Bapto and Semantic Change

I trust I have made it plain in my last letter that such a modification of meaning as I claim in the case of baptizo would not have been unnatural or improbable, but altogether in harmony with the well-known laws of human speech.

Before coming to the positive proof that just such a change did actually occur, I wish to show you beyond all question that the exigencies of every passage of Scripture in which baptism is commanded absolutely require some modification of the classical meaning, as it is held to be by all Baptist authorities. This can be made entirely clear from the Baptist translation itself. Take the Commission as it reads in the version published by the Baptist Union: “Go, therefore, and disciple all the nations, immersing them in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”

Or take the answer which Peter is represented to have made on the day of Pentecost to those inquiring what they should do to be saved: “Repent, and be each of you immersed.”

Suppose the inquirer had said: “Immerse? into what?”

Does the classic baptizo answer this question? Not at all! Whether the immersion is to be in salt water or fresh, in running water or still, in clean water, or oil, or vinegar, or into filth, there is nothing in the English word immerse, and there is nothing in the classic baptizo, to decide or even to suggest. What the effect of the immersion is to be, whether to render clean or unclean, there is absolutely nothing in the classic baptizo to indicate.

I have before me a volume published by the American Bible Union (Baptist) for the purpose of vindicating their translation of baptizo by “immerse”; a volume in which they profess to give all the passages in Greek literature in which the word occurs; and so far as I know it is complete and exact.

Now what do I find in the examination of these passages, numbering in all a little more than one hundred and fifty? I find that twenty times it was used of a ship that was going to the bottom of the sea; eighteen times of one sinking or drowned as the result of his immersion; nineteen times of dipping into oil; six times of plunging something, as a sword, into the human body; of land overflowed by water twice; of the difficulty of sinking things into very salt water, four times; of dipping into milk, vinegar, wine, honey, wax, fire, ointment, etc., twenty times.

Besides these, about seventy examples are given of its figurative use of being sunken, or overwhelmed in cares, debts, ignorance, sleep, passion, drunkenness, taxes, crimes, vices, sorrows, afflictions, calamities, punishments, difficulties, etc.; every time in a bad sense.

Now, as these are all the examples of the word baptizo which these learned gentlemen of the Baptist Union have been able to find in all the classic Greek literature which has come down to our day, they may reasonably be presumed to represent pretty fairly the general usage of the classic Greek. At all events, they are the sole basis upon which the dictionaries of the Greek language have been made.

Do any of these illustrate the usage of the word as found in the Greek Testament, in connection with the ordinance of baptism? Do they give any hint of the spiritual significance of the Christian rite?

Do they suggest clearly any answer to the question, “Into what must this immersion which the Baptist translation commands take place?”

Nothing is said in the Great Commission about water — nothing, according to their translation, is implied. The classic usage of baptizo does not imply water. As Dr. Carson himself is clear-headed enough to see, and candid enough to say: “The idea of water is not in the word at all.” Yet the word itself is all that is found in the great commission! The word itself is all that is found in Peter’s answer on the day of Pentecost.

Every minister of Christ is commanded (according to this Baptist translation) to “immerse” disciples. And for one I am entirely willing to admit that we probably have no one word that better translates the classic baptizo than the word immerse. Not that the act of immersion is expressed by it, so much as the condition of being surrounded by anything, whether liquid or solid. But not having any one word to express its classic meaning any better than immerse, with this general explanation, I am willing to admit that the Baptist translation is a good translation of the classic word baptizo. But what I maintain is that the classic baptizo does not at all meet the demands of the Christian ordinance; nor does the translation of the Baptist Union; for the very reason which Dr. Carson has acknowledged, that there is no water at all in the word itself. The thing into which the immersion is to take place must, in classic usage, be expressed; for the word does not imply it.

I want to make this so plain that there can be no possible questioning it. Suppose a Grecian gentleman in the days of Plato, for example, had called one of his servants, and telling him that he would find a piece of cloth in a certain place, had simply bidden him immerse it (using the word baptizo in its proper mood, tense, number, and person), would the servant have known anything about what he was to do with it?

Had that servant been familiar with every passage in Greek literature now known to us, he would have been in utter ignorance of the thing required; and he would have waited for the finishing of his master’s sentence; and unless the master had intended to mock the servant, he would have proceeded to finish the sentence without delay. For without something further the servant could not have known whether the cloth was to be immersed in fresh water or salt; in warm water or cold; in honey or oil; in vinegar or wine; in ointment or milk. “There is no water in the word at all” is a true saying when the remark is confined to the classic usage.

