A Bible History of Baptism

Section XXXVIII. —The Baptism of Naaman

In the Septuagint or Greek Scriptures, baptizo first appears in the account of the healing of Naaman. “Elisha sent a messenger unto him saying, Go and wash in Jordan seven times, and thy flesh shall come again to thee, and thou shalt be clean… Then went he down, and dipped himself seven times in Jordan according to the saying of the man of God.” – 2 Kings v, 10, 14. It is asserted that here is clearly an immersion. – “He went down and dipped himself seven times.” Respecting the question thus raised, it is, in the first place, to be distinctly noticed, that the decision, whatever it be, can not in any way neutralize or diminish the force of the argument already developed from the divers baptisms of the epistle to the Hebrews. Were we to allow that Naaman was immersed, that fact would constitute no reply to the demonstration that no immersions were “imposed on Israel,” although divers baptisms were imposed. But, that there was no immersion in this case, will appear in what follows.

1. The word upon which the immersion argument here rests, is the Hebrew tābal, which is translated, “he dipped.” As to its meaning in this place, there are several available sources of information. First, is the manner in which the word is employed elsewhere in the Scriptures. It occurs, in all, but fifteen times. It is evident, that while these places are sufficient to establish the fact that the word was used as they illustrate, they are wholly insufficient to constitute a basis for the assumption that it was never used in a sense not there found, or in a sense not there doubly illustrated. For example, Gesenius gives, “to immerse,” as one of the meanings, and appeals to the text of Naaman as the only example. Without pretending to emulate the learning of that great scholar, I venture to assert that, although the definition be not illustrated by other examples, there is abundant and various evidence that the word is here used as the equivalent of rāhatz, to wash, according to the proper sense of that word as already ascertained. The primary and essential idea of tābal appears to be contact by touch, a contact which may be of the slightest and most superficial kind, as when the priest was directed to dip the finger of his right hand in a few drops of oil held in the palm of his left hand (Lev. xiv, 15, 16), and when those who bore the ark dipped the soles of their feet in the brim or edge of Jordan and the waters instantly fled away. (Josh. iii, 13, 15.) Again, it is used to describe the staining or smearing of Joseph’s coat with the blood of the kid. (Gen. xxxvii, 31.) In this case, there can have been no immersion, since the blood of a kid would have been wholly insufficient, and the uniform stain thus induced would have detected the fraud of Joseph’s brothers, as the violence of a wild beast would not have produced such a result. How the word, in this place was understood by the rabbins of Alexandria, is shown by the Greek of the Septuagint, in which it is represented by moluno, to soil, to stain, to smear. “They stained or smeared his coat with the blood.” The same is no doubt the meaning of Job, when he says to God, “Yet shalt thou plunge me in the ditch and mine own clothes shall abhor me.” – Job ix, 31. Not the mode of action, but the soiling contact, was the thought present to Job’s mind. The usage of the word in the Scriptures does not justify the belief that it is ever employed in the energy of meaning expressed by “plunge.” “Yet shalt thou soil me in the ditch.”

