Christian Orthodoxy Understanding: The Sacrament of Baptism: Part One
May 29, 2017 04:41:06 #
05/08/2017 On The Sacrament of Baptism: Part One
Henry Karlson
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/henrykarlson/2017/05/on-the-sacrament-of-baptism-part-one/
On The Sacrament Of Baptism: Part Two
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/henrykarlson/2017/05/on-the-sacrament-of-baptism-part-two/
Christ came to bring life, new life, to the people of the world.
Before his advent, they were stuck in the decay of sin, the decay which leads to death and the abyss which followed afterwards.
The law of death ruled over creation.
We can see its effects all around us:
Everything falls apart, everything perishes.
To be born into the world is to be born unto death.
Life competes with death, and death prevails;
Even survival in the world requires nourishment which is given to us by death.
The contamination of sin is universal and the Original sin of Adam and Eve;
How it came about, who first sinned and why, is a matter of theological speculation and debate.
Such questions, while important in other situations and contexts, need not concern us here.
Just as a person who finds themselves poisoned will first seek an antidote to the poison, if it exists.
We find ourselves given into a world where the net of sin is all around us, death is before us, and we, desiring to get out of that net, must find the path to salvation.
We could, if we want, investigate how such sin came into the world, how it entrapped us in its clutches, but what we really want is the way out of that trap.
And the more we investigate its history, the more it can cover us and make it that much more difficult for us to give out of its domination over our lives.
Jesus and Nicodemus by Henry Ossawa Tanner
What we want is the kingdom of heaven, abundant life, that is eternal life without the taint of sin.
We want what will make us happy, not just for a short time, not just for the present, but for eternity.
This is what promised in and through the kingdom of heaven.
It is from God, who, as the infinite good, can satisfy us as no limited good could.
Such goodness is also radiant with beauty, a joy to behold.
But how do we receive it? How do we partake of it?
Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, `You must be born anew’” (Jn. 3:5-7 RSV).
The answer Jesus gave is fairly well known:
We must be born anew.
That is, we must be born again, born in a way which is no longer connected merely to the t***sient, decaying world of sin.
We must be born through the power of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, who is sent from the Father, through the Son, and unto us.
We must be born anew, touching eternity, touching eternal life, while remaining true to ourselves, true to our nature as bodily beings, beings in the flesh.
So that by grasping after and partaking of the bountiful potential of being found in eternity, the flesh itself can find itself born into the kingdom of God as well.
It must not be flesh alone, flesh disconnected from the grace of eternity, but it cannot be disconnected from its nature, from its connection to the material world.
What is required is something new and fresh which can be given to our whole being, including the flesh.
It is an addition given to us by the Spirit.
It comes to us in the temporal world, in the world of our ordinary experience, in the world which we first find ourselves experiencing.
And it slowly integrates us into the higher, bountiful world of the kingdom of God which is all around our existence but hidden from us thanks to sin.
As we find it penetrating us, integrating itself in our being, we continue to exist in the temporal realm, in the world of death, and so we find ourselves affected by that world by being in that world.
But we are no longer contained by it but rather we find ourselves in it and transcending it in the world beyond sin, in the kingdom of heaven which surrounds it, with the net being taken off us so that we can find ourselves free persons in the kingdom of God.
We must allow our temporal form to live out its proper days, reaching the end of its way of life, but as we see it die in the world and with the world.
We also reach out to the transcendent Spirit.
Open ourselves to the kingdom of God, and so as our temporal being dies, we find our state of being t***sformed into that of eternal life.
If we have been born again and let that birth take root in our being, at the end of our temporal existence we can find the fullness of our being t***sformed by the life-giving Spirit and spiritualized.
Made eternal and deathless.
In eternity, what we did in life, the marks of our temporal experience of life, will come with us: they are not lost, for they are a part of who and what we are, not just in time, but in eternity as well.
Thus, we are told by Jesus, we must be t***sformed and born anew in that t***sformation, seeing our temporal life as the foundation for that new birth, that eternal birth of the Spirit.
We will find that our new, spiritual life is conceived in womb of the temporal world, and that womb is opened and lets us out in our death, so what is made of in time is established in eternity, with death as the gateway between the two modes of existence. T
hrough death, our spiritual birth is complete. The process of that birth begins in the t***sient world of temporal creation, but ends in eternal life, so that our existence here is true.
And is important in our development, just as what happens in the womb is true and important in the development of the fetus before it is born into the world.
