OT foreshadowing (part II): type-antitype constructions

In the last post, we talked about some of the type-antitype constructions for baptism that are explicitly stated to be as such in Scripture.  In today's post, I want to point out some examples seem to clearly be foreshadowing immersion in water, yet are not flat out stated like the previous three.  We'll start, as is fitting, in the beginning:

CREATION --> NEW CREATION
Genesis  1:1-5 – From the beginning there was God’s Spirit hovering over the waters.  There was a transition from darkness to light, and a spoken word.  This was the birth of the world, this mirrors our spiritual birth: John 3:1-8, born of water and Spirit.  All the elements from the first few verses of Genesis 1 are mentioned in John 3:  Spirit, water, darkness, light, the word.  And then we have this verse from Paul's letter to Titus:

"For we were also previously foolish, disobedient, being misled, serving in various lusts and sensual-delights, leading lives in malice and envy, spiteful, hating one another. But when the kindness of God our Savior and his love of mankind had appeared: he saved us (not from any works done in righteousness, which we practiced), but according to his mercy, through the bath of rebirth and renewal of the Holy Spirit, which he poured out upon us richly, through Jesus Christ our Savior;  that, having been justified by that grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of everlasting life." - Titus 3:3-7, MLV

 He saved us by washing, or bath of rebirth and renewal by the Spirit:  water and Spirit, just like Genesis 1 and John 3. The analogy is strengthened by use of the Greek word "palingenesias", which effectively means "A new Genesis", a rebirth, renewal or restart.  That this is baptismal language is clear from the use of the word for bath/washing here, which is only used in the NT twice: here and in Ephesians 5:25-27.  Among the early church fathers, both Clement of Alexandria and Tertullian also noted the connection between John 3, Titus 3 and Genesis 1.

CROSSING THE JORDAN RIVER
In Joshua 3-5 the Israelites cross the Jordan River as they had crossed the Red Sea, except this time it is Joshua who is leading them and the waters are parted by means of the Ark of the Covenant instead of Moses' staff.  After crossing over, all the males were circumcised and then the Israelites had a Passover meal.  John Oakes in his book, From Shadow to Reality, says the following:

"With this is mind, it becomes easier to make sense of the symbolism of the crossing of the Jordan River.  As Israel was baptized into Moses when they passed through the waters of the Red Sea, so they were baptized into Joshua when they passed through the waters of the Jordan.  It is true that this is never actually stated in the New Testament, but the symbolism is fairly obvious".

The analogy is further strengthened by the fact that they were circumcised (see also Colossians 2:9-14 for baptism as an antitype to circumcision) after crossing over, a seal similar to that of the Holy Spirit in the NT.  And afterwards they ate the Passover, which is clearly a type for the Communion meal.  We often see baptism and communion type-antitype constructions together (see Genesis 6-9 and 1 Corinthians 10:1-13 as examples, as well as the meals referenced after baptism in Acts 2, 9, 10 and 16) as will be shown in our next example, but first before moving on let's see what some of the early church fathers said about the crossing of the Jordan.  In Everett Ferguson's book, Baptism in the Early Church, the following is stated, when talking about a Origen, a Christian apologist writing in the 3rd century:

"He paraphrases Paul's words about crossing the Red Sea as applicable to crossing the Jordan:  'I do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, that our fathers all passed through the Jordan, and all were baptized into Jesus in the Spirit and in the river'.  This interpretation was facilitated by the equivalence in Greek of the names Jesus and Joshua."

It is interesting the parallel given between the two verses, and how they relate to Spirit and water.  In the example with Moses, many equate the cloud that was overhead with the Spirit, and of course the sea on both sides is the water.  In the Joshua example, Origen states they were immersed into Jesus/Joshua in the Spirit and in the river (water). Once again we have the idea of baptism being an immersion in water and Spirit.  Also, in both cases after passing through the water there was a meal referenced almost immediately afterwards in Scripture:  After the Red Sea, the Israelites drank water from the rock and ate manna from Heaven.  After the Jordan River, they ate the Passover meal.  Communion and Baptism (often called the two sacraments of the New Covenant) often appear foreshadowed together.  Let's look at our third and final example below.

