What is the point of infant baptism??

I will do that!!!!

 

Corpsenomore --


Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...............

Your quote is interesting, but I find a discontinuity in it myself. You said:

The new covenant is primarily: inward, spiritual, universal and real.

In the Old covenant with its physical/ethnic locus one entered that covenant at the time of physical birth, to covenant parents, through a fleshly gate(birth-canal). One received the fleshly sign, which signified the perpetuity of the physical/ethnic covenant through the progenitors of the covenant-race.

You have a mistake there. One DID NOT enter the covenant by physical birth. If one was not circumcized, one was not in covenant with God. The unciurcumcized one was "cut off" from his people and not a part of the kingdom. Your Baptist "sign notions" are showing. Circumcision was not a sign of the covenant. It was the making of covenant with God. Study Genesis a bit harder and look at how the wording is set up.

There was no perpetual physical/ethnic covenant with the Jews. Read Deut. 28. The covenant terms are outlined in blessing and cursing. The Jews broke the covenant numerous times and finally were completely dispossessed of it in AD 70. Read about that in Matthew 21: 33-46.

Furthermore, your post sounds like the "invisible church" idea of the Presbyterian Calvinists, which Baptists reject. I was reading at a Baptist site last week in which the author, with great care, proved that the Church is physical, earthly, and local. That gentleman knows his ecclessiology.

What proof do you have that the Old Covenant wasn't spiritual? If God initiaed it, doesn't that make it both spiritual and a means of grace to undeserving sinners?

CT

 

If I may jump in for a brief comment:

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Circumcision was not a sign of the covenant. It was the making of covenant with God. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

At the risk of being scriptural please look at how the wording is set up in Gen 17:11. "And you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskin, and it shall be the sign of the covenant between Me and you. Seems clear enough. What part of this do you not accept? Furthermore, if you study the text of Genesis, you find that the covenant is not made at circumcision even at the circumcision of Abraham. The covenant was already made and it was an eternal covenant. The covenant was ratified as unconditional in Gen 15, before the institution of circumcision in Gen 17.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>There was no perpetual physical/ethnic covenant with the Jews. Read Deut. 28. The covenant terms are outlined in blessing and cursing. The Jews broke the covenant numerous times and finally were completely dispossessed of it in AD 70. Read about that in Matthew 21: 33-46. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

If you read Deut 28, you find the stipulations deal with the possession of the land, not the permanence of the covenant. They did not lose the covenant; they lost possession of the land. The Abrahamic covenant is never threatened in Scripture. The constant refrain of the prophets is that the promise will be restored to the house of Israel, the house of Jacob, the descendants of David, Levi, etc., terms that are never used of anyone other than ethnic Israel. They were not completely dispossessed in AD 70. They inhabit the land partially today.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Furthermore, your post sounds like the "invisible church" idea of the Presbyterian Calvinists, which Baptists reject.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

All Baptists do not reject the invisible church. Only some Baptists do (and wrongly so).

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>What proof do you have that the Old Covenant wasn't spiritual? If God initiaed it, doesn't that make it both spiritual and a means of grace to undeserving sinners?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Because the provisions of the Abrahamic covenant were not spiritual. There is nothing spiritual about the land from the river Euphrates to the river of Egypt (Gen 15). There is nothing spiritual about the “seed that will come from your body” (Gen 15:4). Neither are the stipulations of the Mosaic covenant spiritual. They had spiritual ramifications but there was material stipulations. Furthermore, there is no place that either the Abrahamic or Mosaic covenant was said to be a means of grace unless you know of some Scripture that I do not.

 

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by CovenantTheologian:
...I find a discontinuity in it myself... You have a mistake there. One DID NOT enter the covenant by physical birth. If one was not circumcized, one was not in covenant with God. The unciurcumcized one was "cut off" from his people and not a part of the kingdom.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Nevertheless, any faux pas' on my part does not change the underlying basic differences between the two covenants.

<UL TYPE=SQUARE><LI>Old Covenant: composed of a mixture of the faithful and the faithless circumcised Abrahamic physical progeny.

