One Baptism - In Water
By: Rosco Brong
DISOBEDIENCE TO DIVINE COMMANDS IS NOT
A WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
"There
is ... one baptism." (Eph. 4:4,
5)
"Know
ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into
(with reference to) Jesus
Christ were baptized into (with reference to) his death?" (Rom.
6:3.)
"Our
fathers.., were all baptized into(with reference to)
Moses in the cloud and in the sea." (I Cor. 10:1,
2.)
Use
of scriptural terms in an unscriptural sense is a favorite trick of modernists
that has been adopted by some so-called interdenominationalists who pride
themselves on their supposed orthodoxy or fundamentalism. So it has become
fashionable in certain circles to speak of a "spiritual baptism" of
which the Bible tells us exactly nothing.
Satan has never introduced among God's people a
heresy so ridiculous but that he has been able to find men willing to
prostitute some degree of scholarship in its defense. So it has been with the
practice of baby baptism, pouring, and sprinkling as substitutes for believer's
baptism. There have been a few scholars of limited ability or honesty, or both,
who have tried to justify these unscriptural practices by perverted
interpretations of scripture.
But among competent scholars the
scriptural meaning of"baptize" and "baptism" is no longer a
matter of debate. Everyone knows that the ordinary literal meaning of baptize
in the New Testament is to dip, plunge, or immerse in water--and whatever
figurative meaning the word may occasionally have must be derived from and
based upon this literal sense.
Martin Luther, John Calvin, and John Wesley,
whatever their doctrinal errors, were at least, unlike some of their followers,
scholarly enough to admit that scriptural baptism was immersion, and that
sprinkling in its place was an innovation for the sake of convenience rather
than obedience.
An elementary principle of honest translation and interpretation is that the
literal or ordinary meaning of a word is always to be preferred if it makes
good sense in the eontext; figurative or unusual meanings are to be adopted
only when demanded by context.
Undoubtedly in Matt. 20:22, Mk. 10:38, and Lu.
The Bible also speaks of a baptism in (NOT "with") the Holy Spirit.
Matt. 3:11; Mk. 1:8; Lu.
Just as an individual believer is scripturally
baptized in water only once, so the church as an institution was baptized in
the Holy Spirit only once, that is, on the day of Pentecost. The additional
manifestation in the house of Cornelius was simply to convince Peter and other
Jewish church members that Gentile believers rightfully belonged in the same
church.
Never in all the New Testament is a single individual said to be baptized in
the Holy Spirit. This was a baptism of the church as such, not of single
believers as such. Let us not confuse fillings with the Spirit or gifts of the
Spirit with baptism in the Spirit.
If we are members of a scriptural church, in
scriptural succession from that first (Baptist) church in
A preposition is a weak peg to hang a doctrine on, but the phrase
"baptized into Jesus Christ" in the King James version
of Rom. 6:3 has long been a favorite with baptismal regenerationists. They are
conveniently or willfully ignorant of the fact that identical translation of
the same Greek preposition eis in I Cor. 10:2 makes
"our fathers.., all baptized into Moses."
Of course, nobody is ever dipped into Christ,
any more than anybody was ever dipped into Moses. The Greek preposition in both
these passages should be rendered "with reference to" or"because
of," either of which translations will give good sense, while
"into" gives nonsense.
A reader wants to know what I think of the so-called "expanded
translation" by Kenneth S. Wuest of
"Do you not know that all we who were placed in
Christ Jesus, in his death were placed?" (Rom. 6:3.)
"One Lord, one Faith, one placing into [the
Body of Christ by the Holy Spirit]." (Eph. 4:5, brackets included.)
I answer: that is not translation, expanded or
otherwise: that is mere wild Wuestern whimsy.
The Greek word transliterated baptize does not
mean to place or place into in any such free and easy sense. It means to dip,
plunge, or immerse in water--unless the context obviously demands another
element.
No reputable Greek scholar ever dreamed of such
"translation'' in former years, but now, driven to desperate expedients
to promote the "invisible church" fantasy, modernistic Bible dictionaries
and commentaries of pseudoscholarship are chirping a chorus of "spiritual
baptism"--a thing as invisible and nonexistent in the Bible as the
invisible church itself.
Amusingly consistent only in its inconsistency is the same Wuestern
"translation" of I Cor. 10:2:
"And all had themselves immersed,
surrounded by the cloud [on both sides], thus shut up to Moses [as their
leader]." (Brackets are part of quotation.)
"Shut up to Moses," indeed! At least,
thank God, we are not shut up to Wuest. If that is translation, a dozen
generations of formerly respected English translators missed their calling.
According to the Bible (Eph. 4:5), there is only one (literal) baptism, and
that is the baptism in water instituted by John the Baptist by divine
commission, received by the Lord Jesus, and by Him committed to His church to
be observed as an ordinance for disciples (believers) only, as a first act of
obedience, to be followed by the observance of all His commandments.
When men speak of a fictitious "spiritual
baptism" not mentioned in the Bible, and belittle the one baptism (in
water) that is taught in the Bible, we can be sure that their strange doctrine
is not the work of the Holy Spirit.
More About Baptism
Reply to Query: The Article, "One Baptism--In W.ater," published in
the Ashland Avenue Baptist, has drawn criticism from a number of readers--some
friendly and some hostile. Answering such criticism, Bro. Brong submits the
following review with some additional facts from the scriptures
Let us simply recognize that nouns and verbs, in the
very nature of language, are more nearly dependable in meaning than are
prepositions. Specifically, we MUST take the Greek preposition eis in different
senses in different contexts; we NEED NOT take the noun or verb for baptism or
baptize in any other than the literal or nearly literal sense of dip, plunge,
immerse, submerge, or overwhelm--and ALWAYS in water unless the context DEMANDS
otherwise. This assumption makes possible harmonious interpretation of the
scriptural doctrine of baptism without difficulty.
But if we insist on "into" as the unvarying
English translation of eis, even though Webster's Third New International Dictionary
gives 11 main definitions of"into," we shall have all sorts of
trouble. Did the men of
This last reference involves the use of eis in
connection with baptism certainly parallel with Matt. 28:19,
No doubt there is a real spiritual and scriptural
experience FIGURED or SYMBOLIZED in scriptural (water) baptism, but we ought
not to confuse the figure with the thing figured. From such confusion the Campbellites
teach baptismal regeneration and ultra-dispensationalists teach
that"water baptism" was a "temporary rite" no longer to be
practiced.
Romans 6:5 seems to me simple enough: "For if we
have become planted with (Him) in the LIKENESS of his death, yet also we shall
be (in the likeness) of his resurrection." The baptism which figures the
burial of Jesus in His death, and His resurrection, also figures our own
spiritual death and resurrection as well as the death and resurrection of our
bodies. With all this wealth of meaning in Christ's ordinance of baptism, it
is no wonder that Satan tries to destroy it!
If we have here only a "spiritual" baptism,
a "spiritual" likeness, a "spiritual" death--have we also
only a "spiritual" resurrection? Some would say so, but the Bible
teaches otherwise. See I Cor. 15:12-19, 29.