n class="drop-cap">Baptism is a sign. We grasp what it’s a sign of when we locate baptism within the unfolding of biblical history. Extrapolating from apostolic example, the church fathers see baptism as the reality foreshadowed by the waters of creation and Eden, by Noah’s flood (cf. 1 Pet. 3:18–22), Israel’s exodus through the sea (cf. 1 Cor. 10:1–5), by Joshua’s river-passage into Canaan, Elijah’s drenched sacrifice and Elisha’s floating axe head, by the cleansing of the Syrian commander Naaman in the Jordan. Scholastics are less effusively poetic, but they too discuss the “Sacraments of the Old Law” before turning attention to the “Sacraments of the New Law,” and various Protestant traditions do the same with the categories of old and new covenants. Read Full Article »
