WHAT DOES BAPTIZE MEAN?
By R. S. Owen
The great question in regard to the form of baptism rests primitively upon the meaning of the word baptize. It is the Greek word baptizo brought into the English language without translation. If it means to sprinkle, then those who use only a few drops of water to an individual are fulfilling the commission of our Saviour, “Go ye therefore and teach all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.” If on the other hand it signifies immerse, dip, or plunge, as it is defined in thirty-seven Greek lexicons, and as it is translated in every instance where the Greek word is not used, then this duty is as plain as though Christ should say to-day, immerse, dip, or plunge, them in the name of the Father, &c. The meaning of a word in any language must ultimately be determined by its use in that language. Here are some instances of the use of baptizo by eminent Greek writers, who certainly understood their language better than we: Polybius, speaking of soldiers’ fording a stream, says they were “baptized up to the breast.” Plutarch says of a dying soldier, “Having baptized his hand in blood, he wrote the inscription for a trophy.” Lucian quotes the words of a cruel man thus: “If in winter the river should carry away any one with its stream, and the person with out-stretched hands should beg to be taken out of the river, I would drive him from the bank, and baptize him headlong, so that he would not be able again to lift his head above water.” Strabo, speaking of a lake in Sicily, says, “Things which otherwise will not swim, do not baptize in the water of this lake, but float like wood.” Again he says, “The bitumen floats atop because of the nature of the water which admits of no diving; for if a man goes into it, he cannot sink, or be baptized, but is forcibly kept above water.” From the above passages it is clear that the part only which is under water is baptized, and that which cannot be under water cannot be baptized. What then can baptism be but immersion? Hippocrates says, “Shall I not laugh at the man who baptizes his ship by overloading it, and then complains of the sea, that it engulfs it with its cargo?” Josephus speaking of Jonah says, “When the ship was on the point of sinking, or just about to be baptized.” Again, concerning the misfortunes of Cestius, he says, “After this misfortune of Cestius, many of the Jews of distinction left the city, as people swim away from a baptizing ship.”91Did the people in the days of Josephus jump overboard and swim away from a ship because a few drops of water were sprinkled upon it? Diodorus Siculus says, that “when the water overflows the country many of the land animals baptized in the river perished.” From the use of the word in the Greek language, who could have the shadow of a doubt of its meaning immersion? and how harmonious this is with the Bible usage, “Buried with him by baptism,” “planted in the likeness of his death.” Rom. 6: 4, 5. R. S. OWEN.