Waldes of Lyons' Profession of Faith

[CarpentersApprentice]

Eliyahu,

"Bazaar Heraclides" is actually the Bazaar of Heraclides, a book be Nestorius written about 450 AD. Thus, this too will not avail as a source for information about the Leonists (Waldensians).

CA

 

[Gerhard Ebersoehn]

All you participants here, I respect and admire your energy, enthusiasm and actual knowledge and debating skills.

So kindly bear with one not so informed on everything said here, to make a little observation with regard to Eliyahu, especially.

Why is it so important to fill every possible time-period of the Christian era in with some adherents to a full-Gospel belief-system, if I may call it that? It's (to me) much like the Adventists who insist the Sabbath was always kept and never 'lost'. God sent times of ignorance and error to the OT People of God. Actually the times they really served the Lord properly were few and far between! Why could the antichrist not have gained the upperhand virtually to the extinction of the pure Gospel? God is - as He has always been - greatly magnified through the immer glorious revelation of Himself and of His Power. The greater the darkness the greater His Light and glory. The Reformation was such a period - as if from pitch black darkness. There have been more such bursts of light throughout history. So why should the Lord give people over to darkness? One can never say because the Holy Spirit got 'lazy'. But the fact the Holy Spirit does not get lazy, is no gaurantee God will forsake generations as it were to resurrect new generations for His own glory!

 

[Eliyahu]

Eliyahu,

"Bazaar Heraclides" is actually the Bazaar of Heraclides, a book be Nestorius written about 450 AD. Thus, this too will not avail as a source for information about the Leonists (Waldensians).

CA

You misunderstood my points.

What I meant was this:

1) There is the Bazaar Heraclides ( In German there is no need for "of" as the word in rear works for genitive) for Nestorius, despite all the accusations by the Roman Catholics, and it revealed Nestorius was NOT Nestorian as RCC described, because he claimed ONE Person of Jesus Christ with 2 natures, divine and human while RCC claimed he believed in 2 persons in Jesus.

2) Key of Truth is discovered for Paulicians.

3) Report by Reinerius tells us for the Albigenes and Waldensians

4) Likewise, there is one more antique book for Albigenes ( maybe even for Petrobrusians) in French which is about the Believers in Lyon, about which I have not got the details.

This 4) was my point for the " Prime Sources" as others are all secondary sources.

 

[CarpentersApprentice]

OK

When you said "there is a prime source of Leonists or Lyonese believers" and then cited The Bazaar and The Key I thought you meant that these two documents would give us information about the Waldensians which, as we know, they will not.

CA

 

[Eliyahu]

OK

When you said "there is a prime source of Leonists or Lyonese believers" and then cited The Bazaar and The Key I thought you meant that these two documents would give us information about the Waldensians which, as we know, they will not.

CA

I said " antique as much as Bazaar......"

What we can agree is the importance of the prime sources from the antique origins, then the accurate translation from them.

One of the problems with the lack of the literatures in defense of the True Bible Believers is that they didn't write very much literatures for their faith and for their apologetics, in addition to the extermination and elimination by their enemies.

That is because they believed Bible only, and believed the Bible itself is the best book of doctrines, and therefore they didn't feel very much need for the writings. That is very much understandable as I have such belief even today. None of Assemblies in my fellowship has any faith statement or doctrines or declarations, because they all believe that the final authority is the Bible, and all others are erroneous and fallible. If I write a book of doctrines or faith statements, then it means I produce another erroneous products. Instead, if we don't have any book of doctrines like Institutes of Christian Religion by Calvin, we can rely on the Bible only, and we may have some faith in verbal form or in a spontaneous literatures, then we can rectify them whenever we find the errors, as the human language cannot cover the whole situation from various angles, while the Bible is the only infallible.

However, when a certain argument or accusation comes to them, they must have stated their faith in writings.

So, it is not easy to trace back the footprints of the medieval believers and the ancient believers, which is left for the Believers to endeavor to study.

 

[Eliyahu]

All you participants here, I respect and admire your energy, enthusiasm and actual knowledge and debating skills.

So kindly bear with one not so informed on everything said here, to make a little observation with regard to Eliyahu, especially.

