Buried and Raised With Christ!
A Word From The Word: Baptism
Sometimes we find words in scripture that everyone is familiar with—yet few actually understand. There are various reasons for this. We have to remember that if we are reading the scripture in English, we are reading someone’s translation of the original Greek or Hebrew, and every translator or committee of translators has biases. Sometimes these biases are even published so that we are aware of them. More often, we have to do some digging to discover what these biases are.
One of the most commonly misunderstood words is a victim of translator bias hundreds of years ago. It is the word “baptism”. Baptism isn’t even an English word—it is a Greek word presented in English letters. This dates back to the first English translations. When these translations first began to be made, the translators were taking their life in their hands simply by translating the scripture into English. Doing so carried the death penalty in England. So serious was this crime that one poor fellow was sentenced to death for translating the scripture without permission from the king. Unfortunately, he was already dead! So, to make his point, the king had him dug up and executed!
This shows you the pressure the translators of the original authorized version (authorized by King James, hence, the King James version) were under. When they came to the word “baptisma”, which meant (and means today) to dip, plunge under or immerse, they had a problem. The people who taught that baptism was to be by immersion also usually taught that infants were not valid candidates for baptism. Therefore, they taught, “baptism” of babies by sprinkling or pouring water over them, was not truly baptism. They were therefore called “anabaptists”. In those days, being an anabaptist in England carried the death penalty! (Yes, there were a lot of ways to get yourself executed in those days!)
So, imagine you are a translator, translating the first authorized version into English. But, you come to this word and you know that if you translate it faithfully (“immersed” or “dipped”), you could be killed! On the other hand, you believe this is God’s word, and you are against purposely mistranslating the word as “sprinkled” or “poured”. What do you do?
Their answer was to not translate the word at all, but to simply spell the Greek word with English letters (this is called transliteration). Since then, the Greek words “baptisma” (the noun) and “baptize” (the verb) are not translated at all—they were transliterated. Unfortunately, this has led to confusion regarding the meaning of the scripture for all who use English translations.
When Jesus said we were to baptized in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19) when we come to Him, He was using a symbol that was well known both to Jews and Gentiles. When a Gentile wanted to become a Jew, he had to be dipped under water, symbolizing the death of the Gentile, and raised out of the water, symbolizing the birth of a new member of the nation of Israel! The same initiation ritual was used by various Greek and Persian religions. Everyone knew what Jesus (and John before Him) meant. Baptism was the immersion of someone symbolizing their death, and the raising from the water of that person symbolizing a new birth. Paul reminded people of this in Romans 6:3-7.
Christians need to understand this for two reasons: First, by failing to properly translate the scripture so all could understand it clearly, division was continued in the body of Christ–division that even led to killing one another, and which persists today.
Second, we need to understand that we are identifying with Jesus’ death as we are immersed and that we are raised with Him into new life. How many Christians with shaky faith, living in fear of this world and/or the life to come need this encouragement? Yet to truly encourage one another in this way risks great division even today!
For those who would argue with the veracity of what I have written, please know that this is not just my perspective. I was taught this by Catholic theologians in a Jesuit university. When I challenged their teaching of this based on their different practice, I was simply told, “Yes, we changed it!”. Even theologians such as Martin Luther and John Calvin agreed that the word “baptism” meant to immerse or dip a person. I am not writing this to rekindle old arguments over the mode of baptism or the time of salvation, but to focus on the need to understand God’s word!
So, if you have not been baptized into Christ, understand that it was His command that you be immersed in water when you become His disciple to symbolize that the old person is dying and the new one is raised to walk in new life! For those who have been baptized–be encouraged by the fact that Jesus wanted you to know you have died with Him are now a new creation!
Know Jesus, and Be Faithful!
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