We are Modernists — most of us — and we therefore assume without reflection that the world is explained rationally and logically — and simply enough for a reasonably bright person to understand.
This is not the Christian worldview, and the doctrine of the Trinity plainly shows it. To a First Century Jew, not everything could be understood, but that was God’s problem. Our job is to believe, and God will explain it one day — if it suits him. And that’s entirely up to God.
(Deu 29:29 NET) 29 Secret things belong to the LORD our God, but those that are revealed belong to us and our descendants forever, so that we might obey all the words of this law.
(Job 11:7-9 ESV) 7 “Can you find out the deep things of God? Can you find out the limit of the Almighty? 8 It is higher than heaven– what can you do? Deeper than Sheol– what can you know? 9 Its measure is longer than the earth and broader than the sea.
(Rom 11:33-34 ESV) 33 Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! 34 “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?”
I’m not particularly happy about this. I greatly prefer to understand. But still it’s true. As we considered in the recent post on Presuppositional Apologetics, the Christian worldview starts with scripture, not reason. We Christians don’t reject reason, but we don’t consider reason the beginning of truth. God’s revelation of himself is the beginning of truth. (To be carefully distinguished from my interpretation of God’s revelation of himself, which can be very wrong. God always speaks truth. We don’t always understand.)
I say this to say that sometimes we have to recognize that things don’t have to make perfect sense. I even have some examples from everyday life.
A wedding example
Imagine a couple in love, engaged but not yet married. They are filled with passion for and commitment to each other. And so they decided to become married.
They get a license, hire a church, get a preacher, invite hundreds of guests, and plan the perfect wedding and reception. The preacher announces that they are “husband and wife” and permits the man to kiss his new wife. (Why he needs the preacher’s permission will forever remain a mystery to me.)
The congregation, friends, and family celebrate the wedding. It’s Friday night — and off they go to their honeymoon in the Caribbean, filled with much-anticipated and long-delayed passion.
On Monday, the preacher files the fully signed and dated wedding certificate with the local registry — and state law says they aren’t married unless the certificate is file. And yet the registry was closed and locked and under guard from Friday night until Monday morning.
When were they married? Was the weekend a time of fornication contrary to the plan of God for only married men and women? Or was it a God-fearing celebration of the love of a husband and wife as God planned from Eden?
It’s a head scratcher — and not at all unusual and rarely worried about. Why not? Because in our minds, the filing of the certificate on Monday “relates back” to Friday night. The law, church — and surely God — do not care that there was a delay. Why would anyone care in the least? In fact, no one does.
But to many of us, we worry mightily about when, during the three-day gap between coming to faith and water baptism, the convert is saved — because, after all, the baptism is “necessary.”
And so is the wedding certificate necessary? I mean, you’d better file it. But even the State of Alabama does not imagine that the marriage was not real, legal, and effective until Monday — and no one really cares what the statute says, because the statute assumes a prompt filing but not a filing between the announcement of “husband and wife” and the kiss.
So what if the preacher carrying the certificate to the courthouse is run over by a train on the way there? What if the man and woman meet as the only two people on a desert island, which is far away from anyone and yet subject to American law under the United Nations’ charter? Can they marry contrary to law?
Did God consider them married on Friday or Monday? I mean, if they’d not filed the certificate at all — not ever — they’d not be married under the laws of many states (and our hypothetical desert island).
But in the eyes of the state, and surely God himself, it all relates back and happened Friday night — in anticipation of the certificate being filed. Because it was going to be filed. And, besides, in the law, marriage is mainly about a covenant relationship between a man and woman, not whether a certificate gets filed and signed — although it is in fact essential in some jurisdictions.
A football example.
Consider the 1979 Rose Bowl. Michigan vs. Southern Cal. The game was tied late, 10 to 10. USC drove to the end zone. The quarterback handed the ball to running back Charles White, and on the 3 yard line, he fumbled. The ball was recovered by Michigan. But the referees signaled touchdown for USC! The game ended 17-10, and Southern Cal was voted national champions — even though millions of TV viewers saw the replay and knew to a certainty that White had not scored.
Now, this is not a lesson on grace. It’s lesson on time. The question isn’t why or how, but when did White score the touchdown? He absolutely did not cross the goal line with the ball, but the score is 17-10, USC won the game, and White received statistical credit for the yardage all the way to the end zone and for the touchdown. And so — he must have scored. But he didn’t.
