Commenting
on the Apostle Paul’s teaching of baptism and how it is the instrumental means
of regeneration, Richard M. Grant wrote:
The apostle Paul, indeed, seems to have
played an important part in the development of Christian thought on baptism. In
his view, ‘by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or
Greeks, slaves or free men, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit’ (1
Cor. 12:13). In his view the rite did not produce magical effects, even though
by washing the Christians were consecrated and justified (1 Cor 6:11 [cf. 1:30]).
Though at the Exodus the Israelites were prefiguratively baptized, they
suffered drastic punishments when they later sinned .baptism had to produce
results in the Christian’s life. Those baptized into Christ Jesus died and were
buried with him so that they could rise and live in ‘newness of life’ (1 Cor.
10:5-10; Rom. 6:3-11) . . . Paul's idea of baptism as equivalent to dying with
Christ or being buried with him (Col. 2:12) may have antecedents in the sayings
of Jesus, where 'baptism' seems to be used metaphorically of death (Mark 10:38;
Luke 12:50). Commentators have sometimes compared the baptismal fragment in
Ephesians 5:14--'Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will
shine upon you'--with a formula employed in one of the mystery religions.
According to the fourth-century Christian writer Firmicus Maternus, the image
of a god was placed on a bed and mourned for as though dead; later a light was
brought in and the priest said, 'Rejoice, initiates of the god who has been
saved; for to us there will be salvation from our sufferings' (De errore profanarum religionum 22, 1) .
. . the most significant feature of this discussion lies in his treatment of
baptism as rebirth. Paul, as we have seen, preferred the figure of death and
resurrection, or even new creation (cf. 2 Cor. 5:17; Gal. 6:15). He thus
emphasized the radicalness of the baptismal transformation somewhat more
strongly that do the authors who use the figure of birth and rebirth; but
rebirth too is an image of novelty. We find it ascribed to Paul in the Epistle
to Titus (3:5-7, 'a washing of regeneration') and to Jesus himself in John
3:3-8. Whether resurrection or rebirth is mentioned, Christians are insisting
that in becoming members of the community they are not what they were (see also
Jas. 1:18). (Robert M. Grant, Augustus to
Constantine: The Thrust of the Christian Movement into the Roman World [New
York: Harper and Row, 1970], 317-18)
On the topic
of Hebrews and its theology of water baptism, Grant noted:
The significance of baptism may seem to be
minimized in the anonymous Epistle to the Hebrews (of uncertain date), for its
author speaks of proceeding toward perfection while leaving behind more
elementary matters such as 'repentance from dead works, faith in God, teaching
about "baptisms", the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the
dead, and eternal condemnation' (6:1-2). Nevertheless it is clear that all
these matters are related to Christian conversion and initiation, and that
though they may be elementary they are also indispensable. Indeed the author immediately
proceeds to state that those who have once been 'illuminated' and have 'taste
the heavenly gift and have been made sharers in the Holy Spirit and have tasted
the word of God and the powers of the age to come' cannot 'become new for
repentance' if they have fallen away from the faith (6:4-6). It is sometimes
thought that when he mentions 'baptisms' in the plural he has in mind not Christian
baptism but something like the ritual baths employed at Qumran and elsewhere.
This idea is improbable because of the context of Christian ideology. He is
actually insisting on the meaning of the rite; what matters is illumination and
participation in the Holy Spirit and the gifts of God. The language about
'tasting' clearly recalls Paul's words about drinking the Spirit at baptism (1
Cor. 12:13).
'Illumination' is sometimes viewed as a term
derived from contemporary mystery religions, but it was not a term denoting
initiation. The idea is reflected in the baptismal fragment in Ephesians 5:14,
mentioned above. If we seek for an explanation of it beyond the ordinary
Hellenistic reference to intellectual illumination, we may suggest that it
comes from meditation on the first creation story, where God says, 'let there
be light' (Gen. 1:3). Light was characteristic of the new creation as well (cf.
2 Cor. 4:4-6).
Another passage in Hebrews clearly shows that
the importance of baptism was not being minimized. Here (10:22-5) we find
mention of faith, of purifying our hearts of an evil conscience and washing our
body with pure water; then comes an appeal to maintain the confession of hope,
to recognize one another with love, and not to give up the Christian assembly.
This combination of baptismal elements suggests that in speaking of 'purifying'
and 'washing' the author has baptism in mind. He makes more of purifying the
heart than of washing the body, but this emphasis is shared by all New Testament
writers (cf. 1 Cor. 6:11; Eph. 5:26; Tit. 3:5; John 3:8). (Ibid., 319-20)