In John 3:22-23, John was telling us that John the Baptist and Jesus were baptizing the people nearby each other. It got me to thinking. I attended the Friends church in my High School days and they did not practice water baptism because it was a Jewish ritual and wasn’t perceived to be a Christian ritual.

This piqued an interest in finding out where baptism began in history.

Wikipedia tells us that Christians believe that Christ instituted the sacrament of baptism. It turns out that it originated much earlier than that in Jewish tradition. If you read the Gospel According the John, you will find baptism was happening before Jesus’ ministry began.

John the Baptist was baptizing people near the Jordan River.

The initial form of Christian baptism, as well as John the Baptist’s baptism, was believed to be immersion. If a person could not be immersed for some reason, affusion was used. The candidate would stand in the water and water would be poured over the head. A third method was sprinkling but that did not emerge until much later in church history.

The term “baptism” was not used in Jewish scripture though purification rites were similar to our baptism. If a person encountered a corpse, according to the law of Moses, they were ritually defiled, unclean. This required that person to go through a purification process called the tvilah. Tvilah was the act of immersion in “living water”, that is a spring fed pool or running water as in a river. The pool of spring fed water was called a mikva.

When I visited Israel on a tour a few years ago we visited Qumran where the Dead Sea scrolls were discovered. This sect of the Jewish religion used the Mikvah as part of their purification process. Some started their day with a dip in the Mikvah, where others may only use the Mikvah two or three times a week.

It is suggested that John the Baptist may have been associated with this group. His messianic ministry used the process of immersion for the remission of sins, which could have been construed as a form of purification.  The purification process could easily be an entire study of its own.

The Greek word used for John’s ritual is baptizo, hence, the English term baptize or baptism.

In most protestant Christian churches baptism does not forgive sins but is a symbol of what happens when you accept Jesus as the Son of God. For Christians, baptism symbolizes the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus.

The Apostle Paul tells us, “By grace are you saved, through faith. It is a gift of God, not of works lest any man should boast.” Salvation is by faith in Christ. Baptism is considered a work expressing one’s faith in Christ. Forgiveness of sins has already been accomplished before baptism occurred.

Some would say you must be baptized to be saved, yet the thief on the cross had no time nor opportunity to be baptized. Jesus told him, “today you will be with me in paradise.”

Baptism is an important ritual after you have been saved but not a requirement for salvation.

Much theology has emerged over the centuries regarding baptism, some good and some questionable. It is important that you do your own research and determine for yourself what the scriptures say and what God is saying to you regarding this ritual.