A QUESTION ABOUT PURIFYING

PETER DUANE BAUGH

"AFTER these things came Jesus and his disciples into the land of

Juda; and there he tarried and baptized.

AND John also was baptizing in non near to Salim, because there was

much water there: and they came and were baptized.

For John was not yet cast into prison.

THEN there arose a question between some of John's disciples and the

Jews about purifying."

John 3: 22 - 25

variety of opinions exist concerning the origin of the Church. When did it start? C I

Schofield popularized the teaching that the Church began on the day of Pentecost,

when the Holy Spirit came in fullness of power and permanently indwelt the disciples

of our Lord Jesus Christ. Others have contended for an earlier beginning, venturing to place

the beginning of the Church before the earthly ministry of the Saviour, with John the Baptist

or in the Old Testament. Still others have advocated some middle ground, such as the

moment when Christ breathed upon the disciples and said "Receive ye the Holy Ghost". One

friend of mine suggested that it may have begun when Christ departed from the Temple after

the Jews took up stones to stone him in John 8.

Establishing the precise nanosecond that the Church began to exist is not the purpose of the

following pages. A definitive work upon the subject may be reserved for some future study,

but in passing we may point out the words of John the Baptist in John 3: 29, "He that hath the

bride is the bridegroom." We must take into consideration the fact that John uses present-

tense verbs here, "hath" and "is," and that the future tense is not used at all in relationship to

the Bride. Does this statement, with its present-tense verb forms, imply that the Church had

already begun? Unquestionably, it does.

THE BAPTISMAL MINISTRY OF CHRIST

What is equally clear in John 3 is that the Lord Jesus Christ had already engaged in the

Church ordinance of baptism within that first year of his earthly ministry. This leads to our

next question: What kind of baptism did Christ practice? Did he sprinkle? Did he pour water

over the candidates? Did he immerse? Why doesn't the Bible use these specific words? Why

doesn't it simply say "sprinkle" or "pour" or "immerse?" Why doesn't our King James Bible

translate in this simple, direct way instead of rendering the word as "baptize," a word that

has been variously interpreted? Does this reflect a political motivation or a denominational

agenda?

Most of us have probably heard someone say something like this: "The word 'baptizo' in the

Greek language means 'to immerse' or 'I immerse' or 'I am immersing'". It is a common

definition, and most of us would say something along those lines if asked to explain why we

insist upon baptism by immersion.

Unfortunately, that answer is incomplete. Notice that I did not say "wrong." I said

"incomplete." There is a difference, and the differentiating factor weighs into the translation

A

of the word "baptizo." The simple fact is that "baptize" is the correct translation of the word

"baptizo," and that the King James translators translated the word correctly. If they had

translated "baptizo" as dip or "immerse," they would have given us only a partial

translation.

One way to explain this is to begin with the Protestant arguments in defense of sprinkling or

pouring. As you may well imagine, Protestants have their own arguments to defend their

position. With this in mind, we may begin with the Protestant view and, once we've assessed

it correctly and diagnosed its error, move to the correct Biblical teaching of baptism by

immersion while understanding why "immersion" does not fully translate the word "baptizo."

It may seem technical at first, but it has a tremendous doctrinal implication and sets the

stage for the dramatic history of persecuted Christians who upheld Biblical Christianity

throughout the Dark Ages and remind us by their legacy of our responsibility as Baptists today.

BAPTISM AND PROSELYTE PURIFICATION IN THE TIME OF CHRIST

Presbyterian scholar B B Warfield set forth his defense of the Protestant view in his article

entitled, "How Shall We Baptize?," which first appeared in the Methodist Quarterly Review in

October 1911.i In this article, Warfield argues for liberty of conscience concerning the mode

of baptism.ii This is in keeping with historic Protestant thought. On August 7, 1644, in

discussing the mode of baptism to be required throughout England, the Westminster

theologians, composed of Episcopalians, Presbyterians and Independents barely avoided

adopting an immersionist position for the Westminster Confession of Faith, with only a single

vote tipping the scales against defining the mode of baptism as immersion. The following

day, the assembly concluded that pouring or sprinkling would suffice.iii The 1662 Book of

Common Prayer states that a minister may perform baptism by either immersion or pouring,

according to the demands of circumstance.iv In other words, Protestant thought considers the

mode of baptism as indifferent and open to the interpretation of the individual conscience.

