Is there any historical evidence for the Baptist position on Baptism?

None of those scriptures you gave said people bowed to the works of their hands and it was okay.
None of those scriptures said we should bow and pray to Mary as Queen of Heaven, in fact, I gave you scripture rebuking you for doing such a thing.
None of those scriptures said to put a man in charge call him father and bow to him.

What are you talking about except Moses? I gave you scripture that the Israelites burned incense to the snake Moses made, and that the snake was destroyed for that. Are you still going to go to a church that has its priests burn incense to the statues in front of the church?

 

I will leave answering your question to someone else who adheres to Baptist doctrines more than I do. However, Wittenberger, I would like to know where you go for authority in interpreting scripture. I'm not trying to pick a fight, just curious.

 

Allow me transtranslate......

I cannot make my case by submitting myself to inspired writings in and of themselves and so I am forced to flee to uninspired writings to make my case.

It is amazing to me that Catholics (Reformed Catholics) will appeal to uninspired councils, uninspired popes, uninspired traditions when God Himself has provided inspired scriptures sufficient in and of themselves to provide the man of God all that he needs to be complete for doctrine, instruction and correction and reproof.

 

Common sense rules of interpretation are indeed necessary but so is a regenerated person with the indwelling Holy Spirit necessary. The New Testament was written to born again believers.

You don't realize it but you are in reality attacking and thus denying the sufficiency of the Scriptures and its Author to have provided sufficient inspired revelation for the man of God to be complete for all doctrine, teaching, correction and reproof (2 Tim. 3:16-17).

You are really denying the sufficiency of the inspired scriptures under the direction of its Author for the complete instruction of God's people without uninspired opinions of men and their uninspired writings and their uninspired traditions.

Hence, you are really arguing that the uninspired really takes precedence over the inspired as your whole position ultimately depends upon subjection of both the Author and His revelation to the uninspired rather than subjection of the uninspired to the power of God and His inspired provisions.

1 Jn. 2:27 But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.

The problem of interpretation is INTERNAL having to do with the mind and heart and ONLY the Holy Spirit can teach the mind and heart because ONLY the Holy Spirit has the power to give the mind understanding and open the heart to receive the truth.

The uninspired opinions of men, traditions, councils, commentaries cannot teach anything. The Sword of the Spirit is the Word of God and when a man is being taught the word of God by the Spirit of God every text will harmonize in its immediate and overall context and that is precisely why Isaiah said:

Isa. 8:20 To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.

That is precisely why John said:

1 Jn. 4:1 ¶ Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.......6 We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error.

The scriptures provide the information necessary to test true from false teaching and true from false spirits and true from false doctrine (1 Tim. 4:1) based wholly upon the sufficiency of the Scriptures under the leadership of its Author.

 

Oh Lordy... The OP was about historical writings. If you can't follow that then why keep posting your nit whit garbage?

WM

 

I've never seen a clearer example if someone claiming to base their position on scripture, who's position was so easily shown to be totally unscriptural.

WM

 

If you will look at the one who posted this thread, he directly asked me how I can I know that my interpretation is correct without depending upon uninspired resources. I was answering that question when you decided to take it upon yourself to interject yourself between us with you "nit whit garbage" type of ridicule.

As usual, what you cannot intelligently respond to, you redicule as your final refuge.

 

I am catholic, but I'm not Roman Catholic, my Baptist sister. Lutherans do not venerate Mary, although we deeply respect her as the mother of our Savior. You have to be a very special person for God to choose you to bear his Son! Lutherans do not pray to her, we pray only to Christ, "the only mediator between God and Man".

But just to point out, Roman Catholics do not worship Mary. They believe that since she is Christ's mother that she has special influence with him, more than you or me, when we pray. So they pray to Mary for Mary to go to Jesus. The don't worship Mary.

I will bet that our Loving Lord knows that they really mean their prayer requests for Him, and He listens to them anyway.

Lutherans don't agree with this Roman view of Mary, but we don't write them off as "unsaved" because of it.

Now, do you have any historical evidence of anyone in the first 800 years of Christianity espousing the Baptist belief that baptism is only OUR public profession of faith?

 

The true interpretation ALWAYS harmonizes with the context in which it is placed. Those being led by its Author will be able to demonstrate that contextual agreement and at the same time expose all fasle interepretations by their inability to harmonize with all the contextual factors. Common rules of heremeneutics are simply common sense rules that we apply to any other book we read and only depart from when reading the scripture due to false doctrines we try to justify. Every single false interpretation of a text is ultimately based upon eisgetical procedures in approaching and in dealing with that text.

 

Correction! You are a REFORMED Roman Catholic as Luther was a ROMAN Catholic Reformer and those who follow him adopt his REFORMED ROMAN CATHOLICISM.

