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Monday, September 07, 2020

Tyndale on baptism

And to know how contrary this law is unto our nature, and how it is damnation not to have this law written on our hearts, though we never commit the deeds; and how there is no other means to be saved from this damnation, than through repentance toward the law, and faith in Christ’s blood; which are the very inward baptism of our souls, and the washing and the dipping of our bodies in the water is the outward sign. The plunging of the body under the water signifieth that we repent and profess to fight against sin and lusts, and to kill them every day more and more, with the help of God, and our diligence in following the doctrine of Christ and the leading of his Spirit; and that we believe to be washed from our natural damnation in which we are born, and from all the wrath of the law…and from all actual sin which shall chance upon us, while we enforce the contrary and ever fight there against, and hope to sin no more. And thus repentance and faith begin at our baptism, and first professing the laws of God; and continue to our lives’end, and grow as we grow in the Spirit: for the perfecter [sic] we be, the greater is our repentance, and the stronger our faith…
In “Pathway Into the Holy Scriptures,” an introduction to his New Testament (circa 1525), William Tyndale teaches believers’ baptism and immersion as baptism.

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