m A M. H. Houston ;\ _ ■ — * . ■■■' — . How wa-^VJesus Baptized? \ \ t BS2424 .I.H84 =K' ^vi '^ i a* JUN 17 196£ :* y^ .LH84 \\ !t < Rev. M. H. HOUSTON. vv d: JL-riurc H o w w A s^^^^'"'*^^^: NOV 6 1925 JESUS BAPTIZED? BY , y REV. M. W. HOUSTON. RICHMOND : Whittet & Shepperson, Printers, iooi Main Street. i88i. HOW WAS JESUS BAPTIZED? Was it by immersion or by sprinkling? Suppose the question were raised, How was Mr. Arthur Smith baptized in Humility Church, New York, in the year 1870 ? Suppose it were shown that the form of worship of Hu- mility Church directed that the pastor should always baptize by sprinkling. Suppose it were proved that for a hundred years the pastors of Humility Church had administered baptism by sprinkling, and in no other way. Then when the question was raised. How was Mr. Arthur Smith baptized in Humility Church ? the in- ference would be irresistible. He must have 4 How was Jesus Baptized? been baptized by sprinkling. Every one ac- quainted with the church would say so at once. If any man said otherwise, he would be bound to furnish the clearest and most direct evidence for so remarkable an assertion. MODE OF BAPTISM FIXED. Now, not for a hundred years only, but for fifteen hundred years before Jesus was baptized, baptism had been administered in tlie nation to which He belonged. It was a religious rite universally known and practised among the Jews. All biblical scholars admit this. Every writer on this subject, Fsedobaptist or anti- Paedobaptist, has declared it. Paul shows us (Heb. ix. 10,) that, from the time of Moses down to his own time, there had been "divers baptisms."* Every allusion to baptism in the gospels implies that it was a rite with which all Jews were familiar. If we ascertain, then, how baptism had been administered among the Jews during the fifteen hundred years before * English version, "divers washings." How was Jesus Baptized ? 6 Christ, we will know beyond doubt how the meek and lowly Jew, the blessed Jesus, was baptized. Our brethren who favor immersion all hold that for God's people there is only one Scriptural mode of baptism with water. We fully assent to this. We say, too, that there is only one Scriptural mode of baptism with water. If, then, we fix the Scriptural mode of baptism before Christ, tlie mode — the one only mode — is fixed for all time to come. Let us proceed to do this. FACTS ADMITTED BY ALL. In the baptism of Jesus by John there are some facts whicl^ stand out clear and undis- puted — 1. There was a divinely-appointed adminis- trator of the rite — John. He was of the same tribe with Moses and Aaron — the tribe of Levi. 2. The divinely-appointed administrator used water. 6 How was Jesus Baptized f 3. It was running water. We have now a basis of facts admitted by all sides. Only one mode of baptism with water for God's people ; that mode practised through fifteen centuries before Christ ; that mode followed by John ; the divinely-appointed administrator using water ; the water used be- ing running, or as the Jews expressed it, living- water. The question, then, is. How did the divinely-appointed administrators of the reli- gious rite from Moses to Christ use water ? As they administered the rite, so John admin- istered it. Was it by immersion, or was it by- sprinkling ? ALWAYS BY SPRINKLING; NEVER BY IMMER- SIGN. The Scriptures give an answer to this ques- tion so clear, so broad, so empliatic, that it has never been challenged. In every case, from Moses downward, where a divinely-appointed administrator used water upon any one, he al- ways sprinkled the water on the person ; he How was Jesus Baptized f 7 never immersed. And in every ease where a divinely-appointed administrator used water, it was always running water, and no other kind of water was allowed. These things are sus- ceptible of an easy proof; if proved, they must settle the question. WATER SPRINKLED ON ALL GOD'S PEOPLE. The first instance recorded in the Bible where a divinely-appointed administrator used water upon any one, is that of Moses consecrating to God at Sinai the many thousands of Israel. (Compare Ex. chap. xxiv. and Heb. ix. 19-21.) The onlv water at Mount Sinai was the brook, (Ex. xvii. 6, and Deut. ix. 21,) which, spring- ing from the smitten rock, came leaping and flashing down the mountain side. It was this running water which Moses used. And how did he use it ? He sprinkled it upon the vast multitudes of his people. When Paul, in the ninth chapter of Hebrews, speaks of