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Also curious how your view is not subject to the same criticism as the one you characterized as “ a human-executed superficial ritual [that] cannot save.”

Apparently here you have completely missed the totally clear and obvious declaration that this baptism is meant only for those who are convincingly demonstrating that they have been saved prior to this human-executed superficial rite of application of water to the disciple's body.

"Superficial" as used here does not mean "trifling"; it means applying something to the surface of a physical object. The medical term would be "a topical application."

The topical application of water with the accompanying words identifying the office and commission of the administrator as well as the signification of the rite neither causes nor effects the standing of the person regarding his/her eternal destiny.

Rather, it was used by Jesus to serve as a ceremonial demonstration instituted to publicly and concretely declare that both the authorized administrator of the rite and the disciple willing to submit to the ritual were in agreement that the person being baptized had exercised a repenting and saving faith such that he/she was now irrevocably committing to accepting His yoke, entering His Company, following Him in His Way, and bearing the Cross--the Gospel of the kingdom--even to his/her own Cross-death.

That baptism of the disciple was instituted subsequent to the revelation of His Divinity by The God to John the Baptizer, which was announced by John to his Jewish audience. The baptism of Jesus was not John's "baptism-unto-repentance (εις μετανοιαν, where εις means 'on the basis of'; baptism of people who had already repented and showed it as a permanent change). Jesus may well have baptized at least some of the followers whom He chose to accompany with Him as individually supervised trainees, but He did have them baptize other followers into The Company (Jn 4:1,2; Lk. 6:17,11:27; Acts 1:21-22, 4:23).

So, the command to baptize disciple-believer-followers (the stipulation of regeneration added at Pentecost and following) into The Company was not novel to The Eleven. What was novel was His command to rccruit and train disciples from Gentile people as well as Jews; and when mutually agreed as to their spiritual fitness, to baptize them into The Company a delegated administrators of the authority of The Father, of The Son, and of The Holy Ghost.

Furthermore, they were to teach these disciples how to learn and exercise all the same imperatives He had given them, most particularly for preaching the Gospel for the purpose of making more regenerated believer-disciples.

In summary, the purpose of this baptism was not to confer or impart the gift of The God, but to put a defining border and limit as to the membership of The Company, which in each physical location an independent autonomous assembly of The Company was raised and formed.

At this point, and until the closing of canonicity of apostolic writings by Beloved John's death, there was no sense suggested of a governing catholicity external to the finite borders of the local visible assembly of baptized believers written into the Scriptural annals of the development of "churches."

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The assembly I congregate with is a New Testament ekklesia, modeled after those formed by Philip and Paul; an independent, fundamental, immersionist company preaching salvation by faith alone on the basis of the Cross-shed Blood, physical death, resurrection, ascension, and reconciliation by The Anointed Eternal High Priest Jesus alone; and whose return as LORD of All to institute His Government over this world is imminent and prayed for. This model of churches preexisted the Platonic-revised imitation of the Romanist and Orthodoxen polity, in my very sincere and forthright Scriptural position, for which I am accountable to Christ alone.

The term "Christian" was first used by observers of people of The Company at Antioch of Syria, as manifesters as "little Christs" as a consuming profession. The term was adopted by Peter, illustrated by Paul to Agrippa who also used the term. and it has stuck to those claiming a relationship to the Savior. However, the term has become so much degraded that it is today (as you seem to me to have used it) often applied to anyone claiming some form of identification with Christianity, however unScriptural and unprovable. Certainly misapplying the Disciple's Baptism to infants or only catechized volunteers to assure salvatory powers and membership in a presumed genuine church body is a great miscarriage of the Great Commission. IMHO.

Now, I would have preferred to avoid this exposition in this thread, but you have aske insistently, and sometimes insultingly. So be it.

Commenting on he spirit of ecumenism, I reject it, by authority of 2 Cor. 6:14-7:1, for an imperative.