Jesus. "Therefore everyone who confesses Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father who is in heaven." Matthew 10:32.
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A question of authority
- Thread starter Watermaker
- Start date
Yes but are those the same confession - at the same moment? Do you need to confess in public to be saved or confess with your mouth to God?
You don't need to confess with your mouth to God. All you have to do is think something and He hears it.
Just "something"?
SpiritualMadMan
New Member
Yes, I agree, and it should be a public profession, i.e., within the hearing of someone else. If it's not public, then there is no need for it to be audible.
But wait! An audible public profession would be a work and and we need to avoid those works at all cost.
Now Hannah, she spake in her heart; only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard: therefore Eli thought she had been drunken. (1 Samuel 1:13)Yes, I agree, and it should be a public profession, i.e., within the hearing of someone else. If it's not public, then there is no need for it to be audible.
But wait! An audible public profession would be a work and and we need to avoid those works at all cost.
I suppose, according to you, God could not hear Hannah's prayer, even though we know God answered it and gave Hannah a baby boy--Samuel.
The light of Matthew 10:32 should be taken in the light of the context, as in verse 24:
The disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his lord. (Matthew 10:24)
In other words, the passage is speaking of discipleship, not salvation.
Making a public profession is also an act done after salvation. It follows that after one puts their faith in Christ he will testify of Him.
Apparently not, unless you think one can be saved without receiving the Holy Spirit. The group in Acts 19 did not receive the H.S. until Paul had baptized them and laid hands on them.
Yet we see in Acts 8, they were baptized but had not yet received the Holy Spirit.
Then we see in Acts 10, the Gentiles received the Holy Spirit but were not yet baptized.
So receiving the Holy Spirit and being baptized are two separate things that sometimes occurred together, sometimes one preceeded the other.
I'm going to try to turn this thread back to the reason Waterman posted it. First, Waterman, you say you belong to the church of Christ. That is how you registered for this board and what you said in Posts No. 78 and 98. Yet your church's website says "Church of Christ" every time the term is used there. How come?
This discussion points up the fact that the N.T. contains several formulae for salvation. For example:
"f you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation." Romans 10:9-10
"Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household." Acts 16:31.
"Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” Acts 2:38.
“He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved; but he who has disbelieved shall be condemned.” Mark 16:16.
There are several others as well. But looking at these four, we see several elements to the process—repent, believe, confess and be baptized. Can we just go by Acts 16:31 because it is the only one that doesn’t require a “work” as defined by DHK and others who constitute the raging right wing on this board? Actually we ignore these so-called works at great peril because they are the clear command of sacred scripture. I assume those who disagree will say I’m misreading these verses but that is what they say and anyone who knows how to read and doesn’t have a dog in the fight would agree.
And thus, we are back to the real theme of this thread.
"f you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation." Romans 10:9-10
"Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household." Acts 16:31.
"Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” Acts 2:38.
“He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved; but he who has disbelieved shall be condemned.” Mark 16:16.
There are several others as well. But looking at these four, we see several elements to the process—repent, believe, confess and be baptized. Can we just go by Acts 16:31 because it is the only one that doesn’t require a “work” as defined by DHK and others who constitute the raging right wing on this board? Actually we ignore these so-called works at great peril because they are the clear command of sacred scripture. I assume those who disagree will say I’m misreading these verses but that is what they say and anyone who knows how to read and doesn’t have a dog in the fight would agree.
And thus, we are back to the real theme of this thread.
SpiritualMadMan
New Member
Agreed...
Further, as a father myself, I think I can see a trait of My Heavenly Father...
That is, when having to deal with my Children I look for any mitigation to limit the amount of "cost" a particular transgression requires.
Jesus paid for our sins, all of them, as God's Perfect Eternal Lamb.
Salvation was paid in full, once for all.
If all you aspire to is Romans 10:9-10 all well and Good, Our Father *WANTS* to forgive and include.
And, Jesus is the minimum "bar" with which He can include any of us.
Even in disobedience, ie., not making Baptism or Verbal Confession a priority, Salvation is not in jeopardy.
Why?
Because Our Father Loves Us and and *WANTS* to forgive and include us.
And, in Fairness, to us, there is enough ambiguity in the various texts to make it a Grey Area.
That is, *if* Water Immersion Baptism were essential for Salvation, especially to the extreme it would require Our Heavenly Father to exclude one of us, then He would have ensured that *every* text talking about Salvation included Water Baptism. They don't, so it isn't!
Watermaker
New Member
I believe that the reception of the Holy Spirit as shown in the above verses had nothing whatsoever to do with the salvation of those involved. In Acts 8, the people Phillip had preached to had heard the word, believed it, and were baptized. Now, we don't read that they had made confession of Jesus being the Son of God, nor of their repentance, but I believe it is safe to infer that these things had been done, since there are other commands/examples where those actions were explicitly included in the text, and since all men are saved in the same way under the New Testament.
That said, in Acts 8, what is being given through the laying on of the apostles' hands are miraculous gifts of the Spirit - tongues, prophecy, etc. They had already been converted, they just didn't have any cool miraculous Spiritual gifts yet.
In Acts 10, there were the first Gentile converts under consideration. Peter had gone to the house of Cornelius accompanied by six Jewish brethren, Christians converted from Judaism. These men had strong anti-Gentile bias left over from their lives as Jews, and I believe the Holy Spirit was given to Cornelius and household to demonstrate to the six Jewish brethren that these Gentiles were acceptable to God under the same conditions that they themselves were. The Spirit falling on Cornelius and company neither saved them nor indicated that they were saved. It simply served as a sign to convince the Jewish brethren that God was okay with Gentiles becoming Christians.
