It turns religious believing into a two-storey universe. Christianity becomes an ideology and a fantasy. Thus every spiritual reality, every mystery, must be referred elsewhere – generally to the mind of God and the believer. In the literalism of the modern world (where a thing is a thing is a thing), nothing is ever more than what is seen. Thought to be an argument about a minor point of doctrine, it is, instead, the collapse of the world into the empty literalism of secularity. The anti-sacramentalism (and non-sacramentalism) of some Christian groups is among the most unwittingly pernicious of all modern errors. How utterly and uselessly weak is the thought that Baptism is merely an obedience to a command given by Christ! The idea that nothing happens in Baptism is both contrary to Scripture and a denial of the very nature of our salvation. Christ’s resurrection now becomes my resurrection. Paul’s teaching on Baptism is mystical realism (to coin a phrase). They are the resurrection of the dead.ĭo you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we should walk in newness of life (Rom. The waters of the font are Christ’s death on the Cross and His destruction of Hades.
They are the final destruction of demons because they are nothing other than Christ’s Pascha.
They are an incorruptible fountain and all the things we ask for. These waters, now in a font, are none other than the waters of the Jordan. The nature of the waters of Baptism reveals the Orthodox understanding of the world. What can it possibly mean to ask that the waters be made “the final destruction of demons”? For we have called upon Your Name, O Lord, and it is wonderful, and glorious, and awesome even to adversaries. Let those who would ensnare Your creature flee far from it. Make it the fountain of incorruption, the gift of sanctification, the remission of sins, the remedy of infirmities the final destruction of demons, unassailable by hostile powers, filled with angelic might. During the blessing of the waters the priest prays:Īnd grant to the grace of redemption, the blessing of Jordan. A good illustration can be found in the Orthodox service of Holy Baptism. But this is not the language of the fathers nor of the Church. Most Christians leave the final things until, well, the End. Final is not a word you often hear in Christian teaching.