Results 1 - 6 of 6
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Results from: Answered Bible Questions, Answers, Unanswered Bible Questions, Notes Ordered by Verse | ||||||
Results | Verse | Author | ID# | |||
1 | Why would someone get rebaptised? | Bible general Archive 1 | Reformer Joe | 42113 | ||
You wrote: "Are you implying, by your response, that the Bible even hints of baptismal regeneration as the norm...?" Not at all. But Protestants who baptize infants do not hold that the baptism regenerates the infant, either. Those in the Calvinist tradition who believe in infant baptism, for example (and there are Calvinists who do not, incidentally), hold that the baptism is a sign and seal of God's covenant promises. Here is teh way the Heidelbeg Catechism interprets Scripture on this: "Infants as well as adults belong to God's covenant and congregation. Through Christ's blood the redemption from sin and the Holy Spirit, who works faith, are promised to them no less than to adults. Therefore, by baptism, as sign of the covenant, they must be grafted into the Christian church and distinguished from the children of unbelievers. This was done in the old covenant by circumcision, in place of which baptism was instituted in the new covenant." All classical Protestants believe that we are saved by God's grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. However, Calvinist paedobaptists look at passages like the passages below and conclude that God's normal operation is to regenerate the covenant children in time as well, and baptism marks them as covenant children just as circumcision marked the male children of Israel as part of the covenant. "For the promise is for you AND YOUR CHILDREN and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call to Himself." --Acts 2:39 'And when she AND HER HOUSEHOLD had been baptized, she urged us, saying, "If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house and stay." And she prevailed upon us.' --Acts 16:15 "And he took them that very hour of the night and washed their wounds, and immediately he was baptized, HE AND ALL HIS HOUSEHOLD." --Acts 16:33 "and in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ; having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead." --Colossians 2:11-12 Now, mind you, I am not suggesting that you must run and embrace infant baptism to be a true Christian. Nor am I necessarily saying that I agree with the conclusion of Protestants who baptize infants as a covenant sign. But it is not very wise to just off-handedly dismiss infant-baptizing Protestants as Catholic "wannabes" who believe that baptism regenerates. That is what I mean when I say that one needs to examine the arguments more closely on both sides, looking at their biblical support before just attacking a strawman that you think represents the "other side of the fence." And before you start painting every infant baptizer as part of some "mixed-up religion," you had better realize that for at least 1200 years, the vast majority of Christians were baptized as infants, as were the first Reformers. No, Martin Luther and John Calvin and John Knox were NOT re-baptized as adults. That doesn't mean that they were right on the issue, but I would certainly hate to call them and our brothers and sisters in Christ who came before us, through whom God preserved Christ's bride, as merely mixed-up religious addicts. --Joe! |
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2 | Why would someone get rebaptised? | Bible general Archive 1 | CDBJ | 42141 | ||
Joe, explain if you would how an infant can have a good conscience toward God by believing in the resurrected Christ? 1 Peter 3:20-21 Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water. 21The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ: You could baptize a boy everyday of his life until he is eighteen years old if you like, but if after that, by chance he dies, having never trusted in Jesus Christ for his salvation he is going to hell. That isn't reform theology from Calvin, it is informed facts, from the Bible! Mark 16:16 He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned. Am I wrong in saying the following and if so why bother! Baptism doesn't do any more for the (so-called) Christians that are trusting in their baptism then did circumcision for the Jews who put their confidence in the removal of a little flesh instead of trusting in the coming Messiah. Maybe I am a bonehead, but I still can't see in the Bible where Christian baptism ever precedes faith in Christ. If people want to dedicate their children fine, I'm not saying that it is wrong, just don't call it baptism because biblically speaking baptism always follows faith in Christ. CDBJ |
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3 | Why would someone get rebaptised? | Bible general Archive 1 | Reformer Joe | 42167 | ||
