One of the issues discussed in Week 3 of the Prophets course was why people prefer to perform rituals instead of loving God.
After the class Uday asked if people who took baptism so that they could marry a Christian had any benefit from the baptism.
Any ritual is meant to be an outward demonstration of an inward fact. So without the inward fact the outward ritual has no meaning or benefit. But what about the sacramental value of the ritual? Does it not impart some blessing in spite of the absence of the inward reality or absence of understanding?
In John 3 the narrative reads as follows:-
“3 Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. 4 Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born? 5 Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. 8 The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.”
Vs 3 says that we must be born again to see the kingdom of God. The word ‘again’ in the Greek is ‘anothen’ which means ‘from the beginning’ and so is translated again, anew or from above. Jesus means that you need to be born from above or spiritually, which is misunderstood by Nicodemus being born again. Jesus clarifies in vs 5 says that we need to be born of water and the Spirit. This is then repeated in vs 6 saying that which is flesh (water) is flesh and that which is Spirit is spirit. Some take being ‘born of water’ to mean natural birth, but I believe another pun is here between natural birth and baptism in water. So what Jesus is saying that natural birth is not beneficial without Spiritual birth and so water baptism without a Spiritual birth is not if any value.
Jesus then goes on to say that we can hear the Spirit (wind) blowing but we cannot see it. We cannot make the Spirit go where we want but He goes where He wants to. I understand this to mean that while we can baptise someone in water, we cannot force the Spirit to some upon anyone. In essence, ideally water baptism should follow the baptism of the Spirit rather than precede, though if it is reversed there is no harm done. But if baptism in the Spirit or a spiritual rebirth does not happen it is serious, as you do not have salvation.
Life is about relationships. Relationship with God and also people.
ReplyDeleteI believe there are mainly two type of rituals. One is primarily of Spiritual significance like Baptism and second type is more of social norm like giving or receiving gifts on Christmas or Birthday.
Any ritual when we follow, if it enhances our relationship is meaningful.
My Baptism should increase my Love,commitment, intimacy with Lord.
And Gifts I give or receive ought to be expression of Love and bring closeness with my loved one..
But if rituals are followed just for sake of following it does no good. And we always have to remember that rituals can never replace the relationships as such. And we need not feel guity when we could not observe any ritual due to some constraint as we are under grace not under law!
Great comment. Thanks
ReplyDeleteUncle, I need few clarifications on the above post "In essence, ideally water baptism should follow the baptism of the Spirit rather than precede, though if it is reversed there is no harm done. But if baptism in the Spirit or a spiritual rebirth does not happen it is serious, as you do not have salvation."
ReplyDeleteThis is my understanding, please correct me if i am wrong. A person receives salvation (or) we say he is saved (or) born again when he repents from this worldly living and receives / invites Jesus Christ into his heart. So by this i also mean to say that he has invited the Holy Spirit into his heart(Received the Holy Spirit). So ideally speaking the new life that saved person lives is no more his, rather it belongs to Jesus Christ. So the Gospel of Christ has brought into his heart a ray of hope for eternal life through Jesus Christ.
My understanding about baptism in the Holy Spirit is different from receiving Holy Spirit. When someone receives Holy Spirit then he may not have given the complete authority of his life to HIM(Holy Spirit). Its just like inviting a guest into our life. Giving complete authority may be a gradual process. Rick Warren in his book on 'The Purpose driven life' quotes Phil 2:12-13 in Day23 on 'How we Grow'. In this he says there is a part for a believer to play after his salvation, i.e. he needs to work out or exercise his salvation. That is, the new believer should start allowing Christ to take control of his every day life step by step. So, as we do this, God would start filling us with HIS Holy Spirit and empower us in our weaknesses where we struggle to let HIM take HIS choice in our lives. i.e. As we start to allow Jesus Christ to take control/Lordship in our lives, HE would fill us more and more with HIS Spirit (like keeping a lamp in every room of our house would brighten more part of our house. Until all the rooms of the house are brightened, we cant say the house is full of light). This filling of Holy Spirit would eventually lead us into immersion of Holy Spirit which i call Baptized by the Holy Spirit. (Baptism, i believe is taken from the Greek word bap-tidzo meaning 'to immerse').
The Bible gives few examples of how people were baptized by Holy Spirit, Symbolic way of how Jesus got baptism was like a dove resting on HIM (Math 3:16), but during the time of Pentecost it was like a mighty wind and tongues of fire (Acts 2:2-4). Baptism of water need not be necessarily taken before baptism of Holy Spirit but should be taken only after acknowledging that the person has truly received Jesus Christ/Holy Spirit into his heart. Bible also refers to people baptized by water after receiving the Gospel message (like the Ethiopian eunuch ,etc) and people like the family of Cornelius taking baptism of water after baptism of Holy Spirit.
Whether we see the baptism of the Spirit and receiving the Spirit as the same or different, the process of sanctification which you have described is the same. So if we see it as two different events, even after the event of baptism of the Spirit we still would be going through the process of sanctification. So we do not see the baptism of the Spirit as some sort of culminating experience.
ReplyDeleteIn the Bible the "filling of the Holy Spirit" is used for people who have already been baptised with the Spirit and appears to be a repetitive experience.
To see the baptism of the Holy Spirit as a culminating experience in a process would not be right as Cornelius did not go through the process.
The point of my post was the importance of the inward reality of the event and not a post on the doctrine of baptism or of the baptism of the Spirit. But now that you have raisied the issue let us look at it. In John 3 we see that Jesus has linked being "born again" or being "born from above" with being born of the Spirit. Since He has linked natural birth with water baptism does it mean that Spiritual birth is linked with the baptism of the Spirit? May be, may not be. I have tried to be ambivalent in my post but in one sentence I have used it as if they are the same.
Whether we see the spiritual birth as a one time event and the same as the baptism of the Spirit or as an event that precedes the baptism of the Spirit, it is this spiritual birth which is important and must happen according to Jesus. I like to see it like the coming of Christ - once in the form of Jesus Christ and once again in the end times - but is often prophesied indistinguishably. So also the baptism of the Spirit begins with the Spiritual rebirth and manifests itself in the repetitive filling of the Spirit. The fact that they are separated in time does not necessarily make them two different events.