Bible Question:
Dear inmyheart, Greetings in the name of Jesus! As you probably know, I think that every believer should be baptized. I am curious, if baptism is commanded by God, therefore a requirement for salvation, how many other commandments must we obey in order to be saved? Trust me, I am not being facetious. The New Testament contains many, many commandments. If we say we are accountable to every one of these commandments, I assure you that not one person is saved! We are commanded to sin no more! We are commanded to be perfect! We are commanded to be humble! We are commanded to love our brother as ourselves! I have yet to meet a Christian that obeys every commandment of the Lord. So... I suggest that maybe "strongly recommend for our own good, for our sanctification, and in order to please God and earn the praise of our Master, 'Well done!'" as a more realistic rendering of the term. Perhaps we could shorten it to "command," and take away the connotation of "or else you are not saved." Just a thought... In Christ Jesus, charis |
Bible Answer: Charis, Your post is very thought provoking. I hope you will not mind the respectful sharing of my thoughts with you and any other readers.. I agree, every Christian should be baptized. Jesus was baptized; that's good enough for me. Before I go any further I should indicate that I have yet to be baptized as a true believer -- I was baptized when I was eight but I have not fulfilled that commandment as of yet; nonetheless, I believe that every professing believer should declare publicly that Christ is Lord and humble themselves to be baptized -- by immersion. However, I do not think it a "requirement for salvation." There is no scriptural evidence for this. Yes, our Lord commands us to be baptized; but what of the thief on the cross next to Jesus, to whom Jesus promised "today you will be with me in Paradise?" The criminal experience conviction of the Holy Spirit and yielded to it just like all of us -- that, along with "confessing with the mouth" (Romans 10:9-11), is the only requirement for salvation. And the thief did both of these. As far as the lengthy list of New Testament commandments, I will try to sum up my take on how to fulfill all commandments not by ourselves but by our Lord through ourselves. Let's use the sermon on the mount as a starting point. The clarifications of meanings of the various commandments that Jesus outlines give an entirely new perspective on the idea of sin. We all know this: to so much as look at a woman lustfully is to commit adultery in the heart; to feel angry is to commit murder in the heart. Any male reader of this post knows deeply of the incessant internal battle with the former, and any reader with a spouse or family member or friend of any kind is thus guilty of murder, for all such relationships have disagreements from time to time that lead to one or more parties becoming angry. Hear me carefully: THIS IS GOD'S POINT. If avoidance of sin were not so difficult, no.. if keeping oneself completely clean from sin were possible, then there would be no point in FAITH in Christ. God would not be adequately able to demonstrate the vastness of his Grace. It is through this Faith that we come to be lead by his Spirit, and through this leading by the Spirit do we come to keep the two greatest commandments according to the Messiah: love the Lord your God with all of your heart, soul, and mind; and love your neighbor as you love yourself. If these two commandments are met by submission to the spirit, the rest of the commandments of the New Testament will kind of take care of themselves: we will be humble because we love God so much that we immediately give Him all glory; we will be baptized because we love Him so much we want to show everyone that we want to be like Jesus; we are perfect because of the cleansing power of our spirit; we rid ourselves of sin because we love God so much that we want to be in the center of His will. |