Subject: Unbaptized children |
Bible Note: Hey Tim, Great points made. I tend to agree with you that our salvation produces good works and that works cannot save us. I also agree that there is a point in our life when we cross over from life to death, not a “growing into”. As Peter states “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” There are clearly two options: being a people, not being a people; receiving mercy, not receiving mercy. Light and darkness. Paul makes it clear when this process takes place. Rom. 6:1-9 “What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, [1] that we should no longer be slaves to sin-- because anyone who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him “. Paul states that we live “a new life”. He gives us insight into what actually is taking place in our conversion. I don’t think you would argue this point with me. There is a point where one needs to make a decision. Some say “accept Christ into your heart”. My belief is to make the decision to obey the command to “repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of your sins”(Acts 2:38) That is the place where I believe “obeying the commands” comes into place and salvation is gained. From that point on we are compelled to obey the rest of the commands out gratitude for our salvation. So it is not obeying the commands that saves us but rather obeying initially THE command .But now the debatable part comes in. What is this baptism that we participate in the death, burial and resurrection of Christ? Eph. 4: 4-6 tells us that there is only “one baptism”. I would say that this one baptism is not the outpouring of the spirit on the day of Pentecost. (That is a whole other topic we can discuss later.) When we study the book of Acts the baptisms we see are water baptism, with one or two exceptions (which can be part of the “Pentecost topic” I would like to discuss.) SOOO, my question is (and I think I wrote this before and you replied to it under the “unapprised children” topic) if baptism isn’t water baptism (which I obviously lean towards) then what is it and where are the scriptures to show it? P.S.- Read 2 Kings 5 and you will see that Naaman was cured of his leprosy because he obeyed God and dipped himself into the Jordan. Did the water actually cure him? I say that it did in the sense that if he didn’t obey God and go to the water he wouldn’t have been cured. There was a reason God wanted Naaman to go into the water, and I believe the same principle applies to our water baptism. The water it doesn’t save us but if we don’t obey the command of God we have failed to make THE decision to cross over from life to death. (And I add, that only by God giving us the opportunity through His Grace). I look forward to discussing this further, Kin |