To baptize
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The Greek verb baptizō means to dip, to immerse, or to plunge — and in the NT it becomes the technical term for the rite of Christian initiation. Its root is the verb baptō (to dip), which is used in secular contexts for dyeing cloth (dipping in dye) or for a smith plunging hot iron into water.
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Full entry for βαπτίζω (G907) · Open the biblical lexicon
The Greek verb baptizō means to dip, to immerse, or to plunge — and in the NT it becomes the technical term for the rite of Christian initiation. Its root is the verb baptō (to dip), which is used in secular contexts for dyeing cloth (dipping in dye) or for a smith plunging hot iron into water.
The BSB source-word alignment has 77 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include baptized (5), baptizing (5), to be baptized (5), baptize (4), they were baptized (4).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Matthew 3:6. Its strongest book concentrations include Acts (21), John (13), Mark (13), 1 Corinthians (10).
This entry includes 9 verse guides that explain exact original-language forms in context.
The Greek verb baptizō means to dip, to immerse, or to plunge — and in the NT it becomes the technical term for the rite of Christian initiation. Its root is the verb baptō (to dip), which is used in secular contexts for dyeing cloth (dipping in dye) or for a smith plunging hot iron into water. Baptizō intensifies the root, suggesting a thorough immersion. In Galatians 3:27, baptism appears as the rite that enacts union with Christ: 'for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.'
The preposition eis Christon (into Christ) is the theologically loaded phrase: baptism is not merely a ritual washing but a rite of passage into Christ — into union with his identity, his death, and his resurrection. This union with Christ is the ground of the stunning equality-declaration of Galatians 3:28: 'there is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.'
The social distinctions that governed identity in the ancient world (ethnicity, social status, gender) have not been abolished as facts but their determinative power over one's standing before God has been transformed by the one Christ who stands over all who are in him. Baptism is the enacted declaration of this union.
Baptizō appears 77 times in the NT, spanning the baptism of John (preparatory repentance), Jesus's own baptism, the Great Commission's command to baptize (Matt. 28:19), and Paul's theological exposition of what baptism signifies (Rom. 6:3-4; Gal. 3:27; 1 Cor. 12:13; Col. 2:12). Paul's uses focus on the union-with-Christ dimension: baptism 'into' Christ names what the rite signifies and effects — identification with Christ in death and resurrection.
For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.
The anchor verse for baptism in Galatians. Two images work simultaneously: (1) baptism eis Christon — the rite of passage that places the believer into Christ's sphere, into union with his person; (2) clothing metaphor — the baptized have 'put on' Christ as a garment, so that what is seen when God looks at the believer is Christ. These images together describe the total identification between the believer and Christ that is the basis of Galatians 3:28's equality-declaration.
There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
The social consequence of the baptism-into-Christ union: the identity-markers that divided the ancient world (Jewish/Gentile, slave/free, male/female) no longer determine one's standing in the body of Christ. This is one of the most radical social statements in Galatians and in the NT. Note: the statement concerns standing before God in Christ, not the erasure of all distinction in every domain of life; Paul's other letters address the ordering of relationships within a world where these distinctions still exist.
Or aren’t you aware that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?
Romans 6 provides the fullest exposition of baptism's meaning: baptism into Christ is baptism into his death. The union signified in the rite is specifically a death-union: the baptized person has died with Christ, been buried with Christ, and is raised with Christ. This is the ground of the indicative/imperative structure in Romans 6: 'reckon yourselves dead to sin because you have been baptized into the one who died to sin.'
And having been buried with Him in baptism, you were raised with Him through your faith in the power of God, who raised Him from the dead.
Colossians 2:12 extends the Romans 6 pattern: baptism enacts burial with Christ and signals the co-resurrection through faith in God's power. The sacramental act and the faith-response work together; neither alone carries the full weight. 'Through faith in the powerful working of God' shows that the resurrection-union is not automatically produced by the water but received through faith in the God who raised Jesus.
Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
The Great Commission grounds baptism in the Trinitarian name — baptism 'into the name of' (eis to onoma) the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is a comprehensive commitment of the baptized person to the God who is Father, Son, and Spirit. The formula shows that the baptism eis Christon of Galatians 3:27 is not a Christ-only narrowing but a shorthand for the full Trinitarian commitment, since Christ is the entry point into the Triune God's life.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Verse-level guides showing how this original-language form works in its specific context, including grammar, verse function, and guarded interpretation.
