complete change of everything they had ever understood about themselves and about God.  Their faith, at that point, was temporarily placed in the sufficiency of John’s repentance-baptism, in preparation for the coming of the one true object of faith.

When Christ came, then, to receive this repentance-baptism from John, John rightly understood that Jesus should be the one administering and he should be on the receiving end.  There stood Jesus, the spotless Lamb of God, not provided from the flock of a sinner, but provided by God as the ultimate sacrifice for the sins of the world.  Jesus had nothing for which to repent, nothing that necessitated water purification.  This repentance-baptism was not even a feature of the law that God had commanded all to fulfill; but, by submitting to it, Christ did two things. 

First, he affirmed and established the pre-eminence of baptism, this means of water cleansing for the forgiveness of sins, over the specifically Jewish sacrificial system of purification via sin offering. This repentance-baptism became the foundation for the baptism Christ later established.

Secondly, and most importantly, he fulfilled through his righteousness on our behalf the requirement of perfectly turning to God in full submission and completely turning away from all wickedness, which is the true meaning of repentance and something that we can never fully do on our own, no matter how hard we try. 

Because of what Christ completed at the cross, this perfect repentance and cleansing are gifted to us; as is the faith we receive from him to believe and accept those gifts.