The Apostolic Baptisms

In your reply to my last, you say: ‘‘Your discussion of the baptism at Ænon is quite satisfactory to me on the whole; but there is one point upon which I would like to have a little more light. It is this: some of the Baptist writers tell me that polla hudata means more properly ‘much water’ in a body than many fountains, and they quote some examples to illustrate that use of it. What answer would you make to that?”

To this I reply: —

1. There is not at the present time any “body” of water at Ænon, nor any indication that there has ever been, in historic times, such a body: but there are plenty of springs.

1. Admitting that polla hudata may be used in speaking of a body of water and be rendered, in a general way, “much water,” it is altogether likely that the conception of, the writer would be quite as well expressed by rendering the words “many waters,” as they are in Rev. 1:15 and 19:6.

1. That the expression may be used in speaking of a number of fountains is entirely clear from a passage in 2 Chron. 32: 3, 4. The passage reads thus: “He [Hezekiah] took counsel with his princes and his mighty men to stop the waters of the fountains which were without the city: and they did help him. So there was gathered much people together, who stopped all the fountains, and the brook that ran through the midst of the land, saying, Why should the kings of Assyria come, and find much water?” In the Greek Septuagint the words are polla hudata, which seems evidently to refer to these fountains and the brook — no body of water being spoken of.

I come now to speak of the baptism of the three thousand on the day of Pentecost. This is easily understood upon the theory that the word baptizo was understood to mean what I have proved it to mean at the time of Christ’s coming and before. It is an account not easy to be understood upon the Baptist assumption that the word “baptize means always immerse.” This was a large number to be immersed, as all admit. Many of them were strangers who had come to the feast — “Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites,” and all the rest whose nationality is mentioned in the Acts. It is not at all likely that they would be prepared with convenient changes of raiment for immersion and still less likely that they were immersed in a state of nudity. Such indelicacy and superstition had not developed themselves at that day.

And then consider the circumstances: They were at Jerusalem. There is no natural body of water there or near there. The “brook Kedron” is ordinarily an almost dry watercourse. Unless the seasons were entirely different then from what they are now — of which there is no proof and no probability — there would have been only a little rill of water at the time of Pentecost. There were therefore no facilities about Jerusalem for immersion, except in the reservoirs of water used for drinking and cooking. To conceive of the apostles baptizing in these is preposterous. Forbidden by common decency, it would have been especially forbidden by the violent and unyielding superstition of the Jews, even had they been favorably inclined towards the apostles and their religion. But it would have been especially forbidden by the deadly hostility to the new faith which then prevailed. They would not have allowed their best friends to be immersed in these pools; and the disciples of that Christ whom they had just crucified would by all means have been prevented from propagating their religion in the use of any body of water under their control.

I have studied this subject in Jerusalem, and I cannot see how any one familiar with the topography of the city, and considering the times of violent persecution which erelong scattered the Church to the ends of the earth, can for a moment accept with any assurance the belief.that the three thousand were immersed on the day of Pentecost; there being no natural body of water to furnish facilities and no artificial reservoirs to which access would not have been utterly impossible.

And then the baptism of the jailer. It has always been difficult for the Baptist theory to provide for that baptism. Their sole dependence is upon the word baptizo. “That means nothing but immerse: and the historian says that the jailer was immersed. Deny it, if you dare! It is none of our business to find a baptistery!” This is our Baptist scholar’s method of disposing of the matter!

But we have already proved beyond all successful contradiction that in the Septuagint and in the New Testament usage the word baptizo is used to express ceremonial purification by water without reference to mode and in cases where immersion is entirely out of the question; so that the. whole foundation of such an assumption is entirely gone.

We understand baptism, then, to be a ceremony of cleansing and consecration to a holy service. This makes the formula of baptism plain: — “I baptize thee in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,” better translated, “to the name,” etc. (The proposition is eis, which is translated “to” about five hundred times in the New Testament.) We are thus set apart to the service of God and thus we consecrate our children.

The passage in 1 Cor. 10:2 becomes easy of interpretation: — “They were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea.” Baptist writers are zealous to find immersion here; and so they suppose that the sea being on their two sides, the cloud must have been above them; thus they were enveloped. This is mere theory; and the unfortunate thing about it is that the history states that the cloud was behind them and not above them. Certainly it was not also before them. On the other hand I have heard a zealous paedobaptist suggest that the spray of the sea probably sprinkled them, and thus they were baptized! It is more sensible to find here no reference whatever to the act of baptism, but to the understood significance of it as an act of consecration expressive of our faith in Him to whom we thus are consecrated. As in our baptism we are set apart to the service of God, promising obedience and fidelity, so were the children of Israel set apart to follow Moses as their divinely appointed leader. In the cloud which protected them and in the sea which opened to allow their passage was the evidence of his divine appointment: and in these manifestations they saw that it was safe to follow him. So were they baptized unto him.

Before closing this letter I wish to call your attention to another point, which seems to me to fall in most happily with the idea of cleansing as conveyed by the word baptize. It is this, that this view of the matter accords with the true conception of the substantial unity of the two dispensations. It is not necessary that we should go into the matter very largely to argue the substantial oneness of the Church from the beginning. There has been but one plan of salvation, but one way of pardon, but one system of truth, but one Church from Abraham down.

Christ said: — “I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.” Old Testament and New Testament make together one Bible.

The coming of Christ is the common center of both. Abraham was saved by Christ as really as those to whom Peter preached at the Pentecost.

Under the Old Dispensation there were two ordinances, Circumcision and the Passover. Under the New Dispensation there are two, Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. The two great doctrines of both dispensations are the same, justification and sanctification — forgiveness and holiness — pardon and purity.

Standing at the middle point — the great center of all the centuries, The Cross of Christ, we see it written — “Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins.” The Passover was the feast commemorative of deliverance by the blood of sprinkling; the Lord’s Supper shows forth the Lord’s death till the end of time and commemorates our deliverance by the blood of sprinkling. Both speak of pardon.

Circumcision symbolized purity — the putting away of the filthiness of the flesh and spirit. Many passages so represent: — “Circumcise, therefore, the foreskin of your heart:” “He is not a Jew, who is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: but he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter:” “We are the circumcision, who worship God in the Spirit.”

Now, if baptism, under the New Testament Dispensation, is also ceremonial cleansing, the unity is complete; but if it is burial, and not purification, the unity is broken.

I present this argument — not as conclusive in itself, but as strongly presumptive in favor of the view which has been presented, and as confirmatory of the unequivocal proofs already submitted, showing that baptism means cleansing and not immersion. The unity is not broken.

If you will be kind enough to call my attention, in your next letter, to any points upon which you would wish to have more light, or to any difficulties which you may find in accepting the general teaching of these letters, I will be better able to present just the things which are necessary to clear up all the difficulties in the case. Truth is always in harmony with itself; and whenever one comes to occupy the right standpoint this harmony appears.