Episode 76: Year B – 6th Sunday of Easter
There are three details that I want to focus on in the readings for this upcoming 6th Sunday of Easter, Year B. The first two come from the first reading, which recounts the event involving. Cornelius and his Gentile friends, taken from Acts 10:25-26, 34-35, 44-48. The apologetical topic that both details relate to is the Sacrament of Baptism. The third detail is found in the Gospel reading, taken from John 15:9-17. The topic that comes to the fore, like in last week’s Gospel, is the relationship that our good works have with our salvation.
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Hey everyone,
Welcome to The Sunday Catholic Word, a podcast where we reflect on the upcoming Sunday Mass readings and pick out the details that are relevant for explaining and defending our Catholic faith.
I’m Karlo Broussard, staff apologist and speaker for Catholic Answers, and the host for this podcast.
There are three details that I want to focus on in the readings for this upcoming 6th Sunday of Easter, Year B. The first two come from the first reading, which recounts the event involving. Cornelius and his Gentile friends, taken from Acts 10:25-26, 34-35, 44-48. The apologetical topic that both details relate to is the Sacrament of Baptism. The third detail is found in the Gospel reading, taken from John 15:9-17. The topic that comes to the fore, like in last week’s Gospel, is the relationship that our good works have with our salvation.
Let’s get started with the first reading. Here’s what Luke records:
When Peter entered, Cornelius met him
and, falling at his feet, paid him homage.
Peter, however, raised him up, saying,
“Get up. I myself am also a human being.”
Then Peter proceeded to speak and said,
“In truth, I see that God shows no partiality.
Rather, in every nation whoever fears him and acts uprightly
is acceptable to him.”
While Peter was still speaking these things,
the Holy Spirit fell upon all who were listening to the word.
The circumcised believers who had accompanied Peter
were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit
should have been poured out on the Gentiles also,
for they could hear them speaking in tongues and glorifying God.
Then Peter responded,
“Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people,
who have received the Holy Spirit even as we have?”
He ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.
The first detail that I want to highlight here is Luke’s report that Cornelius and his friends received the Holy Spirit before they were baptized: “Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people, who have received the Holy Spirit even as we have” (v.47).
The Catechism teaches that baptism is “necessary for salvation” because “God has bound salvation to the sacrament,” and that the Church “does not know of any means other than baptism that assures entry into eternal beatitude” (1257).
But some Protestants, such as the late Norman Geisler and Ralph MacKenzie, in their book Roman Catholics and Evangelicals: Agreements and Differences, think this teaching on the necessity of baptism contradicts what Luke reports to us concerning Cornelius and his Gentile friends receive an outpouring of the Holy Spirit without baptism. Luke tells us that it was only after they received the Spirit that Peter baptized Cornelius and the others with him.
For these Protestants, if it’s not necessary to be baptized in order to receive the Spirit, this is clear evidence that baptism is not necessary for salvation.
I deal with this objection in both my books Meeting the Protestant Challenge: How to Answer 50 Biblical Objections to Catholic Beliefs and Meeting the Protestant Response: How to Answer Common Comebacks to Catholic Arguments. Here are a few of the responses that I give in those resources.
One response is that someone could reasonably interpret this reception of the Holy Spirit not as an instance of salvation, but simply as a visible confirmation that membership in God’s family is extended to the Gentiles.
We’re told that when the Holy Spirit fell upon Cornelius and the other Gentiles present, the “believers from among the circumcised who came with Peter were amazed because the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles” (v. 45). They knew that this had happened because “they heard them speaking in tongues and extolling God.” It seems that God gave his Spirit to convince the circumcised what Peter had said at the outset of his speech in verse 34 that “God shows no partiality” and that “in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.”
On the interpretation that this event is an instance of salvation, receiving the Holy Spirit before baptism was fitting in this case, an exceptional case, given the need for a public demonstration of God’s approval of the admission of Gentiles into the Church without the conditions of submitting to the Jewish ceremonial laws. Peter (Acts 10:9-16) and Cornelius (Acts 10:3-7) had both received private visions, but this occasion provided public evidence.[i] This line of argumentation is taken up by C.S. Dessain, in the article “The Acts of the Apostles,” in A Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture, 1022.
With the public evidence of God’s approval, the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem who were hesitant to admit Gentiles into the Church (see Acts 11:2,3) could no longer be reasonably opposed to their admission. Many ceased their opposition (see Acts 11:4-18), but some remained (Acts 15:1-2), which gave rise to the Council of Jerusalem, where Peter settled the debate (Acts 15:6-29).
