Appendix: Spirit Baptism and Water Baptism in Paul
APPENDIX
Spirit Baptism and Water Baptism in Paul
I began writing the material in this appendix as a chapter of its own, between those on “getting in” and “staying in.” But from the outset I had some difficulties with it—partly because I feared that by interrupting the flow of the material in chapters 7 through 10, it might also deflect from my primary concerns in this book. The light dawned when I suddenly realized that it was the only chapter in the book in which the questions raised did not emerge from our reading of Paul himself but from our coming to Paul with later agendas in hand. That realization caught my attention, and in itself should tell us something. Thus I offer my observations on Paul’s stance on these questions in an appendix.
In some ways, these issues present a no-win situation, since most Christians have vested interests on either side and tend to come to the biblical texts with their convictions in hand. Here in particular the issue is clouded by the fact that in a mere thirteen letters, we do not have everything Paul ever thought or said on a lot of questions, especially on this sticky one. But we do have some data, so let’s see where it leads us.
At issue are two matters arising from chapter 8 above. On the one side is the question of baptism. At issue is the relationship between baptism in water and the experience of the Spirit. Some see that relationship to be close, in that the Spirit is understood to be received at baptism. For others, there is no relationship at all, unless it is coincidental. We might use the narratives of Acts to help us focus the question: Is the paradigm the story in Acts 19:1–7, where the coming of the Spirit happens in conjunction with baptism, or is it the story in Acts 10, where baptism is in response to the prior coming of the Spirit?
On the other side is the question of the more dynamic, experiential evidence of the Spirit’s coming, which we noted in chapter 8 was part of the bigger picture of what happens to a person at the entry point of salvation in Christ. A substantial tradition in the church believes that such an experience of the Spirit, a “baptism in the Spirit” if you will, is available to believers subsequent to their reception of the Spirit in conversion—although the purpose of the subsequent Spirit baptism has been variously understood (sanctification, empowering, confirmation). Here the narrative in Acts 8 serves as the paradigm (conversion, followed by baptism, followed at a later time by Spirit baptism).
These issues are much larger than we can deal with here, because in this case the rest of the New Testament witness is especially important. My interest in this book is strictly with the Pauline witness; and since he has so little to say about the second question, that of Spirit baptism, I will expand my purview to see whether the Pauline evidence might be amenable to the concept of “subsequence.”
The data can be easily put forth. Paul associates the Spirit with the verb “to baptize” in a single text, 1 Corinthians 12:13; and on this text a lot has been written—with a great deal of disagreement. Since this passage has been used by all sides to support their positions, I here offer a somewhat detailed analysis, with these two questions in mind.
The Spirit and Water Baptism
In the early church water baptism was the believer’s immediate response to God’s saving action by the Spirit. Since some of the texts discussed in chapter 8 seem to some to suggest a close connection between the two, they have argued that the Spirit actually comes to the believer through the event of baptism itself—much like the dove descended on Jesus in the waters of baptism, which is viewed as a model for later Christians. The key texts here are 1 Corinthians 6:11; 12:13; and Titus 3:5, although some would add Galatians 3:28–4:6 and the imagery of the seal in 2 Corinthians 1:21–22; Ephesians 1:13–14; and 4:30.
The problem here is partly one of method (how does one proceed to discover Paul’s perspective?) and partly one of traditional presuppositions (one tends to argue on the basis of one’s own experience of the church, not on the basis of the biblical evidence as a whole). There are basically three avenues of approach, none of which is totally free of bias: (1) to look carefully at texts that actually—or seem to—associate water baptism and the Spirit; (2) to look at texts where Paul speaks about water baptism in a clear, unambiguous way, and see whether they might also connect to the Spirit in some way; and (3) to look at the texts where conversion is clearly expressed in terms of the Spirit and see whether baptism might also be presupposed.
“Baptism in the Spirit” in 1 Corinthians 12:13
In 1 Corinthians 12:13, following the twofold assertion that “the body is one” and that it “is made up of many parts,” Paul goes on to explain the first assertion by saying, “for indeed we all were baptized in one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free—and we were all given one Spirit to drink to the fill.” Some see the language “baptized in one Spirit” as evidence that Paul saw the gifting of the Spirit to be intimately related to water baptism; others see the second clause, “all given one Spirit to drink,” as evidence for a work of the Spirit subsequent to the first one. Both points of view run aground when the passage is looked at closely in its context.