Why is it so important to fill every possible time-period of the Christian era in with some adherents to a full-Gospel belief-system, if I may call it that? It's (to me) much like the Adventists who insist the Sabbath was always kept and never 'lost'. God sent times of ignorance and error to the OT People of God. Actually the times they really served the Lord properly were few and far between! Why could the antichrist not have gained the upperhand virtually to the extinction of the pure Gospel? God is - as He has always been - greatly magnified through the immer glorious revelation of Himself and of His Power. The greater the darkness the greater His Light and glory. The Reformation was such a period - as if from pitch black darkness. There have been more such bursts of light throughout history. So why should the Lord give people over to darkness? One can never say because the Holy Spirit got 'lazy'. But the fact the Holy Spirit does not get lazy, is no gaurantee God will forsake generations as it were to resurrect new generations for His own glory!

I am not very much sure about that site, but there are many more articles supporting the existence of the Believers outside RCC in the medieval era. Some of them identify the earlier believers than Peter Waldo as the Waldensians. We need to trace the name on the surface separately.

The existence of the True church faithful to NT teachings throughout the period from Early Church till the time of Reformation can be traced repeatedly on many spots of the time, and it is quite different from the claim that the Sabbathkeeping believers existed all the time during NT period. I have a close fellowship with Messianic Jews who keep Sabbath.

Sabbath keeping may be accepted as essential for the faith by some group of people. However, there are plenty of arguments against it, and the question about whether it belongs to Moral Law or Ceremonial Law is quite controversial. Though I do respect the Sabbathkeepers, I don't find any verse in NT that Sabbath-violators will go to the Hell while we notice often Idolators, Liars, murderers will not enter the Heaven.
On the other hand, NT believers mean the believers with the essential faith in the Redemption, Salvation, Being Born Again by faith, Blood and Death of Jesus Christ, and they are confirmed very often in the history and we can easily trust that the Holy Spirit has kept His believers thru the ages, as there were 7000 believers who refused kneeling down to the Baal at the time of Elijah, unknown to Elijah.

On the Day of Great Judgment, we may find HS preserved at least 7,000 True believers all the time throughout the history, though they may be unknown even to the Believers.

So, NT Believers and Sabbath-keepers cannot be compared each other.

 

[Eliyahu]

CA,

I remember the title of the Book was not this ( Nobla Leycon) but some may have attached different names, depending on the languages. I am not sure this is the very one that I mentioned, either.


Behind this rampart of mountains, which Providence, foreseeing the approach of evil days, would almost seem to have reared on purpose, did the remnant of the early apostolic Church of Italy kindle their lamp, and here did that lamp continue to burn all through the long night which descended on Christendom. There is a singular concurrence of evidence in favour of their high antiquity. Their traditions invariably point to an unbroken descent from the earliest times, as regards their religious belief. The Nobla Leycon, which dates from the year 1100 [recent German criticism refers the Nobla Leycon to a later date, but still one anterior to the Reformation], goes to prove that the Waldenses of Piedmont did not owe their rise to Peter Waldo of Lyons, who did not appear till the latter half of that century (1169). The Nobla Leycon though a poem, is in reality a confession of faith, and could have been composed only after some considerable study of the system of Christianity, in contradistinction to the errors of Rome. How could a Church have arisen with such a document in her hands? Or how could these herdsmen and vine-dressers, shut up in their mountains, have detected the errors against which they bore testimony, and found their way to the truths of which they made open profession in times of darkness like these? If we grant that their religious beliefs were the heritage of former ages, handed down from an evangelical ancestry, all is plain; but if we maintain that they were the discovery of the men of those days, we assert what approaches almost to a miracle. Their greatest enemies, Claude Seyssel of Turin (1517), and Reynerius the Inquisitor (1250), have admitted their antiquity, and stigmatised them as "the most dangerous of all heretics, because the most ancient."

http://www.mountzionpbc.org/books/JW_waldenses.htm

 

[Matt Black]

All you participants here, I respect and admire your energy, enthusiasm and actual knowledge and debating skills.

So kindly bear with one not so informed on everything said here, to make a little observation with regard to Eliyahu, especially.

Why is it so important to fill every possible time-period of the Christian era in with some adherents to a full-Gospel belief-system, if I may call it that?

Because otherwise it would make a mockery of Jesus' promises in Matt 16:18-19 that He would build His Church and the gates of Hell would not prevail against it and in John 16:13 when He promises that the Holy Spirit will guide the Church into all truth. It also presents a soteriological problem to which I have elsewhere alluded, namely, how (in one of your periods of apostasy under the New Covenant) were men saved? Strangely, both Eliyahu and myself set great score by this concept; we just disagree on the methodology.

