Quote:
Originally Posted by Hesetmefree238
I don't believe in baptismal regeneration. Regeneration is a rebirth of the inner man. If water baptism regenerated a man, then everyone who is baptized would come up a regenerated new creature in Christ. We know this isn't true. A person can go down in the water a sinner and come up a wet sinner. Simon the magician in Acts 8 is an example of this as his heart was not right with God even though he had recently been water baptized. Regeneration is the birth of the Spirit, which is the old man being transformed into a new creature with the new life of the Spirit of Christ. |
Basically you are building and attacking a strawman.
1) What you mean by baptismal regeneration and what most of us here mean is probably something very different. We are not Roman Catholics.
2) I agree with you that regeneration is a rebirth of the inner man.
3) No one says that water baptism is the be all and end all of regeneration in Christ.
4) One goes down in the water a sinner and back out of the water a sinner, without any change whatsoever IF it is not done in faith. But if it is done in faith in Jesus Christ then he will go down in the water buried with Christ and come up out of the water risen with Christ...the metaphor. Down in the water laden with a dirty conscience, up out of the water with the circumcision of the Spirit, the removal of the body of sin/a cleansed conscience...the reality. In water baptism the old man is buried and the new man is risen to become transformed into the image of Christ. All of this is done by the Spirit of Christ who does not have to be "indwelling" to do the work but does have to inhabit the cleansed dwelling to complete the new birth.
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