Ohio Yearly Meeting's Podcast

Conservative Friends Bible Study of The Gospel of John #7

• Henry Jason

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John 3:22-30

This episode examines the distinctions between spiritual and water baptism, emphasizing the significance of inward transformation and the active participation of individuals in worship. We delve into historical context, interpretations of baptism, and the roles of disciples and apostles within the Quaker faith.

• Exploring the essence of vocal ministry in worship 
• The metaphor of Spirit as wind and its implications 
• Understanding the significance of spiritual baptism 
• Historical context of baptism in Judaism and early Christianity 
• The distinction between disciples and apostles 
• The transformational role of the Holy Spirit in faith journeys

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Chip Thomas:

Advice 24 when we gather together in worship, let us remember that there is committed to us, as disciples of Christ, a share in the priesthood. We should help one another, whether in silence or through spoken word or prayer. Let none of us assume that vocal ministry is never to be our part. If the call comes, there should be no quenching of the Spirit. Let none of us assume that vocal ministry is never to be our part If the call comes, there should be no quenching of the Spirit. The sense of our own unworthiness must not exempt us from this service, nor must a fear of being unable to find the right words, for it shall be given you, in that same hour, what ye shall speak Matthew 10.19. You, in that same hour, what ye shall speak. Matthew, chapter 10, verse 19.

Henry Jason:

This is session number seven. We are reading the gospel according to John, and we read through John, chapter 3, through verse 22. There were a couple of things I wanted to mention that I may not have mentioned last week. One thing I did say regarding verse 8, the wind blows where it chooses and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit. Again, the word for wind is the same word for Spirit. So where the wind blows, where the wind goes, the wind goes where it wants to. Likewise, the Spirit goes where it wants to. You hear the sound of it, you hear the voice of it where it wants to. You hear the sound of it, you hear the voice of it, but you don't know where it comes from or where it's going to.

Henry Jason:

And so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit. We may have mentioned it before, but in Hebrew as well as Greek, there is an identity of how the word ruach is translated Spirit, wind breath all the same.

Henry Jason:

We mentioned that last time. Ruach is the Hebrew word for breath and spirit, and the Greek word phenelma also means breath, wind and spirit. Outwardly, physically, it means breath, Inwardly spirit. Outwardly, penelma means breath or wind, Inwardly spirit. So you find both. And even the Latin word spiritus means breath and spirit.

Henry Jason:

So, depending on the translator or how it's felt to be translated, we're talking about something very concrete, physical. We're going to translate it as breath or wind. But if it's not the physical that we're talking about, we in English have a separate word for it spirit. And again, the important thing about this spirit is that it's something that moves, it's in motion, it flows. Just like I said last time, the word for water, hudor, is sometimes used for spirit, and that also is something that flows, as well as the word for oil, the oil of gladness. That is something that also flows. All these words have something to do with flowing and I like to think of this word spirit as a divine current. That might give the idea. If you all were speaking ancient Greek, you might think of this word as being current, flowing through us in the world.

Speaker 5:

Henry, the early friends seem to write pretty often about our breathings towards God. Our breathing.

Henry Jason:

Yeah, okay now, breathing in older English, early modern English, meant a silent prayer, silent praying. So when you read the word breathing in earlier English, that's the word that meant silent prayer. It's lost that meaning in modern English, but it had that meaning, as well as the physical breathing. I did mention son of man. No one has ascended into heaven except the one who has descended from heaven, the son of man. Just to remind you that the word man in Hebrew is Adam, our English word Adam.