Warfield's defense of this Protestant view leans almost entirely upon the cultural

understanding of the word "baptizo" during the inter-testamental period and the first

centuries of the church. His primary argument is that during this period, baptism was

understood by Jewish society as a ceremonial cleansing, or purification. According to

Warfield, Hellenistic Jews had applied the Greek word "baptizo" to the Levitical purification

rites of the Old Testament in such a way that it had come to invoke the meaning of a religious

ceremonial purifying, and that this understanding of baptism prevailed on into New

Testament times.v

This claim does not stand alone or without support. It is confirmed by numerous authorities,

including Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Biblevi, Kittel's Theological Dictionary

of the New Testamentvii, the New Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bibleviii, Thayer's

Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testamentix, William Smith's Dictionary of the Biblex, and

the Zondervan Pictorial Bible Dictionaryxi. Alfred Plummer, in his article on baptism in James

Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible cites a rabbinical tradition that carries the purification

aspect of baptism even further than the Levitical priesthood, all the way back to Jacob's

command to his household to put away their strange gods, cleanse themselves and change

their garments.xii

Furhtermore, the early church understood the implications of this often-neglected aspect

quite clearly. As late as 139 A. D., we find Justin Martyr referring to the baptized as those

who had received "the bath in the water". xiii So much did the early church tend to emphasize

the symbolic purification of baptism that the Apostle Peter felt it necessary, in I Peter 3: 21,

to remind them that it was the "answer of a good conscience toward God" rather than "the

putting away of the filth of the flesh" that saved them.xiv Nevertheless, the idea continued

to eclipse the doctrine of justification by grace through faith and began to take on the idea of

sacramental grace. Baptist historian and advocate of Baptist succession, J. M. Cramp cites

Bishop Kaye quoting Tertullian's reference to baptism as "the sacrament of washing."xv F. C.

Conybeare also quotes Tertullian as saying that it "makes no difference whether a man be

washed in a sea or a pool, a stream or a fount, a lake or a trough".xvi

THE HISTORIC BAPTIST AND ANABAPTIST VIEW OF BAPTISM

Because, as Baptists, we often find ourselves defending the doctrine of believer's baptism by

immersion, the focus of our discussions on the subject of baptism as a whole seems to fall

inevitably on the mode of baptism, almost to the exclusion of its other implications.

Nevertheless, none of Warfield's defense to this point in our discussion actually crosses the

line of departing from the Biblical and historic Baptist teaching upon the subject. Warfield

correctly asserts that baptism at the time of Christ represented a symbolic cleansing from sin,

or purification, and that the early church both understood and embraced this symbolism. Our

Baptist forefathers and Anabaptist kinsmen understood and taught the same thing. The

Paulician Key of Truth, dated no later than 850 A. D. includes the following as part of its

baptismal ceremony:

"Accept now, good Lord, the eager will of thy creature, who hath set his face to

draw nigh unto thy holy and only true Godhead, bearing in himself a Christian

name. And give him strength and help both to be made worthy and to attain unto

the purification of the holy font of spotless life and to the heritage of adoption

into the kingdom of heaven, Christ Jesus our Lord."xvii

In their First Confession of 1627, the Anabaptists in Amsterdam proclaimed,

"The benefit which the Lord God, on His part, declares through the sign of baptism, is the

washing away of the sinful corruptions of the soul, through the shedding of the blood of

Christ; which signifies the forgiveness of sins, obtained through this blood, to the assurance

of a good conscience with God, by which believers comfort themselves with the promise of

eternal salvation."xviii

Writing in 1659, Mennonite historian Thielman J. van Braght, in his "Martyr's Mirror", wrote:

"This manner of baptizing, by the ancients called immersion or submersion, has

long been observed, even up to the present time, especially by the eastern and

southern nations, who understood the Greek word baptisma (baptism), or baptizo

(to baptize), to signify a total immersion or submersion in the water; however, it is

found that, according to the idiom of the Greek language, said words do not only

signify an immersion or submersion in, but also a washing or sprinkling with

water."xix

Describing baptism as performed during the seventh century, he quotes a baptismal formula

from approximately 658 A. D., and interprets it to exclude infants thus:

