HANDLING THE THREE THOUSAND.
That evening Sterling opened the discussion: "Miss Dorothy, I have listened in these discussions to what are evidently stock passages of the immersionists. But let us go deeper into the matter."
"But why do you call them stock passages of the immersionists?" asked Dorothy in surprise. "I did not get them from any immersionists. I told you I thought I saw passages in the Bible teaching immersion and you said no. I was asked to show these passages and I have been showing them."
"Very well, we will not dispute on that point, my fair debater, but I will try now to show you that it was impossible that immersion could have been intended in these Bible passages. I think I can show you that certain baptisms could not have been immersions."
"Good for you," said the father. "Now the contest is getting spicy. Show that immersion was impossible and you have won the day."
"Father, you speak as if Mr. Sterling and I were engaged in a battle. My only desire is to learn what the Bible teaches about baptism, and I shall certainly follow its command as nearly as I can, cost what it may. Why do you say immersion was impossible, Mr. Sterling?"
"Because in the account of the baptisms on the day of Pentecost we are told that three thousand persons were baptized and that of course could not have been done by immersion in one day."
"Were they all baptized in one place?" asked Dorothy.
"Yes, all were baptized at Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost after a great sermon by the Apostle Peter."
"How many persons did the baptizing?" asked Dorothy, as if she was trying to picture the scene.
"That is not stated."
"Let us have the passage, Sterling. My curiosity is excited," said Mr. Page.
Sterling read from Acts 2:41: "Then they that gladly received his Word were baptized and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls."
Dorothy read the verse over carefully and then remarked: "Why, that doesn't say they were all baptized on the same day. Notice it says there were added to them on the same day about three thousand. Why may not some of the number have been baptized before that and during Christ's life?"
"That is a fact," said the father, looking over the passage. "The verse does not say that they were all baptized that day; but do you suppose, Sterling, that it would have taken a great deal longer to immerse them than it would to have sprinkled them? Not if the sprinkling ceremony that I saw was a sample of the way the three thousand were baptized. Do you not have a ceremony connected with sprinkling just as they have one connected with immersion?"
"Oh, yes, there is always a little ceremony connected with the sprinkling."
"Who did the baptizing that day?" asked Dorothy.
"Good for you, daughter," said the father. "That is a stunner. One man would have had quite a job on his hands whether he sprinkled or dipped that host of folks. But with several baptizers it was a different proposition."
"Oh, father, why do you speak so jokingly about these Bible matters?"
"You are right, Dorothy. Forgive me. I always make a muss of it when I tackle religion. I'd better call in my tongue before I get into trouble."
"I repeat my question," said Dorothy: "Who did the baptizing on that day?"
"I guess that Peter, one of the apostles, did it."
"Oh, yes," said Dorothy, "there were twelve apostles, were there not? And if they all took part in the baptizing, that would have made it much easier. And I notice back here in the fifteenth verse of the preceding chapter it says there were one hundred and twenty disciples there when Peter preached his sermon and that three thousand were converted."
"Hello," said the father with a smile, "you keep on and you will get more than enough people to baptize two or three times three thousand persons."
"You don't imagine," said Sterling with a smile, "that the one hundred and twenty disciples all took a hand in putting the three thousand under water? That would have been a spectacle indeed."
"I think it would have been a spectacle no matter how it was done," said Dorothy.
"Another thing," said Sterling: "Supposing that they had enough administrators for the ordinance that day, where could they have performed the baptisms? Do you think they all marched off to the river Jordan? Of course not. But they did not need to go off anywhere in order to be sprinkled. Besides, what about a change of clothing for the three thousand persons if they were all put under water? Remember most of them—according to the account—were strangers from different countries visiting Jerusalem."
"I hope," said Dorothy, "that they had not come from their different countries without some change of clothing."
"Isn't it true," asked the brother, "that over in these Eastern lands, with their loose garments and their sunny climate, they could have arranged for a dipping if they had so desired it? But that other point mentioned by Mr. Sterling has not been answered."
"What is that?" asked Dorothy.
"He asked where in Jerusalem could so many have been baptized?"