 

[CarpentersApprentice]

CA,

I remember the title of the Book was not this ( Nobla Leycon) but some may have attached different names, depending on the languages. I am not sure this is the very one that I mentioned, either.

Behind this rampart of mountains, which Providence, foreseeing the approach of evil days, would almost seem to have reared on purpose, did the remnant of the early apostolic Church...

http://www.mountzionpbc.org/books/JW_waldenses.htm

Eliyahu,

This is the exact same quote that ReformBaptist posted. What point are you making about the "Nobla Leycon" by citing this paragraph in Wylie?

CA

 

[Eliyahu]

Eliyahu,

This is the exact same quote that ReformBaptist posted. What point are you making about the "Nobla Leycon" by citing this paragraph in Wylie?

CA

Existence of the Believers in Lyon before 14 century, outside Roman Church.

 

[CarpentersApprentice]

Existence of the Believers in Lyon before 14 century, outside Roman Church.

Eliyahu,

By "Believers" I assume, since this is the Baptist Board, that you mean those who hold to Baptist tenants of the faith.

According to the extracts in English that I have, I am unable to determine if the statements made in "The Noble Lesson" would cause one to think that the Waldensians were more Baptist, Presbyterian, Methodist, or something else.

What English translation of "The Noble Lesson" are you referencing?

Thanks.

CA

 

[Eliyahu]

Eliyahu,

By "Believers" I assume, since this is the Baptist Board, that you mean those who hold to Baptist tenants of the faith.

CA

Believers means the Believers in Jesus Christ born again by the Water ( Word of God) and the Holy Spirit. There are many Fake Christians on this world, as Jesus indicated in Mt 7, Paul pointed out Fake Christians in Gal 2:4, 2 Cor 13:5, John pointed out in 1 John 2:19, also many who believe in another Jesus in 2 Cor 11:4.

You can notice how Jesus disapproved His believers in John 8:30 - 59

30 As he spake these words, many believed on him. 31 Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed;
37 I know that ye are Abraham's seed; but ye seek to kill me, because my word hath no place in you.


39 They answered and said unto him, Abraham is our father. Jesus saith unto them, If ye were Abraham's children, ye would do the works of Abraham. 40 But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God: this did not Abraham.
41 Ye do the deeds of your father. Then said they to him, We be not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God. 42 Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me

44 Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of I


48 Then answered the Jews, and said unto him, Say we not well that thou art a Samaritan, and hast a devil? 49 Jesus answered, I have not a devil; but I honour my Father, and ye do dishonour me.
59 Then took they up stones to cast at him: but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by.


1. Do you see how Jesus distinguish the Fake Believers in Jesus Christ? The Jews believed in Jesus in the beginning, then they tried to kill Him !

2. At least in human eyes, Jesus should have accepted that Jews who believed in Jesus believed in the Father. But Jesus disapproved even that! ( v 44) Jesus disapproved that the Jews believed in God the Father ! This means that the verbal confession of the faith means nothing! Jesus could see thru the human hearts transparently and no one could cheat His eyes.

3. Jews, the fake Believers, condemned Jesus as a devil ( Fake Christians condemn the True Believers as Heretics)

4. Jews, the fake Believers tried to kill Jesus by stoning ( v 59) - same as the fake Christians killed the True Christians by condemning them as Heretics.

As for the Heretics, Titus 3:10 says, A man that is a heretic, after the first and second admonition, reject.

But RCC tortured and killed the man believers and raped the women believers and bashed the babies unto the rocks.
They are the typical fake Believers same as the Jews in John 8:59.

Thefake Christians can never fathom what is the Christian truth. That's why they claim Baptismal Regeneration which claims the Being Born Again by Water Baptism. They claim such because they have never experienced the Spiritual Baptism by Holy Spirit.
This is the typical claim by such fake Believers:

[FONT=&#48148]Bishop Usher, on the authority of Koveden Annals, states, that in the year 1176, the alrtoni homines of Toulouse,?(a name given to the Waldenses), were summoned before a meeting of bishops, abbots, etc., and required to recant their errors by subscribing to a creed drawn up for the purpose. In the creed was the following article: "We believe also that no person is saved but he that is baptized: and that infants are saved by baptism."[/FONT]

[FONT=&#48148]This is the typical statement by the fake Christians.[/FONT]