The context is one in which Paul and the Corinthians are at odds over what constitutes true “Spirituality.” The Corinthians apparently see glossolalia (speaking in tongues) as evidence that they have already begun to speak the language of heaven (13:1), indicating that they have already arrived in a spiritual state that more or less puts them above life in the present world. This understanding of the Spirit appears to lie behind most of the ills in this letter. Paul has a different view of Spirituality, which includes discipleship that follows the Crucified One (see 2:1–3; 4:8–9; etc.).
To straighten out their view on glossolalia he chooses to argue first theologically, which he does in chapter 12, that their singular focus on speaking in tongues misunderstands, and therefore misrepresents, the nature of the church. The Corinthians are deeply divided on some other matters, but they apparently promote (or at least some do) uniformity when it comes to the Spirit’s manifestations; Paul urges diversity within unity as the true evidence of the Spirit’s presence among them, which is the point of almost the whole of chapter 12. But in verse 13, in elaboration of his first assertion in verse 12, he offers the ground of their unity, namely, their common lavish experience of the Spirit.
Paul’s concern in this sentence, therefore, is not to delineate how an individual becomes a believer (the question most people come to the text with) but to explain how the many of them, diverse as they are, are in fact one body. The answer: the Spirit, whom all alike have received.
To make that point Paul refers to their common reception of the Spirit, presumably at the beginning of their Christian experience, by means of parallel clauses:
We all were baptized in the one Spirit,
and
We all were caused to drink one Spirit.
The first clause is further qualified by the prepositional phrase (in Greek), “so as to become one body,” which in turn is modified by the parenthetical addition, “whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free.” Several important observations follow from this analysis.
1. While some argue that Paul’s use of the verb “baptized” must refer to the rite of Christian initiation, that is not at all certain. It is true that early on this verb became the technical term for that rite; but one may not thereby assume that Paul intended its technical sense here. He does not say “we were all baptized,” which on its own would almost certainly imply “with water”; rather, he says specifically, “we were all baptized in the Spirit.”
2. Moreover, it is clearly not baptism but the one Spirit, repeated in both clauses, that in Paul’s present argument is the basis for unity (cf. vv. 4–11). This is Paul’s consistent perspective throughout his letters: believers form one body in Christ precisely because of the “one Spirit.”
3. The text does not support the view that the Spirit is received at water baptism. The Greek preposition en (“in/with/by”) can hardly be stretched to mean something like, “we were all baptized (in water) and thereby given the Spirit.” Here the Spirit is either the element into which they have all been baptized (as I think), or the agent by which they have been baptized to become one body.
4. The greater difficulty for the view that the Spirit is received at water baptism lies with the second clause, “and we were all given one Spirit to drink to the fill.” This is most likely an instance of Semitic parallelism, where both clauses make essentially the same point. It is the clearly metaphorical sense of this parallel clause that, along with the modifier “in the Spirit,” argues most strongly for a metaphorical, rather than literal, meaning for “baptism” in the first clause. That is, their experience of the Spirit is analogous to, but not identical with, their immersion in water at baptism. They were immersed in the Spirit.
5. Some—on all sides, interestingly enough—have argued that the second clause points to a second (definite, recognizable) experience in the Spirit. But against such a view is the parallelism just noted, plus the lack of such language elsewhere in the whole of Christian literature to refer to an experience of the Spirit.
In light of these observations, to what may we presume the two clauses to refer? For what Christian experience do they serve as metaphors? Some have argued for Spirit baptism, by which they mean a separate and distinguishable experience from conversion. But this has against it both Pauline usage (he does not elsewhere use this term or clearly point to such a second experience) and the emphasis in this context, which is not on a special experience in the Spirit beyond conversion but on their common reception of the Spirit.
