Why the Savior was Baptized.—Baptism was made universal, and became the doorway to the Church of Christ, the kingdom of God on earth, because it symbolizes the resurrection, which is also universal, and without which no man can enter into the heavenly Church and Kingdom.
Here we touch, I think, the real reason, or at least one of the principal reasons, why Jesus was baptized. He was the Exemplar of the Resurrection—the first to rise from the grave: and as baptism represents the resurrection, it was fitting and appropriate that he should also undergo that sacred ordinance.
Immersion.—"Born of water" means to come out of the water, and coming out of the water, presupposes going into the water. This is why we are baptized by immersion, which means sinking, dipping, burying, plunging. Immersion is the only mode of baptism that symbolizes a birth. Jesus was baptized by immersion. He must have gone down into the water, for when he was baptized he "went up straightway out of the water" (Matt. 3:16). When Philip baptized the Eunuch, "they went down both into the water." John baptized "in Anon, near to Salim, because there was much water there," a proof presumptive of baptism by immersion, that being the only mode requiring "much water" for its performance.
Paul's Concept.—Paul compared baptism to burial and resurrection: "Buried with him [Christ] in baptism," wrote he to the Colossians (2:12), "wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead." Again—this time to the Romans: "Know ye not that so many of us as are baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore, we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection" (Rom. 6:3-5).
Note also Paul's words to the Corinthians, already quoted: "Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? Why are they then baptized for the dead?" In other words, why use the symbol of the resurrection, if there be no resurrection—if the symbol does not symbolize?
Paul discovered, by symbolical reasoning, or had it revealed to him more directly, that the children of Israel, "our fathers," were all baptized in passing through the Red Sea, on their way to Canaan (1 Cor. 1:2): an idea which suggests that the Brother of Jared and his colony may have been baptized in like manner, for they underwent a similar experience in passing through ocean deeps on the way to their promised land (Ether 6:6).
The New Testament Mode.—That immersion was the mode instituted by John the Baptist and perpetuated by the apostles, is a plain and reasonable inference from the teachings of the New Testament. But, in addition, we have the statements of philologists, archeologists, and historians, who declare that baptism, in the early ages of Christianity, was a dipping or submersion in water. The English word "baptize" comes from a Greek word meaning to immerse. Monumental remains in Asia, Africa, and Europe show that immersion was the act of baptism. The many ancient baptisteries now remaining on those continents were built and used for the purpose of immersion.
The Mode Changed.—The Christian churches of the Orient—Greek, Russian, Armenian, Nestorian, Coptic, and others, have always practiced immersion, and allow nothing else for baptism. The western churches preserved this form of the ordinance for thirteen centuries, and then gradually introduced pouring or sprinkling.
Clinic Baptism.—Baptisms of this kind were exceptional in the early ages of the Christian Church. They were called clinic baptisms, because administered, as a rule, to the sick, who could not be taken from their beds to be immersed: but they were rare, and were regarded only as quasi baptisms. The first recorded case of clinic baptism is mentioned by Eusebius as having occurred in the third century.
Immersion Made Optional.—Baptism by immersion was practiced regularly in the Roman Catholic church, until the year 1311, when the Council of Ravenna authorized a change, leaving it optional with the officiating minister to baptize either by immersion or by sprinkling. Even infants were baptized by immersion, until about the end of the thirteenth century, when sprinkling came into common use.