The Pharisee named Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman at the well - Are these stories about baptism?

[1Lord1Faith]

After reading about John the Baptist in the gospel of John, I noticed that the story of Nicodemus comes just before a part of the gospel about John the Baptist called Final Witness of the Baptist that I don’t remember hearing before. And the story of the Samaritan woman at the well comes right after it.

What goes on in Final Witness of the Baptist is somewhat vague but it alludes to a disagreement about, what seems to be, the right way to baptise with water.

Back to the two stories surrounding this episode with John the Baptist, and I can see similarities in these two stories. Both Nicodemous, and the Samaritan woman misunderstand what Jesus is saying to them about, what I believe is, the Holy Spirit.

Jesus tells Nicodemous about being born from above, and being born of water and Spirit. Similarly, Jesus tells the Samaritan woman about him being able to give her living water, which I understand to be an allusion to a Jewish understanding of regeneration, and also to the Holy Spirit.

Also, Jesus says something similar to each of them. He says to Nicodemous “Amen, amen, I say to you, we speak of what we know and we testify to what we have seen, but you people do not accept our testimony.” And similarly says to the Samaritan woman “You people worship what you do not understand; we worship what we understand, because salvation is from the Jews.” So there is also that similarity between the two stories.

I am now wondering if the reason these two stories are there is so they can emphasize that Jesus’ way of baptizing people with the Holy Spirit is meant to be the fulfillment of the Jewish ritual baptism with water - the same baptism that John was performing. And that’s the reason the gospel writer says in Final Witness of the Baptist:

“After this, Jesus and his disciples went into the region of Judea, where he spent some time with them baptizing. John was also baptizing in Aenon near Salim, because there was an abundance of water there, and people came to be baptized”.

And for the same reason John says, “He must increase; I must decrease.”

Am I seeing this correctly?

 

[TK421]

And there is also the blood and water that poured out of Jesus on the cross when he was pierced by St Longinus. At Mass, the priest adds water to the wine during the Liturgy of the Eucharist. The water signifies Christs’ humanity and the wine signifies his divinity.

 

[1Lord1Faith]

What do you think of Final Witness of the Baptist? Is it pointing out, with the help of the stories involving Nicodemous and the Samaritan woman, that Jesus baptizes with the Holy Spirit while John baptizes with water?

It seems that Jesus and his disciples may still have been using water in their baptisms, but only to signify the Holy Spirit. John, on the other hand was still performing the Jewish ritual baptism of cleansing the body with water while at the same time emphasizing repentance, or regeneration.

 

[CRM_Brother]

It seems that Jesus and his disciples may still have been using water in their baptisms, but only to signify the Holy Spirit. John, on the other hand was still performing the Jewish ritual baptism of cleansing the body with water while at the same time emphasizing repentance, or regeneration.

In baptism, water doesn’t just symbolize the Holy Spirit. This goes to the very root of sacramental theology. In Sacraments, God ties a physical reality to a spiritual reality. Baptism is not just a washing in the Spirit. Christ inherently ties the physical Jewish ritual of baptism to the spiritual reality of the cleansing of the soul. As we are composites of both body and soul, so too does the sacrament participate in both. Without the water, there is no true baptism.

John’s baptism did not have the spiritual aspect. God had not yet united the two acts. It was in Christ’s own baptism that the two were united and it is only through Christ that the two are united in the world. John preached the baptism of repentance. This is mankind’s approach to baptism but it is not sufficient. Christ takes this human baptism of repentance and adds to it the component which can only come from God: mercy and forgiveness.

Most people forget that Christ never baptized. He only commanded his disciples to baptize “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” The institution of the Sacrament is once-for-all. Christ instituted baptism in the waters of humanity and the mercy of the Spirit. Thus, the unity of the sacrament forever resides in both when used together under the formula and command of Christ. You cannot sacramentally have one aspect of baptism without the other.

The stories surrounding the Final Witness of the Baptist help paint a picture of the confusion of mankind with regards to things of God before the coming of the Holy Spirit. Christ is flat-out telling them that through him, the waters which have previously coursed through the world take on a new meaning. In Christ, those same waters which left the person temporarily quenched and always thirsting for more, would physically carry true life with them if approached in the name of Christ. In Nicodemus, Christ is taking it one step further. It is not just repentance which is expressed in baptism. It is not even just mercy and forgiveness which found in baptism. In this washing and renewing in the Holy Spirit, man is elevated to an entirely different state of being: a birth into a life as a companion to that Holy Spirit which comes upon us in baptism.