 

My dear Baptist brother,

I have decided to accept your challenge to debate the doctrine of Baptism, but under one condition:

On condition that sometime during our debate you will admit that there is no historical evidence that anyone on planet earth during the first approximately 800 years after Christ's death, believed that baptism is simply a 1.) "public profession of faith" of the believer. 2.) That baptism is OUR act and not God's act. 3.)That baptism has no regenerational properties.

OR you provide such historical evidence.

If you are willing to do this I will debate you. I am a layman so I don't know all the proper "rules of hermeneutics" or even the proper rules of debating, but I will let you lead off, and I will respond to each question you give to me.

The reason I have not agreed previously to debate you is that I can almost promise that the following is going to happen:

I am going to insist that Scripture be interpreted literally, with the surrounding text providing context, of course.

I am concerned that you are going to look at a verse that seems to support my position, even in context with the surrounding text, but you will discount the literal interpretation by saying "but this other verse in another book of the Bible says otherwise, so we can't read this verse literally".

I hope we can agree to read each verse, literally, but with the caveat that we have to read it in context of the surrounding verses/chapter.

Agreed?

Also be advised that I have a full time job and a family, so I may not answer back immediately but I will try to respond daily. My wife is already after me that I am on the computer too much!

Start us off, brother!

 

The person who posted this thread has repeatedly called us back to the OP. This is your typical (and boring) MO and one that deliniates your continual mental vapidity. You sir are a bore and are quickly becoming a waste of time.

WM

 

Lutherans first read the Bible, we then read the Lutheran Confessions (Book of Concord) to see what Martin Luther and other Lutheran scholars said, then we compare that with the writings of the Church Fathers. The Bible is the Final Authority, but the meaning of Scripture is not always clear, so we sometimes must go back to people, like Justin Martyr, who lived just a few years after Christ and see what Christians were saying then about a particular doctrine.

 

My dear "Biblicist" brother,

I sent this comment to Yeshua but I would appreciate if you would respond to it also. Please see my comment above where I have agreed to debate. Please restart your questions from the beginning.


Will one of you Baptists PLEASE tell me where you get your interpretation of Scripture???? Lutherans and Baptists agree that what the Bible says is the Final Authority, but on what authority do you base your understanding of what God is saying in His Word?

So far your answer seems to be this: "the Holy Spirit gives the "true" Christians (Baptists) the proper enlightenment to see and understand the correct interpretation of Scripture."

If that is true then why do you Baptists have so many internal divisions over theological issues?

--some of you are five point Calvinists
--some of you are three point Calvinists (Calminians)
--some of you are Arminians
--some of you believe in a pre-millenial secret Rapture
--some do not believe in a secret Rapture
--some are pre-millenial
--some are post-millenial
--some are amillenial
--some believe that Christ is spiritually present in the Lord's Supper (Calvinists)
--some believe that the Lord's Supper is strictly symbolic
--some of you believe that teaching the "Sinner's Prayer" is appropriate
--some of you believe the Sinner's Prayer is superstitious and unscriptural
--some believe the sinner has a free will
--some believe that the sinner does not have a free will

If Baptists, who are the "true" Christians, have been enlightened by the Holy Spirit to see and understand the true interpretation of the Bible, then the Holy Spirit has really screwed up because you Baptists are more divided internally on doctrine than any other Christian denomination on the face of the earth!

And why are you Baptists so divided on so many different areas of doctrine? Because each separate Baptist group believes that the Holy Spirit has given THEM the correct interpretation of the Bible, in a quiet inner voice (so that no one can verify whether its the Holy Spirit or Satan himself). Your right, and eveyone else is wrong, because you FEEL in your heart that God is on your side!

And in your individual Baptist churches, each Christian member of the church believes that God can speak to him personally and "move" him or her to do this or that. So one of the deacons stands up at a church business meeting and states that the Lord has spoken to him that the pastor needs to change the direction he is leading the church. The pastor, of course, believes that HE is listening to the Holy Spirit in his inner voice. So two Christians , believing that God is personally directing them, stubbornly persist to push their agenda because God has "moved" or "led" them to do the direct opposite of each other. What happens? The church splits!

How do I know this is true? I grew up in a Baptist church until I was 18. I witnessed these internal battles, both sides claiming the Holy Spirit had "led" them.

So saying that the simple, literal interpretation of the Bible will be obvious to a true believer, is nonsense, as proven by the multitude of divisions and disagreements between you Baptists, "the chosen ones".

Lutherans do not read the Bible and individually decide what the Bible says. We read the Bible and compare it to what early Christians believed the verse meant. Some of these Christians were disciples of the Apostles! Polycarp was a disciple of the Apostle John. You Baptists totally write off all these early men of God as if they were all apostate. When did the Church become a apostate?? You don't answer this question. Give a year or an event.

