We know that the sacraments have a teaching function. They exist to encourage and edify the body of the faithful. By maintaining a standard of the appropriate mode (and therefore appropriate symbolism) for baptizing, we are shepherding our people. We are teaching them about the Lord’s nature of interacting with His people and the way He saves and revives us.

The sacrament of baptism is perhaps the most widely debated topic in the Protestant church world. There is no shortage of fraternal disagreements on this topic, especially within the Reformed evangelical setting. However, debates around baptism often focus around who should be baptized. Is baptism reserved for believers alone? Or are the children of Christians to be baptized as well? Comparatively less ink is spilled debating about the mode of baptism, or how people are to be baptized. The nature of the debate over whether biblical baptism should be administered to families of believers can often distract from this all too important topic. This can lead to misunderstandings about why certain traditions hold the practices they do, or assumptions that one’s own practice is right, without prompting any further investigation into the matter. It has even led to some considering this issue of no consequence at all.
What do the scriptures teach about the mode of baptism? How are believers to be baptized? Unfortunately, there is no “gotcha” passage in the New Testament that points us to a quick resolution of this, but as we tread beyond the usual stomping ground of whether baptizo means to immerse (and only to immerse), we should find a deeper meaning for baptism. Just as what we do with the bread and wine matters for observing communion, what we do with the waters of baptism matters as well.
Signs and Wonders
The Westminster Confession of faith opens its 28th chapter by defining baptism as a sacrament, and listing its many benefits:

Baptism is a sacrament of the New Testament, ordained by Jesus Christ, not only for the solemn admission of the party baptized into the visible church, but also to be unto him a sign and seal of the covenant of grace, of his ingrafting into Christ, of regeneration, of remission of sins, and of his giving up unto God through Jesus Christ, to walk in the newness of life: which sacrament is, by Christ’s own appointment, to be continued in his church until the end of the world.—WCF 28.1

So what is baptism all about? Well, it is a sign (or a symbol) of the Christian’s regeneration and the remission of their sins. Baptism displays, in symbolic visual form, the new birth that is experienced by the believer and wrought by the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 12:13). For once we were dead in our tresspasses and sins, but God “made us alive, together with Christ–” (Eph. 2:5) God has given His church baptism to show us that in Christ we are made alive.
This baptism verifies the promises of the Gospel in scripture. God promised to revive, and so he showers us with the water of life through His Spirit. God promised to cleanse, and so he washes us of our sin & iniquity. It is the Gospel in picture, for the person being baptized and for all who witness the event and consider the sign. More than an empty ceremony, it gives testimony to the promise of redemption; it shows God as he holds out a righteousness that can be had by faith. In this way, baptism is similar to circumcision in that it preaches to those who receive it, although baptism does this more than circumcision ever could. Circumcision as a sign showed Christians in the Old Testament that they, by their sin, were fundamentally broken as creatures and needed their wickedness removed in order to stand in the light of a holy God. Baptism shows us more, as the washing with water pictures our Savior who was covered by our sin and cleansed as he rose again on the third day.
And yet, baptism does even more. It shows us, as Chad van Dixhoorn writes, not only redemption promised and redemption accomplished, but redemption applied.1 Baptism points us to something real, something that happened. This sign represents to us the way in which we were brought into the house of God, and the relationship between our spiritual baptism and our righteous standing with Christ before God. Paul says as much in Galatians: “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” (Gal. 3:27) Just as Christians are joined to the visible church at their baptism, so they are ushered into Christ’s arms when they are resurrected through spiritual baptism.
Problems With Immersion
The question then becomes, what does this symbolism have to do with the mode of baptism? This particular moment is where many well-meaning Baptists ride down the hill as the cavalry coming to the rescue, declaring with every fiber of their being that immersion (or dipping) is the appropriate mode, and in fact, the only biblical mode. They are not without reason to have such confidence in immersion, as it conveys much through its symbolism. They derive their meaning from the language of being buried with Christ from places in scripture like Romans 6:4 and Colossians 2:12. The Baptist connects these passages with what he sees as the “burial” in water during an immersion baptism, or the “watery grave” as the prominent preacher Adrian Rogers called it, and there consider the matter to be ended.
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One permanent solution might be to amend the Rules of Assembly Operations to require the Stated Clerk to propose a docket with minimum amounts of business time for each day of the assembly. A formula requiring two to four hours of business on the first day, eight on the second, and eight before 6 pm on Thursday would guarantee several more hours for critical business than the most recent dockets have done.

The 2022 Presbyterian Church in America General Assembly promises to be jam-packed with drama and deliberation, but there’s good news—the schedule proposed by Stated Clerk Bryan Chapell (https://pcaga.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/2022-49th-General-Assembly-Docket-10.2021.pdf) packs in more than three hours of extra business prior to the always-stressful, open-ended Thursday night session. (Fifteen and a half hours of business are scheduled this year by 6 pm on Thursday, whereas only a bit more than 12 hours of business were docketed in 2021.)
Though some of that business time is taken up with required reports and such (as always), commissioners who dread the drama and mad dash that looms as the clock ticks on Thursday can expect that more time for business may equal less drama and an earlier conclusion. Thursday is typically the last day of business unless the Assembly bleeds over into Friday (a thing to be avoided since commissioner travel means Friday attendance is always diminished). In 2021 the Thursday evening session did run into Friday, ending at 12:43 am, but the Assembly did not have to reconvene on Friday.
The relatively small amount of business done on the Assembly’s first two days has irritated commissioners in previous years. In 2021, for instance, barely 6 hours of business was done between Tuesday (a half day) and Wednesday afternoon when business ended at 4:30 pm for a worship service. Wednesday nights are reserved for free time, mostly for parties and social events. It would seem to require little imagination to see why small-town pastors or ruling elders (by Wednesday in their third day of burned vacation or lost wages) would find the traditional Assembly schedule to be inefficient if not irrational. And by late Thursday night nearly everyone, teaching and ruling elders alike, has had enough of a long and trying day…trying to make up for lost time.
The new schedule is much better, but much more could be done. First, assuming everyone not on a committee understands that Monday is a travel day, business could begin earlier or go later on Tuesday. The next two suggestions touch the third rails of worship and party time. Doing business on Wednesday night would mean hours of extra business time at the expense of partying and socializing. Canceling any of the optional worship services (only the opening one which must include the Lord’s Supper is required by the Rules of Assembly Operations) would also free up time. Neither of these options would be popular, nor would cutting out the mini concerts often appended to at least one of the worship services. The PCA General Assembly is first a court of the church, but it has grown to be much more than that.
One permanent solution might be to amend the Rules of Assembly Operations to require the Stated Clerk to propose a docket with minimum amounts of business time for each day of the assembly. A formula requiring two to four hours of business on the first day, eight on the second, and eight before 6 pm on Thursday would guarantee several more hours for critical business than the most recent dockets have done.
Back to the present—this year’s schedule is a great improvement, though the improvement may not be apparent given the large amount of controversial and time-consuming business this year’s assembly almost certainly has in store. Hours will still be in short supply, and so may be the patience of the participants.
Brad Isbell is a ruling elder at Covenant Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Oak Ridge, TN, co-host of the Presbycast podcast, and board member of MORE in the PCA.