Another source of information is the direction given to Naaman by Elisha. He dipped himself seven times “according to the saying, of the man of God.” What was that saying? Did Elisha direct him to be immersed seven times? Elisha sent to him, saying “Go, wash in Jordan seven times.” The verb, rāhatz, to wash, we have examined. It means, to perform ablution with water applied to the person. It does not mean, to immerse, nor can the action expressed by it be accomplished by immersion. It is, moreover, observable, that, as though to emphasize the employment of this word, it is twice repeated in the narrative. Upon receiving Elisha’s message, Naaman exclaims, – “Abana and Pharpar… May I not wash in them and be clean?” And his servants reply, – “If he had bid thee do some great thing, … how much rather, when he saith to thee, Wash, and be clean.” Manifestly, the thing which the Syrian was commanded, was not, to immerse, but, to wash himself. And when to the meaning of that verb, we add the facts already developed as to the customs of ablution in those lands, the conclusion is manifest. Naaman was not directed to dip or immerse himself, but expressly, to wash; and if he was in fact dipped, it was not “according to the saying of the man of God,” but in express contravention of it. It may be objected, that a sprinkling is not a washing. But the Psalmist gives a different testimony. “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.” Here, the word, “Wash,” which is made parallel and equivalent to “Purge me with hyssop,” is not rāhatz, but the yet stronger term, kābas, scour me. The very designation of “the unclean,” for whose “cleansing” those rites were appointed is conclusive on the point. That the sprinklings thus ordained were, in the law everywhere, viewed as washings, is undeniable; and in fact, to wash with water applied, which is the meaning of rāhatz, is the very action of sprinkling. Moreover, in Ezek. xvi, 9, the cleansing of the defilement of nidda, for which sprinkling was the ritual remedy, is described as a washing of the most vigorous and thorough nature. “Then (rāhatz) washed I thee with water; yea (shātaph), I thoroughly washed away thy blood from thee.” How the sprinkling of water can be expressive of such thorough cleansing, we have already seen. It is very strikingly illustrated by the language of the Lord to Israel by Ezekiel. “Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you and ye shall be clean; from all your filthiness and from all your idols will I cleanse you.” – Ezek. xxxvi, 25.

The usage of the Scriptures, as to words equivalent to tābal, will shed further light on the present question. The word is ordinarily represented in the Septuagint Greek, by bapto. Of this verb, we have already stated that it means to dip; to wet, by dipping; to wet in any mode; to stain or dye by dipping; to dye, even by sprinkling. In the Chaldee of the book of Daniel, the word equivalent to tābal is tzeba. It thrice occurs in the description of the calamity of Nebuchadnezzar, when he was cast out with the beasts of the field, and “his body was wet with the dew of heaven.” – Dan. iv, 23, 25, 33. In each of these places, the Septuagint has bapto, an illustration of the fact that the latter word, even, does not “always mean, to dip.” If tābal followed the analogy of these its Greek and Chaldee equivalents, we are to expect among its secondary meanings that of wetting by affusion. In the place concerning Naaman, the word by which tābal is translated into the Greek is baptizo. This fact of itself makes it certain that the Septuagint translators did not understand Naaman to have been dipped, or immersed; else they would have expressed the fact by bapto, or kataduo, instead of baptizo, which, in their vocabulary, as we shall presently show, was used to express purification by sprinkling with the water of separation; as we have already seen Paul to employ it in the same way.

