My Baptist Obstacles: Immersion

Welcome back, my friends! When we last talked, we had outlined a list of arguments I personally used to use against infant baptism [LINK TO PREVIOUS]. As I had begun to question the possibility that infant baptism was correct, I had to address these exact items. These are not straw men. These are the kind of arguments that intelligent and godly men do employ. I am writing about them because I changed my mind about them after vigorously using them for a long time.

So I am not insulting you if you have said the same; I am not mocking you if you don’t agree with me. What I will say for my infant baptism view is that the doctrines of including children in the covenant have brought me endless joy since I came to see each one of these doctrines as true, convinced by scripture. This is why I hope to share such joy with others.

So today’s goal is to address the concept of baptism as full immersion:

My first memory of being taught an argument against infant baptism was an argument against sprinkling and pouring. It went like this: The Greek term for baptism, the word we get “baptism” from, is baptizo. Baptizo means “total immersion under water” and therefore sprinkling and pouring are NOT baptism because they are not full immersion. Furthermore, we are said to be buried with Christ in baptism, and only immersion pictures this – not sprinkling, and not pouring. Since baptism is by immersion only, infant baptism is false. That is the argument.

This counter-argument is fairly simple, and thankfully is unsophisticated:

My first point is to flat out deny and then demonstrate from scripture the opposite of the claim. I deny that baptizo always requires bodily immersion of the one being baptized. I can show this in scripture. In addition, I will point to a historical fact as furtherance of my evidence. And finally I have an icing for the cake in a fun passage that seems to indicate a possibility that a New Testament baptism in our literature was actually a sprinkling.

BAPTIZO DOES NOT NECESSARILY MEAN IMMERSION

baptizo can mean hand washing

I learned this demonstration from Charles Murray’s book “Christian Baptism.” There are cases in the text of the New Testament where baptizo or baptismos do not and cannot mean “full bodily immersion.” In the following passages the washing in question only involves the washing of hands, and yet we are told that hand washing is “baptizing oneself.”

Matt 15.1-9 (for longer context see Matt 15.1-20)

Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, 2 “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat.” 3 He answered them, “And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? 4 For God commanded, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ 5 But you say, ‘If anyone tells his father or his mother, “What you would have gained from me is given to God,” 6 he need not honor his father.’ So for the sake of your tradition you have made void the word of God. 7 You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said:

8 “‘This people honors me with their lips,
but their heart is far from me;
9 in vain do they worship me,
teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’”

Matt 15.1-9

…

Mark 7.1-7 (for longer context, see 7.1-23)

Now when the Pharisees gathered to him, with some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem, 2 they saw that some of his disciples ate with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed [anipto]. 3 (For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash [nipto] their hands properly, holding to the tradition of the elders, 4 and when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash [baptizo]. And there are many other traditions that they observe, such as the washing [baptismos] of cups and pots and copper vessels and dining couches.) 5 And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” 6 And he said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written,

“‘This people honors me with their lips,
but their heart is far from me;
7 in vain do they worship me,
teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’

Mark 7.1-7

…

Luke 11.37-41

37 While Jesus was speaking, a Pharisee asked him to dine with him, so he went in and reclined at table. 38 The Pharisee was astonished to see that he did not first wash [baptizo] before dinner. 39 And the Lord said to him, “Now you Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. 40 You fools! Did not he who made the outside make the inside also? 41 But give as alms those things that are within, and behold, everything is clean for you.

Luke 11.37-41

In all three of these passages, they are discussing hand washing only, not bodily immersion. In Mark it is possible there is some movement from nipto to baptizo in level of washing, but it is not to the level bodily immersion. Verse 3 is already a demonstration of “proper ritual washing,” a higher than average wash. “Proper” here is a gloss of “with a fist”. They were to wash “scrubbing using a fist” or “up to the elbow.” There is much uncertain discussion of what exactly the word [pugme = ‘fist’] implies. Verse 3 could be saying that the Pharisees would never eat without a fist-scrubbing, and verse 4 certainly could be saying that they Pharisees felt the need to submerge their hands after going shopping.

