The Greek loutron (bath,
washing) would be an apt way to refer to baptism, and earlier Baptist writers
often assume that baptism is in view (Keach, Baptism, Refind’d; or Baptism
in its Primitive Purity, 82-83). (Stanley K. Flower, Rethinking Baptism:
Some Baptist Reflections [Eugene, Oreg.: Wipf and Stock, 2015], 28)
Ephesians 5:25-26
uses the term loutron as in Titus 3.5 and connects it to the “word”
(Greek rhema), and this “washing with water through the word” is a means
that Christ uses to purify his church-bride. The emphasis of the passage is on
the self-sacrificial love of Christ for the church, his giving up of himself to
make the church holy, and it is difficult to see how the event of baptism is a sacrificial
act of Christ. However, it is also difficult to see what “washing of water
through the word” might denote as an aspect of Christ’s sacrifice. It is
probably easier to see an allusion to baptism as the event in which the word of
the gospel is proclaimed, and a word of confession is spoken by the
baptizand, and that event as one step in Christ’s work of making the church all
that it needs to be. (Ibid., emphasis added)
