Baptism by James White

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Mar 7, 1878

Baptism.

By James White

CONVERSATION WITH A CHRISTIAN CHINAMAN.

As we were returning from the meeting at San Francisco last Sabbath afternoon we observed a Chinaman sitting with the passengers reading a newspaper. We said to him, John, come and sit down here by my side, which he cheerfully obeyed.

Where did you learn to read, John?

At the Christian school in San Francisco.

Are you a Baptist?

No, me be a Methodist.

Have you been immersed in the water?

No, me was sprinkled.

John, you have not been baptized. Jesus was baptized in the river Jordan. Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and came up out of the water. You did not go into the water at all. And Paul says that baptism is a burial. That Methodist minister could not bury you in a few drops of water. And again, the apostle says planted in the likeness of his death. When you Chinamen who are gardeners plant seeds you cover them up in the ground. When you were sprinkled you were not planted.

Oh, well, the baptism of water is only a form; the baptism of the Holy Ghost be everything.

Very well, baptism is a form, and the apostle has told us what that form is in these words, Planted in the likeness of Christ's death. We Baptists go down into the water and are laid down in it on our backs in just the manner that Christ lay in the tomb. You are not laid down on your back when a few drops of water are sprinkled in your face. You have not been baptized.

Me hold no argument, water baptism nothing, baptism of the Holy Ghost everything.

Here the conversation ended. This converted heathen had learned his lesson and was determined to be satisfied with his sprinkling for baptism. There are however quite a proportion of these Christian Chinamen who are Baptists, and we venture the assertion that if they could be left to take Bible language as it reads, not one of them would be satisfied with anything short of immersion.

J. W.