ARE THERE MODES OF BAPTISM?
ROBERT MEYERS

Any Church of Christ evangelist worth his salt has a ready answer to that question. And like most ready answers, his is half wrong. We can best see that if we read a typical treatment of the theme which arrived on my desk the other day in the form of a church bulletin. Under a resolutely firm title which read Baptism Has No ‘Modes’, the author said these partial truths:

“Sometimes people say that immersion is a ‘mode’ or ‘manner’ of baptism. But it is not possible to express way, mode, or manner of a specific verb by use of another verb. To do that we must use an adverb. If I should say, ‘I baptized a man hurriedly, I use the adverb ‘hurriedly’ to express the mode ar manner of baptizing. To say, ‘I baptized a man by sprinkling him’, would be parallel to saying, ‘I walk to town by riding’.

“Sprinkling is not a mode of baptism, any more than riding is a mode of walking. Many honest souls have been sprinkled, or had water poured on them thinking this was a ‘mode’ or ‘manner’ of baptism. This is one of the subtle deceits by which the devil ‘steals the word of God from the heart of man’.”

These statements are true so long as one is dealing only with a Greek verb (baptizo) or noun (baptismos) and their meanings in the time of Christ. But the statements are egregiously in error when they fail to recognize the fact that words change their meanings. When the average man on the street says that immersion is a “mode” of baptism, he is perfectly correct insofar as “baptism” is an English word.

He is correct because this is how the majority of persons use the word “baptism” today, and because the English dictionaries reflect that usage. Baptism is defined in the Standard College Dictionary as “Any religious ablution signifying a purification or consecration.” This fine desk dictionary gives the Greek meaning of baptismos as immersion, but makes no attempt to limit the modern English meaning of the word to that mode. The Random House Dictionary (unabridged) calls baptism “a ceremonial immersion in water, or application of water, as an initiatory rite or sacrament of the Christian church.”

To accuse honest, decent people of carelessness or gullibility because they are not Greek scholars is unworthy of us. It is perfectly all right to explain to them that the original meaning was different, but we ought to understand that a ward’s original meaning is by no means its only meaning and that, in fact, its original meaning sometimes vanishes utterly.

The word queen once meant harlot, the word prevent once meant to go before, the word let once meant to hinder, and the word knave once meant simply boy rather than villain. We may argue until we are blue in the face that the meanings of these words should never have changed, but they have changed, and people now use them only in their modern sense.

The word “baptism” is not a translation at all, but a transliteration. It provides the English letter equivalents of the Greek word. Properly translated, in terms of the meaning of the original, it would be “immersed” or same equivalent term.

But the transliteration has come to mean something other than immersion. It now means, in English, any kind of watery washing used as a rite or sacrament in the Christian communities. Any man, therefore, who says that immersion is a “mode of baptism” is perfectly correct in terms of modern usage and it is both ignorant and rude to say that he is not. He no more understands that “baptism” once meant immersion only than he understands that bowels once meant compassion, or that reins once meant kidneys. He is neither a knave or a fool for not knowing these things.

What he needs to be told is that there are in fact two words he may want to consider, ane Greek, one English. Perhaps, if we are skillful, we can convince him not only that the Greek word once meant immersion and only that, but that this is the only correct way of handling that ceremony to this very hour. But let us not tell him that “baptism” does not include sprinkling and pouring, because it is an English word and that is exactly what it now includes. We shall not lose any ground by being charitable rather than arrogant.—Riverside Church of Christ, Wichita, Kan.