If a medical condition hinders baptism

[Revmitchell]

Sprinkling is absurd. It does nothing, it shows nothing, it represents nothing.

 

[tyndale1946]

Feeding the hungry is a moral issue which finds its force in the very nature of things. Baptism is a positive command which finds its force in the command itself. If the positive command is immersion, the incentive to substitute something else falls away.

While those who insist baptism is immersion are here charged with Phariseeism and legalism, I am amazed with the legalism that insists a person is not acceptable who cannot do something they cannot do. So instead they have to do something else they can do. Why not just accept their faith?

So true Brother Robert I was talking to my wife about this who is my second wife as the first one passed away... She told me her father at the age of ninety was so frail the church skipped the baptism and accepted him on a profession of faith... If the church was satisfied and he was satisfied seems to me the Lord would be satisfied too... Brother Glen

 

[Smyth]

Feeding the hungry is a moral issue which finds its force in the very nature of things. Baptism is a positive command which finds its force in the command itself. If the positive command is immersion, the incentive to substitute something else falls away.

Following the Sabbath law is not a moral issue. The Disciples should have finished the day fasting, if the law couldn't accommodate the circumstances.

While those who insist baptism is immersion are here charged with Phariseeism and legalism, I am amazed with the legalism that insists a person is not acceptable who cannot do something they cannot do. So instead they have to do something else they can do. Why not just accept their faith?

Charging those who insist on baptism of legalism doesn't relieve the charge of legalism against those who insist that the sacrament of baptism can't accommodate the circumstances.

A man has come to Christ and asks to be baptized. Even if a dying man is legalistic, so what? That's his legalism, not yours, baptize him, with sprinkling if that's the only way it can be done.

It's not legalism to want to obey scripture. It's not legalism to want to be baptized even if submersion isn't possible. Rocks would raise up to praise Jesus, if the disciples were silenced, so sprinkles can serve if that's the only option.

Baptism is only symbolic.

 

[Aaron]

Feeding the hungry is a moral issue which finds its force in the very nature of things. Baptism is a positive command which finds its force in the command itself. If the positive command is immersion, the incentive to substitute something else falls away.

The shewbread and baptism are rites. They're ceremonial. Both were commanded, both can be adjusted for mercy's sake.

 

[rlvaughn]

Following the Sabbath law is not a moral issue. The Disciples should have finished the day fasting, if the law couldn't accommodate the circumstances.

Brother Smyth, I'm not following what you mean here. I agree the Sabbath law is not a moral issue.

Charging those who insist on baptism of legalism doesn't relieve the charge of legalism against those who insist that the sacrament of baptism can't accommodate the circumstances.

A man has come to Christ and asks to be baptized. Even if a dying man is legalistic, so what? That's his legalism, not yours, baptize him, with sprinkling if that's the only way it can be done.

It's not legalism to want to obey scripture. It's not legalism to want to be baptized even if submersion isn't possible. Rocks would raise up to praise Jesus, if the disciples were silenced, so sprinkles can serve if that's the only option.

First it sounds like you are saying one man's legalism trumps another man's legalism. Who gets to decide that? But then you say it's not legalism to want to obey Scripture (with which I agree). But if baptism is immersion, where is the obedience of sprinkling?

Baptism is only symbolic.

Exactly. Baptism is a symbol. It is a positive institution, not a moral law. Why insist on it, especially in a mutated form that destroys the symbolism?

How would you feel about following the church option Brother Glen mentions above?

 

[rlvaughn]

The shewbread and baptism are rites. They're ceremonial. Both were commanded, both can be adjusted for mercy's sake.

Aaron, I suppose I am willing to "adjust" baptism for mercy's sake in a different way than you are. I agree that both the shewbread are rites. They are positive institutions of God and lose there important outside of that consideration. In the case of David and the case of Jesus & the disciples, one rite was not substituted for another rite. Eating was substituted for a strict observance of the rite. Something related to the very nature of things -- hunger -- "overrode" the rite. Feeding the hungry, healing the sick and helping the poor were merciful things that Jesus did that were more important that keeping the rites of the law (and in many instances it was the Pharisees interpretations of those rites more than the rites themselves). But substituting sprinkling for immersion is substituting a rite of our devising for a rite commanded by God. A person may think he or she is more acceptable to God because they were sprinkled, but are they really? Might it not just be better to show them that God accepted them according to their faith if they truly cannot perform what God has instituted?