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The Bible and Baptism: Baptism, the Cross, and the Resurrection
00:24:59
Dr. John Sehorn, Academic Dean of the Augustine Institute Graduate School of Theology, sits down with Fr. Isaac Morales, OP, a Dominican friar of the Province of Saint Joseph and Associate Professor of Theology at Providence College, to discuss Fr. Isaac’s book The Bible and Baptism: The Fountain of Salvation (Baker Academic). This episode dives deeper into the death and new life in Jesus we enter through our baptism.
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- [00:05]
A
Hello, everybody, and welcome back to our formed book study on the Bible and baptism, the Fountain of Salvation by Father Isaac Morales OP who is kind enough to be joining me once again. Hello, Father. How are you?
- [00:21]
B
I'm doing well, thanks. How are you, John?
- [00:22]
A
Are you as well as you were in the last episode?
- [00:24]
B
More or less.
- [00:25]
A
More or less. Good. Okay, so in our last episode, we had a great discussion of what it means to be baptized, baptized in the name. And it turns out that this phrase that we kind of take for granted or don't think a lot about is incredibly rich in biblical resonances and talks about how we ourselves are attached to the temple that Christ is and in a way become temples of the name of God, bearers of his name. And I have to stop myself because there's so many things that then kind of go off at once I want to talk about. But we thought in this episode we could talk a little bit about some of the other ways that scripture talks about what happens to us in our baptism and then kind of what that means for how we understand our lives as Christians. Maybe one of the most famous ways that the New Testament talks about baptism is something we see Jesus alluding to in John chapter three. Father, could you talk about that a little bit?
- [01:27]
B
Yeah. Well, so we were talking earlier about this notion of being a born again Christian, which is redundant.
- [01:32]
A
Has anybody ever been asked that? Yeah. You're saying it's redundant?
- [01:36]
B
It is. It's redundant. You know, Christians are. They have been born again or born from above. That's the interesting thing. So in John chapter three, we're not going to read it, but there's this conversation between Nicodemus and Jesus. And Jesus says to Nicodemus, you must be born. And he uses this word in Greek that can be translated two different ways. It can be from above or it can be again. Now, of course, being born from above is being born again because it's not the natural birth through a woman.
- [02:04]
A
Are you suggesting that Jesus was not above punning, Checkmate, Checkmate. Okay, all right, I apologize I derailed you, Father.
- [02:17]
B
That's all right. So Jesus says to Nicodemus, you must be born from above. Slash again. And of course, the context is. Well, the early chapters of John speak about baptism over and over again. It begins with John the Baptist. Shortly after the conversation with Nicodemus, Jesus and his disciples are baptizing people alongside John. So the most natural way to take that image of being born again or from above is a reference to baptism. And there are other texts in the New Testament that speak of new birth. First Peter speaks a lot about new birth, the letter to Titus, Ephesians as well. But John is the most famous one to use that image.
- [02:58]
A
Yeah, okay.
- [02:59]
B
Yeah. And it signifies this new life. You know, just as being born introduces you into life on earth, being born from above introduces you to the Christian life.
- [03:08]
A
Into a Christian life. Yeah, yeah. So if you're ever asked, you know, by an acquaintance or a friend or a family member if you're born again, you can confidently say, yes, you are, and that you were born again at your baptism. But then of course, that's not just this kind of one off event. But as you were saying, it's like a birth that brings us into this new life. And you know, we talked a little bit at the end of the last episode, how the Great Commission at the end of Matthew, when Jesus commands his disciples to make other disciples by baptizing them, how it kind of calls us back to his own baptism and seems to suggest that in baptism, this new life that we begin to live is actually Christ's life.
- [03:51]
B
Yeah, that's the pattern.
- [03:53]
A
Yeah, the pattern. Yeah. And there seem to be different ways that Paul, for example, will talk about this. One that I really like is, I think it's in Galatians chapter 3 toward the end where he says as many of. I think it's for 27 or 28.
- [04:07]
B
Thereabouts.
- [04:08]
A
Yeah, 40. Father wrote his dissertation on Galatians, so I expect him to know all the verses just down to a T. Yes.
- [04:14]
B
That was 15 years ago.
- [04:18]
A
But he says as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ this idea of being clothed in Christ. But when we talked earlier, we decided that maybe another good place to go see Paul talking about what the reality of baptism is might be Romans 6. So does that still sound like a good thing?
- [04:38]
B
Yeah, that's great.
