We know that the sacraments have a teaching function. They exist to encourage and edify the body of the faithful. By maintaining a standard of the appropriate mode (and therefore appropriate symbolism) for baptizing, we are shepherding our people. We are teaching them about the Lord’s nature of interacting with His people and the way He saves and revives us.

The sacrament of baptism is perhaps the most widely debated topic in the Protestant church world. There is no shortage of fraternal disagreements on this topic, especially within the Reformed evangelical setting. However, debates around baptism often focus around who should be baptized. Is baptism reserved for believers alone? Or are the children of Christians to be baptized as well? Comparatively less ink is spilled debating about the mode of baptism, or how people are to be baptized. The nature of the debate over whether biblical baptism should be administered to families of believers can often distract from this all too important topic. This can lead to misunderstandings about why certain traditions hold the practices they do, or assumptions that one’s own practice is right, without prompting any further investigation into the matter. It has even led to some considering this issue of no consequence at all.

What do the scriptures teach about the mode of baptism? How are believers to be baptized? Unfortunately, there is no “gotcha” passage in the New Testament that points us to a quick resolution of this, but as we tread beyond the usual stomping ground of whether baptizo means to immerse (and only to immerse), we should find a deeper meaning for baptism. Just as what we do with the bread and wine matters for observing communion, what we do with the waters of baptism matters as well.

Signs and Wonders

The Westminster Confession of faith opens its 28th chapter by defining baptism as a sacrament, and listing its many benefits:

Baptism is a sacrament of the New Testament, ordained by Jesus Christ, not only for the solemn admission of the party baptized into the visible church, but also to be unto him a sign and seal of the covenant of grace, of his ingrafting into Christ, of regeneration, of remission of sins, and of his giving up unto God through Jesus Christ, to walk in the newness of life: which sacrament is, by Christ’s own appointment, to be continued in his church until the end of the world.
—WCF 28.1

So what is baptism all about? Well, it is a sign (or a symbol) of the Christian’s regeneration and the remission of their sins. Baptism displays, in symbolic visual form, the new birth that is experienced by the believer and wrought by the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 12:13). For once we were dead in our tresspasses and sins, but God “made us alive, together with Christ–” (Eph. 2:5) God has given His church baptism to show us that in Christ we are made alive.

This baptism verifies the promises of the Gospel in scripture. God promised to revive, and so he showers us with the water of life through His Spirit. God promised to cleanse, and so he washes us of our sin & iniquity. It is the Gospel in picture, for the person being baptized and for all who witness the event and consider the sign. More than an empty ceremony, it gives testimony to the promise of redemption; it shows God as he holds out a righteousness that can be had by faith. In this way, baptism is similar to circumcision in that it preaches to those who receive it, although baptism does this more than circumcision ever could. Circumcision as a sign showed Christians in the Old Testament that they, by their sin, were fundamentally broken as creatures and needed their wickedness removed in order to stand in the light of a holy God. Baptism shows us more, as the washing with water pictures our Savior who was covered by our sin and cleansed as he rose again on the third day.

And yet, baptism does even more. It shows us, as Chad van Dixhoorn writes, not only redemption promised and redemption accomplished, but redemption applied.¹ Baptism points us to something real, something that happened. This sign represents to us the way in which we were brought into the house of God, and the relationship between our spiritual baptism and our righteous standing with Christ before God. Paul says as much in Galatians: “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” (Gal. 3:27) Just as Christians are joined to the visible church at their baptism, so they are ushered into Christ’s arms when they are resurrected through spiritual baptism.

Problems With Immersion

The question then becomes, what does this symbolism have to do with the mode of baptism? This particular moment is where many well-meaning Baptists ride down the hill as the cavalry coming to the rescue, declaring with every fiber of their being that immersion (or dipping) is the appropriate mode, and in fact, the only biblical mode. They are not without reason to have such confidence in immersion, as it conveys much through its symbolism. They derive their meaning from the language of being buried with Christ from places in scripture like Romans 6:4 and Colossians 2:12. The Baptist connects these passages with what he sees as the “burial” in water during an immersion baptism, or the “watery grave” as the prominent preacher Adrian Rogers called it, and there consider the matter to be ended.

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