I have a friend who is convinced that individuals may only be saved if they are baptised in water.
I do not align with that view…the most obvious problems with it that I see are as follows:
repentant thief on the cross - Christ said, I tell you this day, you will be with me in paradise
Old Testament patriarchs, kings, prophets - I’m not able to recall any of them having been baptised in water (we can deduce that they probably were but I’m not sure it’s actually stated?)
I cannot recall any record during Christ’s own ministry where he actually baptised anyone in water (anyone think of any?)
We are saved by grace through faith - “believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved”…the notion is that we are saved at the point of belief and not through any works we may do.
We are actually told Jesus didn’t baptize anyone but his disciples did. Probably so people couldn’t boast they were baptized by the OG
I can’t think of any proof text that shows baptism, by immersion or sprinkling, is required. The story of the Ethiopian eunuch shows a desire for baptism comes after hearing the gospel.
Baptism in water is part of the teaching and the journey of a follower of Jesus. Yet, in biblical scriptures salvation is tied to faith, not baptism. There are some verses in the NT that could be interpreted so that baptism is where you get your sins forgiven (washed away) but many more passages that speak about the salvation through faith (not through baptism).
During the persecution of the first centuries, the wanna-be Christians (catechumens from pagan cultures) had to go through a period of teaching before they were baptized. Teaching coud last more than a year. Many died before they were baptized in water and my understanding about the teaching was that they were considered as saved as those who were baptized in water - they believed and wanted to follow Jesus to the grave of baptism but for reasons that they could not control, death came before that. Those who were killed for the sake of their faith were considered to be ‘baptized in their blood’.
The teaching of that time is revealing because there was rather extreme teaching about the baptism. The teaching was that you could get all your sins forgiven in the baptism but not necessarily after that - some believed that there was no forgiveness for grave sins done after the baptism. It is told that many postponed the baptism until old age for this reason. This teaching put heavy weight on the baptism as a medium of forgiveness. My interpretation is that the teaching went far beyond what the biblical scriptures tell. However, that is a matter of interpretation and people supporting that kind of teachings would interpret the scriptures through their beliefs.
The thief on the cross was not a Christian. They were a Jew. They were forgiven of their sins by Jesus while he was on earth. Baptism is the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus and when the thief was forgiven Jesus had yet died, been buried or rose from the dead.
Personally I’ve moved more towards I think everyone is saved. Regardless of how good or bad they are, regardless if they are Satan worshippers, pagans who worship Thor, Muslims and so on.
As far as Bible specific you won’t find a single unbaptized Christian. It’s either mentioned every time or their entire salvation history is not mentioned. There are two different approaches to baptism and salvation.
The Catholics who teach infant baptism to remove original sin.
Or adult baptism, like by the Churches of Christ, who teach that original sin does not exist and that adults must choose to be baptized.
If you google either one of those, you can find a wide range of discussions and debates and how baptism (Roman 6 / 1 Peter 3:18 / Acts 2:38) connects baptism to Toho wabohu as in the chaotic waters.
This is a debate that has been going on for as close to as old Christianity itself is. It seems the vast majority of Christians for the vast majority of the Christian history believed baptism is associated with the forgiveness of sins and being added to the body. Seems only fairly recently with the “pray Jesus into your heart after this sermon” movement did Protestants begin moving away from that line of thought.
With all of that said, this is a discussion that requires to much work on my part to entertain doing in here. It’s reserved solely for those I know in person at the local congregations I attend and that number itself is drastically shrinking so I won’t be reading or responding to a single word after this on this post most likely.
I will admit that I find much of your beliefs and rationale difficult to accept, but this one i am in agreement with. However, I fear, any Biblical purist will claim it to be just plain wrong. (with a mountain of Scripture as proof)
Having chimed in I will offer a thought on Baptism
Baptism is not an insurance policy against the Devil or Hell, although it would seem to be taken as such, escpecially when a child is dying.
Baptism is a response to the Gospel and a public display of such. It is symbollic, as much of religion can be. What matters most is what it means to the one being baptised (or in the case of a child, those who want / need the baptism)
(My usual caveat about the difference between personal beleif and “truth” applies)
Add 3. Viewing baptism as a Christian equivalent to circumcision, i.e. being a sign of being a member of the covenant, and of being a means towards salvation; while not supplanting faith, it is ordinarily required (i.e., if it is possible, a believer and the children of believers ought to be baptized, but a lack of option to do so does not invalidate salvation).
That’s basically the Lutheran or the Reformed view, if I recall correctly.
There are different teachings but the basic Lutheran teaching is different, at least according to the documents I read from the pages of the Finnish Lutheran church (including Liber concordia) and the documents of the doctrinal ecumenical discussions between the Finnish Lutheran church and the Evangelical Free Church of Finland.
A key point is a belief that when matter and the word of God (command of Jesus) are united, that forms a sacrament. The sacrament of baptism saves, not the water but the word that is bound to the water. Saving faith is understood as faith to the salvation that is given in the sacrament of baptism. The saving grace of baptism includes the death of the old me and the resurrection of the new me in Christ, in other words people are assumed to be ‘born again’ in baptism. If someone later becomes a believer and wants to follow Jesus, that is understood as ‘return to the grace of baptism’ - the person was saved (and born again) in the baptism, now he just lets it guide his life.
If I remember correctly, the salvation is tied to faith in the sense that if the baptized person does not believe during his life, the baptism becomes ‘ineffective’ in the sense that it alone is not sufficient to save the person.
