6/4/2025
I was raised in a church that practiced — strictly practiced — full immersion. When baptized, we went completely under the water. I remember the first time I immersed someone. We were baptizing several youth who came to Christ at youth camp. I baptized a couple of middle-school boys, and that was no problem.
The pastor had only given me the barest of instructions, which was fine for the short ones . . . but not so much for the tall ones!
The last one was a bit taller than me. I placed my hand over his nose and tried to lay him back into the water, but then his feet came out from under him! He ended up floating like some water lily while I was trying to bury him with Christ! I kept trying to push him down . . . it’s a wonder I didn’t drown him! I never was certain I got him completely under.
Then I found out there was a trick to it: when someone is immersed, they have to bend their knees so they don’t lose their footing. And another important trick is they need to hold their own nose so they don’t freak out when they are laid back into the water. Otherwise they might feel like they’re being waterboarded and not baptized!
I got pretty good at it and the senior pastor said I was the “smoothest” baptizer he’d ever seen.
For some reason, I can’t imagine John telling Jesus, “Now, there’s a trick to this. Hold your own nose and make sure you bend your knees . . .” But maybe he did!
But is immersion the only way to be baptized? Are there other possible modes? As I said, my tradition only practiced immersion, but other traditions sprinkle, some pour, some dip, some pour 3 times, some dip 3 times — some pour, sprinkle, dip and immerse, some once, some three times!
So which one is correct?
The oldest traditional view is that all forms of baptism — immersion, sprinkling and pouring — are valid as long as there’s water and as long as the person is baptized “in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19).
Why these 3 forms? Because each of these forms are ways the Bible mentions God cleanses us of our sins.
For example, Ezekiel 36:25-27 reminds us that God’s plan is to “sprinkle” his people with clean water. God tells his people, “ I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you, and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you and make you follow my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances.”
I used to argue that the Greek word, baptizo, which comes to us as “baptism” meant only immersion, but I’ve found that’s not necessarily the case! Baptizo means “to dip” (John 13:26) or to “wash” (like pots and pans, as in Mark 7:4) and Jesus used it in reference to his own death (Mark 10:38), but it never specifically means “immersion” or “submersion” in water. There is a Greek word for that, kataklysmos. It comes to us as “cataclysm,” but it’s never used for baptism.
The earliest church manual, the Didache, was written very close to the time of the Apostles. It specifies baptism in running water, and if that’s not possible, then in warm water (most of us would have insisted on that to begin with!), “but if thou hast neither, pour water three times on the head, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” (7:3).
The earliest Christian painting we have of a Christian baptism was found in the cemetery of Calixtus, probably painted before 200 AD. It does not depict immersion:
It depicts an adult pouring water over the head of an unclothed youth. By the way, in the early church, the person being baptized disrobed first, was baptized and then was clothed in a white robe before being presented to the congregation.
I know we want to follow the practices of the early church when possible, but I’m glad we don’t do that!
But my point is that in all of the early artwork of Christianity the subject is standing in the water, and the water is being poured. There are even more pictures of baptisms in the Roman catacombs from the very early church, all of them showing the baptized person standing and the water coming down upon them. But none of them depict full immersion. Interesting, isn’t it?
For me, the mode isn’t important. What matters is that water is used and that the baptism is performed “in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”
But what about infants? Did the early church practice infant baptism? That’s for another time!
Blessings,
Pastor Terry