LBCF 29.4: “Immersion, or dipping of the person in water, is necessary for the due administration of this ordinance.”

That which is “due” refers to that which is required for an act to be properly performed. Properly performed itself needs to be defined.

There is nothing in the word “due” which contains the manner of this “proper performance”. Is it essential to the rite, such that without it the rite is not performed? Or is it possibly regarding law, not the essence but the manner of administration of the rite?

I searched for a potential scholastic Latin background to this phrase. The Latin for “necessary for the due administration” seems to be something like necessarium est ad debitam ordinationis administrationem. I cannot find documents with similar phrases which realistically bear on the discussion. It is therefore a phrase of English origination, I presume.

In much formal contemporary usage, the phrase “necessary for the due administration” refers more to the surrounding circumstances than to the act itself. This is commonly (unexpectedly) seen in legal documents. Such an example might be justice being public unless some unique circumstance require this principle be set aside temporarily “for the due administration of justice”. The point is not that justice cannot be done at all, but that its administration will be severely hindered to the extent that its judgments may be called into question.

But this notion of “due” seems to imply that it can, if challenged, be rectified at a later point. In other words, it is not a question of certainty regarding the poor performance of the act, it is the intrusion of uncertainty regarding the act’s good outcome. For instance, judges not being well able to hear one another in deliberations does not guarentee a poor judgment; if, however, a legal penalty is later characterized as overly punitive, this can be rectified by compensation, commutation etc. at a future time, and the original act of justice was confirmed to have been muted.

In the case of Baptism, some aspects could be rectified, whilst others presumably could not.

For instance:

  • being baptized without the Triune Name leaves the Baptism null and void, in fact just undone;
  • having water sprinkled rather than being immersed could not reasonably be “rectified” without doing the whole Baptism over again, so this would surely count towards the nullity of the original event, though there are other considerations here (see below);
  • faith not really being present in the baptizand, or an inner objection to the receipt of grace, could in principle be rectified by a later coming to faith, or dropping of the impediment.

Therefore, when the Baptist Confession states “Immersion, or dipping of the person in water, is necessary for the due administration”, I conclude:

  • Immersion is the natural human action signified by βαπτίζω, was the mode used in the New Testament and early Church, and was the predominant ordinary mode in the first millennium, and thus remains the standard for Holy Baptism;
  • A defect in the administration which does not destroy that of which being dipped into water is a symbol does not render the administration void, though it may raise questions in general;
    • A theoretical example of this could be where a disabled man is baptized but the immersion is unsuccessful because only the left arm and foot are actually dipped. This should not be considered a nullity even though “the person” is not dipped.
    • Pouring could in principle wet the man more than this and thus, though being an inferior mode of Baptism, does not destroy several aspects of the imagery including cleansing and being overwhelmed by the flow, and therefore, though “undue”, should be accepted as valid. Anecdotally, acceptance of pouring amongst confessional Baptists is common.
    • Out of love, if questions were to arise, they cannot be left hanging over the baptizand/baptized. The Church, with help of an Association or similar, must rule on any perceived impediment.
  • A “defect” which fails to signify the core of the original institution is a different institution. A smear from a wetted thumb is manifestly a different action from plunging into a river, and little is signified in common between the two.
    • Whether sprinkling is justly considered adequate is a matter for debate. We would not deny a man has washed if he had a shower rather than a bath. This is because a shower is a broken pour. Is a sprinkle a broken pour? Presumably it is a broken very brief pour. The intention of the act of sprinkling is certainly to symbolize cleansing, but this mode is selected instead of the one handed to us by our Lord, Whose prerogative it was to select His own preferred verbal signifier, aligning in His mind with the intended verbal action (not sprinkling).

In my brief search of original-generation Particular Baptists, few would appear to admit pouring to be acceptable, and none would admit a Baptism of one lacking of present faith, since Baptism is “a Sign of present Regeneration, not Future” (Keach, Gold Refin’d, p.82–3.). I have my own argument as to why this is an untenable position, at least in the manner originally intended by Keach.