But the point remains that we still only mean hand washing:

• Matt 15 only ever mentions hand washing.
• In Mark 7, hands are mentioned in v 2, 3 and 5. And in the midst of it we are told that after shopping, “the pharisees do not eat unless after baptizing themselves,” (7.4), but even so, we read forward to verse 5, and we still hear that the Pharisees are upset about hands.
• Baptizing oneself is apparently something regularly done at a stranger’s house right before dinner, so it isn’t a bath, but hand washing: In Luke 11 Jesus is invited in to a Pharisee’s house, and goes strait to the table without stopping to wash his hands – and we hear in verse 38 that the Pharisee was taken aback that Jesus didn’t “baptize himself.” This could not be that he should have come to impromptu dinner at a stranger’s house, and was supposed to bathe his whole body underwater in a pool.
• The point is, as Jesus reiterates at the end of the Matthew passage, “These are what defile a person. But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone.” (Matt 15.20).

baptizo can mean many things:

Hebrews 9.10 refers to the Old Testament washings as “baptisms.” This includes:

• Ex 19.10 Washing garments.
• Ex 30.18-19 Washing hands and feet of priests with a laver.
• Num 8.7 Sprinkling purifying water.
• Num 19.18-19 Sprinkling with water from a hyssop branch.

WHAT ABOUT PICTURING BURIAL?

Col 2.11-12

11 In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, 12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.

Col 2.11-12

While Colossians mentions burial in baptism – this does not necessarily mean that we must go under water for this to be true. It could just mean that because baptism identifies us with the death of Jesus, it is a burial. I think this is the sense in Romans 6.

As Romans 6.3-4 tells us: “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death…” We identify with his death in baptism, so consider it burial.

But death, and burial are not the only things we are initiated into through baptism. In Galatians 3, baptism is putting on Jesus as clothing. In Colossians 2, baptism is also the mechanism of being circumcised. But the sign is still just a washing with water. The sign does not have to match each reality through physical imagery. Neither Colossians 2 nor Romans 6 says we have to be immersed in order to physically emulate burial, rather that baptism does initiate into death, performed by the washing of clean water.

And furthermore, Colossians 2, in my opinion is referring to a passage about sprinkling. Here’s how I say that:

Colossians seems easily to equate baptism (cleansing with water) with circumcision (removal of flesh), which is a connection made well and famously by Ezekiel 36.25-27:

25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. 26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

Ezekiel 36.25-27

Hebrews 10.22 uses same metaphor as Ezekiel did: “22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.” This comes close (Heb 10) after mentioning the Old Testament baptisms (Heb 9.10).

A BIG LITTLE NOTE ABOUT HISTORY

If you come from a perspective that thinks negatively about baptizing infants, then it would seem a plus to find out that the Bible required immersion, if you could show that such a requirement also prevented the baptism of children. However, we can immediately dismiss that mechanism, because the Eastern church (Orthodoxy) has IMMERSED INFANTS for 2 millennia now. So the whole argument about inability to immerse children evaporates when you know that even immersion does not exclude children in practice.

A FAMOUS NEW TESTAMENT BAPTISM PROBABLY INSPIRED BY SPRINKLING

Philip baptized the Ethiopian Eunuch in the desert after the Eunuch read about sprinkling for cleansing.

Philip was told by the Lord to go to a specific road which was scarce in water, as Acts 8.26 says, “this is a desert place.” Philip explained the bit of the bible the Eunuch was already reading. We are told,

“Now the passage of the Scripture that [the eunuch] was reading was this:
“Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter
and like a lamb before its shearer is silent,
so he opens not his mouth.
33 In his humiliation justice was denied him.
Who can describe his generation?
For his life is taken away from the earth.”

(Acts 8.32-33)

The passage came from Isaiah 53.7-8. So the man was had just read 7 verses earlier about cleansing the nations through sprinkling:

“Behold, my servant shall act wisely;
he shall be high and lifted up,
and shall be exalted.
14 As many were astonished at you—
his appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance,
and his form beyond that of the children of mankind—
15 so shall he sprinkle many nations.
Kings shall shut their mouths because of him,
for that which has not been told them they see,
and that which they have not heard they understand.”

Isaiah 52.13-15

This last point is not a slam dunk. Just a fun feature. But it does remind us that Ezekiel said the same language about the cleansing of the new covenant: “I will sprinkle you with clean water and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses.”

Ultimately my point is this: there is too much variety under the word baptizo for us to say it requires bodily immersion, though immersion is a fine option for what you may use in baptism. Baptism in the Bible can be pouring, washing, sprinkling, or even hand washing. And babies can be immersed.

ARTICLES IN THIS SERIES (LINKS):

• 1 Tell Your Children, “You’re A Christian!” (10/26/21)
• 2 My God From My Mother’s Womb (11/02/21 – reposted after deletion 11/23/21)
• 3 My Baptist Obstacles: What It Took to Change My Mind About Infant Baptism (11/9/21)
• 4 My Baptist Obstacles: Immersion (11/16/21)
• 5 My Baptist Obstacles: The Great Commission Says, “Baptize Disciples” (11/23/21)
• 6 My Baptist Obstacles: Did Circumcision Come from a Works-Based Religion? (12/1/21)