2. While these facts, of themselves, make it certain that Naaman was not immersed, there remains evidence even more conclusive, in the relation which Elisha himself and this whole transaction sustained to the covenant law, as given to Israel at Sinai. In considering this case, there are certain fundamental facts to be held ever in view. (1.) Leprosy was, at once, a disease and a ritual uncleanness; and was distinctly recognized in these two several aspects, in the law of God; and hence the leper could not but be ritually unclean, whilst the mere healing of the disease left him still unclean. He must be purified as well as healed. (2.) The ritual law was not a scheme of arbitrary or unmeaning regulations, but a system of accordant symbols, each of which had its own distinct meaning, and all of which together constituted a complete and intelligible exposition of the doctrine of sin and redemption. Particularly had the ritual respecting leprosy a meaning at once manifest, impressive, and profound. So important was it, in the estimation of the divine Lawgiver of Israel, that the strict observance of all its requirements was enforced by a new and special admonition addressed to them on the banks of Jordan, after the forty years wandering in the wilderness. “Take heed, in the plague of leprosy, that thou observe diligently and do according to all that the priests the Levites shall teach you; as I commanded them, so ye shall observe to do. Remember what the Lord thy God did unto Miriam by the way, after that ye were come forth out of Egypt.” – Deut. xxiv, 8, 9. (3.) This law had now been in operation for six hundred years, whilst its regulations were such as to arrest and fix the attention of all observers. (4.) To Naaman, a Syrian, of a country immediately contiguous to the land of Israel, and belonging to a people of kindred blood, language, traditions, and customs, the Hebrew ideas on this subject, so interesting to him, can not have been unknown or strange. Even had he been otherwise ignorant, he could not but have been informed by the Hebrew maiden at whose suggestion he undertook his journey to the court of Israel, in quest of healing. That hers must have been a character of both intelligence and piety, is evident from the whole narrative, and especially from the fact that it inspired such confidence as led the Syrian, at her suggestion, to obtain from his king letters to the king of Israel, and to go to that court, in the hope of cure, bearing with him rich gifts, designed as tokens of gratitude. (2 Kings, v, 2-5.) (5.) The whole history shows this episode in the life of Elisha to have been any thing but a casual incident. It bears every mark of a special and extraordinary providence, designed to bring home to the Syrians and to Israel a signal testimony to the power and grace of the true God. The peculiar relation which Elijah and Elisha bore to the Syrians is illustrated by the fact that, at this very time, the latter held a commission from God through Elijah to anoint Hazael to be king of Syria, instead of the reigning king Benhadad; by Elisha’s subsequent presence in Damascus, in fulfillment of that commission, and by the application which Benhadad made to him, to inquire of the Lord as to the issue of the disease which was then upon him. (1 Kings xix, 15-17; 2 Kings viii, 7-13.)

3. Elisha treats the case of Naaman as typical in its nature, and as coming under the provisions of the law for the cleansing of leprosy. This is manifest from three things which appear in the very brief narrative. (1) In his message to Naaman, he distinguishes between the physical healing, and the ritual cleansing. “Thy flesh shall come again unto thee; and, thou shalt be clean.” Thus each is separately promised. (2.) He requires Naaman to “wash seven times.” The meaning of this seven times we have seen. It symbolized a radical cure of the evil of heart leprosy, the native corruption of sin – a cure by which the sinner will be presented pure and sanctified in the seventh, or judgment day. The mode of this cure was represented in the law by sprinkling seven times. The priest “shall sprinkle upon him that is to be cleansed from the leprosy seven times, and shall pronounce him clean.” – Lev. xiv, 7. (3.) He must wash in the river Jordan, and nowhere else. But why there? Because the cleansing of the leper, according to the law must be by sprinkling with “running water.” – Lev. xiv, 5, 6, 50-52. For the self-washing, no such prescription was given. The Jordan was appointed, because healing to the leper meant life to the dead. It meant the renewing grace of the Holy Spirit, and for this none but the water of life that flows in the river of the heavenly Canaan will suffice. And inasmuch as the land of Israel was typical of that better country, no water so proper for the present occasion as that which flowed in the one river of Israel. If Palestine was made a type of heaven, the one river of Palestine at once became the proper type of that “river of God, which is full of water.”