 

[1Lord1Faith]

Ahh, I see. Very good, thank you.

I can’t help but wonder why the gospel doesn’t say whether or not the Samaritan woman was baptized by the disciples. And why not baptize her right then and there? It seems like it would be a fitting end to the story. But I guess they weren’t baptizing Samaritans?

 

[CRM_Brother]

She was not baptized immediately because Christ had not commanded them to baptize yet. It was only after the Resurrection that the command went out. No sacrament, not even the Eucharist, was celebrated or administered by the disciples before the coming of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit binds the sacraments together, thus the Spirit must be sent upon the Church before the Sacraments are enacted. Even marriage, which is considered the ‘primordial sacrament’ because it finds its roots in our very creation as man and woman finds its ultimate completion and binding between the physical and spiritual in the completion of Christ’s earthly life. We, both man and woman, are made in the image of God, which is Christ. Marriage elevates the biological union of husband and wife to reflect the spiritual union and binding of Christ and His Church. It is thus, only after the Spirit has come upon the Church at Pentecost that we say that marriage has reached its sacramental completion and full institution.

 

[mdgspencer]

Catholic theologians have through history taken what Jesus said to Nicodemus in John 3 to be about baptism. The liturgy also takes what he said them to be about baptism.
Whether or not what Jesus said to the Samaritan woman in John 4 concerns baptism has never been settled in the tradition of the Catholic Church. Most exegetes don’t raise this question. Some Catholic commentators are open to this possibility–Raymond Brown in his important commentary on the Gospel of John, for example. Personally, I think the sacrament of baptism lies in the background of what Jesus says to the Samaritan woman.
This is an interesting question.
Jesus would not have openly told the Samaritan woman that he was speaking about baptism, and that for example that the living water represents the Holy Spirit (as in John:38-39) because she would not have comprehended this. She an uneducated woman, and was not even a Jew.
He was speaking about baptism before there was a baptism? Commentators often say that Jesus was speaking of sacraments, before there were sacraments. For, example, Jesus spoke of the eucharist in John 6, before he instituted the eucharist.

 

[John_Martin]

it is not “what you know” (gnosticism and any religion of ideas for fixing yourself) it is “who you know” and being united to that one.
To ask for living water, you have to be in the actual presence of someone who can give it.
To be born again, someone other than yourself has to give birth to you “again”.
To be baptized, someone has to decide “Yes, I will baptize you,” and then that someone has to actually do it to you; you can’t just think good thoughts about giving your life to Jesus.

The woman recognized that she, and her people, needed to go to be with Jesus, and they came back with her when she told them.
Nicodemus was talking to Jesus at night, in the dark, to be with him, to find life with him even though he could not comprehend the meaning. Later he would speak up for Jesus and help bury him.

 

[1Lord1Faith]

To ask for living water, you have to be in the actual presence of someone who can give it.

According to the gospel of John many people were being baptized by the disciples while Jesus was present. Were those people receiving the “living water” which Jesus talked about giving? Were they receiving the Holy Spirit?

Jn 3:22 After this, Jesus and his disciples went into the region of Judea, where he spent some time with them baptizing.

25 Now a dispute arose between the disciples of John and a Jew about ceremonial washings. 26 So they came to John and said to him, “Rabbi, the one who was with you across the Jordan, to whom you testified, here he is baptizing and everyone is coming to him.”

Does the following verse from Lk indicate that the baptisms which Jesus’ disciples performed were more than a ceremonial washing?

Lk 16:16 “The law and the prophets lasted until John; but from then on the kingdom of God is proclaimed, and everyone who enters does so with violence.“

 

[Gorgias]

I am now wondering if the reason these two stories are there is so they can emphasize that Jesus’ way of baptizing people with the Holy Spirit is meant to be the fulfillment of the Jewish ritual baptism with water - the same baptism that John was performing.

To be fair, there isn’t a particular “Jewish ritual baptism”, per se. At least, not in the way that we (as Christians) think about ‘baptism.’ There were a number of Jewish ritual washings, but nothing that would rise to anything of the significance that we would ascribe to a Christian sacrament.

So… I don’t know that it “fulfills” anything, so to speak. However, it might point to a certain correspondence between “ritual baths” and an actual sacramental encounter with God!