Without dispute, baptism is a biblical subject and plays an important role in Christianity. Virtually all churches practice baptism, but there’re multiple views about how baptism is to be administered. Some immerse, some sprinkle water on the face, some pour water on the head of the candidate, and some practice infant baptism. However Christ makes it perfectly clear in HIS word how baptism is to be administered.
WHAT IS BAPTISM?
The word “baptize” comes from the Greek “BAPTIZO” which literally means “to dip, to immerse, to plunge “. The word baptism means “burial”. As we look at the scriptures concerning baptism, we can reach no other conclusion but that New Testament baptism was by immersion.
Romans 6:4 says “Therefore we have been buried with him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life”. A burial involves putting the deceased into a grave and covering him. Writing to the Colossian Christians, the Apostle Paul said “Having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead”(Colossians 2:12). These passages in the Scriptures means that baptism is by total immersion in water. As the waters closed up over the man’s head ,it was as if he died, as he rose up again from the water, it was as if he rose to a new life. Other examples of baptism in the Bible shows that it was done in water:-
• John the Baptist baptized at Enon near to Salim “because there was much water there”(John 3:23).
• Jesus went to the Jordan, where John the Baptist baptized him.He then “went out up of the water” (Matt 3:13-16)
• When Philip baptized the nobleman from Ethiopia “They both went down into the water------- and he baptized him”(Acts 8:38). In no way can this description of baptism fit sprinkling or pouring .
The first known case of sprinkling or pouring for baptism was in AD 251. A man named NOVATION was desperately ill and requested baptism .Being too weak to be immersed , it was decided to sprinkle water upon him as he lay on his bed. In AD 1311, at the council of Ravenna, the practice of pouring or sprinkling as baptism gained wide acceptance. Until then this type of baptism was never practiced anywhere. It’s not Biblical !!.
INFANT BAPTISM:
Baptism cannot make a baby a Christian. Jesus said” He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved”( Mark 16:15). Infants are not capable of believing, therefore they’re not proper subjects of baptism. Further, baptism is for the remission of sins (Acts 2:38), and infants are incapable of sinning (Matt 18:3-5). Infant baptism originated with men not with the LORD and therefore not scriptural.
If you’re a Christian, is your baptism scriptural ?
By: Obourba Asante Taado. .
