1.2 - What does Baptism mean?

What does Baptism mean?

What then, is baptism? When Christ said, baptize, what did He intend to be done? To all of you standing around me who are not Greek scholars the word baptize has no meaning. When the word is used, there may rise up before some of your minds a minister, a parent, an infant, and water being sprinkled on the face of the infant; but it is not the meaning of the word that calls up that picture to the mind, it is the circumstances under which you have been brought up. If you belong to a Baptist family, when the word baptize is used it may call to your mind two persons, and the one immersing the other in water, but unless you are a Greek scholar it is not the meaning of the word that calls the immersion to your mind, but the circumstances under which you have been trained. It is a Greek word, and therefore conveys no idea to an English scholar. The New Testament was written in Greek. Those who translated the New Testament for us did not translate that word. They only slightly changed its form, and passed on the Greek word to us. Why did our translators do this? Why did they not tell us in English what the Savior wishes us to do? If baptize means sprinkle, why did they not say so? If it means pour, why did they not tell us? If it means dip, they should have said so. Why did they pass on a command of Christ in Greek, that working men were intended to obey? Our translators had some reason for not translating that word. They either could not translate it, or would not translate it. No thoughtful person will believe that Jesus gave a command in language that cannot be understood. That would be a disgrace to any public teacher. There is only the other thing for it then, and that is, they could translate it, but would not. The fact is the word means to immerse, but does not mean to sprinkle or pour, and the churches the translators belonged to had taken to sprinkling or pouring before our translation was made. They dare not translate baptize by sprinkle or pour, and to translate it by immerse and then continue to sprinkle would have been rather awkward. Their best way out of the fix, therefore, was to pass on the Greek word to us, and not translate it at all. This they did, and hence you have a Greek word looking you in the face where you should have had an English one. When I say that this word means to immerse, I say what scholars will not contradict. All your ministers and doctors and most of your schoolmasters know that this is true, and will not venture to contradict it. A Greek dictionary is a proper place to go for the meaning of a Greek word. Let any of you go to your minister and ask him to take down his Greek dictionary, and read to you there from the meaning of the word baptizo. Do not ask him what he thinks, ask him what the Greek lexicon says, and you will find that dip or immerse, or some such word, is given as its first meaning, and that sprinkling is not given as a meaning at all. When you immerse, you do what the word means; when you sprinkle, you do what it does not mean.

One of our brethren in America was arranging for a debate with an Episcopal Methodist. Our brother said: "I immerse, and I say that immersion is baptism. If you will deny that, you can have a debate about my practice." The Methodist said: "I will not deny that immersion is baptism." "Very well," said our brother, "you sprinkle and call that baptism: you can then affirm that sprinkling is baptism and I will deny it, and we can have a debate about your practice; but, remember, there is no dispute about my practice. I am right, no matter how the debate goes." My friends, that is how the case stands. Immersion is right beyond question; all the question is on the other side. Let me give a few samples from the stock of evidence that might be led in favor of immersion. I know of no Greek dictionary that does not say that baptizo means to immerse. Take one example. In Liddell and Scott, under baptizo we get to dip under, to dip repeatedly, to bathe. That is a sample of what your ministers are taught at college. But the use of a word by good writers in a language is a higher appeal than dictionaries. The word was in common use in the Greek language in Christ’s day. How was it used?

I will make only two quotations, though many might be given. We will take them from Josephus, as his works are within reach of many of you. Jewish Antiquities, Bk. XV., ch. iii. 3, describing the murder of the boy Aristobulus, who was drowned by his companions in a swimming bath: "Continually pressing down and immersing [baptizing] him while swimming, they did not desist till they had entirely suffocated him." Can there be any doubt as to what baptism means here? Did they sprinkle the boy till they drowned him? Take another occurrence of the word from Josephus’ Life of himself, 3: "For our vessel having been submerged [baptized] in the midst of the Adriatic, being about six hundred in number, we swam through the whole night." I have fishermen all around me. What has happened to your boat when you have had to take to swimming? Can there be any doubt as to what baptize means here?

If any man will give quotations from the Greek language where baptize as certainly means sprinkle as it means immersion in these cases, I will say no more against sprinkling, but I do not believe that anything of the kind can be given.

Notwithstanding the fact that baptize is not translated, the circumstances in which it occurs in the New Testament prove that it means to immerse. We must content ourselves with a few examples, as our time is limited. In Mark 1:9-10, we have an account of the baptism of Jesus by John: "And it came to pass in those days that Jesus came from Nazareth to Galilee, and was baptized of John in Jordan. And straightway coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens opened, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon Him." In Mark 1:9 we are informed that Jesus was baptized in the Jordan. In the margin of the Revised Version, it says, Greek, into: that is, Jesus was baptized into the Jordan. Now he could not be sprinkled into the Jordan, nor poured into the Jordan, but he could be immersed into the Jordan; nothing but immersion will make sense here.

Turn now to Acts 8:36-39 : "And as they went on their way, they came to a certain water; and the eunuch said, See, here is water, what doth hinder me to be baptized? And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. And he commanded the chariot to stand still, and they went down both into the water, both Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him. And when they were come up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip, that the eunuch saw him no more: and he went on his way rejoicing."

Here you have Philip and the eunuch coming to the water, going down into the water, when there, the eunuch is baptized, then they both come up out of the water. Now if the eunuch was immersed, there was a reason for their being in the water; but if he was sprinkled, there was no reason for them being there. No man is stupid enough to take another man into the water for the purpose of pouring a little of it on his head; or sprinkling a few drops on his face. And we dare not attribute such stupidity to the men concerned in this case. Carson has said that "the idiot who followed the Armagh coach to Dublin to see if the big wheels would overtake the little ones, had an errand, but the person who goes into a water to be sprinkled is worse than an idiot, for he goes there without an errand." There is not an occurrence in the New Testament where the sense of the passage demands the idea of sprinkling, as these passages demand the idea of immersion.

Time will not permit more than another quotation. Romans 6:4 : "Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death; that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life." Here you have a literal description of immersion: "buried and raised again." When you read that passage the idea of immersion presents itself to the mind. If any man thinks he can make out a clear case for sprinkling, I am willing to give him a public opportunity of trying to do so. We are sometimes asked if the quantity of water will make any difference. No, it will not, but whether you obey or disobey the Lord Jesus Christ may make a difference. If Christ commanded sprinkling, immersion is not sprinkling, but another action altogether, and if Christ commanded immersion, sprinkling is not immersion, but quite a different action, and, therefore, no obedience to the command of the Lord. It is the Lord’s place to command, it is ours to obey, and we dare not tamper or trifle with His commandments. We stand where we do because we are certain of its truth, and simply dare not stand on the other side, for we are sure it will not stand the test.