- [04:39]
A
All right, so we already have our Bibles because Romans, we came prepared. But if you want to turn to Romans 6, I think maybe we should just kind of work through this together and see what we can do.
- [04:51]
B
We can do that. I think it wouldn't be bad though, to connect it back to episode three, when we talked about the connection between Jesus own baptism and his passion is dying and rising. And so you see a similar thing in Christian baptism, that we're joined to Christ and we are called to live out the same pattern of dying and rising with Christ.
- [05:09]
A
You know, and actually, even in Mark 10, which we didn't look at directly. Right. When Jesus. Jesus refers to his own passion as a baptism.
- [05:19]
B
Yeah, he does.
- [05:19]
A
Okay, so we're on really solid ground seeing this link.
- [05:22]
B
Yep. Yep.
- [05:23]
A
Okay.
- [05:24]
B
Now, it's funny to think back also to episode one, when you asked about how most Catholics think about baptism, and we said they basically don't, most of them. But I suggested to you earlier on that not in the series, but just in conversations, if you did ask Catholics what baptism does, you might get the answer. It washes away original sin or something. And you do see this in St. Thomas, for example, whom I love dearly. I'm not bashing him in any way, but in the summa, in his discussion of baptism, that's the primary thing he talks about, about the cleansing. For Paul, though, dying and rising with Christ is the main thing about baptism. So, yeah, Romans 6 is a great place to look. So how should we do this?
- [06:12]
A
Well, how about I read a few verses and then I'll ask you to give me the authoritative gloss? All right, so we'll just start at the beginning.
- [06:20]
B
Yeah, might as well.
- [06:24]
A
Paul begins with these questions, and if we had a lot more time, we could explain why he's asking these questions. So he says, what shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin, that grace may abound? And this is because just previously, in Romans, chapter five, he talked about how God's overabundant mercy shows itself precisely when we've fallen into sin. Right. God shows his love for us in this. That while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. I think that's how it goes. Yeah, in verse.
- [06:53]
B
But the more important verse is verse 20. Now, the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more. And so you hear that and you think, hey, let's sin some more.
- [07:03]
A
So we get more grace. Yeah. So Paul brings this up, and then he says, by no means.
- [07:09]
B
The translation is no way, Jose.
- [07:11]
A
No.
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B
Or anyone else.
- [07:14]
A
Not no. I get in trouble for the dad humor.
- [07:17]
B
No, you get in trouble for the puns. Okay, fair enough.
- [07:20]
A
All right, good point. All right. By no means, no way, Jose. How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who've been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death. We were buried, therefore, with him by baptism into death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. All right, explain this imagery to us.
- [07:46]
B
Yeah. So this relates to the way baptism was originally practiced. I mentioned this in an earlier episode. I think that baptism originally was done by full immersion. In fact, the Greek word to baptize, one of the primary meanings is to submerge completely.
- [08:01]
A
Or plunge.
- [08:02]
B
Yeah, or plunge. Exactly. John the plunger. And so the early Christians, I think Paul is probably alluding to this here, and you certainly see in many of the church fathers drawing on the symbolism that when you go down under the water, it's like you're going down into the. The tomb with Jesus. You're dying with him. That's why he says, don't you know that we were baptized into his death. Well, sorry, right before that, he says, how can we who died to sin still live in it? Right. At some point he's saying, y' all died to sin. Right. And when it was in your baptism, because you were buried with Christ in the water. And again, as we mentioned, I think in the first episode, the importance of symbolism, there's both the symbol and the reality. And the symbol is the vehicle for bringing about the reality. And so you symbolically are buried with Christ, you die with him, and then when you come up out of the water, it's like arising to new life.
- [08:59]
A
But you're saying that the symbol makes this real. Right. It's not just kind of like, oh, this is a nice little picture of it, but something really happens. Right. And it's as if we. As if. I mean, how do we talk about this?
- [09:16]
B
Well, yeah, it's a difficult thing to talk about because we don't literally die, thankfully, because especially if you're baptized as an infant, that's a really short life. But something changes in us. And so whereas, I mean, another good way to talk about this is washing away original sin. But Paul seems to prefer to think
- [09:36]
A
Hebrews talks more about.
- [09:37]
B
Yeah, washing. Yeah.
- [09:38]
A
Cleansing the conscience.
