By: Thomas F. Booher
BAPTISM: SPRINKLING/POURING or DUNKING/IMMERSING?
I've seen maybe one or two baptisms by immersion in person. It's always surprising to me. But I've watched more online so my sensibilities are less surprised than before.
So I can imagine how jarring it is for our largely Baptistic Christian culture to see a baptism by sprinkling/pouring, and of course for most of them they would say it isn't even a true baptism because we didn't dunk.
The symbolism isn't meaningless though. While we would accept immersion as a true and valid baptism, we do not use immersion as the proper, or at least most proper and accurate mode of baptism.
Pouring or sprinkling water upon the head of the recipient, whether adult or covenant child/baby, symbolizes Christ's blood covering His people, and His Spirit being poured out upon them.
Ezekiel 36:25-26, "Then I will SPRINKLE CLEAN WATER on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them."
Hebrews 10:19-22, "Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh, and having a High Priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our HEARTS SPRINKLED from an evil conscience and our BODIES WASHED with pure water."
Notice that God's promise is what He will do. He will sprinkle clean water upon us, cleanse us from filthiness, give us a new heart and His Holy Spirit within us. We are passive in baptism, outward and inward baptism, the sign and the thing signified.
Baptism is not primarily a sign of our faith, but what God does for us, to be received in faith. It is true, in Romans 6, we can speak of being buried with Christ and raised to new life, and our union with Christ is certainly the overarching and undergirding picture of our salvation, which baptism signs and seals. Yet how was Jesus buried? I am certainly no expert on burials in the time of Jesus, but Scripture tells us that He was buried, not as we often do today by being put 6 feet under the ground, but in a new tomb hewn out of rock, such that a large stone had to be rolled against the door of the tomb, Matt. 27:57-60. This is the common pattern throughout Scripture in both Testaments. Abraham was buried in a tomb/cave for example, Gen. 25:9.
Now even I, a Reformed Presbyterian who always sees baptism by sprinkling/pouring, will admit that I typically think of Romans 6 and coming up out of the ground, like one who is buried today. But that would not have been the imagery, at least not the primary one, in Jesus' day. We are buried with Christ, but Christ was buried in a tomb. So picturing resurrection with/in Christ as coming up out of the ground/water, as many churches today in our nation do, is inaccurate. Christ came out when the stone was rolled away. He walked out, He did not come out of the top of the tomb.
Baptism does not mean immersion, or at least it does not only mean immersion. This is what so many Baptists and others will say, and there is an etymological case to be made as I understand, but that simply isn't how the word is only used in Scripture or during the early history of the Church. Historically, more or less, only the Baptists baptized by FULL immersion, and only the baptists withheld baptism from the babies of believers. Calvin and some Reformed (a small minority) do speak of baptism as an immersion, but not necessarily a full emersion. In other words, there might be the waters coming up to one's feet, or knees, but the water could still then be scooped up and poured upon the head, to symbolize, again, the sprinkling of the blood of Christ and outpouring of the Holy Spirit, just as was promised in Scripture and as the blood of the covenant before Christ came was sprinkled on the people, Ex. 24:8 --
"And Moses took the blood, sprinkled it on the people, and said, 'This is the blood of the covenant which the Lord has made with you according to all these words.'”
The burden of proof is on Baptists/those who baptize by full immersion to show how the covenant has changed from sprinkling to immersing/dunking. But that calls into question the unity of the covenants and the unity of salvation, because there's a big difference theologically and illustratively between sprinkling/pouring and immersion. This is not inconsequential. Baptism is a sign of salvation, I believe most all would agree with that. Even if some say it is primarily about our faith (which is not true at all, salvation is God's working not our doing/believing), most would acknowledge that we do not bury ourselves with Christ, regenerate ourselves, raise ourselves to new life. Any who says that we accomplish this is not a Christian, but a heretic saying he can give himself new life, that he can save himself.
