9 ¶ And it came to pass in those days, that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized of John in Jordan. 10 And straightway coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens opened, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon him:
Jesus submits to John’s baptism and we are to also submit to water baptism after we believed. Without belief baptism is just getting dunked. Notice that Jesus is immersed, not sprinkled.
See below that one is condemned, not for not being baptized, but for not believing. Baptism neither saves nor condemns you. It is a symbol and an act of obedience.
Mark 16:16 He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.
Baptized is not really a translation but a transliteration of the Greek word, Baptizo. Now, it’s important to understand that there are two things about Baptism in the Bible you should know. One, there are never any children or infants, in particular, baptized. Two, that all baptisms are by total immersion, that is under the water, not by sprinkling. The word, Baptizo, used in Greek literature always refers to getting under the water, not being sprinkled by it.
Many secular Greek texts bring this out clearly. Pindar, born in 522BC writing in his Olympian Ode, in likening himself to a cork floating on top of a fishing net says, “I, the cork in the net, ride not drenched (baptized) in the brine.” Aristotle, born about 384 BC, speaking of discoveries made beyond the Pillars of Hercules (the Straits of Gibraltar) out in the Atlantic, says that the Phoenician colonists of Gadira “came to certain desert places full of rushes and sea weed; which, when it is ebb-tide, are not baptized (overflowed)”. Polybius, born about 205BC, speaking of the sea battle between Philip and Attalus, tells of one ship’s hull being broken through and being baptized (sunk) by an enemy ship. The list goes on; Diodorus, Strabo, etc. etc.
But, then all you had to do was read the Bible’s text and the context and believe it, didn’t you?
No comments:
Post a Comment