Baptized into the Church or into Christ?

[descout]

I was recently reviewing the beliefs of a non denominational church. They stated that they were baptized by full immersion (only biblical way) into Christ, with emphasis on Christ, not the church. I guess my belief is the same, disregarding the immersion, but they make it sound like it is not. I believe that Christ IS the church. So if I am baptized into the church I would be also baptized into Chirst. Would some Catholics please back me on this or set me straight please? Any non denoms out there care to explain why the church is not Christ or why in baptism they need to specify in Christ?

 

[Ignatius]

I was recently reviewing the beliefs of a non denominational church. They stated that they were baptized by full immersion (only biblical way) into Christ, with emphasis on Christ, not the church. I guess my belief is the same, disregarding the immersion, but they make it sound like it is not. I believe that Christ IS the church. So if I am baptized into the church I would be also baptized into Chirst. Would some Catholics please back me on this or set me straight please? Any non denoms out there care to explain why the church is not Christ or why in baptism they need to specify in Christ?

You can’t separate Christ from His Church. Christ is the head and the Church is His body. If you are baptized into Christ then you are baptized into The Church.

 

[choy]

non-denoms are heretics. they want to destroy the image of the Church, and tell people we don’t need the Church as long as we have a “personal” relationship with Christ. so everything they do revolves around believe emphasizing on “me” and “Christ” and taking the Church out of the equation. which is not Biblical because Jesus has emphasized the role of the Church in our salvation

 

[NotWorthy]

Ignatius in Post #2 is correct.

To back this up, if the baptizer uses the Trinitarian formula (I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit…) and uses water, then you are baptized into Christ and into the Church. This is true even for your Non-Denominational friend.

 

[Javl]

I would also ask that if you have a “personal” relationship with Christ then why did Christ establish His Church?

PAX DOMINI

Shalom Aleichem

 

[Bookcat]

I was recently reviewing the beliefs of a non denominational church. They stated that they were baptized by full immersion (only biblical way) into Christ, with emphasis on Christ, not the church. I guess my belief is the same, disregarding the immersion, but they make it sound like it is not. I believe that Christ IS the church. So if I am baptized into the church I would be also baptized into Chirst. Would some Catholics please back me on this or set me straight please? Any non denoms out there care to explain why the church is not Christ or why in baptism they need to specify in Christ?

Both…

We are baptized into Christ and thus enter his Church. Those baptized outside of Full Communion with the Catholic Church are still Christians with us…even though not in full communion.

But it is a wonderful truth…we are ‘in Christ’ as Paul puts it so often in his letters…

one of my favorite phrases…

 

[Bookcat]

Catedhism:

Baptism in the Church

1226 From the very day of Pentecost the Church has celebrated and administered holy Baptism. Indeed St. Peter declares to the crowd astounded by his preaching: "Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit."26 The apostles and their collaborators offer Baptism to anyone who believed in Jesus: Jews, the God-fearing, pagans.27 Always, Baptism is seen as connected with faith: “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household,” St. Paul declared to his jailer in Philippi. And the narrative continues, the jailer "was baptized at once, with all his family."28

1227 According to the Apostle Paul, the believer enters through Baptism into communion with Christ’s death, is buried with him, and rises with him:

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.29

The baptized have "put on Christ."30 Through the Holy Spirit, Baptism is a bath that purifies, justifies, and sanctifies.31

1228 Hence Baptism is a bath of water in which the “imperishable seed” of the Word of God produces its life-giving effect.32 St. Augustine says of Baptism: "The word is brought to the material element, and it becomes a sacrament."33

and read all of this:

vatican.va/archive/catechism/p2s2c1a1.htm#VII

 

[Bookcat]

As Paul puts it in Romans 6:3

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus…

Then Paul says in 1 Cor 12:13

For by one Spirit we were all* baptized into one body*.