Featured Question on church History-- Zwingli

Well if you read the account, it's clear that this man was not a believer in Jesus beforehand. Both thieves mocked Jesus and reviled him. this thief repented on the cross and became a believer while on the cross. In Acts chapter 8 we are told the belief is a requirement for baptism.

Why are you playing this twisting game? why not just believe the bible.

Note that I gave 5 other reasons why Baptism does not save.

 

Not trying to twist anything, only to investigate every issue fully for my own understanding.
I am not calling infallibility into question here, nor am I objecting to your other points.

What I am trying to assert here is that the thief on the cross shouldn't be used to argue against the necessity of baptism.

I do not think it is clear the man was not a believer beforehand. There is a popular hymn with this line:

I have personally gone from a point of being baptized, to later speaking against Jesus, and am thankfully back in my right place with God. We also see Peter be one of the closest to Christ on earth, then deny him three times in the same crucifixion story.

 

Please provide documentation to prove this assertion.

This is not true. Tertullian began his Treatise on Water Baptism with these words,

“Happy is our sacrament of water, in that, by washing away the sins of our early blindness, we are set free and admitted into eternal life!”

Moreover, NONE of the Fathers of the Church—either Greek or Latin—ever refuted this teaching. Zwingli is correct—the teaching was universally accepted as true.

Please provide a direct quote from Polycarp to back up this assertion.

Please provide direct quotes from Irenaeus to back up this assertion. Oh! Here is an actual quote from Irenaeus from Book I, Chapter 21 of his work, Against Heresies,

1. It happens that their tradition respecting redemption is invisible and incomprehensible, as being the mother of things which are incomprehensible and invisible; and on this account, since it is fluctuating, it is impossible simply and all at once to make known its nature, for every one of them hands it down just as his own inclination prompts. Thus there are as many schemes of redemption as there are teachers of these mystical opinions. And when we come to refute them, we shall show in its fitting-place, that this class of men have been instigated by Satan to a denial of that baptism which is regeneration to God , and thus to a renunciation of the whole [Christian] faith.

 

I agree; so let’s test by the word of God the tradition taught in most (but not all!) Baptist churches that water baptism is “a symbolic act of obedience”.

The word of God says,

1 Peter 3:18. For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit;
19. in which also He went and made proclamation to the spirits now in prison,
20. who once were disobedient, when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through the water.
21. Corresponding to that, baptism now saves you--not the removal of dirt from the flesh, but an appeal to God for a good conscience—through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,
22. who is at the right hand of God, having gone into heaven, after angels and authorities and powers had been subjected to Him.

Peter finds here a correspondence between the water of the flood and the water of baptism. The water of the flood lifted the Ark and the eight persons aboard it up out the sinful world that was being destroyed. Corresponding to that, water baptism, when it is not merely the removal of dirt from the flesh, but an appeal to God for a good conscience, now saves us.

Peter sees salvation being accomplished through water baptism. Paul apparently did also,

Titus 3:4. But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared,
5. He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit,
6. whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior,
7. so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

Paul clearly states here that God our Savior “saved us… by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit.” Paul and Peter were both Jews, and to a Jew washing with water for spiritual cleaning and water baptism were very closely related to each other. The very large majority of New Testament scholars believe that both Paul and Peter taught that water baptism is effectual for the salvation, and the Early Church Fathers taught that God’s Grace for salvation was conferred upon believers through water baptism. This appears to me to have been the case in the Early Church, not as the exclusive means of conferring grace, but as the typical means. In Acts 10:44, we find a definite exception, and in my experience, the exception has become the norm.

(All quotations from the Scriptures are from the NASB, 1995)

 

But that is not all this Scripture says, and its meaning is clear if you note its context. There, speaking of the word of God which Christ preached through the Spirit in Noah before the flood, 1 Peter 3:20, 21 says, "Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water. The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ."

It is obviously only a figure of speech to say that Noah and eight souls were saved by water. And then we should not be surprised in verse 21 that the Scripture says, "the like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us." Here baptism is simply mentioned as a figure, a symbol, of salvation. It pictures the sinner, the old man dead and now buried, and the new person risen to live in Christ. Why avoid the clear statement that just as you might say figuratively, Noah and his family were saved by water, so, "the like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us?" Baptism is a figure, a symbol, a picture of salvation. It does not save. It declares salvation.

And the next verse is evidently intended to safeguard us on the matter so we would not misunderstand the Scripture, for that same verse goes on to say, "(not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ." So baptism does not put away the filth of this old carnal nature. It is simply "the answer of a good conscious toward God." And the saving that we get is "by the resurrection of Jesus Christ," after His death on the cross, which is pictured in baptism. This is "the answer of a good conscious," a conscience already purged, before one is baptized.

