Apostolic Friends Forum - God's Symbols

Symbols matter.

When Uzzah went to steady the Ark of the Covenant to be a helper, he touched the holiest symbol of Israel. God himself initiated the result. What God attested to is that God cares about the correct regard to the symbols he has given.

Symbols are representations of the real, but are not themselves the real.

People may take that fact to misrepresent that it doesn't matter if symbols are exchanged. They mean, by saying this, that another symbol can be said to represent the same thing.

Thus they may then wrongly say the sin-cleansing by immersion in water is only a symbol of the real and it does not matter which water method in baptism is used, as long as water is involved. The wrong understanding, in the misuse of the symbolic ways God has given, then leads to some wrongly saying that, what they wrongly call baptism, can be done by pouring water or sprinkling water.

Don't mess with the symbols God has given. God has demonstrated with Uzzah that he cares that they are represented correctly.