Devoted to the Propagation and Defense of New Testament Christianity
VOLUME 1
June 30, 1949
NUMBER 9, PAGE 1a

Wringing The Water Out Of Baptism

Cled E. Wallace

"Speaking figuratively, Jesus calls the afflictions to be inflicted on him 'a baptism' (Luke 12:50. It was a copious effusion or pouring on, but no dipping.

The classical baptizo, when it emerged in Hellenic idiom, the corrupt Greek of New Testament lands and times, meant something quite different from that of the original usage, according to Robinson's 'Lexicon of the New Testament' ".

—Scribe in the Christian Advocate.

This wild scribe claims to speak for "the scholarship of paedo-Baptists" and especially "for Methodists" in his efforts to wring nearly all of the water out of baptism. It would be both entertaining and edifying to match "the scholarship of paedo-Baptists" with him. As a sample, John Wesley, who at one time was considered quite a good Methodist said in his Notes on the New Testament, Rom 6:4: "We are buried with him—Alluding to the ancient manner of baptizing by immersion."

This Methodist brother who thinks Jesus was not immersed and that there is not a single case of immersion in the New Testament is quite reckless in handling both Dr. Robinson and the New Testament. Dr. Robinson says baptizo means "to immerse, to sink." In the New Testament he says it means "to wash, to cleanse by washing." I take it that a Methodist preacher couldn't possibly see how it could help to wash or cleanse anything by dipping it in water. Mention "wash" and he immediately cries "but no dipping." Doctrinal prejudices can play strange tricks on some "paedo-Baptists." Dr. Thayer in his lexicon says that the word in the New Testament means "an immersion in water." Sophocles, a native Greek and for thirty years a professor of Greek in Harvard University, wrote a lexicon of the New Testament. He says that baptizo means—in the New Testament—"to dip, to immerse: to sink." He further says that "There is no evidence that Luke and Paul and the other writers of the New Testament put upon this verb meanings not recognized by the Greeks." It all adds up to the fact that our wild scribe is radically and emphatically wrong and that Dr. Robinson did not say what he is represented as saying. Furthermore he did not say that the baptism of suffering that Jesus referred to was "a copious effusion, or pouring on, but no dipping." He did say "to baptize with calamities" meant "to overwhelm with sufferings," "afflictions with which one is oppressed or overwhelmed." When a Methodist preacher "baptizes" a baby he does not oppress or overwhelm him with water either literally or figuratively. It may occur to some that it is in order for him to be more "copious" and "pour it on" a bit heavier, even if he is judged according to his own claims. The naked truth is that baptizo definitely means the same act as our English word immerse. They came to the water, went down into the water, were immersed, and came up out of the water. There is enough evidence to baptize the Methodist brother in and we do not mean sprinkling or even "a copious effusion."