Word of Salvation – Vol. 30 No. 20 – May 1985

 

Baptism By Sprinking

 

Sermon by Rev. Dr. Steven Voorwinde

Scriptures: John 1:19-28; 3:22-30; Hebrews 9:1-14

Texts:    John 1:24,25; 3:23;  Hebrews 9:10 & 13

(Belgic Confession: Article 34)

Suggested Hymns: Book of Worship:  204; 199; 1,3,4; 469; 408

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Congregation of Our Lord,

Why do we baptise by sprinkling in the Reformed Church? Why don’t we immerse? Why are we different from other sincere Christians on this point, such as Baptists, Pentecostals and the Church of Christ? Do we sprinkle just because it’s a long-standing tradition or do we do it for Biblical reasons?

These are the kinds of questions that I’d like to answer in this sermon. But first I want to make one thing absolutely clear, and that is that we do what we do in the Reformed Church because we are convinced that the Word of God teaches it. And it is my aim to convince you – if you aren’t already convinced – that there is every evidence in the Scripture for the practice of sprinkling. Moreover (and here it comes) that there is no solid Biblical evidence for immersion.

Now that may sound as though I’m really on the doctrinal warpath, but I want to assure you that that’s not the case. I don’t want to use this pulpit or any other place to put down my fellow Christians or to knock other churches that believe in the Bible. But there is one matter that we need to set straight, and that is that churches which practice immersion do not regard sprinkling as a valid Baptism, and if you wanted to join one of those churches you would have to be re- baptized by full immersion before you could become a member. In other words, what they hold to amounts to this – that if a person has been sprinkled he simply hasn’t been baptized and so he needs to be
immersed.

I must say that our churches have always been more open-minded on this point. If a person has been immersed and later wants to join our church we don’t then insist that he be rebaptized by sprinkling. We may not agree with immersion but we don’t therefore declare it to be a non-baptism. Our church’s position is made clear in article 65 of
the Church Order:

“The Baptism of a person who joins the (Christian) Reformed Churches of Australia from another Christian church shall be held valid if it has been administered in the name of the triune God, by a person authorized by that denomination.”

You see, this baptism is recognized whether it is by sprinkling or pouring or immersion. To that extent the method is not really important. In fact the Bible itself isn’t very specific at all when it comes to the exact method of baptism. But still I would like to use this sermon to show you that all the evidence is in favour of sprinkling as over
against immersion. You can also make a case for pouring, but we’ll come back to that in a later sermon.

So where is all this evidence for baptism by sprinkling? You may never have known there was any, so where is it? Well, it’s right there in the Bible and it comes to the surface particularly in the passages that we read earlier.

1. So first of all I’d like us to have a look at those two passages ln John’s Gospel about the work of John the Baptist. 
2. Then we’ll have a look at Hebrews 9 and the Old Testament background that is so crucial to that passage.
3. And then finally we’ll consider some of those well-known baptisms in the Book of Acts and see how they-were performed.

So we’ll start at the beginning of John’s Gospel and there we’re being introduced to the ministry of John the Baptist. And we find that John is under fire. The religious establishment is out to get him. The Pharisees, those eagle-eyed heresy hunters, they wanted to know who he was and what he was doing. So they send out a delegation of priests and Levites to test John’s orthodoxy. But all they get are negative answers – he’s not the Messiah, he’s not Elijah and he’s not the Prophet. He’s just a voice crying in the wilderness.

But then the Pharisees ask a very significant question: “Why then do you baptize if you are not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?” You see, in their minds Baptism is connected with the coming of the Messiah and the dawning of the Messianic age? But why? Why do they make that connection? Well, they got it from the Old Testament – where else? And where does the Old Testament link the Messiah’s coming with Baptism?

It does this in two very crucial passages, but it only makes sense if John baptised by sprinkling:

                (i)            We all know the famous passage in Isaiah 53 where it foretells so many exact details of Christ’s suffering. But that prophecy really begins at the end of Chapter 52. And this is what it says there about Christ: “His appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any man and his form marred beyond human likeness – so he will sprinkle many nations, and kings will shut their mouths because of him.”

                (ii)           And again in the prophecy of Ezekiel the Lord predicts a new age when he says: “I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and all your idols.”

