SPRINKLING NOT BAPTISM by John Nevins Andrews

Seventh-Day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Thursday, April 15, 1880

FromAdvent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 55, No. 16

SPRINKLING NOT BAPTISM.

By John Nevins Andrews

In several numbers of our journal we have been engaged in an examination of the subject of baptism. We have seen that the New Testament has much to say upon this subject, and that it makes the duty of baptism very important. It presents baptism as the first public duty after faith and repentance. The Saviour presents it as a condition of salvation. “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.” It is one of the acts for the remission of sins. Acts 2:38. Baptism was preached by John the Baptist in preparing the way for the manifestation of Christ. The Saviour was baptized by him, and it appears very certain that the apostles of Christ were also baptized by John. Baptism was practiced by the apostles during the ministry of Christ. When the Saviour, after his resurrection, gave the apostles the commission to go into all the world, he bade them baptize as well as preach. Matt. 28:19; Mark 16:16. And we have many cases of baptism recorded in the book of Acts. In the apostolic epistles baptism is set forth as an important duty, and as an ordinance designed to impress upon the mind certain great truths.

In the last article of this series we have seen that baptism is designed to represent the burial and resurrection of Christ, and to commemorate those events during the gospel dispensation. In accordance with these facts, baptism itself is represented as a burial and a resurrection. It is an ordinance which can only be administered by means of water. John baptized in the Jordan; he also baptized at Enon, where there was much water. After Christ was baptized, he went up out of the Jordan, which shows that to be baptized he went down into it. When the eunuch was baptized by Philip, both went down into the water, and both came up out of it.

Now these facts are all consistent with one another. They show that baptism is a burial and a resurrection, and that it can only be administered where there is water sufficient for such burial. But we now come to consider the important fact that what is called baptism in our time bears not the slightest resemblance to this ordinance which we have been tracing through the New Testament. Men do not now repair to rivers, or lakes, or pools of water, for the administration of this ordinance; they do not now go down into water and come up out of it; and such an act as being buried in baptism is never witnessed in any of the cases where this ordinance is said to be administered, except in the case of those who still adhere to Scriptural baptism. A very different rite has usurped the place of baptism, and taken its name. The minister sprinkles water upon the head, and calls this baptism; yet it bears not the slightest resemblance to the ordinance as set forth in the New Testament. The Greek word rendered “baptize” has but one proper signification, and that is, immerse. The Greeks have a verb which signifies, literally, to sprinkle. This is the verb rantizo. But the Holy Spirit did not employ this word to designate the act enjoined in this ordinance. If it had done this, Christ’s commission would have been, Go and teach all nations, sprinkling them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. But instead of this, the word baptizo, which signifies “to immerse,” was chosen; and it is easy to understand that if men obey this command, they must go down into the water and be buried in the likeness of Christ’s burial.

How, then, does it happen that sprinkling has almost universally superseded baptism? The answer is direct and simple. The Church of Rome has changed this ordinance, and all those Protestant churches which come directly from the Church of Rome have continued the practice of sprinkling instead of returning to the ancient ordinance of baptism. It is only a few hundred years since, that the Catholic church abandoned immersion. When the writer was in Italy, he saw at Pisa and at Rome baptisteries still standing, that were built for the practice of immersion. The baptistery at Pisa is a splendid edifice, capable of convening a great multitude of people. It has a large font for immersion. This building was erected about 600 years ago. When the Church of Rome abandoned immersion, it suffered this great font still to stand as an ornament to the church, for it is a very beautiful structure; but there was cut in the top of the wall of this font a small cavity sufficient to hold water with which to sprinkle the people. Thus, in the providence of God, there stands in this baptistery a font where immersion was practiced before the change of the ordinance; and in the side of that font another for the practice of sprinkling, which has taken the place of immersion. This building was erected before the Church of Rome had changed the ordinance. But before the Protestant Reformation the change took place; and those Protestants who have brought sprinkling from the Church of Rome now seek to prove that sprinkling is Scriptural baptism. The baptistery of which I have spoken stands near the leaning tower of Pisa, and is really much more worthy of being visited than is that famous tower.

Reader, have you ever been baptized? If not, this is your first duty. You have been sprinkled, perhaps, but this is not baptism. Do you justify yourself in the neglect of this duty by appealing to prevailing custom? What is that to thee? follow thou Christ. “If ye love me,” says Christ, “keep my commandments.” Do you say, “I have been many years a professor of religion, and should be ashamed now to be baptized”? Have you not long enough neglected your duty, and has not God’s patience been long enough exercised in your case? But perhaps you say that baptism is not necessary to your salvation. By this you mean to say that you can be saved and yet neglect this duty, and that if you can be saved in the neglect of this duty, you do not intend to perform it. Can you not see that there is rebellion against God in your heart, and that any unpleasant duty which you dare to neglect, you have no disposition to perform? If God should take people into Heaven with this spirit, Heaven would be filled with rebellion. The first duty of every sinner is to repent and believe on Christ; the next is to be baptized: and those who have neglected this duty hitherto should neglect it no longer. J. N. A.

Bâle, Suisse.