Replies

Meanwhile, here's something to consider: We're told that Jesus "breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost", but we're not told that they received it immediately. We are told, however, that they received it on Pentecost. Which fits also with the following:

I don't disagree with that...

Some of what you wrote seemed abbreviated, as if you might've wanted to elaborate more fully.

I am guilty of that...I try to get what I want to say in the least amount of space...To prevent people from skipping over what I post due to it being too lengthy...Actually I don't really even know if that's an issue...

I think we're in some disagreement about the baptisms in Acts. For instance, you say, regarding the Ephesians in Acts 19: "They likely weren't baptized 'into' Jesus but were baptized with the Holy Ghost."

What it says though is: "And when they heard this, they were baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus." Isn't this the same baptism Paul describes in Romans 6:3? - "Or are ye ignorant that all we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?"

That's a most interesting passage, as it describes what happens in baptism. Paul supposes someone might come to the wrong conclusion from what he's been saying and ask, "Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?" After rejecting that erroneous conclusion in the strongest possible terms ("God forbid."), he says, in essence, that anyone who would reach such a conclusion must not understand what happened when he was baptized:

"Or are ye ignorant that all we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him through baptism unto death: that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection; knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away, that so we should no longer be in bondage to sin; for he that hath died is justified from sin." - Rom. 6:3-7

The Christian is dead to sin, Paul says. He died to sin when he joined in Christ's death. He was buried with Christ in baptism. And he was raised with Christ from the water. The old man - the one in bondage to sin - was killed and buried, while the new man that comes up from the grave of baptism is freed (justified or found not-guilty, and released) from the bonds of sin the slave-master.

We might imagine Paul asking this rhetorical question: How can a Christian continue to live bound by the chains of sin, when those chains have been broken and he is set free?!

And when did all this happen, Paul?

Why, when he died with Christ in baptism, of course. That old man - the slave of sin - was crucified with Christ. And a new man - a free man - was raised with Him.

Would you agree with all that?