<LI>New Covenant: composed of only absolute 100% true sons of God, not a single bastard among them. Why? Because one is ONLY in the "new covenant" at the point of regeneration, which is to say the new covenant is spiritually real. False professors may hang around new-covenant members in physical presense and locomotion, but no matter how much they pretend to be sheep, they are still goats, and goats are not in the new covenant, regardless of how theologically correct their H2O baptism may have been.
[/list]


<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by CovenantTheologian:
Your Baptist "sign notions" are showing. Circumcision was not a sign of the covenant. It was the making of covenant with God. Study Genesis a bit harder and look at how the wording is set up.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

That's just it, the old covenant blessings were for most old-covenant members the temporal blessings that were associated with the nation of Israel and land of Canaan. But a majority of those circumcised old-covenant members are burning in Hell tonight. Whereas, in the new covenant every member (without exception) will one day worship God in Heaven.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by CovenantTheologian:
There was no perpetual physical/ethnic covenant with the Jews. Read Deut. 28. The covenant terms are outlined in blessing and cursing. The Jews broke the covenant numerous times and finally were completely dispossessed of it in AD 70. Read about that in Matthew 21: 33-46.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yes... perhaps my wording lacked sufficient precision. The old covenant was to preserve a remnant, a covenant race from which the Messiah would come. I agree... with the first advent of Christ, and the Jews rejection of Him, they abrogated the old covenant and brought the consequent judgment.

I also agree that the Abrahamic covenant continues within the display of the New Covenant, and that consequently the new-covenant members are spiritual Israel. This position is consistent, I believe, with Presbyterian covenantalism. However, I do not accept the notion that one enters the covenant with the status of alien and stranger, nay an enemy of God,intact. The new covenant is applied within the structure of the ministry of reconcilation.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by CovenantTheologian:
Furthermore, your post sounds like the "invisible church" idea of the Presbyterian Calvinists, which Baptists reject. I was reading at a Baptist site last week in which the author, with great care, proved that the Church is physical, earthly, and local. That gentleman knows his ecclessiology.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Welcome to Baptist Covenantalism; you need to get around more. In any case, I have a book by a Baptist pastor that thoroughly defends the "invisible church" idea from a Baptist perspective, AND resoundingly refutes, what I like to call "local-church-onlyism."

Behold the LINK...

The Doctrine of the Church: a Baptist View

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by
CovenantTheologian:
What proof do you have that the Old Covenant wasn't spiritual? If God initiaed it, doesn't that make it both spiritual and a means of grace to undeserving sinners? CT<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

It's not that the old covenant wasn't spiritual at all, it's that the spiritual presense of it was submerged under the typical function of it, which is to say the old covenant typified Christ.

The new covenant is no longer typical, but it is fulfilled in Christ, and with Christ all new-covenant members experience it's fulfillment, not it's promise typified.

If you are interested in an academically laid-out presentation of this issue, I offer this LINK...

A Critical Evaluation of Paedobaptism

cordially,

CNM

[ June 27, 2001: Message edited by: CorpseNoMore ]

 

FROM PASTOR LARRY'S POST:

If I may jump in for a brief comment:
---------------------------------------------
Circumcision was not a sign of the covenant. It was the making of covenant with God.
---------------------------------------------
At the risk of being scriptural please look at how the wording is set up in Gen 17:11. "And you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskin, and it shall be the sign of the covenant between Me and you. Seems clear enough. What part of this do you not accept? Furthermore, if you study the text of Genesis, you find that the covenant is not made at circumcision even at the circumcision of Abraham. The covenant was already made and it was an eternal covenant. The covenant was ratified as unconditional in Gen 15, before the institution of circumcision in Gen 17.

MY RESPONSE:

Typical spiritual myopia. I am amazed at the number of people who want to develope doctrines from one scripture while totally ignoring the scripture right next to it:

Ge 17:10 This is my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you and thy seed after thee; Every man child among you shall be circumcised.

Now I'm going to reverse the question on you, sir. What part of this do YOU not understand?

THIS is my covenant (skip the explanitive parts) every man child among you shall be circumcized. Circumcision is not defined as a SIGN of the covenant. It is called the covenant which the Jews were to make in their flesh.

Ge 17:13 He that is born in thy house, and he that is bought with thy money, must needs be circumcised: and my covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant.

What part of THIS do you not understand? Especially the last part which states, quite clearly, that the covenant shall be IN YOUR FLESH.


PASTOR LARRY THEN POSTED:
quote:
---------------------------------------------There was no perpetual physical/ethnic covenant with the Jews. Read Deut. 28. The covenant terms are outlined in blessing and cursing. The Jews broke the covenant numerous times and finally were completely dispossessed of it in AD 70. Read about that in Matthew 21: 33-46.
---------------------------------------------
If you read Deut 28, you find the stipulations deal with the possession of the land, not the permanence of the covenant. They did not lose the covenant; they lost possession of the land. The Abrahamic covenant is never threatened in Scripture. The constant refrain of the prophets is that the promise will be restored to the house of Israel, the house of Jacob, the descendants of David, Levi, etc., terms that are never used of anyone other than ethnic Israel. They were not completely dispossessed in AD 70. They inhabit the land partially today.