What good is it then? It is one simple way to give some substance to our faith as a first step in transforming our life where our faith has even more substance in the way we live our life. Is that a necessity? Tricky question. It is part of the whole package of making a choice to let God into our lives. It is God who saves us, because He is the only one who can even see how to do so. But God does require us to make a choice (what we call faith) – and it is not a real choice of faith unless it has some substance in how we choose to live our lives afterwards. This certainly is not about just saying some magic words to get a free pass. It is about change and baptism symbolizes the change with a ritual cleansing.
As I have mentioned off and on in various threads, my dad was part of a gospel trio that toured churches in the area. This meant I got to go to Sunday school in many different churches and denominations. The church I grew up in had both baptism and communion, so it always intrigued me to find churches that didn’t do one or both. It also made me appreciate the place of tradition and communal practices in the church.
Surely you are not suggesting that Jesus could not decide the state of Grace of a particular individual; baptism or not?
The reason why you do not find Baptism in the OT is that it was “invented” by John The Baptist, who took the Jewish ritual of handwashing to make one ritually pure and adapted that to the entire self.
I’m not sure why that particular thing would be necessary (see answer # 1). Also, that would engage in a particular warp of logic, as to how or why Jesus would baptize people into “himself”. Similar to the thought exercise: If God sneezes does He say… “Bless Me.”?
True, but scripture also says “unless you be baptised by Water and The Spirit you cannot enter the Kingdom of God”. You have to consider the entirety of the text as an amalgam of thought and belief. If you use one verse references, you get into trouble.
yep definately…my friend is convinced that his only guide here is that text despite a large amount of other evidences that suggest that the text is not stating exactly what he thinks it is.
You changed the words here. It is “shalt be saved” (or “will be saved” in RSV), not “has been saved.” It is future tense not past tense. Salvation is an accomplishment of God not ourselves, and it is done when sin is gone from us, when we are remade in the image of the son.
Of course like the kingdom of God it is presented as both present and future – something that both is and will be. This is because there are multiple aspects of it. The relationship with God is restored and the separation from God has been undone. But this is only the beginning and not the end of it.
So you are saying that salvation is simply a matter of God deciding who is saved. I do not believe that – I am vehemently opposed. I believe salvation is offered to all.
This is incorrect. The ritual in the OT was not just handwashing but included the whole body for making one pure for a variety of reasons such as before entering holy ground. The word baptism doesn’t come from John either but from the Greeks who already did this in their own religious rituals. But the Jews also had this ritual (at least from the 1st century BC) and their word for it is/was “mikveh” and it was full immersion with a minimum of 150 gallons of water.
Taken out of context like this, it is not at all clear this is speaking of water baptism. The intent of John 3:5 was to speak of the necessity of being baptized by the spirit and being born again.
I am not an expert of the topic. I have read books about church history and what classic Christianity is according to early writings, also texts describing what the early writers wrote about baptism and what history tells about the early practices (not much) and also some translations about the general texts written during the first few centuries (like Apostolic Fathers, Tertullianus, Irenaeus, etc) but otherwise, my understanding is based on reading what the authors of general textbooks have concluded, rather than studying the original texts. Those with real knowledge about the early texts can correct any misunderstandings in what I wrote.
One sad observation about reading literature about baptism is that almost all texts show what the writer believes, rather than giving a balanced view of the different interpretations. Baptism seems to be such a key element in the doctrines of different denominations that it is almost impossible to set aside the subjective viewpoint that we have adopted from our background and context. Changing the interpretation as a result of studying the topic may lead to a major change in the life and social context. After studying the topic, I had to leave the denomination that was my background and the context of my family and relatives (Lutheran church). A theologian I know switched from the Lutheran church to a pentecostal church, which affected her possibilities to get a job and her credibility as a reseacher (a pentecostal theologian is an oxymoron in the thinking of some old theologians).
There is a respected professor of OT in a nearby university and I have learned to value his expertise. When I learned that he had written a book about baptism, I bought the book thinking that it would give a balanced view as the writer is an experienced academic theologian that should know how to write a balanced review. It was a great disappointment when I noted that the writing was practically an apology for the interpretation of his church. There were a lot of citations to early texts and history books but the texts that did not support his interpretation were strangely missing. The texts that he used were interpreted through his background, without discussing potential other interpretations. It seems that even professionals(/professors) are blind to alternative interpretations when they read texts about a doctrinal issue that is important for their beliefs.
Questions can be taken as closed or open.
Closed means that the answer is settled, no alternatives are accepted. ‘Discussions’ are just attempts to convince others about my interpretation.
Open means that there is a possibility that my current interpretation may change if someone has convincing evidence for an alternative interpretation.
With open questions, there is a possibility for increased understanding about the reasons why someone thinks in an alternative way. There is also a possibility that the discussion alters some details in my worldview. Such discussions can be useful.
If someone has a fixed opinion, the question is closed for him/her, ‘discussions’ are usually not fruitful and I usually stop answering after I have noted it - no benefits in continuing such ‘discussions’.
In short comments, it is not possible to give a detailed (long) analysis or explanation. Therefore, this forum is usually not the correct forum for theological topics that need a thorough inspection and justification.
I have a problem with closed minds and assertiveness toward a specific and unarguable “answer” or position. Especially when they claim that there is no possible argument or different view.
(and it results in heated confrontations that reflect badly on me)
How do you “let go” an assertion that you cannot accept? (But is claimed as “truth”)
We are not perfect or omniscient, so it is to be expected that we have all kinds of misunderstandings and wrong beliefs - I write ‘we’ because I count myself among those that are learning. When someone is fixed to his/her interpretation and does not want to (or cannot) listen to reasonable explanations of why some other interpretation is more likely to be true, I just pray that God would lead that person towards the truth and then leave the person in the hands of God. God knows the answers better than me. In that way, it is not too difficult to let that person have his/her own opinions, even if I would disagree.