[FONT=&#48148]I and the True belivers whom I know never accept the history of Christian Church written by Buddhists, nor by Muslims, nor by the killers of True Christians, Roman Religion, the Idol worshippes since they have had no idea about what is the Christian Truth, as the fainal authority, though we may refer to them as a reference.[/FONT]


[FONT=&#48148]In the next posts I will inform you about Nobla Leycon etc.[/FONT]

[FONT=&#48148]But please don't misunderstand that I claimed the very much knowledge about them. Read the previous posts of mine about them as follows:[/FONT]

[FONT=&#48148]Post #58[/FONT]
[FONT=&#48148]I heard there is a prime source of Leonists or Lyonese believers which I have not obtained, but is quite antique as much as Bazaar Heraclides ( 1895) Key of Truth( 1895), and as this Reinerius report. I will pursue it someday.

[FONT=바탕]63[/FONT]
4) Likewise, there is one more antique book for Albigenes ( maybe even for Petrobrusians) in French which is about the Believers in Lyon, about which I have not got the details

67
I remember the title of the Book was not this ( Nobla Leycon) but some may have attached different names, depending on the languages. I am not sure this is the very one that I mentioned, either.


I cannot recall the exact title of the documents but understand there is an antique documents covering the Lyonese believers.

HIstory is not my urgent project and therefore I postpone the lengthy work. But it doesn't mean that I do not have the historical views correctly. God teaches me in all the Truth including what happened in the past.[/FONT]

 

[Eliyahu]

Eliyahu,
According to the extracts in English that I have, I am unable to determine if the statements made in "The Noble Lesson" would cause one to think that the Waldensians were more Baptist, Presbyterian, Methodist, or something else.

What English translation of "The Noble Lesson" are you referencing?

Thanks.

CA

The Nobla Leycon which I noticed may be from JN Darby as follows:

The Nobla Leycon is a genuine and ancient document, but their manipulations had sought to give it an earlier date than was the real one; and we have a large body of documents genuine, though some have been meddled with, and some probably very ancient; and Gilly has pretty well proved the most ancient European translation of the New Testament found in any language is the Romaunt or Gallic. The copies we have are written with chapter and verse, but scripture is quoted in some treatises without either, proving the quoted passages to have been written early in the thirteenth century at latest. (Gilly's Introduction to the Romaunt version of John, 41.)
It appears that the Nobla Leycon reads really 1400 years are fully accomplished, not 1100. This was Leger's doing, or some other, who furnished the MSS. But the poem is genuine; and long before the Reformation the early French translations were to supplant the Vaudois scripture. Such is the evidence of documents now afforded. We have the testimony of a letter of Pope Innocent III in 1199, of a Gallic translation circulated in the diocese of Metz in 1229. The Romaunt version was prohibited in the Council of Toulouse. Other acts of the inquisition and councils to prevent people reading this version it is unnecessary to speak of.

(JN Darby didn't doubt about the authenticity of Nobla Leycon, but the dating of it to 1100 is arguable, which he claim, and he dated early 13 c latest.
There are some more articles about it which is still interesting as follows)

There are modern writers who attempt to fix the beginning of the Waldenses from Peter Waldo, who began his work about 1175. This is a mistake. The historical name of this people, as properly derived from the valleys where they lived, is Vaudois. Their enemies, however, ever sought to date their origin from Waldo. Waldo was an agent, evidently raised up of God to combat the errors of Rome. Gilly, who made extensive research concerning the Waldenses, pictures Waldo in his study at Lyon, France, with associates, a committee, "like the translators of our own Authorized Version." (Comba, Waldenses of Italy, p. 169, note 596.) Nevertheless the history of the Waldenses, or Vaudois, begins centuries before the days of Waldo.
There remains to us in the ancient Waldensian language, "The Noble Lesson," (La Nobla Leycon), written about the year 1100 A. D., which assigns the first opposition of the Waldenses to the Church of Rome to the days of Constantine the Great, when Sylvester was Pope. This may be gathered from the following extract:
"All the Popes, which have been from Sylvester to the present time." (Que tuit li papa, que foron de Silvestre en tro en aquest.) (Gilly, Excursions, Appendix 2, p. 10.)
Thus when Christianity, emerging from the long persecutions of pagan Rome, was raised to imperial favor by the Emperor Constantine, the Italic Church in northern Italy - later the Waldenses - is seen standing in opposition to papal Rome. Their Bible was of the family of the renowned Itala. It was that translation into Latin which represents the Received Text. Its very name "Itala" is derived from the Italic district, the regions of the Vaudois. Of the purity and reliability of this version, Augustine, speaking of different Latin Bibles (about 400 A.D.) says:
[FONT=&#48148]http://www.giveshare.org/library/bible/waldensesandbible.html




GE commented that my post included the unreliable article from South Africa. But that is not right, because the article was posted by a Baptist church in New Mexico and in Chicago.

