Section Fifth.
On βαπτίζω And Its Cognates, With Special Reference To The Mode Of Administering Baptism.
IT is a somewhat striking circumstance, that when our Lord’s forerunner came forth to prepare the way for His Master, he is represented as not only preaching the doctrine, but also as administering the baptism of repentance; while still a profound silence is observed as to the manner in which he administered the ordinance to his disciples. St. Luke in his first notice of the subject, couples the two together—the doctrine and the ordinance—and says, “John came into all the country about Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance.” And St. Matthew, after briefly mentioning his call to repent, and referring to the prophecy in Isaiah 40:8, with like simplicity relates, that “all Jerusalem went out to him, and all Judea, and all the region round about Jordan, and were baptized of him in Jordan, confessing their sins.” Whence may we suppose such reserve upon the matter to have arisen? Was it from the practice of religious baptism being already in familiar use among the Jews, so that no specific information was needed respecting the mode of its administration? Or did the word itself, βαπτίζω, so distinctly indicate the kind of action employed, that all acquainted with the meaning of the word would understand what was done? Or, finally, did it arise from no dependence being placed on the precise mode, and from the virtue of the ordinance being necessarily tied to no particular form? Any of these suppositions might possibly account for the peculiarity; but as they cannot be all admitted, it is of some importance, that we know which has the preferable claim on our belief.
I. To look first to the term employed—βαπτίζω has the form of a frequentative verb from βάπτω, which is rarely used in the New Testament, and never in this connexion. βάπτω means simply to dip; the Latin synonyms are mergo, tingo; and βάπτος has the sense of tinctus. The word was used of dipping in any way, and very commonly of the operation of dyeing cloth by dipping; whence it has the figurative import of dyeing, with a collateral reference to the manner in which the process was accomplished. Taking βαπτίζω for a frequentative of βάπτω, the earlier glossaries ascribed to it the meaning of mergito, as is stated by Vossius in his Etymologicon: Cum autem βάπτω sit mergo, βαπτίζω commode vertamus mergito; and he adds, respecting the Christian ordinance, præsertim, si sermo de Christianorum baptismo, qui trinâ fit immersione. If this view were correct, it would be necessary, to a right administration of baptism, that the subject of it should not only be immersed in water, but should be immersed several times; so that not immersion only, but repeated immersion, would be the constitutional form. In mentioning definitely three times, as Vossius does, reference is made to a custom that came early into use, and in certain portions of Christendom is not altogether discontinued, according to which a threefold action was employed in order more distinctly to express belief in a triune God. Thus Tertullian writes, Adv. Praxeam, c. 26: Novissime mandavit (viz. Christus) ut tinguerent in Patrem, et Filium, et Spiritum Sanctum, non in unum. Nam nec semel, sed ter, ad singula nomina in personas singulas tinguimur. Chrysostom, in like manner, affirms, that the Lord delivered one baptism to His disciples in three immersions of the body, when He gave the command to baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost (Hom. de fide, 17.) Jerome and others mention the head as the part on which the threefold immersion was performed. Thus Jerome, adv. Luciferanos: Nam et multa alia, quæ per traditionem in ecclesiis observantur, auctoritatem sibi scriptæ legis usurpaverunt, velut in lavacro ter caput mergitare, deinde aggressos, lactis et mellis prægustari concordiam ad infantiæ significationem, etc. We have no definite information as to the time and manner in which this threefold immersing of the head in baptism began to be practised. Jerome admits, that there is no authority for it in Scripture, and that it was observed in his day, and was to be vindicated merely as an ancient and becoming usage. It very probably took its rise about the period when the doctrine of the Trinity came to be impugned by the theories of ancient heretics, toward the middle or latter part of the second century, with the view of obtaining from each subject of baptism a distinct and formal acknowledgment of the doctrine. But the head being so specially mentioned as the part immersed, seems to imply that the entire person did not participate in the action.