Thus, just as we are born in the world, born into time, born with the taint of sin and decay leading us to our death, so we must be born again, born again through the grace of the Spirit.
If we want to enter into the kingdom of God and its eternal life away from death. Without the Spirit, without the grace of the Spirit, eternity will be an eternal death.
A life in death, a perpetuation of the living death which we encounter in the temporal world so that it becomes a living of the realm of death without end;
It is life, life everlasting, but without the Spirit of life, and so it is the second death. The first death is the end of our life in the temporal world.
The second death is eternal life separated from the Spirit of life, life apart from that which energizes life and renders it a beautiful joy to possess.
The process by which we find ourselves integrated with the bounty of the kingdom of God, this grace of the Spirit, is traditionally indicated with one name for it:
Baptism.
By our baptism, we find ourselves connected to Christ, so that we share in and participate in his death and therefore in his resurrection.
“For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ” (Gal. 3:27 RSV).
We die with him and in him by the grace of the Spirit which makes us one with him.
We are given new life.
We share in his death, so that as death is overcome by his death, we find ourselves experiencing the end of death;
Then, through the life-giving Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit, we receive the unlimited healing bounty of life which helps us to rise up with Christ, to rise up with new life, life from the Spirit of life.
We are baptized into Christ. We put on Christ.
We put on his death and his resurrection.
Through the grace of the Holy Spirit,
we are able to be tied to Christ, to walk with new life, to be born again.
“Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?
We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life” (Rom. 6:3-4 RSV).
As the Spirit of Christ penetrates through the world of sin to join with us, we become, as it were, spiritual embryos awaiting our eternal birth in the kingdom of God.
It is in us now, even as we continue in the temporal world.
We are expected to grow in the Spirit of Life, to render to it all that is touched by the sting of death so that it can be taken over by life;
We must not resist the Spirit but let work in us, t***sforming us to truly unite our whole being with Christ so that we find ourselves following Christ.
Not just in the new birth, but in his ascent into heaven and find ourselves.
But fully rendered whole in the kingdom of God.
On The Sacrament Of Baptism: Part Two
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/henrykarlson/2017/05/on-the-sacrament-of-baptism-part-two/
Henry Karlson
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/henrykarlson/2017/05/on-the-sacrament-of-baptism-part-one/
On The Sacrament Of Baptism: Part Two
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/henrykarlson/2017/05/on-the-sacrament-of-baptism-part-two/
Christ came to bring life, new life, to the people of the world.
Before his advent, they were stuck in the decay of sin, the decay which leads to death and the abyss which followed afterwards.
The law of death ruled over creation.
We can see its effects all around us:
Everything falls apart, everything perishes.
To be born into the world is to be born unto death.
Life competes with death, and death prevails;
Even survival in the world requires nourishment which is given to us by death.
The contamination of sin is universal and the Original sin of Adam and Eve;
How it came about, who first sinned and why, is a matter of theological speculation and debate.
Such questions, while important in other situations and contexts, need not concern us here.
Just as a person who finds themselves poisoned will first seek an antidote to the poison, if it exists.
We find ourselves given into a world where the net of sin is all around us, death is before us, and we, desiring to get out of that net, must find the path to salvation.
We could, if we want, investigate how such sin came into the world, how it entrapped us in its clutches, but what we really want is the way out of that trap.
And the more we investigate its history, the more it can cover us and make it that much more difficult for us to give out of its domination over our lives.
Jesus and Nicodemus by Henry Ossawa Tanner
What we want is the kingdom of heaven, abundant life, that is eternal life without the taint of sin.
We want what will make us happy, not just for a short time, not just for the present, but for eternity.
This is what promised in and through the kingdom of heaven.
It is from God, who, as the infinite good, can satisfy us as no limited good could.
Such goodness is also radiant with beauty, a joy to behold.
But how do we receive it? How do we partake of it?
Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, `You must be born anew’” (Jn. 3:5-7 RSV).
The answer Jesus gave is fairly well known:
We must be born anew.
That is, we must be born again, born in a way which is no longer connected merely to the t***sient, decaying world of sin.
We must be born through the power of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, who is sent from the Father, through the Son, and unto us.
We must be born anew, touching eternity, touching eternal life, while remaining true to ourselves, true to our nature as bodily beings, beings in the flesh.
So that by grasping after and partaking of the bountiful potential of being found in eternity, the flesh itself can find itself born into the kingdom of God as well.
