order of the Nazarites and that of the prophets or the rabbinical vocation, and exhibited what was true in Essenism, namely, an abstemious hermit-life, which in its strictness as contrasted with the general mode of living was dedicated only to the people's good. Such a recluse was Banus, the teacher of Josephus; his manner of life resembled that of John. See Vita Josephi, § 2; Neander's Life of Christ, § 34. Josephus mentions John the Baptist incidentally, Antiq. xviii. 5, § 2: his account of John's baptism is not at variance with that of the Evangelists. He represents John as requiring the people, in order to gain the divine favour, not merely to put away from them this or that particular sin, but to purify their souls by righteousness, and to join with that the consecration of the body by baptism. The special gist of John's baptism, its relation to the kingdom of the Messiah, Josephus from his stand-point could not understand.1

SECTION III.

THE PARTICIPATION OF JESUS IN THE BAPTISM OF JOHN.

The significance of John's baptism, as explained in the preceding section, furnishes the simplest solution of the problem in modern theology, why Jesus submitted to that rite in order to fulfil all righteousness. Antagonist critics have violently assailed the Apologetics of the Church with the question, How could Christ submit Himself to this baptism of repentance? At length they have distinctly proclaimed the consequence, that Christ, in submitting to John's baptism, presented a confession of His own sinfulness. The explanations of the Church could not be satisfactory as long as the idea of the sacred ablutions of the Old Testament was not clearly understood.

1

1 [The chapter on John in Ewald's Geschichte Christus' (pp. 146–160) is, as might be expected, one of the most suggestive in the book. The whole position of John is sketched by the hand of a master. His priestly birth and upbringing, his discovery of the urgent need of deliverance for Israel, his praying in the desert for the coming of the Messiah, his apparent resemblance to but real difference from Essenes and Pharisees, all are depicted in the most striking and instructive manner.r.- ED.]

2 Strauss, Leben Jesu i. 403. Compare Bruno Bauer, Kritik i. 207.

According to the Mosaic law, not only the corporeally unclean in Israel, as for example lepers, but also those who had touched unclean animals, or in a similar way had, according to the Levitical typology, defiled themselves, were excommunicated from the camp of the typically pure congregation.1 Readmission into the congregation could take place only after a given period, as was fitting for a case of uncleanness. But every Israelite whose object it was to recover the communion he had lost, was obliged to undergo the appointed religious ablution.

And not only those who were unclean in their own life, or had directly defiled themselves, but those who came in contact with them, were involved in that exclusion, and a similar ablution preceded their readmission into the congregation.2

According to this enactment of the law, Christ also was obliged to submit to John's baptism, as soon as He recognised it to be a purification of the people which John administered as a true prophet by an intimation of the Spirit of God. For He stood in the closest contact with the people who were regarded by the prophet as excommunicated. In God's sight He was pure; but according to the Levitical law, as restored by the theocratic authority of the Baptist, and made by him into a sermon of repentance, He was unclean through His connection with an unclean people. On the principles of the Old Testament righteousness, therefore, His baptism was required.

But the essential significance of the baptism of Jesus was the symbol of an actual relation. By baptism, Jesus was pointed out as the sacrificial Lamb of the world, laden with no other burden than His historical life-communion with the world. Considered in Himself alone, He might have had joy; but His connection with sin-laden humanity was the great reproach of His life, which led to His death. Thus His death became the real completion of the Israelitish baptism, and the foundation of baptism in its New Testament form and significance. John's baptism in its highest point was a typical prophecy of the death of Jesus; Christian baptism, on the other hand, is a sacramental representation of the same event.3

'Lev. xi. xiv.

2 Lev. xv. 5, 10, 11, 19, etc.

3 When Ebrard (Gospel History, 194) denies the relation of baptism to the Jewish ablutions, this view of the subject is not confirmed. On the other haud, his remark, which regards baptism as a rite going beyond simple

But when Jesus came to be baptized, John, the theocratic champion lost his lofty bearing. He who had reprimanded the members of the Sanhedrim as a generation of vipers,' exclaimed in tones of alarm to the consecrated Nazarene, 'I have need to be baptized of Thee, and comest Thou to me?' Thus the splendour of the New Testament broke forth from the verge of the Old.1 But the sternness of the Old Testament flashed across the dawn of the New when Christ said, 'Suffer it to be so now; for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness.' Here the staves of the Old and New Testament righteousness form a John represents the New Testament in the presence of Jesus; Jesus represents the Old Testament in the presence of John. The two economies manifest their relationship and unity by this junction of their contiguous links. We might say that the two covenants salute and bless one another in this holy rivalry; the one glorifies itself in the other, and from the glory of the first emerges the greater glory of the second.

cross.

