[SDG]

Did John believe his baptism caused sin washing ... or did he believe that this could only happen looking at Christ through faith looking forward to his sacrifice?

According to Mark 1:4 and Luke 3:3, John the Baptist preached "a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins" (baptisma metanoias eis aphesin hamartiôn).

In other words, John preached the possibility of forgiveness of sins on the condition of repentance; the reception of this offer of forgiveness was expressed symbolically by submitting to being dipped in water (the Jordan River) by John. This accounts for why John received the epithet "the baptizer" or "the dipper." (For use of the metaphor of washing with water to convey the idea of eschatological cleansing from sin, see Ezek 36:25-29a; Isa 4:3-5; 1QS 4.19-22.)

So it is explained that Jews from Judea and Jerusalem submitted to being baptized by John while confessing their sins (Mark 1:5; Matt 3:6).
John did not believe sins were forgiven because of his followers were baptized but rather they were baptized because of their repentance.

John the Baptist even pointed to belief in Christ as linked to eternal life and not these ritual cleansings.

In John 3 we find this account:

Quote:

An argument developed between some of John's disciples and a certain Jew over the matter of ceremonial washing. 26They came to John and said to him, "Rabbi, that man who was with you on the other side of the Jordan—the one you testified about—well, he is baptizing, and everyone is going to him."

**** Notice that his disciples were discussing mikvehs and were also concerned about the baptisms of Jesus.

Of which part of John's response to his disciples is:

Quote:

34For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God gives the Spirit without limit. 35The Father loves the Son and has placed everything in his hands. 36Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him."

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It should be noted that there exists a reference to John the Baptist in Josephus' Antiquities (18.116-118).

Quote:

But to some Jews the destruction of Herod's army seemed to be divine vengeance, and certainly a just vengeance, for his treatment of John, surnamed the Baptist. For Herod had put him to death, though he was a good man and had exhorted (keleuonta) the Jews to lead righteous lives (areten epaskousin), to practice justice towards their fellows and piety towards God (ta pros allelous dikaiosune kai pros ton theon eusebeia chromenois), and so doing to join in baptism. In his view this was a necessary preliminary if baptism was to be acceptable to God. They must not employ it to gain pardon for whatever sins they committed, but as a consecration of the body (hagneia tou somatos) implying that the soul was already thoroughly cleansed by righteousness.

One commentary about Josephus remarks states:

Although he often accommodates his language to Hellenistic thought in his description of Jewish theological beliefs, thereby causing some distortion of meaning, Josephus seems to give an accurate description of the content of John's message. Probably only John's alleged distinction between the cleansing of the "soul" and the "body" is so Hellenized as to need paraphrasing into more Semitic expression. Josephus makes four points about John's message.

* John exhorted Jews to begin to live righteous lives towards one another and towards God. In other words, John preached the necessity of what Jews referred to as repentance (teshuvah), the turning from sin to obedience to the Law.

* John required that those who responded to his exhortation to undergo an immersion in water (baptism).

* John insisted that the cleansing of the "soul" resulted from the repentance and not from baptism. As indicated, this manner of expression is Josephus' accommodation to his non-Jewish readership. What he means by the "cleansing of the soul" is the forgiveness of sins, which he insisted was conditional upon repentance and not baptism.

* John's interpretation of the baptism that he required Jews to undergo was that it was a "consecration of the body," seeing that the "soul" was already cleansed by means of repentance. Probably, by the "consecration of the body," Josephus is referring to ritual lustration. If so, John offered the possibility of both forgiveness and ritual purity.

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Source: abu.nb.ca/courses/NTIntro/LifeJ/JohnBaptist.htm
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Lastly ... we go back to the possible attempt to deflect the obvious - aphesis means aphesis.

The writer provides the meaning and context through his word usage ... it is not up to a translator and/or to pick and choose conveniently to separate their significance to fit paradigms thousands of years later.

One detractor stated:

Quote:

I agree with you that aphesis is the root word for both "forgiveness" and "remission". My question is: why did the KJV translators draw distinction in their translation of this, and were there any prior translations which did as well?

First this seems to be unique to the KJV and ....

Because language evolves ... these words could have been very much been used as SYNONYMS ... with no intent in making distinctions ... Who was to know that a small few in Christianity would try to make this distinction between forgiveness and remission hundreds of years later?

There is plenty of biblical precedence, evidence and witness that the reception of sin remission at the conversion of man's heart in repentance prior to water baptism (Will post later)

I believe when we agree on the meaning of aphesis... which is conclusively agree upon by Trinitarian and Oneness scholars like Bernard and Segraves that trying to separate forgiveness and remission is unsound even contextually ...

and the fact that forgiveness/remission is linked to repentance ...

that we can give a more bible based examination at what meaning to give to the preposotion "eis" ... in Acts 2:38

Let's keep the horse in front of the cart.