It must not be flesh alone, flesh disconnected from the grace of eternity, but it cannot be disconnected from its nature, from its connection to the material world.
What is required is something new and fresh which can be given to our whole being, including the flesh.
It is an addition given to us by the Spirit.
It comes to us in the temporal world, in the world of our ordinary experience, in the world which we first find ourselves experiencing.
And it slowly integrates us into the higher, bountiful world of the kingdom of God which is all around our existence but hidden from us thanks to sin.
As we find it penetrating us, integrating itself in our being, we continue to exist in the temporal realm, in the world of death, and so we find ourselves affected by that world by being in that world.
But we are no longer contained by it but rather we find ourselves in it and transcending it in the world beyond sin, in the kingdom of heaven which surrounds it, with the net being taken off us so that we can find ourselves free persons in the kingdom of God.
We must allow our temporal form to live out its proper days, reaching the end of its way of life, but as we see it die in the world and with the world.
We also reach out to the transcendent Spirit.
Open ourselves to the kingdom of God, and so as our temporal being dies, we find our state of being t***sformed into that of eternal life.
If we have been born again and let that birth take root in our being, at the end of our temporal existence we can find the fullness of our being t***sformed by the life-giving Spirit and spiritualized.
Made eternal and deathless.
In eternity, what we did in life, the marks of our temporal experience of life, will come with us: they are not lost, for they are a part of who and what we are, not just in time, but in eternity as well.
Thus, we are told by Jesus, we must be t***sformed and born anew in that t***sformation, seeing our temporal life as the foundation for that new birth, that eternal birth of the Spirit.
We will find that our new, spiritual life is conceived in womb of the temporal world, and that womb is opened and lets us out in our death, so what is made of in time is established in eternity, with death as the gateway between the two modes of existence. T
hrough death, our spiritual birth is complete. The process of that birth begins in the t***sient world of temporal creation, but ends in eternal life, so that our existence here is true.
And is important in our development, just as what happens in the womb is true and important in the development of the fetus before it is born into the world.
Thus, just as we are born in the world, born into time, born with the taint of sin and decay leading us to our death, so we must be born again, born again through the grace of the Spirit.
If we want to enter into the kingdom of God and its eternal life away from death. Without the Spirit, without the grace of the Spirit, eternity will be an eternal death.
A life in death, a perpetuation of the living death which we encounter in the temporal world so that it becomes a living of the realm of death without end;
It is life, life everlasting, but without the Spirit of life, and so it is the second death. The first death is the end of our life in the temporal world.
The second death is eternal life separated from the Spirit of life, life apart from that which energizes life and renders it a beautiful joy to possess.
The process by which we find ourselves integrated with the bounty of the kingdom of God, this grace of the Spirit, is traditionally indicated with one name for it:
Baptism.
By our baptism, we find ourselves connected to Christ, so that we share in and participate in his death and therefore in his resurrection.
“For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ” (Gal. 3:27 RSV).
We die with him and in him by the grace of the Spirit which makes us one with him.
We are given new life.
We share in his death, so that as death is overcome by his death, we find ourselves experiencing the end of death;
Then, through the life-giving Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit, we receive the unlimited healing bounty of life which helps us to rise up with Christ, to rise up with new life, life from the Spirit of life.
We are baptized into Christ. We put on Christ.
We put on his death and his resurrection.
Through the grace of the Holy Spirit,
we are able to be tied to Christ, to walk with new life, to be born again.
“Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?
We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life” (Rom. 6:3-4 RSV).
As the Spirit of Christ penetrates through the world of sin to join with us, we become, as it were, spiritual embryos awaiting our eternal birth in the kingdom of God.
It is in us now, even as we continue in the temporal world.
We are expected to grow in the Spirit of Life, to render to it all that is touched by the sting of death so that it can be taken over by life;
We must not resist the Spirit but let work in us, t***sforming us to truly unite our whole being with Christ so that we find ourselves following Christ.
Not just in the new birth, but in his ascent into heaven and find ourselves.
But fully rendered whole in the kingdom of God.
On The Sacrament Of Baptism: Part Two
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/henrykarlson/2017/05/on-the-sacrament-of-baptism-part-two/
May 29, 2017 05:15:02 #
05/10/2017 On The Sacrament Of Baptism: Part Two
Henry Karlson
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/henrykarlson/2017/05/on-the-sacrament-of-baptism-part-two/
On The Sacrament of Baptism: Part One
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/henrykarlson/2017/05/on-the-sacrament-of-baptism-part-one/
Baptism. Fresco on the catacomb of Saints Marcellinus and Peter, Via Labicana, Rome, Italy.