But the determination of Jesus prevailed, for He came not to dissolve the law, but to fulfil it; and He well knew that this baptism expressed that consecration of death for His people, which was spread over His life. But by this wonderful humility of Jesus, John was prepared to receive the positive revelation, that this was the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world. At that very instant the feeling must have agitated him, that Jesus was necessitated only by communion with His people to submit to the humiliating ordinance of baptism-that He bore the sins of His people.

NOTES.

1. Strauss remarks, that according to Matt. iii. 6, John appears to have required a confession of sins before baptism. Hence it would follow, that Jesus by submitting to baptism ablution, as far as it involves an immersion of the body, altogether confirms it, if only it is borne in mind that this modification must be considered as a prophetic elevation of the legal form of sacred ablution. According to Ebrard, the baptism of John presents a sign that man altogether deserves death.' Yet we cannot admit that John baptized with this consciousness, without maintaining that there was in his baptism an anticipation of the Christian. But his baptism was certainly a typical sign of the death of Jesus, and consequently also of mankind's desert of death.

6

1 [Ewald calls this the birth-hour of Christianity.'-ED.]

favoured the supposition that He was a sinner. The whole difficulty is obviated by the representation given above of the import of the baptism of Jesus. But, in addition, it is well to observe, that according to the words of Matthew, baptism and the confession of sins were identical. But the moment of immersion was naturally not suited to allow the persons immersed to utter a verbal confession of sins. If, therefore, the persons baptized were (foμoλoyouμevo) confessing at this moment, they were so in the act. But this confession of sins was, as we have seen, according to its nature a social and solidaric (solidarisches) act, by which the measure of the guilt or innocence of individuals was not determined. In the infinite reciprocal action of social defilement in which individuals in Israel stood before the law, a separation of the individual from the whole body was impracticable. So, then, every one confessed in his own manner, individualizing and modifying his confession more or less-the collective guilt of Israel. Hardly would so many Pharisees have consented to an individual confession before John. But Christ's confession was this: So it becomes us to fulfil all righteousSocial righteousness drew Him down into the stream.

ness.'

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2. The ideas μετανοία (repentance), ἄφεσις ἁμαρτιῶν (remission of sins), and ἡ βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν (the kingdom of heaven), stand in reciprocal action to one another. The one is as deep as the other, and each has always a significance differently determined on the legal, the pharisaical, the prophetic, and the Christian stand-point. The purely legal stand-point is that of the typical rendering of satisfaction and of social atonement, in connection with an unlimited apprehension of the relations of Being corresponding to this symbolism. The pharisaic standpoint accomplishes the social satisfaction and atonement with a more decided dependence on outward works, without the perception of a higher righteousness. The prophetic stand-point deduces from the social satisfaction and atonement the full feeling of the defect of realizing this symbolism in spirit, and of hope in the Messiah. John pronounces the whole Old Testament righteousness to be water-baptism. The Christian stand-point exhibits, in all the points indicated, the fulfilling of the symbol in full spiritual reality.

SECTION IV.

THE MANIFESTATION OF THE MESSIAH TO THE PEOPLE OF

ISRAEL.

(Matt. iv.; Mark i.; Luke iii.; John i.)

Jesus complied with the call of the law when He repaired to the Jordan to be baptized by John. But in the consciousness of His own purity and divine dignity, He must have deeply felt that on this occasion He only bore the burden of His people. An appointment of righteousness like this, which made Him the associate of the self-accusers and penitents who presented themselves before the Baptist, must have appeared to Him very ominous of the grave character of His future career. But His heart was already accustomed to sympathize with the sufferings of Humanity. Even at an earlier period the fact must have become clear to Him, that all the burden of earth fell precisely on His heart, since His heart exhibited the centre and the depths of Humanity. But He also had already learnt to know the exaltation which always follows the sufferings inflicted on a child of God. Hence He must have come to His baptism with great expectations, with the hope of a wonderful declaration by His Father, while He clearly perceived what was humiliating in His baptism, the suffering for His people which it implied. As at a later period He met death with the confident expectation of His resurrection and exaltation to glory with the Father, so also He came to His baptism, which was a prefigurement of His death, with the certain expectation that the Father would testify to His honour in the hour of His ignominy.

That Jesus was certain of the divine mission of John, is shown by the decisiveness with which He offered Himself for baptism at his hands. Lately some have wished to make out that He was a disciple of John. So He was, for a single moment,

1 [Tradition gives us the 6th January as the day of the baptism; and for a description of the place by Arculf, see Bohn's Early Travels in Palestine, p. 8.-ED.]

2 [So Renan, Vie de Jésus, p. 107: Loin que le Baptiste ait abdiqué devant Jésus, Jésus pendant tout le temps qu'il passa pres de lui, le reconnut pour supérieur et ne développa son propre génie que timidement. Il sembla en effet que, malgré sa profonde originalité, Jésus, durant quelques semaines au moins, fut l'imitateur de Jean.'-ED.]