A Want Not Gratified by Ellet Joseph Waggoner

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jun 26, 1884

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 10, No. 25.

A Want Not Gratified.

By Ellet Joseph Waggoner

IN an article in the Christian at Work, on "Baptism and the 'Teaching,'" by Rev. F. Oxnard, we find the following:—

"We are perfectly willing to concede that there is no authority in the New Testament for infant baptism. We would like to bring immersionists to admit that there is no authority for the exclusive use of immersion in baptism. We suggest, therefore, that to insist that the word used in the Septuagint for immerse must always be thus used in a Christian ordinance, is open to very reasonable and grave objections, and is not in accordance with the ultimate authority, the New Testament. To insist that a word from classic Greek, used to express a non-sacred act, and similar words in the New Testament, used to express a sacred act, have always the same meaning, is to allow authors who lived hundreds of years before the Christian era to settle the mode of baptism."

We admire the frankness of the author, as manifested in the above quotation. That the New Testament contains no authority for infant baptism, there can be no doubt. Few theologians claim that it does. We have no doubt, moreover, that he, in common with many others, "would like to bring immersionists to admit that there is no authority for the exclusive use of immersion for baptism;" but we can assure him that he can never do it unless

he brings to bear some more weighty argument than that contained in his "suggestion." He claims that to insist that words from classic Greek must have the same meaning when used in the New Testament, is to allow heathen authors to settle the mode of baptism. By this, the reader will clearly see that it is admitted that if we should give them the same signification, immersion would be a settled fact. That is, the words as used by classical authors, signify immersion.

Now is it true that if they are used in the New Testament in the same sense, those authors have determined the meaning of the Christian ordinance? By no means. Christ determined that himself. How? By using in the Christian commission, a term which was in common use, and universally understood to mean immersion. He determined what the ceremony should be, and then described it in language which his hearers could understand. It was for this reason that he was not obliged to make a lengthy explanation as to what he meant by baptism; the name carried the idea. If he had coined a new word to express the act, or if he had used the same word, with a different meaning from that which it ordinarily had, it would have been necessary to define it, so that his followers might not be misled; but this he did not do. Therefore we must insist that the word in the New Testament has the same meaning that it does anywhere else. And there is no more reason for saying that this allows authors who lived hundreds of years before the Christian era to settle the mode of baptism, than there is for saying that they settled the mode of celebrating Christ's sacrifice, because Christ, in instituting the Lord's Supper, used the same words for eating and drinking that had been used by them to denote these acts.

E. J. W.