"All these are certainly expressions that relate to intelligent persons, and not in

the least applicable to infants; for, when, in the first place, it is said here:

'Rejoice,' this then is the opposite of sorrow, which sorrow the candidates were

previously wont to feel on account of their manifold sins, over which they wept and

mourned; but now, being washed in baptism, through faith and the blood of Christ,

they have reason to rejoice, even as the jailer, who having been baptized, rejoiced

with all his house, Acts 16; and as the Ethiopian, who after baptism, went on his

way rejoicing, Acts 8: 39."xx

The famed Baptist pastor, Benjamin Keach also refers to baptism as a "washing" in his

Catechism of 1677, saying:

"Baptism is an holy ordinance, wherein the washing with water in the name of the

Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, signifies our ingrafting into Christ and

partaking of the benefits of the covenant of grace, and our engagement to be the

Lord's."xxi

To this we add the Confession of the Free Will Baptists dated at 1848, which defines baptism

as

"the immersion of believers in water, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy

Spirit, in which are represented the burial and resurrection of Christ, the death of Christians

to the world, the washing of their souls from the pollution of sin, their rising to newness of

life, their engagement to serve God, and their resurrection at the last day."xxii

In 1892, at the request of the American Baptist Publication Society, John Broadus produced

his Catechism of Bible Teaching, which includes the following:

"A. The action performed in Christian baptism is immersion in water. (Mark 1:9, 10;

Acts 8:39)

4. What does this signify?

A. The water signifies purification from sin, and the immersion signifies that we

are dead to sin, and like Christ have been buried and risen again. (Acts 22:16; Rom.

6:4)"xxiii

James P. Boyce's Brief Catechism of Bible Doctrine contains the following:

"What does the use of water in Baptism represent?

The washing away of our sins by the cleansing influences of the

Holy Spirit."xxiv

SCRIPTURAL REFERENCES TO BAPTISM AS WASHING

Most importantly, Scripture itself confirms this aspect of baptism. In Hebrews 10: 22, the

Bible speaks of drawing "near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts

sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water".xxv Perhaps no

other passage in the New Testament so vividly reminds us of the Levitical background of

Christian baptism. We may also see the antitype of this symbolic purification of baptism in

Ephesians 5: 26, where the Apostle Paul speaks of the bride of Christ being sanctified and

cleansed "with the washing of water by the word".xxvi Titus 3: 3 also refers to the antitype,

where it reads, "Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his

mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost".xxvii Act

22: 16 also reflects the antitype of baptism.xxviii

THE MODE OF WASHING

And it is precisely at this point that we must part ways with Warfield and his Protestant

companions. Warfield argues that the cultural usage of the word "baptizo" implied a

ceremonial purification. True indeed. The act of baptism signified that very thing. But we

cannot follow him to the extreme that he wants us to take it to, that is, that the cultural

usage completely overshadows the word itself to the point that we may simply bypass the

other implications, such as that of immersion.

In fact, Warfield makes this claim against the authority of numerous other highly-qualified

experts on the subject. It was the Hebrew scholar "Rabbi" Coleman that contended so hotly

against Dr. John Lightfoot for the inclusion of an immersionist position in the Westminster

Confession of Faith in 1644, insisting that the Hebrew word tauvelah could only mean total

immersion.xxix John Gill, perhaps the most renowned Hebrew scholar to rise from the Baptist

ranks asserts that the Jews "used dipping in their baptisms and purifications", and cites

Calvin, Aretius, Piscator, Musculus and even Dr. Lightfoot himself in support of his claim.xxx

Alfred Plummer, in James Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible describes the Jewish practice thus:

"According to the teaching of later Judaism, a stranger who desired to become a

Proselyte of the Covenant, or of Righteousness, i.e. in the fullest sense an Isr.,

must be circumcised and baptized, and then offer a sacrifice; circumcision alone

was not enough. Three of those who had instructed the stranger in the Law

became his 'fathers' or sponsors, and took him to a pool, in which he stood up to his

neck in water, while the great commandments of the Law were recited to him.

These he promised to keep. Then a benediction was pronounced, and he plunged

beneath the water, taking care to be entirely submerged."xxxi

Notice that Plummer describes this as "the teaching of later Judaism". This shatters

Warfield's claim that only at the earliest stage of appropriation by the Hellenistic Jews did

baptism imply immersion.

