Dorothy Page Part 6

"G.o.d banked up the waters on both sides and let them walk through untouched by the water."

"Did you say the waters were banked on both sides of them and that a cloud covered them?"

"Yes."

"Isn't that a picture of immersion? The ground was under them, the water on both sides and the cloud covered them. It was much more like an immersion than a sprinkling."

"Hold on," said Sterling. "The cloud was not over them, but back of them. The cloud was always either before or behind them, but never over them; consequently they were not covered up and the water did not even touch them--unless perhaps they were sprinkled by the spray from the wall of waters."

"Let me see the pa.s.sage," said Dorothy. She turned to Exodus 14:21. "But look!" she exclaimed, "it reads, 'and the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea'."

"You don't think, Miss Dorothy, that they actually plunged into the middle of the sea?" asked Sterling with a smile.

"Of course not, Mr. Sterling; and yet their position in that sea gave the idea to the writer of their being in the midst of the sea. To his mind it looked as if they were covered or buried in the sea, and that is immersion. The Old Testament writer calls it a baptism and the Old Testament historian speaks of them as being in the midst of the sea.

Which does that look more like--sprinkling or immersion?"

Sterling was getting excited. It seemed to him that Dorothy was moving further and further away from him, and he imagined he saw a chasm opening between her views and his own. But he braced himself for the struggle. To him the mode of baptism was by no means a life and death matter, but Dorothy seemed to recoil from the practice of sprinkling.

Sterling cheered himself with the thought that he had certain pa.s.sages to show her that would turn the tide. He said to her with a confident ring in his voice:

"Miss Dorothy, I have an arrow here from the Bible quiver which I think will give the death blow to the immersion theory and prove beyond the glimmer of a doubt that pouring is the scriptural mode of baptism."

"I thought you believed in sprinkling; why do you say 'pouring'?"

"We make no distinction between sprinkling and pouring. They are practically the same thing. I want now to show you a statement from Christ himself indicating that he believed that pouring was the mode of baptism."

"Do let us have it," said Dorothy.

"In the first chapter of Acts Christ said to the apostles: 'Ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence.' The day of Pentecost, which came not many days hence, was the day which he was talking about.

He tells them they would be baptized on that day with the Holy Ghost, and I can show you that this baptism was done by pouring."

"Hold a bit," said the father. "Let me see if I get that point. You say Christ promised that the apostles would be baptized on a certain day with the Holy Ghost, and that when this promised baptism came to pa.s.s it came not by immersion, but by pouring. Is that your claim?"

"You have it exactly correct."

"All right, and now for your proof."

"Ten days after Christ ascended to Heaven this baptism of the Spirit came. The disciples were in an upper room and were waiting for this baptism of the Spirit that had been promised, when suddenly the Holy Spirit came. But how did it come and in what way were they baptized? It was poured on them. Don't forget that. When the outsiders, bewildered at the strange manifestation, asked what it meant, Peter stood up and explained it by saying: 'This is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel.' In other words, Peter said it was what Joel the prophet long ago had prophesied would come to pa.s.s. And what did Joel say would happen?

Listen to Peter: 'And it shall come to pa.s.s in the last days, saith G.o.d, that I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh.'"

"h.e.l.lo, daughter, he has the dots on you there. The verse declares for pouring."

"Certainly," exclaimed Sterling. "He does not use the word immerse, but says 'I will pour out of my Spirit'. That was the form that the baptism took--pouring--and Peter was quoting the prophecy to explain the baptism. And look here in the thirty-third verse; he continues in the same strain by saying 'having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth, this which ye now see and hear."

"Let me see that pa.s.sage," said Dorothy. She looked it over intently and in a few moments said: "Mr. Sterling, notice the whole account. It doesn't read as if the Spirit was poured on them as you would pour a little water on a person in baptism. A previous verse reads: 'Suddenly there came a sound from Heaven as of a rus.h.i.+ng mighty wind and it filled all the house where they were sitting.' And in the fourth verse it reads: 'And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost.' Think of that, Mr. Sterling. The Holy Spirit came not in a few drops by pouring, but came so abundantly that it filled the house and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. I guess if you were to pour water on a person as the Spirit came upon these persons the person would be drowned. The disciples were surrounded by the Spirit, and that looks like immersion rather than like pouring."

"But not too fast," said Sterling. "It does not say that the Holy Spirit filled the house. It speaks of the wind, but it does not say even the wind filled the house, but simply a sound as of a wind. It was therefore only a sound that filled the house, and sound could not fill the house because sound has no existence except in the ears of those who hear it. Where, then, is your immersion? You say they were immersed in sound that day, and you call that baptism of the Spirit?"

"Mr. Sterling," said Dorothy in surprise, "you amaze me. The writer must mean that the Spirit filled the house. I saw in my reading this week a foot note that the wind in Scripture often symbolizes the Spirit."

"Certainly," spoke up the brother. "_Pneuma_ in Greek means both 'spirit' and 'wind'."

