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Many people can't see something as LITERAL if it is not PHYSICAL.

I don't have a problem with a claim or statement being literal and also not about something physical. For example, "The Holy Spirit exists" is literally true, and yet it is not about something physical. When, however, someone claims that a statement is literally true, and then denies the literal sense of the statement, that's a problem. Christ's blood is physical. But you say, "At no time has my body been physically washed with blood". And then you claim that we must literally be washed in the blood of Christ to be saved. Well, if we must literally be washed in Christ's blood, and you have never literally been physically washed with physical blood, then from your premises it would follow that you are not saved. Do you think that Christ has non-physical blood, and is that what you think you were washed with?

-A8

So your method is to turn blood into water, and then turn it again into wine. You require the extreme physical in your religion. God is worshiped in Spirit and in truth. No, water is NOT a substitute for Blood. Only Blood can be Blood, and I have been washed literally in Christ's Blood. It's what God sees, it's what He performs, and not what man sees.

If someone were to go along with you, then the next step would be that water baptism must be performed by a representative of YOUR particular church. Right? And then we would get into "sprinkling."

NOTHING has to happen to the Body for the soul to be saved, because that would make salvation of man and not of the Lord. And the future salvation of the Body (the Blessed Hope which includes a resurrection for regenerated folks and a translation WITHOU DEATH for those who are still living when Jesus comes) is a RESULT of the soul's salvation, but my body has not yet been saved, neither has yours, and both of our bodies are still subject to death because of sin. But you want the salvation of your body to be NOW. Again, you are thinking very physical.

Nicodemus understood the water of John 3, and Jesus never corrected his image. Nick asked, Can [a man] enter the second time into his mother's womb and be born?" (v. 4) Yep, the context of water there is the mother's womb. But you MUST not see that, because it gives the authority to the Scriptures and not to your clergy.

The Church of Christ of Alexander Campbell does the same things:

1. They insist that water baptism is necessary to the soul's salvation.
2. But that's not good enough, lest they have to admit that Baptists who practice water baptism are saved.
3. No, the only water baptism that is effectual is that performed under their church by their "elders."
4.They claim to be the true primitive church that Jesus Built (Matt. 16), and therefore to them, only their members are saved, and their church is the only legitimate one.
5. And if you nail their "elders" down on this...I mean IF you can get them in a corner to admit what they believe, they will tell you that you come into contact with the Blood of Jesus IN THE WATER, or the water somehow turns into blood.

If it must be the physical body being washed, and the blood must be physical, then the water would have to become RED and thick during the baptismal process. Water doesn't substitute for Blood.