"Baptism"
Examples occur where that idea is still appropriate, as in 2 Kings 5:14 (Septuagint) where Naaman is said to have "dipped himself seven times in the Jordan" (ebaptisato). The notion of repetition may occur also in Josephus (Ant., XV, iii, 3) in connection with the death of Aristobulus, brother of Mariamne, for Herod's friends "dipped him as he was swimming, and plunged him under water, in the dark of the evening." But in general the term baptizo, as is common with such forms in the late Greek, is simply equivalent to bapto (compare Luke 16:24) and means "dip," "immerse," just as rhantizo, like rhaino, means simply "sprinkle." If baptizo never occurred in connection with a disputed ordinance, there would be no controversy on the meaning of the word. There are, indeed, figurative or metaphorical uses of the word as of other words, but the figurative is that of immersion, like our "immersed in cares," "plunged in grief," etc. It remains to consider whether the use of the word for a ceremony or ordinance has changed its significance in the New Testament as compared with ancient Greek.
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