When did he score the touchdown? Did he score it when he crossed the goal line? Well, he didn’t cross the goal line. That is, he didn’t have the ball when he did. Did he score it when the referees raised their arms to signal a touchdown? Sort of. But the play had already been blown dead and the ball wasn’t even in play. And yet he scored.
At the end of the play in real time, White had not scored. But when the referees raised their arms, he had scored. Their judgment “related back” and changed the reality of what happened in the past!
You say it wasn’t real? Well, the scoreboard disagrees. So do those who voted USC nationals champions! So do the statisticians. He scored.
The future really can change the past.
And so …
We lawyers speak of conditions subsequent (French roots cause the adjective to follow the noun, as in “attorney general”). It means a condition to a thing that arises or not after the thing. The filing of a marriage certificate is a condition subsequent, because it’s essential to the validity of the marriage even though occurring after the marriage is valid. That is, not filing can retroactively annul the wedding.
Now the crazy thing about us Modernists is that giving a thing a name makes it seem all reasonable and rational, although it’s really just as conceptually difficult as it was before. They were married Friday night — and their physical union was perfectly moral and legal and Christian — unless they later fail to file their marriage certificate afterwards, in which case they aren’t married (not true in all states).
When a running back carries the football across the goal line, he scores. Unless the referee doesn’t see him score (as happened when Alabama’s Joe Namath scored against Texas many long years ago but never to be forgotten). If the referee doesn’t see it, he doesn’t score.
In a sense, there is no score until the referee raises both arms in the air and, nowadays, the video review is completed while beer commercials play on TV. It can take three or four minutes for a score to be a score. And so sometimes the arms go up, the fans cheer and celebrate, and the score gets taken off the board.
Just so, even when the running back doesn’t score, if the referee says he scores, he scores. That is, he credits the back as having scored. It counts — no matter how many decades later Southern Cal haters (and there are many) complain about the bad call.
So sometimes what really matters is not what happens but what the referee says happened. Just so, sometimes what really matters is not whether you were saved when you were baptized or when you had faith or when you prayed the Sinner’s Prayer or when you were confirmed, but when God Almighty decides to consider you saved.
And notice this. The most significant element of being saved is whether you live or die eternally — which comes later under all theories (except for being run over by a train on the way to the baptistry). So it doesn’t matter all that much unless you think God is more legalistic than lawyers and the NCAA. Think about that one for a while.
…
…
God lives outside of time. Einstein gave this a mathematical description, but Augustine beat him to it the realization by over 1500 years. God made time. It’s part of the creation. Therefore, God is not bound by time — not the time we experience.
This explains God’s foreknowledge and turns predestination on its head — and makes nearly all the conversation about baptism and faith and the moment of salvation pointless. We are saved when God says we’re saved, and that happens in heaven — where there is no time.
It doesn’t happen in time.
And so I’m not sure it matters all that much. Unless, of course, we’re of the view that the faith that saves is faith in Church of Christ baptismal theology. And I’m pretty sure that one’s just not in the Bible.
On the other hand, Paul couldn’t be more clear that the faith/works dichotomy is really important. And so we need to consider that one in the context of baptism.
Jay, your comment, “We are saved when God says we’re saved, and that happens in heaven — where there is no time…..It doesn’t happen in time”, is excellent.
God is not bound by time, nor by semantics. Both are how we live with one another, while accepting God as the judge beyond both.
There is a certain amount of arrogance inherent in anyone who says they understand this stuff perfectly. Because none of us really gets God, in any complete sense. He is beyond our comprehension. He’s revealed what we “need” to know, but not all there is to know.
Jay,
What about a person who claims to be a Christian but refuses to be baptized? I know of such a situation. The person has been a faithful church attendee for years, has apparently believed and repented but has chosen not to be baptized because he believes it will make no difference.
I wonder what point Jay is making. If Jesus commands, as Jesus surely did command, that we who tell others about Him are to baptize new believers, why are so many willing to say that baptism isn’t really important, that it doesn’t REALLY change anything. God knows our thoughts. He also knows our actions. Salvation is promised to those who repent and ARE BAPTIZED. And God knows better than anyone else when that immersion in water is complete. It has begun to seem that Jay favors ignoring what the apostles taught and practiced concerning conversion since our umpire may not know when our obedience happened or if it happened at all. I note that those who DO obey the gospel (by repenting and being baptized) are promised salvation. I see no reason to doubt the promise. Or to ignore it or seek to change it.
