Tertullian: Baptism as
Spiritual Healing Tertullian, writing a generation after Justin, shares
with him the view of baptism as the source of salvation through the forgiveness
of sins, but Tertullian places his emphasis on baptism as a spiritual healing
or recapitulation of God’s creation of humanity in the beginning. Even as the
Spirit of God hovered over the waters of chaos at the creation of the world
(Gen 1:2), so too the Spirit hovers over the water of the font. From the Spirit’s
hovering, the water borrowed its holiness—“the sacramental power of
sanctification”—by which the initiate is cleansed of her sin (Bapt. 4).
Tertullian weaves together the
Genesis creation narrative with the story of the angel’s disturbing the water
in the pool of Bethesda (John 5:1-8). Similarly, the baptized were purified by
the angel present at the font so that they might be made ready to receive new
birth in the gifts of the Holy Spirit that came from the laying on of hands by
the bishop and priests (Bapt. 6). This conferral of the Holy Spirit was,
Tertullian explained, a symbolic reenactment of the creation of the first man
who was fashioned in the image of God when God breathed into him the
life-giving Spirit, which was taken away from him in punishment for the first
sin (Bapt. 5). (J. Warren Smith, Early Christian Theology: A History [Grand
Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2026], 21-22)