This, however, only by the way. The point we have at present more immediately to consider, is the precise import of βαπτίζω, and whether, as commonly used, it was taken for the frequentative of βάπτω. We have said, that if it really were a frequentative, it must indicate, not immersion simply, but repeated immersion, as the proper form of administering baptism. This, however, is not borne out by the usage. The word is applied to denote the enveloping of objects in water, in a considerable variety of ways, and without any distinct or special reference to the act of dipping or plunging. Thus it is used by Polybius of ships, i. 51, 6, καὶ πολλὰ τῶν σκαφῶν ἐβάπτισον; and in like manner by Josephus, κυβερνήτης, ὅστις χειρῶνα δεδοικὼς πρὸ τῆς θέλλης ἐβάπτισεν ἑκὼν τὸ σκάφος (Bel. J. iii. 8, 5:) in both cases, the general meaning, sink, is evidently the sense to be adopted; in the first, “many of the skiffs sunk;” in the second, “of his own accord the pilot sunk the skiff.” Speaking of Jonah’s vessel, Josephus uses the expression, “the vessel being all but ready to be overwhelmed,” or sunk (ὅσον οὔπω μέλλοντος βαπτίζεσθαι, Ant. 9:10, 2;) and again, in his own life, § 2, of the ship that he sailed in to Home being swamped in the Adriatic (βαπτίζοντος ἡμῶν τοῦ πλοίον,) so that they had to swim through the whole night. The same word is used by Diod. Sic. i. 36, of animals drowned by the overflowing of the Nile, ὑπὸ τοῦ ποταμοῦ περιληφθέντα διαφθείρεται βαπτιζόμενα, and by Polybius, both of horses sinking in a marsh, 5:47, 2, and of infantry being plunged, or covered up to the waist, ἕως τῶν παστῶς βαπτιζόμενοι; so that, whether the objects were covered by the water flowing over them, or by themselves sinking down in it, the word βαπτίζω was equally applied. lu consideration of such passages, and others of a like kind, Dr. Gale, in his Reflections on Wall’s History of Infant Baptism, feels constrained to say, that “the word, perhaps, does not so necessarily express the action of putting under water, as in general a thing being in that condition, no matter how it comes to be so, whether it is put into the water, or the water comes over it; though, indeed, to put it into the water is the most natural way, and the most common, and is therefore usually and pretty constantly, but it may not be necessarily implied.” (Wall’s History of Infant Baptism, iii., p. 122.) In plain terms, βαπτίζω does not always mean dip, but sometimes bears the more general import of being under water. And even this requires to be qualified; for when dipping appears to be meant, not the whole, but only a part of the object seems sometimes to have gone under water. Pressed by such uses and applications of the term, Dr. Gale says, “We readily grant that there may be such circumstances in some cases, which necessarily and manifestly show, that the thing spoken of is not said to be dipt all over; but it does not therefore follow, that the word in that place does not signify to dip. Mr. Wall will allow his pen is dipt in the ink, though it is not daubed all over, or totally immersed.” (D. p. 145.) This, as justly remarked by Wall, is, indeed, to contend for the word, but at the same time, “to grant away the thing;” since, “if that which he allows be dipping, the controversy is at an end.” It resolves itself into a petty question, not worth contending about, how much or how little water should be used in baptism—whether this or that part of the body should be in the element. Liddell and Scott, in their Lexicon, beyond all reasonable doubt, give the fair import of the word, as used by profane writers and Josephus, when they represent it as signifying to dip unwater, to sink, to bathe or soak. It denotes somehow, and to some extent, a going into, or being placed unwater; but is by no means definite as to the precise mode of this being done, or the length to which it might be carried.
When, however, we turn to the use of the word in the Apocrypha and the New Testament, we find a still greater latitude in the sense put upon it. In the apocryphal book Judith, Jdt 12:7, it is said of the heroine of the story, that “she went out every night to the valley of Bethulia, and baptized herself in the camp at the fountain of water”—καὶ έβαπτίζετο ἐν τῆ παρεμβολῇ ἐπι τῆς πηγῆς τοῦ ὕδατος: which can scarcely be understood of any thing but some sort of ablution or washing, since the action is reported to have been done in camp, and not in, but at the fountain of water. Immersion seems to be excluded, both by the publicity of the scene, and by the relation indicated to the fountain. Another, and, if possible, still more unequivocal example, occurs in the Wisdom of Sirach, Sir 34:25, “When one is baptized from a dead body—βαπτιζομένος ἀπὸ νεκροῦ—and touches it again, of what avail is his washing” (τῷ λουτρῷ?) The passage evidently refers to what the law prescribed in the way of purification for those who had come into contact with a corpse. And this we learn from Numbers 19:13, Numbers 19:19, included a threefold action—sprinkling the person with water, mixed with the ashes of a red heifer, bathing it, and washing the clothes. Plainly, therefore, the βαπτιζομένος of the son of Sirach is a general term expressive of the whole of these; it includes all that the law required as to the application of water for the purposes of purification in the case supposed. Nothing but a controversial aim could lead any one to think of ascribing another meaning to the word in this passage. Dr. Gale informs us, that “he remembered the time, when he thought it a very formidable instance;” but bracing himself for the occasion, he again recovered his composure, and corrected, as he says, his mistake; nay, he even came to “think it exceeding clear to any who are willing to see it, that a further washing is necessary besides the sprinklings spoken of, and that this washing was the finishing of the ceremony. The defiled person was to be sprinkled with the holy water on the third and on the seventh day, only as a preparatory to the great