We are continuing to work through biblical words and terms, and we are looking at some of the great teachings of scripture found in the words of scripture. It is important that we do these kinds of word studies and see them in context and see how they are used so we understand how God wants us to live.
Today we are going to look at the word baptism or baptize. You will find the word baptize many times in the New Testament. That is really not a translation. The translations from the Greek and the Hebrew is different. This is a transliteration. Simply taking the Greek words letter by letter into the English text. I think the reason why that happened is because by the time the English bibles were being translated, there had been several confusing ideas about baptism floating around the Christian church. As a result of that, or in order to have their translations accepted by the various groups, it was just wiser not to translate the word and simply transliterate it over and let everybody else fight for the rest of time over what it meant.
The word itself means to immerse or dip. That is where the problem came in because early in church history, not long after the apostles passed away, we find one of the very earliest of heresies had to do with baptism. Very quickly, people began to baptize children with the idea that by baptizing those children, they would be saved, and an unbaptized child would not be saved. Of course, that teaching is not found in scripture anywhere. Then that bled over later to baptizing adults for salvation. So, there was the heresy of baptismal regeneration that began to pop up very early in church history. Then there were others that would come along, especially at the time of the Reformation, and they would continue to baptize infants, but not for salvation. They said they are bringing the children into the covenant, but not for salvation itself . . .
