Discipleship and baptism

Today we're looking at two verses that directly connect discipleship with immersion in water. The first comes in the section of the gospel of John directly after Jesus was speaking to Nicodemus about being born of water and Spirit:

 "After these things, Jesus and his disciples came into the land of the Jews, and he was remaining with them and was immersing there. Now John was also immersing in Aenon near to Salem, because many bodies of water were there, and they were coming and were being immersed. For John was not yet cast into prison. Therefore there happened to be a debate from John’s disciples with a Jew concerning the cleansing. And they came to John and said to him, Rabbi, he who was with you beyond-that area of the Jordan, to whom you have testified, behold, This one immerses and all men are going to him...Therefore as the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus is making and immersing more disciples than John, (although Jesus himself was not immersing, but his disciples did), he left Judea and went away into Galilee." - fragment of John 3:22-4:3, MLV

 Jesus was making and immersing disciples, although the physical immersing seems to have not been done by Jesus directly, but his disciples. A good treatment of whether or not Jesus was physically submerging followers in the water can be found in Beasley-Murray's Baptism in the New Testament pps. 67-72. This would not be surprising given that it seems that Peter (Acts 10:47-48) and Paul (1 Corinthians 1:10-17) did the same, they doing the preaching and having someone else doing the physical immersing. Additionally according to tradition, by way of Clement of Alexandria, "Christ is said to have baptized Peter alone. And Peter baptized Andrew; Andrew, John. And the two of them baptized James and the rest." (c. 195). However, John 1:40-42 may cast some doubt on this idea given that we don't know the implications of the fact that Andrew seems to have been a disciple of John before following Jesus. The verses in John 3 may indicate that many former disciples of John decided to start following Jesus (were they re-baptized? One cannot say although after the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus we do have one case, the only case of re-baptism we know of in the NT: Acts 19:1-7). The point is that immersion in water was an introductory rite/ritual performed in order to become the disciple of John the Baptist and/or Jesus.

 The second verse we're examining today shows that after his death, burial, and resurrection, Jesus commanded the apostles to continue making disciples by way of teaching, immersion and continued teaching: "And Jesus came to them and spoke to them, saying, All authority has been given to me in heaven and upon earth. When you travel, make disciples of all the nations, immersing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things, as many things as I have commanded you, and behold, I am with you all the days until the end of the world."
- Matthew 28:18-20, MLV

 Once again we see making disciples and/by immersing them, but now, after the resurrection it will be in the name of the Trinity. Two things to note about this verse: 1) we see that immersion is what happens BEFORE teaching the new converts to do works of obedience, and 2) the grammar of the Greek construction shows interesting points about its interpretation. In his book, Baptism: a Biblical Study Jack Cottrell points out how baptism cannot and should not be considered a work given it's grammatical place in the Great Commission. It happens before the works or acts of obedience (v. 20), it is a part of conversion, not something that occurs afterwards. pps. 11-15.

 Here's a great article about the Greek of the Great Commission: http://thinktheology.org/2013/11/07/greek-geeking-the-great-commission-in-matthew/ 

 In conclusion, we see in both Jesus's earthly ministry (John 3:22-John 4:3) and continued by the twelve (Matthew 28:18-20) and Paul (Acts 18:8, 1 Corinthians 1:13-17), having someone immerse a convert in water was part of the initiation to discipleship.  Jesus had shown his disciples how to make disciples while he was on earth, and expected them to do the same after he left.

Unlike Levitical washings and proselyte baptism (which were self-immersions), these immersions required someone else to immerse the convert, probably part of the reason the Jewish leaders didn't submit to it (Luke 7:29-30, John 3:25). We know from both Scripture and tradition that immersion in water was the conversion-initiation rite that marked the beginning of discipleship.

John the Baptist's ministry tied water baptism to becoming a disciple (John 3:22-4:3) and repentance and forgiveness of sins (Mark 1:4).
Jesus's earthly ministry tied water baptism to becoming his disciple (John 3:22-4:3) and after his resurrection, water baptism in his name is tied to becoming a disciple (Matthew 28:18-20), repentance, forgiveness of sins AND reception of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38-39).  We know that in order to be a Christian, one must be a disciple of Jesus (Acts 11:25-26) and we have seen from the verses above how a disciple of Jesus is made.

Be strong in the grace,

Fenton