Greetings in Christ!
I was perusing through a protestant pamphlet that was covering basic Christian beliefs (biased, I’m afraid, on their behalf) and came across the subject of Baptism. It insisted on baptism by immersion, citing certain scripture to back up the statement. It did not condone infant baptism or sprinkling. The subject brought to mind many discussions that I’ve had with other Christians, particularly Protestants who insist that baptism must be done by immersion only.
The publication also stressed that it must be in the name of Jesus Christ (who else would it be??!!) Some Protestants are adamant in their belief that a Catholic is not really baptized, since we utilize sprinkling. Some also erroneously believe Catholics are not even Christians….perplexing, to say the least . I always reply that all Catholics are Christians, but not all Christians are Catholics. Maybe someone can help me with how to intelligently answer a Protestant when the subject of baptism comes up? Thanks for your help,
Dominus Vobiscum +++,
Jerald Franklin Archer
Laudetur Jesus Christus!
Understand when they say baptise in the name of Jesus, they likely do not mean a Trinitarian baptism where one is baptised in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
And as far as the baptism being immersion. I know which verses they tend to use. The say Christ went down into the water and came up out of the water and that means he was immersed. Well, the main problem with that is that is reading into the text. Note for instance that almost the exact same phrasing is used of both Philip and the Ethiopian. If going down into and coming up out of the water means one is immersed, then both Philip and the Ethiopian were immersed. But it doesn’t mean that, it’s simply a statement that one walked down to the river and then came away from the river, nothing more.
And they tend also to just say baptizo equals immersion. But that’s just not true. James W. Dale in the 1800’s did a comprehensive study of the word baptizo. He spent 20 years and produced a 4 volume set of books which titles start with the word “Baptizo”. They are still available today in hard copy from places like Christianbook Distributors. Or they are available in computer form on a CD of the Reformation Bookshelf. Seems strange to me entire denominations will ignore the proof that’s sitting there, maybe they don’t have twenty dollars.
Anyway, concerning mode. We have totally from scripture the baptism unto Moses, where God baptised the nation of Israel. We even see from scripture the application of water. That’s given in Psalms 77:17 and it’s rain. There was of course an immersion, but that was the Egyptians, yet the Israelites got waer poured or sprinkled on them and they were the one’s baptised.
Well at that point they will say that’s not New Testament so they are free to ignore it. But it does speak directly to the meaning of the word. You can use the passage that says all scripture is useful for teaching and ask them if they believe that New Testament passage, if they say yes, then ask them why their practice is different than their belief.
There is another one. When the Pharisee was amazed that Jesus did not baptise before eating. That’s translated wash, but again we are speaking to the meaning of the word. We know exactly how Jesus was expected to wash, it was spelled out by the Pharisees in the oral Tradition. You poured water over your hands and down the arms, then you knuckled your hands together, and then you poured water over them again.
You really are not dealing with a sola Scriptura Protestant in this situation. You are dealing with some groups that seem to have totally lost their connection to the original languages and the understanding of scripture. And then the distinctive which cropped up due to lack of knowledge became strong folk religions as distinctives tend to do. And then, as the education has somewhat come back, the folk religion beliefs are so strong that they really can read things which contradict what they believe and go right on past without seeing or understanding.
It’s just like the people who say they don’t use musical instruments in worship because they aren’t mentioned in the New Testament and then you point out that it says the Christians sang psalms, and they can’t see it. Even telling them the word doesn’t mean song, it means stringed instrument doesn’t get to them.
There are days I wish the translators would have translated everything instead of doing so much transliteration. People have created their own understandings and they hang on the mix of translation vs transliteration.
They think baptism equals immersion, when the word clearly does not.
They think psalms are just poems without instrumentals.
And so on.
Realize in dealing with this that folk religions are among the strongest beliefs a person will hold because they are often gained as a child almost like it’s osmosis. And it becomes so much a part of a person that even confronted with clear evidence, it’s actually very unusual for the person to actually go against their belief. It usually takes a lot of time and patience.
JJ
