We
confess one baptism for the remission of sins and for life eternal. For baptism
declares the Lord’s death. We are indeed “buried with the Lord through baptism,”
as saith the divine Apostle. So then, as our Lord died once for all, we also
must be baptized once for all, and baptized according to the Word of the Lord,
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, being taught
the confession in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Those, then, who, after having
been baptized into Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and having been taught that
there is one divine nature in three subsistences, are rebaptized, these, as the
divine Apostle says, crucify the Christ afresh. For it is impossible, he saith,
for those who were once enlightened, &c., to renew them again unto
repentance: seeing they crucify to themselves the Christ afresh, and put Him to
an open shame. But those who were not baptized into the Holy Trinity, these
must be baptized again. For although the divine Apostle says: Into Christ and
into His death were we baptized, he does not mean that the invocation of
baptism must be in these words, but that baptism is an image of the death of
Christ. For by the three immersions, baptism signifies the three days of our
Lord’s entombment. The baptism then into Christ means that believers are
baptized into Him. We could not believe in Christ if we were not taught
confession in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. For Christ is the Son of the Living
God, Whom the Father anointed with the Holy Spirit: in the words of the divine
David, Therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness
above thy fellows. And Isaiah also speaking in the person of the Lord says, The
Spirit of the Lord is upon me because He hath anointed me. Christ, however,
taught His own disciples the invocation and said, Baptizing them in the Name of
the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. For since Christ made us
for incorruption, and we transgressed His saving command, He condemned us to
the corruption of death in order that that which is evil should not be immortal,
and when in His compassion He stooped to His servants and became like us, He
redeemed us from corruption through His own passion. He caused the fountain of
remission to well forth for us out of His holy and immaculate side, water for
our regeneration, and the washing away of sin and corruption; and blood to
drink as the hostage of life eternal. And He laid on us the command to be born
again of water and of the Spirit, through prayer and invocation, the Holy
Spirit drawing nigh unto the water. For since man’s nature is twofold,
consisting of soul and body, He bestowed on us a twofold purification, of water
and of the Spirit: the Spirit renewing that part in us which is after His image
and likeness, and the water by the grace of the Spirit cleansing the body from
sin and delivering it from corruption, the water indeed expressing the image of
death, but the Spirit affording the earnest of life.
For from
the beginning the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters and anew the
Scripture witnesseth that water has the power of purification. In the time of
Noah God washed away the sin of the world by water. By water every impure
person is purified, according to the law, even the very garments being washed
with water. Elias shewed forth the grace of the Spirit mingled with the water
when he burned the holocaust by pouring on water. And almost everything is
purified by water according to the law: for the things of sight are symbols of
the things of thought. The regeneration, however, takes place in the spirit:
for faith has the power of making us sons (of God), creatures as we are, by the
Spirit, and of leading us into our original blessedness.
The
remission of sins, therefore, is granted alike to all through baptism: but the
grace of the Spirit is proportional to the faith and previous purification.
Now, indeed, we receive the firstfruits of the Holy Spirit through baptism, and
the second birth is for us the beginning and seal and security and illumination
of another life.
It
behoves us, then, with all our strength to steadfastly keep ourselves pure from
filthy works, that we may not, like the dog returning to his vomit, make
ourselves again the slaves of sin. For faith apart from works is dead, and so
likewise are works apart from faith. For the true faith is attested by works.
Now we
are baptized into the Holy Trinity because those things which are baptized have
need of the Holy Trinity for their maintenance and continuance, and the three
subsistences cannot be otherwise than present, the one with the other. For the
Holy Trinity is indivisible.
The first
baptism was that of the flood for the eradication of sin. The second was
through the sea and the cloud: for the cloud is the symbol of the Spirit and
the sea of the water. The third baptism was that of the Law: for every impure
person washed himself with water, and even washed his garments, and so entered
into the camp. The fourth was that of John , being preliminary and leading
those who were baptized to repentance, that they might believe in Christ: I,
indeed, he said, baptize you with water; but He that cometh after me, He will
baptize you in the Holy Spirit and in fire. Thus John’s purification with water
was preliminary to receiving the Spirit. The fifth was the baptism of our Lord,
whereby He Himself was baptized. Now He is baptized not as Himself requiring
purification but as making my purification His own, that He may break the heads
of the dragons on the water, that He may wash away sin and bury all the old
Adam in water, that He may sanctify the Baptist, that He may fulfil the Law,
that He may reveal the mystery of the Trinity, that He may become the type and
ensample to us of baptism. But we, too, are baptized in the perfect baptism of
our Lord, the baptism by water and the Spirit. Moreover, Christ is said to
baptize with fire: because in the form of flaming tongues He poured forth on
His holy disciples the grace of the Spirit: as the Lord Himself says, John
truly baptized with water: but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit and
with fire, not many days hence: or else it is because of the baptism of future
fire wherewith we are to be chastized. The sixth is that by repentance and
tears, which baptism is truly grievous. The seventh is baptism by blood and
martyrdom, which baptism Christ Himself underwent in our behalf, He Who was too
august and blessed to be defiled with any later stains. The eighth is the last,
which is not saving, but which destroys evil: for evil and sin no longer have
sway: yet it punishes without end.
Further,
the Holy Spirit descended in bodily form as a dove, indicating the firstfruits
of our baptism and honouring the body: since even this, that is the body, was
God by the deification; and besides the dove was wont formerly to announce the
cessation of the flood. But to the holy Apostles He came down in the form of
fire: for He is God, and God is a consuming fire.
Olive oil
is employed in baptism as a significant of our anointing, and as making us
anointed, and as announcing to us through the Holy Spirit God’s pity: for it
was the fruit of the olive that the dove brought to those who were saved from
the flood.
John was
baptized, putting his hand upon the divine head of his Master, and with his own
blood.
It does
not behove us to delay baptism when the faith of those coming forward is
testified to by their works. For he that cometh forward deceitfully to baptism
will receive condemnation rather than benefit. (An Exact Exposition of the
Orthodox Faith, Book IV, Chapter IX [NPNF2 9:77-79])
[Circumcision] was, moreover, a figure of baptism. For just as the circumcision does not cut off a useful member of the body but only a useless superfluity, so by the holy baptism we are circumcised from sin, and sin clearly is, so to speak, the superfluous part of desire and not useful desire. (An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Book IV, Chapter XXV [NPNF2 9:98])
Further Reading
Robert S. Boylan, "Born of Water and of the Spirit": The Biblical Evidence for Baptismal Regeneration (2021) (for those who want a free PDF of this book, drop me an email at ScripturalMormonismATgmailDOTcom)
