22 Dimensions of Baptism
Paul's language would appear to lie not so much in an interpretation of the
rite of immersion as in the historical facts of Christ's death and resur-
rection.^41 The theological point which Paul is making is thus not drawn
from baptism as such but from the historical fact of what happened to
Christ, and hence it is not tied to a particular mode of baptism. Immersion
may afford a useful symbolism of burial with Christ, but we do not need to
presuppose immersion in order to explain Paul's terminology any more
than in the case of circumcision regarded as an aspect of baptism (Col.
2.11-12).
At the same time, immersion fails to offer a fitting symbolism for the
concept of sprinkling and pouring out which is also associated with bap-
tism in the New Testament. It is rather the case that the association of the
ideas of washing and the pouring out of the Spirit in Tit. 3.5-6 suggests
that affusion was also practised. This point brings us back to the baptism
of Jesus. At his baptism the Spirit descended upon him from above, an
event in no way analogous to immersion in a river. We must conclude that
when John spoke of baptism with the Spirit he had in mind the descent of
the Spirit from above like a stream of water pouring over a person. It would
be a baptism with the Spirit and with fire in the sense that it would mean
purifying and purging by an agency more powerful than water. But if this
is how the verb 'baptize' is to be understood in relation to the Spirit, then
the same can also be true when it is used in relation to water. For John the
Baptist 'baptize' cannot have referred purely to dipping or plunging in
water. The verb must imply being drenched with water from above as well
as from below.^42 Put otherwise, the verb does not so much draw attention
to the mode of drenching (sc. by an act of immersion in water or other-
wise) as to the fact of the drenching and the cleansing which it conveys.
What John meant was 'I have drenched you with water, but he will drench
you with the Holy Spirit', or 'I have cleansed/purified you with water, but
he will cleanse/purify you with the Holy Spirit'.
- E. Stommel,' "Begraben mit Christus" (Rom 6,4) und der Taufritus', RQ 49
(1954), pp. 1-20; R. Schnackenburg, Baptism in the Thought of St Paul (Oxford: Basil
Blackwell, 1964), pp. 54-61. Similarly, Theissen, Theory, argues that there is no real
parallel between immersion and the death of Jesus by crucifixion followed by burial.
The fact that later writers drew the parallel does not mean that it was necessarily drawn
by Paul. See further A. Campbell, 'Dying with Christ: The Origin of a Metaphor?', in
Porter and Cross (eds.), Baptism, pp. 273-93 (286-87). - This is probably also implied in the Manual of Discipline, which refers to both
washing and sprinkling (1QS 3.4-9; 4.20-21).