In Exodus 24, we see Moses taking the blood of the animal sacrifices and sprinkling it upon the people after reading the law/God's Word to them. The people had just essentially taken membership vows, pledging obedience to all the Lord has said. Moses explains that the blood of the covenant, which is upon them, was made with them by the Lord, not by them, and according to the words of the covenant, not their words. Yes, the covenant is meant to elicit the response of faith, of obedience to the law, etc., which the people vowed, though for many we know they would break the covenant and apostatize, not having genuine faith and true obedience.
This ceremony in Exodus 24 implicitly includes not just the men, but the women and the children/babies as well. In Ex. 10, Pharaoh is trying to negotiate with the LORD/Moses about the release of the Israelites. Initially Pharaoh will only permit the men to leave, not the "little ones". But in 10:9 Moses had said, "We will go with our young and our old; with our sons and our daughters, with our flocks and our herds we will go, for we must hold a feast to the Lord.”
All, the young and old, the adults and children, whether older children or babies, were all delivered by the LORD for their salvation from Pharaoh/Egypt, in order to become God's people, be covered with the blood of the covenant, and to hold a feast to the Lord as His covenant people. The final plague, involving the death of the firstborn, is a plain indication of the covenantal/household nature of God's salvation. All the house of Israel is to be delivered, not just the men, but the women too. And not just the adults, but the children, including the babies as well. Do we really think Moses/God told Pharaoh they can keep their babies? Perish the wicked thought! Moses himself was delivered through a baptismal ritual when he was floated down the river in a small basket, the Hebrew word being the same word for ark, picturing a Noah in miniature, and we know that Noah and the flood is explicitly connected to baptism in Scripture itself, I Pet. 3:21.
The parting of the waters at the Red Sea is what all Israel crossed through, and do we really think at that point the babies of the Israelites were abandoned to die or be taken again by Pharaoh's armies? Perish the wicked thought! And I Corinthians 10 tells us that all were baptized there as they passed through the waters of the Red Sea. Further, I Cor. 10 says all ate and drank the same spiritual food, from the rock that followed them in the wilderness, and that Rock was Christ!
The Old Testament/Old Covenant is neither graceless nor Christless. It is full of grace, and it is full of Christ. It was an administration of the one covenant of grace spanning all of Scripture, at that time administered under Moses and the Aaronic priesthood, now administered through Christ our great High Priest, and in His precious blood.
So all that we find in the New Testament/Covenant must be in complete agreement with what we find in the Old Testament/Covenant. The Old Testament pictures and foreshadows what is to come in Christ. Further, it is an administration of Christ Himself, as I Cor. 10 and other passages even more plainly show. So we simply cannot change baptism from sprinkling to full immersion, or exclude our children from the covenant, when God included them from the beginning, and that covenant has always included Christ from the beginning.
In baptism, God comes to us, receives us, and pictures before us His His work of salvation for His people. It is all God's actions. We are passive, indeed, dead in sin without Christ. Baptism is no more a sign of our faith than circumcision was a sign of Abraham's faith or his 8 day old male children's faith. It is a sign of God's covenant promises of salvation, which is to be responded to and received in faith.
But the Baptistic understanding inverts this and makes the primary, essential thing the faith of the one being baptized, rather than the promises of God to the one God is baptizing. But the blood and Spirit symbolized in baptism is not our blood and Spirit, but Christ's! God has chosen His people, covenant families, to be part of His Church, His people. Believer's children, even as infants, are to be baptized, because they were always part of the covenant and received its sign, circumcision under the old administration, baptism under the new administration of the covenant of grace. The child, just as the adult, is to respond in faith, but the validity of the baptism and the rite to it does not rest upon a presently possessed faith by the recipient. For the unbeliever or the one who goes on to apostatize, to break the covenant, they receive the curses of the covenant, damnation in hell, just as many Israelites did who were sprinkled with the blood of the covenant. Baptism, like circumcision, can symbolize both salvation and deliverance through Christ, or Christ's cutting off and judging through the waters the one who rejects Him and His covenant.
All that to say, to baptize by full immersion, especially if the motive behind it is the idea that Christ was buried 6 feet under the ground, and lifted up out of it, is not an accurate or helpful depiction of Christ's death, burial, and resurrection, and can be misleading regarding the primary/essential nature of baptism. It is not about faith and what we do. It is not about our first moving into Christ by faith, but Christ first and foremost moving into us, uniting Himself to us, covering us with His sprinkled blood and indwelling us by His outpoured Spirit.
