Ran across this fascinating comment by Gregory of Nyssa, from his book on the baptism of our Lord. He discusses how Elijah's sacrifice prefigures Christian baptism. I am not offering this interpretation as a definitive interpretation of this text, but...as the Church Fathers so often do, they are homiletically applying the texts and helping their hearers draw connections, mindful that all Scripture is suitable for teaching and that all the things that happened in the Old Testament occurred for the sake of the Church and the New Testament. Here then is Gregory's interesting observation:
The marvelous sacrifice of the old Tishbite [Elijah] that passes all human understanding, what else does it do but prefigure in action the Faith in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and redemption? For when all the people of the Hebrews had trodden underfoot the religion of their fathers, and fallen into the error of polytheism, and their king Ahab was deluded by idolatry, with Jezebel, of ill-omened name, as the wicked partner of his life, and the vile prompter of his impiety, the prophet, filled with the grace of the Spirit, coming to a meeting with Ahab. He withstood the priests of Baal in a marvelous and wondrous contest in the sight of the king and all the people. By proposing to them the task of sacrificing the bullock without fire, he displayed them in a ridiculous and wretched plight, vainly praying and crying aloud to gods that were not. At last, invoking His his own and the true God, he accomplished the test proposed with further exaggerations and additions. For he did not simply pray and bring down the fire from heaven upon the wood when it was dry, but exhorted and enjoined the attendants to bring an abundance of water. And when he had poured out, three times, the barrels upon the cut wood, he kindled at his prayer the fire from out of the water, that by the contrariety of the elements, so concurring in friendly cooperation, he might show with superabundant force the power of his own God. Now herein, by that wondrous sacrifice, Elijah clearly proclaimed to us the sacramental rite of Baptism that should afterwards be instituted. For the fire was kindled by water thrice poured upon it, so that it is clearly shown that where the mystic water is, there is the kindling, warm, and fiery Spirit, that burns up the ungodly, and illuminates the faithful. Yes, and yet again his disciple Elisha, when Naaman the Syrian, who was diseased with leprosy, had come to him as a suppliant, cleanses the sick man by washing him in Jordan, clearly indicating what should come, both by the use of water generally, and by the dipping in the river in particular. For Jordan alone of rivers, receiving in itself the first-fruits of sanctification and benediction, conveyed in its channel to the whole world, as it were from some fount in the type afforded by itself, the grace of Baptism. These then are indications in deed and act of regeneration by Baptism. Let us for the rest consider the prophecies of it in words and language. Isaiah cried saying, “Wash you, make you clean, put away evil from your souls;” and David, “Draw nigh to Him and be enlightened, and your faces shall not be ashamed.” And Ezekiel, writing more clearly and plainly than them both, says, “And I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be cleansed: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I give you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh, and my Spirit will I put within you.”
Gregory of Nyssa, On the Baptism of Christ in The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers Second Series Vol. V:522. (Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems).
Recent Comments