- [09:40]
B
But Paul likes to talk about dying. And we'll see a little bit later in this verse, in this chapter, and in other letters, he'll talk about at least one other letter, excuse me. He'll talk about putting to death the old human being or the old self. So it's literally. The Greek word, is literally the one from which you get anthropology. So the human being putting to death the wayward human being that all of us come into the world as. Right. We're broken. We have the effects of our first parents sin.
- [10:11]
A
Yeah, well. And of course, the way you would say that word anthropos, that meaning the old human being in Hebrew would be the old Adam.
- [10:17]
B
Yeah, the Adam.
- [10:18]
A
Right. So maybe that's a way too, of connecting those images. I Mean Paul. Now, I think about it, in First Corinthians, Paul does say, you were washed.
- [10:26]
B
Yep.
- [10:26]
A
Right. You were justified, you were sanctified. And that seems to be a reference. Or sanctified and justified.
- [10:31]
B
Yep.
- [10:31]
A
That seems to be a reference to baptism. But I wonder if that's maybe how Paul would want us to think through it. We died to sin. That's how the original sin is cleansed. Because what we inherited from the old Adam, whom Paul has talked about in Romans 5, right before this, is being put to death because we're being united to the new Adam, to Christ. Okay, this is really fascinating. I mean, one of the things I think that's fascinating to me, and this will continue in Romans 6, is that Paul brings this up not because he's trying to teach doctrine directly, but because he's explaining why they shouldn't sin.
- [11:10]
B
Right. And how they should live.
- [11:12]
A
So, like, it's moral instruction. But he doesn't do that just by saying, well, here are the rules, and you should do it because God tells you to. But. But actually it's because it. This is the kind of behavior that corresponds to the pattern of life into
- [11:27]
B
which you were initiated through baptism. Because he says so. The other interesting thing that's going on in Romans 6 is that he talks, uses resurrection language. He uses it in two different senses, though, and in one sense it points forward to what we all hope for, which is the resurrection, when our bodies will be transformed and glorified. But he'll also talk, use resurrection language to talk about the present life. So he says, we were buried, therefore, with him by baptism into death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. He's not saying so that we might be raised from the dead, though he certainly hopes for that as well. But even in the here and now, baptism should affect the way we lead our lives in this new life, and that's strong.
- [12:12]
A
Just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. So even now, even with my crummy, corruptible body that isn't yet raised with
- [12:23]
B
Christ, which would feel more every year.
- [12:25]
A
Right, right, exactly. But that nonetheless, because of my baptism, I'm already participating in Christ in a
- [12:35]
B
real but imperfect sense. Yeah, in the here and now. Not in the complete sense, but in a partial.
- [12:40]
A
You know, that's a much more exciting way to think about the Christian life than just like, well, I better make sure I check off all the Catholic boxes. Make sure I do this and don't do that. This is actually living Christ's life. Yeah. Yeah. Well, should we continue with Romans 6 for a bit?
- [12:56]
B
Yeah, let's do maybe verses 5 to 7.
- [12:58]
A
Okay. For if we have been united with him, with Christ in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self, and I think that's that word anthropos. The old Adam, the old human being, was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin.
- [13:29]
B
Yeah. Now, I wanted to stop there because this is my preferred interpretation of these verses of 5 to 10. People have disagreed with me and will disagree with me, and that's fine. But I think.
- [13:40]
A
But Father's right.
- [13:42]
B
Of course. Father knows best. No, I'm sorry I said that. Could you hear my confession after that? We'll have to talk about that.
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A
Good thing you're not writing the book on confession.
- [13:56]
B
No. I think that Paul is doing two different things here. So I think in these first verses, his focus is on sin, right? And so when he says, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his, you could take that to mean someday we're going to be glorified. But I actually think he's talking about the present, this newness of life that he had just spoken about. Because what he's talking about throughout these first three verses, verses 5 to 7 in this section, is sin, right? Our old self was crucified. Our old human being was crucified in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing. So this sinful body, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For no one who has died has been set free from sin. Everything's sin, sin, sin, being saved from sin. We'll be completely saved from sin when we're resurrected. Please, God. But Paul says even in the here and now, we're not enslaved to sin. He says that later in this chapter, he talks about no longer being slaves to sin, but being slaves of righteousness.
- [14:56]
A
Which gets back to one of your Old Testament chapters that we didn't discuss much, but the waters of freedom, Right?