"Is that so?" exclaimed Dorothy eagerly. "That makes it plain. It was the wind that filled the room and they knew it by sound. They heard this sound like a wind and it filled all the house--notice, 'all the house'--and this wind symbolized the Spirit and it was called the baptism of the Spirit, and it certainly looked more like an immersion than a pouring. Why, Mr. Sterling, I think it would lose all its impressiveness if you make it simply the coming of a few drops of the Spirit on them."

"Just listen to that," said the father with a laugh. "She is actually trying to turn your guns on you, Sterling, and to make this verse prove immersion rather than pouring."

"I note one striking fact," said Sterling, "and do not forget it. The pa.s.sage speaks of pouring, and I do not see the word immersion."

"But I see the picture of immersion," said Dorothy. "The important fact about that scene seems to me to be the abundant way in which the Spirit came. It was a rus.h.i.+ng, in fact, a mighty wind. It filled all the house.

Suppose some people were in a room and water was poured on them in such a deluge that the room was filled with the water. Wouldn't that look like an immersion rather than like pouring?"

"No," said Sterling; "you don't immerse people by pouring water on them and covering them up. You don't put the water around them, but you put them in the water. You must put them in the water to have an immersion, but nothing like that was done on that day. Besides, in an immersion you not only put the person in the water, but you bring him up again out of the water to show a resurrection as is claimed. There was nothing like this on the day of Pentecost in the baptism of the Spirit. The disciples were not plunged into the Spirit and they were not taken immediately up out of the Spirit again. If you should use water in baptizing people as the Spirit was used that day, then you must pour water on the candidate until he is covered up, and then instead of taking the candidate immediately up out of the water you must let him remain submerged."

"Sterling," said Mr. Page, "you are getting in some good licks. I don't see that that baptism that day was exactly like either pouring or immersion. It was like an immersion in that they were surrounded by the Spirit, but not like it in any other respect; and it was like a pouring because it came down on them."

"Why, Mr. Page," exclaimed Sterling, "it is actually called a 'pouring'. The word 'pour' is used. Joel prophesied that the Spirit would be poured out on them. How could you wish it plainer than that?

And it was called a baptism of the Spirit."

"Daughter, what have you to say to that?"

"But let me add another word," interrupted Sterling. "People are mistaken in saying that baptism was intended to be a picture of a burial and a resurrection. The real truth intended to be taught in baptism is that the power and grace comes from above, comes down on the person and has its origin in Heaven, and I think the idea of divine grace coming down from above is a higher truth than the idea of something that the person himself experiences."

"I think the truth pictured in immersion is much greater," said Dorothy.

"It is not only the idea that the person has died to his old life and risen to a new life, but it also points to Christ's death and resurrection and puts the two together and says that, as Christ died and was raised, even so the Christian must have the same experience. I don't see how you can have a more glorious truth than that. Your idea in pouring is that grace comes on the person and comes in a few drops, but in immersion you have not merely grace come down, but the giver of grace, Christ himself come down--in fact, come down to death and rising again. Oh, I think it is a wonderful double picture showing Christ and the converted soul bound together in these experiences of death and resurrection. Besides, Mr. Sterling, where does the Bible say that baptism was intended to show forth that truth about grace coming from above?"

"I don't know that it says so in express terms, but the ceremony of pouring indicates it and the descent of the Spirit shows it."

"Of course the Spirit when he first came had to come down," said Dorothy. "If Christ promised to send the Spirit from Heaven to baptize the disciples, of course the Spirit had to come down before he could surround them, but it does not seem to have been the fact of his coming down that was the impressive fact that day, but the overwhelming way in which the Spirit came and surrounded them. That is what the writer used a good many words to describe."

"You will notice," said the father, "that it says that not only was the house filled, but the disciples were filled with the Holy Spirit."

"Yes," said Dorothy, "it says that the wind filled the house and the disciples were filled with the Spirit. The idea seems to be that the Spirit came so abundantly that day that he not only filled all the house, but filled the disciples themselves. That was the great fact, the overwhelming abundance of the Spirit."

"I still remind you that Peter calls it pouring," said Sterling.

"Dorothy, he has not surrendered, you see; his guns are still firing,"

said the father with a smile.

"Mr. Sterling," said Dorothy, "but your pouring is not like the pouring that day. When you pour the water in your baptism, does it come down with a rush and fill the house? The pa.s.sage does not teach your form of baptism, because you do not imitate it."

"Immersionists do not imitate, in all respects, the baptism of Christ,"

said Sterling, "for they do not all baptize in a river as he was."

"Neither did the apostles when they baptized in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost," said Dorothy. "We have seen that they probably baptized in some of the immense pools in the city. And look here," examining the pa.s.sage about which they had been arguing, "isn't this interesting? Here in the margin of the pa.s.sage which we have been discussing are the words 'in the Spirit' as if he had promised to baptize them in the Spirit."

"What is that?" exclaimed the father.

"Here where Christ promised that he would not many days hence baptize them with the Holy Spirit it reads on the margin 'in the Holy Spirit', and a baptism 'in' the Spirit was surely by immersion."