purification, which was to be by washing the body and clothes on the seventh day, with which the uncleanliness ended.” (Wall iii., 154.) Such is the shift to which a controversialist can resort, in order to recover his equanimity from a formidable instance! So far from any sort of bathing at the close being the chief thing in the ordinance, and that from which the whole might be designated, the bathing was evidently one of the least; for it is not so much as mentioned in the Epistle to the Hebrews, where the service is referred to (Hebrews 9:13.) The whole stress there is laid on the sprinkling the unclean with water, mixed with the ashes of the red heifer; nor can any one take up a different impression, who reads the passage in Numbers with an unbiassed spirit. For there, when the state of abiding uncleanness is denoted, nothing is said of the absence of bathing, but account alone is made of the water of separation not being sprinkled on him, which is thrice emphatically repeated, Numbers 19:9, Numbers 19:13, Numbers 19:20. He that was to be cut off from his people, on account of this species of uncleanness, was to suffer excision simply “because the water of separation was not sprinkled upon him.” So that the βαπτιζομένοι of the son of Sirach, if it should be connected with one part of the transaction rather than another, ought plainly to be viewed as having respect chiefly to the sprinkling of the unclean with the water, which had the ashes of the heifer mingled with it; but the fairer interpretation is to view it as inclusive of all the ablutions practised on the occasion. (An explanation has been given of the passage in Numbers, which goes to an extreme on the opposite side, and would deny that the person who underwent the process of purification from the touch of a dead body, required to be bathed at all. Thus Dr. Armstrong, in a late work on the Doctrine of Baptisms, holds respecting Numbers 19:19, “And the clean person shall sprinkle upon the unclean on the third day, and on the seventh day; and on the seventh day he shall purify himself, and wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and shall be clean at even,” that this is meant of the person sprinkling, not of the person sprinkled upon. And he thinks this is made quite certain by Numbers 19:21, which ordains it as a perpetual statute, that he who sprinkles the unclean shall wash his clothes, and be unclean till the evening (p. 72.) But such an explanation will not stand. For the latter person was not required to bathe his body at all; he had simply to wash his clothes. And if he had been meant in Numbers 19:19, there could have been no propriety in laying stress on the seventh day, any more than the third. This points manifestly to the person defiled by the touch of the dead.) In New Testament Scripture we find the same general use of the word, embracing, in like manner, various ceremonial ablutions. Thus in Hebrews 9:1-28, Hebrews 10:1-39, the ancient ritual is described as “standing in meats and drinks and divers washings—διαφόροις βαπτισμοῖς— and carnal ordinances.” The diverse evidently points to several uses of water, such as we know to have actually existed unthe law, sprinklings, washings, bathings. If it had been but one mode or action that was referred to, the diverse would have been entirely out of place. In Mark 7:3-4; Mark 7:8, it is said, “The Pharisees, and all the Jews, except they wash their hands oft (ἐὰν μὴ πυγμῆ νίψωςται τὰς χεῖρας,) eat not, holding the tradition of the elders; and when they come from the market, except they are baptized (ἐὰν μὴ βαπτίσωνται,) they eat not.” This latter expression is undoubtedly of stronger import than the former one, and marks a difference between what was done when they came from the market, and what was done on other and commoner occasions. Dr. Campbell, who, on this subject, lends his support to the views of the Baptists, concurs with them in making the distinction to be—in the one case a simple washing of the hands, or pouring water on them, and an immersion of them in the other. Dr. Campbell even throws this view into his translation; he renders the one clause, “until they wash their hands, by pouring a little water on them;” and the other, “until they dip them.” This mode of explanation, however, is grammatically untenable; it would have required the repetition of the τὰς χεῖρας, in the second clause, after the βαπτίσωνται, if the verb had referred to the dipping of them alone. But on another ground this supposition must be abandoned; for βαπτίζω is never applied to a part of the body, nor is even λούω; these always have respect to the body or person as a whole; while νίπτω is invariably the word used when some particular member or select portion is meant. (Titmann’s Synonyms: “λούω νίπτω; they differ as our bathe and wash. Therefore νίπτεσθαι is used of any particular part of the body, not only of the hands or feet; but λούσασθαι of the whole body. Acts 9:37; Hom. II. w. 5:582.” See also Trench’s Synonyms unthe words.) Having respect to this usage, and marking also that the verb is here in the middle voice, having a reflective sense, we must render the clause, which speaks of what the Pharisees did on coining from market, “except they baptize (or wash) themselves, they eat not;” i.e. they first perform a general ablution; for, having mingled with the crowd in the market-place, and possibly come into contact with some unclean person, not the hands alone, as in ordinary circumstances, but the whole body, was supposed to need a purification. Yet not such a one as involved a total immersion; for the law only required this in extreme cases of actual and ascertained pollution; in cases of a less marked or palpable description, it was done by sprinkling or washing. And we are the rather led to think of this mode of purification here, as the Evangelist, in Mark 7:4, speaks of the Pharisees having “many other things which they received to hold, baptism of pots and cups, and brazen things, and couches;” obviously meaning, not immersions, in