Not only does the history of Jewish custom undermine Warfield's position, but his own

argument may be turned against him. Consider the previously-cited passages that refer to

the "washing" symbolized by baptism. The Greek word used in Ephesians 5: 26, Titus 3: 5 and

Hebrews 10: 22 is "louo," which, according to the New Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the

Bible, means to bathe "the whole person."xxxii Acts 22: 16 uses a compound form of the same

word.xxxiii The Greek New Testament makes use of a different word when describing a partial

washing, such as the washing of the disciples feet. So how could pouring or sprinkling

possibly align with this terminology? The candidate would have to take a full-fledged shower

to even come close to the meaning of the language of the Greek New Testament!

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, we may summarize as follows: translating "baptizo" with the English word

"immerse" would have only rendered a partial translation, because it would have correctly

stated the mode while omitting completely the aspect of a religious ceremonial or symbolic

cleansing. "Baptizo" simply encompasses a dimension of meaning that "immerse" does not

communicate. It involves immersion, but means more than just immersion. Even in our own

culture, hundreds and hundreds of years later, whenever we speak of baptism, the word

always imposes religious ceremonial overtones. I may quite accurately speak of immersing

the dishes in the dishwater, but only by the most poetic flights of verbal imagery would

anyone ever venture to speak of baptizing the dishes. And that would make for miserable

poetry indeed! The word simply does not fit. It is inappropriate because it is part of a

specialized vocabulary, unique to the religious world, and always carrying with it those

religious or spiritual implications. And it was just this very kind of specialized terminology

that the King James translators needed to correctly and fully translate the Greek word

"baptizo."

i Benjamin B Warfield, Selected Shorter Writings (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1973) 2: 329.

ii Ibid., 349. iii E. Wayne Thompson and David L Cummins, This Day in Baptist History (Greenville, SC: Bob Jones University Press, 1993), 325 - 26. iv The Book of Common Prayer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 269 v Warfield, 345 - 48. vi Matthew Henry, Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2008), 1541. vii Albrecht Oepke, ", ," in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. Gerhard Kittel (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdman's Publishing Company, 2006), 535 - 40 viii James Strong, The New Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible. Nashville, TN, 1990 ix Joseph Thayer, Thayer's Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, 4th ed. (Edinburgh, Scotland: T. & T. Clark, 1896; reprint, Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., 2002), 94. x William Smith, "Baptism," in Dictionary of the Bible, ed. William Smith (Fleming H. Revell Company), 95 - 96. xi Clarence B. Bass, "Baptism," in The Zondervan Pictorial Bible Dictionary, ed. Merrill C. Tenney, 9th ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1968), 96. xii Alfred Plummer, "Baptism," in Dictionary of the Bible, ed. James Hastings (Edinburgh, Scotland: T. & T. Clark, 1898), 239 xiii Thomas Armitage, History of the Baptists (New York: Bryan, Taylor & Co., 1887; reprint, Springfield, MO: Baptist Bible College, 1977), 160. xiv I Peter 3: 21 KJV xv John Mockett Cramp, Baptist History (Philadelphia, PA: American Baptist Publication Society, 1852; reprint, London, Ont.: Bethel Baptist Print Ministry, 2003), 26. xvi Fred C. Conybeare, The Key of Truth (London: Clarendon Press, 1898), 189. xvii Ibid, 189. xviii Thielman J van Bracht, ed., The Martyr's Mirror 2d English ed. (Scotsdale, PA: Mennonite Publishing House, 2009), 31. xix Van Bracht, 214. xx Ibid, 215. xxi The Reformed Reader http://www.reformedreader.org/ccc/keachcat.htm (accessed 8 July 2009). xxii Ibid. xxiii The Reformed Reader http://www.reformedreader.org/ccc/tfwb.htm (accessed 20 October 2011). xxiv Ibid. xxv Hebrews 10: 22 KJV xxvi Ephesians 5: 26 KJV xxvii Titus 3: 5 KJV xxviii Acts 22: 16 KJV xxix Thomson and Cummins, 326. xxx John Gill, An Exposition of the Gospel According to John (London: Aaron Ward, 1746 -1748; reprint, Springfield, MO: Particular Baptist Press, 2003), 98. xxxi Plummer, 239. xxxii Strong. xxxiii Ibid.