And so when the Messiah comes there’s going to be sprinkling.

(iii) And that sprinkling has its origins in the laws of Moses. Do you know how often Moses gave rules for sprinkling? Over 30 times! People, objects and places would be consecrated and cleansed by sprinkling. And what’s more, in Deuteronomy 18, Jesus is referred to as a prophet like Moses. And this was the prophet whom the
Pharisees had in mind when they were questioning John. “Moses instituted sprinkling. Are you then the prophet like Moses?”

You see, this whole question of the Pharisees only makes sense if John’s baptism was by sprinkling. The Old Testament is full of sprinklings. Moses sprinkled and the Messiah was going to sprinkle. But where does the Old Testament refer to immersion? I challenge you – where does it ever say that Moses immersed anyone or anything? Where does it say that the Messiah will immerse anybody? If John is immersing people then this is something entirely new with no basis in the Old Testament and there is no point to the Pharisees” question. If John was baptising by immersion then in their minds that would have been so unorthodox they would have written him off long before. What they asked only made sense if John was sprinkling the people.

But, you may say: “What you say sounds all very well, but when I turn the page to John 3 it seems to contradict everything you’re saying. In verse 23 it says that ‘John also was baptizing at Aenon near Salim, because there was plenty of water ….’  Surely that’s a good argument in favour of immersion!”

But is it really? Maybe there was plenty of water, but what kind of water was there at Aenon near Salim? Dr. Leon Morris in his commentary gives a very plausible answer. First he admits that neither of these places, Aenon and Salim, can now be identified with certainty. But then he goes on: “One suggestion for Aenon is a site about seven miles south of Beisan (in the Jordan Valley). If this is correct there is a striking accuracy in the statement that there was ‘much water’, or better ‘many waters’ there, for in this locality there are seven springs within a
radius of a quarter of a mile” (p.237). In fact, the name Aenon means “springs” or “fountains”. And so it’s true enough that there was plenty of water there, but it offered little or no facilities for immersion.

So why did John go to Aenon to baptise? Was it because there was more water there than in the Jordan? That would be unthinkable, and there’s a much deeper and better reason anyway. It’s Spring- time, just after the Passover. It’s a rainy season and the Jordan is probably quite muddy, and so John prefers to use the clear, clean water of the springs. As sprinkling symbolises cleansing and consecration it wouldn’t be very appropriate to use the dirty water of
the Jordan.

And so here again you have a case that John’s baptism was by sprinkling. In the Old Testament rituals, sprinkling was for cleansing and consecration, and that’s what John’s baptism was all about too: that people might be cleansed and consecrated to prepare themselves for the coming Messiah. That was the message he preached and that’s what his baptism symbolised.

So far then we have seen that the mode of baptism has its roots deep in the Old Testament. And this becomes even clearer from what we read in Hebrews 9. In this chapter the writer is comparing the old way and the new way, the laws of Moses and the work of Christ. And then in verse 10 he is referring to those Old Testament gifts and sacrifices that were not able to clear the conscience of the worshipper, and he says this: “They are only a matter of food and drink and various ceremonial washings.”

Now in the original these “ceremonial washings” are literally baptisms. The Greek word is “baptismos”. You see, the New Testament is referring to those Old Testament “ceremonial washings” as baptisms! And again I want to put it to you that those ceremonial washings were sprinklings and never immersions! The evidence simply isn’t there. And yet there is evidence for sprinkling right here in Hebrews 9. Look at verse 13 as a case of ceremonial washing: “The
blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outward clean.” Once again sprinkling signifies cleansing. Sprinkling is a form of ceremonial washing and these ceremonial washings are called baptisms.

And you will also notice that in verse 10 it refers to “various ceremonial washings.” In other words there are various baptisms. And once again you can look high and low through the Old Testament and you will not find various kinds of immersions, but you will find various kinds of sprinklings. As you might expect most of these sprinklings were done with blood, but there were also some with water and oil. People were sprinkled, such as priests and Levites and lepers who had been cured. Sometimes a whole assembly of people is sprinkled, such as when Moses sprinkled the people with blood when they promised to keep God’s commandments. And then there were objects that were sprinkled, particularly the altar, but also a house where someone had died.