“We are saved when God says we’re saved, and that happens in heaven — where there is no time.”
Great line! This echoes what I’ve been saying for years in Ordo Salutis (order of salvation) arguments. I say “you are saved at the exact point at which Jesus saves you.” And now I’ll add ” not before and not after.”
In one sense we are saved when Jesus shed his blood and pronounced “it is finished” (a past action). But strangely it seems to me that we are not actually saved until we stand before the Great Throne and hear “well done good & faithful servant … enter in to the joy of your master” (a future action).
I like the answer given by one wise man to the question as to when he was saved. He said, “On a cross outside Jerusalem nearly 2,000 years ago!”
Ray … here is the relevance of Jay’s point. A man decides to be baptized. He gets in his car and starts off to the church building to be baptized. Before he can get there, he’s killed in an accident. Is he saved?
You don’t know. Nor does anyone else. As with all of us, only God knows, because it is his choice.
Despite everything in the Text, the Baptist’s could be right, that baptism is only an outward sign of an inward conviction. God chooses the moment of salvation for each of us. And even though we may be confident of our salvation, there are somethings we don’t know.
And I’m not sure why it’s important to know the moment of salvation. What is important is that God has chosen to provide a path for us into a righteous relationship with him. And that is all that matters.
Since you refer to the “wedding” analogy, it may be appropriate to mention LaGard Smith’s “Baptism, the Believer’s Wedding Ceremony”. Or does God regard “common law” Christians as some states recognize “common law” marriages?
The refusal to be baptized in compliance with NT teaching perhaps says something about a rebellious or prideful rather than submissive spirit.
Do we see a NT promise of the spirit outside a baptismal response?
Jerry,
“I like the answer given by one wise man to the question as to when he was saved. He said, “On a cross outside Jerusalem nearly 2,000 years ago!””
NICE!!!
David,
“You don’t know. Nor does anyone else. As with all of us, only God knows, because it is his choice.”
Exactly!
When I did live on an island in the North Pacific, i asked a friend of mine who had been pulled out of the icy water by some members of the dedicated US Coast Guard, “When were you saved?” He thought a whiled and said well I guess you would have to ask the Coast Guard. Was it when I called them? Was it when I bought the radio I used, was it when we landed back on dry ground, was it when I climbed into the basket? He finally said I just know the Coast Guard saved me.” He never once bragged about using proper procedure to get in the basket, I saw the video, he did everything wrong. HE came to the conclusion his salvation was based on those who came and plucked him out of the situation he himself had fallen into. The moment of success was irrelevant. The realization was they came to seek and save HIM. I’m thankful they did.
Philip
What I come away with in Jay’s posting is that “We are not God.” We want to determine or judge if a person is saved based on our knowledge and understanding of God’s word. We like to judge whether someone is saved or not. But, God is the only one who knows the person’s heart and mind and has the right to declare him saved. Not me or anyone else. We are to teach the Truth according to God’s word, including repentance and baptism for salvation, but God is judge not us. Can God save someone who has not been baptized? Absolutely! Because He is God!!
Jim,
“We like to judge whether someone is saved or not.”
Yes “we” do. We like to baptize people before they have become disciples of Christ. So “we” can count them as our “works” with a “look at us working so hard for the kingdom we deserve a reward” mentality. I think this is why “we” rush them to the baptistery, so “we” can get the credit, and not God.
Then when they (the recently baptized) fall away because “we” have not trained them to be true disciples of Christ because “they” have not been taught to count the cost first, like denying ourselves etc… “We” glory in ourselves because “we are being faithful to the end.” With a “look at ALL of those who have fallen away while we remain, ‘What A Shame’ (tongue in cheek) ” mentality. This make “us” obviously better than “them.”
Having witnessed this attitude time and time again. I think of Luke 17:10 which says “So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.'” And I wonder if Christ was encouraging his servants to do more than their duty. Like LOVE one another? I think he was.
I think “we” like to judge, to make ourselves look better than others. Including those “we” baptize. “We” like to judge others salvation because “we” are in competition with “them” and only our group is going to make it. “We” like to judge to see if others are measuring up to the line that
“we” have drawn. “We” do not realize that with the judgment “we” use, “we” will be judged by and found to be an Un-faithful servant.