Greek word. Immersion as religious rite signifying identification with Christ's death and entrance into his community.
Textus Receptus witness, full corpus Greek token appearances from Scrivener 1894 Textus Receptus in the full New Testament corpus.
16 of 80 Greek text appearances shown. Linked morphology labels have verse guides.
I dip, submerge, baptize
Read verseI dip, submerge, baptize
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Read verseI dip, submerge, baptize
Read verseFull New Testament corpus: 260 chapters, 7,957 verses, 140,628 tokens. Data source: honza/textus-receptus (data only), with authority check against byztxt/greektext-textus-receptus.
How mood, tense, and voice shift the force of this verb in context.
This verb appears through different tense, voice, mood, or stem patterns. Those forms help readers see how the action is presented in context.
How this verb appears across 72 occurrences in the NT discourse index (MACULA Greek SBLGNT).
Aspect reflects grammatical form — not authorial emphasis. Participles and infinitives are verbal adjectives and nouns respectively.
Clause data: MACULA Greek (Clear Bible, CC BY 4.0) · SBLGNT (Logos/SBL, CC BY 4.0)
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 4 selected witnesses from 77 lexical occurrence verses.
βαπτίζω is built from this root:
Describes union with Christ in his death and resurrection. Acts 8:26-40
Baptism marks public allegiance to Jesus following belief. Romans 6:1-14
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
Baptizō in Galatians 3:27 is doing specific theological work in the letter's argument. Paul has just argued that the promise to Abraham came 430 years before the law (Gal. 3:17) and applied to all who are Christ's seed (Gal. 3:29). The question is: how do Gentiles enter this Abraham-family? Not through circumcision — that would be returning to the old guardian/stoicheia arrangement.
They enter through baptism into Christ, which clothes them with Christ, which makes them Abraham's seed and heirs of the promise (Gal. 3:29). Baptism thus functions in this argument as the Christian initiation rite rather than circumcision as the sign of covenant entry — not because baptism is a new form of the same human-performance requirement but because it signifies something fundamentally different: union with Christ, not the human act of law-compliance.
The equality of Galatians 3:28 follows from this: if all who are baptized have been clothed with the same Christ, then the standing of every baptized person before God is identical — constituted solely by whose they are (Christ's) rather than by their ethnic, social, or gender status. The preacher's application: baptism is not a religious ceremony added to salvation — it is the enacted declaration of the union with Christ that salvation is.
And that union is the decisive ground of Christian identity that cannot be taken away by any social fact, cultural marker, or personal failure.
Gal.3.27
Baptizō is the intensive form of baptō (to dip). In secular Greek baptizō described thorough immersion: a ship that sinks is baptized; a person drowned is baptized; a cloth dipped in dye is baptized. The NT does not resolve the paedo-baptism/believer-baptism debate through the word itself — both traditions have used the same lexical data with different theological syntheses.
What is not lexically contested is the eis Christon (into Christ) preposition: the word consistently in Paul describes a rite that places the recipient 'into' Christ — into his name, his death, his identity. The mode of application (immersion, pouring, sprinkling) and the question of appropriate candidates are theological judgments beyond the lexical data.
The OT background for baptism is rich. The flood (Gen. 6-8) is typologically read in 1 Peter 3:20-21 as an image of baptism — the waters of judgment through which the covenant community passes to new life. The Red Sea crossing is Paul's explicit typological comparison in 1 Corinthians 10:2: 'they were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea.' The Israelites passed through water as a rite of passage from slavery to freedom, from Egypt to covenant community — which is precisely the logic of Christian baptism: passage from the old creation order into the new.
The Levitical washings and purification rituals (Lev. 14-15; Num. 19) provided the immediate ritual background for John's baptism of repentance: immersion for cleansing from defilement. John's baptism was preparatory and singular; Christian baptism is initiatory and unrepeatable, because it enacts union with the one who has definitively dealt with defilement at the cross.
Ezekiel 36:25-26 anticipates the new covenant's cleansing: 'I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean... I will give you a new heart.' Christian baptism is the enacted form of this Ezekielian cleansing promise — not by the water itself but by the Spirit whose work the water signifies.
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