Featured Aspersion, Affusion & Immersion. All acceptable?

If it is not immersion it is not baptism. It is not a matter of salvation, but it is one's identification with Christ's death, and that we will not live for the world but for God (Romans 6:3-4).

 

Old? Find someone with a walkin bathtub willing to let you use it,put em in, fill it, immerse, baptize, drain it, take em out.

 

Agreed. The matter becomes problematic when someone willfully refuses to be baptized. For many, baptism is the first step of obedience for a new believer. Baptism is a positive ordinance, in that is commanded (Mat. 28:19-20).

 

Baptism with the Holy Spirit is essential for salvation & John said Jesus would baptise with the Holy Spirit in contrast to his water baptism. So should we practice a mode of baptism that teaches HS baptism - born from above? John 3. Note that Cornelius & household were baptised with the Holy Spirit "poured out on them."

I was "baptised" as a baby - which I do not recognise as baptism, & baptised by immersion as a believer when I was converted at 18. We all agree that baptism of believers is the Biblical practice, but is the mode of baptism clearly taught in Scripture, & does it matter?

At Pentecost, Peter preached -

38 Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. 39 For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call. 40 And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward generation.​

Baptism must be -

preceded by repentance;
in the name of Jesus;
for the remission/forgiveness of sins;
and associated with the gift of the Holy Spirit. ​

That excludes the unrepentant, including young children who can show no indication of repentance,
BUT
as proselyte families including young children were received into Israel by faith & circumcision the case can be made for family baptism. In particular I would be prepared to baptise the family of a e.g. a converted Muslim in order to "claim" the whole family for Christ, so that they would be be recognised as "Christian" by the rather than left to be claimed as Muslim by the community, & possibly abducted from their parents. They would be baptised as believers when they came to faith.

Can we see a case for sprinkling or pouring from Scripture?

Heb. 9:10 ..... 10 which stood only in meats and drinks, and divers washings (baptisms), and carnal ordinances, imposed on them until the time of reformation.​

"Washings" is the Gk STRONGS NT 909: βαπτισμός which occurs 4 times, 3 times translated "washing" & once transliterated "baptisms" in the KJV.

The examples of "various baptisms" that follow in Heb. 9 are sprinklings, contrasted with the sacrifice of Christ. (Numbers 19 & Exo. 24.)

Heb. 9:13 For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: 14 how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?​

 

Hmm. . . Mode of immersion is immersion.

 

I am not a Greek scholar, but we have powerful tools in the Blue Letter Bible. Looking in the LXX for the basis for NT baptism as suggested in Heb. 9:10, I found 3 possible -

Isaiah 21:4 My heart wavered, fearfulness frightened me;
The night for which I longed He turned into fear for me. NKJV

Eze. 23:15 Girded with girdles upon their loins, exceeding in dyed attire upon their heads, all of them princes to look to, after the manner of the Babylonians of Chaldea, the land of their nativity: KJV

2 Kings 5:14 Then went he down, and dipped himself seven times in Jordan, according to the saying of the man of God: and his flesh came again like unto the flesh of a little child, and he was clean.

Only the Naaman self baptism is relevant to the idea of a cleansing ritual, so I followed up in the Hebrew. (Again I don't read Hebrew.) I found "tabal" normally translated "dip." Tabal as a ritual involves dipping hyssop or a finger in blood or oil before sprinkling it on the object to be purified, or with the Passover, striking it on the door frame. The person or object is not dipped.

With the Exodus 24 Old Covenant baptism referred to in Heb. 9, the blood was sprinkled on the people, using hyssop. Again a dip/sprinkle ritual.

 

I'm not "Landmark" but I like to think a believer baptized me by immersion who was also baptized by a believer and so on throughout history going back to the apostles who baptized believers by immersion.

 

A few things here...

First, there is no definitive proof that family baptism was ever practiced in the New Testament without a credible profession of faith. However, we do see family conversions in the New Testament.

Acts 16:31-34 31 They said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” 32 And they spoke the word of the Lord to him together with all who were in his house. 33 And he took them that very hour of the night and washed their wounds, and immediately he was baptized, he and all his household. 34 And he brought them into his house and set food before them, and rejoiced greatly, having believed in God with his whole household. (emphasis mine)

Our paedobaptist friends like to make the case for family baptism, ending at verse 33. However, verse 34 makes it clear that baptism was preceded by belief (faith). The phrase "whole household" would apply to all those able to be outwardly called by the Word. Infants are not able to be outwardly called, so they would be excluded in this instance.

The passages you cited in Hebrews are speaking about the difference between the Old and New Covenants and the mediatorial role of Jesus Christ. The reference to sprinkling in verse 13 is in the context of Old Covenant ceremony. It is compared to the better sacrifice of Christ. The author of Hebrews presents the ceremony of the Old Covenant when speaking about Moses:

Hebrews9:18-22 18 Therefore even the first covenant was not inaugurated without blood. 19 For when every commandment had been spoken by Moses to all the people according to the Law, he took the blood of the calves and the goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, 20 saying, “THIS IS THE BLOOD OF THE COVENANT WHICH GOD COMMANDED YOU.” 21 And in the same way he sprinkled both the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry with the blood. 22 And according to the Law, one may almost say, all things are cleansed with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.

But once again, a comparison is made to the better sacrifice of Christ:

Hebrews 9:23 23 Therefore it was necessary for the copies of the things in the heavens to be cleansed with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.

In short, one needs to fight to find even an oblique reference to family baptisms or another mode other than immersion.

 

All forms of baptism are acceptable to our Saviour God who receives his born again, from above, children.

 

First, do not conflate baptism with regeneration and justification.

Second, the New Testament mode of baptism is believers baptism via immersion. If I did not believe scripture makes that clear I would not be a Baptist.

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Believers baptism the Biblical model, but also would say that it depends on if one is a Baptist or not, as reformed Christians would see this in a different light!

 

Where does the Bible give instructions for the mode of baptism?

 

In the very term used for it in the Greek!

 

All are not acceptable because baptism is a certain thing, and that thing is immersion. If baptism is commanded and immersion is baptism, then immersion is commanded -- sprinkling or pouring.

 

Matthew 3:16; John 3:23; Acts 8:36; 10:47-48 et al. I also concur with @rlvaughn βαπτίζω (baptizo) means to submerge or dip into. Baptism by immersion only is a universal Baptist distinctive. You are free to believe differently, but you stand apart from Baptist thought and history.

 

Too late to go back and edit now, but I left out a word (though I think most understood what I meant). Here is what it should be:

All are not acceptable because baptism is a certain thing, and that thing is immersion. If baptism is commanded and immersion is baptism, then immersion is commanded -- not sprinkling or pouring.

 

Even though I went to New Jersey public schools I was able to infer that before your belated correction. LOL