People are assuming baptizing is related to the water baptism, because that is how it has been for a long time in the church.
When that is the case, yes, people in the church do indeed confuse passages about water baptism with passages about baptism into Christ, and baptism in the Holy Spirit. But that hardly makes it true that water baptism was laid aside.
It seriously is a tradition from man.
Not even remotely true:
Who sent John to baptize with water that it should be, as you say, a tradition from man:
"33“I did not recognize Him, but He who sent me to baptize in water said to me, ‘He upon whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining upon Him, this is the One who baptizes in the Holy Spirit.’ " (John 1:33 NASB)
We can easily see for ourselves that it seriously is from God, not man.
I do not see the command from Christ to get baptized in John's baptism after you have been given the Holy Spirit baptism. If you can produce that scripture, I'll leave this thread alone.
We are to follow what Christ has commanded of us, but you keep saying water baptism is part of that and I don't see it in scripture.
Okay, so you acknowledge that Christ commanded water baptism, but you want to argue that you do not have to obey that command once a person has the Holy Spirit in salvation. The Bible clearly shows this to not be true: "Peter ordered Cornelius and his household to be water baptized after they received the Holy Spirit." (Acts 10:48 NASB).
There are a few other examples in the Bible of people believing and then being water baptized that contradict any notion that once you believe, and, therefore, receive the Holy Spirit, that you then do not have to be water baptized. It simply does not hold up to what the Bible actually demonstrates.
You've only pointed to the
1 Peter 3:21 and this
water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also - not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of good conscience toward God.
Okay, I pointed this out before, but let's try it again: The waters of Noah's day symbolize water baptism,
but you are incorrectly reading it as water baptism is the symbol, and, therefore, on that basis does not have to be done. But you are wrong in saying water baptism is the symbol.
The waters of Noah are the symbol.
Then you are trying to discredit the necessity of water baptism by pointing out that Peter says water baptism saves you, not knowing that the scriptures also say child bearing saves you (1 Timothy 2:15). The problem being, you are confusing justification apart from works with the truth that what we do does indeed 'save' us,
for all that actually means, not what most in the church thinks that
has to mean and can only mean (that justification/salvation is
earned by what we do).
But anyway, what you're doing is confusing the point of the 1 Peter 3 passage by emphasizing the 'baptism saves' part. The point is, it says that water baptism is the pledge of a good conscience toward God (aka, a sign of repentance), yet it is being argued that it is a now an outdated and unnecessary obedience because we are already justified, as if water baptism was ever meant as a way to make yourself righteous in God's sight to begin with. The bottom line is, there is a very poor understanding of the role water baptism serves that has caused these false beliefs about water baptism to rise. And the blame lies largely with the Catholic Church for teaching people that it is a way that you are justified, causing some people, like yourself, to react in a knee-jerk fashion and miss the Biblical truth that it is commanded as an obedient public pledge of a good/clean conscience toward God.
Mark 7:17-23 This is the point I'm trying to make. The water baptism fulfilled it's purpose until the Holy Spirit was given. You will obey the commands of Jesus with the guidance of the Holy Spirit......you will not murder, but saying that if you don't get water baptized after you've received the Holy Spirit is not following Christ.....that is not scriptural, nor true.
Well, I've showed you that it is scriptural. To not get water baptized after believing is to resist Christ's command to the church to baptize the nations. Christ does the baptizing with the Spirit--that's Christ's work, not ours. The church, on the other hand,
obeys his command to baptize in water. Just as John obeyed God to do that in his time.