The Sacrament of Holy Baptism

Holy Baptism is the first Sacrament through which we partake of Divine Grace, enter the Church, this spiritual Paradise of which the Holy Fathers speak, ‘placing us in the orbit at the centre of which stands Christ, whose centripetal force is manifested in all the Holy Sacraments’. Baptism bestows the gifts of resurrection and immortality, giving life to the soul, and strengthening and increasing faith, hope and love. It is the beginning and foundation of life in Christ; it is that ‘new birth’ of which the Saviour spoke to Nicodemus, without which no one can enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

Baptism plays a fundamental role in the initiation and realisation of the union of the faithful with Christ, through His mysterious yet real indwelling within them. ‘As the first Sacrament of our incorporation into Christ, Baptism is the Sacrament through which Christ extends Himself through the Spirit into people in order to incorporate them into Himself and into the Church’.

Baptism is the first of the seven Holy Sacraments instituted by our Saviour Jesus Christ, through which a person is received into Christianity; it is the gateway to Christianity. Through this Holy Sacrament, both original sin and personal sins (in the case of an adult) are forgiven, and the grace of the Holy Spirit is received invisibly through the visible work of the sacrament: prayers, chants, church hymns, readings, liturgical acts, the profession of faith (the Creed), as well as the sacramental formula in the name of the Holy Trinity, through triple immersion, as commanded by our Saviour Christ: ‘And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you, and behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Amen’ (Matthew 28:18–20). The grace of the Holy Spirit is necessary for salvation. The claim made by neo-Protestant denominations and other Christian denominations that Christian baptism was instituted by the Saviour through His baptism in the Jordan or during His conversation with Nicodemus is entirely unfounded. The baptism which the Saviour received at the age of 30 was John’s baptism and not Christian baptism, which was established by the Saviour after the Resurrection. John’s baptism belongs to the Old Testament, whilst Christian baptism belongs to the New Testament. The following distinctions exist between the two baptisms:

1. St John the Baptist himself acknowledged: ‘I baptise you with water […] but the One who comes after me will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and with fire’ (Matthew 3:11);

2. The Saviour affirmed the same thing: ‘John baptised with water, but you will be baptised with the Holy Spirit’ (Acts 1:5);

3. The Holy Apostles demonstrated in practice that they did not consider John’s baptism to be valid and baptised those who had been baptised by John once more (Acts 19:6).

Through Baptism, as the ‘bath of rebirth’ (Titus 3:5), we become new creatures; Baptism is regarded by the Holy Fathers as the second creation. We now become members of Christ and thus members of the Church. We see from this that Baptism has not only a Christ-centred character but also an ecclesiological one. Union with Christ and membership of the Church are inseparable realities. Through Baptism we become branches of the same vine. Our unity is constituted by Christ, and Divine Grace flows through us all, purifying us, renewing us and giving us the power to bear fruit. Each member receives within themselves the growth of the whole Body and must therefore be perfected in the place where they are placed, according to their capacity, so as to contribute to the edification of their brothers and sisters and to the growth and perfection of the Church.

At Baptism, through the gift which we will bring to fruition throughout our earthly life—for it is then that we appropriate the fruits of earthly redemption— we are freed from the corruption of original sin as well as from any personal sins, becoming partakers in the death and resurrection of Christ. In Baptism we are truly, though in a mysterious way, crucified with Christ, buried with Him, raised with Him, and exalted with Him (Galatians 2:19–20; Romans 6:3–8; Colossians 2:12–13; Ephesians 2:5–6). By being immersed three times in water, we symbolise Christ’s death and His three-day stay in the tomb (Matthew 12:40; Ephesians 4:22–24), thereby dying to sin. The old man, the man of sin, remains in the baptismal waters so that the new man, the spiritual man who has received Christ and who will accompany Him throughout his earthly life, may emerge from them. In Baptism we are clothed in Christ, as Saint Paul the Apostle says: ‘For as many of you as were baptised into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ’ (Galatians 3:27), for the old man has died along with all his sins, and we become children of God by grace (John 1:12–13). Holiness has taken the place of sin; light, the place of darkness; life, the place of death. The garment we receive at baptism is not an outward one, but the power that penetrates our very being and shapes us in the image of Christ.

