A Bible History of Baptism

by Samuel J. Baird

The next case that illustrates the mode, is the baptism of the eunuch. “As they went on their way, they came unto a certain water. And the eunuch said, See, here is water, what doth hinder me to be baptized?... And he commanded the chariot to stand still; and they went down both into the water, both Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him. And when they were come up out of the water.”—Acts viii, 36-39. To what has been said already concerning this passage, one or two points only need be added. Dr. Dale has pointed out the fact that the verb (katebēsan), “they went down,” has primary reference to the chariot, out of which they descended. He refers to the Septuagint of Judges iv, 15, “And Sisera (katebē) stepped down from his chariot;” and to Matt. xiv, 29,—“Peter (katabas) stepping down from the boat walked on the water, to go to Jesus.” The essential point, however, is that the descent was not the baptism,—that, with the style of clothing, then as now, worn in the east, nothing would have been more natural and convenient than that they should have stepped into the water, as the most convenient way of access, even though the baptism was to be performed by sprinkling or pouring. “The place” (periochē, the section), which the eunuch was reading, begins with Isa. lii, 13, and includes the whole of liii. It is a continuous prophecy of the Messiah, under the designation of God’s servant. In the fifty-third chapter, down to the eleventh verse the pronoun “he” is used to designate the subject of the account. It refers back to lii, 13, to which we must look for the theme of the prophecy. “Behold my servant shall deal prudently.” When, therefore, the eunuch read liii, 7, 8,—“He was led as a sheep to the slaughter,” and asked, “Of whom speaketh the prophet this?” Philip must of necessity have turned back to the beginning of the section, for the answer. In so doing, he finds this among the first things said of the person described:—“As many were astonied at thee, his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men, ... so shall he sprinkle many nations.”—lii, 14, 15. This prophecy, thus coinciding with that of Joel, which was the text of Peter’s Pentecostal discourse, could not be overlooked by Philip, in his instructions to the eunuch. The latter, although himself a Jew, was identified with a Gentile nation. He was chamberlain, or treasurer, to Candace, the queen of Meroe, in upper Egypt.[^[125]] The prophecy, therefore, “So shall he sprinkle many nations,” could not fail to arrest his attention and elicit the story of Pentecost, as the beginning of redemption to the Gentiles. That, with Christ’s baptizing office brought thus into view, his ordinance concerning ritual baptism should be announced, was not only a necessary result of the circumstances, but was an essential part of that office which Philip was to perform. “Disciple all nations, baptizing them.” In favor of the hypothesis that the eunuch was immersed, there is nothing but the fact that they went down to, or into the water. On behalf of his being sprinkled, is the explicit testimony of the prophet as to the manner of the real baptism, of which the ritual ordinance is the symbol.

2. The baptism of the apostle Paul next presents itself. Of it we have two brief accounts which are mutually supplementary. (Acts ix, 10-20; xxii, 12-16.) After his vision of Jesus, on the way, he had lain for three days in the house of Judas, in Damascus, blind, fasting and prostrate. To him Ananias was sent and said to him—“And now, why tarriest thou?” Why liest thou thus prostrate and desponding? “Arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord.”—Acts xxii, 16. Literally “(Anastas, baptisai, kai apolusai), Rising, be baptized, and let thy sins be washed away, calling upon the name of the Lord.” Says Alexander, “Be baptized, is not a passive, as in ii, 38, but the middle voice of the same verb, strictly meaning, ‘baptize thyself,’ or, rather, ‘cause thyself to be baptized,’ or suffer (some one) to baptize thee. The form of the next verb [apolusai] is the same, but can not be so easily expressed in English; as it has a noun dependent on it. This peculiarity of form is only so far of importance as it shows that Paul was to wash away his sins in the same sense that he was to baptize himself; i. e. by consenting to receive both from another. As his body was to be baptized by man; so, his sins were to be washed away by God. The identity, or even the inseparable union, of the two effects, is so far from being here affirmed, that they are rather held apart, as things connected by the natural relation of type and antitype, yet perfectly distinguishable in themselves, and easily separable in experience.”[^[126]] The exhortation, “Let thy sins be washed away,” is intimately dependent upon the next clause,—“calling upon the name of the Lord.”—Calling not as a mere reverential invocation; nor as a mere profession or act of faith. But “calling on him to purge away thy sins with the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; and accepting the baptism of water as the symbol and pledge of the other.”

In the parallel account, it is stated that “he received sight forthwith (kai anastas, ebaptisthe) and rising up, was baptized.”—Acts ix, 18. Thus, in both of these accounts, the same form of expression is used as to the manner of the baptism,—a form which indicates that the administration was immediate, upon his rising from his couch. “Rising up, be baptized.” “And he, rising up, was baptized.” In the original, the force of the expressions is even stronger, to the same effect. The circumstances coincide with this interpretation. The prostration, resulting from the vision by the way, from the blindness, and the three days in which he was “without sight, and neither did eat nor drink” (Acts ix, 9), must have been very great; and it was not until after his baptism that “he received meat and was strengthened.”—Ib. 19. There is no intimation of leaving the place. There is no word of such preparation as an immersion would require. But the whole case stands in the expression twice employed, from which but one meaning can be deduced,—that he was baptized immediately, in his chamber, as he rose from his couch, and stood before Ananias. Whatever the mode, it can not have been immersion.

