By Jim Mettenbrink
In the past several articles we have shown from the Greek language and from the New Testament that baptism is only immersion in water. The question is, why did man opt to sprinkle and pour rather than obey God? Why transliterate the word baptizo rather than translate it? What does church history tell us about the mode of baptism?
John Calvin wrote in his Institutes (Vol 2, p 524;1536), “Whether the person baptized is to be wholly immersed . . . or whether he is only to be sprinkled with water, is not of the least consequence: churches should be at liberty to adopt either, according to the diversity of climates, although it is evident that the term baptize means to immerse, and that this was the form used by the primitive Church.” Although Calvin accepted any mode involving water as baptism, he readily admitted that the early church only immersed people.
Luther stated in “On the Sacrament of Baptism”(1519), “The name baptism is Greek, in Latin, it can be rendered immersion, when we immerse anything in water, that it may be covered in water. And although that custom has now grown out of use with most persons (nor do they wholly submerge children, but only pour on a little water), yet they ought to be entirely immersed and immediately drawn out; for this, the etymology of the word demands.” Luther too acknowledged that the original baptism was immersion.
Cardinal Gibbons (1900 – Prelate of Catholic Church in the USA) stated, “For several centuries after the establishment of Christianity, baptism was usually conferred by immersion; but since the 12th century the practice of baptizing by affusion has prevailed in the Catholic Church, as this manner is attended with less inconvenience than baptism by immersion.” (Faith of Our Fathers, James Cardinal Gibbons, 1876). In other words, even though for over 1000 years baptism was immersion, through time people ignored God’s word and established pouring because of convenience – microwave baptism!
These precise, although brief, citations clearly show that history records that Christian baptism in the early church was immersion. This so begs the question, “Why change to a different method, and by what authority would people dare change what God has ordained?”