Commenting on the theology of water baptism in various texts in the New Testament, Gordon W. Kuhrt (Anglican) wrote the following:
1. In Galatians 3.26-29 it is asserted that those who belong to Christ through faith and baptism are ‘Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise’. Thus not only are slave/freeman and male/female divisions overcome but also the Jew/Gentile. However, the implication is not that the Jewish people lose their covenant relationship (and become like Gentiles), but that the Gentiles through Christ enter into the covenant relationship and promise (and become ‘a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God’, 1 Peter 2.9). The covenant with Abraham included the promise of seed and heirs, not according to human design but by the supernatural and spiritual work of God, i.e. not through Ishmael but through Isaac ‘the child of promise’ Paul is saying here that this promise to Abraham is fulfilled in Christ and those who are ‘baptized in Christ’. An understanding of baptism into Christ involves knowing about God’s covenant promises to Abraham, their history and fulfilment.
2. In Colossians 2.11-13 it is asserted that in Christ his people receive circumcision understood as a moral and spiritual operation, and that this happened in association with baptism-burial and faith-resurrection. In view of the misuse and misunderstanding of circumcision that Paul tackles so vigorously in Galatians and Philippians it is all the more remarkable that here he brings so closely together the initiation rites of circumcision and baptism and indicates that they symbolize the same spiritual realities of moral and spiritual transformation—death to a selfish way, new life to a godly way. The implication is not that the Jewish people lose their covenant sign of circumcision (rightly understood) but that the Gentiles through Christ enter into the spiritual realities of the covenant sign of circumcision by means of the new and more widely appropriate rite of baptism. Paul is saying without embarrassment that those baptized in Christ are circumcised spiritually. An understanding then of baptism involves knowing about God’s covenant-sign of circumcision, its origin, meaning and use.
3. In 1 Peter 3.18-21 it is asserted that baptism which brings salvation—understood not merely as outward and physical washing but as inward and spiritual renewal—it is symbolized in the water of Noah’s flood, or rather God’s flood, through which difficulties in understanding the previous verses, but there can be no doubt that the author draws a clear parallel between the experience of salvation associated with the water of baptism and the salvation through the waters of the flood. It may seem a strange comparison to us now, but it obviously had a clear baptism into Christ will be helped by knowledge of God’s salvation of Noah through the flood which is so closely associated with the covenant promise of mercy and the covenant sign in the rainbow.
4. In 1 Corinthians 10.1-4 Paul uses typically New Testament sacramental language about the experiences of the Israelites journeying with Moses from Egypt towards the promised land. He describes the passing through the sea and being under the cloud as a ‘baptism into Moses in the cloud and in the sea’. Furthermore he describes the divinely provided manna and the water that came out of the rock as ‘spiritual food’ and ‘spiritual drink’. In the context of baptism this appears to be a reference to the eating and drinking of Holy Communion. This interpretation is surely made certain by the following words: ‘They drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ’. Just as, in Colossians 2, Paul has no embarrassment about asserting that the same spiritual realities are symbolized in circumcision and baptism, so here he uses baptism to explain the experience of the cloud and the sea, eucharistic language to explain the provision of food and drink, and caps it all by saying that it was Christ who was with them as the Sustainer. Just as Christ and the sacraments he instituted cast light on the Israelites’ experience, it is not clear that our understanding of these sacraments will be enlightened by an appreciation of what God was doing with the Israelites and Moses? The journey they were engaged in was clearly because God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob (Exodus 2.24), redeemed them from slavery and, leading them to new life, he renews that same covenant. The whole Exodus story refers insistently back to the covenant with Abraham and interprets God’s present action as God’s faithfulness to and renewal of it. Exodus 6.2-8 should be read carefully noting the covenant promise of verse 7 ‘I will take you as my own people and I will be your God’.
These four references to Abraham’s seed, circumcision, Noah and to Moses are quite explicit associations of baptism with Old Testament covenant episodes. As a footnote to this section it may be suggested that a fifth passage, 1 Corinthians 12.13 might be relevant too—‘we were all baptized by one Spirit . . . and were all given the one Spirit to drink’. In the light of Paul’s references just two chapters earlier and because it is the Spirit of Christ we drink, the connection seems apparent. But even if not, the case is clearly made in the other four passages. When referring to baptism, the apostles moved naturally to the classic covenant-passages of the Old Testament for explanation and illustration. (Gordon W. Kuhrt, Believing in Baptism: Christian Baptism—its theology and practice [Oxford: Mowbray, 1987], 20-23, italics in original, emphasis in bold added)
