11 In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, 12 buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.
Did the man who baptized you in water raise Jesus from the dead? And explain to me about how this spiritual circumcision is done by your pastor in water?
No, what that verse is saying is that I am raised out of spiritual death with Christ in His resurrection from physical death, when I go underneath the water and then come up out of it to walk in newness of life..
How do you figure that the pastor has anything to do with the inward work of spiritual circumcision that takes place when we go under the water and come up out of it to walk in newness of life?
That spiritual circumcision is an operation of the Lord (Ezekiel 36:25-27) in which He removes the stony heart out of your flesh and replaces it with an heart of flesh and also gives you a new spirit; in order that He might cause you to walk in His statutes and in His judgments.
I've only resisted the false theology that water has the power to redeem a human soul.
I am not saying that it is the water. It is the water that enables a man to accurately identify with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection as it provides the most concise likeness of what that is in representation. And that is a confession of Jesus before men. See Matthew 10:32 for information as to whether or not this has the power to save a man.
I would say that identifying with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection is a greater type of confession than is going forward at a Crusade or church service. It may in fact be the only confession that God accepts as being faithful to what He means when He says confession.