This idea of external justification has no basis in Scripture which consistently speaks of the «new creation» or «new man» brought
about through baptism.
Those who belong to him in the
Church through baptism are redeemed from original sin and born again as true children of God.
Cleansing from the stain of Original Sin in those who accept
Jesus through baptism makes salvation possible for us.
Cavadini is wrong when he essentially argues that the manner by which one lives out the faith
received through baptism has no effect on whether or not one can still be considered fully Catholic.
We Catholics understand that we receive the Holy
Spirit through our Baptism in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and with Him living in us and us in Him... we are expected to do good works... pray, sacrifice, praise and honor God, etc., because it is not us doing the work but the Holy Spirit!
The reception of God's
grace through baptism does not automatically confer new life on the recipient; participation in the Lord's Supper does not necessarily change the recipient of bread and wine.
I don't buy your stretch saying that they are all, «a bond with God and the Holy Spirit of the kind that we
find through baptism, communion, and marriage,» and even if I did, you would need to support that marriage falls under that same category as baptism instead of just telling us it does.
chief, Others besides Catholics may find oneness with
God through Baptism however they lack fullness of Truth which is only found in the Catholic Church.
Christian rebirth — publically
declared through baptism (which replaced circumcision)-- was open to all people, regardless of ethnicity, class or gender (especially women, who could never be circumcised).
And since repentance involves concrete acts of turning away from the old and toward the new, we are to behave like family, the family that God
created through baptism.
John P. Meier writes (p. 140), «For [Matthew] the church is the family of God, incorporated into the communal life of the
Godhead through baptism.»
As they crossed a physical Red Sea during the Exodus, so we cross a spiritual Red
Sea through baptism.
This freedom which is Christ and which he gives is appropriated by the man who obeys the call to this freedom in faith and
through the baptism which is its expression, submitting himself to the event that opens the prison of the world; namely the incarnation, death and resurrection of the Son.
Those who recognized the truth of John's message symbolized their death to
Judaism through baptism in the Jordan river.
Although we retain our canonical
status through baptism, Our Lord's words echo that of his cousin: «It is not those who say Lord, Lord who will enter the kingdom of heaven...»
Only so can the priest challenge more intimately, and love with a depth not subject to the veto of family jealousies those who, to speak in an analogy with Christ, are
born through baptism «not out of human stock, or urge of the flesh, or will of man, but of God himself».
A mean man should want to get a merciful
heart through baptism and not want to keep on being mean after baptism.
If one included people who had occasional
contacts through baptism, marriage, and burials, the percentage would have been much higher, probably seventy or seventy - five per cent.
In order to get to heaven, we need to have our sins forgiven, and John is telling them here that their sins are
forgiven through baptism and repentance.»
This grace,
available through baptism and the other sacraments, was it not available in any way to those who had not been baptised through no fault of their own?
But they would have to wait to accomplish the assignment until God endowed them with the power, which would
come through the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
In the first centuries of Christianity, catechumens were adult converts who had to undergo long and arduous instruction before being admitted to the
church through baptism.
The person would say that now that they had fully identified themselves with
Jesus through baptism, they were going to try to live their life in a way that reflected His teachings, His values, and His life.