A Bible History of Baptism. Baird Samuel John
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4. Baptism.– There remains but one more of the Mosaic sacraments. It was instituted at Sinai. In it, water was essential, and by it was symbolized the renewing agency of the Holy Spirit. It was “a purification for sin,” an initiatory ordinance, by which remission of sins and admission to the benefits of the covenant were signified and sealed to the faith of the recipients. It occupied, under the Old Testament economy, the very position, and had the significance, which belong to Christian baptism under the New. Moreover, it appears under several modifications, and is thus conformed to Paul’s designation of “divers baptisms,” whilst these, in their circumstantial variations, were essentially one and the same ordinance.
Section IV. —The Baptism of Israel at Sinai
The occasion of the first recorded administration of this rite was the reception of Israel into covenant with God at Sinai. For more than two hundred years they had dwelt in Egypt, and for a large part of the time had been bondmen there. The history of their sojourn in the wilderness shows that not only was their manhood debased by the bondage, but their souls had been corrupted by the idolatries of the Egyptians (Josh. xxiv, 14; Ezek. xx, 7), and they had forgotten the covenant and forsaken the God of their fathers. They were apostate, and, in Scriptural language, unclean.
But now the fullness of time had come, when the promises made to the fathers must be fulfilled. Leaving the nations to walk after their own ways, God was about to erect to himself a visible throne and kingdom among men, to be a witness for him against the apostasy of the race. He was about to arouse Israel from her debasement and slavery, to establish with her his covenant, and to organize and ordain her his peculiar people – his Church.
Proportioned to the importance of such an occasion was the grandeur of the scene and the gravity of the transactions. Of them we have two accounts, one from the pen of Moses (Ex. xx-xxiv), and the other from the Apostle Paul, in exposition of his statement as to the divers baptisms. (Heb. ix, 18-20.) As to these accounts, two or three points of explanation are necessary. (1) The two words, “covenant” and “testament,” represent but one in the originals in these places, of which “covenant” is the literal meaning. (2) Paul mentions water (Heb. ix, 19), of which Moses does not speak. The fact is significant, as the apostle is in the act of illustrating the “divers baptisms,” of which he had just before spoken. (3) The word “oxen,” in our translation (Ex. xxiv, 5), should be “bulls.” Oxen were not lawful for sacrifice. Yearling animals seem to have been preferred. Says Micah, “Shall I come before the Lord with burnt-offerings, with calves of a year old?” – Micah vi, 6. Hence Paul indifferently calls them bulls and calves. The goats of which he speaks were no doubt among the burnt-offerings of Moses’s narrative. Both “small and great cattle” seem to have been offered on all great national solemnities.
The redeemed tribes came to Sinai in the third month after the exodus. Moses was called up into the mount and commanded to propose to them the covenant of God. It was in these terms: “If ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people, for all the earth is mine, and ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” – Ex. xix, 3-6. This proposal the people, with one voice, accepted. God then commanded Moses: “Sanctify the people to-day and to-morrow, and let them wash their clothes and be ready against the third day; for the third day the Lord will come down in the sight of all the people upon Mount Sinai.” – Vs. 10, 11. On the third day, in the morning, there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud, so that all the people trembled. And Mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire, and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly. And when the voice of the trumpet sounded long, and waxed louder and louder, Moses spake, and God answered him by a voice. And the Lord came down upon the top of the mount; and the Lord called Moses up to the top of the mount, and Moses went up.
In the midst of this tremendous scene, so well calculated to fill the people with awe, and to deter them from the thought of a profane approach, Moses was nevertheless charged to go down and warn the people, and set bounds around the mountain, lest they should break through unto the Lord to gaze, and many of them perish. After such means, used to impress Israel with a profound sense of God’s majesty and their infinite estrangement from him, his voice was heard, uttering in their ears the Ten Commandments, prefaced with the announcement of himself as their God and Redeemer. (Compare Deut. iv, 7-13.) At the entreaty of the people, the terribleness of God’s audible voice was withdrawn, and Moses was sent to tell them the words of the Lord and his judgments. The people again unanimously declared, “All the words which the Lord hath said, will we do.” – Ex. xxiv, 3.
In this sublime transaction we have all the scenes and circumstances of a mighty revival of true religion. It is a vast camp-meeting, in which God himself is the preacher, speaking in men’s ears with an audible voice from the top of Sinai, and alternately proclaiming the law of righteousness and the gospel of grace, calling Israel from their idolatries and sins to return unto him, and offering himself as not only the God of their fathers, but their own Deliverer already from the Egyptian bondage, and ready to be their God and portion – to give them at once the earthly Canaan, and to make it a pledge of their ultimate endowment with the heavenly. The people had professed with one accord to turn to God, and pledged themselves, emphatically and repeatedly, to take him as their God, to walk in his statutes and do his will, to be his people.
It is true that, to many, the gospel then preached was of no profit, for lack of faith; whose carcasses therefore fell in the wilderness. (Heb. iii, 17-19; iv, 2.) But it is equally true that the vast majority of the assembly at Sinai were children and generous youth, who had not yet been besotted by the Egyptian bondage. To them that day, which was known in their after history as “the day of the assembly” (Deut. x, 4; xviii, 16), was the beginning of days. Its sublime scenes became in them the spring of a living faith. With honest hearts they laid hold of the covenant, and took the God of the patriarchs for their God. Soon after, the promise of Canaan, forfeited by their rebellious fathers, was transferred to them. (Num. xiv, 28-34.) Trained and disciplined by the forty years’ wandering, it was they who became, through faith, the irresistible host of God, the heroic conquerors and possessors of the land of promise. Centuries afterward, God testified of them that they pleased him: “I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals, when thou wentest after me in the wilderness, in a land that was not sown. Israel was holiness to the Lord, and the firstfruits of his increase.” – Jer. ii, 2, 3. Until the day of Pentecost, no day so memorable, no work of grace so mighty, is recorded in the history of God’s dealings with men as that of the assembly at Sinai.
And as on the day of Pentecost the converts were baptized upon their profession of faith, so was it now. Moses appointed the next day for a solemn ratifying of the transaction. He wrote in a book the words of the Lord’s covenant, the Ten Commandments; and in the morning, at the foot of the mount, built an altar of twelve stones, according to the twelve tribes. On it young men designated by him offered burnt-offerings and sacrificed peace-offerings of young bulls. Moses took half the blood and sprinkled it on the altar. Half of it he kept in basins. He then read the covenant from the book, in the audience of all the people, who again accepted it, saying, “All that the Lord hath said will we do, and be obedient.” Moses thereupon took the blood that was in the basins, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book and all the people, saying, “Behold the blood of the covenant which the Lord hath made with you concerning all these words.” – Ex. xxiv, 8, compared with Heb. ix, 19, 20.
In the morning Moses had already, by divine command, assembled Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel. And no sooner was the covenant finally accepted and sealed with the baptismal rite, than these all went up into the mount, and there celebrated the feast of the covenant. “They saw the God of Israel; and there was under his feet, as it were, a paved work of a sapphire stone, and as it were the body of heaven in his clearness. And upon the nobles of Israel, he laid not his hand. Also, they saw the God of Israel, and did eat and drink.” – Ex. xxiv, 1, 9-11. So intimate, privileged, and spiritual was the relation which the covenant established between Israel and God.
Thus was closed this sublime transaction, ever memorable