Category Archives: Baptism

The baptism of the apostle Paul

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The book Acts records three accounts of Paul’s conversion. In Acts 26, Paul tells the story, but stops at the vision he received on the road to Damascus. In Acts 22, he tells the story while speaking to a mob that had just tried to kill him. In Acts 9, Luke records the story himself.

Here’s the account from Acts 9:

“As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” “Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked. “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” he replied. “Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.” The men traveling with Saul stood there speechless; they heard the sound but did not see anyone. Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing. So they led him by the hand into Damascus. For three days he was blind, and did not eat or drink anything. In Damascus there was a disciple named Ananias. The Lord called to him in a vision, “Ananias!” “Yes, Lord,” he answered. The Lord told him, “Go to the house of Judas on Straight Street and ask for a man from Tarsus named Saul, for he is praying. In a vision he has seen a man named Ananias come and place his hands on him to restore his sight.” “Lord,” Ananias answered, “I have heard many reports about this man and all the harm he has done to your saints in Jerusalem. And he has come here with authority from the chief priests to arrest all who call on your name.” But the Lord said to Ananias, “Go! This man is my chosen instrument to carry my name before the Gentiles and their kings and before the people of Israel. I will show him how much he must suffer for my name.” Then Ananias went to the house and entered it. Placing his hands on Saul, he said, “Brother Saul, the Lord—Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here—has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” Immediately, something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and he could see again. He got up and was baptized, and after taking some food, he regained his strength.” (Acts 9:3–19)

And here’s how Paul told the story in Acts 22:

“About noon as I came near Damascus, suddenly a bright light from heaven flashed around me. I fell to the ground and heard a voice say to me, ‘Saul! Saul! Why do you persecute me?’ “ ‘Who are you, Lord?’ I asked. “ ‘I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting,’ he replied. My companions saw the light, but they did not understand the voice of him who was speaking to me. “ ‘What shall I do, Lord?’ I asked. “ ‘Get up,’ the Lord said, ‘and go into Damascus. There you will be told all that you have been assigned to do.’ My companions led me by the hand into Damascus, because the brilliance of the light had blinded me. “A man named Ananias came to see me. He was a devout observer of the law and highly respected by all the Jews living there. He stood beside me and said, ‘Brother Saul, receive your sight!’ And at that very moment I was able to see him. “Then he said: ‘The God of our fathers has chosen you to know his will and to see the Righteous One and to hear words from his mouth. You will be his witness to all men of what you have seen and heard. And now what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized and wash your sins away, calling on his name.’” (Acts 22:6–16)

In Acts 9, Ananias says that he had come to end Paul’s blindness and to allow him to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Then Paul is healed (Ananias has placed his hands on Paul) and proceeds to be baptized. Little is said about why Paul was baptized.

In Acts 22, Ananias tells Paul to be baptized. Part of that baptism is a “calling on the name of the Lord.” One result of that baptism is the washing away of Paul’s sins.

The connection between “baptism” and “washing” is intentional here. When the believer calls upon the name of the Lord in coming to him for salvation, his sins are washed away. An integral part of that “calling” is the act of being baptized in water.

Why I don’t like the term ‘water baptism’

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waterI’m not sure when people began using the term “water baptism.” Seems like it’s becoming more and more common. The phrase is often used by those who want to take passages about baptism and argue that we don’t know if it’s baptism in the Spirit or baptism in water. [Jr used it in a comment the other day; I’m not implying that he meant anything by that.]

I consider ‘water baptism’ to be a redundancy. It’s like talking about water swimming or food eating. I can be swimming in debt. I can eat my words. But when I tell someone that I was swimming, rarely do they ask, “In what?”; when I talk about eating, they don’t ask me if it was food that I ate.

In the same way, when Jesus told his disciples to make disciples by baptizing and teaching them, the disciples didn’t walk away saying, “I wonder what we’re supposed to baptize them with.” When Peter told the crowd at Pentecost that they were to repent and be baptized, no one shouted out, “Baptized in what?”

The Bible does refer to the outpouring of the Spirit as Jesus baptizing with the Holy Spirit. And Jesus refers to his death as a baptism (Mark 10:38–39). Neither of these figurative uses of the term “baptism” change the fact that the word was understandable to the original hearers. By context, they knew when a usage was figurative. Otherwise, they knew to take the word at face value: immersion in water.

Let’s not muddy the waters by using a term that only obscures the original meaning.

Baptized with John’s baptism

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waterIn Acts 18 and 19, we run into something interesting. There were believers who knew all about Jesus, but only knew about the baptism of John. The first case we see is Apollos in Ephesus. Luke describes the situation this way:

“Meanwhile a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus. He was a learned man, with a thorough knowledge of the Scriptures. He had been instructed in the way of the Lord, and he spoke with great fervor and taught about Jesus accurately, though he knew only the baptism of John. He began to speak boldly in the synagogue. When Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they invited him to their home and explained to him the way of God more adequately.” (Acts 18:24–26)

Luke doesn’t address the question of what happened to Apollos personally. Was he rebaptized? We don’t know.

