the Week of Proper 28 / Ordinary 33
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Bible Dictionaries
Baptism (2)
Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament
or BAPTISM (βάπτισμα = ‘the rite of Baptism,’ always in NT distinguished from βαπτισμός, ‘a washing,’ Mark 7:4, Hebrews 6:2; Hebrews 9:10 [but see Lightfoot, Com. on Colossians, p. 184]; but this distinction is not maintained in Josephus [cf. Ant. xviii. v. 2]; and in the Latin versions and Fathers baptisma and baptismus and even baptismum are used indiscriminately, see Plummer’s art. ‘Baptism ‘in Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible).—A rite wherein by immersion in water the participant symbolizes and signalizes his transition from an impure to a pure life, his death to a past he abandons, and his new birth to a future he desires.
The points for consideration are (1) the Origin of Baptism, (2) its Mode, (3) John’s Baptism of the people, (4) John’s Baptism of Jesus, (5) Baptism by the disciples of Jesus.
1. The Origin of Baptism.—Baptism, as we find it in the Gospels, may be traced to a threefold source, natural symbolism, the lustrations of the Mosaic Law, and the baptism of proselytes. In many of the appointments of non-Christian religions the cleansing of the soul from sin is symbolized by the washing of the body (see the Vendidad, Fargard, ix.; Williams, Religious Thought in India, 347; Vergil, aeneid, ii. 720; Ovid, Fasti, v. 680; and esp. MacCulloch, Compar. Theol.). As in other religions, so in Israel washings were the means appointed for restoring the person who had incurred ceremonial defilement to his place among the worshipping congregation. The Mosaic Law prescribed certain regulations for the removal of uncleanness by washing with water; Leviticus 15:5; Leviticus 15:8; Leviticus 15:13; Leviticus 15:16 (λούσεται ὕδατι πᾶν τὸ σῶμα αὐτοῦ) Leviticus 16:26; Leviticus 16:28. etc. But if the Jew himself needed almost daily washing (‘Judaeus quotidie lavat, quia quotidie inquinatur,’ Tertull. de Baptismo, xv.), much more was the bath of purification necessary for the Gentile who desired to pass into Judaism. For the proselyte this baptism (טִבִילָה) seemed the appropriate initiation. ‘Whensoever any heathen will betake himself and be joined to the covenant of Israel, and place himself under the wings of the Divine Majesty, and take the yoke of the Law upon him, voluntary circumcision, baptism, and oblation are required.’ (See this and other passages in Lightfoot, ae Heb. on Matthew 3:6; Schürer, P [Note: JP History of the Jewish People.] § 31; and Edersheim’s Life and Times of Jesus, Appendix xii. on ‘Baptism of Proselytes.’ The question whether the baptism of proselytes was in vogue as early as the time of the Baptist has been laid to rest by Edersheim and Schürer). It may almost be said, then, that when John baptized the people, he meant to impress them with the idea that they must be re-born before they could enter the kingdom. He, as it were, excommunicated them, and by requiring them to submit to Baptism, declared that their natural birth as Jews was insufficient for participation in the Messianic blessings. No doubt also he believed himself to be fulfilling the predictions of Zechariah 13:1, Ezekiel 36:25, as well as the craving expressed in Psalms 51:7.
