Paul and Jesus

For Paul baptism is not a symbolic ritual but a powerful spiritual activity that effected real change in the cosmos. Paul, for example, refers to some who “baptized in behalf of the dead,” evidently referring to a practice of proxy baptism for loved ones who had died before experiencing their own baptism (1 Corinthians 15:29).¹⁴ Whether Paul endorsed the practice or not we cannot be sure, but it would be unlike Paul to refrain from condemning a practice he did not at least tolerate. After all, there is a sense in which all baptism is “for the dead” since it represents a “burial” of the dying mortal flesh in preparation for receiving the life-giving Spirit. Whatever the case, this practice of “baptism for the dead” shows just how efficacious the activity was understood to be as a means of invoking the Christ-Spirit—even for those who had died!

Given this conceptual framework, we can try to imagine what the baptism experience might have been like in Paul’s churches. I base the following on what we know of ancient Jewish practice, our earliest surviving Christian liturgies, reports on the early Christians made by the Romans, and the few hints that Paul gives us.

Baptism was conducted in a river or stream since Paul’s cell groups were illegal and meeting in private homes. There were, of course, no church buildings or formal places of worship.¹⁵ It is possible in some cases that a wealthier patron or host of the group might have had an inside pool or bath.

We can imagine that the candidate would have entered the water naked, leaving behind the old clothing, trampling it underfoot.¹⁶ Standing waist high in the water, accompanied by the one administering the baptism, he or she was likely asked: “Do you confess that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, calling upon his name to save you from your sins?” Paul refers to this specific moment when this “confession of the lips” brings salvation (Romans 10:9–11). The candidate would have confessed out loud, perhaps bending the knees slightly as a gesture of submission: “I believe that Jesus is Lord!” followed by the cry in Aramaic: Maranatha!—meaning “May our Lord come!” Those observing the baptism would then likely all cry out “Amen!,” which means in Aramaic, “Let it be so!” This ritual gesture of the bowing of the knees, practiced in ancient Jewish daily prayers at the mention of God’s name, is alluded to by Paul in his letter to the Philippians: “that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of the Father” (Philippians 2:10–11).

Paul invokes the Aramaic cry “Maranatha!” at the end of his first letter to the Corinthians (16:22). It was used as a formulaic way of summoning the Christ-Spirit, either as a curse or a blessing. According to the Didache it was also pronounced in a similar way at the end of the Eucharist meal, to separate those worthy from those unworthy (Didache 10:6). The idea was to call upon the Jesus as Lord and bid him to unite at that moment with the person being baptized. The corporate response using the Aramaic word Amen, familiar to Christians today, would have been strange and new to a Greek-speaking group. Paul had introduced it as a formal response at group gatherings (1 Corinthians 14:16).

Next, based on the Jewish practice of the mikveh or ritual bath, the candidate buckled the knees completely, submerging the body underwater until the head was covered, basically kneeling underwater. Standing up one would cry out ecstatically, “Abba, Abba!” using the Aramaic word for “father.” This was a cry of intimate recognition by the new spiritual child, signifying that the Spirit had indeed entered the candidate and possessed him or her. Paul refers to this precise moment twice in his letters and it is obvious that he is thinking of a formal cry that he connects to the moment one receives the Spirit at baptism:

And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying out, “Abba! Father!” (Galatians 4:6)

You have received the spirit of Son-ship. When we cry out, “Abba! Father!” it is the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God. (Romans 8:15–16)

This ecstatic cry at baptism, signifying the coming of the Spirit of Christ into the candidate, was viewed as a guarantee of the legitimacy of the “Son-ship.” Twice Paul tells the Corinthians:

But it is God who establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us; he has put his seal upon us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee. (2 Corinthians 1:21–22)

He who has prepared us for this very thing [i.e., the transformation to Spirit] is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. (2 Corinthians 5:5)