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THERE IS BUT ONE BAPTISM

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Thursday, May 13, 1880

FromAdvent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 55, No. 20

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THERE IS BUT ONE BAPTISM.

(Concluded.)
Said Mr. Johnson, “I like, myself, always to read a commentary on every chapter that I attempt to understand.”
“Oh, as to commentaries, we have Barnes’ Notes on the Gospels, and on some of the epistles. And we have Macknight’s exposition and new translation of the epistles.”
“Mr. Barnes’ is a very learned and eminent divine,” replied the pastor. “You cannot follow a safer guide.”
“Suppose, then, you get his Notes, and let us look at them a moment.”
Edwin had found the volume while they were talking of it, and now handed it to the pastor.
“I suppose we shall find it here. Matt. 3:6. Mr. Percy, will you have the kindness to read it aloud for our common benefit?”
Mr. Percy read: “And were baptized of him in Jordan, confessing their sins.” “The word ‘baptize’ signifies, originally, to tinge, to dye, to stain, as those who dye clothes. It here means to cleanse or wash anything by the application of water.” “Washing, or ablution, was much in use among the Jews as one of the rites of their religion. At the time of John, and for some time previous, they had been accustomed to administer the rite of baptism or washing to those who became proselytes to their religion, that is, to those who were converted from being Gentiles.” “John found this custom in use, and as he was calling the Jews to a new dispensation, to a change in the form of their religion, he administered this rite of baptism or washing to signify the cleansing from their sins and adopting the new dispensation, or the fitness for the pure reign of the Messiah. They applied an old ordinance to a new purpose; as it was used by John it was a significant rite or ceremony, intended to denote the putting away of impurity and the purpose to be pure in life.”
Mr. Percy stopped reading, and looking at Mr. Johnson, said, “Pardon me, pastor, but if Mr. Barnes were present I would like to ask him a single question by way of a cross-examination. He says that ‘washing, or ablution, was much in use among the Jews as one of the rites of their religion,’ and yet he tells us that baptism was not in use till after the captivity. Must not baptism, then, have been something new and different from the washing or ablution?”
“And I,” said Theodosia, “would like to ask a question, too; perhaps pastor Johnson can answer it as well as Mr. Barnes. He says that when they received a convert from the Gentiles they baptized him; John found this rite in use, and merely applied an old ordinance to a new purpose. Now I want to know how this ordinance was administered. What was the act which they performed upon the proselyte? Did they sprinkle him, or pour upon him, or was he immersed? If this can be ascertained, it will of course determine what it was that John did when he baptized. Can you tell us, Mr. Johnson, which it was?”
“Yes, my child; it is universally conceded that the Jewish proselyte baptism was immersion. I do not know that this has ever been denied by any writer, on either side of this controversy. It is distinctly stated to have been immersion by Dr. Lightfoot, Dr. Adam Clarke, Prof. Stuart, and others who have espoused our cause.”
“How, then, do you get rid of the difficulty? If, as Mr. Barnes says, John applied an old ordinance to a new purpose, and that old ordinance was immersion, it is absolutely certain that John immersed. There is not room for even the shadow of a doubt.”
“It would seem to be so, indeed,” said the pastor. “I never thought of it just in that light before.”
“But if John immersed,” said Theodosia, “then Jesus was immersed by John. This immersion was called his baptism. The disciples saw it, and spoke of it as such; and ever afterward, whenever baptism was mentioned, their minds would revert to this act; and so when Jesus said to them, Go and baptize, they must have understood him to mean that they should go and repeat on others the rite which they had seen performed on him. And not only so,” added the young lady, “but Christ’s disciples had themselves been accustomed to practice the same baptism under his own eye. If John immersed, they had not only witnessed this immersion of Jesus, but they had themselves immersed hundreds, if not thousands, under the personal direction of Jesus himself.”
“That would certainly settle the question. But where did you make that discovery?” asked Mr. Percy.