MY REPLY:

Wrong again. The land blessings, along with the corn, wheat, oil, children, cattle, sheep, etc., are all inheritance blessings of the family covenant which God made with His earthly family, the kingdom of God on earth, which was at that time national Israel. Good children are blessed and receive the blessings of the covenant and the inheritance promised to them. Bad children are disinherited, as the Jews were in AD 70 when Christ destroyed Jerusalem as promised in Matthew 23 and 24.

You say that the Jews did not lose the covenant. Not according to my Bible. Go back and study Matthew 21: 33-46 real hard for a few weeks. Maybe it will sink into you that God is FINISHED with the Jews as the administrators of His kingdom. This prophesy was made by Christ and in vs. 46 it says that the Jews KNEW that He was making it against them. They would have taken Him by force for saying this, but they feared the crowd. What part of this curse do YOU not understand?


PASTOR LARRY THEN WROTE:
quote:
---------------------------------------------Furthermore, your post sounds like the "invisible church" idea of the Presbyterian Calvinists, which Baptists reject.
---------------------------------------------

All Baptists do not reject the invisible church. Only some Baptists do (and wrongly so).


MY REPLY: MY fault on this one. What I was trying to say is that there are some people who reject anything to do with the idea of a physical church on earth, preferring the pious sounding "spiritual church of true believers" or some such thing. We all know that there is a church in heaven, a spiritual body consisting of all those who were true believers. But that does not negate the church here on earth.


PASTOR LARRY WROTE:

quote:
---------------------------------------------
What proof do you have that the Old Covenant wasn't spiritual? If God initiaed it, doesn't that make it both spiritual and a means of grace to undeserving sinners?
---------------------------------------------Because the provisions of the Abrahamic covenant were not spiritual. There is nothing spiritual about the land from the river Euphrates to the river of Egypt (Gen 15). There is nothing spiritual about the “seed that will come from your body” (Gen 15:4). Neither are the stipulations of the Mosaic covenant spiritual. They had spiritual ramifications but there was material stipulations. Furthermore, there is no place that either the Abrahamic or Mosaic covenant was said to be a means of grace unless you know of some Scripture that I do not.


MY REPLY:

So you are saying that the creation of the world was not a spiritual event? That somehow the world we live in is divorced from the reality of the spiritual world. Sounds vaguely like Gnosticism to me (matter bad -- spirit good). Do we really compartmentalize our lives into sections like this -- areas which are not spiritual because they are instead "earthly". Can it be said of anything in the created universe that it is not involved with God, and therefore a spiritual issue?

CT

 

Dear Corpsenomore:

You wrote the following:

New Covenant: composed of only absolute 100% true sons of God, not a single bastard among them. Why? Because one is ONLY in the "new covenant" at the point of regeneration, which is to say the new covenant is spiritually real.

First of all, you use the word "regeneration" in the personal sense. I have found only two verses in Scripture which use the word regeneration (and NONE which use the word "regernerate") and apply those words to a individual. Regeneration is what Christ did for the world to restore the lost Edenic covenant which Adam broke by disobedience. Regeneration is nowhere in Scripture found as an individual possession.

False professors may hang around new-covenant members in physical presense and locomotion, but no matter how much they pretend to be sheep, they are still goats, and goats are not in the new covenant, regardless of how theologically correct their H2O baptism may have been.

Sorry. Have to disagree. The making of covenant is not the same as the recent heresy of "once saved -- always saved" which was birthed by Luther. One makes covenant and enters into the kingdom by baptism, just as one did in circumcision in the Old Covenant administration. But that is no guarentee of inheriting eternal life. We know this because of the many verses in Scripture where Paul wrote to those whom he called "believers" and "brethren" and warned them not to fall away lest they lose everything. We also know this from the words of our Lord in the parable of the sower in which He warned of those who believe for a short time and then leave when troubles arise.

It is also the whole point of the Great Judgment Day found in Romans 2: 5-10 where Paul states that those who do good works will inherit eternal life. This is the same response our Lord gave when asked by the disciples what they would inherit for following Him. LOOK at His answer:

Mt 19:29 And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life.

