The New Testament Usage.
The word /Scwi-rav is used four times in the New Testament, in no one of which does it express the idea of entire immersion. In Luke xvi. 24, " That he may dip QPa-fif) the tip of his finger in water." The finger, when dipped in water, is not submerged When placed horizontally on the water and slightly depressed, it retains more of the moisture than if plunged perpendicularly into it. John xiii. 26, speaks twice of dipping the sop (jSctyas and e/A/Sctyas). But a morsel held in the fingers, is only partly im- mersed. In Revelation xix. 13, the words irepLJi^X-q^ivo^ Ifidnov fofianiAevov atfiari obviously means 4 clothed with a vesture stained or dyed with blood.' The allusion is probably to Isaiah lxiii. 1 ff. : " Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? .... Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and thy garments like him that treadeth in the wine-fat ? I have trodden the wine-press alone; .... and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment." In this case, therefore, the baptism was by sprinkling. Ba7rri£<o occurs in the New Testament about eighty times ; /SctTrrioyza some twenty times ; and fiaimo-fxos four times. As every one admits that baptism may be effected by immersion, and as the purifica- tions under the Old Testament (called by the Apostle, Hebrews ix. 10, in Greek, " diverse baptisms ") were effected by immer- sion, affusion, and sprinkling, it would not be surprising if in some of these numerous passages, the baptism spoken of necessa- rily implied immersion. It so happens, or, it has been so ordered, however, that there is no such passage in the whole of the New Testament. The places in which these words occur may be ar- ranged in the following classes : (1.) Those in which, taken by themselves, the presumption is in favour of immersion. (2.) Those in which the idea of immersion is necessarily excluded. (3.) Those which in themselves are not decisive, but where the presumption is altogether in favour of affusion.
To the first class belong those passages which speak of the persons baptized going into (efe) the water, and " coming up out of the water." (Matt. iii. 16 ; Acts viii. 38, 39.) Such pas- sages, however, must be isolated in order to create a presumption in favour of immersion. According to ancient accounts, the com- mon way of baptizing was for the person to step into water, when water was poured on his head, and then he came up out of the water, not in the least incommoded by dripping garments. And
532 PART III. Ch. XX. — THE MEANS OF GRACE.
when we remember that it is said concerning John, that " Then went out to him Jerusalem, and all Judea, and all the region round about Jordan, and were baptized of him in Jordan, con- fessing their sins " (Matt. iii. 5, 6), it seems physically impossible that he should have immersed all this multitude. When all the circumstances are taken into view, the presumption in favour of immersion, even in this class of passages, disappears.
2. The second class of passages, those from which the idea of immersion is excluded, includes all those which relate to the bap- tism of the Spirit. The Spirit is frequently said to be poured out on men ; but men are never said to be dipped or immersed into the Holy Spirit. Such an idea is altogether incongruous. When, therefore, it is said that men are baptized by the Holy Spirit, as is so often done, the reference must be to effusion, or affusion of the Spirit by which the soul is cleansed from sin. As the Holy Spirit is a person, and not a mere influence or force, the preposition h used in this connection (Matt. iii. 11 ; Mark i. 8 ; John i. 33 ; Acts i. 5, xi. 16 ; 1 Cor. xii. 13) must have its in- strumental force. The work performed in us by the Holy Spirit is a baptism. As water in the hands of John was the purifying medium for the body, so the Holy Spirit, as sent or given by Jesus Christ, purifies the soul. Some of the modern commen- tators are such purists that they are unwilling to allow of the slightest departure from classic usage in the Greek of the New Testament. They speak as though the sacred writers were Greek grammarians, instead of, as was in most cases the fact, unlettered men writing in what to them was a foreign language. Thus be- cause the particle ?w in classic Greek has always a telic force, they deny that it is ever used ecbatically in the New Testament, even in such cases as Luke xxii. 30, " I appoint unto you a king- dom, . . . . in order that ye may eat and drink at my table." John vi. 7, " Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for them, in order that every one of them may have a little." Romans xi. 11, " Have they stumbled with the design that they should fall?" 1 Corinthians xiv. 13, "Let him that speak- eth in an unknown tongue pray in order that he may interpret," etc., etc. Thus, also, because the words ttlo-tcvo), 7tiotis, and -h-iotos in the classics are rarely found in construction with the preposi- tion cv, they give the most unnatural interpretation to many pas- sages in order to avoid admitting that construction in the New Testament. This is done in the face of such passages as Mark i. 1,5, 7rto-T€ver€ iv t(3 tuayycXiw. Galatians iii. 26, " Ye are all the