Where is the proof that Jesus and the Ethiopian were immersed?

First let me state that I believe that the most complete symbol is immersion. However, in neither case do we have evidence of immersion. That the word is used does not need to mean submersed is attested to elsewhere: “Now why do you delay ? Get up and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on His name…; And when they come from the market, except they wash, they eat not. And many other things there be, which they have received to hold, as the washing of cups, and pots, brasen vessels, and of tables.” In the first case baptizo is equated with apolouo; to wash away, in the second the concept of wash away is encapsulated in baptismos unless they were about immersing their tables in water. No, here it means to pour water on and wash away, and if the word can mean the symbol and vice verse then washing away can mean that baptism can be symbolized in pouring and fit the definition of washing away, or to overwhelm. Beyond that, the baptism of Christ on the Cross in not immersion in water. There are other cases where it does not mean immersion, and cannot such as the reference to being bapized in the sea and in the cloud where in neither case does it mean immerse. In the case of the Ethiopian, when it is said that they went up out of the water, are we to imagine that Phillip immersed himself with the eunuch? So also can be the case with Christ at his. He was not necessarily immersed any more than the ritual washings of the Jews were always immersion.

Here is a fuller definition and explanation: “to dip repeatedly, to immerse, to submerge (of vessels sunk)
to cleanse by dipping or submerging, to wash, to make clean with water, to wash one’s self, bathe,
to overwhelm…

Not to be confused with bapto. The clearest example that shows the meaning of baptizo is a text from the Greek poet and physician Nicander, who lived about 200 B.C. It is a recipe for making pickles and is helpful because it uses both words. Nicander says that in order to make a pickle, the vegetable should first be ‘dipped’ (bapto) into boiling water and then ‘baptised’ (baptizo) in the vinegar solution. Both verbs concern the immersing of vegetables in a solution. But the first is temporary. The second, the act of baptising the vegetable, produces a permanent change. When used in the New Testament, this word more often refers to our union and identification with Christ than to our water baptism. e.g. Mark 16:16. ‘He that believes and is baptised shall be saved’. Christ is saying that mere intellectual assent is not enough. There must be a union with him, a real change, like the vegetable to the pickle! Bible Study Magazine, James Montgomery Boice, May 1989.”

And a thing to be noted is that the pickle is not removed, but is left in the solution until it has “ripened”. In other words, to be more accurate we should immerse the candidate and leave them under until the full effecaciousness of the one we are baptized is accomplished. Our motto then perhaps should be: Immersed until the last bubble pops. Once baptized into Christ, we remain hidden… at least until the parousia when Christ will open the pickle jar to reveal the new creation. To be in full obedience to symbol, if indeed it has to do with the person and not Christ, perhaps we should not raise the same body, but that which has been completed. There is more to the definition that Scripture has for its own words than a simple lingusitic analysis.

The is a fatal flaw in the argumet for immersion only, not that it is not the best way to symbolize it (though it is incomplete), but that it is not necessary to be accounted as Christian baptism for as we admit it is a symbol and not the substance.

The BFM says that baptism is a symbol the faith of the believer. That, in my opinion overthrows the symbol. It is a symbol the work of Christ, and not the work of the believer. The candidate’s immersion does symbolize his identification with it and a separated life, but primarily it is not about the believer, but about Christ. I think in this the BFM does a gross disservice to the meaning of baptism. Though there is some truth to this: “the believer’s death to sin, the burial of the old life, and the resurrection to walk in newness of life in Christ Jesus,” that is not the primary meaning, it is only derivative. Instead of an emphasis upon Christ, making it about the believer, the BFM places an emphasis upon pragmatics and not faith. But what would we expect from the SBC where pragmatics is the measure of the work of the Spirit?

Baptism is about Christ, what he did for those who will believe and not about the believing, self-sanctification, nor anything else the believer will do as a benefit of Christ’s work. It is about our identification with His works, which is as Boice says, about our union with him by him and not by anything the believer does.

‘Finally, we see that baptism is a “prequisite to the privileges of church membership and to the Lord’s Supper.”’

This is a local preference with long historic support within Baptistim and without, but what is here meant by the church? Universal, or visible? And a final question, if the Supper is only for those who have been duly baptized, why is it that the believer to be a believer has already partaken of the supper before baptism? For isn’t that what it means to become a partaker in the person and work of Christ? Before one can be baptized as a believer he must have already eaten and drunk of the Lord, or as he said, they have no part in him. (aside* Was the baptism of John sufficient, for no one had “believer’s” knowledge of Christ’s work at that time and we have no record that the disciples were ever rebaptized?) So, if the fact is that a believer has already partaken, if he is a believer indeed, before believer’s baptism, isn’t it anachronistic to say that he must be baptized first? And if we go that way, doesn’t it place the priority of baptism before union and actually invoke the same kind of condemnation that Baptists say that Presbyterians are deserving of?

I think much of the undestanding of Presbyterian baptism in the minds of Baptists is a little askew of reality. But I agree that they have gotten this wrong for they make no distinction between the circumcision of Abraham and Isaac’s and Ishmael’s. His was one of a believer, theirs was not. But, even in this, the circumcision done in youth without understanding becomes for the heirs of promise that which was Abraham’s when they later understand the meaning of it. It is in that aspect that Presbyterian’s view the child’s baptism as valid and sufficient when the later come to faith. (Remember John’s baptism noted above.) How many baptisms are necessary, and if symbolic, then who says what is the only symbol that can be used? For most who are baptized in the SBC have no true knowledge of its meaning, and in all consideration are but babes, so how is the symbol legitmized? By those who say what it must mean? But what if they are wrong, as I believe they are, in the BFM? The question must be asked, and this is where the Presbyterian gets it right and the Baptists wrong, what validates the baptism for the believer, his faith, or the timing, the mode, and the authority that performs it? The later is far more Catholic than Protestant, which is why it is often said that Baptist baptism inches closer to Rome’s baptismal regeneration than the other for it becomes sacramental and not merely symbolic at that juncture.