Water baptism is participation “in Christ.”According to the apostle Paul, baptism is a paradigm for the believer’s participation in the redemptive work of Christ. To be saved is to be “in Christ,” and the church is the “body of Christ” (Romans 12:5; 1 Corinthians 12:27; Ephesians 4:12). In the teaching of Paul, baptism is an important motif for understanding Christ’s redemptive work. Paul’s audience was familiar with the rite of baptism since most of his hearers had been baptized. Therefore, the analogy between water baptism and being “in Christ” was significant in the early Christian community. In the baptism of John the Baptist, Christ took upon Himself the sins of humanity. Likewise, in water baptism the redeemed participate in Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection.
In water baptism, the believer dies (Romans 6:3). Sharing in the death of Christ is essential to Christian life. Jesus’ baptism by John the Baptist anticipated the cross. When believers are baptized “in Christ,” they share His cross. Paul proclaimed, “I have been crucified with Christ” (Galatians 2:20). He also wrote that “our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin” (Romans 6:6). Death in Christ breaks the power of sin in our mortal bodies. Because the power of sin is broken, death is no longer master over humanity.
The association with the cross and water baptism was not lost on the early Christians. The noncanonical Epistle of Barnabas (second century) states: “Notice how he (the prophet) pointed out the water and cross together. For this is what he means: blessed are those who, having their hope on the cross, descended into the water” (Holmes, The Apostolic Fathers, 1989, 177). Ambrose, the fourth-century Bishop of Milan, asked, “For what is water without the cross of Christ?” (NPNF, II, X, 319). Sharing in the death of Christ was more than a metaphor for early Christians. Martyrdom for the sake of the gospel occurred often. Stephen and James were martyred by those who sought to destroy the church (Acts 7:54-60; 12:1-2). The earliest traditions tell us that both Peter and Paul were executed in Rome. By the third century, martyrdom was referred to as the “baptism of blood” (ANF, III, 636). Cyprian wrote:
Let us only who, by the Lord’s permission, have given the first baptism to believers, also prepare each one for the second; urging and teaching that this is a baptism greater in grace, more lofty in power, more precious in honor—a baptism wherein angels baptize—a baptism in which God and His Christ exult—a baptism after which no one sins any more —a baptism which completes the increase of our faith—a baptism which, as we withdraw from the world, immediately associates us with God. In the baptism of water is received the remission of sins; in the baptism of blood the crown of virtues (ANF, V, 497).
Apparently, in Cyprian’s view “first baptism” (water baptism) anticipated a “second baptism,” the baptism of blood—martyrdom.
Embracing martyrdom seems far removed and alien to many Christians today, especially when compared to the martyrdom often promoted by the followers of radical Islam. The martyrdom of the early Christians was not a tactic of guerilla warfare, but an embracing of the sufferings of Christ the Lord. Paul desired to know Christ in “the fellowship of His sufferings” (Philippians 3:10). This was not lost on early Pentecostal missionaries. In 1920, Mattie Ledbetter, an Assemblies of God missionary to China, wrote the following report:
The Chinese were all so glad to see us home from the coast and the meetings seem very precious. God pours on the Spirit upon us often in prayer services. Several more profess salvation and are asking for baptism. Water baptism in China certainly means martyrdom, the persecutions are so great (Pentecostal Evangel, Nov. 13, 1920, 9).
The German theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer issued a profound call to Christian discipleship. He wrote,
The cross is laid on every Christian. The first Christ-suffering which every man must experience is the call to abandon the attachments of this world. It is that dying of the old man which is the result of his encounter with Christ. As we embark upon discipleship we surrender ourselves to Christ in union with his death—we give over our lives to death. Thus it begins; the cross is not the terrible end to an otherwise god-fearing and happy life, but it meets us at the beginning of our communion with Christ. When Christ calls a man, he bids him, “Come and die” (The Cost of Discipleship, 89).
During the years of Hitler’s Germany, Bonhoeffer and other German Christians resisted the Nazi government. Many friends encouraged Bonhoeffer to leave Germany, but he refused. He knew he was called to suffer with German Christians during the war. Bonhoeffer taught in illegal seminaries and was a leader in the Confessional Church Movement. He was eventually arrested and accused in a conspiracy to assassinate Hitler. On April 9, 1945, he was executed by hanging at the Nazi concentration camp at Flossenburg. An eye witnesses to his execution, the camp doctor, remarked, “I have hardly ever seen a man die so submissively to the will of God” (Edwin Robertson, 1988, 277).
In water baptism, the believer is buried with Christ (Romans 6:4). When the lifeless body of the crucified Lord rested in the tomb, the earliest Christian traditions tell us that Jesus descended into Hades. This tradition is supported in the words of 1 Peter: “…by whom also He went and preached to the spirits in prison” (3:19, NKJV). Hades is the abode of the dead. The descent into Hades establishes that Jesus Christ suffered the totality of human death. Even in death, Jesus “had to be made like His brethren in all things, so that He might become a merciful and faithful High Priest” (Hebrews 2:17). In Hades, Jesus anticipated His resurrection and took possession of the keys of Hades and Death (Revelation 1:18). The power of death cannot be victorious. Water baptism is a real burial that signifies the death of a life corrupted by sin and anticipates resurrection to new life. Burial signifies the reality of death; the old life has passed. In burial, we can take nothing of this present age. The body of corruption fades into dust. Cyril of Jerusalem (fourth century) compared the baptismal pool to the sepulcher in which Christ was buried—a place of dying and being born, both grave and mother (NPNF, II, VII, 147). Burial is a transition from this present age to the age to come (Romans 8:18).