COMMUNION & BAPTISM FOR GENTILES FORESHADOWED
In Luke 4 Jesus makes reference to two OT stories when discussing the fact that no prophet is accepted in his home town.

 "And he said to them, You will certainly say this parable to me, Physician, heal yourself. We have heard how much had happened in Capernaum, do it here also in your fatherland. But he said, Assuredly I say to you, No prophet is acceptable in his fatherland. But in truth I say to you, There were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heaven was locked for three
 years and six months, as such there became a large famine over all the land; and Elijah was sent to none of them, except to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow. And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet, and none of them was cleansed, except Naaman the Syrian." - Luke 4:23-27, MLV

 Of all the stories he could have referenced, Jesus brings up these two stories to talk about how he would be rejected in his own home town, and also how the Jews would ultimately reject him as well. To make this point he talks about two times in Israel's history in which God's prophet was sent to help and heal Gentiles at a time when the nation of Israel was having difficulty in its relationship with God.  Jesus citing these stories make the Nazarenes furious and they want to throw him off a cliff.  Let's look at the two stories in further detail.

The first, comes from 1 Kings 17, where during a severe drought and famine the prophet Elijah goes to a Gentile widow and her son and does as miracle so that flour and olive oil meals do not run out.  Additionally, the widow's son dies and Elijah brings him back to life.  The meals are foreshadowing of communion and the raising of the son is foreshadowing of Jesus.

The second story, coming from 2 Kings 5, is the only mention of the prophet Elisha in the entire NT.

Naaman, a Syrian from a nation that had aggression toward Israel,  was commanded by Elisha to dip/plunge/immerse himself in the Jordan River 7 times to be healed (John the Baptist would eventually baptize people in the same river – not a coincidence) of leprosy.  The Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), uses the word baptizein for the dipping that heals the heathen Naaman from a skin disease called tzaraath. After some reluctance, Naaman decides to obey and dip and wash in Jordan River for cleansing, and when he does so his flesh becomes like a child (new birth?).

Christians have often interpreted the Naaman story as prefiguring baptism in the NT for the forgiveness of sins.  See what Iranaeus, writing in the second century had to say about this story:

 “'And dipped himself,' says [the Scripture], 'seven times in Jordan.' It was not for nothing that Naaman of old, when suffering from leprosy, was purified upon his being baptized, but it served as an indication to us. For as we are lepers in sin, we are made clean, by means of the sacred water and the invocation of the Lord, from our old transgressions; being spiritually regenerated as new-born babes, even as the Lord has declared: 'Except a man be born again through water and the Spirit, he shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.'" (Fragment, 34, A.D. 190).

One can easily see how these two stories from the book of Kings foreshadow Gentile inclusion in Communion and Baptism.

In conclusion, we can see that some implicit type-antitype constructions for baptism can be found in other OT stories as well.  Just like every single foreshadow of Christ is not explicitly mentioned as such in the OT, we can be sure that every foreshadowing of Communion and Baptism may not be stated outright either.  Two of our stories involve the Jordan River, which not inconsequentially would be the site where baptism for forgiveness of sins in the New Testament would begin with John the Baptist. Those same waters would be where Jesus himself was baptized.  Finally, the first story mentioned today took us all the way back to the first few verses written in the Bible, showing how Creation was a foreshadowing of New Creation:  the birth of the world began with water and Spirit, our new birth begins with water and Spirit.

Be strong in the grace,

Fenton


NOTE:  All in-text verses are cited in the Modern Literal Version,  while the links show the NIV translation.

OT foreshadowing: type-antitype constructions

You may have heard it said that "the Old testament is the New testament concealed; the New Testament is the Old Testament revealed."  A very wise statement which the Bible actually sort of states in different phrasing:

Hebrews 10:1 states that the law is only a shadow of the good things to come, but not the realities themselves, while Colossians 2:17 says that the observance of certain traditions in the Old Covenant was a shadow of the things that were to come, but the reality is found in Christ.