“Oh! that is in the record,” she replied. “Here is the testimony of John 3:22, 23: ‘After these things, came Jesus and his disciples into the land of Judea; and there he tarried with them and baptized. And John also was baptizing in Ænon near to Salim, because there was much water there; and they came, and were baptized.’ And in the next chapter it says the Pharisees heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John. Now John baptized, and Jesus baptized. They both did the same thing; that is as plain as words can make it. Whatever it was that John did, Jesus did the same thing. If John’s baptism was immersion, then Jesus and his disciples were immersing, and they immersed more than John.”
“That is really,” said Mr. Percy, “a complete demonstration. Don’t you think so, Mr. Johnson?”
“Well, I must confess it looks so at first glance. We must look into this matter another time. Let us, for the present, see what Mr. Barnes says further. Please read on, Mr. Percy.”
“The Hebrew word (tabal) which is rendered by the Greek word ‘baptize,’ occurs in the Old Testament in the following places: Lev. 4:6; 14:6, 51; Num. 19:18; Ruth 2:14; Ex. 12:22; Deut. 33:24; Eze. 23:15; Job 9:31; Lev. 9:9; 1 Sam. 9:27; 2 Kings 5:14; 8:15; Gen. 37:31; Joshua 3:15. It occurs in no other places; and from a careful examination of these passages, its meaning among the Jews is to be derived.” “From these passages it will be seen that its radical meaning is not to sprinkle or to immerse; it is to dip, commonly for the purpose of sprinkling, or for some other purpose.”
“Pardon me, pastor, but what does the good man mean? It is not to sprinkle; is not to immerse; it is to dip. Edwin, please get Webster’s Dictionary, and tell us the difference between the meaning of dip and immerse.”
“Here it is! ‘Immerse is to plunge into a fluid.’ ‘Dip is to plunge anything into a fluid, and instantly take it out again.’”
“Why, Mr. Percy, that just describes the act of baptism which we saw at the river. It was not an immersion strictly speaking, but a dipping, a plunging beneath the water, and a raising out again. What are you laughing at, brother Edwin?”
“I was only thinking how a preacher would look, dipping a man for the purpose of sprinkling him. But see! there goes my teacher. Let me call him in; he can tell us something more about these things.”
“Mr. Courtney,” said Mr. Percy, “perhaps you can help us a little. We were just looking at Barnes on baptism.”
“I did not know that he had ever written on the subject, except some very singular remarks he made in his notes on the third chapter of Matthew.”
“It was those we were examining, and I infer that you do not think very favorably of his argument.”
“I think he makes a very strong argument for the Baptist.”
“How so?”
“Simply thus: It is an axiom in logic as well as in mathematics, that ‘things which are equal to the same thing, are equal to one another.’ Now he states a very remarkable and exceedingly significant fact, when he says that the Hebrew word tabal is rendered by the word baptize. It occurs, he says, fifteen times in the Hebrew Bible. Now when the Jews translated their Scriptures into Greek, whenever they came to this word, they rendered it baptize; and when our translators came to this same word, they rendered it by the English word dip. It follows therefore, since dip in English and baptize in Greek are both equivalent to tabal in Hebrew, that they must be equivalent to each other. Mr. Barnes says further, that the true way to ascertain the meaning of this word among the Jews, is to examine carefully the fifteen places where it occurs in the Old Testament. I see, Miss Ernest, that you have the Bible in your hand; suppose you turn to those places, and let us see how they read. It will take but a few minutes of our time.”
“I had gotten the book for that very purpose, sir. I like this way of study, comparing scripture with scripture. I always feel better satisfied with my conclusions, when I have drawn them for myself directly from the Bible.”
