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I agree with baptism being symbolic. Other people say baptism imparts grace to everyone except those who see baptism as symbolic. I am trying to get to the root of that belief. It seems to me that it is substantially the same as saying being baptized saves you.
I guess we would need to remove the act of obedience from the equation since infants don't decide they need to obey the commandment and be baptized. So, they are just the benificiaries of someone else's obedience, right? Is baptism the only circumstance where a person's sins can be washed away unbeknownst to the person receiving the grace?
So his examples are an idiom (είς ὄνομα) and a case where it means "at." Neither of those carries all the baggage he tries to claim of "because one is." Maybe you could argue that that's a reading of είς ὄνομα and try to apply it to Acts 2:38, but that would be to forget that an idiom is called an idiom because it uses the words in a unique way.
Well yes, those with erroneous interpretations of Scripture have always insisted on their own interpretation over all others, just read St. Irenaeus' Against Heresies where he describes this phenomenon happening in the 2nd century. That doesn't change the fact that we have the writings of native speakers both predating and contemporary with Nicaea I, citing confessions of faith that predated Nicaea I, telling us in no uncertain terms that "one baptism for the remission of sins" means that "remission of sins is given through the sacrament of baptism."
He literally says he has his opinion because his theology presupposes that reading of the verse, it has nothing to do with him being an expert. Citing a Southern Baptist saying he reads the Bible a certain way because it confirms his Southern Baptist theology is not the strong argument you think it is.
That's silly (not you--the belief you're describing). Sour grapes. That's like saying, if you don't believe my view of Baptism you won't be saved. If you don't believe my view of Communion you can't participate in Christ. Yes, Baptismal Regeneration seems to be at the core, a well as Legalism or Salvation by Human Institution.
He cited three uses of the word, not just one. And they are not all idioms.
The date of a person's confession does not add weight to his point of view. Sound doctrine can be learned from God right now, today. Even if bad doctrine has a long history of being believed, it still needs to be rejected.
But citing an Orthodox person's views on a subject that just so happen to conform to Orthodox views is a strong argument?
He cites three uses in Matt. 10:41-42 where all three uses of the word are in the idiom είς ὄνομα (i.e. the phrase occurs three times) and one use in Matt. 12:41 where the sense is "at."
It does if the question is what the understanding of a phrase was at a certain time. If we want to know the sense of the phrase in 4th century Christianity, a 4th century Greek-speaking bishop is probably going to have a better understanding of that than an English speaker 1,700 years removed from that culture.
The problem for you is that if baptismal regeneration is an error, then the true faith was already overcome by error as far back as we have records. If you can't trust the 4th century Church to get baptismal regeneration right, how can you trust it to get the Trinity right?
Protestants have historically argued that the Church Fathers taught Protestant doctrines, so I would think you'd want to claim Cyril as a proto-baptist unless you take one of the more esoteric views of history like the "trail of blood" Baptists.
Baptism is the new circumcision which includes all the faithful. Baby males were circumcised at 8 days old as part of the Old, Jewish Covenant.
I grew up in a church that taught baptism for the remission of sins, but the church also taught a works-based salvation. So the baptism was required in that it transmitted grace for our past sins, but that from that time forward, we bore the responsibility.
And in ACTS 1:5. we see the FOLLOWING !!
I guess we are to uderstand "I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance" (Mt 3:11) to mean that repentance does not precede baptism but is the result of it. So, when we are commanded to repent and be baptized, we must be baptized with John's baptism to enable repentance then get baptized again so that our sins can be forgiven.
So when Robertson wrote his words, that means the phrase was understood his way at the time of his writing.
But we speak and understand English. So we are responsible to gather to ourselves experts on a long dead language to understand the meaning of the words and phrases in it.
That's not a problem for me. I trust the Lord with all my heart. I don't lean on my own understanding (or the understanding of other people). Instead, I look to Him for guidance and He lights my path. Not discovering this pathway to enlightenment would be a tragedy hard to fathom.
I reject the Protestant label mainly because I do not see myself as coming from a culture that is a protest against the Catholic church. And there are litlle to no similarities between the my religious practices and theirs. But if you look at other denominations who claim the label, you will see many similarities in religious practices. This is not to say that my church did not result from a divorce from Catholicism. It just means that if there was a divorce, all traces of the previous relationship have dissapeared. This tells me a lot can change in a few hundred years.
But you said baptism is a means of grace except for those who see it as only as symbolic. So since babies don't have any thought at all about baptism, they don't fall into the category of "seeing it only as symbolic"? That makes no sense. So personal responsibility is not required, right?
I'm glad you found the truth. I never was in a church that believed in baptism for remission of sins. But I have been involved with several who taught works-based salvation as you describe above. I have observed that the doctrine I emphasized above is a very common view of today's works-based churches.
You asked: WHY DID John BAPTIZE JESUS ??
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