What Is the Correct Mode of Baptism?

Question 9005.

Christians disagree about the mode of baptism, with some pouring, some sprinkling and some immersing, and the disagreement is older than any of us. I hold that immersion is the normal and proper mode, and I want to give you the reasons rather than the tradition.

I also want to say early that I do not regard this as a question worth breaking fellowship over, and that I hold one significant qualification which I will come to at the end.

The word means to immerse

Begin with the word, because the mode of baptism is embedded in it. The Greek baptizo means to dip, plunge or immerse, and its meaning is not seriously disputed among lexicographers. It was used of dyeing cloth by dipping it, of ships going under, and of people drowning.

The related word bapto means to dip, and in Luke 16 the rich man asks that Lazarus dip the tip of his finger in water. Nobody has ever suggested he wanted his finger sprinkled. The word family consistently carries the idea of going under something.

Greek had perfectly good words for pouring and sprinkling, and the New Testament uses them elsewhere. When the writer to the Hebrews wants to speak of sprinkling he uses rhantizo. That the apostles chose baptizo for this ordinance is a decision about mode of baptism, not an accident of vocabulary.

The accounts describe going down and coming up

Watch what the narratives actually say. John was baptising at Aenon near Salim because there was much water there, which is a strange thing to record if a jug would have done. Jesus, having been baptised, went up immediately from the water.

The Ethiopian official and Philip both go down into the water, the baptism happens, and they come up out of the water. Acts 8:38-39 uses that language deliberately, and Luke had no reason to describe a descent and an ascent for an act performed on a riverbank with a cup.

None of these details is decisive on its own. Taken together they describe a practice that required a body of water and involved putting somebody into it.

The picture requires burial

The strongest argument on mode of baptism is not linguistic but theological. Paul says we were buried with him by baptism into death, so that as Jesus was raised, we too might walk in newness of life. Romans 6 turns the ordinance into a picture of burial and resurrection.

Sprinkling does not picture a burial. Pouring does not picture a burial. Immersion does, and it does so with a vividness that anyone watching immediately understands: down under, and up again. Colossians 2:12 says the same thing, buried with him in baptism and raised with him through faith.

If the ordinance is a visual gospel, the mode of baptism is not a matter of indifference. Change the picture and you lose part of the message, which is why I would not be content to treat this as a detail.

What history shows

I have set out who the ordinance is for in who should be baptised and the infant question in whether infants should be baptised. Immersion was the general practice of the early centuries, and the archaeological evidence supports it. Early baptisteries were built with steps down into a pool. The Didache, an early manual, prefers running water and permits pouring only where sufficient water is unavailable, which tells you which was regarded as normal and which as a concession.

The Eastern churches have retained immersion for infants to this day. In the West, pouring gradually displaced it, becoming general only in the later medieval period. So the mode of baptism most Western Christians grew up with is the historical newcomer.

I mention this because Baptists are often told that immersion is a sixteenth-century innovation. The evidence points the other way, and the burden of explaining a change lies with those who changed it.

The objections, and what they are worth

It is objected that three thousand could not have been immersed at Pentecost. Jerusalem had a large number of ritual immersion pools around the temple, used daily by pilgrims, and with the apostles and others assisting the arithmetic is not difficult.

It is objected that the Philippian jailer was baptised at night in a prison. The text says he took them and washed their wounds and was baptised at once, and it does not say the baptism happened in his cell. There was water in Philippi, as Lydia’s baptism by the riverside had already demonstrated.

It is objected that the mode of baptism is a secondary matter, and that insisting on it is legalistic. I would say that obeying a command in the manner it was given is not legalism, and that a church free to redefine the mode is not obviously bound by anything else about the ordinance either.

The qualification I hold

Here is where I part company with the stricter members of my own tradition. Where immersion is genuinely impossible, because of disability, extreme frailty, or a medical condition that makes it dangerous, I do not believe God honours inflexibility more than he honours the heart of somebody seeking to obey.

I have baptised in ways I would not choose as a general practice, and I would do it again in the same circumstances. The ordinance is not invalidated by an adjustment made for genuine physical need. What I would not do is adjust the mode of baptism for convenience, embarrassment, or because the heating is expensive.

The distinction is between a limitation nobody chose and a preference somebody has. Pastors have to make that judgement honestly, and it is not a licence to abandon the practice.

How not to argue about this

Christians who agree that baptism follows faith should not fall out over the depth of the water. If your church immerses and a visiting believer was poured upon by a congregation that preached the gospel to them faithfully, the right response is warmth rather than a lecture at the door.

At the same time, I would not pretend the question is meaningless in order to be agreeable. I have set out why I think the mode of baptism follows from the word and the picture, and I would teach that to my own congregation without apology.

Convictions can be held firmly and expressed kindly. That combination is rarer than it should be in discussions like this one.

What it looks like in practice

In our church a believer stands in the water with a pastor, gives a brief testimony, is asked whether they trust Jesus as Saviour and Lord, and is then lowered backwards under the water and raised again. The congregation watches, and there is usually a good deal of noise afterwards.

It takes about ninety seconds and people remember it for the rest of their lives. That is part of the argument for immersion that no lexicon can supply. The picture preaches, to the person being baptised and to everyone watching, including the unbelieving relatives who came because it was a family occasion.

I have seen people converted at baptismal services more often than at almost any other. The mode of baptism is doing work there that a sprinkling would not do.

Does the mode of baptism affect its validity?

This is the question underneath most of the argument, and I want to answer it carefully. I do not hold that a person poured upon after a genuine profession of faith is unsaved, unforgiven or outside the family of God. Salvation does not hang on how much water was used.

What I would say is that something has been lost. The ordinance was given with a shape, the shape preaches a message, and a church that changes the shape has quietly edited the message it is showing. That is a real loss even when it is an honest one.

So my practice is to receive such believers warmly into fellowship while teaching plainly what I believe the mode of baptism should be, and to encourage anyone who becomes persuaded to be immersed. I would not require it of a transferring member as a condition of communion, and I would not pretend I had no view either.

What the water is not doing

One last clarification, because it sits underneath the whole discussion. Whatever mode is used, the water does not cleanse anybody. Peter says explicitly that baptism is not the removal of dirt from the body but an appeal to God for a good conscience, which is his way of heading off exactly the misunderstanding that has dogged the church ever since.

That is why I can argue firmly for immersion and still refuse to make it a test of salvation. The picture matters enormously and the picture is not the thing pictured. Confusing the two is how baptismal regeneration got started, and I have written on that in what baptismal regeneration is.

So, now what?

So, what follows? If you are a believer awaiting baptism, ask for immersion, and do not be talked out of it by nerves. It is a picture worth being part of, and the ninety seconds of self-consciousness pass quickly.

If you are in a church that practises another mode and preaches the gospel faithfully, I would not tell you to leave over it. I would tell you to read Romans 6 and Colossians 2 and ask your leaders how the practice pictures what those passages describe.

And if a physical limitation makes immersion impossible for you, do not let anyone burden your conscience. God is not looking for a technically perfect ceremony. He is looking for obedience from a willing heart, and he has never been impressed by our inflexibility.

We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

Romans 6:4 (ESV)