What Is Baptism (the Sprinkling Hoax)

It may well be that there is no Bible subject that has caused more confusion among men than the subject of baptism. What is baptism? What is its purpose? Who should be baptized? Why? I would like to take a look at these questions and deal with all of them over time but for the present in this article I will confine myself to the question what is baptism?

What is baptism? I doubt that very many people know what I am about to say. We all assume that the words found in our New Testaments are English words translated from the original Greek. You may well be surprised to learn that the word "baptize" and all of its derivatives are not English words at all. They are Greek words that were anglicized.

What does that mean? My Merriam Webster Dictionary says the word anglicize means number one "to make English" and meaning number two "to borrow (a foreign word or phrase) into English without changing form or spelling and sometimes without changing pronunciation." Thus those men who translated our New Testaments from the Greek into the English decided not to translate the Greek word "baptize" at all. They just made it into a new English word. Forget translating it.

Well, why would they do that? That is a good question. It is a question with an easy answer. The Greek word means to immerse completely. My hardback copy of Vine's, "An Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words," says of baptism, "consisting of the processes of immersion, submersion and emergence." If the reader will do a little of their own research they will quickly see that most all Greek scholars readily admit that in the first century the word was used of immersion only for that is what the Greek meant to those people.

The Bible confirms this to be the case for Paul says, "Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death." (Rom. 6:4 NKJV) Baptism is a burial, a burial in water when used in a religious context. Paul says again in Col. 2:11-12 (NKJV), "In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead." One is not and cannot be buried by sprinkling or pouring.

Philip and the eunuch both went "down into the water" (Acts 8:38 NKJV) and "came up out of the water." (Acts 8:39 NKJV) They did not go down to the water but down "into" the water. Let me ask a question. Why if sprinkling or pouring were acceptable for baptism would any man go down into the water? Would it be because he enjoys getting himself and his clothes soaking wet? You might go down to the water and reach out with a little pail or cup but why go down and wade out into it?

The truth of the matter as to why the Greek work was anglicized and never translated is to be found in the fact that by the time the Bible came to be translated into English man had decided on his own initiative that sprinkling would do just as well as immersion. If you translate the Greek and you are honest in your scholarship you will have to use the word immerse or dip. If you do that what will that do to your doctrine of sprinkling? It will destroy it. That cannot be allowed to happen. What is the solution? Don't translate the Greek, anglicize it producing a new English word that because it is new you can make it mean whatever you want it to mean.

The first time after the establishment of the church in Acts 2 that anyone was sprinkled or had water poured on them rather than be immersed was approximately 200 years later. In about 250 AD a man by the name of Novation became ill and fearing for his life wanted to be baptized. Too ill for immersion he had his friends pour water on him. By that point in time there was not an inspired man alive to cause problems over this substitution. By that time there was also not an inspired man alive with the authority to make the substitution.

One had to go outside the pages of the New Testament to get sprinkling showing little respect for what was written. What was written was not sufficient for a man (or his friends) who feeling as though he was at the point of death and knowing full well he had not been obedient to the command to be baptized (immersed) but rather had been disobedient needed the law to be changed in order to get himself saved.

He needed sprinkling as a substitution and if he had to add a new law or change an old one to get sprinkling in then so be it. (No one had told him he was not God, the only law giver or law changer.)

Thus we see the kind of attitude that brought sprinkling to what the world calls "Christianity." One ought to be able to see the evil of that kind of an attitude toward God's word. I can't find what I want here in the word. Okay, I will just make some changes.

In 1311 the Roman Catholic Church at the council of Revenna officially adopted the sprinkling of water for baptism. The Greek Catholic Church would not accept this but the Roman Catholic did and it exercised dominance in the West where the English speaking people resided and where English speaking Bibles were to be produced. This was more than 100 years before the printing press was invented making mass production of Bibles possible.

The long and short of it was that the doctrine of sprinkling was by subterfuge brought into the Bible by deliberate failure to translate a Greek word and giving the anglicized word any meaning you wanted to since it was a new word to the English language. That is why if you look up the word "baptize" or "baptism" in a modern day dictionary it will give you meanings related to way the word is used today thus giving you options - sprinkling, pouring, or immersion.

Even so I was surprised to see that my Webster's New World Dictionary Third College Edition, the last copyright listed being 1988, while listing 3 common meanings of the word "baptize" as used today, gives before those listings the Greek meanings and I quote here from it - "to immerse," "to dip." Honesty in scholarship is a great thing.

All scholars will agree on the meaning of the original Greek word baptize but you will probably never see again a translation that will translate the Greek word baptize into English. Why? To do so they would have to use the word immerse or dip. With the vast multitude of people who have now come to wholeheartedly embrace sprinkling how many Bibles do you think they would sell? You can still learn the truth on this topic through your own study but you will get no help from your Bible translators.

Do you really want to know what is sad? It is that some will read what I have written here, they will then go and do their own research, find out that what I have said is the truth, and yet it will not make one bit of difference in their view of the subject if they have by tradition had sprinkling handed down to them in their particular faith.

We confess we believe in the Bible. We also ought to confess that we believe in a lot of other things too, namely, man's additions to it. It reminds me a lot of the Jews in the days of Jesus. They professed that they were abiding in the law of Moses and keeping it faithfully. Yet, what they were keeping was the law of Moses shot through and through with their own traditions and man made laws. I need not tell a Bible student this for they already know it. What is the difference today?

