Water Baptism in the biblical meaning.
Baptism is symbolic of death, burial, and resurrection. The Father and the Holy Spirit neither died, nor were buried.
Churches have many alternative false water baptisms
2. Baptize babies by sprinkling them on the head with any water.
But the Greek word for baptize means to immerse.
3. Baptize babies by sprinkling them with "holy water" on their heads.
But there is no mention of "holy water" in the New Testament. That is a Catholic belief.
But they cannot answer a simple question.
If a fly falls into holy water, is the water polluted, or is the fly made holy?
This debate has continued since the Dark Ages.
No New Testament person ever mentioned holy water.
abc NEWS (2013): Researchers at the Institute of Hygiene and Applied Immunology at the Medical University of Vienna tested water from 21 springs in Austria and 18 fonts in Vienna and found samples contained up to 62 million bacteria per milliliter of water, none of it safe to drink.
Tests indicated 86 percent of the holy water, commonly used in baptism ceremonies and to wet congregants' lips, was infected with common bacteria found in fecal matter such as E. coli, enterococci and Campylobacter, which can lead to diarrhea, cramping, abdominal pain, and fever.
Nitrates, commonly found in fertilizer from farms, were also identified in the water.
If ingested, water containing nitrates over the maximum contaminant level could cause serious illness, especially in infants younger than 6 months, which could lead to death if untreated, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
"We need to warn people against drinking from these sources," said Dr Alexander Kirschner, study researcher and microbiologist at the Medical University of Vienna.
The study, published in the Journal of Water and Health, also found that all church and hospital chapel fonts contained bacteria -- the busier the church, the higher the bacterial count.
Dangerous, infected water cannot be called holy water.
Only God is holy.
Where God dwells is holy due to His Presence.
In the Old Testament, God lived in the Jewish Temple, making it the holy place. His Presence in the Temple in Jerusalem made Jerusalem the holy city. His Presence in Jerusalem, the capital of Israel, made Israel the holy land.
But God's Spirit tore the Temple veil as God left the Temple when Jesus died in AD 33.
In AD 70, the Roman army destroyed the Temple under their general Titus. So that is no longer God’s dwelling place. The Book of Acts describes how, through the Holy Ghost baptism on the day of Pentecost, God came down to dwell in the hearts of men and women, turning them into His spiritual Temple's living stones not built by human hands.
Today, on planet earth, God dwells in holy people. Holy men and women. Not in holy places or holy things.
I PETER 2:5 Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.
HEBREWS 9:11
But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building
(the Jewish Temple).
As the pagan Roman soldiers destroyed the Jewish Temple, so the pagan Roman emperors killed three million Christians in their attempts to destroy God’s spiritual Temple or Tabernacle, which is built up of all the Christians that He lives in.
Today, you can find holy men and women if the Spirit of God dwells within them, but not "holy water" as God does not dwell in the water.
4. Baptize babies by a man dipping his thumb in water and drawing his thumb across the baby’s forehead.
This is a copy of what Hindus do with ashes. It involves no immersion.
5. Immersing the baby in a small container of water until just its head remains out of the water. Obviously, they do not want the baby to drown.
But baptize means immerse, complete immersion. You do not bury anyone with their head sticking out of the ground.
6. A rapid, full immersion of the baby in a small water container is done by the Greek Orthodox Church. Because "baptize" means "immerse" in Greek.
In the Book of Acts Chapter 2, verse 38, Peter said we must first repent and then be baptized. Babies cannot repent and, therefore, should not be baptized.
7. Sprinkling an adult on his head with water.
This is not immersion.
8. Pouring water from a shell or a small container over an adult’s head.
This is not immersion.
9. Immersing an adult numerous times in a river.
A person is only buried once.
10. Immersing an adult backward i.e. face up, three times. Immerse in the Name of the Father. Then the person is brought above the water and then re-immersed in the Name of the Son. Then the person is brought up again and then re-immersed in the Name of the Holy Ghost (Who has no Name in the Bible). That is why they use titles because there is no name for the Holy Ghost.
Firstly, Jesus did not say "Baptize in the Name of the Father and in the Name of the Son and in the Name of the Holy Ghost". That implies three Names.
MATTHEW 28:19
Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
Jesus spoke of one Name for the Father and for the Son and for the Holy Ghost.
Thus we need teaching to understand what this one Name is for God, Who has three Titles.
