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It's not my place to make a judgment as to the salvation of my brother or sister, Christ alone will separate the goats from the sheep and the tares from the wheat.
If I see someone who, having been baptized, and who confesses the same Christian faith, then I welcome them as a brother or sister. Who am I to know the contents of my brother's heart and conscience? God alone is fit to judge, and we confess Christ's return in judgment, and then and only then will all be said and done.
If I see my brother or sister in serious error, I will encourage them to speak to their pastor. If I can, I will offer what I believe is a more biblically sound exegesis and doctrinal position; I'll address the commandments of Christ and how we are to conduct ourselves. I'll speak of repentance of sin, and the hope of the Gospel for sinners.
So as it concerns the Christian who may be in error, or who may be wayward, the correct response is course correction--and ideally from their own pastor, as this is an integral part of the pastoral office and vocation: shepherding. But it would be deeply erroneous if I were to presume that my baptized brother or sister isn't "really saved" on account of this or that sin, or this or that doctrinal error, etc. I'm not the Judge of the quick and the dead, Jesus is. I'm just an ordinary sinful wretch like everyone else.
By turning the locus and activity of our salvation away from the objective, clear, explicit, and external word of God--God's saving grace in action in visible and verbal means--toward our selves, and our own moral abilities, or by whatever metric of fruit inspection, we make ourselves the agents of our own salvation.
In so doing we cease to preach the Gospel as Gospel and the Law as Law, confusing the two. We turn to ourselves, rather than to Christ and His Gospel, for the assurance and hope of our salvation.
When salvation becomes a question of, "What have we done?" it ceases to be about God's free and unconditional grace in the Crucified and Risen Lord Jesus, and instead it becomes all about how well we can measure up. Measure up to what? To God's Law? Sometimes, but frequently it is no longer about the commandment of God, but rather about whatever particular moralistic and legalistic rules and codes to make us feel better about ourselves.
Failing to live up to the high calling of God in the Law, we find other routes by which to puff ourselves up in our sinful flesh. When the Law is no longer preached as the Law, and when the Gospel is no longer preached as the Gospel, it becomes a bunch of us running around like chickens with our heads cut off either screaming about our own good works or weeping in despair over our total and abysmal failure.
This is the way to shipwreck a person's faith, make them them captain of their own salvation.
The Law remains, to condemn our sin and instruct us in the way we should live as the people of God. But to measure our salvation by the measure of the Law is to preach death to those in the grave. Since we are not the captains of our own salvation, we do not fasten ourselves to the ship of our own righteousness before God under the Law; but rather to the ship piloted by Christ, who drags us out of the deadly sea below and upon the security of His ship. He alone shall bring us to that distant shore, He alone will keep us, He alone will accomplish this.
That's why we put our faith in Him, not in the Law, not in ourselves, not in our works, but Him. Boasting only in Him.
-CryptoLutheran
I personally believe what the Nicene Creed says: "I confess one baptism for the forgiveness of sins."Conditional Baptism: If thou art yet unbaptized, Christopher, I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
I personally believe what the Nicene Creed says: "I confess one baptism for the forgiveness of sins."
But in messages #5 & #12, I raised the issue of whether baptism in non-sacramental denominations is actual baptism.
What you wrote above is like saying, "Only God knows".
Well, it's fair to say to a lot of our questions that "only God knows." We mortals have a drive to know everything. Just read the posts here that raise the most colorful and purely hypothetical questions about God or salvation or the afterlife...and those people feel that they really need to know! But God didn't deign to tell us everything in Scripture and if he had, we couldn't take it in.
So, is baptism in a non-sacramental church really valid? We don't have an answer for every last situation that can arise in life. Nevertheless, if the baptism is performed according to the very simple requirements that the Bible outlines and the baptizer intends it to be a baptism, we assume that it counts. BUT there are occasions when the minister, etc. just cannot be sure what happened decades earlier with a convert...so a conditional baptism is used, and that doesn't in any way impose any difficulties on our theology.
First, baptism is an act of faith. It requires that the person being baptized HEAR the Word of God (the Gospel message), so infants, being incapable of understanding the Gospel, are ineligible for baptism.hello all. i have a question pertaining to protestant baptism and time frame. i usually assume that when a person gets baptized at church, that person is already saved. i get that scheduling of baptism dont happen right away at our churches, but is it possible for an unsaved person to get baptized say now, and the person doesnt actually get saved for another 5 or 10 yrs. is the baptism still good? or do you think they should be re baptized?
i will say that i do believe in believers baptism, and not baby baptism. but if we can baptize babies now, and they dont gain salvation for another 40 yrs, does their initial baptism still count?? im very confused about this.
Oh, we've heard this line so often, but there is absolutely no age limit specified in Scripture for a person to be eligible for baptism.First, baptism is an act of faith. It requires that the person being baptized HEAR the Word of God (the Gospel message), so infants, being incapable of understanding the Gospel, are ineligible for baptism.