the " bap- tisms " of the Old Testament, he proceeds at once to tell us of two cases in which water was 8 How was Jesus Baptized? sprinkled upon the people of God. Moses sprinkling the people is one of tliese cases. A beautiful analogy may be traced here be- tween the first recorded baptism of the Old Testament, and the first recorded baptism of the New. Moses baptized in the wilderness of Sinai. John baptized in the wilderness of Judea. Moses baptized hundreds of thousands of the people of Israel. John baptized the multitudes that are described as '' Jerusalem and all Judea, and all the region round about Jordan." Moses used the running^ water of the brook. John used the running w^ter of the Jordan. It would have been a physical impossibility for Moses to immerse the thronging crowds about him. It would have been equally an impossibility for John to immerse the multitudes that came out to him. Moses sprinkled the watei' of the brook on all the people. As there is only one mode of baptism, John must have sprinkled the water of the Jordan on all the multitudes. And as John baptized the multitudes, so, no one will dis- How was Jesus Baptized ? 9 pute, he baptized Jesus. If the multitudes were baptized by sprinkling, Jesus was bap- tized by sprinkling too. WATEK SPRINKLED ON CLEANSED LEPERS. The second case in the Old Testament in w^hich a divinely-appointed administrator used water upon anyone is described in thefourteenth chapter of Leviticus. In every generation " many lepers were in Israel,'^ and leprosy was the hideous type of sin as a disease. As in every generation under the gospel some sinners are cleansed, so in every generation under the law some lepers, no doubt, were healed. As a minister of God is appointed under the gospel to baptize with water the cleansed sinner, so a minister of God was appointed under the law to baptize with water the liealed leper. The minister under the law was the priest. It was particularly enjoined on him that he should use running water ; and this running water he must sprinkle on the healed leper. It is plain, then, that John the Baptist's father, his grand- 10 How was Jesus Baptized? father, and all his priestly ancestry, had again and again used water in this way. They went to the river Jordan, or to the springs of ^non,* or to some other flowing stream ; they took the running water and sprinkledvit wpon the man now typically cleansed from sin. WATER SPRINKLED ON MEN SET APART FOR GOD'S SERVICE. The third case to which we turn is the con- secration of the Levites to God. (Num. viii. 5.) As the minister of God now solemnly consecrates believers in baptism, so Moses con- secrated the Levites. The water he used was the water of purifying. The water of purify- ing, we are told in Numbers xix. 9, IT, was running water; and God said to Moses, " Take * ^non means "springs.'' Our English version is wrong in saying "there was much water there." The words translated "much water," occur in Rev. i. 15 ; xiv. 2 ; xix. 6, where attention is called to the rv:shing, mur- muring, musical sound of water in motion. They indicate water running in a number of streams, either great or small, and in Revelation are rightly translated "many waters." S^oio was Jesus Baptized ? 11 the Levites, * * * ^^(^ thus shalt thou do unto tliem to cleanse them : sprinkle water of purifying upon them." WATER SPRINKLED ON MEN TO CLEANSE FROM TYPICAL SIN. Next to leprosy, and ranking above it as an awful type of sin, was death The natural state of all men in the world is '*' dead in tres- passes and sins." In Israel, every man who came in contact witli death was defiled. Whether he touched a corpse, or a grave, or the bone of a man, or wliether he was only in the room where a dead man lay, he was pol- luted as by sin, and must be cleansed with water. (Kum. xix.) For this cleansing there was a divinely -appointed administrator. It was any undefiled person. The un defiled man was to take water. God again said that it must be running water, and this running w^ater the undefiled man must sprinkle on the defiled. If the water was not sprinkled upon him he was not recognized as one of God's people. He was " cut off from among the congregation. 