Tertius said:
With sincerity, if that is what you believe, I would humbly suggest that you need to re-examine your position, as the teachers and doctrinal statements of many baptist and fundamentalist churches and organizations define a water baptism as a "public identification..." If you seek affirmation from "scholar" in order to accept something, you can find that too via a simple Google search. For example, Dr. William R. Newell from Moody Bible Institute defines and describes baptism as "identification." Dr. Charles Ryrie, a "notable" baptist scholar and author of the Acts 2 dispensational variety from Dallas Theological Seminary etc., defines baptism as follows:
Theologically, baptism may be defined as an act of association or identification with someone, some group, some message, or some event... Christian baptism means identification with the message of the Gospel, the person of the Savior, and the group of believers.
Gee, I didn't know Ryrie & Newell were native speakers of Old Testament Greek. They seemed so young....
If you check your quotes again, you'll find these are very limiting terms Ryrie and Newell are using:
"Theologically baptism may be defined as an act of association or identification ...." These scholars essentially mean that a theology has
developed this meaning around the term because of other implications that are inferred by it.
And I have no problem with that. I'm not denying the rite of water baptism is an initiating rite. But let's take a closer look: it's apparent the opposing position has a problem with Ryrie and Newell, as neither scholar has taken the step of denying water baptism any purpose or standing, today.
In fact Newell points out Romans 6:3-4 as referring to the initiating rite of
water baptism, not Spirit baptism. So if you're going to rely on this scholar as to what baptism means, you've got much more explaining to do about where he means it:
"Here the apostle turns them back to their baptism, that initial step in public confession of the Lord upon whom they had believed.... Therefore they could see in their baptism the picture of that federal death and burial with Christ which Paul sets forth so positively in the second verse: 'Such ones as we, who died" Romans Verse by Verse, p. 204
These scholars point out baptism identifies someone with Christ
as an initiating rite. But then, the argument here is
against water baptism as an initiating rite, yet somehow being able to conclude it as an act of identification -- without considering it a mysterion or a sacramentum (it was identified as both from 200 AD).
"Baptism" means nothing of the sort to a Greek polytheist, who first encounters this minor cult of Judaism and discovers someone came back to life from Roman crucifixion. No, the only way they can get their heads around baptism doing this is by treating it as an initiation rite -- the very thing that is argued against, here in this thread.
Tertius said:
It should be obvious that describing baptism as an identification is an amplification of the literal meaning of the word. The literal meaning is to dip or immerse (i.e. consult Strong's, etc.), but water is not part of the definition, and never was even 1900 years ago. For example, when Christ talked about his pending baptism in Matthew 20, Mark 10, and Luke 12, ask yourself this - what was he going to be [literally] dipped or immersed in? Surely it was not water!
That kind of interpretation confuses a metaphorical use of the term with the actual meaning of the term. Identification is a deduction from using the term "baptism" as an initiating -- and thus an identifying -- rite. There's no amplification here. Being dipped in water doesn't amplify into identification. But engaging in an initiating rite --
that amplifies into identification.
The metaphorical or figurative use of "baptism" is a red herring for this fact. I can illustrate with an allied term: to bathe. Say someone tells me you went sun bathing; I don't think you were deluged in water when the word's used this way, no. But if someone told me you bathed, then given no other context, the meaning there would be clear as well. And it would include water.
Baptizo works the same way.
Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. Rom 6:3-4
Water baptism is an initiating rite. So as a result those who were baptized into Christ Jesus were
by that identified with Christ Jesus. This identification had nothing to do with the meaning of the word "baptize". It had everything to do with the implications of baptism as an initiating rite within the context of the community.
But if there were no initiating rite, there is no identification. And so Paul wouldn't have written Rom 6:3-4
Tertius said:
These verses help amplify the waterless baptism of Matthew 20, Mark 10, Luke 10, and Romans 6.
II Corinthians 5:21 For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
Galatians 2:20 I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
Rom 6:6 Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.
So what was Christ "immersed in" or baptized with on the cross? Our sin. His baptism on the cross is where our sin was identified on him. And that is the baptism of Romans 6, not water. It reflects back on Matthew 20, Mark 10, and Luke 12.
Nah. The
figurative sense of "baptize" is reference to being overwhelmed by something. It doesn't mean identification. Christ underwent an overwhelming event on the Cross.
Isaiah 21:4 says, "My heart wanders; terror overwhelms me; He has turned the twilight of my pleasure into trembling." That word "overwhelms" was translated "baptizes" in the Greek OT that early believers used.
Plutarch, another native user of New Testament Greek, referred to people "baptized by debt". Josephus, another, had a general "baptize a city" in misery.
There're two uses of the term in Scripture -- one referring to the rite of water, the other a figurative "overwhelming". And of course they can be related. You can be "baptized" by a tidal wave. The Spirit may baptize you and give you drink.
Christ's baptism in His death was the overwhelming evil of being scourged, nailed to a cross through his hands and feet, and lifted up to a humiliating death in public as a capital criminal.
And of course this exploded on the early Christian psyche as Christians witnessed one another suffering the same fate as Christ at the hands of Rome. Thus martyrdom came to be named baptism as well.