Though that article was posted by a Baptist church , there are many interesting points raised by them.

I pointed this.

[FONT=&#48148]The Lateran Council of 1139 did enforce infant baptism by severe measures, and successive councils condemned the Waldenses for rejecting it. (Wall) Evervinus of Stanfield complained to Bernard, Abbot of Clairval, that Cologne was infected with Waldensian heretics, who denied baptism to infants. (Allix) Peter, Abbot of Clugny, wrote against the Waldenses, on account of their denying infant baptism. (Ivemey) Bernard, the saint, the renowned Abbot of Clairval, says, the Albigenses and Waldenses administer baptism only to the adults. They do not believe infant baptism. . . . Ecbertus Schonaugiensis, who wrote against this people, declares, They say that baptism does no good to infants; therefore, such as come over to their sect, they baptize in a private way; that is, without the pomp and public parade of the catholics. (Wall) . . . Alexander III, in council condemned the Waldensian or Puritan heresy, for denying baptism to infants. (Danvers) Alanus Magnus states that they denied the ordinance to children.[/FONT]

[FONT=&#48148][FONT=바탕]http://www.geocities.com/I_hate_spammers/waldenses2.html

[/FONT][/FONT]

[FONT=&#48148]The article points out that Lateran Council II in 1139 condemned the Objection to the Infant Baptism severely. Why did they do it?[/FONT]

[FONT=&#48148]It was because there were plenty of people who objected it, either they were Petrobrusians or Waldensians ( They were actually the same)[/FONT]



It reports the followings as well.

[FONT=바탕]Almost all Roman Catholic writers agree with Cardinal Hosius, who says: "The Waldenses rejected infant baptism." Addis and Arnold declare of them: "As to baptism, They said that the washing of infants was of no avail to them.". . . Ermengard, about A.D. 1192, says: "They pretend that this sacrament cannot be conferred except upon those who demand it with their own lips; hence they infer the other error, that baptism does not profit infants who receive it.".



[FONT=바탕]Also, it deals with the Confession of Faith by Waldensians dated 1120, quoted by Samuel Morland.[/FONT]
[FONT=바탕][/FONT]
[FONT=바탕][/FONT]

[FONT=바탕]Anyway, it will be very much interesting to read thru the article by this Baptists church, as they refute many arguments against Waldensians very well.[/FONT]



[/FONT][/FONT][FONT=바탕]Now that we have heard from the enemies of the Waldenses, let us hear from the Waldenses themselves concerning their views on infant baptism. Infant baptism is denounced in a treatise on Antichrist, dating from the 12th Century, which was preserved among the Waldenses of the Alps, and brought to England by Samuel Morland, who was Oliver Cromwell's ambassador to the court of Savoy until 1658. Morland dates the manuscript from the time of the French evangelical preacher Peter of Bruys, and perhaps it was written by him. The evidence here is especially valuable since it was published by Morland, who was a Pedobaptist and wrote for an audience that was persuaded that the Waldenses had always been of the Reformed faith; thus, Morland cannot be accused of any partiality towards the Baptists. The manuscript reads

[FONT=바탕][/FONT]

[FONT=바탕]The pre-Reformation confessions of faith presented by Morland, who would have had every reason and desire to present all available evidences that the Waldenses were Pedobaptists, contain no such evidences or references[/FONT]
[FONT=바탕]In contrast, consider the clear, unequivocal language of the Westminster Confession of Faith, promulgated in 1648 (ten years before Morland wrote his book on the Waldenses) as a classic expression of Reformed convictions. These statements from Chapter 28 leave no doubt as to whether infants were to be baptized:[/FONT]
[/FONT]

 

[Eliyahu]

I am not very sure whether the Confession of Faith 1120 came thru Samuel Morland or not, but its authenticity itself may be OK though it needs verification further. What I didn't accept was whether the full coverage of their faith at that time was in there or not.

