Ephesians 4:3-6; One baptism, part 6. Ceremonial vs. true cleansing.

All of us must come to know, love, and appreciate how clean clean needs to be to be in the presence of God as holy, and to then adore our Lord for making us just that clean through His own sacrifice.

Still, it is important and insightful to study the cleansing ritual of the past. Like so many things in the OT, it will help us form an accurate picture in our minds concerning baptism.

Baptism meaning: immersion, identification, abiding condition, and controlling influence.

This definition comes from the many uses of the word in Greek literature. We do this because English only transliterated the word (baptizo, baptisma) from Greek.

In the NT, the meaning tends towards cleansing and purification when used in connection with ritual. It has the same meaning when speaking of the baptism of the Spirit, but added is our identification with Christ forever.

True cleansing would only come to the people through a substitute sacrificed for them, and this of course was fulfilled in the cross of Christ.

This is the New Covenant, the spiritual aspects of which have been given to mankind even though Israel rejected the first presentation of their Messiah.

Ritual and ceremonial purity or cleansing was hotly debated in the years leading up to Christ and they challenged Him to His face with what they concluded made a man clean, especially before eating. What is interesting for our study is that they used the Greek word baptizo to describe these rituals.

All washing or baptism is ceremonial, even Jesus’ water baptism, but there is a reality behind them all which they represent.

The Law of Moses provided for ceremonial applications of water for the purposes of purification. The practice applied to human beings as well as to inanimate objects. He who touched the carcass of an unclean animal was unclean until evening as was his clothes. Uncleanliness attached also to a person who touched the dead body of a human, a human bone, or grave, making that person unclean for seven days. On the third and seventh days a clean person sprinkled the unclean person and only then was he cleansed. The one who touched the water of purification (ashes of the red heifer in water) was himself unclean until evening and had to wash his clothes (Lev 19).

Also a man’s discharge [literally: flow out of his flesh] and a woman’s monthly discharge made them ceremonially unclean for seven days and had to wash his clothes and bathe his body in running water, and then offer a sin offering and a burnt offering. Anyone and anything who touched them was unclean until evening and had to wash his clothes and himself (Lev 15).

There is another ceremony for the cleansing of a leper who was cured in Lev 14.

Did any of the scholars or leaders in Israel at the time of Christ realize at some level that real cleansing or purification was done by God and not by ritual? We read the homily of Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai who had no sound answer for the seeming contradiction that the ashes of a red heifer cleansed a man who touched an unclean carcass.

In the gospels, we find the leadership only concerned about ceremonial cleansing, which Jesus openly convicts them of.

According to Mar 7:4; Luk 11:38; Heb 9:10 baptizo appears to have been at the time the technical term for these ceremonial washings.

This really gets to the heart of the conflict in the world between those who claim purity, forgiveness, holiness, and eternal life by grace as a gift from God through the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ and those who seek to merit God’s attention through work, effort, self-sacrifice, and ritual. A stem of this conflict is the conflict between God’s truth and man’s tradition. This conflict is reaching towards its ultimate peak in our age and God is allowing the ascension. It should not be long before the world powers can see the summit, and their new world order will seem to be finally flowering, and they will toast one another and congratulate one another. The Bible reveals that the church will be raptured while they are ascending.

Rev 17:1-2

And one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and spoke with me, saying, "Come here, I shall show you the judgment of the great harlot who sits on many waters, 2 with whom the kings of the earth committed acts of immorality, and those who dwell on the earth were made drunk with the wine of her immorality."

They will lose. In the meantime, God uses their evil desire to put us through the only testing we will ever face in our eternal life.

Jesus had already violated the Sabbath traditions of the religious leaders and it wasn’t too long before they became openly hostile to the Lord and His ministry and it wasn’t unusual for them to follow Him in the hope of catching Him in something to criticize, and in this case they accused the disciples of failing to practice the Jewish ceremonial washings.

Jesus had already made clear in His teaching that holiness was an inward matter and not only an outward act, which act could be performed by the hypocrite. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”

Mar 7:3-9

(For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they carefully wash [nipto] their hands, thus observing the traditions of the elders; 4 and when they come from the market place, they do not eat unless they cleanse [baptizo] themselves; and there are many other things which they have received in order to observe, such as the washing [baptizmos] of cups and pitchers and copper pots.) 5 And the Pharisees and the scribes asked Him, "Why do Your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat their bread with impure hands?"

In response Jesus quoted Isaiah and said the prophet was speaking of them -

6 And He said to them, "Rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written [29:13],

'This people honors Me with their lips,

But their heart is far away from Me.

7 'But in vain do they worship Me,

Teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.'

8 "Neglecting the commandment of God, you hold to the tradition of men." 9 He was also saying to them, "You nicely set aside the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition.