Baptism is a Christian sacrament involving water, signifying the believer’s initiation into the faith community and their identification with Christ’s death and resurrection. 

It should be noted that this ritual activity is considered one of the seven “sacraments” in the Catholic Church. Of the seven, it is the first of three sacraments of initiation into the life of Jesus and His Body, the Church. The other two are Communion (Eucharist) and Confirmation.  

A sacrament is a ritual activity that symbolizes, in words and actions, the transforming effect that the ritual activity has upon those who participate in it.

The word “baptism” is from the Greek baptizo, a verb meaning “to immerse” (in water, and thus suggesting also “to wash”). Most translations of the New Testament simply use the word “baptism” to translate this Greek verb.

Jesus’ desire to be immersed in the Jordan River through the ministry of John the Baptism should strike us as a strange way for Jesus to begin his public life. Even John himself was perplexed. John was convinced that Jesus should be the one to immerse him in the Jordan. John was equally convinced that Jesus had no need to “repent” (metanoia, or “change his mind”) about how God the Father would inaugurate his Kingdom!

After Pentecost, it would become clear that Jesus’ desire to be immersed in the Jordan was an act of self-emptying love for God his Father and all members of the human race. He engaged in this act of humility not for the sake of his own salvation but for ours. Jesus’ immersion into the Jordan symbolizes his desire to offer himself in perfect love and obedience to the Father for the life of the world, in an act that would be made perfect in his total immersion of himself in his death upon a cross out of love for us. His rising from the waters of the Jordan points symbolically to his Resurrection and the fullness of life that Jesus offers the human family. The inauguration of the Kingdom of God on earth is manifest in a profound way in Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan. In some Christian traditions, Jesus’ baptism is remembered as the “epiphany” of his true identity, It is an event in salvation history that reveals the glory of the Father at work “in Jesus, through Jesus, and with Jesus,” in the power of the Holy Spirit, at the beginning of his public ministry.

The Risen Jesus’ teaching that his disciples “immerse” the peoples of all nations in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit expresses His desire that all share in the abundance of life that he was sent to offer. From the day the Holy Spirit is sent upon the disciples at Pentecost, the ritual of baptism served as the “instrument” or “means” of reception of the fullness of life offered to all who place their faith in Jesus. The teaching of Peter and Paul is especially instructive here.

On the day of Pentecost, Peter addresses the pilgrims who have traveled to Jerusalem from all parts of the Roman Empire: “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” (Acts 2:41).

The apostles Peter and Paul make it clear that the forgiveness of all our sins and the beginning of divine life within us through the Holy Spirit (our rebirth into the abundance of divine life), are the central effects of the gift of baptism.

The complete forgiveness of sin is one of the most important effects of baptism, as mentioned in Peter’s speech during the Jewish feast of Pentecost. The “forgiveness of sins” means the removal of everything that would impede entrance into the Kingdom of God (CCC1263). This refers to the sin transmitted from Adam according to our nature, all of our personal sins, together with the punishment that is due to our sin. Baptism does not, however, remove what is variously called the woundedness of our nature, the fomes peccati (affective desires that can ignite the “flame” of sin), or disordered concupiscence (sensual desire). The Christian life after Baptism remains a struggle against temptations that arise from our own wounded nature.

There are other effects of Baptism, mentioned explicitly in Scripture or disclosed by the Holy Spirit in the history of the Church.

• The Baptized person becomes united with Jesus Christ. While the primary effects that the Risen Jesus has upon those who are baptized is twofold: the complete forgiveness of all our sins and the beginning of divine life within us through the Holy Spirit, Paul later made it clear that Jesus brings this twofold effect about precisely because in this immersion He intimately unites our life to His own: “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized (“immersed”) into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that 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).

• The baptized person is “Sealed.” The New Testament and Christian tradition offer a rich vocabulary to describe the effects of Baptism. These include “justification” (interior righteousness), “enlightenment,” “garment of immortality,” “bath of regeneration,” “unmerited gift,” “new creation,” “participation in the divine nature,” “adopted son or daughter of the Father,” “temple of the Holy Spirit,” and “seal.” (CCC, 2015-16, 1265-66). Of these effects, and many others, the mention of the “seal” stands out as distinct from the rest.

St. Augustine compared the seal of Baptism to a tattoo on the body of a Roman soldier. The Roman soldier is permanently marked with the initials SPQR as a sign that he belongs to the Roman Senate and People. By way of analogy, the seal” or “tattoo” marked on the soul of the Christian is a permanent sign of God’s enduring fidelity to this baptized person. Augustine taught that the seal has the internal power to draw the Christian who has abandoned God and the Church back to himself and his people. John of Damascus taught that for this reason, the “seal” is God’s way of “safeguarding” the Christian from turning definitively from Jesus to “the world.”

•  Another effect is initiation or “incorporation” into the mystical Body of Christ, the Church. The baptized person becomes intimately united to the Persons of the Trinity through the life of the Church brought into being through the sending of the Son and the Holy Spirit by the Father. Immersion in Christ through Baptism is inseparably connected to immersion in the life of the Church, the Body of Christ, that has Jesus as its spiritual Head, the Holy Spirit as its spiritual Heart, and the Blessed Virgin Mary as its spiritual Mother. This immersion in the Body of Christ through Baptism is the source of unity among all Christian believers, a unity that reaches out in evangelical mission for the sake of the unity of the entire human family in the life of the Holy Trinity.

