To my knowledge there are four basic objections to baptism by sprinkling, so, as promised, let’s deal with them.
Immersion is a symbol of our burial. This is the one that was mentioned most frequently in the comments to the last baptism post, and it’s based on two primary passages.
We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. (Romans 6:2-4)
In him you were also circumcised, in the putting off of the sinful nature, not with a circumcision done by the hands of men but with the circumcision done by Christ, having been buried with him in baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead.
When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. (Colossians 2:11-13)
The argument is that immersion properly symbolizes our death and resurrection by putting us under water (burial in the ground) and then raising us out of the water again (resurrection out of the ground).
There are a few problems with analogizing immersion to Jesus’ death and resurrection.
Jesus wasn’t buried under the ground.
Jesus wasn’t submerged in water when he died.
Jesus didn’t come out of the ground. Far from coming out of some physical medium with it falling or dripping off him, he didn’t even disturb his burial clothes.
No-one saw Jesus rise from the dead.
Neither passage mentions water.
These two passages explain the purpose of baptism, not its mode (though there is a connection between purpose and mode). Baptism unites us to Christ, who through his atoning work on the cross gives us power to overcome the deadly effects of sin.
The question Paul is answering in Romans 6 is “Should we continue to sin?”, not “How do we get baptized?”
If we are to treat Romans and Colossians as instructive on the issue of mode, why not also throw in Galatians 3:27?
All of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.
By what means do you use Romans and Colossians as relevant for mode, yet exclude this? Immersion can’t realistically be analogous to clothing. We wear clothes around and on us, and we don’t expect them to fall off or dry up as soon as we’ve put them on.
All three passages explain the purpose of baptism, not its mode.
Noah and Moses symbolize baptism by immersion. Here are the passages that are associated with this argument:
Our forefathers were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea. They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ. (1 Corinthians 10:1-3)
In [the ark] only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water, and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also—not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a good conscience toward God. (I Peter 3:20-21)
This argument does show us some water, but not in a way that would support immersion. The point of both is that the people whom God saved were NOT immersed. It was the Egyptians and the sinners who were fatally immersed in both cases. In fact, the Children of Israel didn’t even get wet, so the passage can’t even be used to support sprinkling.
If we interpret the purpose of baptism as being union with Christ, we see what’s happening with Moses. Through their experiences together (the cloud) and their miraculous salvation (the sea), they are united to Moses.
Jesus came out of the water. This argument says that there are several passages that describe immersion because we see participants coming up out of the water.
As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him. (Matthew 3:16)
As they traveled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water. Why shouldn’t I be baptized?” And he gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him. When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing. (Acts 8:36-39)
These passages do show a connection between water and baptism, though not immersion. First, they certainly don’t exclude sprinkling. If all the parties had stood at the edge of a river or pond (who knows if Philip’s wasn’t just a puddle?), they might accurately be described as coming out of the water when they were finished.
Second, the point of Matthew’s account is not to show the method of baptism but the sequence of events. Note the emphasis on chronology: “as soon as,” followed by “at that moment.” This is a passage about when, not where.
Third, if baptism by immersion is a symbol of death, burial and resurrection, Matthew seems to have jumped the gun in his description. He says, “As soon as Jesus was baptized…” Surely Jesus would have to have come back out of the water to complete the resurrection step. After the baptism is complete, then we have Matthew tell us about coming up out of the water. If this is intended to show Jesus in the act of emerging from immersion, you need to explain how he comes out of the water twice, yet only goes in once.
Fourth, for Acts to describe baptism by immersion, Philip would have had to have baptized himself, in violation of the one-baptism rule (and common sense). Note that “both” Philip and the eunuch went down into the water, then “they” came out of it. In terms of their spatial relationship with the water, what happened to one happened to the other. If the point is that the eunuch is immersed here, so is Philip.
The Greek word for baptism means immersion. This argument looks at the etymology of baptizo and finds that, according to Strongs, it has three possible meanings:
to dip repeatedly, to immerse, to submerge (of vessels sunk)
to cleanse by dipping or submerging, to wash, to make clean with water, to wash one’s self, bathe
to overwhelm
Given that we don’t see any unambiguous descriptions of baptism by immersion in the Bible, this is perhaps the strongest of all the objections. Baptizo can describe immersion, though it doesn’t exclude baptism by sprinkling or pouring. The problem with the etymological argument is that it requires us to take an ambiguous term (immersion or pouring) and read its cultural definitions into Scripture.
