Literally the words means "Immersed"Quote:
I am not assuming that baptism can't be used metaphorically. I am saying that when the Lord or the Apostles talk about baptizing people into Christ they are talking about the Holy Mystery or sacrament of Baptism.
The clearest example of your mistake is already cited here - 1 Cor 1. If teaching people the Gospel and making disciples of them is "baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit" then what St Paul says doesn't make any sense:
8 And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing (immersing) them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age."
How do you immerse someone in the name of the Father, Son, and Spirit? You teach them all Jesus has commanded.
I think there are 2 parts of this. There's water baptism and there's immersing them in the name. I personally think it's a both/and here vs and either or with the 2 interpretive options.
The verse you mention above. Preaching the gospel is a priority over baptizing.
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When St Paul talks about baptism into Moses he is linking the new with the old, the sign with the reality - in this case the imagery of going through the sea with the baptism of the Church.
To this point I don't think he's linking baptism of believers (Church) to Moses and the sea. I think he's simply using a common word (baptize) which means immersed in a generic sense.
For I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea; 2 and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea; 3 and all ate the same spiritual food; 4 and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they were drinking from a spiritual rock which followed them; and the rock was Christ. 5 Nevertheless, with most of them God was not well-pleased; for they were laid low in the wilderness.
Being baptized into the sea is water but distinct from being baptized into Moses, and the cloud (not water)
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I wrote: Quote:
To clarify my position, once a person believes in Jesus, they receive the Holy Spirit or are baptized (not by water) into Christ, His death, and resurrection, into the body of believers. One act of obedience after that point is to be baptized publicly (with water). Failure to be baptized in water doesn't mean one has not been baptized into Christ.Quote:
You wrote: And yet nowhere can you point to this happening in the scripture. Belief is not baptism.
And yet nowhere can you point to this happening in the scripture. Belief is not baptism.
To be sure receiving the Holy Spirit does not have an identity relationship with baptism either. Receiving the Holy Spirit is not baptism.
Baptism is baptism. Hence the Ethiopian Eunuch asking St Philip - "Look, here is water. What can stand in the way of my being baptized?" St Philip didn't say "haha silly you're already baptized, the water is just a symbol.
Belief is not baptism. Belief is the moment a person is "baptized into Christ"
Matt 3:11"As for me, I baptize you with water for repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, and I am not fit to remove His sandals; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.
Acts 19:2 He said to them, "Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?"
John 7:38 He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, 'From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.'" 39 But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.
Eph 1:13 In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvationhaving also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, 14 who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God's own possession, to the praise of His glory.