For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. Allelujah!

"For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. Allelujah!

Saint John of Damascus: Concerning Faith and Baptism

- The Eight Baptisms

We confess one baptism for the remission of sins and for life eternal. For baptism declares the Lord's death. We are indeed buried with the Lord through baptism (Colossians 2:12), as says the divine Apostle. So then, as our Lord died once for all, we also must be baptized once for all, and baptized according to the Word of the Lord, In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19), being taught the confession in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. …

Now we are baptized into the Holy Trinity because those things which are baptized have need of the Holy Trinity for their maintenance and continuance, and the three subsistences cannot be otherwise than present, the one with the other. For the Holy Trinity is indivisible.

1. The first baptism was that of the flood for the eradication of sin.

 

2. The second (Genesis 7:17) was through the sea and the cloud: for the cloud is the symbol of the Spirit and the sea of the water. (1 Corinthians 10:1) [at Exodus, in Sinai]

3.  The third baptism was that of the Law: for every impure person washed himself with water, and even washed his garments, and so entered into the camp. (Leviticus 14:8) [at Exodus, in Sinai]

4. The fourth was that of John, being preliminary and leading those who were baptized to repentance, that they might believe in Christ: I, indeed, he said, baptize you with water; but He that comes after me, He will baptize you in the Holy Spirit and in fire. (Matthew 3:11) Thus John's purification with water was preliminary to receiving the Spirit. 

5. The fifth was the baptism of our Lord, whereby He Himself was baptized. Now He is baptized not as Himself requiring purification but as making my purification His own, that He may break the heads of the dragons on the water, that He may wash away sin and bury all the old Adam in water, that He may sanctify the Baptist, that He may fulfil the Law, that He may reveal the mystery of the Trinity, that He may become the type and ensample to us of baptism. 

But we, too, are baptized in the perfect baptism of our Lord, the baptism by water and the Spirit. Moreover, Christ is said to baptize with fire: because in the form of flaming tongues He poured forth on His holy disciples the grace of the Spirit: as the Lord Himself says, John truly baptized with water: but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit and with fire, not many days hence: (Acts 1:5) or else it is because of the baptism of future fire wherewith we are to be chastised. 

6. The sixth is that by repentance and tears, which baptism is truly grievous. 

7. The seventh is baptism by blood and martyrdom, which baptism Christ Himself underwent in our behalf, (Luke 12:50) He Who was too august and blessed to be defiled with any later stains. 

8. The eighth is the last, which is not saving, but which destroys evil: for evil and sin no longer have sway: yet it punishes without end.

Further, the Holy Spirit descended in bodily form as a dove, indicating the first fruits of our baptism and honoring the body: since even this, that is the body, was God by the deification; and besides the dove was wont formerly to announce the cessation of the flood. But to the holy Apostles He came down in the form of fire: for He is God, and God is a consuming fire. (Deuteronomy 4:24)

Olive oil is employed in baptism as a significant of our anointing, and as making us anointed, and as announcing to us through the Holy Spirit God's pity: for it was the fruit of the olive that the dove brought to those who were saved from the flood. (Genesis 8:11)

John was baptized, putting his hand upon the divine head of his Master, and with his own blood.

It does not behoove us to delay baptism when the faith of those coming forward is testified to by their works. For he that comes forward deceitfully to baptism will receive condemnation rather than benefit.

- From Saint John of Damascus, An Exposition of the Orthodox Faith (Chapter 9)

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Photos: Baptisms in Saint Catherine’s Monastery in Sinai (several years ago), from Svetlana Folomeshkina’s site:

https://icxod.ru/kreshhenie-na-sinae/