Baptism and the existence of a church

You confuse salvation with visible church constitution. You think because you are saved and gather together regardless of baptism or doctrine and practice that makes you a true visible church of Christ????????? No wonder you are confused.

 

You would make a fine politician. BTW do you take a poll before answering questions?

 

good come back (grin).

 

The question of what is the church and what are the essential characteristics of a true New Testament church is the central issue that has always divided professing Christians.

The Invisible Church advocate includes the unbaptized, the sprinkled, the poured, the immersed, the sacramentalists, the excommunicated and persons holding every heresy under the sun. The Invisible advocates can't agree when their church started or who is in their church. Some start it in Genesis others on the day of Pentecost and still others in the middle of the book of Acts.

The local visible advocates differ in regard to salvation. Does membership in a specific church or denomination determine salvation? So, the local church advocate reduces all the confusion down to essential doctrine and practice. If you can believe salvation is inseparable from membership in a particular local church then you have reduced the universal invisible concept down to a local visible salvation concept.

Historic Baptist deny both. They deny the church has anything to do with salvation or being "in Christ" redemptively. They demand a complete salvation "in Christ" profession before they will baptize you much less bring you into the membership of their church. This is the only sane and biblically based view of the doctrine of the church.

 

Yes. There is a church that call themselves "Anabaptist" that were constituted by a New Testament Baptist church. However, most New Testament chuches that I am aware of have the name "Baptist" over their door.

 

"Slightly" (fulfilled, past tense) but nothing substantially different that would alter it or make it "another" gospel. It is the very same gospel except fulfilled or in a more completed form.

However, this comission is a reproductive cycle as the last aspect of this command initiates the first aspect all over again. It is a reproductive command as the primary verb "make disciples" means to reproduce yourself or like kind. The three participles form a reproductive mold to reproduce like kind as those being commissioned "have" already been through this same process. It is impossible to carry out this commission without organic successive reproduction of like kind. What I mean by "organic" is that the reproduction process requires hands on between each link ("ye" to "them") as the ye must physically go to "them" must physically lay their hands on "them" in baptism and must physically assembly with them in teaching "them" how to observe all things commanded.

The promise "I will be with you all the days until the end" promises the success of this reproductive cycle as it demands by divine promise that "you" (baptized churched believers) will always be present in every generation to reproduce after their own kind.

There is no DIRECT authority to those identified as "them" in this commission to disciple themselves, baptize themselves, teach themselves. This commissioned "ye" stands between Christ and "them" and this commissioned "ye" by context are those who "have" already been through this process so Christ is not sending the blind to lead the blind, or the unbaptized to baptize or the ignorant to teach.

The third aspect of this commission requires the previous existence of a New Testament church as well as the authority to bring newly baptized believers into that existent body or to constitute them into a new church body. You cannot observe the third aspect apart from church constitution.

 

The problem with your theory is that the baptism in the Great commission is commisioned unto the end of the age and it is not a baptism in the Spirit but in water. Ephesians 4:5 was written long after the house of Corneilius incident and when it was written Paul limited only "one baptism" for Christians and it could not be the baptism in the Spirit but the age long promised baptism in water in Matthew 28:19-20.

Second, John's baptism is a Trinitarian baptism and the only baptism existent when Jesus gave the Matthew 28:19-20 commission.

For example, there are many cases of baptism in the book of Acts but where can we find a single case that used the expression in Matthew 28:19 as a verbal formula in baptism??? Not a single solitary example. Where in the epistles can we find any reference to it as a verbal formula? Not a single solitary example!

Matthew 28:19 is not given as a verbal baptismal formula but is expressive of the "name" or authority that is representative of the trinune God. John the Baptist administered baptism in the authority of the Trinune God. He beleived in the Trinune God. He claimed that his baptism had been authorized by the Trinune God. He recognized Jesus as the Son of God from heaven who was over all (Jn. 3:30-36). He recognized the Holy Spirit as God and it was this Trinune God He claimed that had authorized or "sent" him to baptize. When he baptized he baptized in reference to faith in Jesus as Christ (Acts 19:4). The Trinune God confirmed his baptism (Mt. 3:15-17) and this Trinune God confirmed that his baptism was His "counsel" and all who rejected it rejected the counsel of this Trinune God (Lk. 7:29-30).

In contrast the Baptism in the Spirit was viewed as a future tense event in every mention through the gospel accounts up to Acts 1:5 where it is pinpointed with the words "not many days hence." After Pentecost, there is but one mention of it and it looks back to Pentecost (Acts 11:15-16). The nearest reference point that Peter could identify what happened in the house of Corneilius was not the last persons just saved but to Pentecost "AT the beginning" demonstrating it was not a ongoing repetitive act with each individual having been saved since Pentecost but an historical event for JEWISH believers that happened once at Pentecost.

 

There is wide spread and extreme ignorance concerning the nature of the baptism in the Spirit. The baptism in the Spirit has nothing to do with the individual believer. It has nothing to do with personal spiritual advancement or placement of individual "in Christ" as a mystical body.

The baptism in the Spirit is nothing more or less than the shikinah glory that occurred in the dedication ceremony of every new house of God in the Old Testament.

Every new house of God in the Old Testament had an assigned builder and only when the builder had finished the house of God, did God approve it by the Shikinah glory covering it and filling it. At the same time, fire from heaven would lite the altar which the preists were never to let die out and from that lit fire the candlestick, altar of incense and censers would get their fire as any other source of fire was "strange fire."

1. Moses was the chosen builder of the first house of God the Tabernacle:

So Moses finished the work.
34 ¶ Then a cloud covered the tent of the congregation, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle.
35 And Moses was not able to enter into the tent of the congregation, because the cloud abode thereon, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle.

2. Solomon was the chosen builder of the second house of God the Temple


1 ¶ Now when Solomon had made an end of praying, the fire came down from heaven, and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices; and the glory of the LORD filled the house.
2 And the priests could not enter into the house of the LORD, because the glory of the LORD had filled the LORD’S house.
3 And when all the children of Israel saw how the fire came down, and the glory of the LORD upon the house, they bowed themselves with their faces to the ground upon the pavement, and worshipped, and praised the LORD, saying, For he is good; for his mercy endureth for ever. 2 Chron. 7

3. Jesus Christ was the chosen builder of the Gentile House of God - the church

And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. - Mt. 16:18


And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.
2 And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting.
3 And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them.
4 And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost..." - Acts 2:1-4

4. The Tabernacle/temple was composed of three primary sections (outer court, holy place and holy of holies). The new house of God (1 Tim. 3:15) was to include Jews (Acts 2:1) half-Jews (Acts 8:14-16) and gentiles (Acts 11:15-16).

Peter told the Jewish members (Acts 11:1-2) that the last time the Jewish members identified with the baptism in the Spirit was "AT the beginning" (Acts 11:16).

The perpetual fire that characterized all true worship functions in the tabernacle and the temple as the public institution of worship is the promised presence of Christ in the Great Commission until the end of the age where each New Testament church is a temple of the Spirit of Christ (1 Cor. 3:16; Eph. 2:21) where a qualified ministry publicly administer the ordinances (1 Tim. 3:1-13) so that true public worship as the "house of God" (I Tim. 3:15) continues from generation to generation until Christ comes again.

 

There are no "new areas" at all. There is no new gospel, no new baptism and no new commandments but only those things they "have" been already discipled in and that is clear from Acts 2:41-42.

The pattern is laid down again in Acts 2:41-42 and so to assume as you have done that these 3,000 were not discipled into this pattern is presumption contrary to what is clearly stated in Acts 2:41-42. Again, to presume they went back home and function apart from or contrary to this pattern assumes disobedience to the Great Commission by both the church at Jerusalem and these newly baptized disciples.

If we are going to assume anything we should assume that both the church and these disciples acted in accordance with this pattern not contrary to it. For example notice the words "added unto" in Acts 2:41 where the same Great Commission threefold pattern is spelled out. In Acts 2:47 the words "added unto" does not mean the Lord added DIFFERENTLY than what is spelled out in Acts 2:41-42 but it is a summary expression for that same pattern. To assume anything differently is to presume obedience turned into disobedience by the church and God Himself led in disobeying His own commission.

The pattern we see laid down and observed consistently by the Church at Jerusalem in Acts 1-8 is the same pattern we see followed by the church at Antioch in Acts 13-18 through their missionaries Paul and Barnabas and Paul and Silas.

Why would you assume the Lord's churches disobeyed this Great Commission pattern??????