It has been asserted that Paul’s baptism was not ritual but spiritual. The supposition is encumbered with the same difficulties which attend the like idea respecting the baptism of Pentecost. The occasion of Ananias being sent to him was the fact attested by the Lord Jesus,—“Behold he prayeth.”—Prayer so attested lacked neither repentance nor faith. He had, therefore, already received the baptism of the Spirit,—that is his renewing grace; although not his miraculous gifts. Moreover, the baptism which he received in his chamber was something to which the ministry of Ananias was requisite, and for which his rising from his couch was preparatory. None of these things harmonize with the idea that it was the baptism of the Holy Ghost. Nor was it implied in the language of Ananias,—“That thou mightest receive thy sight and be filled with the Holy Ghost.”—Acts ix, 17. With this is to be compared the previous statement concerning him, made in vision by Jesus to Ananias, “He hath seen in a vision a man named Ananias coming and putting his hand upon him, that he might receive his sight.”—Ib. 12. It was through the laying on of the hands of Ananias that Paul’s sight was restored and the miraculous gifts of the Holy Ghost conferred upon him. Such was the ordinary manner, as we have already seen, of the imparting of those gifts; which was undoubtedly the nature of the present endowment of Saul of Tarsus.

3. The baptism of the house of Cornelius is equally unfavorable to the idea of immersion. (Acts x, 44-48.) The words of Peter admit of but one construction. “Can any man forbid (to udōr) the water; that these should not be baptized.”—Acts x, 47. We have already pointed out that this language means that the water, as an instrument, was to be brought to the place, in order to the baptism. Moreover, the baptism of this company, thus, with water, was by Peter expressly predicated upon the fact that they had been already baptized with the Holy Ghost, by his outpouring upon them. “The Holy Ghost fell upon all them which heard.” “On the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost.” “Can any man forbid the water, that these should not be baptized, which have received the Holy Ghost as well as we?”—Acts x, 44, 45, 47. And lest there should be any possible doubt about the meaning of all this, Peter explains himself to the church in Jerusalem,—“Then remembered I the word of the Lord, how that he said, John indeed baptized with water, but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost.”—Ib. xi, 16. Here again the facts are decisive in favor of affusion.

4. The Philippian jailer and his family are the only remaining instance in which illustrative circumstances are recorded. (Acts xvi, 25-34.) As bearing upon the mode, these are, that at midnight, in the jail, upon his professed repentance and faith, the jailer was baptized, “he and all his straightway.”—Acts xvi, 33. This too was before he had taken Paul and Silas out of the jail proper, into his own apartments. The impossibility of the rite, administered in such circumstances, having been immersion, would seem evident. Nor is it admissible, as proposed by Baptist writers, to suppose that the jailer and his family with the prisoners went out to the river and were there immersed. The suggestion is not only contradicted by the record, which describes the baptism as having been (parachrēma) “straightway,” with neither time nor action intervening. But it would have been an act of official dereliction, involving peril to the jailer’s life, and rendering the message of Paul to the magistrates, the next day, an impudent pretence. They sent the sergeants to the jailer, saying, “Let these men go.” “But Paul said unto them, They have beaten us openly, uncondemned, being Romans, and have cast us into prison. And now do they thrust us out privily? Nay, verily, but let them come themselves and fetch us out.”—Ib. 37. Is this the language of men who had already stolen out of the prison, by night?

We have thus passed in review every instance of Christian baptism mentioned in the New Testament, in which any particulars are given. The only other cases named are the Samaritans (Acts viii, 12, 13, 15), Lydia (Ib. xvi, 15), the Corinthians (Ib. xviii, 8; 1 Cor. i, 14-17), and the twelve disciples of John at Ephesus (Acts xix, 1-5). Of them we are only informed that they were baptized. As to the cases which we have examined it is certainly remarkable and significant that with the exception of the eunuch, they each present physical difficulties in the way of immersion, serious if not insurmountable; and that in the excepted case, the utmost that can be said is, that nothing appears to render immersion physically impossible; while the connection of the occasion points distinctly to a sprinkled baptism.

The cumulative argument arising out of these baptisms is overwhelming. They can not have been by immersion.

Section XCVII.—“Baptized into Moses.”

The baptism of Israel into Moses, is pertinent here, as illustrating the apostolic style of conception and language on the subject. “All our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; and were all baptized (eis) into Moses, (en) by the cloud and (en) by the sea.”—1 Cor. x, 1, 2.