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| Objection that some were baptized unto Moses and believed in him, and an answer to it; with remarks upon types.
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Chapter XIV.
Objection that some were baptized unto Moses and
believed in him, and an answer to it; with remarks upon types.
31. But even if
some are baptized unto the Spirit, it is not, it is urged, on this
account right for the Spirit to be ranked with God. Some
“were baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the
sea.”971
And it is
admitted that faith even before now has been put in men; for “The
people believed God and his servant Moses.”972
Why then, it is asked, do we, on
account of faith and of baptism, exalt and magnify the Holy Spirit so
far above creation, when there is evidence that the same things have
before now been said of men? What, then, shall we reply?
Our answer is that the faith in the Spirit is the same as the faith in
the Father and the Son; and in like manner, too, the baptism. But
the faith in Moses and in the cloud is, as it were, in a shadow and
type. The nature of the divine is very frequently represented by
the rough and shadowy outlines973
| 973 σκιαγραφία, or shade-painting, is illusory scene-painting. Plato
(Crit. 107 c.) calls it “indistinct and
deceptive.” cf. Ar. Eth. Nic. i. 3, 4,
“παχυλῶς καὶ
ἐν τύπῳ.” The
τύπος
gives the general design, not an exact anticipation. | of the types;
but because divine things are prefigured by small and human things,
it is obvious that we must not therefore conclude the divine nature
to be small. The type is an exhibition of things expected, and
gives an imitative anticipation of the future. So Adam was a
type of “Him that was to come.”974
Typically, “That rock was
Christ;”975
and the water a
type of the living power of the word; as He says, “If
any man thirst, let
him come unto me and drink.”976
The
manna is a type of the living bread that came down from
heaven;977
and the serpent on
the standard,978
| 978 σημεῖον, as
in the LXX. cf. Numb. xxi. 9 and John iii.
14. | of the passion of
salvation accomplished by means of the cross, wherefore they who
even looked thereon were preserved. So in like manner, the
history of the exodus of Israel is recorded to shew forth those who
are being saved through baptism. For the firstborn of the
Israelites were preserved, like the bodies of the baptized, by the
giving of grace to them that were marked with blood. For the
blood of the sheep is a type of the blood of Christ; and the
firstborn, a type of the first-formed. And inasmuch as the
first-formed of necessity exists in us, and, in sequence of
succession, is transmitted till the end, it follows that “in
Adam” we “all die,”979
and that “death reigned”980
until the fulfilling of the law and the coming of Christ. And
the firstborn were preserved by God from being touched by the
destroyer, to show that we who were made alive in Christ no longer
die in Adam. The sea and the cloud for the time being led on
through amazement to faith, but for the time to come they typically
prefigured the grace to be. “Who is wise and he shall
understand these things?”981
—how the
sea is typically a baptism bringing about the departure of Pharaoh,
in like manner as this washing causes the departure of the tyranny
of the devil. The sea slew the enemy in itself: and in
baptism too dies our enmity towards God. From the sea the
people came out unharmed: we too, as it were, alive from the
dead, step up from the water “saved” by the
“grace” of Him who called us.982
And the cloud is a shadow of the
gift of the Spirit, who cools the flame of our passions by the
“mortification” of our “members.”983
32. What then? Because they were
typically baptized unto Moses, is the grace of baptism therefore
small? Were it so, and if we were in each case to prejudice the
dignity of our privileges by comparing them with their types, not even
one of these privileges could be reckoned great; then not the love of
God, who gave His only begotten Son for our sins, would be great and
extraordinary, because Abraham did not spare his own son;984
then even the passion of the Lord would not
be glorious, because a sheep typified the offering instead of Isaac;
then the descent into hell was not fearful, because Jonah had
previously typified the death in three days and three nights. The
same prejudicial comparison is made also in the case of baptism by all
who judge of the reality by the shadow, and, comparing the typified
with the type, attempt by means of Moses and the sea to disparage at
once the whole dispensation of the Gospel. What remission of
sins, what renewal of life, is there in the sea? What spiritual
gift is there through Moses? What dying985
of sins is there? Those men did not
die with Christ; wherefore they were not raised with Him.986
They did not “bear the image
of the heavenly;”987
they did
“bear about in the body the dying of Jesus;”988
they did not “put off the old
man;” they did not “put on the new man which is renewed
in knowledge after the image of Him which created
him.”989
Why then do
you compare baptisms which have only the name in common, while the
distinction between the things themselves is as great as might be
that of dream and reality, that of shadow and figures with
substantial existence?
33. But belief in Moses not only does not
show our belief in the Spirit to be worthless, but, if we adopt our
opponents’ line of argument, it rather weakens our confession in
the God of the universe. “The people,” it is written,
“believed the Lord and his servant Moses.”990
Moses then is joined with God, not with
the Spirit; and he was a type not of the Spirit, but of Christ.
For at that time in the ministry of the law, he by means of himself
typified “the Mediator between God and men.”991
Moses, when mediating for the people in
things pertaining to God, was not a minister of the Spirit; for the law
was given, “ordained by angels in the hand of a
mediator,”992
namely Moses, in
accordance with the summons of the people, “Speak thou with
us,…but let not God speak with us.”993
Thus faith in Moses is referred to
the Lord, the Mediator between God and men, who said, “Had ye
believed Moses, ye would have believed me.”994
Is then our faith in the Lord a
trifle, because it was signified beforehand through Moses? So
then, even if men were baptized unto Moses, it does not follow that
the grace given of the Spirit in baptism is small. I may point
out, too, that it is usual in Scripture to say Moses and the
law,995
as in the
passage, “They have Moses and the prophets.”996
When therefore it is meant to
speak of the baptism of the law, the words are, “They were
baptized unto Moses.”997
Why then
do these calumniators of the truth, by means of the shadow and the
types, endeavour to bring contempt and ridicule on the
“rejoicing” of our “hope,”998
and the rich gift of our God and
Saviour, who through regeneration renews our youth like the
eagle’s?999
Surely it
is altogether childish, and like a babe who must needs be fed on
milk,1000
to be ignorant
of the great mystery of our salvation; inasmuch as, in accordance
with the gradual progress of our education, while being brought to
perfection in our training for godliness,1001
we were first taught elementary and
easier lessons, suited to our intelligence, while the Dispenser of
our lots was ever leading us up, by gradually accustoming us, like
eyes brought up in the dark, to the great light of truth.
For He spares our weakness, and in the depth of the riches1002
of His wisdom, and the inscrutable
judgments of His intelligence, used this gentle treatment, fitted
for our needs, gradually accustoming us to see first the shadows
of objects, and to look at the sun in water, to save us from
dashing against the spectacle of pure unadulterated light, and
being blinded. Just so the Law, having a shadow of things to
come, and the typical teaching of the prophets, which is a dark
utterance of the truth, have been devised means to train the eyes
of the heart, in that hence the transition to the wisdom hidden in
mystery1003
will be made
easy. Enough so far concerning types; nor indeed would it be
possible to linger longer on this topic, or the incidental
discussion would become many times bulkier than the main
argument.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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