That's been agreed to by just about everyone here and many times over. In other words, it isn't an issue.Second, a person is not saved by belief(mental assent).
And no church that baptizes children on the profession of faith made by sponsors and witnesses does think that the water removes sin. So again, that's not relevant.The water of baptism does not remove sin ...
First, baptism is an act of faith. It requires that the person being baptized HEAR the Word of God (the Gospel message), so infants, being incapable of understanding the Gospel, are ineligible for baptism.
Seeing as how the Jews of the first century did not consider a child to be “part of the household” until they had their bar/bat mitzvah (to use today’s technology), no one who was under age would have been included in that statement, so the point stands.Oh, we've heard this line so often, but there is absolutely no age limit specified in Scripture for a person to be eligible for baptism.
However, we do find the reference there to "entire households" being baptized on the demonstration of faith by the head of the house. That means children.
Seeing as how the Jews of the first century did not consider a child to be “part of the household” until they had their bar/bat mitzvah (to use today’s technology), no one who was under age would have been included in that statement, so the point stands.
There still remains the many, many places where we are told that belief, repentance, and confession of Jesus’ name. And the fact that your faith is wholly worthless for my salvation. My faith is completely incapable of saving my children. It requires their own faith to wash away their sins. There is no value in baptizing a child based on their “sponsor’s” faith.At best, the "entire households" reference is put in doubt and only if we think Paul was constrained to coordinate with Jewish practice when he did his own evangelizing. However, there still is no compelling reason to think that some people need God and others don't.
Acts 16:33 And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their wounds; and he was baptized at once, he and all his family.*
*also translated as "everyone in his home."
Yes, but as is still the case today, when a promoter or canvasser, etc. goes forth to meet members of the public and, hopefully, persuade them of something, he goes to adults, not children. There is, in other words, nothing definitive about the instances recorded in the NT of adults seeking baptism.There still remains the many, many places where we are told that belief, repentance, and confession of Jesus’ name.
What you're telling me here is that you are not familiar with the historic view concerning the sacrament of baptism.My faith is completely incapable of saving my children. It requires their own faith to wash away their sins.
Not at all. I have not studied ANY denomination’s stance on baptism. I figure that if I study the real deal (what the Bible says) I will be able to spot the fakes from a mile away. I only study my Lord’s Word (the Bible).What you're telling me here is that you are not familiar with the historic view concerning the sacrament of baptism.
It appears to me that you're simply taking what the denominations you are familiar say about their own concepts concerning baptism and then assuming that the opposite is what is taught in the more traditional church bodies.
Okay, then your assumptions about the majority of churches which baptize children do not come from having learned what the views of other churches are. But you are still guessing at it, and what you've posted about them is in error.Not at all. I have not studied ANY denomination’s stance on baptism.
That reply provides a good example of what I was referring to.And as I said in my original comment, there is no such thing as a sacrament. NOTHING conveys grace or righteousness in and of itself. There is no stone to rub, no meal to eat, no pool to bathe in, and no mile to walk that just because you did it ( regardless of what you think or believe) brings grace to the doer.
Not at all. I have not studied ANY denomination’s stance on baptism. I figure that if I study the real deal (what the Bible says) I will be able to spot the fakes from a mile away. I only study my Lord’s Word (the Bible).
And as I said in my original comment, there is no such thing as a sacrament. NOTHING conveys grace or righteousness in and of itself. There is no stone to rub, no meal to eat, no pool to bathe in, and no mile to walk that just because you did it ( regardless of what you think or believe) brings grace to the doer.
sac·ra·ment.
It's not so surprising that if you hold a lot of misconceptions about baptism, that you'd also be mistaken concerning what a sacrament is.
sac·ra·ment
/ˈsakrəmənt/
noun
- (in the Christian Church) a religious ceremony or ritual regarded as imparting divine grace.
Now, I guess I did misunderstand what a sacrament is? Because this definition says it is something REGARDED as imparting grace. It doesn’t have to ACTUALLY impact grace.
Absolutely none of that is in question. Nor is it the point of discussion."God extended His favor to us. Grace is what saves us (Ephesians 2:8). Grace is the essence of the gospel (Acts 20:24). Grace gives us victory over sin (James 4:6). Grace gives us “eternal encouragement and good hope” (2 Thessalonians 2:16). Paul repeatedly identified grace as the basis of his calling as an apostle (Romans 15:15; 1 Corinthians 3:10; Ephesians 3:2, 7). Jesus Christ is the embodiment of grace, coupled with truth (John 1:14)."
All right.The question is: how is the grace of Christ delivered to us.
Is it through an act that, regardless of what we think or believe, doing that act brings us God’s grace? A sacrament?
Or is it through faith?
Eph 2:8 says that God’s grace is received through faith, the only conduit through which God’s forgiveness comes.
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