This last Sunday in the Church year was “The Baptism of the Lord.” Jesus went down to the Jordan and had John baptize him. That act kicked off his public ministry.
It also convinced Christians that we too should be baptized. As our bodies are washed with water, so God washes away all the guilt that comes from all the harm we have done — aka “sin.”
Once Christians get on the theme of baptism, though, a lot of them start talking about “baptism in the Spirit” and “washing in blood.” What’s up with that?
Easy to write it off as quirky language for folks at the far end of the theological spectrum.
Maybe the language was as foreign in the Reformation as it is today; in any case the Heidelberg Catechism asks the question directly:
70 Q. What does it mean to be washed with Christ’s blood and Spirit?
Both of the Catechism’s answers come directly from digging around for these terms in Scripture— and both need a bit of translation today.
The most off-putting reference is washing in blood. To secular ears that’s gonna have an “ick” factor. Totally unhygienic. Here’s the Catechism’s take on it:
“A. To be washed with Christ’s blood means
that God, by grace, has forgiven our sins
because of Christ’s blood poured out for us in his sacrifice on the cross.”
For people in biblical times it made perfect sense. Animals were sacrificed in temples, and blood was used in various kinds of rituals. The blood of a lamb marked the Hebrew people’s doorposts in the Passover, preserving their children from death. The blood of sacrifice was part of the ritual marking the forgiveness of sins on the Day of Atonement.
The writers of the Catechism were steeped in the language of biblical symbols. Jesus’ death was the reality to which all the previous sacrifices pointed. New Testament authors wrote of being sprinkled in his blood, having garments washed in his blood and so forth. (The Catechism’s notes cite Heb. 12:24, 1 Pet. 1:2, Rev. 1:5, 22:14, Zech. 13:1 and Ezek. 36:25, though there are other relevant texts.)
The promise of being baptized in the Holy Spirit goes back to the scene we started with. In Luke 3, Just before Jesus showed up to be baptized, John told the crowd that when Jesus comes
“He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”
Here’s Heidelberg’s interpretation of that:
“To be washed with Christ’s Spirit means
that the Holy Spirit has renewed and sanctified us
to be members of Christ,
so that more and more we become dead to sin and live holy and blameless lives.”
I’ll write more on the Catechism’s view of the Holy Spirit in a later post. For now just notice how very different this view of Spirit baptism is from people’s assumptions today, a hundred years after the beginning of the Pentecostal movement.
In 1563 there was no expectation that the Spirit would make people speak in tongues. The work of the Spirit was about an inner makeover — connecting us to Jesus so that a real new life begins. And that is something every one of us needs.
What comes to mind for you when you think of being “washed with Christ’s blood and Spirit”?
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Ok, I’m behind in my reading. But in this I have to say I fully align with the Heidleberg catechism. I will add another change in thinking about the Holy Spirit that seems to me to be relatively “new” as a theological view is differentiation between “receiving the Holy Spirit” (@ salvation) and being “filled with the Holy Spirit. Which depending upon your views within charism or without may or may not include speaking in tongues. You said you would speak more of the Holy Spirit later, so as I try to catch up I’m hoping to see your views on this.
Thanks for catching up — and clicking “like” and commenting. It keeps the blogosphere from feeling lonesome!
You haven’t missed the Holy Spirit post(s) that I promised. Still to come, but probably a few other things first.
Dr. Hansen, washed in the blood and spirit. The blood cleansing part is I think for most maybe easy to get, Jesus died, his blood cleansed us, much like water cleanses dirt from us. Now the spirit part, this is a bit different…does it mean we speak in tongues, how do we know that we have the spirit with us, and so on. For me, thinking in terms of the spirit is just learning to know that God provides for us a comforter (Holy Spirit) who is with us at all times and in this knowledge there is truly peace.