Assuming that God knew what he was doing when he wrote his Word, wouldn’t it be wiser and safer to let God interpret his own terms? Outside the context of Scripture, baptizo certainly can describe immersion, but within Scripture it doesn’t match anything else God tells us about the mode of baptism. Through the Old and New Testaments, we see repeated and consistent descriptions of sprinkling. Unless we can see a clear change in direction in the New Testament (and I can’t), we need to read God’s definition into the term.
One more point. If baptism is a picture of God’s grace to us when we were dead in sins, which mode would best picture that?
One in which we actively step into a passive pool of water that’s just sitting there waiting for us?
Or one in which water is actively poured over our stationary bodies?
Before immersing yourself in this post, please read part one of this series on the purpose of baptism. We can’t really make sense of the biblical mode of baptism without understanding its purpose.
Before I get started, let me begin with a little biography. I was born into a Baptist family. My grandparents were Baptist missionaries to China in the 1940s, and my grandfather–and, later, my father–pastored the Baptist church in the city in New Zealand where I was born. I was baptized by immersion by my father when I was seven, and I still prize the letter of congratulations that my grandfather sent me on that occasion.
In other words, I was born an immersionist, I was baptized by immersion, and I remained an immersionist until well into my 30s, even after joining a denomination that believed in baptism by sprinkling. I couldn’t comprehend why anyone would want to baptize by sprinkling. It seemed like baptism lite. Why not go all the way (under)?
That all changed when my pastor explained the significance of John the Baptist. The original baptist changed my opinion on the proper mode of baptism from immersion to sprinkling. The key comes from two questions the Pharisees asked–one of John and one of Jesus.
Who are you?
In Luke 3 we are introduced to John the Baptist who has been having crowds come to listen to his preaching and be baptized by him. Clearly he was causing a stir, and in John 1 we see that the priests and Levites have been dispatched from Jerusalem to see what he is doing. Here’s John’s account:
Now this was John’s testimony when the Jews of Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to ask him who he was. He did not fail to confess, but confessed freely, “I am not the Christ.”They asked him, “Then who are you? Are you Elijah?”
He said, “I am not.”
“Are you the Prophet?”
He answered, “No.”
Finally they said, “Who are you? Give us an answer to take back to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?”
Notice the response when John the Baptist said he was not the Christ: “Then who are you.” They initially assumed that he was the Messiah. Failing that, he must be Elijah or the prophet. Why would they think that? Was there a connection between John’s baptising, which they did not dispute or question, and what they would expect to see in a Messiah? Let’s take a look at the priests’ three guesses and show why they connected the Baptist with them.
Are you the Christ? (Although we don’t see this actual question, we can infer it from John’s answer and their “what then” response.) All Christians are familiar with Isaiah 53 and its obvious prophetic references to Jesus as the Messiah. Although we often start in chapter 53, the prophecy starts at the end of the previous chapter, which includes this description:
His appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any man and his form marred beyond human likeness–so will he sprinkle many nations. (Isaiah 52:14-15)
We see a similar picture of the Messiah in Ezekiel 36:25-29:
I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. You will live in the land I gave your forefathers; you will be my people, and I will be your God. I will save you from all your uncleanness.
The Pharisees, who knew the Bible very well, were looking for a Messiah who would come sprinkling. If John the Baptist was preaching forgiveness of sins and sprinkling the people who came to him, perhaps this was the long-awaited Messiah.
John told them that he was not the Messiah, so they guessed that he must be someone else.
Are you Elijah? This connection is found in the last two chapters of Malachi. In Malachi 4:5-6 (the last verses of the Old Testament), the prophet says that God will send Elijah. (Jesus tells us in Matthew 11:14-15 that John the Baptist was the prophesied Elijah, though that not everyone would recognize him as such.)
I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers; or else I will come and strike the land with a curse.
What would this messenger be doing? We see that in Malachi 3:2-3:
Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver.
By what means are the Levites purified? We see that in Numbers 8:6-7.
Take the Levites from among the other Isrealites and make them ceremonially clean. To purify them, do this: Sprinkle the water of cleansing on them.
Elijah would come sprinkling as well.
Are you the prophet? We find the prophet in Deuteronomy 18:15.
The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own brothers. You must listen to him.
Like who? Like Moses. What connection did John’s interrogators see between the John the Baptist and Moses?
You can’t read far into the story of Moses’ priestly ministry without encountering him sprinkling something, including people. Perhaps the most significant description is from Exodus 24:8.
Moses then took the blood, sprinkled it on the people and said, “This is the blood of the covenant that the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words.”
Do you recognize those words? They are repeated by Jesus at the last supper as he prepares to shed his blood to sprinkle the nations (Mark 14:24). Just like Moses and the prophet. Just like Elijah. And like the Messiah was about to do.
John the Baptist came sprinkling, which was the activity that alerted the most Bible-literate people in the land that something important was afoot.