Most likely, therefore, Paul is referring to their common experience of conversion, and he does so in terms of its most crucial ingredient, the receiving of the Spirit. Such expressive metaphors (immersion in the Spirit and drinking to the fill of the Spirit) imply a much greater experiential and visibly manifest reception of the Spirit than many have tended to experience in subsequent church history. Paul can make such an appeal to their common experience of the Spirit as the presupposition for the unity of the body precisely because, as in Galatians 3:2–5, the Spirit was a dynamically experienced reality, which had happened to all (cf. chapter 8 above).
The goal of their common immersion in the one Spirit is “into/unto one body,” which of course is the point in context, picking up the concern of verse 12. Indeed, this phrase expresses the reason for the sentence in the first place. How did the many of them, diverse as they are, all become one body? By their common, lavish experience of one and the same Spirit.
To emphasize that the many (“we all”) have become one through the Spirit, Paul adds parenthetically, “whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free.” These terms express the two basic distinctions that separated people in that culture—race (in Judaism synonymous with religion) and social status. In Christ these old distinctions have been obliterated, not in the sense that one is no longer Jew or Greek, and so on, but in the sense of their having significance. Having significance is what gives them value as distinctives. So in effect their common experience of the Spirit had eliminated the significance of the old distinctions, hence they had become one body.
That, at least, is Paul’s concern. It is therefore unlikely that, even though the lavish quality of the metaphor finds its meaning in their immersion in water, Paul is connecting the Spirit with that rite. It is equally unlikely that he intends to refer to a second experience beyond conversion called Spirit baptism either by this language or by adding the second metaphor of “drinking to the fill.”
Other Passages Alleged to Associate Water Baptism and the Spirit
Some of the same problems exist with 1 Corinthians 6:11 and Titus 3:5 as with 1 Corinthians 12:13. But in these cases, the language of baptism is missing altogether. As pointed out in the discussion of these passages in chapter 8 above, the metaphor “washing” may well allude to the waters of baptism. But in neither case is Paul suggesting that the Spirit is received at baptism.
Indeed, it is quite otherwise. Not only does he intend to say in 1 Corinthians 6:11 that they have been “washed” from their defilement of sin but that they have been so washed by the twin agency of Christ and the Spirit. The Spirit as the agent of the cleansing from sin scarcely implies that he is received at baptism. The same holds true for Titus 3:6–7. We also noted in chapter 8 that it is altogether unlikely that Paul understood the image “seal” to refer to baptism—especially so, since in one of these passages at least the seal is equated with the Spirit (2 Cor. 1:21–22, “God sealed you by giving you the Holy Spirit”), not baptism.
The only connection between baptism and the Spirit in any of these passages is coincidental, that is, the images for baptism and the mention of the Spirit happen to occur in the same sentence. What is missing is a direct link between the rite of baptism as such and the coming of the Spirit. In no place does Paul express the kind of relationship between the two that those assume who assert that at baptism one receives the Spirit. In most of these passages, apart from those referring to the Spirit as the seal of redemption, the Spirit is the agent of the immersion or washing. That Paul understood one to receive the Spirit through the waters of baptism would require at least one piece of explicit evidence.
Explicit References to Water Baptism
Paul’s explicit references to water baptism further indicate a lack of direct relationship with the gift of the Spirit: 1 Corinthians 1:13–17 (cf. 10:2; 15:29); Galatians 3:27; Romans 6:3–4; Colossians 2:12; Ephesians 4:5. Two features about these passages stand out. First, in every instance the association between the believer and baptism is invariably with reference to Christ, not to the Spirit. Two instances are especially instructive. In Galatians 3:27 Paul refers to “putting on Christ.” This kind of language is strikingly missing throughout his writings with regard to the Spirit. That is, in baptism one is pictured as being clothed with Christ, but never so with the Spirit. Moreover, in Ephesians 4:4–6 Paul deliberately, in a creed-like way, associates various aspects of Christian life with the Spirit and with Christ. The one body and one hope are associated with the Spirit; faith and baptism are associated with Christ.
Second, in 1 Corinthians 1:13–17 Paul deliberately portrays baptism as secondary to the proclamation of the gospel. This does not mean that he minimizes baptism; but he will not allow that it holds the same level of significance as the preaching of Christ that brought people to faith. My point: in this same argument he specifically associates the receiving of the Spirit with his proclaiming of the gospel, not with baptism. In Paul’s mind baptism stands on a different level, apparently as a response of the believer to the grace received through the Spirit upon accepting the proclaimed word in faith.
