Question: Dear Mr. McLemore, There are many religious groups who sprinkle and call it baptism. Why do you folks insist that only immersion is baptism?

Answer: All must admit that the baptism administered by the earliest Christians under the authority of Christ and his apostles was immersion. Sprinkling is an innovation centuries removed from Christ, his apostles, and the earliest Christians. Those who consider sprinkling to be baptism do not do so on the basis of the uniform teaching and practice of Christ, his apostles, or the earliest Christians. The salient point is to recognize that only immersion satisfies all the meaning which true baptism communicates. Sprinkling captures the cleansing significance of baptism (Ephesians 5:26; Titus 3:5; Hebrews 10:22) but not the significance of the death of the old person who is crucified with Christ in baptism (Romans 6:1-7). Therefore, it is inadequate as baptism. It seems likely that the willingness to depart from the scriptural practice resulted ultimately from a diminishing appreciation of the essential nature of the rite.