Henry Jason:

It meant mankind or man In verse 16, for God so loved the world that he gave his only son so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. So God loved the world. He so loved the world that he gave his one ofof-a-kind son, monogamous, one-of-a-kind, unique son, so that everyone who believes in him again, who puts their trust in him, who has confidence in who he was, may not perish but may have eternal life, the life of the ages, something outside of time and space. It's not a physical kind of kingdom. I get very annoyed when I hear people talk about building the kingdom of God. No, the kingdom of God is something divine. It's already there. It's something to be entered into. It's the state of God and the word kingdom, as I've mentioned in the past, in Greek basileia more often had that sense of the realm, the dominion. It did not refer to the actual physical kingdom. We translate it as kingdom, but it's much better to translate it as the state or the dominion of God, the domain, the realm, the divine field of energy of God, something like that. And that's entering into that state is the same as having eternal life and we need to be innocent, like children, innocent, young children, pure, holy. Without holiness no one can see God.

Henry Jason:

We did talk a lot about the words condemn and judge and the point I wanted to make, not so much here but elsewhere in this gospel as well as in the other gospels, these various words I showed you last week, the basic sense, the neutral sense, is to assess, to make, to evaluate whether it's right or wrong, good or bad, and then often the other same meaning it could have is in the negative sense, so to judge something impartially, but then to judge as to condemn also, and there are specific words with specific prefixes that do mean to condemn clearly, but when the neutral form is used it could have a neutral meaning or it can also mean condemn. Just as you look at verse 19, this is the judgment that the light has come into the world. This is the judgment. This is the evaluation. This is the assessment that light has come into the world. However, however, people love darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. There is a judgment, there is an assessment being done there, an evaluation with that word judgment I think it is the word krisis, let me just floss with it.

Henry Jason:

Verses 19.

Henry Jason:

It is krisis and some of the translations give us it's the basis for judgment. Two different translators I've seen.

Henry Jason:

Well, I would just translate it as assessment or evaluation, in a neutral sense, of course. It then goes on to say what happens for those who hate the light and don't come to the light because they don't want their actions to be exposed. Okay, I think we can go on now. After this, jesus and his disciples went into the judean countryside and he spent some time there with them and baptized john also was baptizing at enon and near near Salem, because water was abundant there and people kept coming and were being baptized. John, of course, had not yet been thrown into prison. Now discussed here maybe for the new people too.

Henry Jason:

If anyone recalls this word disciple, they taste gets translated as disciple, but the basic meaning of the word is student, pupil. You recall, jesus is the rabbi, the teacher, and these are his students, and that word mathe tes is related to our English word math, mathematics. It's unfortunate in English that we do translate it as disciple, but, as again I mentioned either last week or the week before, that goes back to a Latin word, discipulus, which has that same kind of meaning pupil or student. In Latin. Have we talked about baptism here, the word baptize.

Speaker 5:

It's going to be my question, Because early Quakers got rid of baptism as a sacrament and yet here it is and I was wondering about that. That was just a question.

Henry Jason:

The basic meaning of this word in Greek is immerse, to immerse something into some other kind of liquid. It doesn't have to be water. In Greek it can be an oil or some dye or anything else. That's the basic meaning. It means to immerse. The noun is baptisma and that means immersion. Now, john was immersing people into the water there, the Jordan and elsewhere probably, and it was an immersion of repentance, if you recall, and this rite of immersion still exists in Judaism, but it basically, even then, was something that was being done to converts. But what john was doing was even doing this to people who were jewish already. This baptism of repentance and immersion into repentant, into this need to transform one's thinking, one's whole psychic being, paradigm, shift in thinking and action and words and everything related to that change in thinking.

Speaker 5:

Henry, in answer to the question that was just posed in Barclay. He seems to be saying that we still have baptism, but it's a spiritual baptism rather than water baptism.

Henry Jason:

Yes, well, we'll get to that. I'm forgetting where that comes up soon, where it will say something about the difference between the baptism of Jesus and the baptism of John.

Speaker 7:

Misconception. I feel among many Christians that baptism is a rite that was invented by Christians. But baptism predated the coming of Christ in Judaism by a long time and, as Henry said, when people were entered into as members of the Jewish community, they were immersed outwardly in water Right. And also it's good to remember that John said I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Spirit.