This is the second post of a series on the sacrament of baptism.
Click here to read Part One.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/henrykarlson/2017/05/on-the-sacrament-of-baptism-part-one/
Baptism is said to bring us salvation, because it renders us the grace of the Holy Spirit.
For this reason, it is said to be the entrance into the new and everlasting covenant.
It brings us spiritual rebirth, giving us our birth from above, because through it we are born of the Spirit, no longer beings merely attached to the temporal world.
Baptism is received through water even as it is sanctified by the Spirit.
It must not be seen merely the washing of water, nor the magical invocation of names:
Neither of these are what makes baptism effective.
Rather, it is the Spirit which uses the vessels established for our recreation who enables them to be the means by which we are born again in the body of Christ.
Just as in the myth of the flood, only those who joined in the ark of Noah were said to be saved from the waters which ravaged the earth, so through baptism we join into Christ and find ourselves saved from the floods of sin:
For Christ also died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit;
In which he went and preached to the spirits in prison, who formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water.
Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a clear conscience.
Through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers subject to him (1. Ptr. 3:18-22 RSV).
Christ told us to believe and be baptized, not because baptism is merely a sign of our own belief, but because he set up baptism as a means by which we are graced by the Spirit.
We find ourselves cleansed from the power of sin and the death which is brings, so that we can be born into the kingdom of God.
The baptism of John, which prefigured the baptism of Christ, was not full of the power of the Holy Spirit and so did not give those who received it the new.
Spiritual birth they need in order to attain eternal life.
What John gave was of water.
It opened people up, making them aware of their need for cleansing by the use of water, but John knew, however useful and wh**ever grace might have been attained from his baptism.
There was the need for a greater baptism which received its power from the Spirit of God.
What John gave was a means for metanoia.
But what Christ gave was greater.
Christ wanted those who came to him to start with what John established, so that those who came to him had to accept the need for conversion, for metanoia.
But then Jesus would impart upon those who are baptized the grace of the Holy Spirit to make them anew, as St. Ambrose beautifully explained:
You have seen water;
Not all water cures, but the water which has the grace of Christ cures.
One is an element, the other a consecration;
One an opus, the other an operation.
Opus belongs to water;
Operation belongs to the Holy Spirit.
Water does not cure unless the Holy Spirit descends and consecrates that water, as you have read that, when our Lord Jesus Christ gave the form of baptism.
He came to John, and John said to Him:
‘I ought to be baptized be thee; and comest thou to me?’
Christ replied to him: ‘Suffer it now; for so it becometh us to fulfill all justice.’ Behold that all justice is established in baptism.[1]
The baptism which Christ has given us brings grace, and that grace opens us up to a new life, bringing us to a state of true justice and not a mere change of heart.
Through baptism, we receive the fruit of Christ’s labor;
We experience the death of sin in his death, so that justice can be established in us.
Then we can receive the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of T***h, the Spirit of Life, and through its grace, we are free to pursue true justice and make it our way of life.
This, to be sure, is up to us.
The rebirthing process can be interrupted.
We can become stillborn if we close ourselves once again from the grace of the Spirit and turn once again to the way of death, grasping after, and holding onto sin.
As we continue in temporal existence, we should be growing in grace, preparing ourselves for eternal life in the kingdom of God.
We are still immature children, and so can turn away, mortally sin, cutting ourselves off from the blessings of the kingdom of God.
We can receive the Spirit, we can be conceived by the Holy Spirit for the heavenly kingdom, but we still can cast God’s Spirit from us.
Thus, Paul warns us not to quench the Spirit (cf. 1 Thes. 5:19)
And so, not to act immorally, sinning against ourselves by such immorality because we are to be temples of God in which the Spirit dwells:
Shun immorality.
Every other sin which a man commits is outside the body; but the immoral man sins against his own body.
Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God?
You are not your own;
You were bought with a price.
So glorify God in your body (1 Cor. 5:18-20 RSV).
In baptism, we find souls are washed clean by the Holy Spirit.
We find a new sense of power, a new sense of freedom emerging in and through our regeneration, so that we can truly say we are born again.
Receptors of a new life with a new opportunity to receive all the blessings God intended for us to have.