Everlasting life is an inheritance. Inheritances are given to obedient children. The disobedient are disinherited. That is what the Great Judgement is all about. Christ will reveal the secrets of all men's hearts. There will be those who looked good on the outside, but who did evil in secret and will inherit wrath. And there will be those who on the outside looked "bad" (smoked cigarettes, drank a tad of wine with dinner, went to the movies, whatever) but who in secret went about doing good, who shall receive the inheritance of eternal life.

That's just it, the old covenant blessings were for most old-covenant members the temporal blessings that were associated with the nation of Israel and land of Canaan. But a majority of those circumcised old-covenant members are burning in Hell tonight. Whereas, in the new covenant every member (without exception) will one day worship God in Heaven.

First of all, you don't know any more than I do who is in hell and who isn't. That is God's call ALONE and not our perogative. Temporal judgement may not necessarily mean eternal wrath. I suggest you leave that with God.

Secondly, there will be people who have "cut covenant" with God through baptism who will wind up in wrath because they have broken covenant with God and not returned in repentance to renew the covenantal vows. Broken vows bring judgement. This explains the warning of Paul to believers that they not fall away. Remember, the covenant and the blessed inheritance of the covenant are two entirely different things. You insist upon making them one and the same, which they are not.


I also agree that the Abrahamic covenant continues within the display of the New Covenant, and that consequently the new-covenant members are spiritual Israel. This position is consistent, I believe, with Presbyterian covenantalism. However, I do not accept the notion that one enters the covenant with the status of alien and stranger, nay an enemy of God, intact. The new covenant is applied within the structure of the ministry of reconcilation.

That was Calvin's idea, but not the presentation of the eternal covenant. The covenant has a very precise structure which pops up throughout Scripture. Ray Sutton wrote a good book on the structure of the covenant called THAT YOU MAY PROSPER - Dominion through covenant. Calvin's idea had neither Biblical structure nor anything even resembling a covenant. The best that one can say for Calvin's creation is that he used a legal contract as a model. That is not what the kingdom is. It is that family of God, in which obedient children receive the inheritance of eternal life an disobedient children recieve the curse of being cast out of the house forever.

Thank you for the links. I am always willing to read such materials and think I will find them most stimulating.

CT

 

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Typical spiritual myopia. I am amazed at the number of people who want to develope doctrines from one scripture while totally ignoring the scripture right next to it: <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Myopia?? I hardly think that is myopia. I am amazed at the number of people who want to change the clear meaning of the text to support a system. All I did was quote the text that directly contradicted your statement. The covenant was the everlasting agreement that God would give Abraham and his physical descendants through Sarah and Isaac the land, seed, and promise. Within that covenant was a wide-reaching blessing that would be mediated through Isaac’s descendants (something omitted from every CT discussion) to all who would come to God by faith. Nowhere is that spiritual blessing said to supercede or abrogate the material. God did not make a covenant with is people to circumcise them. The circumcision was the sign of the covenant and the sign that was one a partaker in the physical blessings of the covenant. By the circumcision of an Israelite, the Israelite entered into the participation of the covenant. I think you are misreading Scripture. However, you and I will disagree on this since we disagree on hermeneutics. I could write a veritable book showing why both your hermeneutics and your exegesis based on those hermeneutics denies the perspicuity of Scripture and threatens the faithfulness and truthfulness of God.

It seems to me that covenant theology cannot really cry myopia against its opponent. After it is the opponent that tries to correlate all of Scripture through a common method of interpretation. CT employs several different methods to account for the texts whose normal meaning would contradict the system. No less that O.T. Allis admitted that.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>What part of THIS do you not understand? Especially the last part which states, quite clearly, that the covenant shall be IN YOUR FLESH. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I could respond similarly that the covenant is said to be everlasting in several places but yet you deny that. It is strange you will go to great lengths to deny “everlasting” when the text is clear.
I hope God is not everlasting like his covenant with Abraham was “everlasting.” Of course, I think God is; but you must of exegetical necessity deny it or be inconsistent.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> The land blessings, along with the corn, wheat, oil, children, cattle, sheep, etc., are all inheritance blessings of the family covenant which God made with His earthly family, the kingdom of God on earth, which was at that time national Israel. Good children are blessed and receive the blessings of the covenant and the inheritance promised to them. Bad children are disinherited, as the Jews were in AD 70 when Christ destroyed Jerusalem as promised in Matthew 23 and 24. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