- [15:03]
B
Because in the Exodus, in the book of Exodus, one of the key. One of the driving themes throughout, especially the early chapters, is who are the Israelites going to serve? Are they going to serve Pharaoh or are they going to serve the Lord? Because the Lord Tells Moses to go and say, let my people go, that they may serve me. Now, serve means worship, but still the word is the same. And Pharaoh is saying, no, serve me. Which I hadn't thought of that until just now. But it could be Pharaoh saying, no, they worship me.
- [15:35]
A
Right. I mean, yeah. Christians regarded him as divine.
- [15:39]
B
Yeah. So it's not a question of serving or not serving. It's a question of who you're going to serve and which service actually liberates you.
- [15:47]
A
So you're saying Bob Dylan was correct.
- [15:49]
B
Exactly.
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A
You're gonna have to serve someone. Of course. Yeah. You're gonna have to serve someone.
- [15:53]
B
Yeah. And so I think in these verses 5 to 7, it's all about being liberated from sin. And we do that by walking in this newness of life, as you said. That's far more interesting than saying, oh, don't do this or you'll get slapped or you'll end up in hell.
- [16:06]
A
Well, and, you know, going back again to, like, trying to coordinate it with that sense that people rightly have, that baptism washes original sin. It's interesting to me. Right. Like a baby doesn't have personal sins. Right, right. Original sin is a deprivation of something that we were created to have, which is this share in God's life, this orientation toward God as his sons and daughters, living God's life with him, in communion with him. And so it's interesting because one of the things I notice here as you talk about this dying to sin, living this new life, we're not just saved from the consequences of our sin, from the punishments of our sin. We're not just left off the hook, but that sin itself will have no power over us. And that's a kind of cool thing to think about. Even with an infant.
- [16:53]
B
Yeah.
- [16:53]
A
Right. That even. Who hasn't even committed any sins yet. Right. Now, this is. And you can see it here, that it's a struggle, it's a fight, it's a. It's a battle to live in this new reality.
- [17:04]
B
Yeah.
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A
But that. That baptism, in a way, what it. Well, it marks us. Yeah.
- [17:11]
B
And it sets us free.
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A
That says, you don't belong to sin. So when you do sin, you're acting against your own identity.
- [17:19]
B
Yeah. And of course, people were sinning because he wouldn't have written if not. So it's a sad reality that we do still stumble frequently, but we don't have to, thanks to our baptism. It has liberated us. We're not enslaved.
- [17:32]
A
Right, right. I mean, it kind of makes sinning seem kind of stupid.
- [17:36]
B
Yeah. Yep.
- [17:38]
A
Right. I mean, this is very convicting to
- [17:39]
B
me, so I'll join the club.
- [17:42]
A
Oh, that's. That's fantastic.
- [17:44]
B
All right. Should we do the next three verses?
- [17:46]
A
Yeah, why not?
- [17:47]
B
Maybe I'll give you a little break. So beginning in chapter six, verse eight, he says, now, if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him. We know that Christ being raised from the dead, will never die again. Death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died, he died to sin once for all. But the life he lives, he lives to God. Notice the difference in the theme. In five to seven, it was all about sin, sin, sin, sin, sin. Now it's primarily about death. Right. And it's also interesting that in verse five, he says, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. Here in verse eight, he says, we believe that we will also live with Him. And so there it's more a matter of trust, of hope, that one day we'll live with him.
- [18:35]
A
Yeah. And this reality that were imperfectly participating in, now God will bring to perfection. It kind of reminds me, if you don't mind me jumping to another one of Paul's letters. It's just one of my favorite passages of his is in Philippians, chapter three.
- [18:51]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [18:52]
A
When he says, gosh, it's hard. I always have trouble knowing where to start with this. You know, he's kind of given his resume as a faithful Jew. And then he says he refers in verse eight to the surpassing worth of knowing Christ, Jesus, my Lord, he says, for his sake, I've suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, as garbage, as refuse.
- [19:17]
B
Could call it something else.
- [19:18]
A
Yep. In order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ. Right. It's a different kind of righteousness. It's the righteousness that comes from living like Christ, living in us and us living in Christ. The righteousness from God that depends on faith. And then this is the part that I may know him in the power of his resurrection, may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible, I may attain the resurrection of the dead. Not that I. I don't like that. There's a paragraph break here, because it's the same thought. Not that I've already obtained this or am already perfect. So like you were saying, it's. Paul understands that it's not like one and done. You're baptized You're a saint, you're going to be perfect. But I press on to make it my own because Christ Jesus has made me his own. And I just, I love that verse that in our baptism, Christ has made us his own. He stamped us with his own identity. And that calls us then to kind of like reciprocate and empowers us to reciprocate, to press on to make him our own.