It is God’s desire that we take that grace and act upon it, turning ourselves into persons who act justly, that is, out of the law of love, so that we no longer are rebels following the path of h**e and destruction.
Before our baptism, we were once turned away from God, attached to the ways of the temporal world without the Spirit to enlighten our way;
But now we have been regenerated, and no matter what kind of past we might have had before baptism, we have a fresh start.
And so, because of our past, because we were turned away from God before our rebirth, even if we were infants when we were baptized, we can say with Paul:
For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, s***es to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, h**ed by men and hating one another;
But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of deeds done by us in righteousness, but in virtue of his own mercy.
By the washing of regeneration and renewal in the Holy Spirit, which he poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that we might be justified by his grace and become heirs in hope of eternal life (Tit. 3:3-7 RSV).
We who have been baptized have been regenerated.
We have emptied ourselves of our sins so that we can become joint-heirs with Christ, sons and daughters in the Son of God.
We have found our place in the body of Christ so that what he is by nature we become by grace.
This is what it means to be adopted children of God; we are not begotten of the Father through all ages, but we join in and find ourselves united to the one who is, Jesus Christ, who is the eternal Son of God, the Logos.
Through his incarnation, he makes room for us so we can be grafted into his body.
But that means, if we do not open up and truly unite with him, if we close ourselves off and hinder the work of that grafting.
We can still find ourselves falling away and doomed to perish.
Those who turn once again to sin, attach themselves to it, find out it is like a cancer in the body of Christ which must be excised;
The greater the sin, the greater the cancer, and the more which will have to be cut off.
This is why, if we let sin reinfect us completely, we might have to be cast away, as Paul warned of Gentiles who found themselves joined to the Israel of God, taking the place of others who had fallen away:
“Note then the kindness and the severity of God:
Severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness;
Otherwise you too will be cut off” (Rom. 11:22 RSV).
On The Sacrament Of Baptism: Part Three
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/henrykarlson/2017/05/on-the-sacrament-of-baptism-part-three/?
[1] St. Ambrose, “The Sacraments,” in Theological and Dogmatic Works.
t***s. Roy J Deferrari, PhD (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1963), 274.
Henry Karlson
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/henrykarlson/2017/05/on-the-sacrament-of-baptism-part-two/
On The Sacrament of Baptism: Part One
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/henrykarlson/2017/05/on-the-sacrament-of-baptism-part-one/
Baptism. Fresco on the catacomb of Saints Marcellinus and Peter, Via Labicana, Rome, Italy.
This is the second post of a series on the sacrament of baptism.
Click here to read Part One.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/henrykarlson/2017/05/on-the-sacrament-of-baptism-part-one/
Baptism is said to bring us salvation, because it renders us the grace of the Holy Spirit.
For this reason, it is said to be the entrance into the new and everlasting covenant.
It brings us spiritual rebirth, giving us our birth from above, because through it we are born of the Spirit, no longer beings merely attached to the temporal world.
Baptism is received through water even as it is sanctified by the Spirit.
It must not be seen merely the washing of water, nor the magical invocation of names:
Neither of these are what makes baptism effective.
Rather, it is the Spirit which uses the vessels established for our recreation who enables them to be the means by which we are born again in the body of Christ.
Just as in the myth of the flood, only those who joined in the ark of Noah were said to be saved from the waters which ravaged the earth, so through baptism we join into Christ and find ourselves saved from the floods of sin:
For Christ also died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit;
In which he went and preached to the spirits in prison, who formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water.
Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a clear conscience.
Through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers subject to him (1. Ptr. 3:18-22 RSV).
Christ told us to believe and be baptized, not because baptism is merely a sign of our own belief, but because he set up baptism as a means by which we are graced by the Spirit.
We find ourselves cleansed from the power of sin and the death which is brings, so that we can be born into the kingdom of God.
The baptism of John, which prefigured the baptism of Christ, was not full of the power of the Holy Spirit and so did not give those who received it the new.
Spiritual birth they need in order to attain eternal life.
What John gave was of water.
It opened people up, making them aware of their need for cleansing by the use of water, but John knew, however useful and wh**ever grace might have been attained from his baptism.
There was the need for a greater baptism which received its power from the Spirit of God.
What John gave was a means for metanoia.
But what Christ gave was greater.
Christ wanted those who came to him to start with what John established, so that those who came to him had to accept the need for conversion, for metanoia.