This interpretation is consistent with Catholic teaching because the necessity of baptism is not absolute. Catholic teaching allows for the belief that God can administer the graces of baptism without the sacrament. As the Catechism states, “God has bound salvation to the sacrament of baptism, but he himself is not bound by his sacraments” (1257). The event involving Cornelius and his Gentile friends could have been one of these cases where God acts without the sacrament.
For the evidence that the Bible teaches that baptism saves us, see my book Meeting the Protestant Challenge.
The second detail that has apologetical significance is Luke’s report that Peter commanded Cornelius and his Gentile friends to be baptized “in the name of Jesus.” For some, such as Oneness Pentecostals, this passage is proof that the only valid formula for baptism is “in the name of Jesus.”
This is apologetically significant because for us as Catholics, including many of Christians, the Trinitarian formula is what we must use for a valid baptism. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches in paragraph 1240 that a proper form for administering baptism is “I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”
So, the question arises, “Why is the Church saying that we can baptize with the Trinitarian formula when all the baptisms in the Bible are done ‘in the name of Jesus’?”
Here are few ways to meet this challenge, all of which can be found in my book Meeting the Protestant Challenge.
First, a self-professed Christian can’t reject the validity of the Trinitarian formula because Jesus commands the apostles to use it when they baptize: “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” (Matt. 28:19). Those who pose the above challenge, therefore, at least have to acknowledge that the Trinitarian formula is valid since it comes from the lips of the Master himself.
Second, when compared to Jesus’ instruction to use the Trinitarian formula in Matthew 28:19, this passage found in the book of Acts doesn’t seem to refer to the actual formula that must be used in administering the sacrament.
Notice how in Matthew 28:19 Jesus is privately addressing only the eleven (Matt. 28:16) whom he is sending to perform baptisms. In context, it makes sense that Jesus would be telling them exactly how to do it.
Contrast this with, for example, Peter’s injunction in Acts 10. This takes place in a public setting and is given to those who would receive baptism—not to those who would be performing it. It would not seem to be as vitally important for those receiving the sacrament to know the precise formula as for those performing it, right?
Moreover, Luke does not record what Peter said specifically. He merely narrates in summary form, “And he [Peter] commanded them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.” It doesn’t seem that Luke intends to say that the words “in the name of Jesus” were Peter’s instructions for the actual words to be used in administering baptism.
If the phrase “in the name of Jesus” doesn’t refer to the baptismal formula in the above passage, then what does it refer to? A reasonable interpretation is that the early Church used “in the name of Jesus” to distinguish Jesus’s baptism from other contemporary types of baptism, such as Johannine baptism, the baptisms among the Qumran sectaries, and even Jewish ritual washings.
Baptisms were not exclusive to Christians. This is obvious, given the baptism of repentance that John the Baptist administered (Matt. 3:13-14, 21:25; Acts 1:22, 10:37). Baptism was also a common practice among the Qumran communities, which sought to unite cleansing, repentance, and the hope of the Spirit (see Ezekiel 36:25-27) in actual immersions (cf. 1QS [known as The Rule of community] 3:6–9; 1QH [known as the Thanksgiving scroll] 11:12–14).
Even the Jewish ceremonial washings could be considered a baptism of sorts. For example, in Luke 11:37-38 the Pharisees invite Jesus to dine with him, and Luke tells us that the Pharisees were “astonished to see that he [Jesus] did not first wash before dinner.” The Greek word for “wash” is baptizō.
Similarly, in Mark 7 we’re told that when the Pharisees return from the market place, they do not eat unless they first “purify” (Greek, baptisontai) themselves (v.3). Other traditions involve the “washing” (Greek, baptismous) of cups and vessels (v.4). So Jewish ceremonial washings could be considered as a sort of “baptism.”
With all the other baptisms being performed at the time of Christ, and with the Jewish ritual “baptismal” washings, there would be a need to distinguish the Christian baptism—“in the name of Jesus”—from all these other kinds of baptisms.
We see this play out in Acts 19, where Paul approaches new believers in Ephesus and asks them if they had received the Holy Spirit. The new believers respond to the inquiry, “No, we have never even heard that there is a Holy Spirit” (v.2). Paul then asks, “Into what then were you baptized?” The Ephesian believers respond, “Into John’s baptism” (v.3).
Paul replies by articulating the difference between John’s baptism and the baptism of Jesus (v.4), and baptizes them “in the name of Jesus” (v.5). In light of the context, “in the name of Jesus” signifies that they were baptized into Jesus with Jesus’s baptism and not John’s.