Henry Jason:

Right, that's what I think I want. I was just trying to tell Karen that phrase. I just wanted to mention that distinction, those things.

Speaker 7:

And I'll just add that among Christians everybody condemns the Quakers because they don't baptize. But among all the Christians that that do baptize there's so many disputes and differences about how to do it some sprinkles, some say you have to be immersed, some say once is enough, some say try an immersion three times, some say you should be dunked forward, some say backwards. My point is there are all these different things that they argue about how to do it properly and whole sects have been developed about how you baptize, like there's a group that they say it's trying immersion in a liquid stream. It has to be running water, not just a pot of water. So baptism has been a big deal among Christians, but nothing they agree on that.

Henry Jason:

All use the water big deal among Christians, but nothing they agree on that all use the water. Early friends made an interesting comment about baptism that so many of the other rites and rituals of the Jews were laid aside. Baptism in water should also have been laid aside, but it became this kind of introduction. It continued as a rite, but there. But there was again this focus on the water more than what was really needed, which is this focus on this immersion into the spirit.

Henry Jason:

If you go to matthew, to the very last chapter, there's the great commission, commission. This is, uh, chapter 28, verse 19. I'll read what that says here and then I'll retranslate it. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. Well, if we use the word immerse and take away that outward water connotation, go, therefore, and make students of all nations, immersing them into the Greek word says, into, into the name, into the basic nature, that spiritual nature of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything that I've commanded you. That is the sense that friends have understood, this real, true sense, the water is irrelevant. It's the inward change, not the outward water. It's the inward water, that inward spirit, that inward breath that matters.

Speaker 5:

So would it then be accurate to say that we do have baptism, but it is spiritual baptism?

Henry Jason:

Oh, yes, we do have baptism, absolutely. It's important to explain to other Christian denominations that our baptism is the true baptism, that this is what you should really be focusing on, and that is the change in the inward nature of a person in terms of immersing them into the spiritual things of God, into the spiritual essence and nature of what is God as Father, as Son and as Holy Spirit, as Holy Current. These are the things that matter. That's why I began this whole series very much earlier with talking about inward and outward. As Thomas Evans said, we are a religion of the Spirit. We are a spiritual religion. We're not a religion of rites and rituals and outward ceremonies and lots of outward things. What matters is the inward, the spiritual, and this was also true if you read a number of the writings of early Christians. They really focused on the Holy Spirit, that holy current.

Henry Jason:

A quick comment and then a question. The comment is that, for those who believe in and practice and strongly urge total immersion, they pick up on this phrase much water and therefore sprinkling doesn't do it, so it's got to be lots of water or, polis, many springs.

Henry Jason:

The thing is that they're focusing so much on the outward. What matters is the inward, the interior, the spiritual, the non-physical, that inward divine truth. And that was the focus of friends to try to get people away from the superficial, the surface kinds of things, all the outward things. There may be nothing wrong with them in themselves, but they do become red herrings and people pay more attention to oh what kind of water it is where it is, and you know you can spend forever on that. And look at how the Bible itself gets interpreted again and again by thousands of different Christian denominations that don't agree with each other on so many things. And many of these fights are over outward kinds of understandings.

Henry Jason:

My question has to do with the mataitis, the word translated as disciple, and I'm wondering what is the contrast, or are they interchangeable, between apostles and disciples? Are apostles just those that were in the 12 and maybe expanded?

Henry Jason:

math, a taste student, pupil disciple. The root of that word is the root in the word for learn, monthano. So these are the learners. Jesus is the teacher. These guys are the learners now. Apostle, apostle apostolos. The verb is apostello, which means to kind of send out as an envoy, and it doesn't only refer to the 12 apostles. You find that word used elsewhere in the New Testament. You have that distinction of the 12.

Henry Jason:

Well, Paul said that he was an apostle. Yeah, right.

Henry Jason:

And in Friends writings they often talk about the apostle, meaning specifically Paul.