4. Naaman recognized the significance of the directions given by the prophet, and was offended at them. – “Behold, I thought, He will surely come out to me, and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, and strike his hand over the place, and recover the leper. Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? May I not wash in them and be clean? So he turned and went away in a rage.” – 2 Kings v, 11, 12. Here (1.) Naaman sharply distinguishes between the healing and the cleansing. For the latter purpose, the waters of Abana and Pharpar were sufficient for him, – better than all those of Israel. All he wanted was, that the prophet should heal him; and for this he was ready to reward him liberally. But, instead of being treated with the consideration due to a lordly patron, he feels himself insulted, by being expected to take the position of an unclean and humble suppliant; and that, too, at the feet of the God of Israel. For, (2.) he indicates his understanding of what was meant by the prophet’s message. If Elisha had come out and healed the leprosy, as Naaman expected, it would have been perfectly consistent with the idolatrous religion of the Syrian to recognize Elisha as a great prophet, and the God of Elisha as one of the great gods; although entitled to no exclusive worship from the Syrians, whose tutelary deity was Rimmon. But, when the prophet, instead of this, sent him to Jordan to be cleansed, and that by washing seven times, the Syrian recognized that he was thus required to own allegiance to the God of Israel, and to humble himself, as utterly unclean in His sight, and look to him, as alone able to heal his leprosy, or cleanse his sins. In a word, he was, by the message of the prophet, brought face to face with the glad but humbling word of the gospel, as it spake so clearly in the rites of cleansing for leprosy. That, in the result, he accepted the good tidings thus announced, may not be asserted with confidence. But, that he professed to do so, the narrative assures us. “Behold, now, I know that there is no God in all the earth but in Israel.” – vs. 15. By this profession of faith, and by his application to Elisha for two mules’ burden of the earth of Canaan, with which to make an altar to the God of Israel, the Syrian showed his intelligent appreciation of the issues involved in the observances required by Elisha, and of the typical meaning of the land and river of Israel. The purpose of the earth for which he asked was to make an altar, after the manner of those appointed in the law; which appear to have been frames or boxes filled with earth on which the fire was kindled. (Ex. xx, 24.)

5. The attempt of some writers to derive countenance to the idea of immersion, in this case, from the Levitical rites of purifying for leprosy, is wholly futile. They refer to the self-washings which were required of the cleansed leper, and assume, without a pretense of proof, that they were immersions. We have seen that they were not immersions, but affusions. But, that it was not to them, but to the sprinklings of the law that the directions of Elisha refer, is unmistakably indicated by the seven times required. The self-washings were to be performed but twice. On the first day, the seven sprinklings were administered, and the person was then, by the priest, officially proclaimed to be clean. (Lev. xiv, 7.) It was after this, that the man thus clean, was required to perform the first self-washing. This was repeated once only, – on the eighth day. This distinction between the sprinklings which cleansed the leper, and the self-washings which were required of him as being clean, is not casual, but essential, and intimately involved in the difference of meaning between them. By no system of interpretation, therefore, can seven supposed immersions of Naaman be identified with the two self-washings required by the law. To imagine the Syrian to have been directed to seek cleansing by means of the latter, and not by the seven sprinklings, would be to suppose him instructed by the prophet to seek to his own outward righteousness as the means of purging away his sins, and not to the virtue of the blood and Spirit of Christ, penetrating to his heart and renewing the inner man. Self-washing, as dependent upon and subordinate to the sprinkling of the water and blood, is beautifully significant of that evangelical obedience and holiness which believers cultivate, whilst resting wholly on the righteousness of Christ; and which is acceptable only thus. But a self-washing, without the sprinkling, or even magnified to equality with it, can mean nothing else than a disparagement and rejection of Christ’s blood and Spirit, and a trusting to our own works of righteousness, – to a cleansing and holiness self-attained. It would be a denial of the need of the Spirit’s renewing grace.

6. Israel and the ordinances given her were appointed to be a gospel beacon to the nations. In furtherance of this purpose, the rites and ordinances with which she was endowed were clothed in forms of transparent significance, selected by divine wisdom as best adapted to set forth the gospel for men’s instruction. To suppose Elisha, on this occasion, to have ignored or essentially modified those respecting leprosy, would imply him to have deliberately veiled the light which God had kindled for the Gentiles. If any ritual observances were required of Naaman, the alternative was inevitable, that they be those appointed in the law, or that by neglect these be dishonored. No motive for the supposed change can be suggested that will not imply a disparagement of the neglected rite.