As such, the element of baptism, the water, is what should be moving upon the person being baptized, for God and His saving work, Christ's blood and Spirit, is what should be moving and coming upon/over/covering the sinner dead in sin. The one dead in sin is not moving into Christ. He must first have Christ's blood and Spirit to respond in faith, that is what must first move into/upon the dead sinner! And precisely because God saves not in response to our faith, but by first uniting us to Christ and giving us a new, circumcised heart/new birth of the Spirit, regenerating us in order for us to have faith, baptism can and should be administered to not only believer's but also their infant children, as a sign and seal of their salvation which they are to lay hold of with a regenerate, sincere heart of faith.
Unlike in the Lord's Supper, where the ceremony itself requires one being alive spiritually to partake of the sacrament with the mouth of faith, and literally requires the ability to "take and eat/drink" the elements of bread and wine, this is not the case in the essence of baptism. Water is poured out upon the recipient, not drunk. The recipient does not take a cup of water and baptize himself, pouring the water upon himself, but rather, it is poured upon him by the minister, representing God. Even in the Baptistic practice of dunking/fully immersing the one being baptized, it is the minister who dunks/immerses, not the one being baptized himself. And yet, if the main focus and point of baptism is a presently possessed and expressed faith, then why shouldn't the person, in a demonstration of such faith, fall back into the waters, go under the waters completely, and come up himself, without the minister's assistance? Is this not a point of tension, and perhaps a subtle admission, that the focus is not on, or should not be upon, the faith of the recipient, but the Savior who pours out His Spirit and sprinkles His blood upon the recipient, making His covenant with the one being baptized?
Most Baptists, including Reformed Baptists, will not accept my baptism, since I was baptized by sprinkling/pouring. They would not accept baptism of a baby/infant, but likely not even accept an adult baptism that was performed by sprinkling/pouring, since most demand that baptism mean full submerging/immersion. I pray I have demonstrated that not only is full immersion/submersion unnecessary, it may even be unhelpful given the misunderstanding of Christ's burial (tomb vs. 6 feet in the ground, etc.) and that the essence of baptism is what God offers and promises to the recipient, and not what the recipient offers and promises to God by an act of faith.
Finally, it should be pointed out that immersion in Scripture more often pictures God's judgment in baptism, rather than His salvation. Israel passed through the waters of the Red Sea for salvation, they were not immersed/submerged in the waters. But Pharaoh's army was. The same is true, of course, in the global flood in Noah's day. That baptism was salvation for those who passed through the waters, but was damnation/judgment for those submerged/immersed in the waters.
Sprinkling vs. immersing are not essentials of the faith, insofar as they determine whether one is truly saved or not. But this does not mean they are unimportant. They are incredibly important, for sacraments are real means of grace, and they also serve a didactic/teaching purpose in that they visually demonstrate, as a sign, the covenant of grace. The imagery of a person being sprinkled with water brings to mind something different than a person moving to be submerged under water.
Jesus' Spirit is said to be poured out or to come upon God's people in Acts 2, and we see that Christ's blood, both in the old and new testaments, is referred to as a sprinkling. I believe it is also in some places referred to as a pouring, but don't have that in front of me right now. But never is it explicitly referred to as a dunking or immersing. The only way one can conclude that is if one demands that the word baptize itself (and there's several similar words for that in Greek) means, and only and always means, full immersion/submersion. This is what many Baptists will claim, but that is a highly disputed and doubtful point, and has been shown, does not comport with Scripture and its imagery of our salvation and the blood of the covenant.
I conclude with one final Scripture passage, which hopefully gives more and fuller meaning to God's work for us in Christ, and the importance of Christ's blood sprinkled, from Heb. 12:22-24:
"But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, TO JESUS THE MEDIATOR OF THE NEW COVENANT, and to the BLOOD OF SPRINKLING that speaks better things than that of Abel."
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