“Well, here is the first place, Lev. 4:6: ‘And the priest shall dip his finger in the blood.’ The second, Lev. 14:6: ‘And shall dip them . . . in the blood of the bird that was killed over the running water.’ The third, Num. 19:18: ‘And a clean person shall take hyssop, and dip it in the water.’ The fourth, Ruth 2:14: ‘And Boaz said unto her, At meal time, come thou hither, and eat of the bread, and dip thy morsel in the vinegar.’ The fifth, Ex. 12:22: ‘And ye shall take a bunch of hyssop, and dip it in the blood.’ The sixth, Deut. 33:24: ‘And let him dip his foot in oil.’ The seventh, Eze. 23:15: ‘Exceeding in dyed attire.’ The eighth, Job 9:31: ‘Yet shalt thou plunge me in the ditch.’ The ninth, Lev. 9:9: ‘And he dipped his finger in the blood.’ The tenth, 1 Sam. 14:27: ‘And he [Jonathan] put forth the end of the rod that was in his hand, and dipped it in an honeycomb.’ The eleventh, 2 Kings 8:15: ‘And he [Hazael] took a thick cloth, and dipped it in the water, and spread it on his face.’ The twelfth, Josh. 3:15: ‘The feet of the priests that bare the ark were dipped in the brim of the water [Jordan].’ The thirteenth, 2 Kings 5:14: ‘Then went he down, and dipped himself seven times in Jordan.’ The fourteenth, Gen. 37:31: ‘And they took Joseph’s coat, and killed a kid of the goats, and dipped the coat in the blood.’ The fifteenth, Lev. 14:51: ‘And dip them in the blood of the slain bird, and in the running water.’
“The passage in 2 Kings 5:14 is very remarkable, since it corresponds precisely in the Septuagint to the text in Matthew. The Septuagint says of Naaman, ‘Ebaptizato en to Jordane.’ Matthew says of the people baptized by John, ‘Ebaptizonto en to Jordane.’ Nobody has ever questioned the correctness of the translation in Kings. He dipped himself in Jordan; and had Matthew been translated by the same rule, it must have read, they were dipped by John in Jordan.”
“Oh, yes, I see now how it was,” said Theodosia, “when Dr. Fisher performed this ceremony upon me. He baptized his own hand, for he dipped that in the bowl, but he only sprinkled me; and therefore according to the showing of Mr. Barnes himself, I never have been baptized.”
“Macknight on the Epistles, Rom. 6:4: ‘Buried with Christ by baptism.’ In the note he says: ‘Christ’s baptism was not the baptism of repentance, for he never committed any sin. But he submitted to be baptized,—that is, to be buried under the water by John, and to be raised out again, as an emblem of his future death and resurrection. In like manner, the baptism of believers is emblematical of their own death, burial, and resurrection; perhaps, also, it is a commemoration of Christ’s baptism.’ The burying of Christ and of believers, first in the water of baptism, and afterward in the earth, is fitly enough compared to the planting of seeds in the earth, because the effect in both cases is a reviviscence to a state of greater perfection. Eph. 4:5: ‘One Lord, one faith, one baptism.’ Ye all, says he, serve one Lord, and all have the same object of faith, and have all professed that faith by the same form of baptism.”
“John Wesley, in his Notes on Rom. 6:4: ‘The allusion is to the ancient manner of baptizing by immersion.’ And he relates in his journal, vol. 3, page 20, that Mary Welch, aged eleven days, was baptized according to the custom of the first church and the rule of the Church of England, by immersion.”
“You tell me, Mr. Johnson, that Jesus Christ was sprinkled. But James Macknight, another eminent minister of our own church, a doctor of divinity, and for twenty years a Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian church in the country where he lived, tells me that ‘Jesus submitted to be baptized, that is, to be put under the water, and taken out again by John.’ And Dr. Chalmers, another most eminent minister of our church, tells me that ‘the meaning of the word baptism is immersion. John Calvin, the father and founder of our Presbyterian church, distinctly states that ‘the word baptize signifies to immerse, and the rite of immersion was practiced by the ancient church.’”
Reader, remember that Jesus said, “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.”
Miss Theodosia brought in the verdict by being baptized the next Sunday, by immersion.