One is hard-pressed to imagine that Paul could speak so casually of baptism and of his having baptized only two of them (plus one household that he had to be reminded of!) if he had understood the Spirit to come at their baptism. But in 1 Corinthians 2:1–5, he insists that the Spirit came on them precisely at the point of his ministry, through his proclaiming of the word. This would hardly be true if the Spirit came during baptism, since Paul baptized so few of them.
This last text seems conclusive that Paul understood the Spirit as being received at conversion, in the hearing of the gospel by faith, not later at baptism. This is not to say that at times what Luke pictures in a passage like Acts 19:1–7 did not happen in the Pauline context. But what all of this evidence together does suggest is that the close tie of water baptism to the Spirit does not come from a close reading of Paul but stems from reading back into Paul the later experience of the church.
Conversion and Spirit Baptism
The urgent question on the other side is whether Paul also conceived of a work of grace beyond conversion to which the language “the baptism of the Spirit” might correctly apply. Although some of Paul’s texts have been interpreted in this way (e.g., 1 Cor. 12:13; Gal. 4:4–6), the full evidence of these passages in context makes this doubtful. Whether Paul knew of such an experience is a moot point, argued against primarily on the basis of silence. Two further points need to be made.
First, Paul makes a clear connection between the Spirit and the experience of power. What becomes evident from the discussion in chapter 8 above is that the Spirit was not merely experienced in conversion but experienced in a dynamic, undoubtedly visible, way. This is precisely why Paul appeals to the lavish experience of the Spirit to make his points in both Galatians 3:2–4 and 1 Corinthians 12:13. This is made the more certain by Galatians 3:5, where as further evidence that the Galatians have no relationship to the Jewish law, Paul appeals specifically to their ongoing experience of the Spirit as dynamically present among them with miraculous deeds—one can scarcely interpret the two present tenses otherwise (“God gives the Spirit and works miracles among you”). By reemphasizing this dimension of Christian life in their experience of “baptism,” Spirit movements tend (correctly, I would argue) to think they have recaptured an experience at the heart of Paul’s understanding of the Spirit and Christian life, even if they have (less convincingly) also made a virtue out of their timing of this dimension as well.
Second, Paul does not see life in the Spirit as the result of a single experience of the Spirit at the entry point. He simply did not have the static view of the Spirit that so many later Christians seem to have—that the Spirit is “given” once for all at conversion, and after that we are pretty much left to our own devices to live out the Christian life. For Paul the Spirit is the key to all of Christian life, and he implies frequently there are further, ongoing times of receiving the Spirit’s empowering.
This point is certainly intended in Galatians 3:5; it is the further implication of such present tense verbs as in 1 Thessalonians 4:8 and Ephesians 5:18, and the consequence of prayer in Philippians 1:19. In 1 Thessalonians 4:8 Paul’s first reference is surely to their conversion; but the argument in context and the verb’s present tense (“God gives you his Holy Spirit”) imply that what happened at conversion needs to be renewed in light of their pagan past. All of this suggests that perhaps too much is made on both sides of single experiences.
For Paul life in the Spirit begins at conversion; at the same time its experienced dimension is both dynamic and renewable. Water baptism is the believer’s response to the Spirit’s prior presence and activity. The Pauline images for baptism, death and resurrection and “being clothed with Christ,” suggest that it is not merely a rite. It is part and parcel of the whole conversion complex. Because immersion was the normal mode of baptism, it provided Paul with rich metaphors to indicate the role of baptism in the complex. Through baptism believers reenact their association with Christ at its deepest level; they have “died” and are “buried” with him, and in him they “rise from death” to walk in newness of life. Thus they “put on Christ.” But for Paul the key to both our being given life and our walking in newness of life is the Spirit.
Moreover, the reception of the Spirit is not a static or merely past event but is pictured as an ongoing reality. Quantitative language is strictly avoided; that is, one does not get more or get filled again. Nonetheless, the experience of the ever-present Spirit can be fanned into flame. At issue should not be terminology or theological fine tuning but constant renewing so that we might truly be people of the Spirit in our present world.