Prolegomenon - Baptism and Covenant Eschatology
John’s kerygma was the final prophetic commandment that had to be obeyed by those of his generation under the Mosaic Covenant who wanted to inherit eternal life.
Acts 2:36–4136 Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.” 37 Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”
38 And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.” 40 And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.” 41 So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.
Prolegomenon
For those unfamiliar with the term, prolegomenon comes from a Greek word meaning “that which is said beforehand,” that is, a prologue, or a foreword. In Systematic Theology, the term has acquired a precise technical meaning. In academia, however, the technical meaning is more general.
Prolegomenon. Prefatory remarks: a formal essay or critical discussion serving to introduce and interpret an extended work.1
In keeping with this general definition, the following prolegomenon not only introduces the thesis of our critical study on the meaning and purpose of baptism within Covenant Eschatology, Baptism at the End of the Mosaic Covenant, but it also provides the preliminary foundational understandings required to comprehend the focus of the study, and its concluding arguments.
The Thesis
John’s water baptism of repentance was the means provided, by God, for the final (crooked2) generation born under the Mosaic Covenant (MC) to humble itself in preparation for the atoning sacrifice of the blood baptism of Jesus (his Passion), so as to be able to receive the salvific holy spirit baptism of faith in his Resurrection, that would induct it into the New Covenant (NC). John’s kerygma was the final prophetic commandment under the MC to be obeyed by those of his generation who feared God. They were to repent, be water baptised, then follow (obey) the one he prophetically identified as Messiah, who would in turn baptise them with holy spirit.
Kerygma. Transliteration of the Greek word that means proclamation or preaching. Depending on the context, it may refer to either the content proclaimed or the act of proclaiming. The word is used once in Matthew (Mt 12:41), once in Luke (Lk 11:32), and six times in Paul’s letters (Rom. 16:25; 1 Cor. 1:21; 2:4; 15:14; 2 Tim. 4:17; Titus 1:3). All of these New Testament occurrences appear to refer to what is being proclaimed.3
Covenant Eschatology (Preterism)
As was previously established in the studies on the Parousia and on Faith and Luke 18:8, the purpose of the messianic ministry of Jesus, recorded in the Gospels, and the Book of Acts, was to bring the temporal MC to a close, in his atoning death, and the subsequent Final Judgment of the Land, and to inaugurate the eternal NC, by his Resurrection and gift of eternal life, which allows the recipient to be found righteous in the Final Judgment of the People of the Land. It is upon this termination of the MC, the covenant of Works of the Law, that Covenant Eschatology (lit. “study of the end times of a covenant”) is focused.
The main points to take away from these prior studies are
1. Jesus, by self-identifying as the Danielic Son of Man, confirmed John the Baptist’s proclamation of him as Messiah, the one who would fulfill all the as yet unfulfilled Old Testament prophecies about establishing the promised NC, and about the coming great and terrible Day of the Lord, when God comes to his people in judgment for the last time.
2. Jesus’ own End Times prophecies, such as those in his Olivet Discourse (Matthew 24, 25; Mark 13; Luke 21) concerning the destruction of Jerusalem, and in his parable of the Wicked Tenants (Mt 21:33–46), where the lord of the vineyard destroys the murderers of his messengers, and his beloved son, were about this same Day of the Lord’s Judgement of the Land and its People.
3. Numerous times, Jesus tells the current generation of MC members that they were the crooked generation upon whom would fall the Final Judgment of God. He also told this final generation that, by the mercy of God, the righteous among them have been given a final opportunity to escape the judgement. As Mary says, in her Magnificat, “his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation” (Lk 1:50; cf. Ps 103:17).
John the Baptist
The main thing to bear in mind when considering baptism and Covenant Eschatology is that John the Baptist was both the final prophet of the Old Testament, and the second coming of Elijah, who was prophesied to come before the great and awesome day of the Lord, in order to fend off the utter destruction of the Land of Israel, in chapter 4 of Malachi.4
The Great Day of the Lord.
