Sellers’s Baptismology, Part 4: John’s Identification of Israel’s Submissive Ones with the Kingdom of God

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

The rulers in Israel, Sellers wrote, “showed great zeal for the commandments and traditions of men such as the washing (νίψωνται, nipsontai; see Mark 7:3-4) of pots, cups, copper vessels, and couches.

The ceremonial application of water in any manner was held to be especially devout (Mark 7:7-9). These “washings” were called baptisms [διαφόροις βαπτισμοῖς, diaphorois baptismois; Hebrews 9:10), but many of them were not out of God. They were merely the traditional practices of men. John did not take one of these “baptisms” and make it a practice of his own.[1]

John had to have baptized himself before he could baptize others. “I do not think that John played a childish game with one of his disciples saying: ‘I will baptize you and then you can baptize me.’ John the Baptist had divine authority to baptize, and thus the title. This was not a nickname given him because he baptized. . . . He was John the Baptizer before he ever baptized even one person.” He “had the divine authority and he had the ceremony. Both of these were given to him by God.

No one can say today exactly what this ceremony was. It seems to have been a simple dipping into water. Neither do we know what words were spoken. . . . We would suppose that his words would have referred to their avowal of submission and a declaration that they were now identified with the submissive ones in Israel. This was the declared purpose of his baptism: “I indeed identify you by means of the water into submission [μετάνοιαν, metanoian].” (Matthew 3:11).

Sellers saw an analogy between being baptized and enlisting in military service. Yes, the taking of an oath is a ceremony, but one whose performance enacts an irrevocable reality: the enlistee is no longer a civilian but a solider subject to Uniform Code of Military Justice.

Those who avowed submission in view of a coming divine government were by John’s act set among the submissive ones in Israel. Those who were identified as such by his act in their behalf showed fruit immediately by confessing their sins, an act that probably had to do with an acknowledgment of their previous lack of submission to the precepts of God.

John’s baptism ceremony committed the baptized to a course of action with the understanding that failure to maintain that course would incur severe penalties. John refused to baptize certain Pharisees and Sadducees. The Lord charged that their traditions render God’s commandments null and void. John rebuked them, for nothing in their lives indicated willingness to submit to Kingdom of God.

Questions like “Why was Jesus baptized?” and “Why did He need to be baptized?” often express misconceptions.

If, as so many think, baptism washes away one’s sins, then of course the baptism of Jesus was uncalled for. He was not a sinner and there were no sins that needed to be cleared away. If as others say, “baptism bestowed forgiveness,” it would be meaningless to the Lord Jesus. . . .

While those who were baptized by John did acknowledge their sins, there would have been no sin to confess if none were there. The father and mother of John would have had none to acknowledge if they were baptized by him (Luke 1:6). His baptism was not specifically for sinners. It was for all in Israel alike. And while John did herald the baptism of submission with a view to the remission of sins, this remission of sins was national and future. It will be when the whole nation submits as a unit, when their iniquity is forgiven and their sins remembered no more (Jeremiah 31:34).[2]

John’s ministry was to Israel and for Israel, but not to form a new party or start a new religion: referring to “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world,” he said “that He should be made manifest to Israel, therefore am I come baptizing with water” (John 1:31).

. . . it was his task to make Jesus known to his own nation. He was commissioned to use this water ritual as an effectual means for preparing all Israelites to receive Jesus of Nazareth as their long-promised Messiah.

. . . Israelites living in . . . Palestine . . . were described by the Lord as being “the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matthew 15:24), and the divine service of John was focused on them . . . . “to make ready a people prepared for the Lord” (Luke 1: 17).

In the message God gave John to herald, the first word is μετανοεῖτε (metanoeite) (Matthew 3:2): not “repent,” but “submit.”

God’s immediate purpose was to make a sharp division in the people of Israel who were then living in the land. This was not to be a physical division, nor was it to be a moral one . . . . Every Israelite in the land would be seen by God to be in one of two classes, the submissive and the unsubmissive. Therefore, John’s call to them was: “Submit! For the kingdom of the heavens is at hand.”

The “kingdom of the heavens” which John announced is “the Kingdom of God.” In Matthew 19:23-24 these two terms are used interchangeably by the Lord Jesus. Both terms speak of God’s government, His long-promised rule over the world, a rule that would bring special blessings to Israel. In view of its imminency, a definite commitment of submission to it was called for. This submission had to be in advance of its arrival and before they knew what demands it would make upon them. They were called to have the “after-mind” (metanoia), that is, to have the mind now that they will have then, to submit in advance.[3]

To be continued.

Notes

[1] “The Baptism of John,” Seed & Bread, No. 137, March 10, 1981.

[2] “And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

[3] “The nature of this problem,” Sellers writes, “can best be stated through the words of Dr. Archibald T. Robertson, an outstanding Baptist scholar who was professor of New Testament Greek at the Southern Baptist Seminary from 1883 to 1934. His book on the grammar of New Testament Greek is the greatest of its kind. He often quoted his father-in-law, Dr. John A. Broadus, a scholar of equal rank, as having said: ‘The translation of metanoeō by ‘repent’ is the worst translation in the entire New Testament.’” Otis Q. Sellers, “What about Repentance? The Problem Stated,” Seed & Bread, No. 106, March 10, 1979.

Links to other posts on Otis Q. Sellers