But then Jesus would impart upon those who are baptized the grace of the Holy Spirit to make them anew, as St. Ambrose beautifully explained:
You have seen water;
Not all water cures, but the water which has the grace of Christ cures.
One is an element, the other a consecration;
One an opus, the other an operation.
Opus belongs to water;
Operation belongs to the Holy Spirit.
Water does not cure unless the Holy Spirit descends and consecrates that water, as you have read that, when our Lord Jesus Christ gave the form of baptism.
He came to John, and John said to Him:
‘I ought to be baptized be thee; and comest thou to me?’
Christ replied to him: ‘Suffer it now; for so it becometh us to fulfill all justice.’ Behold that all justice is established in baptism.[1]
The baptism which Christ has given us brings grace, and that grace opens us up to a new life, bringing us to a state of true justice and not a mere change of heart.
Through baptism, we receive the fruit of Christ’s labor;
We experience the death of sin in his death, so that justice can be established in us.
Then we can receive the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of T***h, the Spirit of Life, and through its grace, we are free to pursue true justice and make it our way of life.
This, to be sure, is up to us.
The rebirthing process can be interrupted.
We can become stillborn if we close ourselves once again from the grace of the Spirit and turn once again to the way of death, grasping after, and holding onto sin.
As we continue in temporal existence, we should be growing in grace, preparing ourselves for eternal life in the kingdom of God.
We are still immature children, and so can turn away, mortally sin, cutting ourselves off from the blessings of the kingdom of God.
We can receive the Spirit, we can be conceived by the Holy Spirit for the heavenly kingdom, but we still can cast God’s Spirit from us.
Thus, Paul warns us not to quench the Spirit (cf. 1 Thes. 5:19)
And so, not to act immorally, sinning against ourselves by such immorality because we are to be temples of God in which the Spirit dwells:
Shun immorality.
Every other sin which a man commits is outside the body; but the immoral man sins against his own body.
Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God?
You are not your own;
You were bought with a price.
So glorify God in your body (1 Cor. 5:18-20 RSV).
In baptism, we find souls are washed clean by the Holy Spirit.
We find a new sense of power, a new sense of freedom emerging in and through our regeneration, so that we can truly say we are born again.
Receptors of a new life with a new opportunity to receive all the blessings God intended for us to have.
It is God’s desire that we take that grace and act upon it, turning ourselves into persons who act justly, that is, out of the law of love, so that we no longer are rebels following the path of h**e and destruction.
Before our baptism, we were once turned away from God, attached to the ways of the temporal world without the Spirit to enlighten our way;
But now we have been regenerated, and no matter what kind of past we might have had before baptism, we have a fresh start.
And so, because of our past, because we were turned away from God before our rebirth, even if we were infants when we were baptized, we can say with Paul:
For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, s***es to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, h**ed by men and hating one another;
But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of deeds done by us in righteousness, but in virtue of his own mercy.
By the washing of regeneration and renewal in the Holy Spirit, which he poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that we might be justified by his grace and become heirs in hope of eternal life (Tit. 3:3-7 RSV).
We who have been baptized have been regenerated.
We have emptied ourselves of our sins so that we can become joint-heirs with Christ, sons and daughters in the Son of God.
We have found our place in the body of Christ so that what he is by nature we become by grace.
This is what it means to be adopted children of God; we are not begotten of the Father through all ages, but we join in and find ourselves united to the one who is, Jesus Christ, who is the eternal Son of God, the Logos.
Through his incarnation, he makes room for us so we can be grafted into his body.
But that means, if we do not open up and truly unite with him, if we close ourselves off and hinder the work of that grafting.
We can still find ourselves falling away and doomed to perish.
Those who turn once again to sin, attach themselves to it, find out it is like a cancer in the body of Christ which must be excised;
The greater the sin, the greater the cancer, and the more which will have to be cut off.
This is why, if we let sin reinfect us completely, we might have to be cast away, as Paul warned of Gentiles who found themselves joined to the Israel of God, taking the place of others who had fallen away:
“Note then the kindness and the severity of God:
Severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness;
Otherwise you too will be cut off” (Rom. 11:22 RSV).
On The Sacrament Of Baptism: Part Three
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/henrykarlson/2017/05/on-the-sacrament-of-baptism-part-three/?
[1] St. Ambrose, “The Sacraments,” in Theological and Dogmatic Works.
t***s. Roy J Deferrari, PhD (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1963), 274.
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