What next? Our opponents are certainly well supplied with objections. We are baptized, they say, into water; yet surely we will not honor the water above all creation or give it a share in the honor of the Father and the Son.
Such arguments are what one expects from people inflamed by controversy, whose judgment is clouded by resentment and who leave no method untried against the person who has offended them. Still, we will not shrink even from answering this point. If we cannot teach those who refuse to learn, at least we will not retreat before those who act wickedly. Let us therefore retrace our steps for a moment.
The saving economy of our God and Savior toward humanity is a recall from the fall and a return from the alienation caused by disobedience to intimate communion with God. This is why Christ sojourned in the flesh, why the Gospel sets before us his pattern of life, why there were the sufferings, the cross, the tomb, and the resurrection: so that the person being saved through imitation of Christ may recover the ancient adoption.
For perfection of life, imitation of Christ is necessary—not only imitation of the gentleness, humility, and patience shown in his life, but imitation even of his death. Thus Paul, the imitator of Christ, says that he is “being conformed to his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.”
How, then, are we made like his death? By being buried with him through baptism. And what is the manner of this burial? What benefit comes from the imitation?
First, the continuity of the old life must be broken. This cannot happen unless a person is born again, according to the Lord’s word, for regeneration—as the very name shows—is the beginning of a second life. Before the second life begins, the first must end. Runners who turn at the end of a course and begin in the opposite direction have a moment of halt between the two movements. Likewise, in the change from one life to another, death had to stand between them as a mediator, ending what came before and beginning what comes after.
How do we descend to death? By imitating Christ’s burial through baptism. The bodies of those baptized are, as it were, buried in the water. Baptism therefore signifies in mystery the putting off of the works of the flesh, as the Apostle says: “You were circumcised with a circumcision not made by hands, in the putting off of the body of the flesh, in the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism.” It is also, as it were, a cleansing of the soul from the stain accumulated through the fleshly mind, as it is written, “Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.”
For this reason we do not, like the Jews, wash ourselves again after every defilement. We confess one saving baptism, because there is one death on behalf of the world and one resurrection from the dead, of which baptism is a type.
Therefore the Lord, who orders our life, gave us the covenant of baptism containing an image of death and life: the water fulfills the image of death, while the Spirit gives us the pledge of life. The reason water is associated with the Spirit in baptism is now clear. Two ends are set before us: first, that the body of sin be destroyed so that it no longer bears fruit for death; second, that we live to the Spirit and bear our fruit in sanctification. The water receives the body as in a tomb and portrays death; the Spirit pours in life-giving power, renewing our souls from the deadness of sin to their original life.
This is what it means to be born again of water and Spirit: our death is enacted in the water, while our life is worked in us through the Spirit. In three immersions and with three invocations the great mystery of baptism is completed, so that the type of death may be fully portrayed and the souls of those baptized may be enlightened by the tradition of divine knowledge.
If there is grace in the water, then, it is not from the nature of the water but from the presence of the Spirit. Baptism is “not the removal of dirt from the flesh, but the appeal of a good conscience toward God.”
And in preparing us for the life after the resurrection, the Lord lays out the entire way of life required by the Gospel: gentleness, endurance of wrong, freedom from the defilement that comes from love of pleasure, and freedom from greed. In this way we deliberately anticipate and practice now what the coming life will possess by its own nature. If someone were therefore to define the Gospel as a preview of the life that follows the resurrection, I would not think that person had gone beyond what is fitting. Let us now return to our main subject.
Through the Holy Spirit comes our restoration to paradise, our ascent to the kingdom of heaven, our return to adoption as children, our freedom to call God our Father, our participation in the grace of Christ, our being called children of light, our sharing in eternal glory—in short, our entrance into every “fullness of blessing,” both in this age and in the age to come.
The good things stored up for us in the promises are still awaited in their fullness, yet through faith we already behold the reflected brightness of their grace as though they were present. If the pledge is so great, what will the perfection be? If these are the firstfruits, what will the complete fulfillment be?
The difference between the grace that comes from the Spirit and baptism in water can also be understood from this: John baptized with water, but our Lord Jesus Christ baptizes with the Holy Spirit. “I baptize you with water for repentance,” John says, “but the one coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry; he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” Here the baptism of fire signifies the testing at the judgment, as the Apostle says, “The fire will test what sort of work each has done,” and again, “The Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire.”
There have also already been some champions of godliness who underwent death for Christ not in a symbolic imitation but in reality, and therefore needed no outward sign of water for salvation, because they were baptized in their own blood.
I do not say this to diminish baptism in water. I say it to overthrow the arguments of those who exalt themselves against the Spirit, who confuse things that are distinct and compare realities that cannot properly be compared.