This is something that started bugging me after a random association yesterday. John the Baptist. On whose authority was he baptising people? No one had died for people's sins yet. From what I understand baptism functions in connection with that. Have I misunderstood something?
And why did Jesus need to be baptised?
I am genuinely curious about the doctrinal reasoning here. It has been a while since I studied these things and for the life of me I cannot remember anything about it. I know that there were several Jewish groups that practised baptism at the time, but I do not know the intra-Christian reasoning for this event.
As a theologian I must say I havn't been doing a lot of research after this, but the first thing I would say would be that whatever view on baptism christians have today (there are some differences on the precise theological importance between Roman Catholics, Reformed (Calvinistic), Lutheran and Baptist churches), it is clear for most people that John the Baptist baptized in a different way.
He basically told people to start living more holy, according to the law of Moses, with a huge emphasis on simply being "honest" (he didn't appear to have a well thought-out ethical system).
As an outward sign of this new way of living, this change of lifestyle, a baptism was mainly focused leaving the past behind and living better lives now. There was probably only a limited theory of salvation involved.
Why Jesus? Noone can probably give a full answer, only that it was "fitting" so that "all righteousness be fulfulled" (Mat.3:15). What all of that involves may take a few years to study, but that was Jesus' answer anyway.
Well, it is comforting to know that I had not forgotten something major and obvious. Considering the centrality of baptism in most Christian denomination, however, I am surprised that this is not more of an issue.
*MySmiley*
structured procrastinator
structured procrastinator
A question on baptism
- 10/06/2011 09:21:44 AM
952 Views
To my knowledge, baptism does not stem from the Resurrection.
- 10/06/2011 11:01:17 AM
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What I meant
- 10/06/2011 11:03:08 AM
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I don't follow.
- 10/06/2011 11:08:07 AM
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Re: I don't follow.
- 10/06/2011 11:10:40 AM
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I don't keep up with RC theology much.
- 10/06/2011 11:15:52 AM
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Re: I don't keep up with RC theology much.
- 10/06/2011 11:17:53 AM
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They should, IMHO, but the difficulty of definitively saying is why Limbo was created.
- 11/06/2011 10:39:26 AM
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Re: They should, IMHO, but the difficulty of definitively saying is why Limbo was created.
- 11/06/2011 11:53:53 AM
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You haven't necessarily developed a wrong impression.
- 10/06/2011 11:50:53 AM
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Re: You haven't necessarily developed a wrong impression.
- 10/06/2011 11:52:27 AM
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Re: You haven't necessarily developed a wrong impression.
- 10/06/2011 11:55:01 AM
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Re: You haven't necessarily developed a wrong impression.
- 10/06/2011 11:58:36 AM
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Re: You haven't necessarily developed a wrong impression.
- 10/06/2011 12:16:46 PM
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Re: You haven't necessarily developed a wrong impression.
- 10/06/2011 12:19:16 PM
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Re: You haven't necessarily developed a wrong impression.
- 10/06/2011 12:25:08 PM
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Re: You haven't necessarily developed a wrong impression.
- 10/06/2011 12:26:30 PM
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Re: You haven't necessarily developed a wrong impression.
- 10/06/2011 12:28:45 PM
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Re: You haven't necessarily developed a wrong impression.
- 10/06/2011 12:29:43 PM
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Circumcision remains common among Christians mostly for symbolic reasons as well.
- 11/06/2011 10:48:48 AM
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Hm, I don't know. I don't think I know any non-Jews who are circumsized that see it as a symbol
- 11/06/2011 04:44:02 PM
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I took a holy dip into the Ganges
- 10/06/2011 11:48:26 AM
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Early Christians and Jews were obsessed with purity
- 10/06/2011 12:56:58 PM
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Oh, I know about the historical/academic/anthropological reason
- 10/06/2011 01:04:43 PM
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A first responce
- 10/06/2011 02:09:32 PM
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Re: A first responce
- 10/06/2011 02:15:07 PM
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Do you want a theological answer or a historical one?
- 10/06/2011 03:16:44 PM
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The theological. I already had a fairly good idea of the historical
- 10/06/2011 03:18:51 PM
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My favorite fact about baptism is that is REQUIRES water... but it can be ANY water
- 10/06/2011 04:31:12 PM
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That is absurd.
- 10/06/2011 08:37:13 PM
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It is absurd
- 10/06/2011 08:56:19 PM
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When your post is eviscerated, resorting to "HURR RELIGION IS DUMB" isn't a winning move.
- 10/06/2011 10:00:39 PM
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Psh.You can dress it up with spiritualism and semantics, but the concept boils down to "magic water"
- 11/06/2011 03:56:03 AM
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The point is that it's a symbol.
- 11/06/2011 04:45:19 AM
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I have no problem with water as a symbol
- 11/06/2011 04:59:52 AM
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You are totally missing the point.
- 11/06/2011 02:46:08 PM
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Which again, is something that sounds nice and spiritual, but doesn't actually make any sense
- 11/06/2011 03:46:51 PM
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your problem is you're trying to apply objective logic to religion
- 11/06/2011 04:13:01 PM
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I'm not, exactly. Religion has internal logic. For example, certain things are "unclean"
- 11/06/2011 04:40:33 PM
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Beliefs about holy water are internally logical.
- 11/06/2011 07:36:08 PM
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Shrug. It was on topic.
- 11/06/2011 08:06:16 PM
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The more I read of your posts, the more I think you fundamentally misunderstand religious symbolism. *NM*
- 11/06/2011 10:51:17 PM
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Let me clarify: your statements are absurd.
- 10/06/2011 10:14:06 PM
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Check my response to Ghav for elaboration, but basically, your argument doesn't hold
- 11/06/2011 04:00:18 AM
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You went from saying spit was good to saying "clean water".
- 12/06/2011 02:04:26 AM
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I'm completely consistent. I was just staying away from extremes for conversation's sake.
- 12/06/2011 09:02:02 AM
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No one from a respectable faith thinks of holy water as "magic water". Period. *NM*
- 13/06/2011 04:56:53 AM
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All I know, Is a Lutheran Pastor told me, b/c i was not baptised I was going to hell, and had *NM*
- 11/06/2011 03:44:38 PM
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I never thought of it in that way, that is why I like this site 
*NM*
- 12/06/2011 04:26:40 PM
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*NM*
- 12/06/2011 04:26:40 PM
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