In dealing with Cyberant’s point, I also dealt with your point. See my post 119.
I.e., baptism being an identification with Christ’s death and burial, it can hardly mean sprinkling. When Christ was taken down from the cross, was he sprinkled? Or was he actually BURIED?
sasportas wrote:
“In dealing with Cyberant’s point, I also dealt with your point. See my post 119.”
With all due respect, no you didn’t. As I said, I readily recognize that immersion was the preferred manner of baptism for the very point you cite. But “baptisma” does not necessarily mean immersion in either the Greek New Testament nor in the early church (that includes previous to its domination by the Roman bishop). Also, Paul’s use of the cognate form “baptismos” in Colossians 2:12 should be sufficient to warn the careful reader that there is a certain breadth of meaning here. This I know from Greek and Greek usage. Also, the symbolism of baptism, and this apart from its scripturally defined purpose and nature, consists in more than the burial analogy.
As I said, it isn’t as cut and dried or as simple as you would like to think. I saying this I am not looking for a fight. I am simply pointing out to you that there is more to this issue than you have dealt with.
More important by far is what God’s Word teaches regarding the nature and benefits of baptism, that is, not what the eye sees, but what it does not. So, I would encourage you to set aside for a little bit your fixation on immersion and carefully examine all that the Bible says about baptism, and that includes how it was foreshadowed in the Old Testament and how it was explicitly taught and encouraged in the New.