(Daniel 8:11; 11:31; 12:11; John 20:22-23)
In Daniel 8, an angel explained that when the place of God’s sanctuary was cast to the ground, “the daily sacrifice was taken away.”
The Hebrew word for “the daily sacrifice” is hattamid (התמיד). The same word is also used in Daniel 11:31 and 12:11 to describe the daily sacrifice that was taken away when the abomination of desolation was set up. The tamid (תמיד) is the offering that is constantly before God.
The blood of Christ is the daily sacrifice that stands before God to atone for our sins. When we are baptized, the blood of Christ washes away our sins, as described in Acts 2:38 and 22:16.
Jesus gave His disciples the authority to remit sins when He breathed His Spirit on them, saying, “Receive the holy spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, their sins are forgiven.”1John 20:22-23
However, when the spirit of God was taken from the Church, there was no evidence that the Church still had the authority to wash away sins in baptism.
This power of the daily sacrifice was taken away.
Despite this, the bishop of Rome still claimed to have the authority to remit sins simply because of his position as the bishop of Rome. Martin Luther said that this was a lie from the pope, and called the pope the Antichrist:
“The pope is the very Antichrist, who has exalted himself above and opposed himself against Christ because he will not permit Christians to be saved without his power, which, nevertheless, is nothing and is neither ordained nor commanded by God.”2Smalcald Articles II, IV, 10-14
Even now, Protestant churches do not claim to have the authority to remit sins through baptism. They believe that baptism is only symbolic, and for this reason, they pay little attention to the method of baptism.
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