1. To fulfill the symbol of burial and resurrection or rebirth.

This is shown in the passages already referred to, and is the basis of all the meaning and fitness of baptism. To destroy this figure is to rob the ordinance of all appropriateness and significance.

2. As demonstrated by the descriptions and instances of baptism recorded in Scripture.

In the eighth chapter of Acts, we are told how the treasurer of the queen of Ethiopia was reading the Scriptures in his chariot, as he was returning from worshipping at Jerusalem. Philip was directed by God to approach him, and explain the Scriptures to him.

Having taught him the things concerning Jesus Christ out of all the prophecies, the Ethiopian requested to be baptized. Then in verse 38 of this 8th chapter of Acts we are told: "... and they went down (THEY WENT DOWN) both into the water..."

And in the 39th verse: "And when they were come up out of the water ..."

In the account of John the Baptist's preaching and baptizing, we read (Matt. 3:6): "And were baptized of him IN Jordan."

In the same chapter, describing Jesus' baptism by John (verse 16): "And Jesus, when he was baptized, WENT UP straightway OUT OF THE WATER ..."

And we find recorded elsewhere concerning John the Baptist that (John 3:23): "... John also was baptising in Aenon near to Salim, because there was much water there..."

All these incidents show that a Scriptural baptism required "much water" and was a complete immersion, or burial, in water.

3. The actual meaning of the Greek word used in the New Testament.

There is no question that the original word in the Greek means to immerse or submerge, and nothing else. No Greek scholar would or could deny it.

(a) The word is so used by all classes by writers in Greek over a period of 2,000 years stretching centuries both before and after Christ. On no occasion do Greek writers use the word to mean "sprinkling" for which they had an entirely different word.

(b) The translators of the Septuagint version used the Greek word "baptizo" to translate the Hebrew word rendered "dip" in the Authorized Version at 2 Kings 5:14, "Then went he [Naaman] down, and dipped himself seen times in Jordan..."

(c) Quotations have been compiled and could be given from Basil the Great, Chrysostom, Athanasius, Gregory Nazianzen, Hippolytus, Theophylact, Hilary, Jerome, Justin Martyr, and others, to illustrate that they understood baptism as a complete immersion. Although these so-called Fathers of the Church are no real authority, their writings do prove that in their day (the first few centuries of the Christian era) the orthodox church still possessed the true Scriptural understanding on this question at least.

(d) The early writers who wrote in Latin, as Tertullian, translate the Greek "baptizo" into Latin words meaning immerse or submerge.

The earliest Latin versions and early versions in Syriac, Coptic, Ethiopic, Gothic, etc., translate the Greek "baptizo" into the word in their own language meaning immerse or submerge.

In short, no one in possession of the facts does, or would, venture to question the original meaning of the term, and if, in our Bibles, it had been properly translated instead of just carried over from the Greek, much error and confusion could have been avoided, and false doctrine on the matter would have been exposed.