We find something similar in the Didache, a first-century Christian catechism (circa A.D. 70-90). In chapter seven, it gives the Trinitarian formula as the words to use for baptism. And then in chapter nine, it refers back to that same baptism as baptism “in the name of the Lord” (9,5). So for the early Christians baptism “in the name of the Lord” signified Trinitarian baptism.
A final thing that we can say in response to this challenge is that Paul’s conversation with the Ephesian believers in Acts 19 hints to the fact that the Trinitarian formula was indeed a common formula used in the early Church. Note how when the believers in Ephesus inform Paul that they had never heard of the Holy Spirit, Paul immediately asks, “Into what then were you baptized?” (v.3).
The implication is that if they had been baptized with the baptism of Jesus and not only with the baptism of John, they would have heard about the Holy Spirit. This suggests that the early Christians were using the Trinitarian formula when they baptized. You can’t undergo a Christian baptism and never hear about the Holy Spirit!
So not only does the “in the name of Jesus” passage fail to prove that “in the name of Jesus” is the only valid form to use for baptism, but there is good biblical evidence that the Trinitarian formula is the valid formula for administering the sacrament.
Okay, let’s turn to the Gospel reading for this upcoming Sunday. Again, it’s taken from John 15:9-17. Jesus says to his disciples,
“As the Father loves me, so I also love you.
Remain in my love.
If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love,
just as I have kept my Father’s commandments
and remain in his love.
“I have told you this so that my joy may be in you
and your joy might be complete.
This is my commandment: love one another as I love you.
No one has greater love than this,
to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
You are my friends if you do what I command you.
I no longer call you slaves,
because a slave does not know what his master is doing.
I have called you friends,
because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father.
It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you
and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain,
so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you.
This I command you: love one another.”
The detail that I want to briefly comment on is Jesus’ teaching, “If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love.” We had an opportunity to reflect on a similar detail in last week’s episode when we commented on John’s teaching in 1 John 3:24: “Those who keep his commandments remain in him, and he in them, and the way we know that he remains in us is from the Spirit he gave us.” Here, we have another opportunity to do the same.
The apologetical significance of the detail is that it shows that Jesus wills our good works to play a role in our salvation. As we mentioned in our last episode, Paul teaches us in Romans 8:1, “There is […] no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” To be free from condemnation is just another way of saying, “we’re saved.” Therefore, to be in Christ is to be saved.
In our Gospel reading for this upcoming Sunday, Jesus speaks of remaining in his love. Well, we can’t be in his love unless we are in Him. So, this is just another way of speaking about remaining in Christ. Since to be in Christ is to be free from condemnation, and thus saved, and to be in Christ’s love is to be in Christ, it follows that to remain in Jesus’ love is to be free from condemnation and thereby be saved.
Now, what’s the condition for remaining in Jesus’ love, or to state it differently, to remain in a saving relationship with Jesus? He says, “keep my commandments.”
Well, Jesus’ commandment is to love on another, which is expressed in deeds. As John writes in 1 John 3:18, “Little children, let us not love in word or speech but in deed and in truth.” So, loving in deeds, or good works, is the way we remain in Christ’s love, and therefore is the way we remain free from condemnation and in a saving relationship with Jesus.
From this it follows that good works do have a role to play in our salvation: they preserve salvation for us, which, as we mentioned in last week’s episode, is exactly what the Council of Trent taught concerning our good works and the relationship they have with our salvation.
Conclusion
So, the readings for this upcoming 6th Sunday of Easter provides us several details that are ripe with apologetical significance.
- The story of Cornelius and his Gentile friends receiving baptism after they receive the Holy Spirit gives us an opportunity to reflect on the relationship that the Sacrament of Baptism has to our salvation.
- Peter’s instruction for Cornelius and his friends to be baptized in the name of Jesus provides us an opportunity to reflect on the proper formula for a valid baptism, and
- Jesus’ teaching to keep his commandments to remain in his love provides an opportunity to reflect on the relationship that our good works have with our salvation.
Well, this brings us to the end of this week’s episode of the Sunday Catholic Word.
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I hope you have a blessed 6th Sunday of Easter, Year B. Until next time, God Bless!
[i] This line of argumentation was taken from C.S. Dessain, “The Acts of the Apostles,” in A Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture, eds. B. Orchard and E.F. Sutcliffe (New York: Thomas Nelson, 1953), 1022.