If there were three Names involved, that would not require teaching. Obviously, three Persons would have three Names.
Secondly, we only bury a person once, not three times.
What is the Name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost? Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are Titles, not Names.
( If you want to claim that Jehovah is the Name of the Father. Then Jesus is the Name of the Son, but no Name is given in the Bible for the Holy Ghost ). Thus Trinitarian Christians have two Names for three Persons. This is not very convincing.
This formula of "Father, Son, and Holy Ghost" for baptism does not reveal the Name of God because we were told to baptize in the Name, singular, not in the Names, plural. Two Names for three Persons. Not a happy solution to the problem.
In reality, the Father was called JHVH which is unpronounceable. But it was only after 1500 that "J" entered the English language. Before then the correct letters were YHWH, also unpronounceable and thus simply translated as "LORD".
You cannot have a name that cannot be pronounced. So men added vowels to YHWH and JHVH.
Letters were artificially added in to make Yahweh or Jehovah but these are man-made names.
So Yahweh and Jehovah are translated as LORD.
The name of God, Who was the Father, was secret in the Old Testament.
Samson's parents wanted to know God's name.
JUDGES 13:18 And the angel of the LORD said unto him, Why askest thou thus after my name, seeing it is secret?
JUDGES 13:22 And Manoah said unto his wife, We shall surely die, because we have seen God.
Adonai means Lord.
El, Elah, Elohim simply mean God. God is not the name of God.
I AM is not a name, it is a statement of eternal existence.
Abba is just the Greek word for Father.
EXODUS 34:14 For thou shalt worship no other god: for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God:
Jealous is not a name. What people call a name is simply a characteristic of God.
Let us return to the water baptism that represents the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus.
The Father and the Holy Spirit never died, were never buried, and never rose from the dead. So the baptism in water does not reflect at all what they did.
Another huge problem is that nowhere in the Bible are we told what the Name of the Holy Spirit is. So what is the point of saying "in the Name of the Holy Ghost" when we do not know what that Name is, especially if we insist that the Holy Ghost is a separate Person in the Godhead?
11. Immerse forwards one time in the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost because Jesus pitched forwards when He died on the cross.
We bury people on their backs, not face down.
Again, this method does not tell us what the Name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost is. Christians keep avoiding this issue of God's Name by fudging it with the three Titles of God. As if three Titles is a Name. To say that "Father, Son, and Holy Ghost" is a Name is fuzzy thinking, very delusional.
12. Immerse backward one time in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. This baptism correctly interprets the concept of burial, but once again does not reveal what the Name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost is. Three Titles, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, cannot replace one Name.
No one in the Bible was baptized this way.
13. Immerse backward one time in the name of "Jesus only" for the remission of sins.
Our sins are washed away by the Blood of Jesus Christ, not the waters of baptism.
That is why Peter first said, "Repent" before he spoke of people getting baptized. Repentance is what forgives us our sins.
REVELATION 1:5
And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood,
Baptism does not wash away our sins. Repentance does. By faith, repentance brings our sins under the Blood of Jesus.
Only His Blood can wash away our sins. Then we must receive a portion of His Holy Spirit into our hearts that will enable us to live above sin because the Holy Spirit takes away the desire to sin.
Remember, many humans today have been given the name of Jesus by their parents. So we must specify which Jesus, namely Jesus Christ or the Lord Jesus, by using at least one of His titles that are Lord or Christ. There is only one Lord Jesus Christ.
14. Immerse backward one time in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
This is the most rejected baptism amongst Christians.
Each Christian chooses his or her preferred variety of baptism, and even if Christians do not believe in the other baptisms, they will still reasonably tolerate them.
The only baptism that really gets them upset is the last one, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the only baptism that they totally reject because it undermines their dominant belief that God is a Trinity. This is the major Babylonian mystery-belief (the pagan mysteries of Babylon) that entered Christianity through the Roman Catholic church (Mystery Babylon).
The pagan Trinity was passed on to Rome's Protestant daughters who tried to separate from Rome in many ways but could not break away from the strong attraction of Trinitarianism.
The historian Gibbon described Roman Catholicism as "baptized paganism".
Thus baptism is not just a step of obedience. It is also a test of your understanding of what baptism means and, very importantly, what the Name of God is?
Do you know the name of God?
Do you know the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost?
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