Questions that need an answer:
[*]What was Noah delivered from BEFORE THE FLOOD? Peter's chapter is about the water delivering him. Salvation is deliverance.
[*]How is mikvah anything related to putting us into the death of Jesus (Ro 6:3)?
[*]How is circumcision mandatory, or else folks weren't allowed in the religious activity of Israel? How does baptism fit in theology in the way that circumcision was demanded in order to get involved in worship in Israel? Translate that demand of circumcision for involvement in worship into New Testament baptism.
It is as Paul wrote in
Romans 4, it was the seal of the covenant. It was what circumcision represented, not what it did. Circumcision did nothing but mutilate the body, it did not make one clean. It represented cleanness. Just as baptism does not clean one but represents burial with Christ, represents being cleaned from sin.
Believing that the literal act of water baptism is the exact point sins are washed away, is much like the religious leaders of Christ day, that accused the disciples of eating with unwashed hands. They believed that evil spirits could come into a person if they did not wash their hands before eating.
It is a tradition of man, that water baptism is the point sins are washed away. The cross washed away all sins, and we accept that by faith, period.
"as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the son of man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life".
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