Comments on: Searching for The Third Way: Baptism, Part 8

By: Jay Guin

Jay Guin — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 21:51:17 +0000

Amanda,

I'm happy I've been of some help to you. And I'd be very glad to have some thoughts bounced off me.

By: Amanda

Amanda — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 13:54:21 +0000

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you! For the last five days I have been trying to reconcile beliefs on baptism, salvation, grace, and the Holy Spirit. My mind was so troubled that I felt like I was losing my faith. I grew up in the Church of Christ tradition, went to a Baptist college, reside in a prominently Reformed area of the country, and attended Mars Hill Bible Church (Rob Bell). After asking my CoC to support me in a theologically baptist missions organization and receiving a no, I was forced to come to grips with what I actually believed. I had seen so many arguments for both sides and have friends and family on both sides of the issue. I wondered if I could come to terms with what everyone was saying the Bible was saying. At least for now I have a sense of a bigger God that works in and through time. Very refreshing! Would you mind if I bounced some more thoughts off you? My email is Gayle84@yahoo.com.

By: mark

mark — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 18:09:53 +0000

I do like the thinking on this subject and I think it applies to many other issues. Along these lines do we have much to fear about who is a Christian? I see sometimes an oddity of where are youth are at they embrace a more ecumenical world. But still with in the average church there’s a wondering if not a fear of where peoples faith came from.

I know if someone came to my church and claimed to be icoc eyebrows would raise or if someone came from the Christian church and ask to help out with worship half the church would go into a tailspin. It isn't as though being a baptized believer is enough. In the long run there are the secrets of the church, the by laws of hidden infrastructure, that empowers the few to call the shots and to truly judge who is really a Christian. It’s not much different in our para church, or academic institutions, there is ingrained in us from an early age the idea of spiritual discernment. It is these ideologies that still dictate our behavior and quiet suspicion .

By: Alan

Alan — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 16:47:12 +0000

Because baptism is a gift — the failure of the church to give us that gift, or their doing it wrong, doesn’t take away God’s salvation. God won’t damn a believer for the sins of the church.

Two great points.

God gave us baptism for our benefit, not for his. It provides a marker, a memorial monument on the timeline of our lives. Paul points back to baptism repeatedly in just that way. We can look back to our baptism as the time we became Christians, and thus be reassured when Satan tries to convince us we aren't saved. OTOH, when people don't understand that, there is no memorial and no benefit of encouragement from it.

God isn't looking for a technicality he can use to disqualify us for salvation. On the contrary, he has gone to extraordinary lengths to make it possible for us to be saved. The nature of God argues strongly against him using a penitent person's sincere mistaken belief about baptism to keep him from salvation.

Still, the church is responsible to teach the gospel as it was originally delivered. When we understand the biblical doctrine of baptism, we are accountable to teach it and to practice it correctly — and leave the judging up to God. He will get it right.