Such a saving purpose mystifies many people. What can water possibly have to do with spiritual washing?Certainly, there is no magic in water itself. But faith is significant. If “one Lord” commands “one baptism” then faith obeys, just as Jesus obeyed His Father in the Jordan (Matthew 3:13-17). If “one Spirit” gives purpose to “one baptism,” then faith responds for that purpose, as 3,000 did on the same day (Acts 2:38-41). As we delve into the mystery, it becomes clear that our Lord gives the highest meaning to baptism.
Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We were buried therefore with Him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life (Romans 6:3-4).
Baptism is not separate from, or unrelated to, the Gospel. Here is where the believer meets the death, burial and resurrection at the center of the Gospel (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:1-4). Baptism is where Christ operates “through faith” to cut away the sinful self and to give the believer resurrected life (Colossians 2:11-12; 3:1, 3 cf. 1 Peter 3:21). What is another term for “newness of life”? Birth. Which reminds us of the essential truth insisted on by Jesus. To Nicodemus, a leading Pharisee, Jesus says,
Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit (John 3:5-6).
Christ operates “through faith.”
At that time, John and Jesus are baptizing in water (Mark 1:5; John 1:33; 3:22-26; 4:1-2), but the Pharisees resist (Luke 7:30; 20:4-5). Nicodemus has fleshly life from a fleshly birth into Israel as a nation. But he needs spiritual life, for which the new birth of “water and Spirit” is necessary. (For the first thousand years after the Bible’s completion, all known Christian writers agreed that John 3:5 refers to baptism in water. Other ideas come much later, mainly in reaction to man-made rituals posing as “baptism,” rituals far removed from New Testament Christianity.)