Chrismation as Baptism by Fire: The Purification That Equips You for Spiritual Warfare

The Lord of Spirits Podcast explains how the ancient promise of the Spirit poured out on all flesh transforms ordinary Christians into temples and warriors

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If you start a new job and your boss immediately hands you a failing, multimillion-dollar project, we would call it a “baptism by fire.” It is a corporate cliché, a piece of shorthand for a steep learning curve or a highly stressful initiation.

But when St. John the Forerunner used the phrase in the Gospels, he wasn’t talking about a stressful Tuesday at the office—he was talking about a smeltering furnace. “He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire,” John warned the crowds (Matthew 3:11).

In the modern era, we tend to read the word fire as a metaphor for enthusiasm. Modern Christians want to be “on fire” for the Lord, which usually means having a really good time during the “worship music.” But as Fr. Stephen de Young and Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick frequently point out on their excellent Lord of Spirits podcast, the biblical writers weren’t using fire as a metaphor for warm fuzzies, but were instead using it as a metaphor for metallurgy.

A baptism by fire is a process of painful purification. When you refine gold or silver, you subject it to intense heat so that the impurities—the dross—rise to the surface in order to be skimmed off. The fire doesn’t destroy the gold; it destroys everything that isn’t gold. So spiritually speaking, a baptism by fire is the agonizing but necessary process of confronting our own weaknesses, burning away our self-deception, and emerging resilient. It is the crucible of spiritual warfare.

But how exactly does a Christian enter into this refining fire? And once we are in it, what keeps us from simply burning up?

A few weeks ago, we began a series on the Holy Mysteries. First, we gave a “field guide” to the sacraments of the Orthodox Church. Then we looked at why we baptize and commune children. Today, we arrive at the mysterious, fragrant, and heavily misunderstood reality of Chrismation.

With a little help from the hosts of the Lord of Spirits podcast, we are going to walk through how the Orthodox Church understands the anointing of the Holy Spirit, how it connects to ancient Israelite kings, and why your local parish is actually a localized invasion force.

Counting Sacraments?

If you ask a Roman Catholic how many sacraments there are, they will promptly tell you there are seven. If you ask an Orthodox Christian, an honest answer is perhaps a shrug, followed by, “At least seven?”

As the Lord of Spirits hosts amuse themselves by pointing out—and they are frequently amused—the concept of “sacraments” (or mysteries, as we prefer) isn’t as rigidly categorized in the East. Historically, we see the most rigorous definitions along these lines in the Orthodox Church in response to Western questions and conversations.

We know Baptism and the Eucharist are mysteries. But we also consider the blessing of water at Theophany, the tonsuring of a monk, and perhaps even the painting of an icon to be sacramental acts. But right at the center of our initiatory rites is Chrismation: the anointing of a new believer with a specially prepared oil—called Holy Chrism—that has been consecrated by the bishops of the Church.

For our Catholic and many Protestant friends, the equivalent rite is Confirmation. But there is a major logistical and theological difference in how we apply it. In the West, Confirmation is often delayed until the child is older and can articulate the faith. So a baby is baptized, but they are not “confirmed” in the Holy Spirit until they reach an “age of reason,” making Confirmation function almost like a graduation ceremony or a public coming-of-age profession of faith.

And as neat as a coming-of-age rite can be, Orthodoxy, however, anoints babies immediately after they are pulled from the baptismal waters. Why? Because we do not view the gift of the Holy Spirit as a diploma for passing a theology quiz. We view it as the equipping of a soldier, and this is signified in anointing them for spiritual battle.

You don’t send a soldier into the meat grinder of human existence and tell them you’ll give them their armor in thirteen years if they memorize the catechism. You outfit them immediately.

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To listen to this episode yourself, check it out at Ancient Faith or below on YouTube:

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The Anointed Kings and the Restricted Spirit

To understand what this oil is actually doing, we have to look backward. In the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit was not poured out on everyone. The presence of the Spirit was targeted, specific, and often restricted to those who needed to fulfill an impossible task.