Now it’s all these rituals that verse 10 refers to as “various ceremonial washings” or more literally “various baptisms.” You have case after case of sprinkling, but never do you find an instance of immersion! As Dr. Jay Adams points out in his booklet on baptism: “There are no ceremonial laws in the Old Testament requiring ‘different
kinds of immersions’. The law simply knew nothing of immersions, not to speak of different kinds of them.” (p.10).

So far then we have looked at the Old Testament; we have looked at John the Baptist. But now what about the distinctively Christian baptisms? Once Jesus has given the Great Commission and the disciples
are going out preaching the Gospel, maybe that’s when they started to immerse – after Jesus’ death and resurrection! But again the evidence isn’t there! Let’s just have a look at a few well-known examples from
the Book of Acts. Take Pentecost. Thousands were baptised. Can you imagine the amount of water it would have taken to immerse that many people? And Jerusalem is nowhere near a river and in those days it
didn’t have a modern water supply.

It was an ancient city in a dry land. The water that it did have was carefully guarded and the authorities would hardly have put the city’s water pools at the disposal of the sect of Christ’s followers. If they had, it would have been the most extraordinary courtesy. Under the circumstances the thought of immersion becomes almost impossible. But what problems are there if it was by the time-honoured method of sprinkling with water? It was what the Jews were used to and it only took a minimum quantity of water. 

Another interesting case in the Book of Acts is the baptism of the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8: 36-39: “As they travelled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, ‘Look, here is water. Why shouldn’t I be baptised?’ And he ordered the chariot to stop. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water
and Philip baptised him. When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing.”

That they both went down into the water and came up out of the water can hardly mean immersion. They both did it and that would mean that Philip went under with the eunuch which is rather unlikely. All it probably means is that they both stood in the water and that Philip baptised the eunuch by scooping up the water and pouring it or sprinkling it on him.

And thirdly we have the baptism of Paul. He is in a house when Ananias comes to him. When he regains his sight he gets up and is baptised on the spot as he stood up. Again sprinkling or pouring make sense, but not immersion.

And finally take the baptism of the Philippian gaoler and his family. Acts 16:33:- “At that hour of the night (midnight) the gaoler took Paul and Silas and washed their wounds; then immediately he and all his family were baptised.” It is hard to suppose that sometime after midnight Paul and Silas went out to a river and immersed the Philippian gaoler and his household. A very unlikely hour! How much more likely that he was baptised by sprinkling and from the same water that was used to wash their stripes.

And so once again all the evidence points in the direction of sprinkling and not of immersion. And that’s the case whether you look at the Old Testament or at John’s baptism or at the baptisms of the early Church In the Book of Acts.

And so in closing I would hope that I have convinced you of the Biblical reasons for baptism by sprinkling. But still I must say that I don’t want you to get too carried away or excited by a sermon like this. You see, the Bible never emphasises the mode of baptism. Nowhere do you find a detailed, explicit discussion on the subject. The manner of circumcision was clearly specified. It had to be on the eighth day and so on. But we never find instructions on how to baptise. In spite of all that I have said the New Testament never specifically demands baptism by sprinkling. But there is one kind of sprinkling that the New Testament does demand and that is the sprinkling of the blood of Christ. That’s the only kind of sprinkling that really counts – that your heart has been sprinkled clean from an evil conscience by the blood of Christ. Have you been sprinkled with the blood of Christ? Has your heart been made clean by the blood of Christ that was shed at Calvary?

That’s what really counts, that the blood of Christ has been sprinkled on you. In the Old Testament that blood was symbolised by the sprinkled blood of sacrificed animals. Today it is by the sprinkled waters of Holy Baptism. And so the question is not whether water has been sprinkled on your body, but whether the blood of Christ has been
sprinkled on your heart and soul. Has it? Because if it hasn’t then you can be baptised every day for forty days by every method of baptism, but it won’t clean you on the inside. There is only one thing that can do that and that is the blood of Christ. Do you believe that? Do you know it’s happened to you?  

If you do, then your Baptism (and it doesn’t matter whether you were sprinkled or immersed), your Baptism is a solemn and happy reminder that when Christ died you were forgiven. Now you are washed and clean and pure!

Amen!