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Update 47 pages 8-9.

Pouring, sprinkling, or ducking?

Condensed from "The mode of baptism", chapter 9 of the United Free Church of Scotland's Panel on Doctrine's report (2001) on baptism.

Have you ever been confronted by the "a real baptism has to be by total immersion" argument? If so, here's a page you can photocopy and give to expand your protagonist's view.

It has often been contended that the word baptism necessarily means "immersion". For instance, by Alexander Carson: "baptizô in the whole history of the Greek language has but one meaning ... to dip or immerse, but it never has any other meaning." Or A H Strong: "This is immersion and immersion only."

Carson seems to regard dipping as equivalent to immersing. In fact we frequently dip without immersing and we find dipping without immersing in the New Testament.

Later Baptist scholars have been more careful in their arguments for 'immersion only'. In his Baptism in the New Testament, Beasley-Murray makes only two brief references to immersion as the proper mode for baptism (one of which is a footnote). In both cases the argument is based on Paul's theology, not on an exegesis of Greek words, nor on the practice of the early church as we have it in the Book of Acts. Likewise Grudem (in Systematic Theology) says: "The sense 'immerse' is appropriate and probably required for the word in several New Testament passages." We don't disagree, but we contend that the senses 'dip', 'wash' or 'sprinkle' are also appropriate and are probably required in several other NT passages.

Baptizô comes only twice in the OT (LXX translating the Hebrew). In Isaiah 21.4 it is figurative, and in 2 Kings 5.14, it reads like a ritual washing rather than a submersion by Naaman in the Jordan (the NIV translates it "dipped").

In the NT baptizô comes 75-80 times. Luke 11.38 and Mark 7:14 will make the point that the word can be used without meaning immersion: these were ritual washings of hands prior to a meal. It is quite unreasonable to suggest that the Pharisees were looking for a ritual immersion prior to every meal!

Three passages from Acts raise some practical issues. In Acts 2.41 about 3000 are baptized on the day of Pentecost. There is nothing here to prove or disprove baptism by immersion, but the mechanics of baptising three thousand people by immersion in Jerusalem do raise interesting questions.

In Acts 8.38: "Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptised him." The "going down into the water" does not constitute the baptism. They both went down, and Philip was not a candidate for baptism. The baptism may or may not have been a baptism by immersion. We simply do not know. We do know that they were on a desert road and that most desert streams would not be deep.

Acts 16.33 reads as if the jailer and all his household were baptised without delay in the prison itself that night. Would there be facilities for a household baptism by immersion in a prison? John Stott suggests: "perhaps it took place in a well or fountain in the prison courtyard, or perhaps using the same bowl from which he had cleaned their wounds. Thus, as Chrysostom pointed out, the washing was reciprocal: 'He washed them and was washed; those he washed from their stripes, himself was washed from his sins' ".

The main Pauline passage which has a possible bearing on the mode of baptism is Romans 6.3-5, where Paul is responding to the charge of "the more sin, the more grace" (v1) - and obviously his answer is not water-baptism but union with Christ. The "immersion" case rests on the idea that going down into the water symbolizes our burial with Christ, and emerging from it symbolizes our resurrection with him. But although "going down" may symbolize death, it doesn't symbolize entombment very well, and there are other scriptural passages with very different imagery.

Baptism is pictured as washing, e.g. in Acts 22:16. Christ's work for us is presented as "washing us" in 1 Cor 6:11, Eph 5:26, and Titus 3:5. Heb 10:22 draws on the letter's teaching that the once-for-all cleansing accomplished by Christ on the cross is applied to us in baptism. Rev 1:5 (with the reading "washed us" instead of "loosed us") may be a reference to baptism, and baptismal allusions can be seen throughout the book in the imagery of "washed in the blood of the Lamb."

Baptism is also represented as a pouring and a sprinkling, for instance in John the Baptist's imagery of "the Holy Spirit and fire" (Matt 3:11). Jesus confirmed this (Acts 1:5) and spoke of this baptism as a power coming upon them (v8). Peter speaks of the same baptism twice in terms of a pouring out (1 Pet 2:18,33), and Luke writes about the Holy Spirit having been "poured out" and as having "come upon" (Luke 10:44, 11:15). This language fulfils the OT's imagery of the Spirit being "poured out, shed forth and sprinkled" (e.g. Is 32:25, Joel 2:28 and Ezek 36:25-27).

It is odd to insist that the outward sign should be immersion if the inward gift is pictured as sprinkling! We conclude that the mode of baptism is less important than it's meaning, and we concur with Macleod: "I respect immersion, but I am asking that there should be a place for our mode too."

The whole chapter can be read on our web site.

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This web page was last updated on 16th May 2004.