Over the next couple of posts, I want to focus in on a select portion of the first chapter of Luke's Acts of the Apostles, specifically verses 4-11. As we'll see, I believe there are three distinct vignettes (each with theological significance) depicted in these seven verses:

Verses 4-5: John's baptism versus the baptism of the Spirit
Verses 6-8: The role of the believer in the inter-advent period
Verses 9-11: Promise of the coming return

In this post, I'll explore how the transition from John's baptism to Christian baptism (what we practice today) spotlights the historical shift in which the events of Acts 1 and 2 are taking place: passing from the era of the Temple into the era of the Church.

In future posts, I'll explore verses 6-11, and then plan to continue sharing insights from our study on the Acts of the Apostles.

And being assembled together with them, He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father, “which,” He said, “you have heard from Me; for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”
 
— Acts 1:4-5 NKJV

John's baptism versus the baptism of the Spirit

The institution of Christian baptism and the dawn of the Church era

"For John truly baptized with water, but..." Isn't it interesting that in His parting words to His Apostles, Jesus both qualifies John's baptism and contrasts it against the baptism they would receive on Pentecost? It begs asking how we think about the baptism John administered throughout his ministry. Was it the same baptism that we now receive when professing faith in Christ?

Some expositors would argue that, though related, John's baptism and the baptism the apostles would both receive and administer at the dawning of the Church Era are not the same because they're tied to the covenants under which they were/are administered. Considering John was executed prior to Christ's death and resurrection, his baptism was administered entirely before the New Covenant was ratified in Christ's blood on the cross. Therefore, John's baptism could only have been administered under the Old Covenant; whereas Christian baptism (starting with those detailed in Acts 2—as a response to Peter's sermon) is administered under the New Covenant.

While that may seem like an unnecessarily technical point, I'd argue it isn't because understanding the relationship between baptism and the covenants is absolutely central to seeing—truly seeing—the enormity of redemptive history's transition from the era of the Temple to that of the Church. Not to mention making sense of Jesus's explicit teaching that John's baptism, while true, was not the same as the baptism the apostles would receive at and then administer following the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost.

Being tied to the Old Covenant, John's baptism was, in essence, an expression of individual repentance from the waywardness of the nation. It was a public recognition that Israel had transgressed the covenant and a personal commitment to remain faithful to Yahweh. In other words, it was a repudiation of the faith community of the Second Temple era.

Being tied to the New Covenant, our baptism is, in essence, an expression of regeneration through the Spirit in union with the resurrected Christ. It is a public recognition of our own transgressions being supplanted by the perfect faithfulness of Christ. In other words, it is an induction into the faith community of the Church era.

That's not to say John's baptism and ours are entirely different. Both recognize the unholiness of the individual and the need for repentance and spiritual renewal. Both are tied to the faith communities organized under their respective covenants (which, while distinct in some aspects, are ultimately set apart by the same saving act of Christ's death and resurrection). And both are public expressions that use water as an illustration of the judgment and grace that must be poured out on all humankind in reconciliation of all things.

But, despite their many similarities, there is another distinction that clearly separates John's baptism from Christian baptism: the sacramentality of Christian baptism.

Though rarely explicitly labeled "baptism," the act of ritual washing appears across the pages of the Old Testament. Which helps us to understand why we now know—from archeology, ancient texts, faith traditions that have been passed down through the ages, etc.—that baptism had been adopted as a somewhat common practice by the Second Temple era and had even assumed significant spiritual meaning in select Jewish communities (e.g., the Essenes in Qumran).

That said, at the time John was performing baptisms in the Jordan River, baptism itself was not a sacrament of the Jewish faith—it was, in essence, an act of purification. Prayer, sacrifice, and law keeping were all prerequisites for being considered a Jew in good standing; but baptism was, at least for those visiting John, a voluntary act practiced largely outside the bounds of the covenant community.

But under the New Covenant, Christ has instituted baptism as a sacrament alongside the Lord's Supper. The marks of a Christian are:

1. A public demonstration of their union to Christ through baptism; and
2. Proclamation of His death and resurrection through regular participation in the Lord's Supper

And both of these are only made possible through the covenant community. You can cannot be baptized or served the body and blood outside of the Church. That is undeniably distinct from the baptism John administered from the banks of the Jordan river, miles from the epicenter of worship at that time.

But there is another distinction between John's baptism and our own, and that is what we are baptized into.

"Moreover, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware that all our fathers were under the cloud, all passed through the sea, all were baptized into Moses [emphasis added] in the cloud and in the sea,"
 
— 1 Corinthians 10:1-2 NKJV

"Then Peter said to them, 'Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.'"
 
— Acts 2:38 NKJV

The name into which we, as New Covenant believers, are baptized has immense implications for the nature of our faith in comparison to that of believers under the Old Covenant. It may surprise some of you to know that Paul, in his first letter to the Corinthians, states that all of the Old Testaments saints were, in effect, baptized. How? Because, Paul argues, they bore witness to the glory of God as revealed in the face of Moses when he descended from Mount Sinai.

But, every Old Testament saint didn't literally see Moses descending from the Mount? Right. Paul is forming a theological equivalency: that trusting in the Promise of the Messiah equalled...

1. Deliverance from the bondage of sin and death (as the Israelites were delivered from Egypt by Moses through "the sea"); and
2. Experiencing the blessing of God's presence (as the wilderness generation did when they were guided by "the cloud," which was a theophonic manifestation of not just God's presence, but the presence of Christ Himself—see Jude 5).

Paul then argues this equivalency constituted a sort of prototypical baptism into the name of Moses (who served as a poignant picture of the true and only mediator between God and man: Christ—see 1 Timothy 2:5) which has since been typologically fulfilled by the institution of Christian baptism.

Since the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, believers are no longer conceptually baptized into the name of Moses, but literally baptized in the name of Christ. And this serves as yet another example of how the New Covenant is not only truly new, but better. As New Covenant believers, we receive the great privilege of being able to publicly tie ourselves to the Lord of Heaven and Earth—to profess our union to Him in both His death and resurrection. That is a great and glorious profession that the fathers of our faith simply weren't afforded the opportunity to make as explicitly as we can. We know the Messiah by His name, and our marked by it eternally through our descent into and ascent out of the baptismal waters.

In summary

We live in the era of the church, and as such have been asked to keep two sacraments: baptism and the Lord's Supper. But the baptism we keep is not the same as John's baptism. We are baptized in the name of Christ, not Moses, and are baptized into the covenant community, not outside of it. Our baptism is tied to the New Covenant, and is inextricably linked with the gift of the Holy Spirit, which we receive when we are washed by the blood of Christ.

Baptisms are a poignant reminder of salvation God offers His people in the midst of unequivocal judgement. Through our baptism, we are commissioned as witnesses to Christ's death and resurrection, and are called to participate in seeing God pour out His Spirit "on all flesh" (Joel 2:28). Understanding the depth of Christian baptism helps us to see the gloriousness of God's redemptive plan, and to appreciate the blessedness of being united to Christ, planted in Christian community, and tasked with calling others to "repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus."