The proper administrator for Baptism

Tom Butler · Jun 19, 2011

Benjamin said:

One, I'm not going pick up BJ's argument all over again here (which BTW, I think you got your Butler kic...err ...Nevermind... ) because seems how you say you don't remember these things and by my previous observations of you constantly repeating things that have already been answered, as if you haven't heard it before... (remember when I told you that before?) ... like when he said words to the effect that Baptist have moved away from the deeper meanings in baptism to avoid reference to RCC and cannot "palate" anything more than it being an ordinance. Enough of this...
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I'm sure it seems like I'm repeating my arguments over and over. That's because the debate over baptism recurs over and over on this board. There are no new arguments. There are only new members who are seeing them for the first time, or old members who ignored the thread who are now taking a look.

So, you bring up old arguments, I bring up old responses. Neither of our views have changed, obviously.

I'm sure that there are many on the BB who think I get my behind kicked in these discussions. Sometimes I think so, too.

DHK · Jun 19, 2011

Benjamin said: ↑

DHK, we’ll have to disagree on baptism being mere naked symbolism in an ordinance as well as the uniformity of belief involving Baptist polity. This is another topic that not only do I not have time for but it has been discussed here before (Tom Butler, seems to have forgotten) by someone with more knowledge about the Baptist history (some sources and scriptures listed below) and is more articulate about the subject of a “means of grace/not salvific but another kind of grace” than I can be without doing a lot of homework that I don’t have the time for now to open another tread and discuss.
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What do you think of this quote from Armitage, "A History of the Baptists," who describes the importance of baptism in the Apostolic churches?

As John Henry Newman says: 'Friends do not ask for literal commands, but from their knowledge of the speaker they understand his half-words, and from love to him they anticipate his wishes.' Here is not even the reverend 'half-word,' it is his last command that all believing men should be baptized upon their faith. As the Captain of salvation he gave this military mandate, 'Follow me!' and made the law doubly positive by his own example. It was this simple, heart-felt sincerity in obeying him which led a noted saint to say: 'Wherever I have seen the print of his shoe on earth, there I have coveted to set my foot, too.' The Apostolic Churches associated those primal exercises of the heart—repentance, forgiveness of sin, and regeneration of soul—with baptism; these were the preparation for baptism, which exhibited the new religious state into which their members were brought. Hence, says Dr. Jacob: 'It was evident from the first that Christian baptism, though in its outward form one single act, represented no single, isolated state of feeling—but a spiritual transaction carried on in the spirit and conscience, and then declaring itself externally. . . . Consequently, the fact that persons had been baptized is in the New Testament often referred to, both as indicating their privileged position, and as reminding them of their serious obligation to live in a manner not unworthy of it.'11 This exactly accords with the inspired teaching. 'Through grace ye are all the children of God, for as many of you as were baptized into Christ, put on Christ.' Gal. iii, 27. 'Buried with him in your baptism in which ye were also raised up with him, through faith in the operation of God.' Col. ii, 12. Men who professed faith and were baptized were regarded by those Churches as true believers, until their conduct proved the contrary. Peter teaches the same doctrine when he says that 'baptism is not the putting away of the filth of the flesh,' the mere cleansing of the body; it goes deeper and signifies the inward state of the baptized, which must correspond with the outward appearance; by 'the answer of a good conscience toward God.' What a terrible rebuke is this to the ignorant notion that if your own conscience approves of your baptism, you have all the baptism that you need. No, the Apostle insists that the purity of your conscience as a saved man must correspond to the profession which you make when you are buried with Christ in baptism. Thus, Jerome understood the New Testament, and says: 'First they taught all nations, then immerse those that are taught, in water; for it cannot be that the body should receive the sacrament of baptism unless the soul has before received the truth of faith.'
http://books.google.com/books?id=448OLlEMclAC&pg=PA138&vq=i&output=html_text

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The proper administrator for Baptism

Tom Butler New Member

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The proper administrator for Baptism

Tom Butler New Member

DHK <b>Moderator</b>