I just baptized my daughter who will be 11 next month. Paul and Peter say that baptism is not the removal of dirt from the body. This means there is no supernatural power in getting wet. Rather they say it is the pledge of good conscience toward God. Now there are many who have completed a sacrament from baptism to sprinkling and saying a prayer who never pledged their conscience to God. The idea that someone who has pledged themselves toward God and lives faithfully under grace is in jeopardy of salvation because of an incomplete sacrament is ludicrous. Regardless of how technically correct you think the sacrament is with the scriptures. It also is contrary to prime apostolic idea that as long as there is a remnant of faith God is faith. This is the only just way to apply grace otherwise we had better bring out the old law and set up some rules for absolution. Lastly the modernist is most concerned with treating the bible like a desk reference rather than a revelation of the divine nature of God. As long as we use this approach we will get hung up in these discussions. My daughter had pledged her conscience to the Lord along time ago and anybody who says she was saved the day she was immersed is basically saying that all the faith she had done before was worthless because of an incomplete sacrament. Try telling that to God who came through for people who were barely holding on to faith and had a lot more spiritual problems besides the legitimacy of their immersion!
I hope every person that comes to a real faith and trust in Jesus will be baptized.. But, long before the Baptists…. the Holy Spirit revealed through Paul that God justified Abram by faith before he did a single thing. Peter told Cornelius that ALL the prophets foretold that whoever believed in Jesus would receive forgiveness of sin. John in several passages says that belief resulted in eternal life. Peter mentioned faith and repentance in his second sermon and 2,000 more were added to the church, according to the text, by Faith…
Seems to me that the comparison between marriage and salvation is that faith is the ceremony and baptism is the legal filing. The confession of love, honor and obedience between man and woman is the equivalent of one’s personal professional of faith… The preacher proclaims them married once the oaths are exchanged.. Does he merely recognize the union by what he has observed.. the legal requirement is equivalent to the adherence to the command to be baptized.. Just as a delinquent filing might jeopardize the marriage, and certainly a willful failure might certainly declare it void, a faith that refuses to follow through promptly would suggest that the faith is not real or valid.
The Bridegroom told Cornelius to meet with the Preacher (Peter). Peter told him that faith resulted in forgiveness of sin… He apparently believed and was saved. He received visible gifts to confirm the new covenant receipt of the indwelling HS.. He sealed the deal in obedience to baptism… Great start to a beautiful marriage.
I think everyone should read Acts 2-38-38 ,again.
Jays writing this reminds me of my dad telling us how the mountain folks in the Smokies saw God.
It seems in many ways we are going back to those days and calling ourselves modernist doesn’t fit as much as another title would.
Proves once again, the bible was written for the simple man to understand. It seems to confuse the more educated the most.
I didn’t mean for my post to sound disrespectful of education. Education is wonderful.
For thousands of years man all over the world didn’t have the bible as we do today. We, due to the printing press and accessibility all have one or several bibles and through our various educational systems have studied, separated, analyzed and interpreted it to death. The higher the education the more its been scrutinized and the more division and separation has occurred. Who has written the books that have divided us, the common man or the more educated? Look at the degrees after the authors names. Even more confusing is they don’t agree with each other.
I find it very interesting that today we are seeing more and more going back to God basics and stating what has been the belief of the common man for all this time. God will make the final call.
How many times have we heard the uneducated common man or woman say I don’t know all the answers, but I trust God to do the right thing in every circumstance and that belief was heard and preached for thousands of years so today we seem to be coming full circle.
I thank God for it!!!
So, is the “when” an important question? I think it is. The “when” would answer a lot of questions (and perhaps raise many more), unless the “when” is nebulous. The question about the guy who dies on the way to the creek or baptistery is a fair question. I’m sure it has happened at least once. In response, I once heard a preacher say:
“Suppose a couple were to be wed last Saturday, and the bride died of a heart attack while walking down the aisle. Was she married when she died?” Fair answer I suppose if one believes that baptism is essential for salvation. Did God extend grace to any of the Israelites in Egypt who didn’t get the correct word and followed different or incomplete instructions regarding where to place the blood in Ex 12? I sure hope so because someone surely goofed it up. There’s always one, isn’t there? Sometimes, that “one” has been me.