There are many events in the Old Testament that were foreshadowing things in the New.  This type of foreshadowing actually has a name:  type-antitype constructions.  This occurs when the Old Testament "type" foreshadows the New Testament "antitype".  Note that a distinction must be made between a prophecy and a foreshadowing:

Prophecy: "The virgin will give birth to a son and he will be called Immanuel" - Jesus born from Holy Conception.
Foreshadowing: Moses lifting up the snake in the desert (Numbers 21:4-9) was the type/symbol and Jesus on the cross was the anti-type/reality (as Jesus explains in John 3:14-15).

In the Bible there are some OT events that are explicitly noted to be types foreshadowing NT antitypes. There are also some that can be considered to be implicit, and the early church fathers and lots of scholars have identified some as such.  Today,  I will examine briefly the three explicitly stated examples: (1) the Flood, (2) the Exodus and (3) the Day of Atonement washings.

1) In his first letter, the Apostle Peter writes the following:

"For it is better to suffer for doing good than for doing evil, (if the will of God wills it). Because Christ also suffered once for all on behalf of our sins, the righteous on behalf of the unrighteous, that he might bring you to God; having indeed been slain in the flesh, but was given-life in the Spirit; in which, he also traveled and preached to the spirits in prison, when they previously were disobedient, when the patience of God was waiting in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water; which also our counterpart– immersion saves us now, not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the demand of a good conscience toward God, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ;  who is at the right hand of God, having traveled into heaven; with messengers and authorities and powers having been made subject to him." - 1 Peter 3:17-22, MLV 

As you can see, it says "immersion saves us now", or as translated in the NIV (see verse link above), "baptism now saves us".  Let's look at the type-antitype being used here; amazingly the Greek word for this construction is actually used where the water of the flood is the type, and the waters of baptism/immersion are the antitype.  See the Greek word "antitypon" used in this verse here. This Greek word is actually the source of the name type-antitype.

The Flood (Genesis 6 - 8): the Earth was full of sin and wicked people. God submerged the earth under water to purge it and cleanse it, and then life was able to begin anew.

Baptism:  We as descendants of Adam, are made of earth/dust. When we sin, our bodies become wicked and corrupt and need to be cleansed. We too have to have them submerged under water, and when the waters subside we start a new life. 

2) The second example we will look at is the Exodus.  Look at what Paul writes in his first letter to the Corinthians:

"Now brethren, I do not wish you to be ignorant that our fathers were all under the cloud and all went through the sea; and were all immersed into Moses in the cloud and in the sea;" - 1 Corinthians 10:1-2, MLV. 

The Exodus (Exodus 12 - 15): For salvation, the Israelites had to walk through the waters, with the sea on each side and the cloud above them. In this way they had water on all sides. Life in Egypt which represented slavery and sin had to be left behind.  Pharoah and the pursuing Egyptians wanted to destroy the Israelites. They were destroyed by the waters.  This passage through the waters also put the Israelites into a relationship with Moses as their leader.

Baptism:  We too, like the Israelites, go through the waters; we are immersed in the waters of baptism into a relationship with Christ just like the Israelites were immersed into the cloud and sea into a relationship with Moses. Just as their enemies were left behind and drowned in the water, the enemies of Christ, our old self with its sins is left behind in the waters of baptism. It is a very beautiful picture, and a fulfillment of the prophecy that Jesus would be a prophet like Moses.

Verses six and eleven of chapter 10 of 1 Corinthians actually use the term "example", as Paul was letting his readers know that these things that occurred in the Old Covenant were examples/foreshadowings/types for the listeners of his day (and by extension to us and all Christians today).  