The teachings of Peter and Paul quoted above bring us to the heart of Jesus’ own teaching on baptism. The ritual itself, however, enjoys a wider richness of symbolism and history of development in the Catholic Church that merits further exploration.

In order to make clear that Jesus was sent to fulfill the promises of God to humanity in general and Israel in particular, it is helpful to understand how the use of water in this ritual is prefigured in the history of God’s activity in the world. Foremost among these prefigurations are three events associated with water as recounted in Scripture:

• The use of water as a means to purify and renew the entire earth according to the story of Noah and the flood;
• God’s deliverance of Moses and the Hebrew people through the Red Sea in their liberation from slavery in Egypt; and
• God’s assistance offered to Joshua and the Israelites when they cross the Jordan river into the Promised land.

Jesus’ act of being immersed in the Jordan establishes a link between these earlier saving actions of God and Jesus’ own death and Resurrection, which are symbolically foreshadowed in his baptism. Those who are baptized into Christ are immersed in the entire history of God’s renewal of creation and the Jewish people of God.

Because the water of Christian baptism will be the means in and through which the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit work together to bring new life to those who have heard and believed in the Gospel, it is the teaching of the Catholic Church and other Christian communities that baptism be in the Name of the three Persons of the Holy Trinity.  Baptism in the name of Jesus alone is mentioned in Scripture and practiced by some Christians, but this form of the ritual is considered imperfect by Catholics and the majority of Christians believers.

Also, though the water is sometimes poured (three times) on the body or the head of the person being baptized, the form of the ritual which involves a three-fold immersion of the person’s entire body in the water is a more perfect symbol of complete immersion into the life of the Holy Trinity.

As the baptism ritual develops in the history of the Church, an anointing of the person’s head with sacred oil or “chrism” is added. This anointing gives symbolic expression to the truth that immersion into the death and Resurrection of Jesus also makes baptized persons into prophets, priests, and kings “in, through, and with” Jesus the Messiah (the Hebrew mashiach refers to the ritual of “anointing” a prophet, priest, or king to serve the God of Israel).

In the Catholic Church today, the normal minister of the ritual is either a deacon, priest, or bishop. These persons are consecrated to serve as public and official instruments of the ongoing work of the Risen and Ascended Jesus in the world. It is the teaching of the Catholic Church, however, that in extraordinary circumstances, anyone can effectively perform the ritual of baptism, even a non-baptized person, as long as this person performs the ritual in accord with the teaching of Jesus’ himself (the use of water and the words “I baptize you in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit”). This “extension” of the ordinary practice of the Catholic Church is an expression of God’s will that all be saved and (2 Peter).

Baptism is a ritual inseparably connected to faith in Jesus as the “way, truth, and the life.” In one sense, the ritual is a sign of the person’s faith who asks for baptism. From another perspective, it baptism is a source of that faith, in the sense that it brings the act of faith to its goal, which is new life in Christ. The practice of baptizing children prior to their capacity to understand the ritual and ask to be baptized themselves cannot, of course, expect such children to be capable of a personal act of faith.

The Catholic Church teaches that Scripture affirms that entire households were baptized at the same time in the early years of the Church and infers that these households included children who lacked the capacity for a personal act of faith. For such children, baptism remains a ritual connected to faith, but it is the faith of the members of the Church rather than the individual. The gift of forgiveness of sin and new life in the baptism of such children is compared to the life-giving nourishment that a child receives from its mother in the earliest stages of its development and growth.

According to this analogy, the Catholic Church teaches that the gift of baptism is first and foremost an unmerited gift of the fullness of life from God. The act of personal faith, which is integral to the ritual, follows as a fruit of God’s gift won in the death and Resurrection of Jesus. Baptism apart from a personal faith in Jesus in the child who develops the capacity for such, or who personally rejects faith, however, is not effective for salvation.

The Catholic Church teaches that baptism is necessary for salvation and roots this teaching in Jesus’ own command. Alongside this teaching, the Church points to the equally Scriptural teaching that God will the salvation of all. Aware that the majority of persons in human history died without baptism, the Church has continually advanced the teaching of a baptism of desire and a baptism in blood (martyrdom or death imposed because of witness to Jesus).

More recent teaching in the Catholic Church clarifies points that were debated in earlier centuries:

First, those who have not heard the Gospel, but sincerely search for the truth about God in their conscience, can reasonably be thought to have an implicit desire for baptism.

Second, unbaptized children, who die before they are able to even to begin a search for God in their mind and heart, can drawn into incorporation into the life of the Trinity in ways that we cannot understand, yet in accord with Jesus’ teaching “Let the children come to me” (Mk 10:14; CCC, 1257-1261).

To summarize, the Catholic Church teaches that baptism is necessary for salvation, precisely because it is the will of Jesus that all be saved through some type of participation in his own baptism in the Jordan. This teaching on the necessity of baptism for salvation is in accord with God’s will to draw all human beings into his own eternal form of life. For Christians, as members of Christ’s Body, “God has bound salvation to the sacrament of Baptism, but he himself is not bound by his sacraments.” (CCC 1257)

Jesus himself desired to be immersed in the water of the Jordan River as the first act of his public ministry. It is most fitting, then, that those who have faith in Jesus, and desire to share more deeply in his life, follow his example and begin to share in the fullness of life that he offers through this ritual and sacramental practice.