How can you say, “Water baptism in and of itself has no power to give the Holy Spirit”?
“Jesus answered, ‘Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit.” -John 3:5
By the example of Cornelius, who was baptized/filled by the Holy Spirit prior to water immersion. We can also add the Thief on the cross, yet you would say that it is impossible without water immersion. Water baptism, therefore, cannot be the agent of salvation, but the sign and the seal of a higher spiritual reality. When Christ speaks to Nicodemus, he does not harp on water, but instead harps on being born again “in the spirit.” It is the change in the heart of the man, the renewing of the soul by the sovereign will of God, that is really the most significant event in salvation. As Christ says, the Spirit moves, comparing it to the wind, “where it listeth.” IOW, the Spirit moves on man according to the sovereign will of God, thus gifting us the faith, and the power to do, and the will to proceed with an act of water baptism which you ascribe to the power of man.
Serious typo: Comparing HIM*, not it*, the Holy Spirit, to the Wind.
In truth you are correct.