the ordinary sense, but washings and sprinklings, which are the forms of purification proper to such things as brazen utensils, pots, and couches. A still further, and very decisive use of the verb is given in Luke 11:38, where we read of the Pharisee marvelling, that our Lord οὐ ἐβαπτίσθη πρὸ τοῦ ἀρίστου, had not washed before dinner. Even Dr. Campbell finds himself obliged to render here, “had used no washing;” judging from his views on other passages it should rather have been, “had not immersed, or bathed himself.” If the Pharisees had been wont to practise immersion before dinner, we might then have supposed, that it was the disuse of such a practice, on the part of our Lord, which gave occasion to the wonder. But there is conclusive evidence to the contrary of this. The passage already cited from the Gospel of Mark alone proves it; for the washing of the hands merely is there mentioned as the ordinary kind of ablution practised by the Pharisees before dinner. And Josephus notices it among the peculiarities of the Essenes, that they bathed themselves before dinner in cold water; plainly implying, that in this they differed from others. There is no evidence to show, and it is against probability to believe, that private baths were common in Judea; and, indeed, the scarcity of water for a great part of the year rendered it next to impossible to have them in common use. Nor was Judea singular in this respect in more ancient times, and in states of society similar to what existed there in the apostolic age. In countries also, where water was greatly more abundant than in Judea, bathing by immersion was comparatively little practised till effeminate and luxurious habits had become general, and even then it was not always so frequent as is commonly represented. It is doubtful if the Greeks in earlier times practised it. Ulysses, indeed, is represented by Homer as going into the bath in the palace of Circe, but the bath (ἀσαμίνθος) was only a vessel for sitting in; and the water, after being heated, was poured over the head and shoulders. In the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, edited by Dr. Smith, it is stated (Art. Balneal) that, “on ancient vases, on which persons are represented bathing, we never find any thing corresponding to a modern bath, in which persons can stand or sit; but there is always a round or oval basin (λουτήρ or λουτήριον) resting on a stand, by the side of which those who are bathing are represented standing undressed, and bathing themselves.” “The daily bath,” says Bekker (Charicles, p. 149,) “was by no means so indispensable with the Greeks as it was with the Romans; nay, in some instances the former nation looked on it as a mark of degeneracy and increasing effeminacy, when the baths were much frequented.” Various proofs are given of this; and it is further stated, that in the Grecian baths there appear usually to have been, beside the λουτὴρες already mentioned, some sort of tubs, in which the persons sat or stood. Some of the paintings represent women standing, and a kind of shower-bath descending on them. To return, however, to the subject more immediately before us—it seems unquestionable, that according to Hellenistic, and more especially to Apocryphal and New Testament usage, the verb βαπτίζω did not always signify immersion, or even the being totally unwater, but included the more general notion of ablution or washing. Nor is there any reason for supposing it to have borne a narrower meaning when applied to the baptism of John or of Christ. We thus quite naturally account for the different construction used in coupling the act of baptizing with the instrument employed. Very commonly the baptism is said to have been done, ἐν ὕδατι, “in water;” but Luke has simply the dative after the verb, ἐγὼ μὲν ὕδατι βαπτίζω (Luke 3:16,) “I indeed baptize you with water”—with that as the instrument, but leaving altogether indeterminate the mode of its application. (Dr. Campbell most unwarrantably translates this passage in Luke’s Gospel, “baptize in water,” as if it were ἐν ὕδατι; and so, has rendered himself justly liable to the rebuke which, in his note on Matthew 3:11, he has administered to those who translate ἐν ὕδατι, with water: “It is to be regretted that we have so much evidence, that even good and learned men allow their judgments to be warped by the sentiments and customs of the sect which they prefer. The true partisan always inclines to correct the diction of the Spirit by that of the party.” So, sometimes, does the man who unduly presses a particular opinion.) We can readily conceive the practice to have varied. When administered at the Jordan, or where there was plenty of water, there might be an actual immersion, or, at least a plentiful affusion. But how could there well be such a thing at Jerusalem about the time of Pentecost in the height of summer, when the rite had to be administered to several thousands at once? We are informed by a most credible witness, that in summer there is no running stream in the vicinity of Jerusalem, except the rill of Siloam, a few rods in length, and that the city is, and was supplied with water from its cisterns, and public reservoirs chiefly supplied by rain early in the season. (Dr. Robinson’s Researches, vol. i., sec. 7, § 9.) It is not unworthy of notice also, that we learn from the same competent authority, that the baptismal fonts still found among the ruins of the most ancient Greek churches in Palestine, and dating, it is understood, from very remote times, are not large enough to admit of the baptism of adult persons by immersion, and from their structure were obviously never intended to be so used. (Ibid., vol. ii., sec. x.) And it may be still further noted as an additional confirmation of the view taken, that in the old Latin version the verb βαπτίζω was not rendered by immergo or mergito as if those words were somehow too definite or partial in their import to be presented as equivalents. It preferred adhering to the Greek, and simply gave baptizo.