 

[David Lamb]

Eliyahu,

By "Believers" I assume, since this is the Baptist Board, that you mean those who hold to Baptist tenants of the faith. CA

CA, I naturally cannot speak for every Baptist in the world, but for myself, and most if not all of the Baptists I know, the word "believer" is synonomous with "Christian", in the sense in which both words are used in the bible. Acts 5.14:

And believers were increasingly added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women,

​

Acts 11.26:

And when he had found him, he brought him unto Antioch. And it came to pass, that a whole year they assembled themselves with the church, and taught much people. And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch.

​

 

[Matt Black]

Believers means the Believers in Jesus Christ born again by the Water ( Word of God) and the Holy Spirit.

How on earth do you reckon that 'water' is 'the word of God' and not the waters of baptism, as most Christians believe?[FONT=&#48148]

HIstory is not my urgent project and therefore I postpone the lengthy work. But it doesn't mean that I do not have the historical views correctly. God teaches me in all the Truth including what happened in the past.

[/FONT]

Oh, so now you're infallible. Great.

 

[Jarthur001]

I am not very sure whether the Confession of Faith 1120 came thru Samuel Morland or not, but its authenticity itself may be OK though it needs verification further. What I didn't accept was whether the full coverage of their faith at that time was in there or not.

This COF of 1120 has been looked into by many historians and without exception their findings say it is a fake. There are a few statements in it that was never worded in that way, till after the Reformation.

 

[Eliyahu]

This COF of 1120 has been looked into by many historians and without exception their findings say it is a fake. There are a few statements in it that was never worded in that way, till after the Reformation.

One of my doubts about the Confession of Faith is whether they covered the overall believers of Waldensians as they were scattered in the wide area of Europe, and there might have been the diversities among them as we have so many denominations today. Such questions may be answered if we know who was the first possessor of the document, and how it was acquired, and where the original copy is preserved etc.

Have you ever seen a copy of the documents? How do you conclude they are fake?

Certain logic behind this is that the document was brought by Samuel Morland who was a pedoBaptist, though the faith statement is based on the Credo-Baptism.

The Waldensian rejection of the mass was one of the reasons for the fierce persecution of the Waldenses in Piedmont in the year 1655. Morland has preserved a confession of faith from that year, containing this bold statement:

 

[Matt Black]

The Waldensian rejection of the mass was one of the reasons for the fierce persecution of the Waldenses in Piedmont in the year 1655. Morland has preserved a confession of faith from that year, containing this bold statement:

And what on earth has that got to do with the later 12th century?

 

[Eliyahu]

How on earth do you reckon that 'water' is 'the word of God' and not the waters of baptism, as most Christians believe?

Matt, I didn't know you were awake!:wavey:
I know it doesn't go without controversy.
Over a billion ( maybe even nearly 2 billion) of so-called Christians are misguided that they are born again by Water Baptism, and that the water in John 3:5 means the physical water, as they are misguided with the Transubstantiation in John 6.
1. We must understand Blood and Water is the typical expression by the Holy Spirit thru His servant John, and we read this in 1 John 5:8. In verse 7 he mentioned the Trinity of Father, Word, Holy Spirit, then goes on to explain Spirit, Water, Blood in verse 8, and this can mean the water baptism no way, but the the cleansing power of the Word of God leading to the repentance.

2. If anyone interpret the Water as the Water baptism, the Robber at the Cross who died after the conversation of John 3:5 couldn't go to the Paradise, without having the Baptism. The Spiritual Baptism which means the Being Born again is always available at any time as long as the person repents and accepts what Jesus has done, by Holy Spirit.

3. Many people who misunderstand the Water meaning water baptism do not have the actual experience of Being Born Again, then they often misunderstand the Salvation.
Jesus didn't approve the believers who believed in Him, but still said that they should abide in Him and His word should abide in them. Was it because they were not baptized yet? The actual salvation means the spiritual change. We know Cornellius received the Holy Spirit before they were baptized, and the person who has the Holy Spirit in his or in her mind will go to the heaven because of the Spirit of God who raised Jesus from the dead.

As I mentioned, there were plenty of the problems with the fake Christians even during the Early Church of NT.

Oh, so now you're infallible. Great.

Sorry, if my statement was too much exclusive, as I can hardly express many points and aspects within a short sentence. But if the person doesn't have the actual, personal relationship with God, then his or her whole view about so many things in the life is different from that of the Born Again believers, and therefore it is correct that we do not take the Unbelievers history as the final authority, though we may refer to them to refute their own arguments.