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Transcript 456A — Word Study on Baptism
HC: Good evening. Welcome to Open Forum.
CALLER: Good evening, Brother Camping. I've been studying baptism again, and I've noticed some things on it, not particularly the mode, but the different uses. Are you familiar with the word used in Luke 16:24, where it talks about Lazarus dipping his finger, the word bapto?
HC: Yes.
CALLER: There are several words I found: baptisma and baptismos and there's baptizo, and there is bapto. Three of those are nouns, and I think a couple of then are verbs. I'm not sure. But the thing I'm asking is, in relationship to, would it be safe to say that bapto, the way it's used in that connection, that is, dipping, as a noun it means to wash or to cleanse, but it depends on how you wash or cleanse? In other words, it could be dip or it could be another form. Would that be safe to say that?
HC: I don't think so. The word bapto is used about six times in the New Testament, if I remember, when I made a study of this. And it's translated to dip, like Jesus said in connection with the betrayal by Judas, "whosoever dips his sop." That's one place. While it is a cousin word, while it may have the same root as baptizo, the fact is, in its usage in the Bible (and the Bible is its own interpreter), it's never used in connection with any part of salvation.
Now the word baptizo, or baptizmus, which very frequently is simply translated "baptize," which is in a sense a transliteration of the word, where it is translated as any word besides baptize, is always translated to wash or to purify. It's never translated dip, it's never translated immerse. It's always translated wash or purify or cleanse, because that's the way the sentence would call for it. This has to be the meaning of it.
And when we study the nature of salvation, and we realize that frequently the Bible talks about washing or cleansing, using other words, synonyms to baptizo for this, we see how naturally that fits into place. It talks about the washing of the Word, in Ephesians 5, or it talks about the washing of regeneration in Titus 3:5. So baptism definitely has to do with washing or cleansing or purifying.
CALLER: Would it be safe to say that in the particular verses you mentioned it would be ceremonial usage of the term, or mechanical use of the term?
HC: You mean where baptizo is translated wash?
CALLER: Yes.
HC: Yes. For example, in Mark 7 it talks about the Pharisees and all the Jews, "except they wash their hands eat not, holding the tradition of the elders. And when they come from the market, except they wash they eat not. And many others there be which they have received to hold, as the washing of cups and pots, of brazen vessels and of tables." Now in these verses the word wash is baptizo. And the whole context is just washing, or purifying, or cleansing.
CALLER: I thought that word was baptismus.
HC: All right. But that's the same word. That's simply a different tense, but it's actually the same word.
CALLER: How would the word be used, say, in I Corinthians 12, where it says we are all baptized into one spirit, and then in Romans 6, where it talks about being baptized into Jesus Christ?
HC: You see, in our baptism, when we have been washed of our sins, we have been altogether identified with the Lord Jesus Christ. Now let's look at this passage in Romans 6. There it says, "What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein? Know ye not that as many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ." That is, our sins have been washed away, and we have entered into the Lord Jesus Christ, or Jesus Christ has been altogether become our substitute . . . "were baptized into His death." That is, by the washing of our sins we were identified with Him in His death. Therefore, we are buried with Him by baptism into death, that is, by the fact that our sins have been washed away, and we've been identified with the Lord Jesus Christ in the atonement. We have entered into His death "that like as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life."
Now some of course read this, and they say, "Well, you see, as Jesus went into the tomb and then was raised from the tomb, so we go down into the water and come up." Well, that's a beautiful idea, but that's not the sense of this passage. Jesus was not buried in water. Jesus was buried in a tomb. Jesus came up out of the tomb. And the word baptism in this context is simply indicating that when we are baptized in the Holy Spirit we are altogether identified with Christ in the atonement. He became sin for us. It is like we hung on the cross, and God poured out His wrath upon us. It is like we entered the tomb, and it is like we were raised from the grave All of this is involved in baptism in the Holy Spirit.
CALLER: You're using these verses in a metaphorical sense, in other words?
HC: Yes. If we understand what baptism in the Holy Spirit is. Let me go back to Ezekiel 38. Maybe that will help us, because there God tells us what salvation is, and He doesn't use the word baptism. But He speaks about water. In Ezekiel 36:25 we read, "Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you and ye shall be clean from all your filthiness, From all your idols will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you. And I will take out the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. And I will put My Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statutes. And ye shall keep My judgments and do them."
Now this is what's involved in being baptized in the Holy Spirit. That is, we become born again. We become a new creature. Now in order for this to be accomplished it's necessary that our sins be paid for, that Christ become sin for us, and that He bear the wrath of God for our sins, that He endure not only physical death but eternal death, damnation, and that He experience the resurrection as the proof that He has done all of these things and has become victorious. All of this is included in this idea of baptism.
And so in Romans 6 God is identifying baptism with these various aspects. We're baptized into His death, because in His death He paid for our sins. It's not only a physical death but an eternal damnation. It's eternal death, the second death that we are baptized into, and from which we are saved.
CALLER: Sometimes when I'm listening I get a little bit confused. It sounds, when you're talking about baptism and you're referring that to the Holy Spirit, that the death of Christ is merely making possible salvation on the basis of an inward transformation rather than actually Christ's work on the cross actually being our salvation.
HC: Well, both are involved, you see. Christ didn't go to the cross and become sin for me, and now I stand on the outside and somehow try to relate to that. The fact is that when Christ hung on the cross my sins were there. He became sin for me. But then God the Holy Spirit applies that salvation to my heart and actually makes me born again. He actually gives me a new soul. And the work of Christ on the cross then becomes not just a judicial reality, but it actually becomes a reality in my life, a living reality. I have eternal life not just in a hypothetical sense, but in an actual sense, because I have been given my resurrected soul. And that's what baptism, in the Holy Spirit is all about, you see.
CALLER: Thank you very much.
HC: Thank you for calling.