II. A second point demanding examination, is that which respects proselyte-baptism among the Jews. Did this exist prior to John’s baptism? In other words, did he simply adopt an existing institution? or did he introduce what might be designated a new ordinance? Both sides of this question have been zealously maintained, and the discussion of it has given rise to long and learned investigations, both in this country and on the continent, into that department of Jewish antiquities. In favour of the prior existence of Jewish proselyte- baptism we find, among others, the names of Lightfoot, Schott- gen, Selden, Buxtorf, Wetstein, Michaelis, Hammond, Wall, etc.; and against it Owen, Carpzov, Lardner, Paulus, De Wette, Schneckenburger, (in an elaborate, separate treatise,) Ernesti, Moses Stuart, etc. The existence of Jewish baptism, as an ancient initiatory rite for proselytes, was more commonly believed in former generations, than it is now. Not a few of the writers mentioned in the first of the above lists, spoke of it as a matter about which it was scarcely possible to entertain a shadow of doubt. Thus Wall gives expression to their views, “It is evident that the custom of the Jews before our Saviour’s time, (and as they themselves affirm, from the beginning of their law,) was to baptize, as well as circumcise any proselyte, that came over to them from the nations. This does fully appear from the books of the Jews themselves, and also of others, that understood the Jewish customs, and have written of them. They reckoned all mankind beside themselves to be in an unclean state, and not capable of being entered into the covenant of Israelites without a washing or baptism, to denote their purification from their uncleanness. And this was called the baptizing of them into Moses.” (History of Infant Baptism, vol. i., p. 4.)
Now, there can be no doubt, that ample quotations can be produced (Dr. Wall has great store of them) in support of these positions. But then what sort of quotations? Are they of a kind to bear with decisive evidence on the state of matters in the gospel age? It is here, that when the authorities are looked into, they prove insufficient for the end they are intended to serve; for, so far from finding any attestations among them respecting the existence of proselyte-baptism in the apostolic age, we are rather apt to he struck with the total want of evidence on the point; and the want of it in writings which, if it could have been had, might have been confidently expected to furnish it. In the inspired writings of the Old Testament no notice is taken of any ordinance connected with the admission, either of native Jews or converted Gentiles, into the Covenant, except that of circumcision. Nor is mention once made of any other in the Apocrypha, or in the Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan, or in Philo and Josephus, notwithstanding the references which abound in their writings, to Jewish rites and customs. There is a like silence upon the subject in the Patristic productions of the first three or four centuries, and in those of the Jewish Rabbis for the same period. So far as the direct evidence goes, the very utmost that can be said is, that indications appear of Jewish proselyte-baptism as an existing practice during the fourth century of the Christian era. And as there is no historical ground for supposing it to have been then originated, it may, with some probability, be held to have been commonly in operation for a certain time previously. But if we inquire when, or how, we can find no satisfactory answer; all is involved in uncertainty. (Schneckenburger, in the treatise above referred to, besides giving a clear historical survey of the opinions and literature upon the subject, has satisfactorily established the following positions. (1.) The regular admission of strangers into the Jewish religion, while the temple stood, was done through circumcision and sacrifice—a lustration, however, preceding the sacrifice, which, like all other lustrations, obtained merely as a Levitical purification, not as an initiatory rite. This appears from a variety of sources, and especially from several passages in Josephus, (such as Ant. xiii. 9, xx. 2, xviii. 3, 4,) in which the reception of individuals from other lands is expressly treated of, and no mention is made of baptism. (2.) The lustration performed on the occasion did not differ in outward form from the ordinary lustrations? but, like these, was practised by the proselytes merely upon themselves. (3.) This lustration by and by took the place of the discontinued sacrifice, yet not probably till the end of the third century; and was then, for the most part, still performed as a self-lustration in connexion with the circumcision that followed it: but in the case of women was done apart from the latter, and in process of time came to be applied, as a proper initiatory rite, as in the case of slaves and foundlings. (4.) Hence, a derivation of the baptism of John or Christ from this Jewish custom, is not to be thought of; but it is to be accounted for from the general use and significance of lustrations among the Jews, taken in connexion with the expectations entertained respecting the new state of things to be introduced by the Messiah.) From the state of the evidence, therefore, respecting proselyte-baptism among the Jews, we are not entitled to found any thing on it in respect to the subject unconsideration, since it is not such as to enable us to draw any definite conclusions regarding its existence or form in the gospel age. We are not on that account, however, to hold that there was nothing in the usages of the time tending in the direction of a baptismal service, and that the institution of such a service in connexion with a new state of things in the kingdom of God, must have had an altogether strange and novel appearance. For, in the ancient religions generally, and in the Mosaic religion in particular, there was such a frequent use of water, by means of washings, sprinklings, and immersions, to indicate the removal of defilement, that the coupling of a great attempt towards reformation with an administration of baptism, could scarcely have appeared otherwise than natural and proper. In the Greek and Roman classics we find constant references to this symbolical use of water. Thus, in Virgil, Æn. ii. 17, Tu, genitor, cape sacra manu, patriosque Penates; Me bello è tanto digressum et caede recenti, Attrectare nefas; donec flumine vivo abluero. Macrobius, Sat. iii., Constat Diis superis sacra facturum corporis ablutione purgari. Porphyry, de Abstin. 