CDBJ: You write: "Joe, explain if you would how an infant can have a good conscience toward God by believing in the resurrected Christ?" That is a good question. I'll ask someone knowledgeable who is much more passionate about the issue than I, and then get back to you. I bet it has something to do with what I mentioned below, that the sanctifying efficacy of baptism only accompanies regeneration by grace through faith in Christ, no matter when the sacrament is administered. Don't quote me on that yet, though! :) "Baptism doesn't do any more for the (so-called) Christians that are trusting in their baptism then did circumcision for the Jews who put their confidence in the removal of a little flesh instead of trusting in the coming Messiah." One hundred percent correct. However, God commanded circumcision as a sign and seal to be given to infants of God's covenant promises. The circumcision itself did not save, as almost every male of Jacob's line was circumcised, but many of them were bitter enemies of God. Not to mention the fact that if "circumcisional regeneration" were true, then females were in a lot of trouble! The parallels that Protestant paedobaptists draw between circumcision and baptism are the following (keep in mind that I am only explaining here, not necessarily defending the view): 1. Both are given to infants, who obviously cannot exhibit saving faith. 2. While neither circumcision or baptism save in themselves, they mark the infant as a member of God's covenant community and a rightful candidate to receive the promises of God. 3. The efficacy of the rite of circumcision and baptism only exists if the child becomes a believer in Jesus Christ. In other words, both circumcision and baptism are meaningless if saving faith is never possessed by the recipient of the sign. However, according to paedobaptists, both circumcision and baptism are "retroactively beneficial" (my term, probably insufficient) to the regenerate person, even though they were infants when they received them. 4. Just like a person is not re-circumcised after regeneration, neither is a professing Christian who received a Trinitarian baptism. 5. In short, baptism of infants is not seen by Protestants as only a picture of what happens when we receive Christ in faith, but also a sign of the promise that God makes to His covenant people. So there you have it. You may dismiss it as incorrect, but it is not baptismal regeneration. Where I definitely agree with Calvin is that baptism (and the Lord's Supper) are not merely "pictures" of something. While they do not bring justification, since that is by grace alone through faith alone, in Christ alone, I cannot help but conclude from Scripture that they are so significant that they actually "do something" in the life of the believer. While baptism does not save, I do think there is reason to question whether someone who refuses to be baptized is really possessing saving faith. And I have attended churches which have distanced baptism from justification to such an extent that it is hardly mentioned at all. "Pray the prayer, and get baptized whenever." While baptismal generation is not Scriptural, neither is the "whatever" attitude toward baptism. Water baptism is linked to salvation in Scripture, even though the two are not one and the same thing. You wrote: "I'm not saying that it is wrong, just don't call it baptism because biblically speaking baptism always follows faith in Christ." So how do you interpret the "household baptisms" cited from Acts in my previous posts? Only the head of the household is recorded as believing, and yet the whole household (which some reasonably assume would include slaves, spouses, and all children--even infants) was baptized, with no indication of saving faith on their parts. One last passage paedobaptists use in support of their covenant model is this one: "But to the rest I say, not the Lord, that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he must not divorce her. And a woman who has an unbelieving husband, and he consents to live with her, she must not send her husband away. For the unbelieving husband is sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified through her believing husband; for otherwise your children are unclean, but now they are holy." --1 Corinthians 7:12-14 Now obviously this doesn't mean that anyone is "saved by proxy," but the words "sanctified" and "holy" mean "set apart." How do you fit this passage into your theology? I am definitely not here to wage a baptism war, because, like I said before, great people of God have stood divided on this issue. You may find the paedobaptist argument to be completely wrong. What I do hope you understand, however, is that it is not merely a case of someone believing something because their minister said it is true. --Joe! |
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4 | Why would someone get rebaptised? | Bible general Archive 1 | CDBJ | 42217 | ||
Well Joe, you know what happens when we ASSUME something. You say in your post: So how do you interpret the "household baptisms" cited from Acts in my previous posts? Only the head of the household is recorded as believing, and yet the whole household (which some reasonably assume would include slaves, spouses, and all children--even infants) was baptized, with no indication of saving faith on their parts. If I remember right, didn't you say in a post of yours a while back that we have to go on what the Bible says, not what it doesn't say? It might have been on one of Tim's posts but I thought it was yours, seeing as I read both of yours very carefully; that part seemed to stick with me. Personally speaking if it were my whole house there are seven of us, with no slaves, with the exception of me of course, and the youngest is 32 years old. Now since you started with the word assume, lets assume that since they were all baptized, in the verses in Acts, they must have all believed. It is not