Churches of Christ...Continued

I hope it is alright to post here since I haven't read all the posts. I was saved in a Boston Movement Church of Christ. I attended that church for about 2-3 years and grew incredibly, although it was very legalistic. In fact, I was baptised two time because I wasn't sure I really understood what I did the first time, or did it for the right reason. I know I was saved there but have since become baptist. (I really am just a christian) How I changed my thinking about baptism being essential for salvation was when I read the scripture about woman being saved through child birth. You say how does this have anything to do with baptism for salvation. Well the word saved in this scripture is the same word as saved by baptistm in the scripture, repent and be baptised every one of your for the gift of salvation (or something like that). I know women are not saved by child birth. The reason I believe that: the bible would have mentioned it more than once. So, going with that reasoning, I think that if God felt that baptism is essential for salvation He would have mentioned it many times and made it quite clear. He is not a God of confusion. I take the bible as a whole and I don't think you can take only a sentence and prove anything. Hope this helps.

 

The reason why is that those exceptions are enough to prove that salvation ultimately then does not occur mechanically in the water of baptism. It must be one's belief. That is the real issue here.

And that is precisely why salvation cannot be gained by the act of baptism. Your baptism still leaves you an "unprofitable servant" (the kind Jesus said are cast into outer darkness). Therefore, salvation cannot have been gained from it. Otherwise, the person could boast (as some are doing) "I was baptized, so I'm saved; you were not baptized, so you're not saved".

Oh, no! So being baptized is "the power/right to become the sons of God" too? But notice how "born of water" comes BEFORE "born of the Spirit". You have the water birth coming AFTER spirit birth (which would be rendered null and meaningless if they weren't yet even saved or sons of God, and subsequent water baptism is what really accomplished that).
This shows that "birth by water" is not baptism. Sons of God is a spiritual state attained by a spiritual birth; not a physical birth through a physical medium.

 

I posit that the Scriptures teach without any ambivalence that the victim of this fluke would be saved because of the faith that was sending him to baptism.

You are `preaching to the choir' here.

There is no biblical reason why the conversion experience patterned and assumed in the New Testament should ever be trifled with.

At this passage, it means those who have turned away from lives of sin.

Again, you are seeing "get baptized" where the Bible says "obey." I pointed out, and you rightly agreed with, that obey means MUCH more than baptism.

Even before someone makes it to the baptismal pool after believing the Gospel, s/he can still obey. Perhaps on the way up, s/he bites the tongue on a profanity that was on its way out because s/he had resolved to give up that sin to obey the Lord.

Again, "obey" means more than baptism.

Thank you bmerr for a civil conversation. In the Churches of Christ, it is hard to get a civil conversation if you do not believe the Bible teaches `salvation upon completed baptism.' The `questioner' usually gets his very character reviled.

 

Bmerr:
As supplement to my previous post, I wish to clarify one more thing for you. You seem concerned about a teaching that we are saved by faith and that one `might possibly' be saved if by some fluke s/he was killed before baptism. You seem concerned that such an exception is being used to justify delayed baptism as a rule.

I am in complete agreement with you that baptism should never be delayed. At the Baptist church I got saved at, baptisms were delayed. The pastor held baptism in such high regard that he wanted to make sure he did not baptize any non-Christians. Hence, baptism was always delayed for converts until their lives showed a change the Gospel should have. Then and only then were they baptized.

Other people, as you point out, put off baptism deliberately. Both extremes are wrong. Baptism should always be done promptly.

I can understand your concern about the extreme that lightly esteems baptism, or evades it, and abuse so-called `faith' to justify it. I realize how `salvation by faith' can be abused.

However, with me as a person who spent his first half-decade in the Lord in a fundamental Baptist church and has attended church among the Churches of Christ for two years, and with you as someone who identifies with the Churches of Christ, our sole concern is about what does the Bible teach? Correct? I am sure you agree.

When I explain that the Scriptures teach that we are saved by a faith that involves repentance and obedience of the heart, and which would get us baptized, but saves us before we do a single thing, I am focusing on what Scripture teaches.

If someone wants to take the teaching that someone could be saved before completed baptism and abuse it to evade baptism, if s/he dies first, s/he will find out that this `faith' was dead and will be judged an unbeliever by God. I do not cater to sinners by considering their potential abuses; I will focus on what the Bible teaches.