"Does it say they were baptized in Jerusalem?" asked Dorothy.
"No, it does not say so, but do you think they went off to a river?" asked Sterling.
"The passage does not state. But are you sure there were not places in Jerusalem where they could have been immersed?" asked Dorothy.
"Wait," said the brother, "let me get an encyclopedia." He went to the shelf and was soon examining the article on Jerusalem. "Here is a long article on Jerusalem," he said, running his eye down the pages. "Hello, here is something about its water facilities. Here is a reference from Strabo in these words 'Jerusalem a rocky, well-enclosed fortress; within, well watered; without, wholly dry'."
"Now you are making discoveries, son," said Mr. Page. "Give us some more about the water."
"Here is another statement. Dr. Robinson states there were six immense public pools in the city, the largest being five hundred and ninety-two feet long and two hundred and seventy-five feet broad."
"That is enough, son," exclaimed the father. "Sterling, history seems on the side of the immersionists there. I think that five hundred and ninety-two foot pool could have taken care of the whole three thousand."
"I think the important question," said the brother, "is the meaning of the Greek word originally used for baptism. In other words, does the word baptize mean to sprinkle or to immerse? When the people in Christ's day used the word, what did they mean by it—sprinkle or immerse?"
"That hits the target exactly," said the father. "What does the word baptize mean? Let's see, I think you said that the Bible was written in Greek."
"The New Testament was," said Sterling.
"The question is, then, what word did the people use in Christ's day in talking about a baptism? When Christ told the people to be baptized, what word did he use and what did that word mean? Did the Greek word which he used for baptism mean for the people in that day 'immerse' or 'sprinkle'? When they heard the word from him, did they think of immersion or of sprinkling?"
"'Baptizo', or baptize, is the word which he used," said Sterling.
"But baptize is our English word that we use. What was the Greek word which Christ used and which meant baptism?" asked Roland.
"That is the point," said Sterling. "'Baptizo' is the Greek word, and the people who translated our English from the Greek Bible did not translate the Greek word 'baptizo' into any English word, but simply put the Greek word 'baptizo' or baptize into our language as it was without translating it. You see, if they had translated it 'immerse', that would have made the Presbyterians mad, and if they had translated it 'sprinkle' that would have made others mad, and so they did not translate it at all, but simply put the Greek word 'baptizo' in the English Bible, leaving each person to translate it as he thought proper."
"But why did they not translate it?" said Dorothy, as if vexed by their neglect. "It must mean something, and if they translated the other words, why did they not translate this word right, no matter who might have liked it?"
"They ought to have done so," said Sterling, "and they ought to have put the English word 'sprinkle' instead of the Greek word 'baptizo'."
"Oh, I see," said the father. "I guess the Presbyterians, when they came to translate the word into English, would put it 'sprinkle', and those who believed in dipping would translate it 'dipping'."
"That's it exactly," said Sterling. "The translators, in order not to offend the different denominations, agreed not to translate the word at all, but simply to put the Greek word 'baptizo' in the English Bible and let each one translate it for himself as he thought proper."
"Can't we find out what that Greek word 'baptizo' means?" asked Dorothy.
"Certainly, here is the Greek scholar," said Mr. Page turning to his son. "Tell us, Roland, what did the Greeks understand by that word 'baptizo' when they used it?"
"I must get my Greek lexicon for that." And upstairs he hurried and soon returned with Liddell and Scott's Greek and English Lexicon. He turned to the word "baptizo" and read its meaning as follows: "To dip repeatedly, to dip under."
"What is that?" exclaimed the father, almost bouncing out of his chair, "'to dip under'?"
"Here it is on page 130."
"It seems to me," said the father, "that would settle it. If the Greek word that Christ used meant to dip under, what right has anyone to say that baptism is to be done by sprinkling?"
"What do you do with a passage like this in 1 Cor. 10:2?" said Mr. Sterling—"'were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea.' They were all baptized, but do you see any immersion in that? It refers, you know, to the time when the Israelites passed through the sea dry shod with a cloud over them. They were baptized, but they were surely not immersed, for they would have been drowned."