Henry Jason:

Well, the reason I ask it is that it says that Jesus and his disciples, etc. But I want us to appreciate that it's not exclusive, especially following on the Great Commission, you know, making disciples Anybody who follows is a disciple. There's a whole denomination called Disciples of Christ.

Henry Jason:

Let me just take one quick look at the Greek there, having gone out, make students of all peoples, of all nations by immersing them, or immersing them into the name, into the basic nature, into the essence.

Speaker 5:

The essence of God is the power, that divine power, of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Holy current. One more thing about literalism. John the baptist says that christ will, will baptize with the holy spirit and fire, and nobody ever seems to take fire baptism literally does he want to be the first? Thanks, I'll pass, I'll take it spiritually okay, what does fire do a greek?

Henry Jason:

I mean all right, let's.

Speaker 8:

This is the word poor, right okay henry, does that fire baptism have any relation to the discussion of um having your children pass through the fire in the Old Testament you mean the three children. No, it seems like frequently followers of Baal would have their children pass through the fire.

Henry Jason:

Oh no, I don't think so. In this case, the word pour Fire is understood to give light. Okay, that's one sense. And then fire also can totally annihilate something. Well, you got the word phos, and that's the fire that we translate as light. Okay, and I'm just blanking out on the form of this word here Pour, or is it pour us, which is fire? But this is the fire that completely consumes, that destroys. All that's left are ashes. I think that's where we get pyrotechnic. That's the pyre that you see people burning dead bodies on.

Henry Jason:

Pyrotechnic.

Henry Jason:

General pyre right. So in that sense that kind of fire is understood to completely end something. I mean it's terminated. And this is when you think of hell, fire or the lake of fire, as it's called in the New Testament and Thessalonians and elsewhere, of being completely consumed by fire, completely obliterated, extinguished, being in a lake of fire. I think we'll probably get to this word again, henry.

Speaker 2:

I have another question on baptism, and I don't know if this is the time to mention it or save it for another time, but I'm still trying to grasp it. As we look at how baptism is mentioned in scripture, trying to grasp it, as we look at how baptism is mentioned in scripture, one thing that comes to my mind is the eighth chapter of acts. In the philip, in the ethiopian because you know it's where, let's see, in the eighth chapter of acts they traveled along the road and they came to some water and anyway the elp look, here's water. Why should I be baptized? You know that story there. So it seems like we see the practice of baptism mentioned several times in Scripture and this is an act which I thought reflected the early church. My understanding is the same that you and Jack and others had mentioned tonight in terms of friends. That's my belief and feelings as well too, but I just want to understand the significance of why they were practicing at that time.

Henry Jason:

Again, what early friends talked about is that this rite continued, but that it should have, like all the other rites, ended, became a rite of initiation into becoming a Christian, a physical rite, but on the other hand, what is more important was more important was the spiritual initiation into being baptized, into the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. That's what really matters. Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. That's what really matters. The kind of water and all the other stuff that should have disappeared. It didn't. And then, of course, you know, there was no baptizing of babies initially in Christianity, but then that became the most common thing, I think.

Henry Jason:

You see, there's a lot, I guess, to say about all that, but this word is used elsewhere in the New Testament. I wish I could bring up all the examples. Now, you know, being baptized into the death and resurrection of Jesus, being immersed into that spiritual understanding of the death to the ego, to the self. Paul says I am no longer ego. I in Greek is ego. I am no longer alive, rather, in Greek is ego. I am no longer alive, rather, christ is alive in me, christ liveth in me.

Speaker 2:

One of the things I've been pursuing for probably the last 15 years is, you know, you'll hear it called the search for the historic Jesus or the Jesus class. But I have gone through so much and it's just like I keep peeling back the layers of tradition and practice. And one of the things I treasure about my relationship and the faith of friends is, I feel like, even when people say we want to be the New Testament church, I don't think the New Testament church, right following maybe the initial teachings of Jesus and his resurrection, really captured the full understanding of the significance of his ministry and his work. So to me I feel like as friends, we really go back to the very essence of Jesus and experience him in a very personal, intimate way that even the early church, which so many churches and denominations want to be a New Testament church, missed out. So anyway, just a sort of a thought. I may not have worded it too well, but I hope y'all caught the essence of it yeah, I understand that.