As to Titus 3:5, you have to read Baptism into the phrase "washing of regeneration":

Ephesians 5:25 and 26 says, "...Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word." Here the Bible is saying that Christ loved those He would save, gave Himself on the cross for them, and this body, including all the Christians, He sanctifies or sets apart and cleanses with the washing of water by the Word. So the Word of God has a part in salvation.

That is what Psalm 19:7 says: "The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul."

So 1 Peter 1:23 says, "being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever."

And Romans 1:16 says, "I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth." So evidently God uses two elements in His part in regeneration. He uses the Word of God, the Gospel. He uses the Holy Spirit to convict and regenerate. No one is ever saved without this twofold work which God does when one believes in Christ. One hears the Gospel and as repentantly to trust in Christ, he is born of the Spirit. So in John 5:24, "Verily, verily, I say onto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life." The Bible so clearly and repeatedly teaches that the Word of God is used in saving a sinner, that one must hear the Gospel in order to be saved. We can be sure the same meaning is intended here.There is the twofold element again of cleansing through the Gospel, the washing of regeneration, and the renewing of the Holy Spirit.

-http://www.ovrlnd.com/FalseDoctrine/Refuting_baptismal_Regen.html

 

If your interpretation is so clear, obvious, and evidential, why were the Fathers of the church and everyone else, for 1,500 years, unable to understand the Bible like you do?

 

1. You assume that the "church fathers" were really in fact church fathers, how do you know they were not false teachers who were popular? how do you know they were not wolves in sheeps clothing? here are some bible passages that you need to keep in mind:

Acts 20:29-30 For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock.Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them.

2nd Peter 2:1 But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.

1 John 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.

1 Timothy 4:1-3Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils;
Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron;
Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth.

2. the Church Fathers are not the final authority on truth, the scriptures are:

Acts 17:11 These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.

3. Majority consensus does not determine truth

Matthew 7:13-14 Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:
Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

4. How do you know no one believes in the Baptist view of baptism? have you personally read every available manuscript written by all of the "church fathers"? and what about those who lived during that time but didn't write down their beliefs and had their writings perserved?

5. There are a small handful of verse that could be misused to teach baptismal regneration, but for that small handful there are more than a hundred that clearly teach salvation is by faith in Christ. Read the Gospel of John and you will see over and over and over and over again that faith is what saves.

 

The testimony for Christ that is found throughout the writings of the Church Fathers conclusively and irrefutably proves that they were godly men who loved our Lord Jesus more than their own lives—that is, unless a man’s theology is somewhere on the outer fringe, and seemingly at every turn the Church Fathers expose that man’s false beliefs.

Absolutely! However, there is no shortage of men who have concocted the most bizarre imaginable interpretations of the Scriptures, and it is these interpretations that we weigh against the writings of the Church Fathers—and multitudes of doctrines from hell have thereby been exposed and silenced. Nonetheless, the advocates of these doctrines often go down fighting—and that fighting all too often includes blaspheming the Church Fathers.

I am sick of this dishonest argument being used by Christians on Christian message boards as though it is an issue of the majority versus the minority. It is NOT an issue between the majority and the minority, but an issue between everyone and no one. The doctrine that water Baptism is “an act of obedience symbolizing the believer's faith in a crucified, buried, and risen Saviour” is not found in the writings of any of the Church Fathers—nor, for that matter, in any wrings prior to the early part of the 17th century, including the New Testament!. (For what Zwingli and other early Reformers taught about water baptism, please see here,

http://biblehub.com/library/various..._notes/_52_zwinglis_distinctive_doctrines.htm

The doctrine of baptismal regeneration is taught but never defensibly by the Church Fathers. The fact that is never defended demonstrates that they themselves were unaware of an opposing view. The same is true of the more modern Christian teachers up to the early part of the 17th century. Moreover, 1 Peter 3:21 expressly teaches baptismal regeneration, and any church Father who taught against it would be guilty of a serious error and a severe lapse in judgment.

What!!!? Are you not even aware what the doctrine of baptismal regeneration is? It does NOT deny that salvation is by grace through faith—indeed, it staunchly and expressly teaches that it is! Get a grip, man!

 

National Israel was required to "repent and be baptized" (ie: John's baptism) as preached by Peter to Israel in Acts 2:38

Had there been national repentance, then Messiah would have returned to set-up his Kingdom. Baptism (ceremonial washing) was a necessary step to becoming a priest. Under Messiah, all Israeli males would be priests: