Featured Would you receive sprinkling?

So, confer vs. administer.

A distinction without a difference.

(Former Lutheran here.)

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I do not wish to be guilty of straining out gnats, but the Baptist Sunday school teaching that the Greek word βαπτίζω means, in the New Testament, to ‘dip’ or ‘immerse’ is incorrect. For the true meaning of the word βαπτίζω in the New Testament, please see pages 164-165 in the BDAG lexicon.

Amen! Amen! And Amen!

 

Amen!

 

Please post the name of a Lutheran synod in the United States or anywhere else in the world that teaches that water baptism administers or confers grace, rather than that water baptism is a work of God through which He (not the baptism!) confers grace to the recipient, and that it is not a work of men, but a work of God. This is not a mere technicality, it is fundamental to the teaching of the Lutheran Church!

 

The MODE of Baptism is relatively unimportant as it is a SYMBOL, a representation of what has already taken place.

If one understands that it is merely representing what has already transpired, then the method is of little importance, for it carries no particular blessing or grace in the act, but is that of obedience.

Too often the symbol and the tradition of a church gains so much importance and such a priority that folks assume that it means far more than the original statement of a public display of a change of loyalty.

So, certainly, any mode of baptism can be recognized by the local congregation and it be Scriptural. The same way as one doesn't need "baptized" with water if they are in a desert that is filled with sand, but can just as effectively be covered over with the sand and "raised to walk in newness...."

What IS important is that baptism follows conversion, and the desire is from the impulse of the Holy Spirit to be obedient.

 

Wow! How extremely sad! Cry

 

Yes well since you are a solid conservative that must be true. Rolleyes Apparently not a Baptist.

 

Those who call themselves Baptists who believe other than what Baptist hold to. Maybe we should call them transbaptists. Whistling

 

Just not Baptist.......we have a tradition to uphold. (Its in the NAME)

 

It is true, not because I said it—but because it is true, unlike the misinformation that Mitchell has posted in this thread.

Men who know a little bit about conservative Baptist theology can recognize a conservative Baptist when they see one.

 

Pathetic gibberish!

 

Lutherans believe that water baptism is a means of grace and creates faith in the infant being baptized. I only know WELS and LCMS, but that is what they believe.

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How is it that some Baptists are unaware that our early Baptist forefathers practiced water baptism by affusion rather than by immersion? Perhaps we Baptists of today should honor that Baptist tradition!

 

Please post the name of a Lutheran synod in the United States or anywhere else in the world that teaches that water baptism administers or confers grace, rather than that water baptism is a work of God through which He (not the baptism!) confers grace to the recipient, and that it is not a work of men, but a work of God.

 

I have spent long hours in the past debating the meaning of baptizo with Presbyterians on the Puritan Board, but I didn't expect to have to do so on the Baptist Board.

There is a very handy book called The Meaning and use of Baptizein by T.J. Conant (Wakeman Great Reprints. ISBN 1-870855-31-0). It lists every occurrence of baptizo not only in the NT, but also in the whole of Greek literature including the Church Fathers, so that the interested party may work out for himself what the meaning is.
There are plenty of figurative meanings: people are baptized with sleep, drink and grief; ships are baptized in the sea; warriors baptize their swords in each other's entrails, but the meaning is always compatible with 'dip,' 'dunk' or 'immerse.' I never heard of anyone sprinkling his sword in someone else's entrails. Much the same information may be found in John Dagg's Manual of Church Order.

Also, whilst I would not give tuppence for the theological views of the Greek Church Fathers, they should at least know the meaning of a Greek word. They have always baptized by immersion, and do so to this very day.

 

Once again, I'm amazed that this should come up on a Baptist Forum. I think, with respect, that you are thinking of certain Anabaptists. The earliest Baptist Confession of Faith of which I'm aware is the London 1644:

XXXIX.
That Baptism is an ordinance of the New Testament, given by Christ, to be dispensed only upon persons professing faith, or that are Disciples, or taught, who upon a profession of faith, ought to be baptized (Added later: "...and after to partake of the Lord's Supper.")

Acts 2:37, 38; 8:36-38; 18:8

XL.
The way and manner of the dispensing of this ordinance the Scripture holds out to be dipping or plunging the whole body under water: it being a sign, must answer the thing signified, which are these: first, the washing the whole soul in the blood of Christ; secondly, that interest the saints have in the death, burial, and resurrection (of Christ) ; thirdly, together with a confirmation of out faith, that as certainly as the body is buried under water, and rises again, so certainly shall the bodies of the saints by raised by the power of Christ, in the day of the resurrection, to reign with Christ.

1) Mat. 3:16; John 3:23; Acts 8:38
2) Rev. 1:5; 7:14; Heb. 10:22
3) Rom. 6:3-5
4) 1 Cor. 15:28, 29


I mentioned the Greek Church fathers in my earlier post. Here are some examples of their understanding of baptizo. Remember, I am not advocating their theology, only their understanding of a Greek word:

1. Cyril of Jerusalem, Instruction III, on Baptism XII. ‘For as Jesus assuming the sins of the world died, that having slain sin He might raise you up to righteousness; so also you, going down into the water, and in a manner buried in the waters as He in the rock, are raised again, walking in newness of life.’

2. John Chrysostom. Comment on 1Cor. Discourse XL. I. ‘For to be baptized, and to sink down, then to emerge, is a symbol of the descent into the underworld, and of the descent from there. Therefore Paul calls baptism, the burial, saying, “we were buried therefore, with Him by the baptism into death.”‘

3. Athanasius. Discourse on the Holy Passover, 5. ‘In these benefits you were baptized, O newly-enlightened; the initiation into the grace……has become to you an earnest of resurrection; you have the baptism as a surety of the abode in heaven. You imitated, in the sinking down, the burial of the Master; but you rose again from there, before works, witnessing the works of the resurrection.’

4. Gregory of Nazianus. Discourse XL, on the holy Baptism. ‘Let us therefore be buried with Christ by the baptism, that we may also rise with Him. Let us go down with Him, that we may also be exalted with Him; let us come up with Him, that we may also be glorified with Him.’

 

I just did.

"Baptism is a powerful means of grace by which God grants faith and the forgiveness of sins' --LCMS website

http://www.lcms.org/faqs/doctrine#purpose

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See the attached paper on Baptism