Speaker 2:

That means I really, even when I read this, I I'm, in total, uh, understanding the friends.

Henry Jason:

Yeah, I mean, if you recall, at at the grave, when the women saw this vision of angels and they were asked who you seek. He has risen, he's no longer here. Sorry, I'm just blanking out on where, what, where that verse is. So you know, don't look anymore for the physical.

Speaker 6:

He's risen there are a couple other points too that friends have made from scripture that john pointed out that he would decrease. But yeah, we'll get to that right increase yeah, we're getting to that. And also peter and the disciples continued to do other jewish rites, like circumcision, when people came to believe in their church after Jesus rose again. But he and Paul for a little while had a disagreement about that. But Paul said this is no longer. Well, I guess they thought the, the Greeks who came to Christ should become Jews, and he said that they don't need those extra Jewish rights to know Jesus.

Henry Jason:

There were followers of Jesus after his resurrection who felt that they should continue to follow all the rules and regulations as outlined in the Old Testament. You know there's 613 rules there, but they weren't predominant, but they were there. And then you had the Nazarites, if that's the right word. I'm thinking of the Ebonites, my mind's a little hazy on the names, but these felt that you should continue with all the Jewish laws and regulations. It was Peter, you know, specifically at the Council of Jerusalem in the year 50 AD, that said it was okay to have these non-Jewish people who are serious in their religious understanding and devotion to the Christ that they've learned about, that they didn't need to go through circumcision and all the other rites and rituals, and this was a dramatic change of course. And the rest is history.

Speaker 5:

Barclay seemed to say that it was done sometimes as a concession to people's weakness.

Henry Jason:

Yes, right Even Paul talks about this that you may have the freedom to do something, but if someone who is new and perhaps still shaky in the faith is scandalized by what you're doing because he feels you should be doing something more in the traditional, say Jewish, way, then you shouldn't do it in front of them. You may have that freedom, you may understand, but you have to be aware that people take time to change and to grow spiritually. That's true even today for us.

Speaker 7:

Henry, it looks like you were thinking of the Nazarenes and the.

Chip Thomas:

Ebionites.

Henry Jason:

Yes, the Nazarenes, that's right, and the Ebionites. I don't know if one of those groups, too, did not see jesus as being divine, although they saw him as a great leader and they were following him. So there were various christian groups in the first century, and there were these jewish christians who were really opposed to paul in terms of his going out to the non-jews in the Roman empires. You don't learn about this in you know by reading the Bible, but some of the records that have been left explain some of these things. You can see what was going on. It was much more complex than might seem today.

Speaker 8:

This is a little off topic, but do you recall where in the Old Testament it describes the Jewish tradition of baptizing?

Henry Jason:

I don't actually remember a specific passage in terms of like those that they're proselytizing and who want to become Jews. I think one of the major problems perhaps for the adults who wanted to become Jews the male adults was circumcision. That would be difficult to take as an adult. So you had these people who really were interested in Judaism but they didn't become Jews and they were called the God-fearers. You'll find that expression used in the New Testament, but that refers to these people who are very much enamored by what the Jews' religion was, but they didn't take that final step. I don't know, jack, does he know where that might be that in the Old Testament? I can't think of anything. It may not even be there. It may be, you know, through oral tradition and other writings of Jews In the Book of.

Speaker 7:

Acts. It details the struggle between those that thought the Jewish ritual should be preserved and those that thought they shouldn't. You can read about that in the Book of Acts, and there are two centers of early Christianity.

