Featured What the Nicene Creed is and isn’t etc..

You are exactly the man that would have been astounded in Cornelius’s house, seeing a host of Gentiles filled with The Holy Spirit.

You care about mode! Really!. Take off the hall monitors hat and open your eyes and see. Rules is rules sometimes, but not always. Some things are minor considerations, The Holy Spirit broke the supposed rules and brought living fire to the hearts and minds and tongues of the Gentiles from the start.

God is gracious, not a bureaucrat, don’t you see.

Peter had to be re-educated before even going to Cornelius’s house. Totally against major rules, not just minor.

I wish you could have seen the newly baptised baby I saw. Baptism is not just symbolic, a powerful spiritual reality takes place, God’s Light invades the dark formless soul by water and Spirit.

The difference between Gamaliel and the other Pharisees who all knew the letter of the Law is that Gamaliel left room open for The Spirit of the Law.

There are so many spiritual realities even believers do not see, they are students of the letter and by the letter, but of the Spirit they do not see.

 

Do you know where the franchise model of business was modelled off, The Catholic Church.

You get served exactly same thing at every outlet, in every location in the world.

“ While the Catholic Church possesses one and the same faith throughout the whole world, as we have already said.” Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 1:10,3 (A.D. 180).

It’s not your baptist or even protestant model, you have no idea what you will served at all of these, the local managers make up their own ideas.

The Catholic Church is the One Apostolic Brand Name, where you get the same doctrine and faith handed down from the Apostles.

It’s the theological Holiday Inn that Jesus founded on the Apostles.

“And in one Holy Catholic Church;’ that thou mayest avoid their wretched meetings, and ever abide with the Holy Church Catholic in which thou wast regenerated. And if ever thou art sojourning in cities, inquire not simply where the Lord’s House is (for the other sects of the profane also attempt to call their own dens houses of the Lord), nor merely where the Church is, but where is the Catholic Church. For this is the peculiar name of this Holy Church, the mother of us all, which is the spouse of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Only-begotten Son of God.” Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures, 18:23,26 (A.D. 350).

And look for the really big Arches.

 

No, look at the response.

“Can anyone withhold water to these people from being baptized, who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?”

This was an extraordinary outpouring of The Holy Spirit, that descended on these people like the Apostles in the upper room. “who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have”
The Holy Spirit made the decision for them, because there was still good reason to withhold water for Baptism to bring Gentiles into the Church. Gentiles to that point were not included in the Church.
This actually shows Baptism was the norm for receiving The Holy Spirit, to bring people into the Church.

“to those who were disobedient long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water, 21 and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also—not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a clear conscience toward God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 22 who has gone into heaven and is at God’s right hand—with angels, authorities and powers in submission to him.” 1 Peter 3: 20-22

The waters of the flood symbolise the baptism that now saves us. It wipes sin away and clears the conscience before God.

So the waters of the flood are the prefigurement of Baptism, where all that was evil was washed away and a new life and world was restored.

Baptism now saves you. Believe the word.

 

Scripture shows precisely the Catholic model. It was not by pure congregational election that the clergy were selected, but ultimately through the Apostolic laying on of hands. Not congregational laying of hands, Apostolic laying on of hands.

The Councils were assemblies of bishops from everywhere, who maintained one Apostolic Tradition handed down from the Apostles.

“This gave occasion for an Ecumenical Council, that the feast might be everywhere celebrated on one day, and that the heresy which was springing up might be anathematized. It took place then; and the Syrians submitted, and the Fathers pronounced the Arian heresy to be the forerunner of Antichrist, and drew up a suitable formula against it. And yet in this, many as they are, they ventured on nothing like the proceedings of these three or four men. Without pre-fixing Consulate, month, and day, they wrote concerning Easter, ‘It seemed good as follows,’ for it did then seem good that there should be a general compliance; but about the faith they wrote not, ‘It seemed good,’ but, ‘Thus believes the Catholic Church;’ and thereupon they confessed how they believed, in order to shew that their own sentiments were not novel, but Apostolical; and what they wrote down was no discovery of theirs, but is the same as was taught by the Apostles.” Athanasius, Councils of Ariminum & Seleucia, 5( A.D. 362).

“Concerning those who call themselves Cathari, if they come over to the Catholic and Apostolic Church, the great and holy Synod decrees that they who are ordained shall continue as they are in the clergy. But it is before all things necessary that they should profess in writing that they will observe and follow the dogmas of the Catholic and Apostolic Church; in particular that they will communicate with persons who have been twice married, and with those who having lapsed in persecution have had a period [of penance] laid upon them, and a time [of restoration] fixed so that in all things they will follow the dogmas of the Catholic Church…” Council of Nicaea I (A.D. 325).

The Catholic Church maintained the same belief everywhere and also maintained governance everywhere.
There was no independent churches after the baptist and Protestant model, these are nowhere seen in scripture or tradition.

 

Paul was baptised where he stood or sat up in bed in Judas’s house. This was pouring, not immersion.

“And immediately there fell from his eyes as it had been scales: and he received sight forthwith, and arose, and was baptized.
And when he had received meat, he was strengthened.“

Paul was very weak.

 

What point do you disagree with, you never said from my previous post.

I think we can nut things out in the cordial way we have been.

 

“Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.”

How did the early Christians understand Jesus words here?

” ‘And dipped himself,’ says [the Scripture], ‘seven times in Jordan.’ It was not for nothing that Naaman of old, when suffering from leprosy, was purified upon his being baptized, but it served as an indication to us. For as we are lepers in sin, we are made clean, by means of the sacred water and the invocation of the Lord, from our old transgressions; being spiritually regenerated as new-born babes, even as the Lord has declared: ‘Except a man be born again through water and the Spirit, he shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.'” Irenaeus, Fragment, 34 (A.D. 190).

“When, however, the prescript is laid down that ‘without baptism, salvation is attainable by none” (chiefly on the ground of that declaration of the Lord, who says, “Unless one be born of water, he hath not life.'” Tertullian, On Baptism, 12:1 (A.D. 203).

All the ancient Churches hold that baptism is regenerative, and up to the reformation and beyond.

 

No it doesn’t.

Mark 7:3 the Pharisees do not eat unless they wash “baptizo” their hands. This demonstrates that “baptizo” does not always mean immersion. It can mean pouring water over something in this case, over their hands.
Water is always drawn from the laver and poured over the hands in Jewish ritual, so that the laver was not contaminated for those after. Yet the same word is used for pouring and immersion.
Because people aren’t aware of ancient ritual, they end getting caught up in these senseless obsessions.

Mark 7:4 – we see that the Jews washed “bapto” from baptizo cups, pitchers and vessels, but this does not mean that they actually immersed these items. Also, some manuscripts say the Jews also washed “bapto” couches, yet they did not immerse the couches, they only sprinkled them.

I think this is an unjustifiable fixation you have here, which all seems rather silly considering you hold Baptism of no effect.

Besides the Fathers tell us baptism, poured and immersed is Apostolic.

 

“He who believes and is baptized will be saved”

“baptism that now saves you”

All the churches for the first 1500 years held that baptism is regenerative, East, West, doesn’t matter.

 

Even today you can see pouring from a secondary vessel on the hands, not the hands immersed in the laver.



I’m not making this up, you can see them use the same ancient method with secondary vessel to pour today, even though the laver itself is obviously a modern self draining sink.
The laver was never dunked in, thousands had to use the laver and it would have been befouled in no time, they weren’t self draining like today.

This is where a little knowledge of ritual practice can save a whole silly goose chase down a rabbit hole.



Secondary vessels, pouring.