4:7, says of the priests of Egypt, τρὶς τῆς ἡμέρας ἀπελούσαντο ψυχπῷ. Ovid speaks of the belief in the efficacy of ablutions as not only prevailing, but prevailing too extensively among the Greeks and Romans: Omne nefas, omnemque mali purgamina causam Credebant nostri tollere posse senes. Graecia principium moris fuit; ilia nocentes Impia lustratos ponere facta putat. Ah! nimium faciles, qui tristia crimina caedis, Flumina tolli posse putetis aqua (Fasti, ii. 35.) Many other passages might be cited to the same effect, but these are enough. The state of feeling and practice among the Jews was only so far different, that they had a better foundation to rest upon, and ordinances of service directly appointed by Heaven to observe. Among these, as already noticed, divers baptisms—baptisms by washing, sprinkling, and immersion—were imposed on them; and both the priests daily, when they entered the Temple, and the ordinary worshippers on ever-recurring occasions, had ablutions of various kinds to perform. Not only so, but it was matter of public notoriety, that the Essenes, who carried their notions and practices somewhat farther than others in ceremonial observance, admitted converts into their number by a solemn act of lustration, making it strictly an initiatory rite; for only after this purifying service had been undergone, and two years of probation had been passed, could the applicant be admitted into full connexion with the society, (Josephus Wars, ii. 8, 6.) Taking all these things into account, and remembering, besides, how frequently in the Old Testament the purification to be effected upon the soul of true penitents, and of those especially who were to live when the great period of reformation came, is represented unthe symbol of a water-purification, (Psalms 26:6; Isaiah 1:16; Isaiah 52:15; Ezekiel 36:25; Zechariah 13:1,) we can scarcely conceive how it should have appeared in any way startling or peculiar that John, who so expressly called men to repentance and amendment of life, as preparatory to a new phase of the Divine administration, should have accompanied his preaching with an ordinance of baptism. The ideas, the practices, the associations, the hopes of the time, were such as to render an act of this kind both a natural expression and a fitting embodiment of his doctrine. Hence, when John gave a succession of denials to the interrogatories of the Pharisees, such as they understood to be a renunciation of any claim on his part to the character, either of Messiah or of Messiah’s forerunner, they asked him, “Why baptizest thou, then, if thou be not that Christ, nor Elias, neither that prophet?” (John 1:25;)—they would have been nowise surprised had any one of these come with an ordinance of baptism; they only wondered that John, disclaiming, as they thought, being identified with one or other of them, should still have made himself known as the dispenser of such an ordinance.
After what has been stated, it is scarcely necessary to add, that it is a matter of no moment in what manner Jewish proselyte-baptism was administered, when it came to be regularly established. For, as we have no certain, or even very probable evidence of its existence till some centuries after the Christian era, the mode of its administration can have no bearing on the question of baptism by John or the apostles. According to the descriptions given of it by Maimonides and other Jewish writers (as may be seen in Wall,) it appears to have been done by immersion; but these descriptions belong to a period long subsequent to the apostolic age. In describing the practice of the Essenes, which, perhaps, comes the nearest to the new rite of any known existing custom, Josephus uses the words ἀπολούω (wash off,) and ἁγνεία, cleansing; pointing rather to the operations of the lavacrum or λουτήριον, than to the act of immersion in a pool or bathing-tub. And it is always by words of a like nature—words indicative of washing, cleansing, and such like, that the ablutions of the Old Testament ritual are described; as in Leviticus 16:28, where it is in the Septuagint, πλυνεῖ ταʼ ἱμάτια καὶ λούσεται τὸ σῶμα αὐτοῦ ὕδατι, he shall wash his clothes, and bathe (in any of the forms) his body with water. It was not, in short, by any precise mode of applying the water, but to the cleansing property or effect of the water, when applied, that respect appears to have been had in the descriptions referred to.
III. A third line of reflection will be found to conduct us substantially to the result we have already arrived at. It is derived from the incidental allusions and explanatory expressions occurring in Scripture, both in respect to the symbolical use of water generally, and to the ordinance of baptism in particular. In nearly all of these it is simply the cleansing property of the water, its washing virtue, which is rendered prominent. For example, in Acts 22:16, “Arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord;” or in Ephesians 5:25-26, “Christ loved the Church, and gave Himself for it, that He might sanctify and cleanse it, by the washing of water by (lit. in) the Word.” Here the reference is not exclusively to the ordinance of baptism; for the cleansing spoken of is represented as finding its accomplishment “in the Word”—being wrought mainly in the soul through the belief of the truth. Yet, along with the more direct and inward instrumentality, the apostle couples that of baptism, and points, while he does so, to the cleansing property of the symbolical element employed in its administration. The same also is done in such expressions as “But ye are washed,” “He hath washed us from our sins,” “He hath saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost;” in each of them the language employed is founded on the baptismal use of water, and bears respect simply to its natural adaptation to purposes of cleansing. On this alone the attention is fixed.
It adds force to the argument derived from these considerations, to observe, that the word baptism is sometimes used of circumstances and events, in regard to which the mode was entirely different, and only the main, fundamental idea alike. Thus in 1 Corinthians 10:2, the apostle represents the Israelites as having been all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea; where nothing but the most fanciful imagination, or the most determined partisanship can think of an immersion being indicated. (One would almost think it was in jeux d’esprit some one had said of Moses walking through the sea on dry ground, “He got a dry dip. And could not a person, literally covered with oil-cloth, get a dry immersion in water?” But it is Dr. Carson who has put his name to such solemn trifling.) The two actions classed together were quite different in form; and neither the one nor the other—neither the passing under the cloud, nor the going dry-shod through the Red Sea, possessed the reality, or even bore the semblance of a dipping. In 1 Peter 3:20-21, the preservation of Noah by the waters of the deluge, which destroyed the ungodly, is represented as a species of baptism—baptism in the type. And there also it was plainly of no moment what corporeal position Noah occupied relatively to the waters—whether above or below them. This is not brought at all into notice. The simple point of comparison between the Old and the New is, that with Noah, as with us, there was an element accomplishing a twofold process the destruction of the evil, and the preservation of the good. He was saved in the ark through that which destroyed others; precisely as we, when our baptism becomes truly operative in our experience, are saved by that regenerative and sanctifying grace, which at once destroys the inherent evil in our natures, and brings to them a participation of a Divine life. In each of these illustrative cases no stress whatever is laid upon the particular form or mode, in which they respectively differed; in regard to none of them is it so much as distinctly referred to, and the whole point of the comparison is made to turn on the separation, the cleansing process effected between the evil and the good—the corruption of nature, on the one side, and the saving grace of God, on the other.
Even the passages in Romans 6:3-4, and Colossians 2:12-13, in which the apostle speaks of baptism as a burial, and which Baptists usually contend is founded on the specific mode of immersion—even these, when viewed in connexion with the representations already noticed, instead of invalidating, rather confirm the deduction we are seeking to establish. For, on the supposition of a reference being made merely to the mode of administration, it would surely be to present us with a most incongruous association, if one and the same act were held to be significant, in its simply external aspect, at once of an interment and a cleansing. What natural relation have these to each other? What proper affinity? Manifestly none whatever; and if the same ordinance is somehow expressive of both ideas, it cannot possibly be through its form of administration; it must be got by looking above this (whatever precisely that may be,) and taking into account the spiritual things symbolized and exhibited in the ordinance. Indeed, as burial was commonly practised in the East, it did not present even a formal resemblance to an immersion in water; for, usually the body, and in particular our Lord’s body, was not let down, as with us, into an open sepulchre, but placed horizontally in the side of a cave, and there not unfrequently lifted up as on a ledge. Such an act could not be said to look like a dip into water; and if, on the ground of an external resemblance, they had been so associated by the apostle, it would have been impossible to vindicate the connexion from the charge of an unregulated play of fancy. But there is here nothing of the kind. The apostle is viewing baptism as the initiatory ordinance that exhibits and confirms the believer’s union to Christ—the crucified and risen Redeemer; and to give the greater distinctness to the representation, he places the believer’s fellowship with Christ successively in connexion with the several stages of Christ’s redemptive work—His death, burial, and resurrection, reckoning these as so many stages in the believer’s personal history. And as thus, the very substance of the statement shows, how Paul was looking to the realities, not to the mere forms of things, so, as if the more to take our thoughts off from the forms, he varies the figure, passes from the idea of being buried with Christ, to that of being, like saplings, planted in the likeness of His death and resurrection. But if immersion in water has little resemblance to an Eastern burial, it has still less to the process of planting a shoot in the ground, that it may spring up into life and fruitfulness. Thus, the figures, with the truth couched under them, only become intelligible and plain, when they are viewed in relation to the spiritual design of the ordinance.
There is still another passage, to which, in this connexion, reference should be made; for although it does not directly discourse of baptism, it proceeds on the ideas commonly associated in our Lord’s time with the religious use of water, and on which the ordinance of baptism is certainly founded. The passage is John 13:1-17, which narrates the action of washing the disciples feet by our Lord. The action had a twofold significance. It was intended, in the first instance, to exhibit an affecting and memorable proof of our Lord’s lowly and loving condescension toward His disciples—one, He gave them to understand, which in spirit must be often repeated among themselves. But, besides this, it pointed to the necessity of spiritual cleansing to its necessity, even in the case of those who have already become the disciples of Christ. They must be perpetually repairing to Him for fresh purifications. Of this symbolic import of the action Peter soon betrayed his ignorance—though really not more ignorant, but only more prompt and outspoken than the others—when he declared that Jesus should never wash his feet. The reply this drew forth was, “If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with Me,” indicating that a deep symbolic import attached to the service, on account of which all the disciples behooved to submit to it. And now Peter, catching a glimpse of his Master’s meaning, exclaimed, “Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and head.” To this Jesus again replied, ̔Ο λελουμένος οὐ χρείαν ἔχει ἤ τοὺς πόδας νίψασθαι, ἀλλ̓ ἔστι καθαρὸς ὅλος;—where we are to mark the change of verb in the first member—the λελουμένος referring to a general washing, the cleansing of the whole body, and the νίψασθαι, the cleansing merely of the feet—in accordance with the usage previously noticed (p. 300.) By reason of their relation to Christ, the disciples (all except Judas, who is expressly distinguished from the rest in what immediately follows) had been, in a manner, washed; that is, they were in an accepted or justified condition, which, with reference to the action of washing, our Lord designated clean. But they could only abide in this condition (our Lord would have them to understand) by perpetually repairing to Him for deliverance from the partial defilements which they contracted in the world; so that the one great baptism into a forgiven and purified condition must be followed up by ever recurring lesser baptisms. But in both cases alike, it is the cleansing virtue alone of the outward service that is made account of; it is the washing away alone of contracted defilement; and if that idea is made prominent in the use of the water, we naturally and reasonably infer, the design of the symbol will in any case be accomplished. On the whole, two things seem perfectly clear, from all that is written in Scripture respecting what is external in the ordinance of baptism. The first is, that there is nothing, either in the expressions employed concerning it, or in the circumstances of its institution, to fix the Church down to a specific form of administration, as essential to its proper being and character. This sufficiently appears from the considerations already adduced; but the view might be greatly strengthened, by comparing the indeterminateness which characterizes the language respecting baptism, with the remarkable precision and definitiveness with which the appointments were made in Old Testament ordinances. In these the form was essential, and hence its minutest details were prescribed—the day, the place, the materials to be employed, and the manner of employing them: all were matter of explicit legislation. But in the New Testament ordinance it is otherwise, because, while the rite itself is imperative, nothing of moment depends upon the precise form of administration. The second conclusion is, that the use of water in baptism is chiefly, if not exclusively, for the purpose of symbolizing the cleansing and regenerative nature of the change, which those, who are the proper subjects, must undergo on entering the Messiah’s kingdom. So that the prominent idea—the one point on which the general tenor of Scripture would lead us to lay stress—is the cleansing property of the element applied to the body, not the precise manner of its administration. And we may fairly regard it as an additional confirmation of the soundness of our views in both these respects, that when we look from the external symbol to the internal reality, we find the same disregard as to form, coupled with the same uniformity as to substantial import. It is said, we are baptized in the Spirit (ἐν πνεύματι ἁγίῳ, Matthew 3:11; John 1:33; Acts 1:5;) but this is described as taking effect by the Spirit descending into us, not by our being immersed into the Spirit—by His being poured out upon us, or coming to abide in us. The cloven tongues as of fire, which at the first imaged the fact of his descent on the apostles, appeared sitting on them; it was not an element, into which they themselves were plunged, but a form of power resting upon them. In a word, it is the internal, vivifying, regenerative agency, which alone is important; the mode in which it is represented as coming into operation is varied, because pointing to what in the ordinance is not absolutely fixed or strictly essential.
We have confined our attention, in the preceding line of inquiry, to what properly belongs to the exegetical province. Our immediate object has been to ascertain, by every fair and legitimate consideration, the Scriptural import of βαπτίζω and βάπτισμα, as applied to the baptism of John and our Lord. The doctrine of baptism the truths it involves, the obligations it imposes, its proper subjects, and the parties by whom it should be administered these are topics that belong to another department of theological inquiry. We shall merely advert, in conclusion, to one or two expressions, in which the word to baptize is coupled with certain adjuncts, used to indicate more definitely its nature and object. In respect to John’s baptism, the common adjuncts are, εἰς μετάνοιαν, εἰς ἔφεσιν ἁμαρτιῶν, into repentance, into remission of sins—that is, into these as the aim and result of the ordinance. The same general relation is sometimes expressed in regard to Christ’s baptism, only the object is different; as when it is said to be εἰς ἔν σῶμα (1 Corinthians 12:13,) εἰς Χριστὸν ̓Ιησοῦν, or εἰς τὸν θάνατον αὐτοῦ (Romans 6:3)—into these, as the end or object aimed at in the ordinance. To be baptized into a person into Christ, for example, or into His body— means, to be through baptism formally admitted into personal fellowship with Him, and participation in the cause or work associated with His name. And not materially different is the expression of being baptized, ἐν τῷ ὀνόματι τοῦ Κυριόυ (Acts 10:48,) also ἐπι τῷ ὀνόματι ̓Ιησοῦ (Acts 2:38;) the import of which is not that the original formula given by the Lord was dispensed with—that instead of it Christ’s name simply was pronounced over the baptized; but that they were baptized into the faith of His person and salvation, or into the profession and hope of all that His name indicates for those who own His authority, and trust in His merits.
