For example, John 3:5 has absolutely nothing to
do with water baptism.
You have been indoctrinated with the false teaching of water baptism for salvation so that every time you see the words water or baptism you think it has to
do with water baptism for salvation.
Not exact matches
Acts 2:38
does include both
water and spirit
baptism, but this has to
do with Peter's «keys of the kingdom» which is found in Acts as the Gospel goes to the Jews, then to the Samaritans, and finally to the Gentiles.
Now, Jesus
did submit to the sacrament of
water baptism (what Quakers call «John's
baptism»), but is never recorded as baptizing
with water.
So just as
baptism could be
done with a few drops of
water, so also the Lord's Supper could be observed
with a small bit of bread and a few drops of wine.
I was at a church a while back that
did a
baptism by running people through a
water sprinkler out on the front lawn, and
did communion
with doughnuts and coffee.
These symbolic rituals could be adopted today in lieu of
water baptism which might
do a better job of representing our full identification
with Jesus Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection, and which, when we undergo them, would cause people who know us and observe what we are
doing, to ask us why we would perform such a bizarre and morbid action.
These are a few examples of symbolic rituals that could be adopted today in lieu of
water baptism which might
do a better job of representing our full identification
with Jesus Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection, and which, when we undergo them, would cause people who know us and observe what we are
doing, to ask us why we would perform such a bizarre and morbid action.
But many Christians
do not realize this basic fact, and believe that God has further requirements for us,
with water baptism being one of them, which makes us acceptable and pleasing to God.
That prototype for Christian
baptism unites
water and Spirit, and what God has joined together, man ought not to separate — which the apostles
did not, even
with Gentile converts.
There is barely a Catholic Church today where one
does not encounter the image of Christ
with its white and red rays issuing from his heart: - the white cleansing
water of
baptism and confession and the red nourishing blood of the Eucharist.