When you read through the historical books (such as 1-4 Kingdoms, frequently labeled in English Bibles as 1–2 Samuel and 1–2 Kings), you notice that the Spirit rests on or abides with specific figures: prophets, priests, and kings. When Samuel anoints David with oil, the text explicitly links the physical oil with the Spirit’s descent: “Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers. And the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon David from that day forward” (1 Samuel 16:13).

This is the biblical imagery of anointing. The oil is the visible, physical vehicle for the invisible, spiritual reality.

But this anointing was also deeply tied to the concept of restoration. By the time of the Second Temple period, Jewish tradition was thick with Messianic expectations. Messiah (or Christos in Greek) literally means “The Anointed One.” Because Israel had been anointed in three main offices, they began looking for a Kingly Messiah (like David) to defeat their enemies, a Priestly Messiah (like Aaron) to purify the temple, and a Prophetic Messiah (like Moses) to speak the very words of God.

Interestingly, as Fr. Stephen explains, there was also a tradition regarding the Messiah ben Ephraim—a messianic figure whose specific task was the reconstitution of the lost tribes of Israel. The expectation was that when the ultimate Anointed One arrived, He wouldn’t just sit on a throne; He would put the shattered family of God back together.

The Messianic Marker

And that brings us to the banks of the Jordan River.

When St. John the Baptist is standing in the water, he isn’t just waiting for a nice guy with good moral teachings. He is waiting for a very specific set of markers for the One for whom he would prepare the way. In the Gospel of John, the Forerunner says, “I myself did not know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit’” (John 1:33).

The Holy Spirit is the ultimate marker of the Messiah. When the Spirit descends like a dove and rests on Jesus, it is the cosmic signal that the Kingly, Priestly, and Prophetic Anointed One has finally arrived.

But here is where the story turns a corner and directly implicates you and me. The Anointed One does not keep the anointing to Himself. As the prophet Joel had predicted centuries earlier, the era of the Messiah would be marked by the Spirit being poured out “on all flesh” (Joel 2:28)—this is why this text is explicitly quoted by Saint Peter in Acts (2:17-21) to explain the miraculous events of Pentecost, making the Spirit extend to all believers, regardless of age, gender, or status.

What was once restricted to the kings and prophets of the Old Testament is now democratized in the New Covenant. The idea of anointing is no longer limited to a guy holding a scepter or wearing an ephod. Through the mystery of Chrismation, every single Christian is anointed.

When the priest traces the sign of the cross on your forehead, eyes, and chest with the Holy Chrism, you are being integrated into a new, restored, and transformed humanity.

You are being drafted into the royal priesthood.

The Mobile Temple

This alters our fundamental geography of “where” God lives.

For the ancient Israelite, the presence of God was intensely localized. It was in the Tabernacle. Later, it was in the inner sanctum of the stone Temple in Jerusalem. Second Temple Jewish thought was incredibly focused on this reality: the Temple was the singular overlap between heaven and earth.

The early Christians, however, recognized that Jesus Christ Himself was the new Temple. A living, breathing, walking, sacramental, sacrficial, new Temple—He is the ultimate, indestructible meeting place of God and man.

But it doesn’t stop with Jesus. Because we are baptized into Christ, and because we are sealed with His Spirit in Chrismation, the New Testament writers begin using astonishing language to describe normal, everyday people. “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you?” St. Paul asks the Corinthians (1 Cor. 6:19).

We are so used to this verse being used as a proof-text for eating your vegetables, limiting booze, and putting a damper on your cigar night with the boys, that we miss the sheer theological import of what Paul is saying. He is essentially telling a group of blue-collar workers and former pagans in a chaotic port city that they are now a walking, talking, dwelling place of God. We are to become a breathing Holy of Holies.

The purpose of the sacraments is not just to impart a legal status or give you a ticket to heaven. Chrismation turns you into a mobile Temple. We are meant to carry the presence of God out of the nave of the church building and into the grocery store, the boardroom, and the neighborhood.

