Mr Editor—I venture to make a few remarks on this important subject in response to Mr. Barker’s letter in your January issue.
In taking up this subject as presented in. the Scriptures we naturally turn first to John 19:34-35—
“But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced His side, and forthwith came there out blood and water. And he that saw it bare record, and his record is true: and he knows that he says true, that ye might believe.”
The deliberation and solemnity and emphasis with which the Apostle John draws attention to this wonderful sight is arresting. Evidently blood and water are the two evidences of the death of Christ. There is one happy characteristic of Bible exposition. If you start with a right interpretation you will find every Scripture bearing on the subject falling into line with that interpretation and confirming it. On the contrary, if you begin with a wrong interpretation every step only lands you into difficulties and instead of Scripture forming your ideas you too often have the spectacle of men twisting Scripture to suit their own ideas.
Let us start with the statement that we need, as Scripture shows us, a double cleansing, first from the guilt and then from the defilement of our sins.
Two Scriptures will prove that in each case cleansing is involved
“The, blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7).
This cleansing is clearly from the guilt of sin. The Old Testament says, “It is the blood that makes an atonement for the soul” (Lev. 17:17), atonement is completely effected by the blood. See the blood sprinkled on the mercy seat as typifying this.
But Scripture says that water, too, is a cleansing agent.
“Christ loved the church, and gave Himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with THE WASHING OF WATER by the word” (Eph. 5:26).
We need to be cleansed not only from the guilt of sin, but also from its defilement. The blood does the former; the water, the latter, as this verse states.
That we are not speculating when we affirm that the blood and water which flowed from the side of the dead Saviour are symbolical, is proved by 1 John 5:6, 8. There we are told that Jesus Christ came by water and blood; that is, His object in coming into the world was to effect, by His death, this double cleansing without which none could be in God’s presence or blessed by Him. Further we are told there are three witnesses: the Spirit, and the water, and the blood; and these three agree in one. This Scripture disposes of the view “that ‘water’ in John 3:5 is a type of the Spirit.” The Scripture referring to the three witnesses adds, “And these three agree in one,” showing that the Spirit is neither the blood nor the water, but bears witness to the great fact that Christ came by “water and blood.”
It is true that Kai, the ordinary word for the conjunction and, may sometimes carry the thought of even, but it is always decided by the context, and only when the two things connected by Kai are equal to one another. The context would then be so plain that this would be obvious. In this case, however, 1 John 5:8, plainly speaks of the Spirit and the water and the blood as three distinct witnesses, and seeing the water and the blood are put in conjunction, the verse is very convincing, that water is not here symbolical of the Spirit.
It is true that in John 4 and 7, water is typical of the Holy Spirit, but that type we believe is always connected with water in action. In John 4 it is “a well springing up into everlasting life” (v. 14); in John 7 out of the believer’s belly “shall flow rivers of living water” (v. 38); in both cases we have water in action.
It is something internal—in the believer, refreshing and active; whereas water in its cleansing action is external in its application. This we shall see confirmed as we proceed.
But water in its cleansing action in Scripture is looked at in two ways. This is seen in John 13:10.
“Jesus says to him, he that is washed [Greek, louō] needs not to wash [Greek, niptō] his feet, but is clean every whit.”
Louō is a word which means to wash all over, to bathe; niptō signifies to wash a part as hands or feet. This is illustrated in the service of the priests in connection with the Tabernacle in the wilderness. On the day of consecration the priests were ceremonially bathed or washed all over with water (see Ex. 29:4); whilst the brazen layer was provided where the priests might wash their hands and feet, when they went into the tabernacle to perform their sanctuary service.
This leads us up to John 3:5. How can moral cleansing take place? If man’s fallen nature is absolutely and irremediably evil it is evident that no attempt at amelioration of the flesh is of the slightest use. “That which is born of the flesh is flesh,” is definite.
What then is the remedy? How is a man to be morally cleansed? The Lord tells us plainly by new birth—
“Except a man be BORN of water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God” (John 3:5).
There can be no moral cleansing of a man save by the introduction of this new birth. Canon Hay Aitkin’s view is plainly faulty. Baptism certainly puts the baptized into an outward ecclesiastical company, and the imparting of the Divine Spirit puts the believer into new relationship with God. But in our passage being born again is what is set before us. We believe that the Holy Spirit effects the new birth, but uses the Word of God as the instrument, or as Peter says, it is by the incorruptible seed of the Word (1 Peter 1:23). Baptism is not connected with birth even by the Canon’s showing; the Spirit produces the new birth, but the impartation of the Holy Spirit is something further. Surely the believers on the day of Pentecost were already born again; the Holy Ghost had prepared the house; whereas on the day of Pentecost the Spirit was imparted to the believers; in other words, the Holy Spirit occupied the house He had built.
If water meant baptism then we should have three witnesses; (1) The Spirit, a Divine Person; (2) the water, baptism, an ordinance; (3) the blood, a symbol of the death of Christ. What a jumble of ideas—a Person, an ordinance, a symbol! How all falls into line with the whole tenor of Scripture, as we have been considering it; (1) The Spirit a Divine Person, the chosen Operator of the Godhead, the sovereign Actor in the blessing of the believer, using means which are symbolized by (2) the water, symbol of that aspect of the death of Christ which atoning for sin and condemning sin in the flesh, root and branch, sets God free to introduce the new birth, which morally cleanses the subject of it, and by (3) the blood, symbol of that aspect of the death of Christ, which speaks distinctively of atonement and the cleansing from the guilt of sin, as we have seen. How the whole hangs beautifully together. A Divine Agent and the means He uses brought before us, the two means in beautiful accord with and complementary to each other.
There is no difficulty is looking at the water in its symbolical aspect as (1) producing new birth as the Word of God in relation to the death of Christ through which life comes—a manifestation of God’s love—and typified by the priests being washed all over with water; and (2) in its general cleansing character as the Word of God, though that is only applying in detail what is set forth in new birth, as even the spiritual teaching of baptism leads the believer to walk “in newness of life” (Rom. 6:4), and this is typified in the brazen laver; whilst (3) water in its activity is indeed a type of the Holy Spirit in His activity not UPON the sinner, producing in sovereign favour the new birth, but IN the believer producing that which, coming from heaven, rises to its source (John 4); or that which flowing from the believer is for spiritual refreshment in this barren scene (John 7).
Finally what antagonizes the thought that “water” (John 8) is literal water, is that it was literal blood and literal water which came from the side of a dead Christ, and that John, who witnessed this, gives both the water and the blood a symbolical meaning in his first epistle. 1 John 1:7, tells us the blood of Jesus cleanses from all sin; yet no one dreams that the Saviours actual blood is applied to the sinner; in the some way. Ephesians 5:20, connects the water and the Word together—“the washing of water by the Word.” Canon Aitkin cannot have it both ways. If the water is literal in John 8, then the blood must be literal in 1 John 1:7.
Canon Hay Aitkin is connected with a system that teaches baptismal regeneration. In common with the evangelicals in that system he stoutly refuses this popish figment, but is coloured, in our judgment, by the ritualism of that system to the extent of making “water” (John 3), stand for baptism.
I trust the foregoing remarks may help to elucidate this subject. The whole tenor of Scripture makes it abundantly plain.
Yours, etc.,