Guanophore, you wrote:
“Actually, most of what you have written here is very Catholic. It is puzzling why you would say that a believer is bapitzed because their sins are washed away. The Apostles taught that sins are washed away in Baptism.”
I can understand your confusion with my personal view regarding baptism. The Catholic faith teaches that a person is born with sin and thus Baptism washes that sin away resulting in regeneration. Or in otherwords, this person (in most cases, an infant) is spritually reborn through baptism. (per Ludwig Ott in his Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma.)
My personal faith and baptismal view is in Believers’ baptism. (which is done in the name of the Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit)
It is based on Acts 2:41 when Peter stated at Pentecost: “Those who received his word were baptized”.
This order of faith and baptism is again repeated in Acts 8:12 “*When they believed *Philip as he preached good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women.”
And again in Acts 10 & 16 when Peter baptized the people after they had received the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit after hearing the good news of Jesus Christ.
Thus the order of my personal faith is:
1.Believe that Jesus is Lord and trust Him as your Saviour.
2.Then you are given the Holy Spirit as your helper.
3.Then you are baptized as a symbol of the dying of your old life, thus being raised to walk in a new life in Christ Jesus.
We were cleansed of our sins when we recieve Christ as our Saviour. Baptism is a public and physical symbol of our regeneration and redemption.
My belief is that baptism shows evidence of having consciously begun the Christian life. (Galatians 3:27 “As many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.”)