The Intensity that Bears Fruit

This brings us back to the fire, and to what we are actually supposed to do with this anointing.

In Jeremiah 31, God promises a new covenant where He will put His law within us and write it on our hearts. The Holy Spirit is the fulfillment of this promise. The Spirit empowers Christians to actually keep the commandments of God. It is not merely a matter of intense, white-knuckled individual effort; it is a synergistic work of the Spirit operating within a willing human heart.

In Lord of Spirits, the “podfathers” emphasize that Christians are called to bring the Holy Spirit with them into the world to actively drive out evil. We are involved in spiritual warfare, seeking to replace demonic chaos with the presence of God.

But how do we fight? We don’t do it by casting magical spells or shouting at the sky. We do it through what St. Paul calls the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23).

We may be tempted to read that list as a polite checklist for being a nice person. But in the context of spiritual warfare, the fruits of the Spirit are weapons of territorial conquest. They are the means by which we conquer the nations—love not swords; self-control instead of suicide bombs; gentleness instead of blows.

Toward the end of the show, Fr. Stephen really emphasized a challenge for all of us. That when we introduce profound, immovable peace into a chaotic, anxiety-ridden world, we are driving out a spirit of fear, whether that world is a neighborhood, a workplace, or your family life. When we exercise supernatural patience with someone who usually provokes us to anger, we are extinguishing the fire of demons and replacing it with the presence of God. This transformation occurs through everyday, microscopic efforts to love and be at peace.

Fr. Stephen continues:

So through just one person who’s honestly striving every day to follow Christ, both in keeping commandments and in repenting when not… One of the most powerful ways to completely transform a social dynamic is to apologize, to actually accept the blame for our failures, to actually be honest about them and apologize. So repentance is a big part of this, too. But one person doing that can transform a whole system, can transform a whole workplace, can transform a whole dynamic. And it’s when we do that that people see Christ in us. It’s when we do that, not win arguments, that people are drawn to find Christ in his Church, and as they do that they start to become Christians as well, and they start to make an honest effort to follow Christ. And some of us who have been Christians our whole lives but maybe aren’t making an honest effort right now are inspired by seeing those who do to start making further efforts ourselves.

And slowly, slowly, piece by piece, big systems can be transformed. If you don’t believe that’s true, I will once again point you to history, where a bunch of peasants and fishermen, in a backwater of the Roman Empire—it took them 300 years, but—completely transformed society, culture, politics, everything, just by each one of them being willing to follow Christ, whether that meant life or death, whether that meant glory or dishonor, but they made that honest effort every day. And through them the Spirit—the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God—came to fill a whole empire and change it. And it can do that again, but we don’t start by trying to stage some kind of Christian revolution. We’ve seen how that goes. We do that by each of us, in our place, in the place where God has put us—in the family he’s put us in, in the occupation he’s put us in, in the church community he’s put us in—making these everyday, day-to-day efforts to love, to be at peace, to experience real joy, to be kind, to be good, to be gentle, to be faithful, to exercise self-control.

It is worth repeating what he just said: This is exactly how the early Christians transformed the Roman Empire. They didn’t win by out-arguing the pagan philosophers or assembling a massive military force. They won because they were baptized in fire, sealed with the oil of kings, and lived as walking temples in a world that was dying for the presence of God.

They bore the fruit of the Spirit in the face of lions and gladiators, and in doing so, they drove the demons out of Rome.

The call to action for us is identical. You have been anointed with the same Chrism. You contain the same Spirit.

• Make an honest effort to follow Christ today.

• Forgive the person who slighted you.

• Tell the truth when a lie would be easier.

• Pray for your enemies.

In doing so, you aren’t just being a good citizen; you are taking back ground for the Kingdom of God, one peaceful interaction at a time.

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For something a little different, I’d like to share this song from my pals in the Christian rap outfit, P.I.D., “The Crucible.” If nothing else, it will give you a soundtrack for this message:

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