As much as I want God to extend grace and think God extends grace, I don’t know for sure. What about the guy who is receptive to the truth but hasn’t quite come to a faith in Christ? He is on the verge of accepting Christ, but he just isn’t quite there. One more Bible Study would seal the deal, but the guy dies on the way to the study. Does God extend grace? While churches of Christ discuss the guy on the way to the baptistery, my Baptist friends discuss the guy on the way to the Bible study. The word “legalist” has even been thrown out. We are really not that different.
It takes two to be in a covenant relationship and while there must be an agreement, there must also be a sealing or action to confirm it. Jesus could have agreed to die on the cross and then said, “Well, the important thing is that I have faith” and then not did it. No, Jesus went all the way through it..He was put to death…buried…rose again. We by faith…put the old man to death (repentance)…are buried in Christ (baptism)…raised (in newness of life). There is a reason for it all.
In following commands…if we can do it, we should do it and if we can’t for some reason, then we have to rely on God’s understanding, but we shouldn’t take it for granted either.
grace through faith……… good works following out of gratitude toward God and a sense of being in debt to mankind knowing I am no better than anyone else but have been given a gift for which I did not work.
Dwight said,
“We by faith…put the old man to death (repentance)…are buried in Christ (baptism)…raised (in newness of life).”
While a repentance is certainly commanded and necessary, it is to my knowledge nowhere spoken of as a “putting to death of the old man.’ Paul uses baptism as the time and place when the putting to death of the old man and the raising up of the new man take place. I know Baptist would argue that you don’t bury alive people, you bury dead people. And that of course would be true in a physical sense, but Paul uses baptism as the time and place where the unregenerate(spiritually dead) goes down into the water and what comes out is alive in Christ. Paul never makes mention of being “alive” in Christ before baptism.
Romans 6: 3 Know ye not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Romans 6:6 Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed. Question: Do you crucify dead men or alive men? (Depends on how you look at it). You by saying, “we put to death the old man through repentance, would have Paul crucifying a dead “old man of sin” in baptism. However, the purpose of baptism according to Paul is to put to death the old man of sin…”shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means, we died to sin. “When Paul? Next verse, in baptism. We may commit to killing the old man of sin before we are baptized(Repentance) and we must, but Paul writes that our baptism is when he gets slain, being crucified with Christ.
Paul wrote in Galatians 2:20 “I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.” When was Paul crucified “with Christ?” In Baptism. Romans 6:7 -“He that has died(in baptism in the context) has been set free from sin. We were already “dead” (spiritually)in transgressions without Christ(Eph. 2:1) but because of God’s great grace and through faith in the resurrected Jesus we participate in his death by the killing of the old man of sin, having that thing buried and then being made alive (rebirth) in Christ “having been raised to newness of life”. The sinner/lost soul determines in his mind to turn from sin, he goes down into the baptistery(and gets crucified with Christ) and the new man in Christ comes out on the other side.
Why must we separate our response to the gospel into all of these components? None of these has value without the others. Omit any of them – and the process is incomplete and flawed. All are part of a single process – along with the many struggles some may go through as they are being convicted by the Holy Spirit (which the discussion here has not addressed at all!).
A few minutes with a concordance (or electronic Bible) will easily show that when faith (or belief) and repentance are mentioned in Scripture, the sequence is always repentance and faith. Is that significant? Perhaps if we spent more time pondering that question instead of exactly when God decides you are saved, we might just discover something about our presentation of the gospel that could help make us more effective in making disciples before we rush people to the water for baptism.
My MA Thesis is on The Use of Baptism in Exhorting Christians. Without strong teaching on repentance and faith, as well as on the grace of God given us in Jesus, the fact someone was baptized will never, can never, serve as a basis for exhortation. Yet, this is invariably the way the apostles used it when writing to those who have been baptized. Do you think we should, just maybe, follow their example???
