Blomberg on baptism
As we noted earlier, there is another kind of disagreement that creates complex interpretive problems. This one is subtle because it may not emerge just from a cursory study of the text or recent scholarly literature.
On the one hand, survey of the most recent scholarship on John 3:3-5 will show a fair consensus rejecting the view that the rebirth for which Jesus calls in 3:3,5 refers (at least in the context of the historical Jesus) to the Christian rite of baptism. On the other hand, most of the church fathers and other commentators throughout history have strongly believed that if not Jesus then certainly John the Evangelist did intend to refer to water baptism in these two verses. Put differently, the patristic authors often appeared to attribute to biblical characters interpretations that could only have developed at a later time without differentiating the two time periods.
If leading orthodox interpreters in eras past have come to conclusions other than ours today, it is not due to intellectual inferiority or lack of discipline. It often has more to do with the lack of developed literary tools and accessibility to wide-ranging information to the degree that we now enjoy.
In the case of John 3:3,5 on being “born again” (or “from above”), the advent and increasing practice of both historical-cultural and literary criticism were the paramount catalysts that encouraged contemporary interpreters to opt against understanding gennethe anothen as a reference to baptism. When an interpreter reads the text in its original context as an accurate summary of a historical conversation that took place between Jesus and Nicodemus, baptism becomes less of a possibility.
The immediate context of Jesus’s conversation with Nicodemus makes it difficult to sustain a baptismal interpretation of the text. While it is true that by the time John wrote his Gospel narrative, most likely in the 90s, the rite of Christian baptism was well recognized, that was not yet the case during Jesus’s life. In the Gospels, Jesus’s disciples are not commissioned to baptize, in the full Christian sense, until the Great Commission after his death and resurrection (Mt 28:19-20). Additionally, there is no conclusive evidence that the baptism of John the Baptist was so well known that simple referral to water would have conjured up images of John’s baptism of repentance for any of the characters in the narrative. In 4:1-3 we learn of a ministry of baptism under Jesus, but we have not arrived at that point in the narrative yet in 3:3-5. If a discourse on the necessity of baptism is the evangelist’s final goal, then “this part of the account, at least, becomes a narrative fiction designed to instruct the church [i.e. at a later date] on the importance of baptism.” This ultimately would render John a confused storyteller, inasmuch as a few verses later in the conversation (3:10) Jesus is reprimanding Nicodemus for not understanding something that he would not have been able to understand anyway. However, “born of water and the Spirit” could very easily have led Nicodemus, who was well versed in the Hebrew Scriptures, to recall Ezekiel 36:25-27.
C. Blomberg, A Handbook of New Testament Exegesis (Baker 2010), 188-90.
Excellent comments from a top-notch scholar. Thanks for posting.
ReplyDeleteAs far as ancient interpreters are concerned, we should keep in mind that the church fathers aren't the only relevant sources. And reading a source's direct commentary on the passage in John 3 isn't the only means of discerning how that source interpreted what Jesus said.
ReplyDeleteFor example, Tertullian tells us, in his treatise on baptism, that some people in his day argued for justification apart from baptism. It was one of the views that was in circulation in his day. We don't dismiss such individuals as irrelevant just because they weren't church fathers.
Then there's the question of what view we should attribute to the fathers who refer to justification through faith without ever mentioning baptism as part of the process. It's often suggested that we should assume that they meant to include baptism, even though they didn't mention it. But that begs the question, and it's a less natural reading of the text. The person who wants to include something not mentioned carries the burden of proof. We don't begin with a default assumption that any reference to faith is meant to refer to baptism as well. And we can't assume that somebody like Clement of Rome must have believed in baptismal justification, since later sources, like Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, did. Why not reason that Clement must have rejected baptismal justification, since earlier sources, like Paul and Luke, did?
We should also keep in mind that some of the New Testament authors provide us with interpretations of Jesus' soteriology before we even get to the earliest church fathers. We know how John viewed justification from the remainder of his writings and from sources like Acts and Galatians. And we know how other men influenced by Jesus, men who surely would have wanted to adopt Jesus' view of justification, viewed the doctrine. When Luke, John, Paul, and other New Testament authors contradict baptismal justification, they're indirectly commenting on John 3. They didn't think Jesus was teaching justification through baptism there. We don't need any direct commentary on John 3 from such men in order to arrive at a conclusion regarding how they interpreted what Jesus said there and how they interpreted His soteriology in general.
And the same people who claim that we should accept baptismal justification because it was so popular among ancient sources often reject other doctrines that were similarly popular or even more popular in ancient times. For some examples, see here.