11. - Romans 6:2-4
"2We died to sin: how can we live in it any longer? 3Have you forgotten that when we were baptized into union with Christ Jesus we were baptized into his death? 4By baptism we were buried with him, and lay dead, in order that, as Christ was raised from the dead in the splendour of the Father, so also we might set one foot upon the new path of life. "[NEB]
If any defining moment of Jesus' career had impressed itself on early Christians, it would surely have been its inauguration: that dramatic scene amid the waters of the Jordan, with a fiery John in camel's hair coat crying for repentance and thundering his doom-laden warnings upon the crowd. Yet one would never know it from Paul.. Even as late as the turn of the 2nd century, the writer of 1 Clement is silent on John when he says (17:1): "Let us take pattern by those who went about in sheepskins and goatskins heralding the Messiah's coming; that is to say, Elijah, Elisha and Ezekiel among the prophets, and other famous names besides." .. Hebrews 11 also fails to include John in its enumeration of heroes of the faith who suffered, faced jeers and scourgings, stoning and prison and even death. (For that matter, as we shall see, it also fails to include Jesus.)
There was a common Jewish belief that the coming of the Messiah would be preceded by the appearance of the ancient prophet Elijah, to herald his advent. If 1st century Christian preachers were at all concerned with justifying their claim that Jesus had been the Messiah, John the Baptist would have been invaluable as an Elijah-type figure to fulfill this expectation.
1. Silences in passage/challenge to a historical Jesus:
John the Baptist was the expected Elijah-type forerunner of the Messiah. John the Baptist baptized Jesus. Jesus' baptism was an important event attested to by God, who at that moment declared him as his Son.
2. Relevancy within context:
While any mention of baptism is relevant to expectations of related issues, the contexts don't strongly support them. As Doherty puts it "Through baptism, the convert dies to his old, sinful life and rises to a new one." A mention of Jesus' own baptism from John could raise the obvious question of why Jesus, whom Paul says was sinless, would be baptized if baptism was for the remission of sins? Therefore there is a good reason Paul may have not mentioned it, other than it never having happened.
The author of 1 Clement could easily have mentioned JTB's message about the coming messiah. However, the context does reveal a few things that in my estimation greatly reduces the significance of his silence: The mention of those who "went about heralding the Messiah's coming" is limited to this one verse in all of 1 Clement. Immediately before the verse is a scriptural description of Christ's humility, taken from the old testament, even though elsewhere Clement quotes sayings attributed to the gospel Jesus. The verses immediately following include old testament examples of Abraham, Job, and Moses--figures who are examples by their godly examples of humility, but not known much for heralding the Messiah. In other words, Clement limits his list to those 3 in that one verse, and then he moves on. He doesn't mention Jeremiah, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, or MalachI either--all who were also believed to have heralded the Messiah's coming. He doesn't even mention Isaiah--known for many Messiac references and whom he borrowed very heavily from in the preceding Chapter on Christ's humility. These silences, a focus on using the OT for examples, and the mention of only 3 prophets reveal a context in which an expectation for a mention of JTB is questionable.
The author of Hebrews 11 also could have mentioned JTB as an example, but here the context is even less related. There is no mention of those who heralded the coming of Christ. Rather, the author goes through a list of patriarchs who were examples of men of faith. He goes through chronologically, listing Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and Rahab. Then in verse 32 he says "32And what more shall I say? For time will fail me if I tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets," Clearly the author had made his point, so he stopped some 1000 years prior to Christ. The context for listing JTB is therefore weak.
3. Related information in other early writings:
First, some general comments about baptism in the early writings. It was among the earliest Christian traditions: The author of Hebrews includes it (in 6:1) as among the "elementary teachings about Christ" and part of the "foundation of repentance". Paul, as we see above, sees it as very important. And the author of 1 Peter refers to it as a symbol of salvation through a "pledge of a good conscience toward God." The tradition was early, and it was very important. At the same time, however, Paul doesn't talk about it much: He discusses baptism in the brief passage above, in 4 verses in 1 Cor 1, and in each of the following single verses: 1 Cor 12:13, 1 Cor 15:29, Gal 3:27, and Col 2:12. It is also found in Eph 4:5, which is not one of the 7 "authentic" epistles. For Paul baptism is obviously important, but it was not a focus of his letters, and we see from 1 Cor 1:17 that it was not a focus of Paul's ministry either: "For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel."