3) The final example comes from a long section of Hebrews (chapters 9 and 10) where the writer is comparing the Old Covenant to the New and showing ways in which the New is Superior to the Old.  The writer makes a point to show how several sacrifices and cleansing/washing ceremonies had to be repeated again and again in the Old, while in the New there was ONE sacrifice (the cross), and we are cleansed and washed ONCE (our baptism).  This culminates towards the end of chapter 10:

"Therefore brethren, having boldness for the entrance into the holy-places by the blood of Jesus, a way which he inaugurated for us, a fresh and living way, through the curtain, that is, his flesh; and having a great priest over the house of God; let us come near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and having our body bathed in purest water.  We should hold-onto the confession of our hope– unwavering; for he who promised is faithful." - Hebrews 10:19-23, MLV

Day of Atonement ritual (Leviticus 16):  the sprinkling of blood and the washing with water refer to the day of Atonement ritual in which the priest had to wash both before and after making a sacrifice in which he sprinkled blood.  This was all part of a yearly sacrifice to push back ("remove") the sins of the Israelites.  For a full appreciation of all that occurred and some foreshadowing of Jesus' sacrifice, I strongly encourage you to read Leviticus 16.  In fact, I encourage you to read the passages about the Flood (Genesis 6 - 8) and the Exodus (Exodus 12 - 15) in conjunction with the examples given above as well.  It will greatly help your understanding.

Baptism: We draw near to God in faith, we get our hearts sprinkled (with the blood of Jesus) and our bodies washed in water (immersion). This verse in Hebrews is describing the inner and outer process that takes place and comparing/contrasting it to the Old Covenant similar system that didn't actually take away sins (levitical washings, sacrifices of bulls and goats), but yet Jesus' sacrifice coupled with our faith in him and his blood, allows us to have our sins released and forgiven when we have our bodies washed/bathed.  

One thing that should stand out to the reader is that all of these OT analogies/types for baptism involve WATER.  Often times there are persons who try to say that immersion in water is no longer necessary or valid (claiming that only a baptism of the Spirit is what occurs now). Why would three separate writers (Peter, Paul and the Hebrew writer) ALL use water in their metaphors and analogies of baptism, if it involved only the Spirit.   It is our position, as you can imagine from the blog title, that it is a birth of WATER and SPIRIT, our one baptism now (Ephesians 4:5).  Let it suffice to say that from these OT examples we can conclude that "water is in the plan."  For our next entry we'll look at some of the implicit type/foreshadowings of baptism in the OT.

For further reading on types-antitypes and OT foreshadowings, see John Oakes' book From Shadow to Reality.

Be strong in the grace,

Fenton

P.S.  I use the Modern Literal Version for in-text citations, but provide links to the NIV version.

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

Born of water and Spirit

Now there was a man from the Pharisees, Nicodemus by name, a ruler of the Jews. This one came to him by night and said to him, Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one is able to do these signs that you are doing, if God is not with him. Jesus answered and said to him, Assuredly, assuredly, I am saying to you, If someone has not been born anew, he is not able to see the kingdom of God.  Nicodemus says to him, How is a man able to be born when he is elderly? He is not able to enter into his mother’s womb a second-time and to be born again, is he? Jesus answered, Assuredly, assuredly, I am saying to you, If someone has not been born out of water and the Spirit, he is not able to enter into the kingdom of God! What has been born from the flesh is flesh, and what has been born from the Spirit is spirit.  Do not marvel that I said to you, It is essential for you to be born anew.  The Spirit is blowing where he wills and you hear his voice, but do not know from where he is coming and where he is going, so is everyone who has been born from the Spirit.  - John 3:1-8 MLV

The phrase in question is in verse five:  "gennēthē ex hydatos kai Pneumatos" = born of water and Spirit. See the full Greek of verse five here:  http://biblehub.com/interlinear/john/3-5.htm

The purpose of this blog is to discuss Jesus in general and this "requirement" that Jesus gives in order to enter the kingdom of God.  I plan on discussing Scripture, books on the topic, history and just capture my general thoughts and musings on subjects that interest me like discipleship of Jesus, conversion, baptism, the Trinity, type-antitype constructions, etc.  Sometimes this blog will merely serve as my stream-of-consciousness on topics, and other times I hope that it will be a resource for all those seeking Biblical truth about conversion and discipleship.  

That's all for now.  Welcome to "Born of water and Spirit", the blog.

Be strong in the grace,

Fenton