"I did not know of such an event," said Dorothy. "What do you mean by saying that they went through the sea dry shod?"
"God banked up the waters on both sides and let them walk through untouched by the water."
"Did you say the waters were banked on both sides of them and that a cloud covered them?"
"Yes."
"Isn't that a picture of immersion? The ground was under them, the water on both sides and the cloud covered them. It was much more like an immersion than a sprinkling."
"Hold on," said Sterling. "The cloud was not over them, but back of them. The cloud was always either before or behind them, but never over them; consequently they were not covered up and the water did not even touch them—unless perhaps they were sprinkled by the spray from the wall of waters."
"Let me see the passage," said Dorothy. She turned to Exodus 14:21. "But look!" she exclaimed, "it reads, 'and the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea'."
"You don't think, Miss Dorothy, that they actually plunged into the middle of the sea?" asked Sterling with a smile.
"Of course not, Mr. Sterling; and yet their position in that sea gave the idea to the writer of their being in the midst of the sea. To his mind it looked as if they were covered or buried in the sea, and that is immersion. The Old Testament writer calls it a baptism and the Old Testament historian speaks of them as being in the midst of the sea. Which does that look more like—sprinkling or immersion?"
Sterling was getting excited. It seemed to him that Dorothy was moving further and further away from him, and he imagined he saw a chasm opening between her views and his own. But he braced himself for the struggle. To him the mode of baptism was by no means a life and death matter, but Dorothy seemed to recoil from the practice of sprinkling. Sterling cheered himself with the thought that he had certain passages to show her that would turn the tide. He said to her with a confident ring in his voice:
"Miss Dorothy, I have an arrow here from the Bible quiver which I think will give the death blow to the immersion theory and prove beyond the glimmer of a doubt that pouring is the scriptural mode of baptism."
"I thought you believed in sprinkling; why do you say 'pouring'?"
"We make no distinction between sprinkling and pouring. They are practically the same thing. I want now to show you a statement from Christ himself indicating that he believed that pouring was the mode of baptism."
"Do let us have it," said Dorothy.
"In the first chapter of Acts Christ said to the apostles: 'Ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence.' The day of Pentecost, which came not many days hence, was the day which he was talking about. He tells them they would be baptized on that day with the Holy Ghost, and I can show you that this baptism was done by pouring."
"Hold a bit," said the father. "Let me see if I get that point. You say Christ promised that the apostles would be baptized on a certain day with the Holy Ghost, and that when this promised baptism came to pass it came not by immersion, but by pouring. Is that your claim?"
"You have it exactly correct."
"All right, and now for your proof."
"Ten days after Christ ascended to Heaven this baptism of the Spirit came. The disciples were in an upper room and were waiting for this baptism of the Spirit that had been promised, when suddenly the Holy Spirit came. But how did it come and in what way were they baptized? It was poured on them. Don't forget that. When the outsiders, bewildered at the strange manifestation, asked what it meant, Peter stood up and explained it by saying: 'This is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel.' In other words, Peter said it was what Joel the prophet long ago had prophesied would come to pass. And what did Joel say would happen? Listen to Peter: 'And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, that I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh.'"
"Hello, daughter, he has the dots on you there. The verse declares for pouring."
"Certainly," exclaimed Sterling. "He does not use the word immerse, but says 'I will pour out of my Spirit'. That was the form that the baptism took—pouring—and Peter was quoting the prophecy to explain the baptism. And look here in the thirty-third verse; he continues in the same strain by saying 'having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth, this which ye now see and hear."
"Let me see that passage," said Dorothy. She looked it over intently and in a few moments said: "Mr. Sterling, notice the whole account. It doesn't read as if the Spirit was poured on them as you would pour a little water on a person in baptism. A previous verse reads: 'Suddenly there came a sound from Heaven as of a rushing mighty wind and it filled all the house where they were sitting.' And in the fourth verse it reads: 'And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost.' Think of that, Mr. Sterling. The Holy Spirit came not in a few drops by pouring, but came so abundantly that it filled the house and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. I guess if you were to pour water on a person as the Spirit came upon these persons the person would be drowned. The disciples were surrounded by the Spirit, and that looks like immersion rather than like pouring."