Bottom line: Baptist seem to believe that the final authority in interpreting scripture is...YOU!

You can say "Scripture interprets Scripture" all you want, but what you are really saying is "My interpretation of Scripture interprets Scripture. I am the finally authority on interpreting Scripture."

If that were not the case you Baptists wouldn't be divided into hundreds of different groups, with all the splinter denominations and cults that have broken off from Baptists when "the Holy Spirit" enlightened them to follow their own "true" interpretation.

 

Am I to understand that you are asking me to acknowledge that what I consider to be the history of apostasy (Ante-Nicene, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers) to have taught precisely what I regard as apostate baptism for the first 800 years in its record of apostasy???

Here is what Reformed Roman Catholics seem to be perfectly and willing blind about. It takes no genius to see that the Post-Nicene Father's and their doctrine is the logical consequences of the Nicene Father's doctrines and the Nicene Father's doctrine the logical consequences of the Ante-Nicene father's doctrines.

Now Rome verily applauds that logical connection as to follow that logical connection will ultimately force you to be a Roman Catholic.

If you do not become a Roman Catholic it is because at some point in the logical development from Ante to Nicene to Post-nicene you broke rank and made a decision that from that point forward it is a history of apostasy.

My friend, Rome has preserved these records because it is the record of DEVELOPMENTAL Roman Catholicsm from its beginning.

 

I don't mean to come across as being simplistic but the answer is from simply reading out what God wrote in - exegesis and allowing scripture to interpret scripture by contextual explanation. Of course I am talking about a person who has the Author dwelling in him. I answered this question in the very post you quoted in a very precise manner. What did you not understand about what I said?

I also addressed precisely from whence all division occurs. What about that explanation you did not understand?

 

Just never can admit your wrong even when his post was quoted in my post that proves I was merely answering his post! Again, you reduce yourself to personal attacks because you have nothing else to justify your bloviating.

 

There are but four basic positions in regard to the Church Father's.

1. The Historic Baptist position - The developmental Record of Roman Catholic apostasy (nearly all early Baptist historians)

2. The Reformed Position - Acceptance of much of Ante-Nicene Father's and some Nicene Father's but rejection of Post-Nicene Father's.

3. The Orthodox Catholic position - acceptance all the way up to the division between Rome and Constantinople. From that point forward primarily rejection of Roman Catholic history as orthodox.

4. The Roman Catholic position - acceptance of all three categories right to present.

The historic Baptist position approaches secular history from the inspired prophetic viewpoint of Christ and the Apostles. They predicted the identifying characteristics of both apostolic and apostate Christianity after the apostolic period.

A. The Apostate - departure from the apostolic - Acts 20:29-31
1. Persecutors and slanderous of apostolic - Mt. 5:11-12
2. Killers - Jn. 16:1-4; Rev. 17:5
3. Apostate in doctrine - 1 Tim. 4:1-5; Rom. 16:17-18;
4. Dominate in numbers - Mt. 13 - feild and tares; Lk. 18:8
5. Increasing greater and greater - 2 Tim. 3:1-13
6. State church union - Rev. 17

B. The Apostolic -
1. Persecuted, slandered and killed by apostate
2. Deminishing "few" versus "many" and "little flock" versus numerous
3. Characterized by Great Commission characteristics - Mt. 28:19-20

The Seven Churches in Asia demonstrate the inroads of apostasy within New Testament congregations. Five out of seven riddled with apostasy and apostates.

 

I want to make sure I understand you correctly: You believe, and obviously by what you said, many Baptists believe, that the Church became apostate during the life of the Apostle John who wrote about the Seven Churches, in Asia Minor, in the Book of Revelation, within the first century?

The "few", you refer to, the true Christians, then went into hiding for almost 1,000 years until the Albigensians and the Waldensians, or 1,600 years, depending on your view of the two previously mentioned groups, until the Baptists first appeared in England and Holland? Is that correct?

And these "few", true believers, left behind no evidence of their existence, neither in written documents or inscriptions on cave walls. Correct?

You are saying that any such evidence was destroyed by the Roman Catholic Church?

If that is your position, it is impossible to argue this point with you because you have eliminated any possible manner of proving you wrong. In your view, no evidence exists of the Baptist position of Baptism prior to approximately 1,000 AD because the Catholic Church destroyed all the evidence?

Do you have any accounts of the Catholic Church destroying "Baptist" evidence during the first 1,000 years after Christ? If not, who did you get this information from?

Regardless, I am willing to debate you. Start the debate, brother. If you wouldn't mind, repeat your questions again, not all at once please, so I don't have to go back through all your comments.

God bless!

 

Well, you can doubt a fact, but it remains a fact. :)