Speaker 7:

One was at Jerusalem and they tended to be more strictly Jewish. And then north of Jerusalem was a city called Antioch, and in Antioch that's where a lot of the missions to the West Paul and others went from, antioch. Antioch was less inclined towards maintaining the Jewish traditions. And finally they had a council in Jerusalem in which they concluded that they would only ask four things of the converts that they don't eat. What are those four things?

Henry Jason:

Henry One had to do with meat that's from an animal that's been killed by strangling. Oh boy, I knew them and I can't remember them now. Somewhere in the New Testament Paul mentions this. It might be actually an axe, but I just can't recall at the moment. Maybe next week we can. I'll dig it up. Let's get back here. It's almost time to finish. Let me just see we left off at now.

Henry Jason:

A discussion about purification arose between john's disciples and a jew. 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 all are going to him. John answered no one can receive anything except what has been given from heaven. You yourselves are my witnesses that I said. I am not the Messiah, but I have been sent ahead of him. He who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom who stands and hears him rejoices greatly at the bridegroom's voice. For this reason, my joy has been fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease. As Nancy was just reciting earlier Now in this verse 25, a discussion about purification arose between John's disciples and a Jew.

Henry Jason:

As I've mentioned in the past here, the word for Jew eudios has two meanings in this gospel. It can mean one a person who is ethnically a Jew Paul was a Jew, jesus was a Jew. And then the second meaning is a meaning that developed because, as I mentioned, this gospel was written some 50, 60 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus and a lot had happened between other Jews and these new Jewish Christians, so that the term also could mean any of the Jewish leaders and their followers who were opposed to Jesus, the disciples of Jesus, the Jesus movement. And so you need to know which of those two meanings is being used when you read this gospel here. Obviously, and a Jew, that's probably an ethnic Jew.

Henry Jason:

And in verse 28, I am not the Messiah. He's also saying, if you want to translate it I am not the Christ, I am not the anointed one. They all mean the same. The anointed one means the one anointed with the Holy Spirit. He had the Spirit fully rubbed into him. And then finally, in verse 30, he must increase, but I must decrease. The followers of John, I believe, continued for another two or three hundred years, if I'm not mistaken. So they were not a small group, they were known. But this is interesting to have this comment here.

Henry Jason:

Henry, I'm interested in the context of this whether this is a particular polemic against those who are still following John, and I also wonder if the same exchange happens in the synoptics I don't have that in front of me or if John has a particular interest in pushing back against those who are continuing a disciple of John the Baptist.

Henry Jason:

I'm not so sure. It's like a real strong polemic because, you have to remember, some of these disciples of John became disciples of Jesus and even Jesus himself was baptized with water by John. And, of course, the more important thing was descent of the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove. Again, the dove is a concrete symbol and it didn't mean peace at that time, it meant love, that Jesus experienced God as a God of love. God is love.

Henry Jason:

I think so many people again are focusing in on the water stuff, but it's. And then the voice from heaven said that God is saying you know, you are my beloved son, you are my son, my beloved one. Today I have begotten you, Today I have fathered you, and that's the realization Jesus is having there. And it was after the baptism, after the 40 days in the desert, that he went out in his ministry. Okay, I think we'll stop there. Any further questions or comments? Okay, well, thanks, friends, and I'll see you again, some on Thursday, fifth day, and some next week. And if there are any questions you have any comments? With those questions I asked earlier, please just relay them to me, All right? Okay, so take care everyone.

Chip Thomas:

Thanks everyone, thanks, thank you, henry.

Henry Jason:

Thank you, henry, thank you everyone, bye.

Chip Thomas:

This podcast has been a production of Ohio Yearly Meeting. It was hosted by Henry Jason and edited by Kim Palmer. The introduction and credits were read by Chip Thomas. The quote in our introduction is from the Queries and Advices section of Ohio Yearly Meeting's Book of Discipline. A link to that book can be found in the show notes to this episode. We welcome feedback on this or any of our podcast episodes. We can be contacted through our website, ohioearningmeetingorg.