In Romans 6:3-4, Paul says, “Do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we were buried with him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.”
Does this passage require submersion as the proper mode of baptism? I was baptized by submersion and believe that submersions are legitimate baptisms, but my church practices baptisms from above (sprinkling or pouring). We believe this mode lines up best with biblical commands and imagery.
Submersionists appeal to Romans 6 as proof that baptisms must be done by submersion. The thinking goes like this: If baptism represents the death and burial of Jesus, then the recipient must go completely under water, similar to being buried underground. They think that the visual component of baptism must symbolize a visual burial. But there are problems with this argument.
First, Jesus wasn’t buried in the way we typically think of burials. He was not buried underground; he was placed in the side of a cave-tomb. If baptism must visually match Jesus’s burial, we shouldn’t use underground burials as our model. That would be anachronistic. Shouldn’t the recipient be inserted into the side of standing water? Of course, that would be impossible. Surely Paul had no such thing in mind.
Second, why is the burial the primary thing to be represented? Why not the cross, where Jesus actually died? Paul says we are baptized into Jesus’s “death,” not just his burial. During a submersion baptism, why is there no visual representation of the recipient being crucified? The submersionist arbitrarily focuses on one aspect and makes it primary.
I appreciate the submersionist’s attempt to use symbolism during baptism. The intent is good, but the result is anachronistic and arbitrary. It is contrived symbolism, not biblical symbolism. It only serves to bolster their view that the word “baptism” means submersion. Once that belief is properly refuted, any hint of submersion quickly vanishes from Romans 6.
In the Old Testament, baptisms for rebirth and resurrection were always from above (sprinkling or pouring), symbolizing water from heaven. That symbolism does not change in the New Testament.
