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Water baptism: Difference between revisions
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These were unique events in salvation history, not the normal pattern of salvation known to Luke.<ref>David G. Peterson, The Acts of the Apostles, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Nottingham, England: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2009), 286–287.</ref> | These were unique events in salvation history, not the normal pattern of salvation known to Luke.<ref>David G. Peterson, The Acts of the Apostles, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Nottingham, England: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2009), 286–287.</ref> | ||
=Should people who have left the message be rebaptized?= | |||
Martin Luther argued against rebaptism if a person was baptized correctly but perhaps did not believe correctly: | |||
:''For it is not enough to claim they were baptized without faith, therefore they should be rebaptized. Some reason is needed. You say it is not proper baptism. What does it matter, if it is still a baptism? It was a correct baptism in itself, regardless of whether it was received rightly. For the words were spoken and everything that pertains to baptism was done as fully as when faith is present. If a thing is in itself correct you do not have to repeat it even though it was not correctly received. You correct what was wrong and do not have to do the entire thing over. Abuse does not change the nature of a substance, indeed it proves the substance. There can be no abuse unless the substance exists. | |||
:''When ten years after baptism faith appears, what then is the need of a second baptism, if baptism was correctly administered in all respects? For now he believes, as baptism requires. For faith doesn’t exist for the sake of baptism, but baptism for the sake of faith. When faith comes, baptism is complete. A second baptism is not necessary. | |||
:''It is as if a girl married a man reluctantly and altogether without a wife’s affection for the man. She is before God hardly to be considered his true wife. But after two years she gains affection for him. Would then a second engagement be required, a second wedding be celebrated, as if she had not previously been a wife, so that the earlier betrothal and wedding were in vain? Of course, you would be considered a fool, if you believed that, especially since everything is in order now because she has come into her right and properly keeps to the man she had not properly accepted. So also if an adult falsely allows himself to be baptized but after a year comes to faith, do you mean, dear sir, that he should be rebaptized? He received the correct baptism incorrectly, I hear you say. His impropriety makes baptism improper. Should then human error and wickedness be stronger than God’s good and invincible order? God made a covenant with the people of Israel on Mt. Sinai. Some did not receive that covenant rightly and in faith. If now these later came to faith, should the covenant, dear sir, therefore be considered invalid, and must God come again to each one on Mt. Sinai in order to renew the covenant?<ref>Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, Vol. 40: Church and Ministry II, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald, and Helmut T. Lehmann, vol. 40 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1999), 246–247.</ref> | |||
A similar view is that baptism is a sacrament which should not be repeated because, just as in the natural life a person is born but one time, so also in the spiritual life a man can be reborn one time only: “So, then, as our Lord died once and for all, we also must be baptized once and for all.” This view would suggest that those from a heterodox background should be rebaptized as rarely as possible.<ref>John Karmiris, “Concerning the Sacraments,” in Eastern Orthodox Theology: A Contemporary Reader, ed. Daniel B. Clendenin, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2003), 25.</ref> | |||
Others contend that baptism administered by a heretical minister should be rebaptized since baptism administered by heretics and schismatics was not true baptism.<ref>Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, ed. James T. Dennison Jr., trans. George Musgrave Giger, vol. 3 (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 1992–1997), 396.</ref> | |||
'''OUR VIEW''': Because baptism in itself does not save a person, it does not appear that anyone should be rebaptized '''unless the purpose of the original baptism was not focused on Christ''', but rather on a person entering the message or believing in William Branham as a prophet. | |||
=Is baptism required for salvation?= | =Is baptism required for salvation?= | ||
Baptism is not salvational... it does not save a person. This is clearly demonstrated in scripture: | |||
Acts 8:9-23 | |||
:''8 Now there was a man named Simon, who formerly was practicing magic in the city and astonishing the people of Samaria, claiming to be someone great... | |||
:''13 Even '''Simon himself believed; and after being baptized''', he continued on with Philip, and as he observed signs and great miracles taking place, he was constantly amazed. | |||
:''18 Now when Simon saw that the Spirit was bestowed through the laying on of the apostles’ hands, he offered them money, | |||
:''20 But Peter said to him, “May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money! | |||
:''21 “'''You have no part or portion in this matter''', for your heart is not right before God.<ref>New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update (La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995), Ac 8:20–23.</ref> | |||
Baptism is the immersion in water of a believer in Jesus Christ performed once as the initiation of the believer into a community of believers, the church. Baptism signifies the believer’s confidence that Christ’s work was complete for his forgiveness and justification and indicates his desire for unity with the church, Christ’s community of the new covenant, purchased at the price of his blood. | Baptism is the immersion in water of a believer in Jesus Christ performed once as the initiation of the believer into a community of believers, the church. Baptism signifies the believer’s confidence that Christ’s work was complete for his forgiveness and justification and indicates his desire for unity with the church, Christ’s community of the new covenant, purchased at the price of his blood. | ||
Salvation does not derive from the act of baptism itself. The person baptized has no scriptural warrant to believe that, in baptism, Christ’s saving activity is initiated, augmented, or completed. In its symbolism, however, it sets forth the saving gospel of Christ both in its objective and subjective aspects. It pictures the historical event in the life of Christ that brought to fruition the purpose of his incarnation, namely, to give his life as a ransom for many. It pictures the believer’s conscientious testimony that Christ’s acceptable sacrifice alone allows a sinner to approach God in the confidence of being accepted. It pictures the present experience of the believer in his awareness that when he was dead in trespasses and sins, God “made [him] alive with Christ” (Eph. 2:5) by the powerful operations of the Holy Spirit. The power that is necessary to produce this change is “like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given” (Eph. 1:19–21).<ref>Thomas J. Nettles, Baptist View: Baptism as a Symbol of Christ’s Saving Work, ed. John H. Armstrong and Paul E. Engle, Understanding Four Views on Baptism, Zondervan Counterpoints Collection (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2007), 25–26.</ref> | Salvation does not derive from the act of baptism itself. The person baptized has no scriptural warrant to believe that, in baptism, Christ’s saving activity is initiated, augmented, or completed. In its symbolism, however, it sets forth the saving gospel of Christ both in its objective and subjective aspects. It pictures the historical event in the life of Christ that brought to fruition the purpose of his incarnation, namely, to give his life as a ransom for many. It pictures the believer’s conscientious testimony that Christ’s acceptable sacrifice alone allows a sinner to approach God in the confidence of being accepted. It pictures the present experience of the believer in his awareness that when he was dead in trespasses and sins, God “made [him] alive with Christ” (Eph. 2:5) by the powerful operations of the Holy Spirit. The power that is necessary to produce this change is “like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given” (Eph. 1:19–21).<ref>Thomas J. Nettles, Baptist View: Baptism as a Symbol of Christ’s Saving Work, ed. John H. Armstrong and Paul E. Engle, Understanding Four Views on Baptism, Zondervan Counterpoints Collection (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2007), 25–26.</ref> | ||
=The History of Water Baptism= | |||
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