How did the Old Testament prepare us for Christian baptism?

To understand this new birth by the Holy Spirit, by whom we receive the new nature, we need first to know about the Old Testament’s symbols and prophecies about baptism. Baptism plays an essential role in God’s plan for our salvation. For this reason, divine revelation worked to gradually prepare us over a long period for baptism, side by side with the preparation for the divine incarnation and the sacrifice of the cross. But these divine things are interconnected as they are a single comprehensive work of salvation. So, if the incarnation suddenly appeared without any introductions by the symbols and prophecies of the Old Testament, no one could have accepted it, and likewise if baptism was announced in an unexpected way no one could have understood or accepted it.¹²⁸⁶ For example:¹²⁸⁷

• a. The Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters : It was said: “The earth was without form, and void, and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters” (Gen. 1:2). It is the work of the Holy Spirit at the beginning of creation that He was hovering on the face of the waters to create a beautiful world from the desolate and deformed land. The Holy Spirit still descends on the water of baptism to sanctify it, to transform the human being who was corrupted by sin into a new heaven and a new earth in the place of the earth that was desolate and devoid from every goodness. St. Clement of Alexandria says, “The new creation is made by the water and Spirit, just like the creation of the world, since the Spirit of God was hovering on the waters.”¹²⁸⁸

• b. Noah’s Ark and the Flood: Water here is a tool of condemnation for the evil world, though the ark was a tool of salvation for Noah and his family as it took them to a new world. St. Peter saw the flood and the Ark as type of salvation in baptism (1 Pet. 3:18–21). St. Jerome says, “But as soon as the foul bird of wickedness is driven away, the dove of the Holy Spirit comes to Noah (Gen. 8:8, 11) as it came afterwards to Christ in the Jordan (Matt. 3:16), and, carrying in its beak a branch betokening restoration and light, brings tidings of peace to the whole world.”¹²⁸⁹

• c. Crossing the Red Sea and the Cloud: St. Paul says, “Moreover, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea” (1 Cor. 10:1–2); as if St. Paul the Apostle had seen the Church of the Old Testament in the

1286 Darwell Stone, Holy Baptism (Longmans, Green, 1899): p. 12.

1287 For further examples, see Fr. Tadros Yacoub Malaty, The Holy Spirit Between the New Birth and Continuous Renewal (Arabic), second edition, 2003.

1288 St. Clement of Alexandria, Ex Scripturis Propheticis Eclogae 7 (PG 9:701).

1289 St. Jerome, Letters 69.6 (NPNF II/6:145).

days of Moses being baptized symbolically. The sea resembles the baptismal font and the cloud that overshadowed them resembles the Holy Spirit, as Scripture says: “You blew with your wind, the sea covered them” (Ex. 15:10).

• d. The water of Marah: In Coptic Church rituals, the priest prays while sanctifying the water of baptism saying, “You have commanded the hard rock and it brought water for Your people (Ex. 15:25) and the bitter waters You have changed into sweet waters.” Thus, the Church views the turning of the bitter waters of Marah into sweet water as a symbol for Baptism.

• e. Joshua crossing the River Jordan : In both the Coptic and Ethiopian liturgies of consecrating the waters of baptism, after referring to the waters of the beginning of creation, the flood, the crossing of the Red Sea, the waters of Marah and the rock in Horeb, both rites talk about other instances; such as when Joshua crossed the Jordan River, when Elijah’s sacrifice was accepted with water (1 Kings 18:33–36), and when Naaman the Syrian was healed in the waters of the Jordan (2 Kings 5:14). These were mentioned in the works of Origen and were later adopted by the Fathers from him. For this reason, Daniélou believes that these examples were first used in the liturgical tradition of the Alexandrian Church, and so they do not represent the personal opinion of Origen, but rather represent the Church’s tradition at that time.¹²⁹⁰ Origen says that after crossing the Jordan River, Jericho fell — a symbol of the destruction of the “old man” which is subject to evil.¹²⁹¹ He also says that those who go to the Jordan do not flee in silence, but carry with them horns that proclaim the divine mysteries and preaching using the heavenly trumpet.¹²⁹²

• f. The acceptance of Elijah’s sacrifice on Mount Carmel (1 Kings 18:33–38): St. Athanasius the Apostolic says, “Elijah instructed his companions to dig a trench as an example of Baptism and to pour water on the sacrifice, and then he asked them to pour it for a second time and then a third time so that the trench was filled with water. This is like the three immersions of baptism. Then he prayed to the Lord to respond with fire, and fire fell from heaven and consumed the sacrifice, the stones, and licked up the ground, assuring the Lord’s acceptance of the offering and the water, as a type for the Holy Spirit descending on the waters of baptism and the oblations of the altar.”