I am afraid in this discussion that most of us would like for the point at which a person is saved to be definitive and absolute so that we feel secure in what the Bible teaches on faith, repentance, baptism, and salvation. This would also allow us to encourage others as to when they can be sure they are saved. Yet, our lives and faith and salvation in relationship with a loving and gracious God is complex and someways mystical. A person is constantly evolving and change in his knowledge and understanding and what he puts his trust and faith in and commits his life too. There has to be some room for God to exercise His grace and mercy toward us. I know and believe that if I understand God said it, I am to do it. But, again everything in life is not absolute, black and white. My father was a wonderful man. His honesty and integrity and love of family was surpassed by no one. He believed in God. Read and new his Bible. Yet, he was embarrassed as a young man by his mother in church and he would never attend a church service. I never new whether he was baptized or not. But, I take great comfort after his death, that God loved him more than I do and that God’s grace and mercy will do right by him. I have shared the same idea about God’s grace and mercy at funeral services where by all outward signs the person who had died was lost and it seemed to bring great comfort. One thing we can be sure of without a doubt, God will do right by us and those we love. He proved that by the death of His son on the cross. We just need to put our whole trust in God, let God be God, and teach His word in love and grace.
Thank you Jim!!!
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I was more showing a thought pattern when I aligned putting to death with repentance as in turning from the old to the new, but technically the death is in Christ and the raising is in Christ, but make no mistake about it what we do in response to Christ previous action and it relates a path for us to follow.
Now on one side some preach a definitive point of being saved and others there is no definitive point. We are told not steps, but actions we must take to enter into a covenant relationship with God, which has always required death and blood and sacrifice, but grace allows us the avenue. We shouldn’t disregard the avenue, because it is in the middle of a field, but the path is still a path. We will get off, but we still must see the path and aim towards it.
Just because we are the children of God, doesn’t mean we take advantage of grace and what grace allows and God expects. Our failure is not God’s, but ours. Baptism is just the beginning of a Godly life and not the end of an unGodly one, where we are instantly changed and now that is all.
Jay sometimes I wonder if that big brain might weight you down. Better to stay in the shallow end of the pool sometimes.
I appreciate Jim’s point, and wholly agree with approaching God on His divine character. This contrasts with our “faith and practice” which often prefers a legal and mechanistic connection with God to a mystical and spiritual one. We want to be able to say, “I am at Point X in my experience with God, therefore, I will not go to hell.” If necessary, we are prepared to have our lawyers introduce this as Defense Exhibit A at the judgment seat of Christ and expect the Judge to hew to the Bible as we understand it. It is not enough for us to believe we are saved, we must be prepared to prove it– not by our love for one another, but by a legal defense of our citizenship papers.
Or worse, we hold the sad converse, where we weigh another man’s soul in our rusty balances: “You have NOT reached Point X, as I have, therefore you are still damned for all eternity.” Let’s face it, we judge that which we cannot possibly know this is a long-standing practice for us. We take a certain perverse pride in our legal training which allows us to act as combination judge and prosecutor. We do allow for the possibility of appeal from our rulings –magnanimous of us– making room for the Lord of Heaven and Earth to show an arbitrary grace that we do not. But we don’t really expect to be overturned on appeal.
Such doctrinal certitude brings us the security of being demonstrably on the right side of the argument, which is what too often passes for righteousness among our tribe. And while “God will do right by us” is at the center of the matter, it goes not nearly far enough. God will do –and has already done– far more than that. “He does not treat us as our sins deserve”. Nor does He treat us according to the value of our righteous acts– which present valuation falls somewhere between “filthy rags” and “diddly-squat”.
It is easy to encourage believers in their place in Christ without resorting to their checking off the five items on the Restorationist’s salvific checklist. Take them to Jesus, who said, with characteristic clarity and directness, “Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life.”
Just a quick thought – in most European conuntries you sign (and file) the marriage certificate before the wedding in the church (if you even have a church wedding). Even the couple who have gone through the wedding have at least taken the steps to get married. That is the only reason they would be considered ‘married’ until the certificate was filed. Those who simply say, ‘That’s all just ceremony and paper – we know in our hearts that we have given ourselves to one another’ and simply live together – this is a clearer example of the question of ‘when’ and ‘what should we tell them?’
Doesn’t this have more to do with wanting to know what to tell people about their state (saved or lost) which we DO need to know (and are expected to be able to ascertain) as we tell the good news of salvation in Christ?
Scott,
In a few American states, including Alabama, the common law of marriage still exists. That is, if a man and woman decide to be presently married and they objectively demonstrate that fact, such as by telling friends they are married, they really are married under Alabama law — with no blood tests, license, preacher, judge, or boat captain.
