Jerry Shugart
Well-known member
Your understanding about what the Lord Jesus taught about water baptism is obviously contradicted by the teaching that spiritual life comes as a result of believing.
How I interpret the Catechism of the Catholic Church
- Thread starter Nihilo
- Start date
Your understanding about what the Lord Jesus taught about water baptism is obviously contradicted by the teaching that spiritual life comes as a result of believing.
Versus John 3:5 (KJV)
Your quarrel is with Him, IMO. The Church, for her part, teaches what the Lord taught, mostly exactly and verbatim as found in Scripture.The Lord Jesus said:
Jerry Shugart
Well-known member
The Lord referred to the baptism of water and spirit as being "born again" (v.3). And both Peter and James make it plain that a person is born again by the word of God:
"Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God...And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you" (1 Pet.1:23,25).
"He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created" (Jas.1:18).
At John 3:5 the Lord Jesus was using the word "water" in a in a figurative sense. Here we can see that the word "water" can be referring to the "word":
"Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word" (Eph.5:26).
That is the only way that the words of Peter about how a person is born again can be reconciled with the words of the Lord Jesus words about being born again.
So far you have not even attempted to reconcile Rome's teaching that water baptism is the gate to spiritual life with what the Lord Jesus said at John 5:24 and John 6:63 which contradict Rome's teaching.