A Bible History of Baptism. Samuel J. Baird
several case, sacrificial elements—blood or ashes—were applied by sprinkling. In each, those elements were mingled with running water, and the instrument for sprinkling was a bush of hyssop, and in each, scarlet and cedar were used.
The meaning of the scarlet, cedar, and hyssop is unexplained in the Scriptures. Expositors have wandered in conjectures, leading to no satisfactory conclusions. One result of their use is manifest. To us, devoid of meaning, they more distinctly mark the essential identity of the rites, in which they occupy the same place, and perform the same office. This may have been one design of their use.
The essential identity of these rites is altogether consistent with the minute variations in their forms. These had respect to the diversity of circumstances under which they were administered. The inferior dignity of a single person, a leper, as compared with the whole people, explains the acceptance of lambs or birds for his offerings, while bulls and goats were sacrificed for the nation. In the case of ordinary uncleannesses, the circumstances rendered special provision necessary. Sacrifice was lawful only at the sanctuary, which was the figure of the one holy place and altar where Christ ministers in heaven. But death and other causes of uncleanness were occurring everywhere. The ashes of the red heifer were, therefore, provided. They presented sacrificial elements in a form incorruptible and convenient for transportation. They were a most fitting representation of the “incorruptible blood of Christ.” And, as the proper place of the priests was at the sanctuary, and their presence could not be expected on every occasion of uncleanness elsewhere, it was appointed that any clean person might perform the sprinkling. This was, in fact, a mere ministerial sequel to the sacrificial rites, performed by the priest, at the burning of the red heifer. The probability of the circumstances, and intimations from the rabbins, lead to the conclusion that, as the priests multiplied and were released from the necessity of constant attendance at the sanctuary, they were commonly called to sprinkle the water of purifying. In fact, the Talmud indicates that in the later times the administration, when practicable, took place at Jerusalem, by the hands of the priests, with water from the pool of Siloam, which, flowing from beneath the temple, was recognized as a type of the Holy Spirit.[11]
The minute variations traceable in these rites only make it the more clear that essentially, in form, meaning, and office, they were one baptism.
Section XXI.—This Symbol was derived from the Rain.
We have seen, in the prophecy of Isaiah, the source whence the figure of sprinkling or pouring is derived. “I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground; I will pour my Spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring; and they shall spring up as among the grass, as willows by the water courses.”—Isa. xliv, 3, 4. It is the descent of the rain from heaven, penetrating the earth, and converting its deadness into life, abundance, and beauty.
Herein the rites in question stand in beautiful contrast with the self-washings of the law. The latter accomplished a surface cleansing, by a process which neither could, nor was designed to penetrate the substance, or to affect its essential state or nature. They indicated to God’s people the duty of conforming the external life to the grace wrought in the heart by the Holy Spirit. But the rite of sprinkling represented the rain of God, sent down from heaven, penetrating the soil, pervading and saturating it, converting its hard, dead, and sterile clods into softness, life, and fertility, and causing the plants and fruits of the earth to spring forth, saturated with the same moisture, and thus possessed and pervaded with the same spirit of life. Thus was typified the work of the Spirit, entering, pervading, and softening the stony heart, converting all its powers and faculties as instruments of holiness to God, and causing the plants of righteousness to spring up and grow in the life and conduct.
The two words, sprinkle, and pour, are used throughout the Scriptures with reference to the same figure of rain, the only apparent difference being that the word, pour, expresses the idea of abundance. No phenomenon of nature is of greater manifest importance, or more pervasive and vital in its influences than the rain of heaven, and none more suitable to illustrate the method of grace. The land from which the rains are withheld is without fruit, or beauty, or attraction. It is given over to barrenness, death, and cursing; and, in the language of the Scriptures, is accounted unclean, as being shut out from the favor of God, whose favor is life. Hence, the word of God, to the prophet, concerning Israel: “Son of man, say unto her, Thou art the land that is not cleansed, nor rained upon, in the day of indignation.”—Ezek. xxii, 24. Similar is the significance of our Savior’s words: “When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places” (anhudrōn topōn, “waterless places”), places congenial to him because unblessed with the Spirit’s presence. (Matt. xii, 43; Luke xi, 24.)
Illustrations from the Scriptures might be multiplied, showing this origin of the form of baptism. Isaiah says of the blessings to be bestowed on Israel in the latter days, that the times of desolation shall continue “until the Spirit be poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness be a fruitful field, and the fruitful field be counted for a forest.”—Isa. xxxii, 15. In another place he cries, “Drop down, ye heavens from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness; let the earth open, and let them bring forth salvation, and let righteousness spring up together; I the Lord have created it.”—Isa. xlv, 8. Hosea says of him: “His going forth is prepared as the morning; and he shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter and former rain unto the earth.”—Hosea vi, 3. And again, “Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground; for it is time to seek the Lord, till he come and rain righteousness upon you.”—Ib. x, 12.
The whole conception thus unfolded is assailed and repudiated by writers who assume that physical phenomena can not be used to set forth spiritual realities. Dr. Carson insists that “Baptism can not be either pouring or dipping, for the sake of representing the manner of the conveyance of the Holy Spirit, for there is no such likeness. Pouring of the Spirit is a phrase which is itself a figure, and not a reality to be represented by a figure.”[12] The learned doctor has confounded himself with his own subtlety. On the day of Pentecost, there was a blessed “reality” of some kind experienced by the apostles and converts. There is no absurdity, such as he imagines, in the supposition that the pouring or sprinkling of water may be an appropriate physical representation and symbol of that spiritual reality, and that words descriptive of that symbol may be appropriate for the verbal designation of the thing signified. If the assertion of Dr. Carson is to be accepted, it is fatal not to baptism only but to the other sacrament also. “Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, ye have no life in you.”—John vi, 53. Shall we be told that this language of our Savior “is itself a figure, and not a reality to be represented by a figure.” Then, we may not eat the bread and drink the wine, to represent this very thing, the feeding of the soul, by faith, on Christ. To do so is absurd if Dr. Carson’s position is sound. It is true that a figure of speech of a figure of speech, would be nonsense. But it is equally true that it is the beauty of a metaphor—the figure in question—to be susceptible of physical representation. Nor is there any absurdity in the supposition that a spiritual act may be represented by two co-ordinate figures—the one a figure of physical action, and the other a figure of speech, descriptive of that action.
Besides, the assertion that “baptism can not be either by pouring or dipping for the sake of representing the manner of the conveyance of the Holy Spirit; for there is no such likeness,” is not merely an assumption of knowledge concerning the invisible things of God which no mortal can possess. But, if the language is to be understood in any sense pertinent to the purpose of Dr. Carson, it is a plain contradiction of the testimony of God himself on the subject. True, there is no physical outpouring predicable of God the Spirit. It is as true of the Doctor’s own word;—there is no physical “conveyance of the Holy Spirit.” Does it, therefore, follow that there is no conveyance, no outpouring? He might with as good reason quibble as to the exaltation of Christ, because height and depth are mere relative terms, which change their direction, at every moment of the earth’s motion on its axis and its orbit. His objection equally applies to the entire ritual of the Scriptures, robs it of all spiritual meaning and renders the whole utterly inane and worthless. And yet, if Paul’s testimony