The disobedience of the Israelites did cause them to lose the covenant blessings. No one denies that. However, it did not abrogate the covenant. As Paul says in Galatians, the Law which came 430 years later did not annul the covenant. Matt 21 is not hard at all. It was spoken to a generation of unbelievers who rejected their king. That passage helps you not one whit (for all you KJVOnly-ites). Rom 9-11 clearly states God’s purpose to keep his covenant with his people. Rom 11:33 says that the gifts and calling of God are without repentance. In other words, God does change his mind, not with the Abrahamic covenant or with any other covenant. To arrive at your position you have to deny the plain meaning of words. By the way, Christ did not destroy Jerusalem in AD 70. That was Nero.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>So you are saying that the creation of the world was not a spiritual event? That somehow the world we live in is divorced from the reality of the spiritual world. Sounds vaguely like Gnosticism to me (matter bad -- spirit good). Do we really compartmentalize our lives into sections like this -- areas which are not spiritual because they are instead "earthly". Can it be said of anything in the created universe that it is not involved with God, and therefore a spiritual issue?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Gnoticism is a strong term, and no that is not Gnosticism. It would be more properly called Platonic dualism if indeed that is what is was. But have no fear, it is not that either. It seems to me that you are the one who is saying that the material cannot be spiritual. I think the material provisions of the covenant are as lasting as the spiritual ones. After all they are right beside each other and there is no textual difference made so it would seem that what is true of one would be true of the other. On the other hand, you seem to be arguing that the spiritual promises are kept because they are spiritual but the material ones do not need to be kept because they are material. I simply disagree. I see no factor driven by the text that ended certain aspects of the promise. Your considerations are driven by the system which you espouse.

I am not sure how the creation works in here. Perhaps you have a verse of Scripture you would like to choose to tie it in.

I think we are bit far from the topic here though. Perhaps this is not the place for this discussion.

[ June 27, 2001: Message edited by: Pastor Larry ]

 

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by CovenantTheologian:
Dear Corpsenomore: You wrote the following:

New Covenant: composed of only absolute 100% true sons of God, not a single bastard among them. Why? Because one is ONLY in the "new covenant" at the point of regeneration, which is to say the new covenant is spiritually real.

First of all, you use the word "regeneration" in the personal sense. I have found only two verses in Scripture which use the word regeneration (and NONE which use the word "regernerate") and apply those words to a individual. Regeneration is what Christ did for the world to restore the lost Edenic covenant which Adam broke by disobedience. Regeneration is nowhere in Scripture found as an individual possession.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

CNM rejoins:

That there are or might be other senses in which the general concept of regeneration takes place is quite beside the narrow point being made here. I am using "regeneration" in it's evangelical theological understanding in this instance. It is the miraculous violent interposition of the Holy Spirit of God in a spiritually resurrecting act upon spiritually dead sinners.

It is the same concept that is referred to by other terms: born-again, new creation, quickening, born-of-God, etc. to wit: John 1:13, 3:3-8, 5:21, 6:63, Romans 2:28-29, 4:17, 8:9-11, I Cor. 2:14, 15:45, 2 Cor. 5:17, Gal. 6:15, Eph. 2:1&5, Col. 2:13, I Pet. 1:23, I John 2:29, 3:9-10, 4:7, 5:4, 5:18, 3 John vs. 11

It is also beautifully typified in the story of the young man from Nain (from which, btw, I get my alias) in Luke 7:11-17 and also again in the story of Lazarus in John chapter 11.

It is a concept and need not be present in the text to be a valid word, i.e. the word Trinity.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by CovenantTheologian:
Dear Corpsenomore: You wrote the following:

False professors may hang around new-covenant members in physical presense and locomotion, but no matter how much they pretend to be sheep, they are still goats, and goats are not in the new covenant, regardless of how theologically correct their H2O baptism may have been.

Sorry. Have to disagree. The making of covenant is not the same as the recent heresy of "once saved -- always saved" which was birthed by Luther. One makes covenant and enters into the kingdom by baptism, just as one did in circumcision in the Old Covenant administration. But that is no guarentee of inheriting eternal life.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

The thing is, the new covenant is better than the old.

Jeremiah 31:31-34(NKJV)

(31) "Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house
of Judah-- (32) not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the LORD. (33) But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it
on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. (34) No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every
man his brother, saying, "Know the LORD,' for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the
LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more."