"But not too fast," said Sterling. "It does not say that the Holy Spirit filled the house. It speaks of the wind, but it does not say even the wind filled the house, but simply a sound as of a wind. It was therefore only a sound that filled the house, and sound could not fill the house because sound has no existence except in the ears of those who hear it. Where, then, is your immersion? You say they were immersed in sound that day, and you call that baptism of the Spirit?"
"Mr. Sterling," said Dorothy in surprise, "you amaze me. The writer must mean that the Spirit filled the house. I saw in my reading this week a foot note that the wind in Scripture often symbolizes the Spirit."
"Certainly," spoke up the brother. "Pneuma in Greek means both 'spirit' and 'wind'."
"Is that so?" exclaimed Dorothy eagerly. "That makes it plain. It was the wind that filled the room and they knew it by sound. They heard this sound like a wind and it filled all the house—notice, 'all the house'—and this wind symbolized the Spirit and it was called the baptism of the Spirit, and it certainly looked more like an immersion than a pouring. Why, Mr. Sterling, I think it would lose all its impressiveness if you make it simply the coming of a few drops of the Spirit on them."
"Just listen to that," said the father with a laugh. "She is actually trying to turn your guns on you, Sterling, and to make this verse prove immersion rather than pouring."
"I note one striking fact," said Sterling, "and do not forget it. The passage speaks of pouring, and I do not see the word immersion."
"But I see the picture of immersion," said Dorothy. "The important fact about that scene seems to me to be the abundant way in which the Spirit came. It was a rushing, in fact, a mighty wind. It filled all the house. Suppose some people were in a room and water was poured on them in such a deluge that the room was filled with the water. Wouldn't that look like an immersion rather than like pouring?"
"No," said Sterling; "you don't immerse people by pouring water on them and covering them up. You don't put the water around them, but you put them in the water. You must put them in the water to have an immersion, but nothing like that was done on that day. Besides, in an immersion you not only put the person in the water, but you bring him up again out of the water to show a resurrection as is claimed. There was nothing like this on the day of Pentecost in the baptism of the Spirit. The disciples were not plunged into the Spirit and they were not taken immediately up out of the Spirit again. If you should use water in baptizing people as the Spirit was used that day, then you must pour water on the candidate until he is covered up, and then instead of taking the candidate immediately up out of the water you must let him remain submerged."
"Sterling," said Mr. Page, "you are getting in some good licks. I don't see that that baptism that day was exactly like either pouring or immersion. It was like an immersion in that they were surrounded by the Spirit, but not like it in any other respect; and it was like a pouring because it came down on them."
"Why, Mr. Page," exclaimed Sterling, "it is actually called a 'pouring'. The word 'pour' is used. Joel prophesied that the Spirit would be poured out on them. How could you wish it plainer than that? And it was called a baptism of the Spirit."
"Daughter, what have you to say to that?"
"But let me add another word," interrupted Sterling. "People are mistaken in saying that baptism was intended to be a picture of a burial and a resurrection. The real truth intended to be taught in baptism is that the power and grace comes from above, comes down on the person and has its origin in Heaven, and I think the idea of divine grace coming down from above is a higher truth than the idea of something that the person himself experiences."
"I think the truth pictured in immersion is much greater," said Dorothy. "It is not only the idea that the person has died to his old life and risen to a new life, but it also points to Christ's death and resurrection and puts the two together and says that, as Christ died and was raised, even so the Christian must have the same experience. I don't see how you can have a more glorious truth than that. Your idea in pouring is that grace comes on the person and comes in a few drops, but in immersion you have not merely grace come down, but the giver of grace, Christ himself come down—in fact, come down to death and rising again. Oh, I think it is a wonderful double picture showing Christ and the converted soul bound together in these experiences of death and resurrection. Besides, Mr. Sterling, where does the Bible say that baptism was intended to show forth that truth about grace coming from above?"