2. The Mode of Baptism.—That the normal mode was by immersion of the whole body may be inferred (a) from the meaning of βαπτίζω, which is the intensive or frequentative form of βάπτω, ‘I dip,’ and denotes to immerse or submerge. In Polybius, iii. 72, it is used of soldiers wading through a flooded river, ‘immersed’ to their breast (ἔως τῶν μαστῶν οἱ πεζοὶ βαπτιζόμενοι). It is used also of sinking ships (in i. 51, the Carthaginians sank many of the Roman ships, πολλἀ τῶν σκαφῶν ἐβάπτιζον). [Many examples are given in Stephanus, and esp. in Classic Baptism: An enquiry into the meaning of the word βαπτίζω, by James W. Dale, 4th ed. Philadelphia, 1872]. The point is that ‘dip’ or ‘immerse’ is the primary, ‘wash’ the secondary meaning of βάπτω and βαπτίζω. (b) The same inference may be drawn from the law laid down regarding the baptism of proselytes: ‘As soon as he grows whole of the wound of circumcision, they bring him to Baptism, and being placed in the water, they again instruct him in some weightier and in some lighter commands of the Law. Which being heard, he plunges himself and comes up, and behold, he is an Israelite in all things.’ (See Lightfoot, l.c.). To use Pauline language, his old man is dead and buried in the water, and he rises from this cleansing grave a new man. The full significance of the rite would have been lost had immersion not been practised. Again, it was required in proselyte baptism that ‘every person baptized must dip his whole body, now stripped and made naked, at one dipping. And wheresoever in the Law washing of the body or garments is mentioned, it means nothing else than the washing of the whole body.’ (c) That immersion was the mode of Baptism adopted by John is the natural conclusion from his choosing the neighbourhood of the Jordan as the scene of his labours; and from the statement of John 3:23 that he was baptizing in aenon ‘because there was much water there.’ (d) That this form was continued into the Christian Church appears from the expression λουτρὸν παλινγενεσίας (Titus 3:5), and from the use made by St. Paul in Romans 6 of the symbolism. This is well put by Bingham (Antiq. xi. 11): ‘The ancients thought that immersion, or burying under water, did more likely represent the death and burial and resurrection of Christ as well as our own death unto sin and rising again unto righteousness: and the divesting or unclothing the person to be baptized did also represent the putting off the body of sin in order to put on the new man, which is created in righteousness and true holiness. For which reason they observed the way of baptizing all persons naked and divested, by a total immersion under water, except in some particular cases of great exigence, wherein they allow of sprinkling, as in the case of clinic Baptism, or where there is a scarcity of water.’ This statement exactly reflects the ideas of the Pauline Epistles and the Didache. This early document enjoins that Baptism be performed in running water; but if that is not to be had, then in other water: ‘And if thou canst not in cold, then in warm; but if thou hast neither, pour water thrice upon the head.’ Here it is obvious that affusion is to be practised only where immersion is inconvenient or impossible. The Eastern Church has in the main adhered to the primitive form. But in the Western Church the exigencies of climate and the alteration of manners have favoured affusion and sprinkling. Judging from the representations of the performance of the rite collected by Mr. C. F. Rogers (Studia Bibl. et Eccles. vol. v. pt. iv.),—whose collection is more valuable than his inferences,—it would seem that at an early period a common form of administration required that the baptized person should stand in some kind of bath or tub, naked or nearly so, while the baptizer poured water three times over him. This restricted form gradually gave place to the still more meagre sprinkling of the head. But theoretically the form of Baptism by immersion was retained alike in the Roman, the Anglican, and the Presbyterian Churches. Thus Aquinas (Summa, iii. lxvi. 7) determines: ‘si totum corpus aqua non possit perfundi propter aquae paucitatem, vel propter aliquam aliam causam, oportet caput perfundere, in quo manifestatur principium animalis vitae.’ The Anglican Church in her rubric for Baptism directs the ministrant to dip the child discreetly and warily, if the sponsors certify him that the child may well endure it; if not, ‘it shall suffice to pour water upon it.’ And the Westminster Confession guardedly says: ‘Dipping of the person into water is not necessary; but Baptism is rightly administered by pouring or sprinkling water upon the person’ (cf. Calvin, Inst. iv. 15, 19). This form of Baptism by sprinkling gives prominence to the ‘pouring out’ of the Spirit (cf. Titus 3:6), but fails to indicate the dying to sin and rising to righteousness.
3. John’s Baptism of the people.—The message of the Baptist as herald of the Messiah was, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ The imminence of the kingdom produced in the people a sense of their unpreparedness for its enjoyment. A new sense of sin was created within them, answering to the forerunner’s cry, ‘Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand’ (Matthew 3:2). The hunger for cleanness of conscience thus awakened within them was responded to by John’s Baptism of repentance ‘for (εἰς) remission of sins’ (Mark 1:4). True repentance cleanses the soul, and Baptism represented and sealed this inward cleansing. The reality of the repentance, as John insisted, would be determined by its fruits. Many writers (cf. Reynolds, John the Baptist, pp. 288–289; and Lambert, The Sacraments, p. 60) hold that the preposition εἰς denotes that the remission of sins was not actually bestowed, but only guaranteed in John’s Baptism. ‘John proclaimed, with the voice of thunder, the need of repentance as a condition of the remission of sins; his Baptism was the external symbol of the frame of mind with which the penitent approached the great forerunner.’ This seems, both exegetically and psychologically, untenable. The whole expression, ‘Baptism of repentance for forgiveness of sins,’ denotes a Baptism which the penitent submitted to that he might therein receive the pledge and assurance that he was forgiven. The Baptism meant the cleansing of the people from past sin that they might be fitted for entrance on the kingdom.
