What Is Baptism (the Sprinkling Hoax)

It may well be that there is no Bible subject that has caused more confusion among menthan the subject of baptism. What is baptism? What is its purpose? Who should be baptized? Why? I would like to take a look at these questions and deal with all of themover time but for the present in this article I will confine myself to the question what is baptism?What is baptism? I doubt that very many people know what I am about to say. We allassume that the words found in our New Testaments are English words translated fromthe original Greek. You may well be surprised to learn that the word "baptize" and all of its derivatives are not English words at all. They are Greek words that were anglicized.What does that mean? My Merriam Webster Dictionary says the word anglicize meansnumber one "to make English" and meaning number two "to borrow (a foreign word or phrase) into English without changing form or spelling and sometimes without changing pronunciation." Thus those men who translated our New Testaments from the Greek intothe English decided not to translate the Greek word "baptize" at all. They just made itinto a new English word. Forget translating it.Well, why would they do that? That is a good question. It is a question with an easyanswer. The Greek word means to immerse completely. My hardback copy of Vine's,"An Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words," says of baptism, "consisting of the processes of immersion, submersion and emergence." If the reader will do a little of their own research they will quickly see that most all Greek scholars readily admit that in thefirst century the word was used of immersion only for that is what the Greek meant tothose people.The Bible confirms this to be the case for Paul says, "Therefore we were buried with Himthrough baptism into death." (Rom. 6:4 NKJV) Baptism is a burial, a burial in water when used in a religious context. Paul says again in Col. 2:11-12 (NKJV), "In Him youwere also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the bodyof the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, buried with Him in baptism, inwhich you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raisedHim from the dead." One is not and cannot be buried by sprinkling or pouring.Philip and the eunuch both went "down into the water" (Acts 8:38 NKJV) and "came upout of the water." (Acts 8:39 NKJV) They did not go down to the water but down "into"the water. Let me ask a question. Why if sprinkling or pouring were acceptable for baptism would any man go down into the water? Would it be because he enjoys gettinghimself and his clothes soaking wet? You might go down to the water and reach out witha little pail or cup but why go down and wade out into it?The truth of the matter as to why the Greek work was anglicized and never translated isto be found in the fact that by the time the Bible came to be translated into English manhad decided on his own initiative that sprinkling would do just as well as immersion. If

you translate the Greek and you are honest in your scholarship you will have to use theword immerse or dip. If you do that what will that do to your doctrine of sprinkling? Itwill destroy it. That cannot be allowed to happen. What is the solution? Don't translatethe Greek, anglicize it producing a new English word that because it is new you can makeit mean whatever you want it to mean.The first time after the establishment of the church in Acts 2 that anyone was sprinkled or had water poured on them rather than be immersed was approximately 200 years later. Inabout 250 AD a man by the name of Novation became ill and fearing for his life wantedto be baptized. Too ill for immersion he had his friends pour water on him. By that pointin time there was not an inspired man alive to cause problems over this substitution. Bythat time there was also not an inspired man alive with the authority to make thesubstitution.One had to go outside the pages of the New Testament to get sprinkling showing littlerespect for what was written. What was written was not sufficient for a man (or hisfriends) who feeling as though he was at the point of death and knowing full well he hadnot been obedient to the command to be baptized (immersed) but rather had beendisobedient needed the law to be changed in order to get himself saved.He needed sprinkling as a substitution and if he had to add a new law or change an oldone to get sprinkling in then so be it. (No one had told him he was not God, the only lawgiver or law changer.)Thus we see the kind of attitude that brought sprinkling to what the world calls"Christianity." One ought to be able to see the evil of that kind of an attitude towardGod's word. I can't find what I want here in the word. Okay, I will just make somechanges.In 1311 the Roman Catholic Church at the council of Revenna officially adopted thesprinkling of water for baptism. The Greek Catholic Church would not accept this butthe Roman Catholic did and it exercised dominance in the West where the Englishspeaking people resided and where English speaking Bibles were to be produced. Thiswas more than 100 years before the printing press was invented making mass productionof Bibles possible.The long and short of it was that the doctrine of sprinkling was by subterfuge broughtinto the Bible by deliberate failure to translate a Greek word and giving the anglicizedword any meaning you wanted to since it was a new word to the English language. Thatis why if you look up the word "baptize" or "baptism" in a modern day dictionary it willgive you meanings related to way the word is used today thus giving you options -sprinkling, pouring, or immersion.Even so I was surprised to see that my Webster's New World Dictionary Third CollegeEdition, the last copyright listed being 1988, while listing 3 common meanings of the

word "baptize" as used today, gives before those listings the Greek meanings and I quotehere from it - "to immerse," "to dip." Honesty in scholarship is a great thing.All scholars will agree on the meaning of the original Greek word baptize but you will probably never see again a translation that will translate the Greek word baptize intoEnglish. Why? To do so they would have to use the word immerse or dip. With the vastmultitude of people who have now come to wholeheartedly embrace sprinkling howmany Bibles do you think they would sell? You can still learn the truth on this topicthrough your own study but you will get no help from your Bible translators.Do you really want to know what is sad? It is that some will read what I have writtenhere, they will then go and do their own research, find out that what I have said is thetruth, and yet it will not make one bit of difference in their view of the subject if theyhave by tradition had sprinkling handed down to them in their particular faith.We confess we believe in the Bible. We also ought to confess that we believe in a lot of other things too, namely, man's additions to it. It reminds me a lot of the Jews in the daysof Jesus. They professed that they were abiding in the law of Moses and keeping itfaithfully. Yet, what they were keeping was the law of Moses shot through and throughwith their own traditions and man made laws. I need not tell a Bible student this for theyalready know it. What is the difference today?In Matt. 15 we have an example that parallels what I am talking about. I quote verses 1 -9 from the New King James Version."Then the scribes and Pharisees who were from Jerusalem came to Jesus, saying, 'Whydo Your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their handswhen they eat bread.' But He answered and said to them, 'Why do you also transgress thecommandment of God because of your tradition? For God commanded, saying, 'Honor your father and your mother'; and, 'He who curses father or mother, let him be put todeath.' But you say, 'Whoever says to his father or mother, 'Whatever profit you mighthave received from me has been dedicated to the temple' - 'is released from honoring hisfather or mother.' Thus you have made the commandment of God of no effect by your tradition. Hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy about you, saying: 'These people drawnear to Me with their mouth, And honor Me with their lips, But their heart is far from Me.And in vain they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.'"Jesus says to them, "Why do you also transgress the commandment of God because of your tradition?" (Matt. 15:3 NKJV) God's commandment to us is to be immersed.Everyone agrees that was the original commandment and historically what was done for acouple of hundred years after the church was established. When I substitute sprinklingfor immersion how can I say anything other than that I have done the very same thingthese scribes and Pharisees did?I have transgressed the commandment of God because of my tradition preferring to keepmy tradition (sprinkling) over his word (immersion). I have made the commandment of