[This is taken from Born of Water, my book on baptism. It’s edited, but not greatly changed. But after I loaded this into the blogging software, I re-thought my position. And so I thought it might be helpful to post both the “before” and “after” posts. The “after” post will be in four parts, because we’ll have to delve into some rich, unfamiliar, and to me, interesting material.]
John’s gospel says very little explicitly about Christian baptism. Of course, there are passages that likely refer to Christian baptism, using other words, as we’ll consider in more detail.
John the Baptist’s testimony
John doesn’t record Jesus’ baptism directly, but rather records John’s description of it — and John uses the event to identify Jesus as the Messiah —
(John 1:29-34 ESV) 29 The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! 30 This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks before me, because he was before me.’ 31 I myself did not know him, but for this purpose I came baptizing with water, that he might be revealed to Israel.” 32 And John bore witness: “I saw the Spirit descend from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. 33 I myself did not know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ 34 And I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God.” Continue reading
