If faith is sufficient alone why did Jesus Christ command further ordinances like baptism and the laying on of hands?
Faith is just the beginning, the starting point.
Faith is the beginning. It gets us saved.
The rest of the stuff is for growth and maturity and ministry.
Baptism and laying on of hands is not for salvation.
In Galatians 3, Paul write to the Galatians and says they are foolish for beginning with grace and trying to be perfected by works.
Faith is just the beginning, the starting point.
What is begun in faith continues in faith. Jesus gave us commands and every true child of God desires to obey them all, though we are not perfect. But consider what Paul says:
Galatians 3:2-3 This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? (3) Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?What is missed by the "faith is just the beginning" theory is that all obedience is a byproduct of faith. The two are not separable. If we obey him in baptism, or in taking the Lord's Supper, or in any other command, it is because we believe in Him, and that all He tels us to do is right and good and wholesome, not because we are expecting to earn credit for our effort. Salvation is not a quid pro quo business arrangement. It's a marriage. There is a commitment from both parties. We've been forgiven. We don't labor to gain His favor. We already have it. We labor to do good because it is the only possible response of love.
1010...I am not not your typical Evangelical who tends to downplay baptism...
I think passages like 1 Peter 3:19-21, Acts 2:38-42, Titus 3:5 etc. need to be taken quite seriously.
STILL...
...show me ANYWHERE in the Bible where baptism is referenced as an "ordinance."
Sorry, but Joseph Smith borrowed that term from the Baptists & other similar denoms who mistakenly applied "ordinance" to Sacraments.
"Ordinance" just means decree. What God has ordained.
Yet NOWHERE is baptism referenced as an "ordinance."
It's a generic term...which doesn't intersect with the NT practice of baptism...at all...