But John’s Baptism had a forward look also. It was the formal incorporation of the individual into the new community, his initiation into the kingdom. It was therefore in a very true sense Christian Baptism. That is, it pledged the recipient to the acceptance of Christ,—a feature of it which perhaps accounts for the Baptist continuing to baptize after Jesus had been proclaimed the Christ. In the same act, then, John excommunicated the whole people, putting them in the position of Gentiles who required to be re-born in Baptism, and gave them entrance to the coming kingdom.
The propriety of Baptism as the symbol of such initiation is obvious, and finds illustration in the forms of initiation commonly used in various races. The ceremonies which mark, among rude tribes, the transition from boyhood to manhood, frequently take the form of a pretended death and resurrection (Frazer, The Golden Bough2 [Note: designates the particular edition of the work referred] , iii. 422 ff.). Among ourselves we have titles which preserve a memory of the old customs, though the customs themselves have died out. We still have ‘Knights of the Bath.’ Originally, the bath to purify from the past was first taken, and the novice then passed the night in a church with his armour beside him, as if he were dead, until in the morning he was raised to life by the touch of his sovereign, ‘Rise, Sir M. or N.’
4. John’s Baptism of Jesus.—When John began to baptize, Jesus was still an unknown artisan in Nazareth. But in this new movement He hears a call He cannot resist. He is conscious that He must attach Himself to it; possibly already conscious that He can guide, utilize, and prosper it. He appears, therefore, as a candidate for Baptism. But to the Baptist this presented a difficulty he had not foreseen: ‘I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me?’ (Matthew 3:14). Evidently what was in John’s mind was not the initiatory, but the cleansing aspect of the rite. To this, therefore, the answer of Jesus must apply when He said, ‘Thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness.’ It would seem, therefore, that Jesus felt so keen a sympathy with His fellow-men that, as one with an unclean race, He judged Baptism to be appropriate. It is idle to tell the wife that she need not be ashamed though her husband is committed for fraud; idle to tell Jesus that He need not be baptized because He has no personal guilt. And it is to be noted that it is precisely at this point of truest union with men and of deepest humiliation that Jesus is recognized as King. It seems to have Mashed upon John, ‘Why, this is the very spirit of the Messiah. Here is the fulness of the Divine Spirit.’
The account given in the Fourth Gospel is different. The Baptist is there (John 1:33) represented as saying, ‘I knew him not (which, as the context shows, means, ‘I did not know that he was the Messiah’), but he that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending and abiding on him, the same is he that baptizeth with the Holy Spirit.’ In this Gospel there is no mention of an actual dove being seen. John merely affirms that he saw the Spirit descending ‘like a dove’ (ὡς περιστεράν). He wishes to emphasize two things, that he saw the Spirit so clearly that it almost seemed a sensible presence, and that it was a Spirit of gentleness. Naturally, the Messianic Spirit might have been more appropriately symbolized by an eagle, but at the moment it was the overcoming humility and meekness of Jesus that convinced John that He was the Messiah.
The Baptism of Jesus thus became His anointing as King. Jesus becomes the Christ, the Anointed of God, not only nominated to the Messianic throne, but actually equipped with the fulness of the Divine Spirit. Here two points are to be noted: (1) Although Son of God, Jesus yet lived in human form and under human conditions, and therefore needed the indwelling of the Spirit. As His body was sustained by bread, as all human bodies are, so did His soul require the aids of the Divine Spirit, as all human souls do. (‘Why callest thou me good? There is none good but one, that is, God,’ Mark 10:18). His human nature, by which He manifested God to men, was now endowed with the fulness of God’s Spirit. (2) It was not a new thing that was conferred upon Jesus at His Baptism. From the first the Divine Spirit was His. But now, having reached the flower of manhood and being called to the greatest work, His human nature expands and girds itself to the most strenuous endeavour, and so gives scope to the fullest energy of the indwelling God.