12 How was Jesus Baptized? because be batb defiled the sanctuary of the Lord ; the water of separation hath not been sprinkled upon him; he is unclean." WATER SPRINKLED IN MILLIONS OF CASES. In every generation of Israel, taken on an average, there were at least three million deaths. For each death there were at least seven per- sons who came into the presence of the corpse, or who touched the grave. In every genera- tion, therefore, tliere were at least twenty -one million cases in which one Jew sprinkled water on another. When we count all the genera- tions from Moses to Christ, the millions swell to a number that no man can conceive. And in all these millions upon millions of cases, persons went to the river Jordan, or the brook Kishon, or the springs of ^non, or some other flowing water; and in every case the divinely- appointed administrator sprinkled the water on his fellow-man. Some persons have imagined that it was a novel sight in Israel when two men, as John How was Jesus Baptized ? 13 and Jesus, went down to the river Jordan to use water in a religious rite. But to the Jew there was no novelty in this. It was one of the most common sights in the land. Here is a man living in the fertile valley of the river. He has just buried his dead. He must seek the ministerial offices of a friend that is unde- filed. Water nmst be used. Cistern water will not answer. Well water is forbidden. Kunning water must be procured. So the two men walk down to the flowing waters of the Jordan, just as Jesus and John walked together. The water of the river is taken up, and then the one who acts as minister sprinkles the water on his friend. The banks of the Jor- dan, we may be sure, had in countless instan- ces witnessed just such a scene as this. A SUMMING UP. And now we sum up this part of the case. At Mount Sinai a minister of God consecrated hundreds of thousands of people by sprinkling running water upon them. In every genera- 14 How was Jesus Bajptized? tion a minister restored the cleansed lepers to the service of God hj sprinkling running water on tliem. A minister consecrated the thou- sands of Levi to the special work of God by sprinkling running water upon them. In every generation, in millions of cases, a divinely-ap- pointed minister removed the defilement con- tracted from the most hideous type of sin by sprinkling running water on men. And now that John, a minister of God, uses running water upon Jesus, what shall we say ? That he immersed Jesus? Why, to say that John im- mersed Jesus in running water, is to say this, that he violated the plainest laws on the sta- tute-book directing the mode of baptism; that he disobeved the reiterated instructions of God: that he put aside the examples of his ancestors from Aaron down ; that he contravened all the precedents of his nation established in every tribe; in short, that he did what no Jew, act- ing under divine instruction, had ever done before. Believe this who can. For our own part, the case is a very clear one. John liad How was Jesus Baptized f 15 before him a record of baptisms running through 1500 years. He conformed to the re- cord. He did what his father Zacharias, and all his forefathers as far back as Aaron had done. He did just what God commanded every minister of His to do. He sprinkled the running water on Jesus, his and our ador- able Lord. II. Though the facts of tlie Bible that have been presented are so clear in showing the mode of baptism, an attempt is made to set them aside. To do this, it is said that the cases in which the Jews, by divine command, washed themselves, are the only examples of baptism in the Old Testament; and that these self-ablutions were immersions of the whole body in water. SELF- WASHING NO PRECEDENT. We think that a few simple considerations should have prevented such a view as this from 16 How VMS Jesus Baptized? ever being advanced. First, when a Jew washed himself, it was a very different case from the baptism of Jesus by John. Jesus did not wash Himself. Under the gospel no man cleanses himself in baptisai. The cleans- ing is done by a minister appointed by God. The Jew cleansing himself is not, then, as the lawyers would say, a precedent in the case. The real precedent is the cleansing of a Jew^ with water by a minister of God. We have seen how this was done. It was always by sprinkling. AN IMPOKTANT DISTINCTION. And underlying this there was a great spirit- ual truth. Baptism does not represent what a man does for himself. It represents what God does for him. Man is a spiritual leper. God, by His sovereign grace, tjleanses the lep- rosy. Man is polluted with spiritual death. God rids him of the pollution. Man is an alien and stranger to God. God brings him nigh and consecrates him. And it is this How was Jesus Baptized? 17 cleansing, consecrating grace of God that is represented in baptism. In this, man stands simply as a recipient. He does nothing for himself. And because it is all an act of God, God appoints His minister as His representa- tive to do all the action in baptism. The man who is baptized merely accepts. He receives baptism. The act of the minister represents the act of God in bestowing His grace. And yet, after we have received the grace of God, there is a lifelong work before us. We are to "cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God." (2 Cor. vii. 1.) Just so it was represented to the Jew. The minister of God sprinkled on him the "water of purifying." Here was the cleansing, con- secrating grace of God in baptism. "Sprink- ling the unclean," says the Apostle, "sancti- iieth to the purifying of the flesh." (Heb. vii. 13.) But now, cleansed and consecrated, the sinner must proceed to battle with his own corruptions. He must purge away his own 2 18 How was Jesus Baptized? filthiness of spirit. And this self-cleansing work was symbolized by the self-washing. The minister of God first sprinkled water on him. Then the saved man must go and wash him- self. First, the act of God in cleansing tlie sinner; then the work of the sinner cleansing himself. This distinction, so clear and simple, lies at the foundation of all true theology. Had it been duly observed in the study of the Jewish ritual, the self-washings of the Jew would never have been adduced as the counterpart of Christian baptism. NO SELF-IMMERSION AMONG GOD'S PEOPLE. But in the next place, and finally. When the Jew washed himself, he did not immerse his whole body in water. Study the Old Testament through, and not a case can be found in which one of the people of God immersed himself. The Hebrew word used f©r these self-washings is rachatz. The trans- lators of the King James' version sometimes render it " wash," sometimes " bathe." It means How was Jesus Bajptizedf 19 eimplj to wash. It is used when Abraham invites the three strangers to wash their feet. (Gen. xviii. 4.) It is used when we are told that Joseph washed his face. (Gen. ixiii. 31.) It is used when the Jew is commanded to wash a piece of meat. (Ex. xxix. 17.) It is used to describe the washing of hands ov^er the body of the slain heifer, (Deut. xxi. 6,) and the w^ash- ing of the eyes with milk (Cant. v. 12.) It means to wash, and nothing more. And so, when the simple statement of Scripture is that a man washed himself, who is he that shall venture to add to the words of inspiration by saying that the man went and dipped himself head and ears under water? Is this the way in which men commonly wash themselves ? The question needs no answer. A GKEAT MISTAKE ABOUT THE GREAT LAYER, We once heard a Baptist minister enlarge on the subject of the great laver in the court of the tabernacle. In this laver the priests were commanded to wash themselves; and our 20 iTow was Jesus Baptized f Baptist brother informed us that in these wash- ings the priests always immersed themselves. Maimonides and other Jewish writers said so. Some eloquence was expended on the spectacle of the priests dipping themselves in the great basin. We had an opportunity to reply, and we simply turned the brother to tlie account of this washing of the priests as given in Exodus xl. 30-32. Here it is: "And he set the laver between the tent of the congregation and the altar, and put water there to wash withal. And Moses and Aaron and his sons washed their hands and their feet thereat; wdien they went into the tent of the congregation, and when they came near unto the altar, they washed, as the Lord commanded Moses." Where now was the imaginative picture of the priests im- mersing themselves in the laver? It was gone "lilve the baseless fabric of a vision." When the priests were commanded to wash them- selves in the laver, they simply washed their hands and feet. When we are told, then, that Rabbi Mai- How was Jesus Baptized ? 21 monides, who lived more than a thousand years after Christ, or any other rabbi, declares that the self-washinffs of the Old Testament were self-immersions, w'e answer that we do not pro- pose to accept the traditions of Jewish elders, or the traditions of anybody else, and thereby make void the law of God. It has been our lot to hear the traditions of many elders — elders Presbyterian, elders Methodist, elders Koman Catholic, brought forward in support of immersion. But, with the word of God be- fore us, all the traditions of all the elders w^ho have lived are ligliter than a single straw. "To the law and to the testimony: if .they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them." (Isa. viii. 20.) In the record of baptisms from Moses to Christ, we have seen that there is not a single instance in which one Jew immersed another. Now we see that, in the record, tliere is not a single instance in which a Jew immersed him- self. Where, then, is immersion ? 22 How was Jesits Baptized f III. When Moses or any other minister under the law sprinkled water, it was mingled with the blood of the sacrifice, or its equivalent, the ashes. AVhen John sprinkled water, it was not mingled with blood. Why was this dif- ference ? WATER A SYMBOL OF THE SPIRIT. The running water was a symbol of the Holy Ghost. This is implied in many parts of the Bible, (Isa. xliv. 3 ; Mark i. 8 ; John iii. 5; Acts xi. 47; Titus iii. 5, 6,) and is expressly declared b^^ the apostle John. He tells us that when Jesus spake of the rivers of living water. He spake of the Holy Spirit. (John vii. 38, 39.) Clear, bright, life-giving and cleansing, the living water was the vivid sym- bol of the Spirit of life. Now, the apostle John says further in his 1st Epistle, 5th chap- ter: "There are three that bear witness in earth, the spirit and the water and the blood ; and these three agree in one," That is, the / How was tTestis Baptized f 23 water symbolizes the Spirit, wliich applies the blood of the atonement to cleanse from sin. This is the whole of salvation; and it is this blessed sum total of salvation that is seen in the sprinklings of the law. The blood of the sacritice had been shed. The atonement had been made. But what avails the atonement unless it is applied to the sinnei ? And how is it applied ? Why, the living water, represent- ing the Spirit of life, is the medium by which the blood is applied; and so, the Spirit and the water and the blood bore witness in earth. So it was till John the Baptist came. His ministry has been well described by the great Baptist minister, Robert Hall. It partook both of the Old Testament and of the Kew. It was of the Old, because its object was to pre- pare the way of the Lord. It was of the 'New, because the great sacrifice was now come. Robert Hall compares it to the twilight. It lay between the obscurity of one dispensation and the splendor of another. Chrysostom compares it to a bridge, whose springing arch 24: B:o20 was Jesus Baptized? binds together parallel shores. One abutment rested on the Mosaic economy, the other rested on the Christian. As the ministry of John was partly legal, partly evangelical, so was his baptism. It was anticipative of Christ. '' I knew him not," said John, "but that he should be manifest to Israel, therefore, am I come baptizing with water." Yet it implied that the Lamb of God, about to be manifest, was now in the world. BAPTIZING IN THE JOKDAN. Since John's baptism was partly of the law and partly of the gospel, we might expect tliat it would combine the features of both. And so it did. It was of the law, in that John always used running water. It was of the gospel, in that the blood of the sacrifice was now left out. And here we have the simple reason why the evangelists mark so carefully the fact that John baptized in the river Jordan. When we say that a man washed his face m the river, we do not mean that he immersed How was Jesus Baptized ? 25 his face in the river. We mean that he used no basin. He applied the water to his face directly from the river. Now, when John's ancestors used running water in baptism, they always, by God's command, put the water in a basin, (Lev. xiv. 5; Num. xix. IT,) that it nn'ght be mixed with the blood or the ashes of tlie sacrifice. John used no basin. As a Jew would have washed the face of his little child in the Jordan, so John baptized in the Jordan. He applied the running water directly from the stream.* This showed in the clearest light that the water which he took up from the river * There is not a particle of evidence in the Greek New Testament that either John or Jesus went into the river. As for the preposition "m," if any one will turn to the Greek Bible which the writers of the gospels used, (Sep- tuagint — 1 Kings ii. 8 ; 2 Kings vi. 4 ; ii. 6 ; ii. 21 ; Judges iv. 7,) he will find case after case in which "m" takes people down to the Jordan and other streams without tak- ing them at all into the water. As for "aj?