4 “For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble. The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. 2 But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall. 3 And you shall tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet, on the day when I act, says the Lord of hosts.
4 “Remember the law of my servant Moses, the statutes and rules that I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel.
5 “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. 6 And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.”
Obviously, John is not literally Elijah reincarnated, as he himself admits when he was asked if he was Elijah directly (Jn 1:21), but rather he came “in the spirit and power of Elijah,” as the angel says to John’s father, Zechariah, in the temple.
Luke 1:13–17
13 But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John. 14 And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, 15 for he will be great before the Lord. And he must not drink wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb. 16 And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, 17 and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.”
Jesus confirms John’s identity as both a prophet and “more than a prophet”, for those who can hear it (Mt 11:7–19; Lk 7:24–35).
Matthew 11:13–15
13 For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John, 14 and if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come. 15 He who has ears to hear, let him hear.
The Great Commission & the Apostle Paul
Matthew 28:18–20
18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
1 Corinthians 1:17
For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.
For any serious reader of the New Testament (NT), the implications of those two verses regarding baptism is inescapable, especially when one considers what was already established in our study on the Table of the Lord, with regards to the respective target groups of the first Apostles of the Lord, and those of the final Apostle of the Lord.
Regarding the institution of the Lord’s Supper for modern Christians, we look to the epistles of Paul, rather than the Gospels, because he is the “apostle [of Christ] to the Gentiles” (Ac 22:21; Rm 11:13; Ga 1:15–16; 2:9: Ep 3:7–9), in order to know how to imitate him (1Co 4:16; 11:1; Pp 3:17, cf. 1Th 1:6; 2Th 3:7–8).
Galatians 2:7–9
7 On the contrary, when they saw that I had been entrusted with the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been entrusted with the gospel to the circumcised 8 (for he who worked through Peter for his apostolic ministry to the circumcised worked also through me for mine to the Gentiles), 9 and when James and Cephas and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given to me, they gave the right hand of fellowship to Barnabas and me, that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised.
As the Gospels of the NT make clear, the ritual of water baptism for repentance (John’s baptism) was an ordinance for the circumcision, that is, the final generation of members of the MC, that they had to do first (even Jesus!), in order to prepare themselves for the baptism of the holy spirit, and escape the wrath to come. This is the group to whom Jesus sent his disciples immediately after his resurrection, because they still needed to be baptised, only now, post-crucifixion, it was a baptism of atonement of their guilt, that is, to receive the benefit of Jesus’ sacrificial death, hence, “in the name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit,” which is “Jesus” (Ac 2:38; 19:4–5).
Paul, on the other hand, was sent specifically to the Gentiles, who carried no corporate guilt for the blood of the prophets, or for Jesus, and were not obliged to carry out any ordinances of the Law of the MC. As we see in the paradigmatic event in Cornelius’ house (Ac 10:24–48), Gentiles are given the gift of the holy spirit (faith & eternal life) by simply “hearing” (receiving) the Gospel of Jesus.
The takeaway here, then, is that the Apostles and Paul were commissioned to deliver two different messages, because they were commissioned to deliver them to two different groups. In Acts 2, Peter tells the men of Israel they had to repent and be baptised, then they’ll be given the gift of the holy spirit (saved). Nowhere does Paul ever tell Gentiles they have to repent, and be baptised, to be saved; they are simply told to believe (have faith).
2. The Greek word in Acts 2:40 is skolios, meaning “curved,” “bent,” as in “not straight.” So, in context, crooked in an ethical or moral sense (LXX Deut 32:5; Phil 2:15). Compare “perverse” (NET), “corrupt” (NIV, & NRSV).
3. Hobert K. Farrell, “Kerygma,” Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology, Electronic ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1996), 444.
4. See also Malachi 3:1, and Isaiah 40:3.
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