Pressed by this logic, which years ago I found clinging to me, I said to myself: “Very well; the disciple must be immersed in something; the command does not say what. Water is ordinarily the most convenient thing; and as nothing is said about it, I am at liberty to choose. But these disciples must be buried in something; and if I were in a desert with plenty of sand and little water I would bury them in the sand, covering the face last of all, and uncovering it again as promptly as possible; so that they should always be able to understand that passage — “buried with him by baptism”; and that other that speaks about being “planted together in the likeness of his death.” And I found various other Baptist ministers who occupied the same ground.

I cannot now see the fallacy of my argument, assuming that the classic baptizo must determine for me the meaning of the command. Or, if we take the significance of the ordinance, as almost all Baptist writers insist upon giving it to us, — Campbell, Carson, Ripley, Hinton, and others, — that the ordinance was intended to represent Christ’s burial and resurrection, and to be a symbolic pledge of our own resurrection after death, then the person must go under and come out again. And something else besides water might answer for that.

I could not, however, stand very firmly in this conclusion when I had reached it; for I found too many allusions to baptism — such as, “having your bodies washed with pure water” — to rest in the result to which I had come, that there was no water necessary to Christian baptism. There is none in the classic baptizo — that is plain.

If it be said that we find the water not in the word, but in the history and incidental allusions, I reply that this would answer, if the water were merely an unimportant incident. But here is a prominent command, with the most important part of it omitted from the law itself, and left merely to inference. I know of no other case in which such a thing has been done. If it is done here, it is an anomaly.

We have no instance in the Bible in which the word immerse is used. So I cannot illustrate by that particular term. But the word “dip” we have; and this is preferred by some of the Baptist writers as the equivalent term of baptizo; and we can see by reference to the cases in which it is used how entirely essential it is to make mention of that into which the dipping is to take place.

For example, we are told in Genesis 37:31 that Joseph’s brethren dipped his coat in the blood of a kid. Elsewhere we are informed that Aaron dipped his finger in the blood of the calf, and put it upon the horns of the altar. Of Asher it is said, “Let him dip his foot in oil.” The feet of the priests were dipped in the brim of the water. Jonathan put forth the end of the rod that was in his hand and dipped it in a honeycomb. Of about twenty instances in the Bible in which the word “dip” is used, only three of them refer to dipping into water; and all the passages would be entirely blind and without meaning were no mention made of the substance into which the dipping or immersion took place.

The same thing would be found true in the various passages in which the word “sprinkle” is found. Sometimes it is the sprinkling of water, sometimes blood, sometimes ashes, sometimes dust.

Nearly all the passages containing either of these words are simple narrative: and every one of them would be obscure if the verb stood alone. And does not a positive command need to be made as plain as an historic narrative? Do we expect a material point — the material point — to be omitted?

The water in baptism is either essential or it is not. If it is not, the classic baptizo will answer. If it is, baptizo in its classic sense utterly fails to meet the exigencies of the Christian ordinance. No water is mentioned in the Great Commission, and baptizo, in its usage in the one hundred and fifty passages of classic literature that have come down to us, is found to imply none. It is used of all sorts of substances, liquid and solid alike.

But now, assuming that the word expresses in itself, as used in the Scriptures, the idea of “ceremonial cleansing, or ritual purification, by water,” all is plain. On this supposition there is water enough in the command. The classic baptizo does not give us a drop. That means immerse, dip, or plunge, with no reference whatever to the material, or to any cleansing result that may be produced.

I see no escape from this argument. Were there no other evidence of a variation from classic usage, the absolute exigencies of those passages commanding baptism would be sufficient to prove it. No Word of specific mode merely Can possibly fulfill the demand of these passages. If we try “Repent, and be sprinkled,” the incompleteness and the obscurity resulting are just the same as from the translation of the Baptist Union — “Repent, and be immersed.” Sprinkled with what? would remain an unanswered question.

The word baptizo must be understood to express some general idea of effect, and not merely of mode. Upon the supposition that it was used in a sacred sense to denote a ceremony of religious cleansing and consecration, everything is plain.

But is there any proof that it was so used and understood by those to whom the New Testament was given? To that point I shall come in my next letter.