The New Covenant is fulfilled in the writing of the law of God on the hearts of the people AND we are told because of this &gt;&gt;ALL WILL KNOW the LORD!&lt;&lt; What other adequate explanation of this passage can there be but the evangelical doctrines of calling, regeneration, justification, adoption, and sanctification?

cordially,

CNM -- Luke 7:11-17

[ June 27, 2001: Message edited by: CorpseNoMore ]

 

Gentlemen:

Indeed, we are getting rather far afield from the initial question which dear Saggy asked. I would be interested in starting a thread on the covenant if someone would like to initiate it.

CT

 

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by CovenantTheologian:
Gentlemen: Indeed, we are getting rather far afield from the initial question which dear Saggy asked. I would be interested in starting a thread on the covenant if someone would like to initiate it. CT<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

If that is true, it is you that helped take us there with your many covenantally related questions. Be that as it may, the two concepts are intimately related, so it is quite appropriate to discuss it in that light.

Moreover, if Saggywoman feels that we are not answering her question in a satisfactory manner then the burden is on her to ask follow-up questions which will allow us to get at the issues that are escaping her. In a most peculiar description she calls these discussions, fluff.

On the now defunct Fightin' Fundamentalist Forum(FFF), the things that were termed "fluff" were things like "is so-n-so famous-pastor cute?" Such a defintion hardly qualifies what we are writing about as "fluff."

Beyond all of that, I'd say this post by you qualifies as a dodge, wouldn't you say?

cordially,

CNM

 

If I may post on this board.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> Should we, since we believe nothing is really happening to Baby except her getting a little damp, turn a blind eye and just make sure she knows getting sprinkled didn't insure her eternal salvation? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Don't worry about that. Elizabeth, the Lutheran Church will make it clear to her that being Baptized doesn't insure her eternal salvation. Baptism is a gift of God, but we must still accept it and our salvation.

 

Sir Ed --

May I ditto that sentiment, my fine Lutheran. It is the responsibility of the parents to see that their covenant children are well catechized in the faith. Part of that must be to let them know that while baptism entered them into Christ (Gal. 3: 27 & Rom 6: 3), this is no guarentee of eternal life, which is called "the inheritance"

CNM -- I was merely attempting to take this discussion to another thread, based on the complaint that we were engaging in "fluff". I will gladly continue your discussion at any location you should desire.
CT



[ June 28, 2001: Message edited by: CovenantTheologian ]

 

Now see, y'all just boggled my mind.

Let me start with this: I try to remind myself at least once a day that I'm not nearly as smart as I'd like to think I am.

That said, if baptism only enters us into Christ, and is not necessary for salvation, why baptize an infant?

See, the thing that boggles my mind is them there Lutherans that I've been discussing the situation with tell me that, according to the Lutheran beliefs, baptism imparts grace (Wisconsin Synod, if you need a reference). This imparting of grace ensures that an infant, born with a sin nature, is cleansed of sin (which is what I thought salvation is).

So now I'm boggled, and that's not hard to do to begin with. If baptism doesn't impart salvation, then what's the point of baptizing infants?

 

Don, I thought we had beat this horse to death already!

Baptism is a means of Grace. Remember, the simplest way I can think to say it is that Baptism is a work of God. However, it is still up to us to accept that Grace and, thus, Salvation.

 

"Go YE therefore ... and baptze." It is obvious that baptism is a work of men, that men are commanded to do it. Baptism is NEVER a work of Grace in the bible, for Grace and works are mutually exclusive! The very statement is an oxymoron! Romans 11:6 And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace . But if it be of works, then is it no more grace: otherwise work is no more work.

By the way, this is a BAPTIST Board. Please take all non baptist discussions to the proper forum. Thank you.

 

Thomas, you are confusing men and God. I think we can all agree that our works don't equal Salvation.

Now, I shall return to the netherworld of the non-Baptist forum . . .

 

Sir Ed,

How did you get out of the non-Baptist forum? Am I going to have to put you in solitary confinement?

Now come back to the non-Baptist forum, and stay there.

Joseph

[ June 28, 2001: Message edited by: JBotwinick ]

 

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Thomas Cassidy:
"Go YE therefore ... and baptze." It is obvious that baptism is a work of men, that men are commanded to do it. Baptism is NEVER a work of Grace in the bible, for Grace and works are mutually exclusive! The very statement is an oxymoron! Romans 11:6 And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace . But if it be of works, then is it no more grace: otherwise work is no more work.

By the way, this is a BAPTIST Board. Please take all non baptist discussions to the proper forum. Thank you.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Gee Dr C, there i go agreeing with you again!