How dare you?
This second question is asked of Jesus after he cleaned out the temple from the money changers. Here’s the exchange:
They arrived again in Jerusalem, and while Jesus was walking in the temple courts, the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders came to him. “By what authority are you doing these things?” they asked. “And who gave you authority to do this?”
Jesus replied, “I will ask you one question. Answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I am doing these things. John’s baptism—was it from heaven, or from men? Tell me!”
They discussed it among themselves and said, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will ask, ‘Then why didn’t you believe him?’ But if we say, ‘From men’….” (They feared the people, for everyone held that John really was a prophet.)
So they answered Jesus, “We don’t know.”
Jesus said, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.”
What is at stake here is Jesus’ authority as a priest to regulate activities in the temple. If he wasn’t a priest, he had no right to clean it out and call it his own house. If he was a priest, he did have that authority.
Why did Jesus turn that question to John’s baptism? Because that’s what sealed Jesus’ status as a priest. If John’s baptism was valid, he had the authority; if it wasn’t, he didn’t have authority.
So, then, how were priests to be baptized? The instructions for the Levites in Numbers 8 cited earlier describe this, and we see another priestly ordination in Exodus 29.
Take the annointing oil and anoint him by pouring it on his head. (Exodus 29:7)
Take some of the blood on the altar and some of the annointing oil and sprinkle it on Aaron and his garments and on his sons and their garments. Then he and his sons and their garments will be consecrated. (Exodus 29:21)
Priests also had to be at least 30 before they could be ordained (see Numbers 4:46-47). It’s no accident that Jesus’ ministry began when he was 30, as Luke specifically points out for us in Luke 3:23, immediately after describing Jesus’ baptism.
Understanding Jesus’ baptism as an ordination rite also helps us understand John’s initial reluctance to baptize Jesus and his eventual acquiescence.
John tried to deter him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?”
Jesus replied, “Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.”
Then John consented.
John, who was a priest himself (by inheritance through his father), understood what Jesus meant by “fulfill all righteousness.” Jesus, who is described as a priest (Hebrews 5:4-6), needed to perfectly obey the law, including the Levitical law for ordination. Sprinkling was the lawful mode of priestly ordination.
This is why this last step (baptism represented the fulfillment of the law) is what triggers God’s public declaration of Jesus as Messiah and the beginning of his priestly ministry.
Jesus’ baptism by sprinkling is also necessary to have him properly fulfill the title of Messiah, which means annointed one. John anoints him with water, and he is revealed as the Messiah.
(I anticipate at least one more post on this topic, so in the next one I’ll deal with objections, including the reference to coming up out of the water and the Greek definition of baptizo. If you have any other objections or counterpoints, leave them in the comments and I’ll try to answer them in the next post.)
A month or so ago, Perry Noble and Steven Furtick baptized almost 1,000 people between them in a remarkable day when they sprung the opportunity on people who had come to church with no knowledge of what they’d end up being asked to do.
As I showed you back then, Noble spent just a few minutes actually talking about what baptism meant. The message boiled down to something like, “Go public for Jesus. Get dunked.”
Is baptism really a wet public relations exercise? If it’s all about going public, why would Jesus ask us to do it in church, or in pools set up behind a church? An announcement on Facebook or Craig’s List would be a much more effective way of telling the world of our devotion to Christ. If it’s about going public, Philip did it all wrong when he baptized the Ethiopian eunuch on the side of a desert road (Acts 8:26-40).
Although baptism is a public sacrament, telling the world about the state of our heart is not its purpose. By putting ourselves at the center of the sacrament, we invert its real meaning and function.
Baptism has three purposes.
Cleanse us.We are, by nature, corrupt and sinful. Nothing we can do can cleanse us from the stench of our sins that stand as an offense to a perfect and holy God. By his grace, God provided a means of cleansing us of those sins, a method introduced in the Old Testament through sacrifices and blood. This relationship between blood and cleansing is found in a number of places, including Hebrews 9:13-14.
If the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled sanctify the cleansing of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
Verses 19-21 in the same chapter describe Moses’ washing the people and vessels of worship with blood to cleanse them before God.
Jesus’ blood becomes a once-for-all substitution of the blood of goats and bulls and washes us from our sinful filthiness. The reason that John prepared the way for Jesus by baptism was to introduce Jesus as the ultimate baptizer. Note John’s first words of identification: “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). The Lamb’s blood cleans us from our sin. Jesus baptizes us.
Unite us with Christ.Once we are cleansed, it becomes possible to become a child of God. Baptism is a sign of our cleansing and subsequent unification (though not in the sense of being God) with Christ. We see that idea in Romans 6:3-4 where Paul explains why grace is not a license to sin.
Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him though baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live in new life.
If you re-read that passage and substitute united in place of baptism, Paul’s argument does not change.
In fact, Paul does use that word in the very next verse to extend the argument.
If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. (Romans 6:5)
We see this sense of unification through baptism in Acts 8:14-17.
When the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them. When they arrived, they prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit had not yet come upon any of them; they had simply been baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus. Then Peter and John placed their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.
Again, substitute united for baptized and the meaning of what is going on here becomes clear. Not only are we united with Christ through baptism; we are also united to the Holy Spirit.
Point to the Holy Spirit.If the Holy Spirit is an integral aspect of baptism, his role is going to be consistent with the existing purpose of baptism. Titus 3:5-7 shows us the relationship between baptism, Jesus’ blood and the Holy Spirit.
[God] saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.
God give us his grace, Jesus offers his purifying blood, and the Holy Spirit washes us from our sin.
This Holy Spirit baptism is seen clearly for the first time in Acts 2, though Peter explains that Joel predicted it.
In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. (Acts 2:17)
It is no coincidence that we also see the Holy Spirit as a participant in Jesus’ own baptism.
John gave this testimony: “I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. I would not have known him, except that the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is he who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’” (John 1:32-33)
Baptism is a profoundly beautiful and simple sacrament that tells the story of God’s grace to us. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us and cleansed us from our sin, making us right with God.
That means that baptism is a sign of something that God does to us, not something we do for God.
Just as the symbols of the Eucharist match the reality of their referents, we might expect that the mode of baptism will match the spiritual reality of what it represents.
Last weekend Noble and Furtick announced the astounding news that between them they’d baptized more than a thousand people. I was curious to see how they did it, especially given that, for NewSpring at least, none of the baptism candidates knew about the baptism until a few minutes before they entered the water.
How did Noble do that? What powerful message on baptism did he preach to persuade so many believers to take that sacred step?
The answer: he didn’t say much at all.
His sermon was focused mainly on Joshua taking off his shoes when, according to Noble, he met Jesus in Joshua 3. Jesus asked Joshua to obey the small, insignificant step of taking off his sandals. As a consequence of his obedience in such a minor matter, God put Joshua on the map.
Noble then asked what minor steps we needed to obey God in, and suggested that it might be baptism. He then explained baptism to his congregation. You can see the entire sermon here, but it was full of nonsensical examples that had the church voting for Chevy or Ford, and cheesecake or cheeseburger. You’ll have to watch it yourself to see how it related to baptism, but somewhere in there he did teach about the Why, How, Who and When of baptism.
With such an ambitious agenda, you might think this would take a few weeks to cover, though Noble got through it all in less than four minutes. The following clip is an edited version of the substance of his teaching. (I have edited out extraneous material on marital authority, fear of water, and infant baptism.)
Please understand that I am not criticizing anyone who was baptized last week, nor the church’s mission to baptize believers. What is disappointing is that the pastor thought it was worth a thousand people immediately taking an important spiritual step, yet he didn’t think it worth more than a few minutes of substantial teaching on a doctrine that literally defines his denomination.
Now, a part of his message is unassailable and praiseworthy–if Jesus tells us to do something, we really have no argument against it. That is true, but there is much more that Scripture offers us on the meaning and mode of baptism than demanding straight obedience. Can we not be obedient and informed? One would assume that knowing more about the sacrament would add to the believers’ blessings.
Commentator Tommy had guessed last week that Noble had achieved his numbers by presenting the sacrament as meaningless.
My interest here is the irony of Baptists celebrating nearly 1000 baptisms, by a group who thinks it’s meaningless.
Tommy appears to have been correct. Where does one find any meaning in Noble’s presentation here? Noble’s message was that this is such a minor step–just like taking off your shoes–, that you’d only refuse to do it if you were afraid or proud.
The only meaning he did provide was that this meant one was “going public” for Jesus.
If that’s all it is, how does getting wet in an above-ground pool behind the church building make one’s faith any more public than attending church in the first place? If going public is what it’s all about, why can’t we just post an announcement on Craig’s list?
Surely there’s more to baptism than this.
(Noble posed four questions: Why, How, Who and When. If I am to complain about his cursory answer, it might be expected that I provide my own, and so I will. Over the next few weeks, PP will answer these questions, probably in four different posts.)
This blog is mine alone and does not necessarily–or very often–represent the thinking or sentiments of anyone who disagrees with me, my wife, my employer, my friends, my family, my pastor, my brother, my church and, almost certainly, God. After I hit the Publish button, it doesn’t always even reflect my own thinking. It does seem to often reflect the thinking of Tommy F, Twit Conway and some guy in Minnesota, however.