Thoughts

Repentance is, according to the footnote in the Orthodox Study Bible, “the necessary first step in the Way of the Lord” and according to Green, “the inescapable beginning”. It is only a beginning, as the Forerunner points out: it needs to be followed by the “fruits worthy of repentance” (v.8). Repentance is clearly the first thing that is common between John’s baptism and Christian baptism, but the latter is more: “He who is coming after me… will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire” (v.11). Baptism with the Holy Spirit is prefigured in Christ’s own baptism by the descent of the Spirit in the form of a dove. But though the Holy Spirit comes as a comforter, as a sign of hope, like the dove that brought the olive branch to Noah (as John Chrysostom points out), he also brings a fire that will burn the tree that does not bear good fruit, the fruit of repentance, along with all the chaff (vv.10,8,12).

If baptism is about repentance and the descent of the Holy Spirit[1] then why was Christ himself, without sin and already with the Holy Spirit, baptized? John Chrysostom wonders that we who have accepted Christ’s acceptance of the Virgin’s womb and the humiliation of human nature would be surprised at his acceptance of this further humiliation for our sake. He points out that the Baptist’s words make it clear that Christ does not need baptism for any of the reasons it is given, but that the fulfilment of all righteousness requires that Christ, who has taken on our nature and our sin – the “very purpose of my assuming flesh” (p.76) – undergo, in Green’s stark phrase, “baptism on the cross” (p.80).

Among the various other reasons listed by Green (p.80-81) why Jesus was baptized, is that Christ was leading where we should follow. John Chrysostom goes further, saying that in Jesus’s baptism, John’s baptism ceases and “ours takes its beginning” (p.78), comparing this to Christ’s fulfilment of the Passover in the Eucharist. I do not think it is stretching what Chrysostom indicates to say that just as in Christ the bread and the wine become the thing signified, so in Christian baptism, following the baptism of Christ himself, the sign of repentance and forgiveness of sins comes to bear the means of achieving what is signified, through the descent of the Holy Spirit. Green notes that Jerome said “the mystery of the Trinity is revealed in the baptism”, and this also demonstrates that in Jesus’s baptism everything has changed: when baptism is offered in Christ, in the Church, it is always to be a Trinitarian baptism, and not a baptism for repentance only.

Chrysostom also focuses on the expression (v.16) “the heavens were opened” to show us that this is what happens to us at our own baptism – the heavens are opened and accessible to us, and the Holy Spirit descends on us just as on Christ, and just as on the apostles at Pentecost, even though it may be now in silence, as signs are “not for them that believe, but for them that believe not” (1 Cor.14:22). In this he reinforces the point that Jesus’s baptism was for our benefit. (Here, Chrysostom presents a much stronger and more holistic view of reality than Green, who speaks of baptism being “a pledge of the gift of the Spirit”, p.80.) The gift of the Spirit in baptism and in Pentecost is, as Green points out, a fulfilment of the prophets: Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Joel all speak of this time in anticipation – “After this it shall come to pass that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh… and there shall be proclamation of the good news to those whom the Lord himself called.” (Joel 3).

[1] Green lists five ‘themes’ of baptism, Matthew’s explicitly noted “repentance, forgiveness of sins and the fulfilment of all righteousness” along with the implied “mark of sonship and… gift of the Spirit” (p.80) and has earlier mentioned the distinguishing features of John’s baptism from the Jewish practice of purification-baptism as a sign that birthright is inadequate for salvation, the requirement for baptism to be received from the hands of another and not self-administered, and its eschatological nature (p.77-78). As well as the five, these latter three would also seem to apply to Christian baptism.