A Bible History of Baptism

by Samuel J. Baird

Again, addressing the newly baptized, he says,—“You took the white garments, to indicate that you cast away the cloak of sin and put on the spotless robe of innocence; whereof the prophet said: ‘Thou shalt sprinkle me with hyssop and I shall be clean, thou shalt wash me, and I shall be made whiter than snow.’ For he that is baptized appears cleansed both according to the law and the gospel; according to the law, since Moses, with a bunch of hyssop sprinkled the blood of a bird; according to the gospel, because the garments of Christ were white as snow, when, in the gospel, he showed the glory of his resurrection. He whose sins are forgiven is made whiter than snow.”[^[65]]

Cyril lived in the next century. He was bishop of Alexandria, A. D. 412-444. In his exposition of Isaiah iv, 4, he says, “We have been baptized, not with bare water, nor with the ashes of a heifer,—We are sprinkled [with these] to purify the flesh, alone, as says the blessed Paul,—but with the Holy Spirit, and fire.”

Thus, from the translation of the Old Testament into Greek down through the time of Christ and the apostles, and to the middle of the fifth century, the Levitical sprinklings were known and designated as baptisms. Further we need not trace them.

Part VI.
STATE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT ARGUMENT.

Section XLV.—Points established by the foregoing Evidence.

A review of the preceding pages will discover the following points to have been established.

1. Baptism was a rite familiar among the Jews at the time of Christ’s coming, and not a new institution then first introduced.

2. Paul being witness, it was an ordinance imposed on Israel at Sinai, as part of the Levitical system.

3. There is no trace, in the Levitical law, of an ordinance for the immersion of the person, in any circumstances, or for any purpose whatever.

4. There is not, anywhere, in the Old Testament an allusion to immersion as a symbolic rite, nor a figure derived from it, although those Scriptures are full of allusions and figures referring to the symbolic import of the pouring and sprinkling of water.