7. The distinctive office successively filled by Elijah and Elisha was that of prophet to the separated kingdom of Israel, to whom they were sent to vindicate the repudiated covenant of Sinai against the apostasies and sins of that people. (1 Kings, xix, 8, 10, 14-18.) They were appointed to keep alive in Israel the knowledge and faith of the covenant God and King whose worship and ordinances at Jerusalem they had wickedly abandoned. In the extraordinary circumstances of Naaman the offerings which the cleansed leper was required to make at the temple on the eighth day after his purifying, may have been omitted. But the supposition that the rites proper to the purifying, itself, were changed without necessity or apparent motive, so that instead of being sprinkled seven times, Naaman was seven times immersed, would imply that Elisha not only thus publicly repudiated the authority of the Levitical law, but at the same time and in so doing gave direct sanction to the conduct of Israel, in separating themselves from the temple at Jerusalem and the ordinances and worship which, by divine command, were there observed. The rites of purifying were part and parcel of the system of ordinances given to Israel and concentrated at the sanctuary, – a system, in all its parts, congruous and interdependent; each shedding mutual light on all the rest. If Naaman was sprinkled seven times, according to the Levitical order, that fact would of itself have referred him to the Word and ordinances of God, for light and information, as to the vastly important questions suggested to him by the nature and manner of his disease and cleansing. But, if he was immersed, the observance was without authority in the law; without example in the Word, then possessed or afterward given to Israel; without point of contact or principle of congruity or connection with the system therein unfolded; without explanation anywhere, and without conceivable motive or meaning, unless it was, to repudiate the authority of the Levitical law. Instead, therefore, of the ordinance being a guide line, to lead Naaman to the Word and worship of the true God, the natural effect of such a change as is supposed would have been to deter him from any such inquiries. The facts would have certified him that the God of Elisha was not the same that reigned at Jerusalem; – that the doctrine of the one, set forth in the rite of sprinkling, was manifestly different from that of the other expressed by immersion, – and that, therefore, the Word and ordinances of the God who dwelt in Zion were likely to mislead him, rather than to shed a true light upon the character of the God of Elisha, by whom he had been healed. The snare thus presented to the mind of Naaman would have been the more insidious and fatal in proportion as he should still have recognized an intimate relation, or even a kind of identity, between the God of Israel and the God of Judah. It was a general characteristic of the ancient idolatries, that the same gods, as worshiped at different places, were supposed to be endowed with different attributes and affinities, and to require different rites of worship. Thus, Zeus Olympius, Jupiter Capitolinus, and Jupiter Amon, were looked upon as the same deity; but revealing one character, as on Olympus he was worshiped by the tribes of Greece; another, as, on the Capitoline hill he presided over the destinies of mighty Rome; and yet another to the dark tribes who assembled at his temple in Thebes in Upper Egypt. Such was the idolatry which the supposed rite would have tended to confirm in the mind of Naaman. To all this we are to add the fact that the very purpose of the miracle wrought by Elisha was to let the Syrian “know that there is a prophet in Israel.” – 2 Kings v, 8. Not, certainly, that Elisha thus proposed to glorify himself: but to announce himself a prophet and witness, for the only living and true God, the God of Israel, whose sanctuary was in Zion. (Compare Ib. 15-18.)

8. The fact that no administrator is mentioned, but Naaman is said to have “baptized himself,” is no embarrassment to our position. The self-baptism implied by the phrase, in the English translation, is not required by the form of the Greek nor of the Hebrew. The same kind of expression is used, in the directions originally given as to the water of separation. “If he purify not himself the third day, then the seventh day he shall not be clean. Whosoever toucheth the dead body of any man that is dead, and purifieth not himself … the water of separation was not sprinkled on him; he shall be unclean… A clean person shall sprinkle on the unclean on the third day and on the seventh.” – Num. xix, 12, 13, 19. The form of expression is intended to emphasize the responsibility of the person in the matter of his own cleansing, and is equivalent in meaning to the phrase, – “cause himself to be sprinkled.” Although he can not cleanse himself, he is not therefore irresponsible. He must seek to the cleansing, if he would enjoy it. The same form is used by Paul, who speaks of Ananias as saying to him (Anastas, baptisai), “Rising, baptize thyself, and wash away thy sins.” – Acts xxii, 16. In the parallel account, we are told that “he arose and was baptized.” – Acts ix, 18.