In his classic study of Bible and the Liturgy , Jean Danielou asks how we are to interpret sacramental signs. Do they “possess only the natural significance of the element or of the gesture . . . water washes, bread nourishes, oil heals”? Or do they “possess a special significance.” He argues that since Christian sacraments and liturgy was rooted in Jewish worship, the signs and gestures of Christian worship take their meaning of that Jewish context. Working with a sacramental typology, we can interpret not only the “content of the sacraments, but also their form.”

Naturally considered, baptismal water might seem to emphasize “cleansing and purifying.” Cleansing is certainly part of the significance of baptism, insofar as it catches up the cleansing rites of the OT purity system. But in typological perspective, that is not the focal point of the rite.

Rather, “one the one hand the water of Baptism is the water that destroys, the water of judgment; or ‘the waters’ in Jewish symbolism are actually a symbol of the power of death. But the water of Baptism is also the water that brings forth a new creature, and this sends us back to the Jewish symbol of the waters as not only destructive but also creative.” Far from opening up an interpretive free-for-all, typology fixes the significance of baptism’s material and form. It prevents the free-flowing speculations that might result from purely “natural” interpretations of the rite. Without typology, we would not be sure which properties of water are important for understanding Baptism.

The typological meaning of the sacraments arises from history, the history of God with His people. The types don’t just “picture” the later rites. Rather, Danielou draws from this the conclusion that sacramental rites are acts of God as surely as the acts that served as their types: The sacraments “are the expression of constant modes of the divine action.” God saved through water at the flood, at the sea, and again in baptism. He always saves by water. He makes a covenant with food at Pascha, with manna in the wilderness, with the feasts of Israel, and so too with the Supper. Sacraments are “events in sacred history” that express “the correspondence between . . . two creative actions of God.”

One of the intriguing things about Danielou’s discussion is how it bypasses the nature/supernatural distinction that is still present in a purified form in de Lubac. Baptism is not just water; but in explicating the “not just,” Danielou doesn’t speak of a move from “matter to spirit” or of “nature to grace.” The “more” of baptism is the more of God’s action in history - His work with and within the natural world. Danielou doesn’t need the category of “supernature” to explain this. Water has natural properties by virtue of creation; God used some of those natural properties in delivering His people in the past; those past deliverances by water are figures of the divine use of the natural properties of water in the baptismal rite. Danielou fills baptism with “heightened” and “divine” significance without coming close to the borderland of Platonism.