By analogy to this practice, which goes back to Adam, while a marriage license and ceremony are traditional and serve critically important functions, they aren’t essential. In fact, one purpose of the wedding is to remove all doubt regarding whether a marriage is in effect. It serves countless functions, and we often speak as though the marriage is occasioned by the preacher’s word, when the law is in fact that the preacher “solemnizes” the marriage, that is, he makes it serious by demonstrating beyond all doubt that a marriage is taking place to the family, friends, church, and community.
Interesting …
Charles,
One of the terms introduced by the now deceased Emerging Church Movement is “orthopraxy” — right practice in contrast to orthodoxy, meaning right doctrine. The idea — a very needed one — is that we should be just as concerned with one as the other. Orthodoxy gets to where we can know how to engage in orthopraxy — but until we get to the right practices of Christians and the church, orthodoxy is worthless.
In fact, while I agree with the teaching of the Nicene Creed, I think the idea that we should decide who is “us” and who is “them” based on increasingly long and nuanced creedal statements is anti-Christian. We’d may as well be Pharisees arguing over whether wearing sandals with nails in them is a Sabbath violation. Same difference.
Justin wrote,
Nope. I have no fear of the deep end. I’m wearing my floaties.
Monty and Dwight,
The Spirit empowers the death of the old man.
(Rom 8:13 ESV) 13 For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
We ourselves put the “deeds of the body” to death, but we do “by the Spirit.” This is not the same thing as the repentance that precedes baptism. This is a Spirit-empowered course of living — often called “sanctification.”
Repentance is yielding to God to let him do this in us.
Philip,
Excellent.
John F,
I actually think that the common law marriage is a pretty interesting analogy. After all, during Jesus and Paul’s day, marriage was not a civil event. It was just a decision made by a couple and announced to their community. The same process still works in Alabama.
Hence, it’s very common in Alabama for a couple to be married at common law and then to later go through a wedding to “make it all legal” — except a common law marriage is entirely legal and the later formal ceremony is a nullity — except for making the commitment to each other solemn, public and asking for the witnesses support in their married lives.
So the wedding argument actually cuts the other way.
Jerry,
It’s too late to work through the text, but this is exactly the argument of Hebrews. In fact, the point is that forgiveness occurred on the cross and when we were first saved. Only once in heaven but twice per person — 2,000 years apart — because God’s outside of time.
The salvation on the cross reached back to Adam and forward to the Second Coming — a reverse causation/relation back sort of thing.
And our salvation is the same way — backwards and forward all at once. Which is why the Hebrews writer says we’re saved “once for all” and made “perfect forever.” He plainly does not does perseverance of the saints, but he does teach a single moment of forgiveness — in two times at once.
It’s not explicit in the text, but chapters 9 and 10, read most carefully, produce that result. I think I cover the point in The Holy SPirit and Revolutionary Grace.
Eddie,
I know of cases where the Church of Christ point of view was that the convert had not been baptized and so was willfully refusing immersion, whereas the convert’s point of view is that he’d been baptized perfectly well already, just in another denomination, and was changing congregations, not Saviors. Might that be the case here?
I would arguen that the repentence that we have before baptism is the same thing that dhould continue through our life as a Christian, but baptism marks an event in our life where we create a covenant with God. Even we as Christians wil turn away from God and sin, but are followed by grace, but are called to turn again to living in righteousness. Even in Acts 2 the one will recieve the gift of the Hoy Spirit in salvation, but not until then. But I agree that the power behind repentance is the Spirit. David was called “a man after God’s own heart” and yet sinned and then repented of that terrible sin. Simon the soceror was called on to repent right after he had been baptized, because he had a weakness that became immediately apparant, but I doubt his Christianity was revoked and his baptism was secure because he believed on Jesus.
But having said that I think that the repentance before baptism is turning to Christ from the world. Even after we become a saint we are called on to renew our minds, but we shouldn’t have to worry about rebaptism.
I remember when jumping over the broom was a way some folks became married. Filing it at the courthouse if it was done at all, was secondary and for public notice.
Biblically you were regarded as man and wife when you were betrothed and marriage was union of these people and it didn’t require anything short of them coming together as husband and wife and living under the same roof. The marriage paper and ceremony was added within the culture, but not required of by God. However God did require a Certificate of Divorce for adultery and putting away. Again we have made something more complicated than it need by and often hold others to the fire over something God did not require or command. Of course by the law of th eland we must follow the rules, but we must not allow the law of the land to preceed or influence God’s laws.