Repentance and Baptism by Immersion.
By Aaron A. Thayer
THE private life of Jesus was very commonplace. The biography of his youth, as recorded in the Bible, is almost bare of events. Excepting the public excitement created by the Persian sorcerers, improperly called "wise men" by our translators, there is nothing especially notorious in the life of our Lord until he was nigh about thirty years of age. Public attention was first called to his claims to the Messiahship by John the Baptist. John came as a whirlwind of reform. Stormy, impetuous, denunciatory, a Jew, pouring out wrath upon the Jews, he blew a trumpet and called the nation to repentance. He had the fiery eloquence of Elijah. He rebuked with the spirit and power of Elijah. He did not commend Moses. He 'scouted the idea of salvation through Abraham. He scorned the doors of temple and synagogue. Like a religious free-booter, he betook himself to the open country. He had neither parchment nor phylacteries, nor brazen utensils. His only ceremonies were to pray and to preach and to baptize his converts in water. But the baptism of John was the baptism of repentance. And what did he mean by repentance? And is there any fresh light on this trite subject? If one enters upon a religious revival and says he is sorry for his sins, and becomes excited and freely weeps, and goes home and weeps, and goes to bed and weeps, is that repentance? Yes, just as much as digging a cellar is building a house, and no more. Sorrow for sin is a preparation for repentance, but one may be sorry every day and not repent in all his life. An intemperate man is sorry every morning after a night's debauch, but he may never repent for all that. St. Paul affirms that "Godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of" (2 Cor. 7: 10). Surely then sorrow is not repentance, but the forerunner and an instrumentality of repentance. St. Luke has given us a commentary on John's doctrine of repentance: "And the people asked John saying, what shall we do then? He answered and saith unto them, He that hath two coats let him impart to him that hath none; and he that hath meat let him do likewise. Then came also publicans to be baptized, and said to him, Master, what shall we do? And he said unto them, Exact no more than that which is appointed you. And the soldiers likewise demanded of him, saying, And what shall we do? And he said unto them, Do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely; and be content with your wages." (Luke 3: 10-14.) Repentance with John was a moral reformation. It did not begin and end in religious excitement and praise and prayer. It required practical benevolence, honorable financial dealings, and an orderly life, and obedience to contracts. And Jesus himself made the decalogue the doorway into his kingdom. An affectionate, and honorable, truthful, and dutiful everyday life, is the basis of all religious regeneration and justification. Judaism, John the Baptist, and Christianity, all agree in this. If one is not sorry enough for his sin to do right, his repentance is like bubbles of foam on a river, one moment here then gone forever. Consider now the matter of baptism. Baptism by water was not then a new religious ordinance. Why, therefore, was this John surnamed the Baptist? Was it not because he laid so much stress upon the ordinance? because he made it the only ordinance? and because he baptized every class of people, whether or not they participated in other ceremonies then accounted orthodox and fundamental? The publicans and soldiers, and probably many of the people, who came to his baptism, were not Jews. But John did not demand circumcision and the blood of the temple, and the ritual of the synagogue. As if he had said, "Don't mind the blood of the bulls and goats—don't mind the washing of hands and the tithes of mint and cummin—don't mind the hollow and longdrawn ceremonies of the Scribes and Pharisees—repent and be baptized only." And so they called him John the Baptist, because he laid so much force upon this ordinance. The same philosophy originates names in our day. The modern names of Baptist, Universalist, Presbyterian, Methodist, Episcopalian, etc., are applied to different bodies of religious people by reason of the prominence which they give to some one doctrine, ceremony or form of government. BAPTISM AND THE LORD'S SUPPER.
And now let it be observed that among all the religious ceremonies of antiquity, Jesus seems to have endorsed two only, viz.: baptism by water and the eating of bread and wine. The one was in memory of him as a reformer and Saviour; the other marks the date of our own reformation and salvation as his followers. As to the special mode of administering or accepting these ordinances the New Testament gives no specific directions. We are not told to partake of the bread and wine while kneeling or standing or sitting. We are not told to accept them from the hand of a priest, nor by proxy, as the priests shall eat and drink in our stead. The example is in favor of supper in the evening, in an upper and lighted room, and with the guests reclining at the table. The Master was the central figure, and no servant in attendance. So, likewise, whatever we learn about baptism, we must gather from the strength of ancient language and from the customs of the people. Reasoning from this basis I am obliged to confess that the people who are called immersionists and Baptists have the argument. And as this is an unexpected admission on my part, I proceed to give the Biblical reasons for my belief. NO SPRINKLING NOR POURING.