"I don't know that it says so in express terms, but the ceremony of pouring indicates it and the descent of the Spirit shows it."
"Of course the Spirit when he first came had to come down," said Dorothy. "If Christ promised to send the Spirit from Heaven to baptize the disciples, of course the Spirit had to come down before he could surround them, but it does not seem to have been the fact of his coming down that was the impressive fact that day, but the overwhelming way in which the Spirit came and surrounded them. That is what the writer used a good many words to describe."
"You will notice," said the father, "that it says that not only was the house filled, but the disciples were filled with the Holy Spirit."
"Yes," said Dorothy, "it says that the wind filled the house and the disciples were filled with the Spirit. The idea seems to be that the Spirit came so abundantly that day that he not only filled all the house, but filled the disciples themselves. That was the great fact, the overwhelming abundance of the Spirit."
"I still remind you that Peter calls it pouring," said Sterling.
"Dorothy, he has not surrendered, you see; his guns are still firing," said the father with a smile.
"Mr. Sterling," said Dorothy, "but your pouring is not like the pouring that day. When you pour the water in your baptism, does it come down with a rush and fill the house? The passage does not teach your form of baptism, because you do not imitate it."
"Immersionists do not imitate, in all respects, the baptism of Christ," said Sterling, "for they do not all baptize in a river as he was."
"Neither did the apostles when they baptized in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost," said Dorothy. "We have seen that they probably baptized in some of the immense pools in the city. And look here," examining the passage about which they had been arguing, "isn't this interesting? Here in the margin of the passage which we have been discussing are the words 'in the Spirit' as if he had promised to baptize them in the Spirit."
"What is that?" exclaimed the father.
"Here where Christ promised that he would not many days hence baptize them with the Holy Spirit it reads on the margin 'in the Holy Spirit', and a baptism 'in' the Spirit was surely by immersion."
"I guess," said the brother, "that the Greek word translated 'in' there on the margin is the word 'en'. Let's see your Greek Testament, Mr. Sterling." He examined it and found that the original word was "en."
"It is 'en' and it means 'in', and the right reading of that passage is 'ye shall be baptized in the Holy Ghost'. Here, look at this. In this Revised Version it reads just that way. If you had read it that way at first in your King James' Version of the Bible it might have saved you all this argument."
"You must remember, Mr. Sterling," said Dorothy, "that I did not bring this passage up to prove immersion, but you brought it up to prove pouring. You spoke very positively about it, but I think you found that if it represented the coming down of water it was like a cloudburst more than anything else."
Sterling was compelled to admit to himself that the Pentecostal baptism was more a picture of immersion than of pouring. He turned the conversation now into another line.
"Even granting," he said, "that immersion is the baptism practiced in New Testament times, it has never seemed to me to be such a prodigiously important matter."
"Oh, Mr. Sterling," said Dorothy with some impatience, "I can't understand such a remark. What do you mean by the word important? If Christ was immersed and commanded it of his followers; if the early Christians were all immersed, and immersion, as Paul indicates, was selected as an outward picture of the spiritual baptism that takes place in conversion, then how can you say it is not important?"
"The fact is, Miss Dorothy, I have never made an exhaustive study of the matter of baptism. I never thought Christ laid any stress upon form, but rather upon the condition of the heart."
"If it is simply a matter of the heart, why baptize at all? Maybe the whole matter is unimportant," said Dorothy. "Would your church like to give up baptism altogether?"
"By no means."
"Would your church accept any kind of baptism except sprinkling or pouring?"
"No, I am sure it would not."
The matter had reached a puzzling stage for Sterling. The question stared him in the face as to whether he had been Scripturally baptized. In infancy he had been sprinkled, but he had to confess to himself that the Bible teaching seemed to lean towards immersion. In fact, in the recent investigation and discussions he had hardly been able to see anything else but immersion.
He did not return to his office that afternoon, but spent the time at his home searching through the Bible. The discussions at the Page's had filled his mind with passages about immersion, but upon later reflection he felt sure that the trend of Scripture pointed strongly to sprinkling and pouring, and with this thought in mind he turned to his Bible study.