The author of Hebrew also clearly deems it very important, but he only mentions it once, explaining in 6:1 that he wants to "leave the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance", in which baptism is included.
How much, then should we expect Paul and the authors of Hebrews to write about the origins of baptism if it is clear that they neither one were interested in writing much at all about why or how the tradition was part of the very foundation of the faith?
If it could be shown that Jewish religious branches during this time did not typically have a rite of baptism, the early Christian inclusion of it could indicate a direct influence from the JTB tradition. I am not aware of any study on this topic. While I don't know of any clues within the early non-gospel writings, there are a couple of interesting verses in Gjohn that tempt me to turn off course, in support of an early tradition of baptism by Jesus' own disciples, and possibly even Jesus himself. For those interested, see 3:22 and 4:2.
Regarding God's words "you are my Son" to Jesus during his baptism, I think it would have fit nicely as a parallel to the "spirit of sonship" Paul discusses in Romans 8. Doherty says "Paul everywhere stresses that believers have been adopted as sons of God, as in Romans 8:14-17". It is a theme of found in Romans 8:14-17, and mentioned also in 8:19, 8:23, 9:4, and 9:26. In 2 Cor 6:18 there is brief mention, in a different context (separating from unbelievers). And, the theme is fairly strong from the last 3 verses of Galations 3 through Galations 4. Finally there is another brief mention of "children of God" in Phil 2:15. In my estimation this hardly qualifies as a theme that Paul stresses "everywhere". The concept is featured in only 2 main places.
Paul does link baptism with being a son of God through a relationship with Christ in Galations 3:26-27 "for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ." He is in essence saying "at baptism, you too became God's son". The explicit reference to Christ being called a son at his own baptism is missing, but this might provide a clue. And, in each of the two main places where Paul talks of being sons of God he refers to calling God "Father" by referencing the Aramaic word "Abba". In the Gospels, this is the word Jesus used to refer to God as his Father. Paul directly follows the reference in Romans 8:15 with saying that believers are "fellow heirs with Christ", and in Galations 4:6, right after referring to God's son as being "born of a woman" he writes "And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba! Father!"" Doherty is right when he says that Paul doesn't mention the words at Jesus' baptism, but he overstates the prevelancy of this concept in Paul's writings, and he overlooks the fact that in the two places in which he discusses the concept of sonship there are links to a Gospel Jesus, and in one of them there is a also link with the rite of baptism.
Paul never mentions Elijah, so it is not known what his thoughts were about his return before the day of the Lord, even though it is almost certain he was aware of the expectation. We must keep in mind that there is no evidence that Paul was writing to convince people that Jesus was the Christ, so this may explain why he doesn't even mention the expectation of the coming of Elijah prior to Jesus.
One might be inclined to accept JTB as having been a historical figure on the grounds of his mention by Josephus. The great popularity of JTB, the closeness of time to that attributed to Jesus' life, along with a number of possible influences on Jesus (reflected perhaps in Jesus' message of repentance and purity, his message of the "coming kingdom of heaven", and the references in Gjohn to Jesus' disciples baptizing early on) could be seen as providing clues for a JTB that preached of a coming kingdom of heaven, or even more explicitly the coming of the expected Messiah.
4. Conclusion
While there are a few opportunities in Paul's writings where he could have mentioned John the Baptist and related events, the contexts of each of the three passages Doherty provide adequate explanations for the silences he finds. Both Paul and the author of Hebrews make clear that baptism was very important, but that they weren't writing about the origins of the tradition of baptism. Along with the very existence of a tradition of baptism from the earliest known days of Christianity are some possible clues in the gospels that the tradition had arisen from Christ and his disciples, having taught some similar ideas as John the Baptist himself. Though Paul doesn't provide detail about this tradition he appears to connect it to the idea of becoming children of God, referencing Jesus' own position as God's son.
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