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Originally Posted by tbpew
concerning anything I have posted, I made a clear acknowledgement that forgiveness is available post-water baptism.
If we sin, we have an advocate with the father, Jesus Christ the righteous.
What I completely disagree with is the relegating of water baptism to some sort of ritual sacrament that duty-bound folks carry out in front of a nice little audience to demonstrate their outward sign of an inward change.
The yoke must be broken.
We all must pass through the sea and under the cloud.
Sin's hold must be ended.
Baptism is the agreement we participate in concerning God's command.
Of course there is forgiveness/remission apart from water baptism, but there is no deliverance from the old man without death and burial.
Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with [him], that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin
Death and burial is the remedy for the old man having dominion. Teaching repentance is great message, but its seems that it would only teaching a half-way remedy concerning God's commandment.
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TBP,
I personally don't believe that baptism is a sacrament ...
One reason why you may think I do is because some of the text I was provided from a different source [copy and paste] and didn't mind using the terminology because use this term frequently in their vernacular when referring to baptism. Sorry if this misled you.
In my opinion baptism is an ordinance, a command ... not a sacrament in the truest sense of the word
A sacrament is : {Wiki}
In Christian belief and practice, a sacrament is a rite that mediates divine grace, constituting a sacred mystery.
I believe it is many PAJCers that are sacramentalists in it's truest meaning.
Many of them believe that baptism mediates grace and 'activates' various phenomena .... among them:
1. The blood is applied somehow through a spiritual type of transubstantiation.
2. Sins are washed away by being born of the water
3. We are somehow literally buried with Christ by this work
4. By doing this rite we somehow cause salvation
As for your interpretation of Romans 6 ... and as it applies to baptism ... here are some post in this thread for those who believe we must somehow re-enact the death, burial and resurrection of Christ ... whose sacrifice ... was ONCE AND FOR ALL.
Baptism is filled with wonderful imagery of what he did ... but it is not done because I must re-enact his death and burial. It's done in faith ... in obedience ... in love.
My good friend J-Roc ... posted earlier in this thread the following:
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We do not reenact Jesus’ death, burial or resurrection. We, on an individual level, simply trust in, confess and rehearse it. We rehearse it in water baptism. We rehearse it in the Lord’s Supper. We rehearse it in the preaching of the Gospel every week. We rehearse it in worship by exalting the work of Christ rather than focusing on our own actions or experiences. We rehearse it in living lives dead to sin, but alive to God through Jesus Christ. In repentance we turn from what we could not do, to accept and claim what God has done for us. Water baptism is not an application of the death of Jesus but a recital that shows forth the death, burial and resurrection of our Lord. It was done for us two thousand years ago. We cannot distort or pervert holy baptism by making it a way to qualify people for salvation. Water baptism is the telling of the Gospel of Jesus in visual, tangible language, not the means of obtaining salvation. Our salvation was obtained by Jesus on that Cross long ago.
The means of salvation is humble faith IN Christ, not obedience TO baptism. We do not baptize out of fear of falling short of salvation. We baptize, not to recreate or reenact Christ’s work, but to symbolically show what He has done. Christians go wrong when they turn from reciting the Gospel to reenacting the Gospel through baptism. This is where “salvation is not said to be by God’s act outside us in Christ, but by its reenactment in us.” We are commanded to baptize because, it shows that we fell far short by our sin, but Jesus saves us to the uttermost through his freely taking away our sins on the Cross. He ever lives to make intercession for us!
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I also posted:
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I believe in identifying with His death, burial and resurrection in many ways ....
1. The Lord's Supper
Luk 22:19 And he took bread, and gave thanks, and brake [it], and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me.
Luk 22:20 Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, This cup [is] the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you.
Now does this we are to believe in transubstantiation?? ... or that the Lord's Supper must be done for salvation????
No, of course not ... Yet we participate, because we love Him and appreciate the salvation He afforded.
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2. Water Baptism
Romans 6:3-5. In it is a strong comparison between our baptism and Christ's death, burial, and resurrection.
"3Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? 4Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. 5For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection,"
In baptism we see imagery of his death, burial and resurrection ... but He did these things once and for all ... I identified with these things and made a public proclamation of faith through obedience when I was baptized ....
The same writer of Romans tells us that we are saved through faith and not by our works so that we may boast ....
He also writes in Romans 3
22 Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference:
23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;
24 Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:
25 Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;
26 To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.
Again we are baptized because we are saved through faith ... evident by obedience.
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3. I also identify with his death, burial and resurrection EVERYDAY
Paul says:
I protest by your rejoicing which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily.
1 Corinthians 15:31
I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.
Galatians 2:20
Now .... does this mean that Paul was water baptized everyday of his Christian life???
Paul identifies with Christ death, burial and resurrection ... as we do .. daily in KNOWING HIM more and more each day ...
In Phillipians he states:
3:7 However, what things were gain to me, these have I counted loss for Christ.
3:8 Yes most assuredly, and I count all things to be loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whom I suffered the loss of all things, and count them nothing but refuse, that I may gain Christ
3:9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own, that which is of the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith;
3:10 that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, becoming conformed to his death;
3:11 if by any means I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.
Paul is relating his experience of the unsurpassed value of knowing Christ, not based upon his own effort but based upon the righteousness that comes through faith in Christ ....
Paul has gone down the road of trying to impress God, and has seen that it has failed and it is worthless. He is seeking to know God’s righteousness now and in the resurrection.
Again, we obey all of his commandments through our faith in the sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus Christ ...
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