MARSHALL The Meaning of the Verb 'Baptize' 9
the normal use of the word-group in this literal sense is religious: it is a
ritual action that is being described,^5 and therefore a term which indicates
that this is what is happening is to be preferred; the terms 'baptize' and
'baptism' fill this need. In this way 'to baptize' in current English usage
does not mean simply to dip in water (or even to sprinkle with water) but
rather to carry out a specific rite involving such an action with water and
with a religious significance.^6
Secondly, the term apparently became a technical one to describe the
ceremony of Christian initiation whose central feature was this ritual using
water (generally understood to be originally by dipping or immersion), so
that the word referred to the ceremony as a whole instead of the mere
action with water and could be used to express the 'spiritual' or meta-
phorical action that was associated with it. Thus when Paul speaks of those
of us who 'have been baptized into Christ Jesus' and hence 'into his death'
(Rom. 6.3-4) what he means is not that we have been dipped in Christ or
in his death, on the analogy of dipping into water, but rather that the act of
Christian baptism with water and its accompanying acts of faith and
repentance bring us into a particular relationship with Jesus and his death.^7
Here, therefore, the verb has lost its literal sense, although overtones of it
still persist, and it refers more to the carrying out of a Christian initiation
rite with spiritual consequences.^8
Immerser'. The same phrase is used in the title of her book by J.E. Taylor, The
Immerser: John the Baptist within Second Temple Judaism (SHJ; Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1997).
- When the language is used of objects rather than persons (Mk 7.4), the term
'wash' is generally used. - Cf. J.D.G. Dunn, '"Baptized" as Metaphor', in S.E. Porter and A.R. Cross
(eds.), Baptism, the New Testament and the Church: Historical and Contemporary
Studies in Honour ofR.E.O. White (JSNTSup, 171; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic
Press, 1999), pp. 294-310, esp. p. 303: 'the term comes to us in the New Testament as
already a specialized use of the more general term, "dip" or "immerse", as already a
technical term to be translated not as "dip" or "immerse" but as "baptize", as in effect a
new word'. - J.D.G. Dunn, Baptism in the Holy Spirit: A Re-examination of the New Testa-
ment Teaching on the Gift of the Spirit in Relation to Pentecostalism Today (London:
SCM Press, 1970), p. 227, insists that the term 'baptism' never has both its literal and
metaphorical meanings simultaneously in the New Testament: 'Spirit-baptism and
water-baptism remain distinct and even antithetical, the latter being a preparation for
the former and the means by which the believer actually reaches out in faith to receive
the former'. See further Dunn, '"Baptized" as Metaphor' (n. 6 above). - It may be noted that J.P. Louw and E.A. Nida, Greek-English Lexicon Based