true today in the U.S.A. but in most of the Middle East today, according to missionaries that I have talked to, believing in Jesus Christ is one thing but confessing him by the act of baptism is like signing a death warrant. The new believers are being baptized and as a result many they say, and not a few have been killed as a result, even by family members. Those being baptized sure aren't man pleasers they are doing it as a testimony to there true faith in Christ. I Corinthians 7:12-14 points emphasis to word Holy, which as you correctly stated means set apart; Jesus himself tells us how this is done. John 17:17 Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth. The whole key here is exposure to God word through the believing spouse. i.e. exposure to the Word of God through instruction form the believer. Put the shoe on the other foot what if both parents are unbelievers, now what happens to the children are the clean or unclean? It is the action of God's Word that does the cleaning. John 15:3 Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. To me it all point to the one thing, The Word, Living or written! |
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5 | Why would someone get rebaptised? | Bible general Archive 1 | Reformer Joe | 42299 | ||
You wrote: "Now since you started with the word assume, lets assume that since they were all baptized, in the verses in Acts, they must have all believed." And, of course, this is the assumption made by those who hold to believer's baptism alone. Since these passages do not refer to whether there was belief on the part of all who received baptism of not, we simply have to assume one or the other, based on other texts which address baptism. You have very adequately given the argument for believer's-only baptism. I hope that even though you disagree with those who hold to infant baptism that you now realize that it is not as simple as it seems to dismiss them as "putting tradition over Scripture." You wrote: "I Corinthians 7:12-14 points emphasis to word Holy, which as you correctly stated means set apart; Jesus himself tells us how this is done. John 17:17 Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth." The antecedent of "them" in John 17:17 is the eleven disciples who did not betray Him. Start at John 17:6 and work your way down to see who is being referred to up until this point. Nothing in Jesus' high priestly prayer refers to unbelievers. You wrote: "It is not true today in the U.S.A. but in most of the Middle East today, according to missionaries that I have talked to, believing in Jesus Christ is one thing but confessing him by the act of baptism is like signing a death warrant. The new believers are being baptized and as a result many they say, and not a few have been killed as a result, even by family members." This doesn't support one side or the other. Those who baptize infants say that adult converts who have never been baptized need to be baptized. I would presume that most Muslims in the Middle East were not baptized as infants. You wrote: "The whole key here is exposure to God word through the believing spouse. i.e. exposure to the Word of God through instruction form the believer. Where do you see in the context of 1 Corinthians 7 that it is instruction from the believer which sets family members apart? Since John 17:17 wasn't spoken in reference to non-believers, how do you make that claim with absolute ceratinty? You wrote: "Put the shoe on the other foot what if both parents are unbelievers, now what happens to the children are the clean or unclean?" Unclean, which is why Protestants don't baptize the children of two unbelieving parents. "It is the action of God's Word that does the cleaning." Well, the way you state this is very close to the Protestant paedobaptist view. According to that view, it is indeed the Word, working together the visible and tanglible ("sensible") element of water, is indeed what sets the covenant child apart. The water is simply water and represents nothing apart from the Word, just like in the Lord's Supper we have the bread and the cup which have no special significance apart from the Word. Together, however, the water and the Word have very special significance, and like you said, "points to" the Living Word (Reformed folk use exactly this terminology. I do hold that in a very real way that there is spiritual benefit to the recipient of baptism. Whether one believes in infant baptism or not, I do not think it is reasonable to conclude biblically that baptism amounts to nothing more than a "bare sign." I want to thank you for engaging in this dialogue with me. I think it is very good for believers to dig deep into the Word of God to wrestle with these issues. This is definitely an issue I have wrestled with myself! There are such wonderful examples of godly, biblically-grounded people who hold to either view that one really cannot help but respect those among them with whom you disagree. --Joe |
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6 | Why would someone get rebaptised? | Bible general Archive 1 | CDBJ | 42328 | ||
Joe, I have to hand it to you, you probably could have given Barnabas a run for his money. I don't know what your background is but if you aren't a lawyer you no doubt missed your calling. This has been great and you are loved in the Lord, CDBJ |
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