One In Jesus

Comment regarding how to read the “faith is sufficient” passages

Ray,

In part 2 I listed dozens of verses that declare faith sufficient. You insist that they must say “faith alone.” But there’s more than one way to say something.

(John 3:36) “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him.”

If you tell you son, “Whoever goes to the grocery store has a $5.00 tip” and your son goes to the store, could you then say, “Well, ‘goes to the grocery store’ is only one of many requirements and I skipped the rest. You should have been here last week when I covered the necessity of also going to the Post Office’”? You are not being fair to the text. Continue reading →

Arland,

I just posted a comment explaining how “faith” does not mean mere intellectual acceptance (except as used by James to condemn a false faith).

I agree that the “faith being reckoned for righteousness” passages are a good place to go looking for answers. But I don’t believe it’s sound to declare that baptism causes our faith to be reckoned as righteousness. Consider such passages as –

(Rom 4:4-5 ESV) 4 Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. 5 And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness,

(Rom 4:23-25 ESV) 23 But the words “it was counted to him” were not written for his sake alone, 24 but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, 25 who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.

(Gal 3:14 ESV) so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.

You allude to God’s covenant with Abraham — which is exactly right, because it takes us back to first principles. Paul argues both in Romans and Galatians that our salvation is the result of God’s honoring his promise to Abraham — to credit righteousness to those who come to him with faith.

In each case where Paul makes this argument, he states that faith is sufficient (“faith” being, of course, a submissive faith, that is, faithfulness). And that only makes sense, because God didn’t require Abraham to be baptized — only to have faith. How would God be faithful to his covenant with Abraham if he damned those with a genuine, submissive faith because they misunderstood how to be properly baptized?

And notice how Paul argues in Rom 4:10 that circumcision can’t be a requirement of salvation because God didn’t require Abraham to be circumcised until after he was credited with righteousness due to his faith. And yet, much later, God threatened to kill Moses if he didn’t circumcise his children. Ex 4:24 ff. You see, Paul demands that we find our soteriology (theology of salvation) in God’s initial forgiving act with Abraham — with no additions.

So I entirely agree that we need to look at passages such as the Abrahamic-covenant passages — because they show us some of the “why” in the plan of salvation. And hard questions can’t be answered until we dig into the why.

Does that mean we don’t baptize those we convert? Of course, not. And we should speak of baptism as being “into the forgiveness of sins.” We just shouldn’t conclude that God will violate his promise to Abraham just because someone misunderstood the proper way to baptize.

I’ve been slow to join in the comments. Elders meeting Wednesday went late. Had a firm function Thursday night. Other stuff Friday. So today I’ve been playing catch up.

Many readers don’t subscribe to the comments, so I’m going to repost some of my comments as maybe they’ll help explain my point of view.

On the baptism of the Ephesians and the non-baptism of Apollos

Guy asked,

If God will accept an “imperfect baptism,” why weren’t the disciples in Ephesus Paul encountered in Acts 19 fine as they were? Continue reading →

Resolving the paradox

So let’s be clear here. There are a bunch of verses that speak in terms of salvation occurring when we’re baptized. And there are a bunch of verses that say all people with faith (in the sense of submissive faith) are saved. And when these verses were written, both statements were generally true, because — generally — people submitted to baptism when they came to submissive faith.

There are, of course, exceptions recorded in the scriptures — such as the apostles (no water baptism into Jesus) and Cornelius (Holy Spirit received before baptism). But the Epistles in particular speak of salvation ordinarily coming with baptism. Continue reading →

“Faith” in Paul and in John isn’t mere intellectual acceptance.

The meaning of “faith”

It’s true, of course, as I’ve frequently argued, that “faith” in Paul and John includes the sense of repentance or loyalty or faithfulness, but this is the state of one’s heart, not a particular apprehension of God’s requirements. Consider, for example —

(Gal 3:12 ESV) But the law is not of faith, rather “The one who does them shall live by them.”

“Faith” does not encompass perfect obedience to God’s law, because that would impose an impossible standard. And yet faith and obedience go together — Continue reading →

It’s hard to think new thoughts

There’s this old preacher story — that is, it’s an old story, not necessarily a story told by old preachers. It’s goes like this —

I was driving on the Alaska Highway from the 48 contiguous states up to Alaska, right after the road had been built and long before it had been paved. At the beginning, someone had posted a sign saying: Choose your rut carefully. You ‘ll be in it for the next 200 miles!

I suspect this is purely apocryphal (I’ve always wondered about that), but it’s still a great line — and makes a very real point. It’s hard for people to change how they think. Once our brains get grooved in thinking a certain way, shaking that pattern of thought is very hard.

And this discussion is a case in point. The arguments made aren’t illegitimate or ignorant (whether I agree with them or not). But they aren’t responsive to the arguments I made. You see, we struggle to even hear new arguments, much less process them as valid or not.

Continue reading →

As the series goes along, I’ll be addressing several of the comments within the flow of the overarching argument. This is just to add some additional thoughts prompted by the comments.

There are two arguments being made in favor of the tradition position on baptism. First, you can argue that baptism is an absolute condition because the baptism text expressly say it’s an absolute condition. And that’s an entirely respectable position to take.

By “absolute condition” I mean a condition like faith in Jesus. There is no salvation found anywhere else, and the scriptures repeatedly so say. It’s not about obedience. It’s about the path into grace. Continue reading →