- [20:24]
B
And Paul elsewhere in Galatians 3, for example, he refers to those who have been baptized as those who belong to Christ. It's literally those who are Christ's. It's through our baptism that we become his. We become a part of his temple.
- [20:42]
A
Well, that's beautiful. I mean, I think that gives me a lot to think about. Just like you were saying earlier how infrequently we think about our own baptism. Right. Maybe if we go to the Easter vigil or if, you know, we're doing kind of renewal of baptismal vows during Easter or if we do that, you know, at somebody else's baptism when maybe your child or a friend's child is baptized. But that really, this is something we should think about every day when we enter the church or even just all the time.
- [21:12]
B
Yeah, right.
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A
Like this is actually who I am.
- [21:15]
B
Yep. Yeah, yep.
- [21:17]
A
Yeah.
- [21:17]
B
And well, and it's interesting you mentioned the vows because we were going to talk about this. There's. There's a beautiful connection between baptism and, I mean, religious vows, I think any Christian vocation, but especially religious vows. The catechism talks about this in paragraph 9, 16. It says the state of consecrated life. So religious sisters, brothers, religious priests is thus one way of experiencing a more intimate consecration rooted in baptism and dedicated to totally to God. So my vocation as a Dominican is the full flowering of what the Lord gave me in my baptism.
- [21:56]
A
Right. Yeah. That's cool. So it's not just like this. I don't know, one analogy I use sometimes. Well, for this and other things is my oldest son is really into these like complicated board games that he tries to get me to play. And I can't understand and I know that for some reason it's like you buy the kind of basic game and then he's always saving up his money.
- [22:19]
B
These extra packs.
- [22:20]
A
Yeah. Like these extra like kind of add on things.
- [22:22]
B
Yeah.
- [22:23]
A
And that it's not so much that as like the language is rooted. So it's something that's organic flowers that grows out of, of what you received in your baptism.
- [22:32]
B
Yeah.
- [22:33]
A
Is it fair to say that that's True for any Christian vocation, that. That in a way, like God, when God calls us his own in baptism, that it's like a seed's planted that.
- [22:44]
B
Yeah.
- [22:45]
A
And so that's another cool way to think about this. Like, I mean, I'm, you know, I get militaristic, so I'm thinking about like a battle. I gotta fight this battle. But also, you know, to let the Holy Spirit bring to full flowering. Right.
- [22:58]
B
To water that seed.
- [22:59]
A
To water that seed and to let it grow in me.
- [23:02]
B
Yep.
- [23:02]
A
Yeah. No, I. Usually God needs to tell me to just get out of the way.
- [23:05]
B
Right.
- [23:05]
A
That's probably a better metaphor for me.
- [23:07]
B
And then our vocations, the married vocation, the priestly or religious vocation, is the cross dying with Christ so that we might one day rise.
- [23:15]
A
Oh, why'd you remind me of. That's the hard part. No, that's right. And, you know, I was just talking with a friend about this the other day. How often, you know, he was just sharing a struggle with me and we were kind of talking about it together, and we were talking about how often we try to convince ourselves that there's some other way than the way of the cross. I actually said that he's like, well, there is another way. It's just not the one we want.
- [23:37]
B
Right. Yeah. Doesn't lead anywhere good.
- [23:40]
A
Yeah, yeah. But what a beautiful thing that is, that if we accept our death with Christ, then we also get to share in that newness of life, the water of life that flows from the temple.
- [23:51]
B
Yeah. And so Paul finishes up this little section, this first section of chapter 6 and verse 11. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. And that's the amazing gift that we've been given in baptism. And it's interesting. And throughout Paul's letters, there's this paradox that it's both death and life. 2 Corinthians really gets at it's life in the midst of death, in the midst of apparent death. It's carrying around the dying of Jesus in our body so that the life of Jesus might also be manifested, and not just in the future, but even in the here and now. Paul experienced this profoundly throughout his life with all the different trials that he underwent. And he united himself to Christ in those, and it was living out his baptism.
- [24:39]
A
Beautiful. Well, Father, I'm looking forward to our next and final episode where we'll get to kind of tie some of these things together and just see where the conversation takes us. Friends, thank you so much for joining us. Hope to see you next time. God bless.