These are the Words...

Baptizo

Definition

The Greek word baptizo was used to refer to cloth being immersed in a dye to obtain color.

Meaning in Ancient Israel

The Torah specifies a few instances in which people need to wash themselves to restore ritual potency. Ancient Jewish culture had embellished this washing to create the ritual of mikvah, used for both people and objects who were becoming more set apart for God.

Meaning in the First Century

By the first century this "extra" immersion was a very normal Jewish practice, as attested by how many first-century Jewish homes had immersion pools. Different sects (such as the followers of Yochanan the Immerser, Yeshua, and the Qumran community) attatched additional meaning to ritual immersion.

Since Yeshua's death and resurrection allowed people to have God's Spirit within them in a manner loosely parallel to a dye allowing cloth to have color, then immersion in water becomes a metaphor -- a symbol in action -- of identifying with Yeshua's death and resurrection and thus obtaining God's Spirit.

Meaning for Messianic Jews in Modern Times

Today many non-Orthodox Jews have lost an understanding of how Jewish is the concept of a ritual immersion. As Messianic Jews, we must not only make use of this ritual when first identifying as a follower of Yeshua, but should do so in a way that helps our Jewish brethren again see it as among the oldest and most traditional Jewish acts. Thus Messianic Jewish congregations tend to use natural sources of running water (rivers and streams) instead of man-made pools.