UNDERSTANDING WHAT IS BEHIND BAPTISM
Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does
not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
”I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is 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.
His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
Matthew 3:10-12
Baptism and Repentance
The idea of baptism stems back to long before Jesus was introduced to the world.
The historic roots for Jewish submersion in water can be found in the book of Exodus 30:17-21. We learn from this Scripture that Yahweh’s servants (Aaron and his sons) were to wash their hands and feet before entering the tent of meeting and before approaching the altar. This would be a ritualistic sign of respect and cleansing oneself from the impurities of the world. Once the Temple was built, it was necessary for everyone who entered to be cleansed by fully submersing in a Mikvah before entering (Lev. 15).
A mikvah was a custom-built ritual bath area that held about 300 liters or more of water.
There were several different options in antiquity to use as submersion pools of water for ritual cleansing. The most basic and least desirable was a simple pit or cistern of standing water in which an individual could cleanse oneself before entering an area that was considered holy unto the LORD.
The next options to cleanse were as follows in the order of less desirable to more desirable, a pit that contained water and that had been refreshed by rain water, the custom-built mikveh, mentioned previously, then there were public fountains, which would be a body of water that had some movement to it, and the most sought-after body of water was a lake or river where the water was continuously naturally refreshed. Rivers and lakes were recognized as “living water.”
If you are a Christian, you might have already picked up on the fact that the most desirable place to be submersed was called “living water.” The first century Jew would have clearly understood the meaning of what Jesus was claiming when he announced that he represented this living water (John 7"37-39; Rev. 7:17). This is very significant, and the true significance is deeper than what we might understand on the surface.
In an effort to dig deeper and to better understand how the Jews viewed the significance of cleansing before approaching their God, we begin by looking at the actual word for the most common form of submersion pool, the mikveh. Every word in the Hebrew language was based on three letters. These three letters were known as the “root” of the word. The transliteration of the root found in mikveh here is kvh (kaveh).[1] This happens to be the same root for the word for hope (tekvah).
Aside from the understanding that the root of mikveh is the connotation for hope, it can also mean the following:
Ø a collection of water from a natural source
Ø something waited for
Ø to bind together
Ø to expect
Ø things hoped for
Ø to wait patiently
Ø hope of deliverance
Ø to tarry
The prophet Jeremiah reminded the people that God was the living water of life (Jer. 17:13). He knew that Yahweh was/is the God that offers new life and that those who trust in the LORD will produce a harvest of resources. The Jewish people were told that when they would align themselves with the LORD, their lives would flourish in Him.
This alignment was the hope of Israel and the mikvehs, or cleansing pools, found throughout the land of Judea and outside of the synagogues and the Temple were a place where people could cleanse their bodies of the outside world and symbolically reflect on and repent for their offences against a holy God (Yahweh) through this ritual.
John, Jesus’ cousin, was baptizing Jews in the Jordan river (living water) and calling people to repent because the kingdom of God was at hand. This act of repentance and symbolic purification ritual required that people come to the LORD in humility to align themselves with their God and his direction for their lives. This represented a commitment to honor the God of Israel and recognize his authority over other pagan ideologies that were so prevalent in the world around them.
Jesus did not abolish this beautiful alignment with God through cleansing, but he did make the symbolic nature of this ritual more concrete for the people. Those who follow Jesus and give their lives over to him continue to approach the baptismal pool with humility and the symbolic cleansing ritual is the outward sign to the world that one is aligning oneself with the Judeo-Christian God. The work of Jesus on the cross, however, changed everything.
Now, the inner being would be forever changed, and the individual would be sealed for God’s kingdom. This act of ritual cleansing to approach a holy God with fear and trembling had now become a life-changing moment in the life of the individual. Just as the Holy Spirit descended onto Jesus as he was baptized, the Holy Spirit would now enter into those who have determined to seek God for direction and are willing to submit their spirit to His.
To be born of the Spirit is a cosmic event. The metaphysical realm is thrown into chaos each time a soul turns to Christ to be sealed for the day of salvation. The individual who is born of the Spirit is now given a new life. He or she is now born again and becomes a new creation. An awakening begins in the life of that person. The title deed of the Spirit-born person is immediately transferred into the kingdom of light. The kingdom of darkness loses a citizen.
Once you are born again you become an immediate enemy of the devil, but now you have the power of the living God living inside of you. Jesus provided for us this power. We need to use it to defeat the schemes of the enemy. Defeating the schemes of the devil requires action. Action requires trusting that God is who he claims to be. Christianity is not a spectator sport, we all need to participate.
Substack Addition: Coming Soon
Information about the history of Jewish ritualistic cleansing was taken from:
Further word search of the deeper meaning of “mikveh” and “tikvah” came from the Brown- Driver-Birggs Hebrew and English Lexicon.
[1] BDB definition of root, pg. 876 (4723)
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