5. Baptism by the disciples of Jesus.—Of Christian Baptism very little mention is made in the Gospels. That it was in use during the life of Jesus is apparent from the references to it in John 3, 4. These references are interesting as showing that Baptism by the disciples of Jesus existed alongside of Baptism by John. The Baptist himself apparently never renounced his position as forerunner nor merged himself in the kingdom. The re-baptism of those mentioned in Acts 19:1-6, who had been baptized with John’s Baptism, suggests the question whether all who had originally been baptized as disciples of John were re-baptized when they professed allegiance to Jesus. And although this can scarcely be considered likely, this case has been used as sanctioning re-baptism in certain circumstances. Calvin’s answer is rather an evasion. He denies that the persons spoken of in Acts 19 were re-baptized. They only had the Apostle’s hands laid upon them. The text no doubt says, ‘They were baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus; and when Paul bad laid his hands upon them,’ etc. But ‘hac posteriori locutione describitur, qualis ille fuerit Baptismus.’ That is possible, but barely. It is more likely that those concerned, troubled by no questions as to the legitimacy of the renewal of Baptism, and accustomed to the many lustrations then in use, were re-baptized and were conscious of no inconsistency. Apparently they had only seen one half, and that the less important half, of the significance of John’s Baptism, its relation to repentance, and not its efficacy as the ordinance of initiation into the kingdom of Jesus. This defect was now supplied.
Baptism could scarcely have gained so universal a currency as the initiatory rite of the Christian Church had it not been instituted by Christ Himself. No other initial ordinance seems ever to have been suggested. Yet it is expressly said (John 4:2) that He Himself did not baptize; and it is doubted whether the explicit injunction of Matthew 28:19 can be accepted as uttered by Jesus. Thus Harnack (Hist. of Dogma, i. 79 note) says: ‘It cannot be directly proved that Jesus instituted Baptism, for Matthew 28:19 is not a saying of the Lord. The reasons for this assertion are: (1) It is only a later stage of the tradition that represents the risen Christ as delivering speeches and giving commandments. Paul knows nothing of it. (2) The Trinitarian formula is foreign to the mouth of Jesus, and has not the authority in the Apostolic age which it must have had if it had descended from Jesus Himself.’ (See the literature in Holtzmann’s NT Theol. i. 379). That our Lord appeared to His disciples after the Resurrection and said nothing is inconceivable. Better deny the Resurrection altogether than think of a dumb, unsociable ghost floating before the eves of the disciples. But the Trinitarian formula in the month of Jesus is certainly unexpected. For what may be said in its favour Lambert (The Sacraments, pp. 49–51) may be consulted. In any case the essential feature of, Baptism was its marking the union of the soul to Christ, and therefore it sufficed to call it ‘Baptism into the name of the Lord Jesus.’ Further discussion of the genuineness of the ascription of these words to our Lord belongs rather to the Trinitarian than to the Baptismal problems.
Literature.—MacCulloch, Comparative Theology, 235; Anrich, Das antike Mysterienwesen; Lightfoot, Harae Hebraicœ; Schürer, HJP [Note: JP History of the Jewish People.] § 31; Suicer, Lexicon, s.v.; Calvin, Institutio, iv. 15, ‘de Baptismo’; Reynolds, John the Baptist; Feather, John the Baptist; Lambert, The Sacraments in the New Testament; Holtzmann’s NT Theol. and the literature mentioned there, as above; Edersheim’s Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah; C. F. Rogers, Studia Bibl. et Eccles. vol. v. pt. iv. ‘Baptism and Christian Archaeology’; Didaskaliae fragmenta Veronensia Latina (Lips. 1900); A. C. McGiffert, The Apostles’ Creed, 1902, p. 175; J. F. Bethune-Baker, Early Hist. of Christian Doctrine, 1905, p. 376.
Marcus Dods.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Baptism (2)'. Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdn/b/baptism-2.html. 1906-1918.
