If baptism saves...

[The Liturgist]

Unfortunately, most people who are baptized do not commit their life to Christ. They assume because of the baptism that they can sin for the rest of life and then ask for forgiveness seconds before they die. Forgiveness requires works in the church.

A Baptist who rejects sola fide?

 

[RileyG]

A Baptist who rejects sola fide?

American Baptist Church?

 

[ViaCrucis]

Unfortunately, most people who are baptized do not commit their life to Christ. They assume because of the baptism that they can sin for the rest of life and then ask for forgiveness seconds before they die. Forgiveness requires works in the church.

This is an immensely problematic claim to make. Not only does it presume to know the experience and condition of over a billion and a half Christians alive right now, it also speaks of salvation as entirely based on our works, and says nothing about God's grace--about the Gospel. If forgiveness depended on our works, then there is no Good News.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[ViaCrucis]

A Baptist who rejects sola fide?

It's worse than a rejection of Sola Fide. It was a total rejection of Divine Grace. I suspect even Pelagius would blush.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[Michael-Ca]

This is an immensely problematic claim to make. Not only does it presume to know the experience and condition of over a billion and a half Christians alive right now, it also speaks of salvation as entirely based on our works, and says nothing about God's grace--about the Gospel. If forgiveness depended on our works, then there is no Good News.

-CryptoLutheran

It's only problematic if you want it to be. I do not claim to know any single individual or their personal situation as you stated. That's a very bold assumption for a stranger on the internet after only one encounter.

Faith in Christ and the infinite atonement cleanses our sins, but repentance means forsaking sin. Faith, without works, is dead. James 2:14-26

 

[BNR32FAN]

If baptism saves I don't understand how baptizing babies could be efficacious. It seems to say that the baby is saved because of the faith and actions of their parents, and not their own faith and love for God. How does that make sense?

Who says that baptism saves? I’m not aware of any church that teaches this.

 

[BNR32FAN]

Look up covenantal theology.

The notion that salvation is an individual matter didn't exist prior to the 18th century, and is very much tied to western individualism.

According to all of the apostolic churches both east and west salvation is a synergetic matter resulting from our cooperation with God.

 

[ViaCrucis]

It's only problematic if you want it to be. I do not claim to know any single individual or their personal situation as you stated. That's a very bold assumption for a stranger on the internet after only one encounter.

I'm simply responding to the words you yourself used. You said the majority of people who are baptized never make a commitment to Christ. How on earth could you possibly know that that is true? I don't know how else to interpret those words to mean "the majority of Christians aren't actually Christians". With extremely few exceptions, and only in very modern times, do we find un-baptized Christians at all--that simply hasn't been the lived experience of Christians over the last two thousand years. Because until extremely recently getting baptized was just normal--it still is in the majority of denominations. But even in traditions that don't subscribe to the biblical and traditional view of baptism as means of grace, such as the Baptist tradition, baptism was still important. For Baptists it was so important that that's how they got their name in the first place. So even in traditions without a sacramental view of Baptism, baptism has still been ubiquitous--one doesn't just never get baptized, that would have been total madness to all earlier generations of Christians of every denomination and tradition.

Faith in Christ and the infinite atonement cleanses our sins, but repentance means forsaking sin.

Which, much like faith, is a continual and continued experience of the Christian. Nobody just wakes up one day with perfect faith and walks in perfect submission to God. That's never happened, and doesn't happen, because in this life we experience the struggle between the old man and the new. Which is why Scripture calls us to faith, present tense; and calls us to repentance, present tense. Every day, at all times. "Preach the word at all times" is what St. Paul instructed St. Timothy to do as a pastor, the Gospel is to be preached consistently from the pulpit because we consistently need Christ.

Faith, without works, is dead. James 2:14-26

Elaborate on what you believe that to mean.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[Peacemaker1]

Baptism is of the Holy Ghost, when Jesus was baptized immediately it is preaching time, same for apostle Paul, and right away Jesus is resisted by this world, and Paul had to suffer great things for preaching truly in the name of Jesus Christ, but that is why when the seed is sown for most, they fall away when offended in the word, they are sown into hard rocky places, they bring no fruit, they do nothing.


Luke 8:12 Those by the way side are they that hear; then cometh the devil, and taketh away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved.
13 They on the rock are they, which, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no root, which for a while believe, and in time of temptation fall away.
14 And that which fell among thorns are they, which, when they have heard, go forth, and are choked with cares and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to perfection.
15 But that on the good ground are they, which in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience.

 

[Peacemaker1]

Faith, without works, is dead. James 2:14-26



Elaborate on what you believe that to mean.

-CryptoLutheran

James 2:15 If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food,
16 And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?

Matthew 25:41 Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:
42 For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink:
43 I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.
44 Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?
45 Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.
46 And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.

 

[ViaCrucis]

James 2:15 If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food,
16 And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?

Matthew 25:41 Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:
42 For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink:
43 I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.
44 Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?
45 Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.
46 And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.

The thing I'm trying to tease out through that question is what is the role of good works.

Is faith without works dead because through our efforts and obedience to God we attain some kind of merit before God? More specifically: how is a person made right with God, how does a person have or receive or acquire righteousness before God. Do our works come into play in that? That the righteousness we have before God, the way in which we are made right with God, are just before God, is by the things we do?