Another group of Ephesian believers was rebaptized. Luke tells us:

“While Apollos was at Corinth, Paul took the road through the interior and arrived at Ephesus. There he found some disciples and asked them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” They answered, “No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.” So Paul asked, “Then what baptism did you receive?” “John’s baptism,” they replied. Paul said, “John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance. He told the people to believe in the one coming after him, that is, in Jesus.” On hearing this, they were baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus. When Paul placed his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied. There were about twelve men in all.” (Acts 19:1–7)

We’ve already discussed the unusual description of how they received the Spirit. If someone wants to comment on that, I don’t mind; I’m just not going to go over that again.

I do want to look at the meaning and importance of baptism, based on these two stories. Like always, Luke doesn’t give us a lost/saved timeline to know exactly what happened with these people. Apollos is merely called a Jew who had been instructed in the way of the Lord; the believers in Ephesus are called “disciples.” Each believed in Christ and had been baptized. Yet something needed to be corrected.

Something real happens when we are baptized. You can know the right things about Jesus and believe in Him, yet still be lacking. You can still be missing something. Something real happens when we are baptized.

I like what N.T. Wright says in Surprised By Hope:

Successive Christian generations have struggled to find language to do justice to the reality of what happens in baptism and of what happens in the Eucharist. It is perhaps not surprising that they have largely failed because in fact the sacraments are designed to be their own language, ultimately untranslatable, even though we can describe what is going on from various angles, themselves all inadequate. (Kindle edition, location 4078)

Just because we find it hard to explain the hows and whys and whats doesn’t mean that baptism is a mere symbol. The water isn’t magical. The hands of the one doing the baptizing hold no special powers. But the act of being baptized in the name of Jesus changes our relationship with God.

The baptism of the Philippian jailer in Acts 16

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waterWe’re looking at New Testament texts about baptism. Lately, we’ve been looking at some texts in Acts, with Acts 8 being the latest.

Now we come to the baptism of Paul in chapter 9… which I want to discuss next week. Chapter 10 relates the conversion of Cornelius, which we touched on before when discussing the Holy Spirit.

I want to move on to Philippi, in Acts 16. In the first part of the story, we see the conversion of Lydia and her household. As is the general rule in the book of Acts, there is a mention of their baptism when telling of their conversion.

Later, we see the man we know only as the Philippian jailer. While he is on watch, an earthquake frees all the prisoners, yet none escape, seemingly because of the influence of Paul and his traveling companion, Silas. Luke then tells the story:

“The jailer called for lights, rushed in and fell trembling before Paul and Silas. He then brought them out and asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household.” Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all the others in his house. At that hour of the night the jailer took them and washed their wounds; then immediately he and all his family were baptized. The jailer brought them into his house and set a meal before them; he was filled with joy because he had come to believe in God—he and his whole family.” (Acts 16:29–34)

I don’t know that the jailer was thinking in spiritual terms when he asked about being saved. But Paul seized the moment and spoke the truth to him: You need to believe. Then the jailer and his family were baptized. Luke ends the story by saying that the jailer rejoiced because they had believed.

Modern Christians have an obsession with delineating the timeline of salvation, separating out belief and response. We want to know if a person is saved at the moment they believe or when they are baptized. Do we baptize lost people or saved people?

That wasn’t the mindset of the early church. You were out of the community of faith, then you were a part of it. There was the intellectual belief and the response that accompanied it. They were parts of a whole known as “faith.”

Paul told the jailer to believe. The jailer was baptized, then rejoiced because he had believed. They aren’t separate. They aren’t steps. Conversion is a holistic process, affecting body and mind, intellectual and physical.

It’s all worth rejoicing about.

The Ethiopian’s baptism in Acts 8

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waterAfter Acts chapter 2, we don’t hear baptism mentioned until chapter 8, when Philip is in Samaria. The people that are being converted are being baptized. Their situation is notable because none of them received the Holy Spirit, at least in an outward sense, until Peter and John came and laid hands on them. I discussed this a bit last week and in earlier posts, so I don’t want to replow that ground.

While Philip is in the middle of this highly successful outreach in Samaria, God tells him to go stand by a lonely road in a wilderness area. (Lots of lessons there!) An Ethiopian comes by, and the Spirit tells Philip to go talk to him. The man was reading from Isaiah and told Philip that he couldn’t understand the message without help. Philip then started with that passage and told the man about Jesus.

Let me let Luke tell the story from there:

“Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus. As they traveled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water. Why shouldn’t I be baptized?” And he gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him. When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing.” (Acts 8:35–39)

There are lots of social questions at play here that we need to recognize as being the point of this passage. For the purpose of our study, we’ll focus on a subpoint: after Philip told the man about Jesus, the man requested baptism. The most logical understanding of this passage is that Philip included baptism in the story of Jesus. Or do you see a better way of understanding this?

The man believed the story of Jesus and felt the need to respond. Apparently Philip had told the man that part of that faith response was baptism. That fits with the rest of the book of Acts and the rest of the New Testament.