Pope Death Watch... WITH A PRIZE!!! Quart of Maple Syrup to the winner!
- By cgbills
- The Bear Pit
- 757 Replies
Also you missed one key point of baptism. Yes it represents our death when we go into the waters, but it also represents our resurrection when we come out of the waters. It is symbolism tied to Jesus death and resurrection. Just as Jesus’ body died and was resurrected, so too will ours. Also just as Jesus did not loose his human nature when he was resurrected, neither do we loose ours (again nature in the sense of what we are made up of/substance and not behavior)But we are taking on His nature. Repentance is death of our will, or nature. Baptism is the burial of that dead body. And being born again of the spirit through the infilling of the Holy Ghost is our new life.
Additionally being born of the spirt is symbolically tied to the incarnation of Jesus. Just as the divine nature was tied to the human nature in the incarnation, so to is our human nature connected to the divine (though in a lesser and different way than with Jesus) when we are born of the Spirit. Both baptism and being born of the spirt are directly analogous to Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection and His incarnation (an incarnation that is not possible without a trinitarian understanding)