1. The Greek word we transliterate as ‘baptize’, literally means to immerse, to dip. It does not mean to sprinkle or pour.
2. “John also was baptizing in Aenon near Salim, because there was much water there…,” John 3:23, and,
3. “In those days Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. Immediately coming up out of the water, He saw the heavens opening, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon Him," Mark 1:9-10.
The example that we are shown by John’s baptism is that he immersed; there was “much water there”, and Jesus was baptized in the Jordan, and then came up out of the water. He went into the water, then came up out of the water.
4. “As they went along the road they came to some water; and the eunuch said, ‘Look! Water! What prevents me from being baptized?’ [ And Philip said, ‘If you believe with all your heart, you may.’ And he answered and said, ‘I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.’] And he ordered the chariot to stop; and they both went down into the water, Philip as well as the eunuch, and he baptized him. When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away; and the eunuch no longer saw him, but went on his way rejoicing,” Acts 8:36-39.
The example we are shown of being baptized into Christ is the same; they went down into the water, then came up out of the water. If baptism weren’t an immersion, as the word means, then why did both Philip and the eunuch go into the water? You can just as easily sprinkle someone on dry ground, without near the inconvenience.
5. “[O]ne Lord, one faith, one baptism,”
There is now only one baptism, baptism into Christ, and the example given in Scripture is that it is an immersion.
6. “Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection,” Romans 6:3-5.
Baptism is the likeness of the burial of Christ; the old man is buried, put under the water, and the new man is raised to life, raised out of the water. When the dead are buried, they are fully put into the ground and covered over with the earth; they are not sprinkled with dirt, nor is dirt poured on their head.
7. Cyprian, who died c. 258, was bishop of the church in Carthage, North Africa. Around 250 he wrote a letter in which he says the following, “You have asked also, dearest son, what I thought of those who obtain God’s grace in sickness and weakness. Are they to be considered legitimate Christians, for they have not been bathed with the saving water, but only sprinkled?”[1]
This quotation is interesting for what it doesn’t say, as much as for what it does say, for it shows that the church baptized by immersion from the start. For here, about 215 years after the opening of the church on Pentecost, there is a question about the practice of some who sprinkled the bedridden. This shows beyond question that it was not the teaching of the church to sprinkle, but rather to immerse; had it been the regular teaching and practice of the church to sprinkle, there would not have been a question asked.
Endnotes
[1] David Bercot, A Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs, (Peabody: Hendickson Publishers, 1998), p. 58.