In Matt. 15 we have an example that parallels what I am talking about. I quote verses 1 - 9 from the New King James Version.

"Then the scribes and Pharisees who were from Jerusalem came to Jesus, saying, 'Why do Your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat bread.' But He answered and said to them, 'Why do you also transgress the commandment of God because of your tradition? For God commanded, saying, 'Honor your father and your mother'; and, 'He who curses father or mother, let him be put to death.' But you say, 'Whoever says to his father or mother, 'Whatever profit you might have received from me has been dedicated to the temple' - 'is released from honoring his father or mother.' Thus you have made the commandment of God of no effect by your tradition. Hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy about you, saying: 'These people draw near to Me with their mouth, And honor Me with their lips, But their heart is far from Me. And in vain they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.'"

Jesus says to them, "Why do you also transgress the commandment of God because of your tradition?" (Matt. 15:3 NKJV) God's commandment to us is to be immersed. Everyone agrees that was the original commandment and historically what was done for a couple of hundred years after the church was established. When I substitute sprinkling for immersion how can I say anything other than that I have done the very same thing these scribes and Pharisees did?

I have transgressed the commandment of God because of my tradition preferring to keep my tradition (sprinkling) over his word (immersion). I have made the commandment of God of no effect by my tradition handed down to me by those who came before and which I have accepted wholeheartedly.

Then Jesus also does a comparison and contrast here. He says God says (Matt. 15:4) then says "but you say." (Matt. 15:5). Again, it is hard to not see a parallel. I, God, have said immersion but you say sprinkling.

Then we also have to ask, since sprinkling came from and by man being 200 to 1300 years after the writing of the New Testament, depending on whether you want to start your count with Novation or the Council of Ravenna, how it can be said that God had anything to do with bringing sprinkling into the faith? How can it be anything other than "teaching as doctrines the commandments of men?" (Matt. 15:9 NKJV)

The only way one can get around the difficulties associated with accepting sprinkling is to say the New Testament is insufficient as a guide for man today. It must be amended. This smacks of the utmost arrogance. It is to say God was not able, not capable, of producing a guide that could stand the test of time and stand on its own two legs. It is to say that we men of clay need to help him stay updated. It is to say we yet have inspired men able to amend the teachings of the New Testament.

The Catholic Church accepts both - the Pope is inspired and infallible and God's word does need to be amended and added to from time to time. If you believe that then it is not hard to abandon the written word or replace it with your own. It always struck me as kind of odd that you had to have a group of men to vote in order to find who your inspired man was - the Pope. You win the vote and you are automatically inspired.

But the truth is this is the approach the vast majority of those who call themselves Christians take whether they are Catholics or Protestants. They are putting their trust in men rather than what is written. The idea always seems to prevail that their tradition (or practice if you will) whether begun in 250 AD, or in the Middle Ages, or even within the past 100 years or so some how trumps the New Testament and amends it. And, lo and behold, God put it there. I wish someone would tell me how he did it if it was not there in the first century.

I don't know whether you ever thought about it this way or not. What we are saying when we add to God's word is that it alone is today insufficient to save men. We now need more. Yes, there was a time when immersion was sufficient but not so today. Men need options God did not give. It is too hard to have to do what he said way back then. Getting all wet is too big an inconvenience. What was once sufficient is no longer so. Who said so? We did. Who could fairly question us who have made ourselves higher than God?

Besides, there are people too old or ill to be baptized. Well, what is new in that? Is this era the first ever to have people too old or ill to be baptized? Time may well run out on us before our actual death. Go into a coma and time has run out even if you still breathe. We need to obey while we can.

But, I grant you there may be exceptional cases at times. People come to believe, they repent, but are not able to be immersed. You say I condemn them because I do not accept sprinkling. No, I leave them in the hands of a just god who will do what is right and that is far better than to add to or change God's word for man's. He knows far better than we do what is right versus what is wrong.

Hear the words of Jesus, "He who rejects Me, and does not receive My words, has that which judges him - the word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day." John 12:48 (NKJV)

1 Cor. 2:4 (NKJV), "And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power," says Paul. If we are going to add to God's word or change it how about a little demonstration "of the Spirit and of power" as per Paul so we can know it is from God not man? How about a little confirming the word with signs following? (Mark 16:20)

Joshua said in the long ago that the people needed to make a choice - serve the gods on the other side of the river (the Nile), or the gods of the Amorites, or the Lord. Then he goes on and says that "as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD." (Joshua 24:15 NKJV)

We today need to make a choice. Will we believe and practice those things that came into our midst religiously hundreds of years after the establishment of the church and which as a result came obviously from man, not God, or will we return to the New Testament as our sole guide in our faith and practice. We need to choose. We ought to say as for me and my house I will follow the words of the Lord as recorded in the New Testament and leave the ideas and opinions and innovations of man to those for whom the New Testament is not good enough.

Visit Denny Smith's web site to read more of his articles and also listen to over 110 audio sermons on many different subjects from "Where Are the Dead?" to "The Weaver's Shuttle," to "What Must I Do To Be Saved?" The audio sermons are by a good friend of his, Waymon Swain. Why not visit his site now dennysmith.net? You are sure to find a sermon topic or article of interest.