Catechesis · Inquirer
Holy Baptism
Catechesis · Inquirer
Holy Baptism
Baptism is the sacrament of new birth -- the entry into the Church and into the life of Christ. It is not a public declaration of personal faith, not a ritual washing, not a symbo…
Question
What is baptism?
Baptism is the sacrament of new birth -- the entry into the Church and into the life of Christ. It is not a public declaration of personal faith, not a ritual washing, not a symbol of inner conversion. It is a real death and resurrection: the person is buried with Christ in the water and raised with Him to new life. The triple immersion is the triple death and resurrection of Christ -- and ours with Him.
The baptismal font is the tomb and the womb simultaneously. It is the tomb into which the old person descends and dies -- the person shaped by sin, separated from God, subject to death. It is the womb from which the new person is born -- the child of God, united to Christ, indwelt by the Spirit. "Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God" (John 3:5).
The teaching
Death and resurrection -- what happens in the font
The baptismal service begins with exorcism -- the renunciation of Satan and the affirmation of faith in Christ. These are not archaic formulas. They are the formal declaration of a change of allegiance: the person being baptised (or their sponsors on their behalf) explicitly turns from one kingdom and enters another. The exorcism is the expression of the power of Christ over every power that has held the person captive.
The blessing of the water before baptism is a mini-Theophany: the priest invokes the Spirit to descend on the water as He descended at the Jordan, making it a vehicle of the divine life. The baptismal water is genuinely sanctified -- it is not ordinary water used as a symbol. The Spirit has entered it; it is now a sacramental medium through which the Spirit will be communicated to the one being baptised.
You are anointed as a holy temple of God. You are sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit. You are clothed in the robe of righteousness. What was broken has been restored. What was scattered has been gathered. What was dead has been raised.
The baptismal proclamations are a summary of what the sacrament accomplishes. Each phrase addresses a dimension of the human condition that sin damaged: the person is a temple (relationship with God restored), sealed with the Spirit (divine life given), clothed in righteousness (the moral disorder healed), gathered (the scattered self unified), raised (death overcome). Baptism is not a single act of forgiveness -- it is a comprehensive restoration of the whole person.
After the Orthodox Baptismal Service
Rite of Holy Baptism · ancient
Holy Scripture
"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."
Romans 6:4
"For as many of you as were baptised into Christ have put on Christ."
Galatians 3:27
New Birth
What baptism gives and what the rest of life does with it
Baptism is the beginning of the Christian life, not its completion. The new birth gives everything -- the indwelling of the Spirit, union with Christ, membership in His Body, the forgiveness of sins, the seed of eternal life -- but as a beginning. The rest of the Christian life is the living-out of what was given in the font: dying daily with Christ, rising daily with Him, allowing the baptismal grace to permeate every dimension of existence.