That would seem to be contrary to just about everything Paul had to say on the subject. Paul consistently presents justification--how we are made right with God, made righteous or just before God, as God's own work and gift. It is a righteousness apart from us, something we don't possess and i s something we cannot attain by our efforts; but rather something God Himself gives.

Christ is just, we are not; we are reckoned just because we are in Christ. And being in Christ we receive Christ and all which is Christ's. That is why we are called God's children. In a very generic way God is a father to His creation; but that isn't the way Paul talks about sonship in his letters. Sonship is something that is unique to Jesus, Jesus is the only-begotten Son of the Father; the unique and one and only Son of the Father--only the Son knows the Father as Father, that is the unique relationship that exists only between the Father and the Son. It's a relationship that has existed for all eternity. The Son, becoming human, shares in our humanity, sharing in all our weakness, even our death and sin, not by being a sinner, but by bearing the weight of all our sin in His passion and crucifixion, and dying--dying our death as a mortal man, dying as a though He were a sinner but Himself entirely without sin. In exchange, by grace, even as Christ shares in what we are, we now share in what Christ is--and what is Christ? He's the Son of God, the only-begotten Son. So now, in Christ, we are also called "sons", Christ is now said to have "many brothers". The Apostle uses the word "son" because Christ is the Son; thus we have now become partakers of Christ, in Christ's unique and one of a kind Sonship--thus we are called son. We can generalize that and say "children" or "sons and daughters" because we are both male and female--but the theology in Scripture is our participation in the Divine Sonship of Jesus Christ.

So now we are sons, heirs of God, joint-heirs with Christ. What is Christ's is ours by grace. That means His righteousness is granted to us, as a gift. That's grace. "By grace alone" means just this: By grace we are saved by God, who gives to us everything out of His compassionate mercy; we are reckoned righteous by faith not because faith makes us righteous as merit before God; but because faith receives--in an entirely passive way--what God freely gives. That is why in Ephesians 2:8-9 Paul wrote, "by grace you are saved, through faith, and this is not of yourselves, it is God's gift, not of effort, lest any should boast"

What is the gift of God in that passage? It's this, "by grace you are saved, through faith"--faith is included, even faith comes from God, apart from ourselves. Faith isn't one of our efforts, it's God's gift. Our efforts cannot afford us anything here--our works are worthless in this. We can do nothing but receive, as entirely passive creatures, what God freely gives. Empty hands offer nothing, but receive all that is given.

We can remain here, in this part of Ephesians too. Because good works do matter; they just don't matter when it comes to what God freely gives and what we have in Christ as pure gift. Works matter because, as Paul says in Ephesians 2:10, that we were created for good works. The Apostle continues, "which God prepared before hand, that we should walk in them". The good works is our cooperating with God, not to receive something from God, but having received everything from God, we now become partakers and co-workers with God in the world. For what purpose? That's where those passages in James and Matthew come into play.

Good works aren't for God's sake, but because your neighbor is hungry and needs food in their belly; and by these good works we cooperate with God, we work with God in partnership for the sake of others, in love. But to even get to that point, we need the radical overhaul of our humanity that comes alone from God, in Christ, granted to us as gift. So that we, who formerly were God's enemies are now God's sons in Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit who lives in us--all by the free mercy of God.

Faith without works is dead, because saying "I believe" isn't the point, even the devils believe--and tremble. But faith changes us, faith makes us new people, with faith we are a brand new person in Jesus--we are God's children, the Spirit lives in us, that newness is new life which we formerly did not have--and that new life, because it is God's life, is full of abundance and is poured out and continues that project of life.:

"Whoever has faith in Me, as Scripture has said, 'Out of his heart will flow streams of living water.'" - John 7:8
Compare with Ezekiel 47:1-12 and Revelation 22:1-2

The abundance of God bursts forth for life--the abundance of life.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[Peacemaker1]

nothing can be teased out, charity edifies ( seeing love in deed truth not in word or tongue) but knowledge ( teasing) puffs up.


1 Corinthians 8:1
Now as touching things offered unto idols, we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth.


1 Corinthians 13:4
Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,

1 John 3:18
My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.

 

[Stephen3141]

In the great example of salvation, the Exodus of the Jews from Egypt,
going through the Red Sea is likened to be baptized.

In this act of "baptism", all the parents led or carried their children through the
Red Sea.

Christian groups who have child baptism, also have a second charism of
Confirmation, in which a former child who has had education in the doctrines of the Church,
and agreed to live according to them, is received into God's People AS AN ADULT.
This would correspond to the practice of "believer's baptism", in many of the low
church theologies.

 

[RileyG]

In the great example of salvation, the Exodus of the Jews from Egypt,
going through the Red Sea is likened to be baptized.

In this act of "baptism", all the parents led or carried their children through the
Red Sea.

Christian groups who have child baptism, also have a second charism of
Confirmation, in which a former child who has had education in the doctrines of the Church,
and agreed to live according to them, is received into God's People AS AN ADULT.
This would correspond to the practice of "believer's baptism", in many of the low
church theologies.

Fun fact: The eastern churches do baptism, Chrismation (confirmation), and the Eucharist (holy communion) all at once as infants