The title says it all. When your beloved dog dies and you bury it in the backyard, you do not throw it on the ground, sprinkle some dirt on it and call it a day. You do not pour a cup of dirt on the old girl either. When you have to bury a dead thing, you cover it. Everyone knows this.
So why do people keep trying to dump a cup of water on someone’s head and call it a baptism?
First of all, dictionaries are stupid, but the way people use them is (often) even stupider. You don’t find meaning in a dictionary; you find usage. Meaning is found in context. Dictionaries don’t know the context of the word you’re trying to use so it can’t help you with that. All a dictionary can do is tell you “here is the word you looked up, and here are the different ways that word is commonly used.” It’s up to you to use the word in a way that makes sense. If you look up the word “hot” in the dictionary, there are twelve(!) different options to choose from, all of which I will now list:
1 – having a relatively high temperature, as in “hot and humid weather”
2 – marked by violence or fierceness, as in “a hot temper”
3 – sexually excited or receptive, as in “he’s got the hots for her.”
4 – physically attractive, as in “that bald guy with a beard is really hot”
5 – newly released, as in “hot off the press”
6 – very bright, as in “a hot pink color”
7 – spicy, as in “a hot chili pepper”
8 – news of great interest, as in “hot gossip”
9 – in great demand, as in “a hot name in show business”
10 – something illegally obtained, as in “hot jewelry”
11 – denoting health, as in “not feeling too hot”
12 – increasingly successful, as in “on a hot streak”
If you say “I am hot,” what do you mean? Say I’m a person who doesn’t speak English fluently and I hear you say “I am hot.” I don’t know what you mean, so what do I do? I can’t just go to the dictionary and look up the word, because I’ll be faced with twelve different options. Are you warm to the touch? Are you newly released? Are you illegally obtained? I have no idea what you mean, but then you keep talking and you say: “I am hot because that person made me very angry.” Now I have context. Now I can know you are the second definition: You have a hot temper right now, etc. The dictionary didn’t give me the meaning of the word; it gave me a way in which you USED the word. Together with the additional context, I learned what you meant.
Now what about baptism? We can go to the dictionary and even if we limit the definitions to the procedure of administering baptism in a religious context, we still get a variety of options…
1 – submersing someone in water
2 – sprinkling water on a person’s head
3 – pouring water on a person
When someone asks to be baptized, we can go to the dictionary but all we’ll find are three very different ways to do it. What do we do? We don’t find meaning in a dictionary; we need context to find meaning. The context for baptism is the New Testament, when baptism was first commanded to those who wished to have a relationship with Jesus. In that case, we find it was a burial in water (Romans 6), done to people who had repented of their sins (Acts 2:38), and who wished to be saved (1 Peter 3:21).
So where did the idea of sprinkling or pouring water come from? It’s in the dictionary, which means enough people did it for Webster and co. to include it. Why? First of all, if enough people said that baptism was “standing in a puddle of water and whistling Dixie” then Webster would include it in the list. That’s their job. The dictionary isn’t there to teach doctrine, but to inform readers of the consensus usage of words. If enough people used baptism to mean “shouting Jesus’ name” then that would be added to the list. The dictionary does not define our doctrine; the Bible does. The Bible USES the word baptism to describe a penitent person being buried in water for their sins to be washed away. If you want to be baptized according to Webster, there are a lot of ways to do it. If you want to be baptized according to the Holy Spirit, there’s only one way that matters.
The notion of sprinkling or pouring as a substitute for burying started in the second century, when people on their death-beds asked to be baptized without the physical means to be immersed in water. Preachers compromised Bible doctrine and began pouring water on such ones and saying “good enough.” In time, the practice became an acceptable alternative and, eventually, the preferred method.
I believe in the Bible. If you come to me wanting to be baptized, expect me to dip you in the water. And if, for some reason, you are unable to be buried in the water, expect me to follow up with you until you are physically able.
Why? Because Bible baptism is a burial.
~ Matthew