Here are some more thoughts on the similarities between baptism and marriage.
We cannot get married to our loved one by ourselves, we need an ordained representative to create the bond, almost as a free gift with no work on our part, except to say I do.
And the same goes with baptism, we cannot get baptized by ourselves, we need an ordained representative.
Once committed to God we receive the Holy Spirit that comes to live in our bodily house, and then we are in a very real sense in a marriage with the Third Person of the Trinity or in other words with God himself.
We can see here that this bond is also a free gift with no work on our part, except to affirm. But that bond doesn’t assure us salvation. Because just as in marriage, we have some work to do. Let me illustrate.
In marriage, as soon as the bond is set, work begins. Though in all fairness it’s not really work as much as it is a working out of your love towards your partner. Labour of love, if you will. Not that we have to do it but we want to do it. To not do it would be to deny or quell our love, and effectively our marriage commitment to our partner. That would be marriage in name only, which throws up the question where our heart lies. “For where your treasure lies, your heart lies also.” Matthew 6:21
So it is in our baptism, except it’s not us working but a letting of the Spirit work in us.
‘Do not quench the Spirit,’ writes Paul in his letter to the Thessalonians.
The Spirit will then naturally produce fruit. “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness.” Galatians 5:22
Again, these fruits are the natural out-workings of the unquenched Spirit. “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” John 15:5
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