Those who are baptised are likened to the bride in the Song of Songs, where it is said: ‘I am black yet beautiful, O daughter of Jerusalem’ (Matthew 1:4–5). Black because of the frailty of human nature, beautiful through grace. Beholding the daughters of Jerusalem in the garment of Baptism, the garment of Christ, they marvel and say: ‘Who is this who comes up, white as snow?’ (Matthew 7:5). She was once dark; how did she suddenly become white and radiant? Dark was the sin that remained in the waters of Baptism, yet the person emerged clothed in the robe of Christ, in the light of Grace which will guide him into the new life; for we die to sin and rise again for Christ, attaining a state of innocence and angelic purity. The baptismal font and the water of Baptism are for us both a tomb and a spiritual mother, giving birth to us for Christ and taking the place of the Virgin’s pure womb from which Christ was born. Baptism is a death, but not a true death of the body, rather a likeness thereof, says Saint Ambrose. For when you are immersed in the waters of Baptism, you take upon yourself the likeness of Christ’s death and burial, to sustain you when the weakness of human nature calls you back. Communion with Christ is so real that it is conceived as living together in Christ and with Christ, all that is His becoming ours to the extent that we cooperate with it, ascending the steps of the spiritual ascent towards our union with Christ—not in a pantheistic sense of identification and confusion, but in the personal communion specific to Orthodoxy. Christ is born within us at Baptism, but together with Him we too are born.

Faith brings you to the threshold of the Church, but only Baptism can take you beyond that threshold. St Basil the Great, explaining the relationship between faith and Baptism, says: ‘If faith receives its fulfilment from Baptism, Baptism is founded on faith; and both are perfected through the same name; just as one believes in the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, so one is baptised in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit; the profession of faith that leads to salvation comes first, but Baptism, the seal of our faith, follows closely behind’.

The working of grace bestowed through the Sacrament of Baptism is illustrated by Saint Diadochus of Photice when he says: “I, however, have understood from the divine Scriptures and from the very feeling of the mind that, before Holy Baptism, grace urges the soul from without towards what is good, whilst Satan stirs within its depths, seeking to block all the mind’s rightful paths. But from the moment we are born, the devil is cast out, and grace enters within. Consequently, we find that just as error once reigned over the soul, so, after Baptism, truth reigns. Satan certainly continues to work upon the soul afterwards, just as before, and often even more fiercely. But not as one who is present alongside grace, but rather enveloping the soul through the intoxication of the flesh; the mind, as it were, in a haze, in the sweetness of irrational desires.” Thus, Baptism gives the Christian the strength needed to live a life of holiness, as a branch of the vine of life (John 15:15), but this does not mean that he will be free from temptation. Baptism breaks the yoke of sin and death, purifies human nature by bringing it into communion with God, but the fruits of this communion are seen in practical life through our cooperation with the power bestowed upon us. Grace must be actualised voluntarily through the fulfilment of the commandments, as Saint Maximus the Confessor explains: beginning with birth in the Spirit and continuing through personal efforts to apply the death of Christ to the condemnation of sin, whichbrings us into eternal life through the righteous preservation of the garment of Baptism.

By giving oneself this strength, one thus creates the moral imperative to live in a manner befitting the help received. If we have been crucified and buried with Christ (Romans 6:6), we have therefore died to sin and ought no longer to serve it; and if we do so, we are misusing the freedom granted by Christ through Baptism. And if we have been raised and exalted together with Christ, we must also walk in the ‘renewal of life’ and serve God with our whole being as His true children (Romans 6:10–11) Through our genuine participation in the life of Christ, we are transformed from sons of Adam into sons of God, from sons of wrath into sons of love.

