Scriptural Roots of Catholic Teaching by Epie Chantal

Author:Epie, Chantal [Epie, Chantal]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sophia Institute Press
Published: 2013-12-09T05:00:00+00:00

Baptism purifies us from Original Sin and from personal sins

“We have died, once for all, to sin; can we breathe its air again? You know well enough that we who were taken up into Christ by Baptism have been taken up, all of us, into His death. In our Baptism we have been buried with Him, died like Him, that so, just as Christ was raised up by His Father’s power from the dead, we, too, might live and move in a new kind of existence.” 391

This liberation from sin Jesus won for us by His Passion and death: “Enemies of God, we were reconciled to Him through his Son’s death; reconciled to Him, we are surer than ever of finding salvation in His Son’s life. And, what is more, we can boast of God’s protection, always through our Lord Jesus Christ, since it is through Him that we have attained our reconciliation.” 392

For this reconciliation to be made effective, each individual must unite himself to the death and Resurrection of Christ, and this is done through Baptism. In the sixth chapter of his letter to the Romans, St. Paul declares: “You know well enough that we who were taken up into Christ by Baptism have been taken up, all of us, into His death.” 393 And he goes on to explain how the baptized Christian has died and risen with Christ, and lives a new life in the service of God, having rejected sin. “We have to be closely fitted into the pattern of His Resurrection, as we have been into the pattern of His death; we have to be sure of this, that our former nature has been crucified with Him, and the living power of our guilt annihilated, so that we are the slaves of guilt no longer. Guilt makes no more claim on a man who is dead. And if we have died with Christ, we have faith to believe that we shall share His life.” 394

The whole chapter deals with this death to sin, this liberation from sin, which is the result of our Baptism. St. Paul knew well the need and the effects of Baptism. He never forgot God’s message to him through Ananias in Damascus: “Rise up, and receive Baptism, washing away thy sins at the invocation of His name.” 395

St. Peter also speaks of this liberation from sin through Baptism. “What was the ransom that freed you from the vain observances of ancestral tradition? You know well enough that it was not paid in earthly currency, silver or gold; it was paid in the precious Blood of Christ; no lamb was ever so pure, so spotless a victim. . . . Through Him you have learned to be faithful to God, who raised Him up from the dead and endowed Him with glory; your faith and your hope are to be centered in God. Purify your souls with the discipline of charity . . . since you have all been born anew with an immortal, imperishable birth, through the words of God, who lives and abides forever.

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