W. B. Godbey - Enter His Rest

Dr. Dowie believes that the triune immersion runs back to the beginning. The trouble in that case is the utter
absence of proof. The historians Moshiem, Neander, Wilson and Orchard tell us that immersion was the
primitive mode, (”of course the triune immersion, because the single dip is so recent that we trace it back into
the triune”). The trouble with those authors is the fact that they are all modern men living in the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries, and they quote no ancient author, consequently they merely take it for granted and say it,
while they do not prove it. This is the way with Dowie. He knows that triune immersion was the baptism
through the long, rolling ages and thinks it runs back to the apostles. In the controversy Dowie has decidedly the
advantage in the way of antiquity, but the trouble is that we cannot trace it beyond the third century, when they
were running into the ages of darkness and superstition.
The oldest historian who has told us anything about this subject is Lactantius of the third century.
He certainly lived near enough to the apostolic age to have a chance to know, as a matter of popular information
transmitted through that short space. The apostle John lived down through about thirty years of the second
century. Therefore we ought to have reliable information as to the apostolic practice from a man living in the
third century. Lactantius wrote in Latin, so we give you his testimony in his own language: “Johanes Baptisres
tinxit, Petrus tinxit, et Christus apostolos misit ut gentes tingerent.” I now translate this into English for your
benefit, “John the Baptist sprinkled, Peter sprinkled, and Christ sent the apostles that they should sprinkle the
nations.” The whole controversy of this out of the Latin into the English hangs on that word “tinxit,” which is
from tingo.
We have the same word Anglicized in our language, in “tinge,” which you see simply results from dropping the
terminal “o,” and adding “e.” You can now take Webster's dictionary and satisfy yourself as to the meaning.
Literally, John the Baptist tinged, Peter tinged, and Christ sent His apostles that they should tinge the nations.
I remember that when I was studying Latin in college, I read in Horace about an old Roman who was so rich
and luxuriant that he sprinkled his pavement with the best of wine, in order to laden the air with a delicious
aroma, and this word “tingo” was there used. You know it could not be construed to mean immersion in that
construction.
But after all our researches in history, secular and ecclesiastical, the Bible itself must settle this and all other
questions. The hypothesis assumed by some immersionists that baptizo has no other meaning, is utterly
untenable. Origen, the greatest classical scholar in the Church in the third century, whose father and grandfather
had both preached and suffered martyrdom, uses this word baptizo to describe the water on Elijah's altar on
Mount Carmel, when he refuted the prophets of Baal.
There is no doubt but that immerse was perhaps the most prominent pagan meaning of the word.
But you must remember that when the great universal language, the most learned ever known, the acme of
Grecian learning, was selected by the Holy Ghost to reveal His precious truth, many words at once received a
new meaning; e. g.) theos, “god,” in all the writings of the Greek authors, who were an exceedingly religious
people, as Paul well said on the Areopagus, not as the English Version has it, “too superstitious.” Therefore the
word theos was as common in their writing as God is in ours, yet this word never did mean our blessed and true
God, who is the subject of the Bible, of whom they were utterly ignorant, but when they wrote theos they meant
some of their gods, who were really idols. Therefore if we would stick to the pagan meaning of theos, we would
mean Jupiter, Apollo, Mercury, or some other Grecian divinity who was nothing but an idol.
I could give you many similar illustrations, showing you that the words of this great and learned heathen
language, the Greek, received a different meaning, or rather a modified meaning, when they were used to reveal
the precious truths of God. We must let the Bible be its own dictionary. Good Lord, save us from a superficial
adherence to dictionaries! Do you not know that dictionaries are not the original authority of language, but the
classical writings? Luther, Melancthon, Zwingle, and their contemporaries, had no dictionaries. They had not
been made. They were a subsequent work, when noble scholars, by diligent study of the classical writings, saw
the sense in which the different authors, who were the legitimate exponents of languages, used various words. In
this way the Bible dictionaries are made, by a diligent study of the Bible itself, and seeing the signification in
which every word is used by the inspired writers. I have often known preachers to get up and read from some