The holiness received at Baptism must be manifested in the sanctification of our lives, but these fruits do not come of their own accord; rather, they require the cooperation of our will with the grace that leads to the exposure of sin and its defeat. The place of sin will be taken by virtue, which, as it flourishes, will bear fruit. Through Baptism, the soul is no longer dead but alive to God, in Jesus Christ; the body itself bears within it the pledge of life and resurrection, and even if it dies, because it bears the marks of sin, its death is no longer a punishment, but a necessary decay, like the grain of wheat beneath the soil, so that the spiritual body may spring forth from it, the pledge of which it already possesses in this life. If Baptism is our participation in the death and resurrection of Christ, then our life bears this seal and must be a perpetuation of these through death to sin and resurrection through virtue—truly a life in Christ and with Christ, who is no longer separated from us, and we must be conscious of this. Baptism continues throughout our lives, but this requires willpower, effort and a struggle against the powers of darkness. The dominion of sin has been defeated, and we have been brought under the dominion of Christ. Nevertheless, the inclination towards evil persists within us due to the effects still present in us, and it is up to us whether these remain within normal limits or slide down the path of sin and passion. “The old self, with its sins, has been crucified in Baptism” (Galatians 5:25), but we must continually crucify ourselves in the face of sin so that we do not become, from children of life, children of death.

The Christian life is therefore not only renunciation and mortification of sin, but also positive spiritual struggle, the cultivation of virtue, which is the garment of Christ. We die so that we may live, and this struggle between death and life, between sin and virtue, is itself our path to eternal life—a path we tread not alone but with Christ ‘in Christ’ (Galatians 3:27; Romans 8:10; Galatians 1:20; 1 Corinthians 5:17; Romans 13:14; Ephesians 4:24; Colossians 3:10; Ephesians 3:17), ‘experiencing’ the presence of Christ, discovering Him within us as the new man, the man of virtue, grows. This ‘experience’, prepared by moral effort, is, however, a gift from Christ.[16] Christ is within us but also outside us as a model to be imitated—not as a mere copy, but as a spiritual identification with Him. As we imitate the model more and more, we shall feel His presence within us ever more fully and overwhelmingly. When we emerge from the waters of Baptism, we are ‘infants in Christ’ (1 Corinthians 3:1; Ephesians 4:14) so that, as we progress along the path of holiness through our collaboration with Christ, aided by all the other Holy Sacraments, we may attain ‘the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ’ (Ephesians 4:13–15). Grace dwells within us in a hidden manner from the moment of Baptism, says Saint Mark the Ascetic. It is revealed to us only after we have walked the path of the commandments. We have therefore received the power to act, and by failing to act we disregard the commandments and, through them, God; and thus we make ourselves slaves to sin, disregarding the freedom with which we were endowed through Baptism. “Therefore, O man, since you have been baptised into Christ, perform only the work for which you have received the power, and prepare yourself to receive the revelation of the One who dwells within you […] and then you will understand what was said: ‘The kingdom of heaven is within you’” (Luke 17:21).

Perfection is infinite, just as Christ is. To be perfect in this life is to press on towards Christ, becoming ever more aware of one’s own imperfection and being filled with a zeal to become like Him “forgetting what lies behind and straining towards what lies ahead” (Philippians 3:12–15).

Baptism is the beginning of life in Christ; with Him we begin our truly spiritual life, which was impossible before Christ because ‘the divine nature and the human nature were separate, and hypostatic union had not yet been realised; though there was contact between these two natures, there was no communion”.

Baptism, by uniting Christians with Christ and with the Church and transforming them into a new creation, entails the obligation to lead a fitting moral life through which the Christian may attain not only their own perfection, that is, to likeness to Christ, but also to contribute to the life of the Church towards a state of final perfection.

Baptism is therefore the first necessary step through which a person is born into Christ, enters into communion with Him and with the Church, in order to grow spiritually towards likeness to Christ. It is the first call to life in Christ and the first aid on the spiritual ascent.

It is what helps a person to overcome the weaknesses of the flesh, as Nicolae Cabasila says, and in this sense it bears witness to the strength of the martyrs who endured torture not by means of their natural powers, which are powerless, but by the grace of the Holy Spirit received at Baptism.