In fact, this type of thing was such a rare occurrence that Peter had to stretch way back in his memory to "the beginning" in Acts 2 to have something to compare it to.
Watermaker
New Member
I wish I had an answer for you, Zenas. I'm not familiar with the website. It could be that some don't make as big an issue over the "big C - little c" thing. My view/understanding of the difference between is that the church is subservient to Christ. Christ is the Head. To me, to capitalize the c in church and make it Church is to make it equal to Christ, which it's not. Christ is perfect, the church is not (I'm in it, after all).
Maybe there's more to the issue. I don't know.
Now I have heard of a bunch who uses the name International Church of Christ or something like that, and they seem to be a bit nuts, to put it nicely. Can't say much about them, 'cause I'd be talking out of school. I think I'm what some might call a "Campbellite", though none of my beliefs or practices originate with Alexander Campbell. I don't get too worked up about it.
I hope that answers your question.
Watermaker
New Member
I don't think this is a very safe way to approach the Scriptures. We need to remember that the truth of God's Word is found when we gather ALL the information on the topic at hand. As we all know, the Bible is not laid out like an encyclopedia, with all of the information on a given topic in one easy-to-find section. We have to "search the Scriptures" to find all that they have to say about things.
Psa 119:160 Thy word is true from the beginning: and every one of thy righteous judgments endureth for ever.
The ASV 1901 (I know we prefer the KJV, but humor me for a second) reads,
"The sum of thy word is truth; And every one of the righteous ordinances endureth for ever."
We need to be investigators, and good investigators search out ALL the evidence. We need the "sum" of God's word on a topic to have the truth.
By using the reasoning suggested in the quote above, one might turn to 1 Pet 3:21 and conclude that not only is baptism necessary, but that that baptism is ALL that was necessary for salvation. Ludicrous! Yet, that is what many do with verses such as Acts 16:31, John 3:16, and many others. We have to keep reading, folks!
No, that is the COC indoctrination that you have received that is contrary to the Scriptures.
Notice how you have a salvation of works. Here are the works you must do in order to be saved:
believe + confess + repent + baptism = salvation. It is all spelled out in your post above. That is a works based salvation. It is not what the Bible teaches. Concerning salvation here is what it teaches:
Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: (Romans 5:1)
--no baptism: simply faith and only by faith is a man justified.
To him give all the prophets witness, that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins. (Acts 10:43)
--whosoever believes. That is all. no baptism.
And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, (Acts 16:31)
--no baptism.
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16)
Verily, verily, I say unto 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. (John 5:24)
And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. (1 John 5:11-12)
These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God. (1 John 5:13)
There are dozens, nay, hundreds more that could be posted.
But you ignore that vast part of Scripture--perhaps 99% of it and deal with just a few small proof texts on which to hang your doctrine. You ignore the totality of Scripture.
If you truly believe that one must take into account EVERY detail as a basis of salvation that is mentioned then why not the place as well.
For example:
Study the Scriptures and find a single church building for me. There are not any. In your view they are unscriptural for they have no Biblical basis. All churches in the NT met in houses. They went from the Temple to synagogues to meeting in houses. Do a study on it. Churches never started meeting in buildings specifically set aside for churches until more than 200 years after the apostles. You have no scriptural precedent to meet in a building. According to your theology sell all your property, your buildings, your possessions, give to the poor, take up your cross, deny yourself and follow Christ.
Watermaker
New Member
Again, very poor reasoning, sir. As we look through the book of Acts, we find that in nearly every conversion account, baptism is in fact, mentioned.
Act 2:41 Then they that gladly received his word were baptized: and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls.
Notice the text doesn't even say that they believed, repented, or confessed. I don't suggest that they didn't, though.
Act 4:4 Howbeit many of them which heard the word believed; and the number of the men was about five thousand.
Baptism, repentance, and confession all left out. I still contend that they happened.
Act 8:12 But when they believed Philip preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God, and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women.
Act 8:13 Then Simon himself believed also: and when he was baptized, he continued with Philip, and wondered, beholding the miracles and signs which were done.
Repentance and confession omitted. Still necessary.
Act 8:36 And as they went on their way, they came unto a certain water: and the eunuch said, See, here is water; what doth hinder me to be baptized?
Act 8:37 And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
Act 8:38 And he commanded the chariot to stand still: and they went down both into the water, both Philip and the eunuch; and he baptized him.
No comment.
Act 9:18 And immediately there fell from his eyes as it had been scales: and he received sight forthwith, and arose, and was baptized.
Act 10:47 Can any man forbid water, that these should not be baptized, which have received the Holy Ghost as well as we?
Act 10:48 And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord. Then prayed they him to tarry certain days.
Act 13:12 Then the deputy, when he saw what was done, believed, being astonished at the doctrine of the Lord.
Repentance, confession, and baptism all left out. Should we assume none were required or done? Don't be silly!
Act 16:15 And when she was baptized, and her household, she besought us, saying, If ye have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house, and abide there. And she constrained us.
Act 16:33 And he took them the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes; and was baptized, he and all his, straightway.
Act 17:34 Howbeit certain men clave unto him, and believed: among the which was Dionysius the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.
Act 19:5 When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.
Act 22:16 And now why tarriest thou? arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord.
Act 26:27 King Agrippa, believest thou the prophets? I know that thou believest.
Act 26:28 Then Agrippa said unto Paul, Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.
Lastly, note that though Agrippa believed, and Paul knew he did, he was still not a Christian.