1. Negatively: The common word for sprinkling (rheonizo) was never, in a single instance, used by any New Testament writer in connection with this ordinance. And when we consider the very frequent mention of sprinkling in the Bible, both of blood and of water, it seems unaccountable that we should not find the simple statement of the sprinkling of some person in the New Testament, if sprinkling had been an ordinary form of administering this ordinance. And if the sprinkling were exceptional, much more would the given cases have been mentioned. We also read much about pouring, and pouring out, etc. But no writer in the New Testament has applied any one of the six words rendered to pour, in a single instance, to this ordinance. I also find seven different words and compounds of words in the Greek Testament which are applied to washing. But in no single instance is any one of these words applied to this ordinance. But if pouring or washing were sometimes practiced in this ordinance, the omission of the ordinary words for washing and pouring is unaccountable and absurd. 2. Affirmatively: I find only one word used by the New Testament writers to express what we understand by baptism. [By the one word I include also its derivatives.] I find, moreover, that if there be any word in the Greek language which means to dip, to plunge, to immerse, this is the word, viz: the word used in baptizing. When Jesus pointed out the Judas who should betray him and said, "He it is to whom I shall give a sop when I have dipped it," (John 13: 26), he used this particular word. And in the variation of his phraseology by each writer, all the evangelists have used this same word: Matthew worded it, "He that dippeth his hand with me in the dish, the same shall betray me." (26: 23.) Mark's wording was, "It is one of the twelve that dippeth with me in the dish." (14: 20.) But each evangelist used a form of the word to baptize. Moreover, when the rich man in hades cried out to Father Abraham, "Have mercy on me and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue," (Luke 16: 24), I find the same word again. And when the revelator described the transfigured Messiah as riding upon a white horse, and upon his head a multitude of crowns, and from his eyes came flames of fire, he said that "he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood." (Rev. 19: 13.) Here is the same word again. It was the common word for dip or plunge. Homer in the Odyssey uses the figure of a smith plunging the hot steel of the hatchet and ax into cold water to set the edge. And this is the word he uses—the word rendered baptize a hundred times in the New Testament. Moreover: the ancient meaning of the word was so sharply drawn that the persons who dipped the cloth in the tubs and vats of dyeing establishments were called baptoi, i. e., baptists. And hence the word became so intimately associated with the art of dyeing, that an ancient order of Thracian priests were called Baptæ, because they stained and dyed their faces so as to look like women. BAPTISM AND ANCIENT BATHING.
I find also that the ancient Greeks associated this word with their baths, bathing establishments, and bathing places. The variations of the word would be somewhat as follows: Bapto, to dip baptees, one who dips or dyes; baptisma, that which is dipped or dyed; baptiso, to dip repeatedly, to dip under and to bathe; baptisteerion, a bathing place or swimming bath, etc., etc. And these are not ecclesiastical interpretations of the word. They apply to its common usage long before Jesus was born, and to the reading of all the Greek classics both before and after his birth. Now whatever John the Baptist and Jesus and his apostles meant by the ordinance of baptism, its mode of administration is described by every sacred writer by the ordinary terms for bathing and dyeing, and by no other terms. And I now declare unto you, without equivocation or mental reservation, that we might just as wisely affirm that immersion does not mean to plunge or submerge, as to say that baptize does not, i. e., in the common meaning of the term in olden times. NATURE'S BAPTIZING PLACES.
Consider, furthermore, that not only John the Baptist, but Christ and the Evangelists, labored in the open streets and country. Prejudice and bigotry shut them out of the synagogues and established places of worship, and they preached in the groves and mountains, and beside the seas, and lakes, and rivers, and pools of water. The form of the language, which describes this ordinance, indicates a going down into the water, and coming up out of the water. I think that Jesus went down into the Jordan; and if any word in the Greek language could express the idea that he was bodily immersed and went under the water, as a cloth in dyeing, and as a person in bathing, then that idea is expressed by the Greek and English language in the chapter before us. It is clearly expressed and I see no ambiguity nor doubtfulness in the record. And I think the form of baptism which was used by John the Baptist was accepted by Jesus and practiced by his apostles. Yes, this mode of baptism was so engrafted and rooted in the church that in the third century there was a most fierce ecclesiastical opposition to baptizing even the sick and the dying in any other way than by a full bath in the water. The historians tell us plainly that baptism by affusion or sprinkling, did not become universal until the fourteenth century. Our next inquiry is, If these things be so, what ought Christians to do about it? If we find that our customs and doctrines are in conflict with the requirements of the Bible, then abandon them and go back to first principles. Biblical plans and divine ordinances can hardly be improved. But is the ordinance of baptism a requirement of the Bible? Without doubt it was a custom. It was the mortar in laying the corner-stone of Christianity. Every inspired man builded with this ordinance, while, he wrought upon that temple of God which is the church of Christ. But was baptism more than a custom? Was it a requirement? Was it an injunction and a part of the apostolic commission? I should say that the apostles were commanded to preach and to baptize in one commission, and an obedient servant was as much commanded to do the one as the other. And I suppose the command to be equally binding upon the ministers of the gospel everywhere and in all ages. We are to preach and baptize in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.—Scranton Free Press.