I grew
up in churches that practiced baptism by immersion. We did not recognize sprinkling
or pouring water on a person’s head as baptism. In fact, we considered
sprinkling or pouring to not be baptism at all. Those baptized by sprinkling or
pouring had never been baptized, in our judgment, and needed to be baptized for
the first time by being dipped in water.
Baptist
preachers are quick to point out that Greek lexicons (dictionaries) define baptizo as to immerse, dip or submerge. That is true, but it is not the final
word on how baptism ought to be practiced. When we look at how the Greek words
for baptism are actually used in the New Testament, we learn some remarkable things. For example, the Israelites were baptized in the Red Sea crossing (1Cor.
10:1-4). But it was not the Israelites who were immersed in the Red Sea. They
walked on dry land between two walls of water. The Egyptians, on the other
hand, were immersed, but that “baptism” did not save them; it killed them. Similarly
in Hebrews baptism (baptismos) is
used to describe Old Testament rituals of purification that were administered
by sprinkling, not immersion (Heb. 9:6-22). The writer uses baptismos to describe “the blood of goats
and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer”
(9:13; cf. Num. 19) as well as the time when Moses “took the blood of calves
and goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book
itself and all the people” (9:19; cf. Exod. 24:5-8) and when “in the same way
he sprinkled with the blood both the tent and all the vessels used in worship”
(9:21; cf. Exod. 40:1-16). This “baptism” was not immersion but a symbolic
purifying and setting apart of sacred things by sprinkling them with blood and
water. The Gospel of Mark informs us the Jews had a tradition of baptizing their hands, dishes, and dining
couches before eating (Mark. 7:4). Just as in Hebrews the Greek word for sprinkling or cleansing (rhantizo)
appears in Mark 7:4 alongside the word for baptism
or washing to describe these rites of
purification and consecration to God.
The Bible
does not mandate a specific mode of baptism, whether sprinkling, pouring, or
immersion. What is important is not the way
one is baptized but the reason for and
name in which he is baptized (Matt.
28:19; Acts 19:3-5). We are symbolically washed, purified, and set apart in the
name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in baptism, however it is performed.
The importance is the meaning, not the specific method. –JME
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