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NASB | Mark 16:16 "He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved; but he who has disbelieved shall be condemned. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Mark 16:16 "He who has believed [in Me] and has been baptized will be saved [from the penalty of God's wrath and judgment]; but he who has not believed will be condemned. |
Bible Question:
In relation to the thread that is going on now, (Becoming a Christian) I ask for some clarification on this verse spoken by Jesus. Mar 16:16 He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned. Does not this verse clearly equate believing with baptism, as part of the same package? Grace lightedsteps |
Bible Answer: Dear lightedsteps, Before considering how to exegete that particular verse, it should be noted that Mark 16:9-20 is deemed by most New Testament scholars as having doubtful authenticity. As I understand it, there are several reasons for this: 1. It is absent from most of the earliest manuscripts. 2. Early church writers tell us that it is absent from many other manuscripts. 3. There are stylistic aspects of this passage that are not in keeping with the rest of the book. Of course, I am entirely dependent on others to vouchsafe these facts (e.g., Bruce Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, pp122-126). Nonetheless, it makes me a little uncomfortable to hinge an a doctrine or practice on such a passage. (Churches that believe that snake handling is normative, authorize the practice from this passage.) If passages exist to make the connection you are asserting, surely there are ones better suited to that purpose. (One of my hermeneutics professors used to say, "Don't make a passage carry a greater weight than it can reasonably bear.") Of course, all of this is not a direct answer to your question, but given the passage in question, I thought I would have been remiss had I failed to mention it. Relative to the verse at hand, my tendency would be to deal with it thus: Paul asserts in Romans 10:9 that there are dual aspects concerning those who are saved: (1) they make open confession of the Lordship of Jesus (Luke 12:8); and (2) they believe in their heart the work of atonement wrought by God (1 Corinthians 15:14-18; 2 John 4:2-3). Note that the first of these components is external and that the second is internal. Actually, we would wonder if there was a causal sequence of the first followed by the second. How could anyone confess what they did not believe? However, people do -- continually -- confess what they believe. Since our belief is a work of God (John 1:12-13; 1 John 5:1; Ephesians 2:8; etc.), something worked internally, and baptism is something done externally, would not that parallel be retained (Romans 10:10)? I realize there are people who believe that Paul's reference to confession in Romans 10:9 is an explicit act of uttering certain words. Also, there are people who believe that baptism actually discharges a kind of salvific efficacy as a power of the church. I find both positions to be less than credible. After all, doing something in the natural and expecting supernatural results has a name: magic -- and we are told to eschew such things. I hope those thoughts are helpful to you. In Him, Doc PS I wish you would let me get you that book! (see post #222825) |