Posted on 08/10/2011 8:11:57 AM PDT by janereinheimer
How would you define "Christian?"
I've been giving this a lot of thought lately. It goes back a couple of weeks when someone made a comment that someone who's been in the news a lot lately was not a "Christian."
I take an existential view of that because I believe that anyone who has had a Christian baptism is a Christian.
Where I depart company from the pious and sanctimonious definitions of others is when their definition of Christian is really a definition of being "Christ-like."
Oh, for sure, I would hope that Christians everywhere would behave in a Christ-like manner. But there are a lot of people who have had a Christian baptism who are far from behaving like Christ did. They are corrupt sinners in need of salvation. They may or may not ever repent of their rotten, sinful lives until they are within minutes of drawing their last breath. But even at that last breath, if they truly repent and ask God for forgiveness, then I believe that our loving, forgiving God will open the gates of heaven and receive that sinner. Just as surely as he will receive the person who has tried hard to lead a Christ-like life.
For instance, C. S. Lewis wasn't exactly known for his faith in God when he got started in his writing career. In fact, he set out in his early writings to prove God didn't exist at all.
Then, voila, an experience touched him. I've not read all that's to be read about Lewis or from Lewis, but I have a deep suspicion that the Holy Spirit got ahold of him because he became one of the most profound Christian writers ever to draw breath.
And then there was that other guy of New Testament fame -remember Saul? He ran around with execution warrants in his pocket so that he could mow down any Christians he happened to come across while he was going thither and yon throughout the lands of what we call the Holy Land. Remember Damascus? Jesus went to Syria to find Saul. Struck him down blind. Then someone drug Saul off to stay at his house while Saul recuperated from that insane notion that all Christians ought to be killed.
Blindness. That's how Jesus got Saul's attention. Well, Jesus healed his blindness. Not only did Saul get his sight back but he got a new, improved name too. From then on, he was called Paul. And fortunately for Christians everywhere, we have Paul. The New Testament would be a pretty slim volume without all the writings of Paul.
He was one grand letter writer, let me tell you!
But back to this sanctimonious person who thinks it's okay to go around making judgments about whether a person is a Christian or not.
She wouldn't agree that someone I went to jail to counsel for the best part of a year and a half was a Christian.* And then one day, out of that miracle place in the universe that we call nowhere, this murderer told me he wanted to take communion.
I told him he'd have to talk with a pastor about repentance if he wanted to do that.
He said he was ready. He wanted communion before he went to trial.
Do you know that I called about ten pastors before I found one who agreed to go to the jail and talk to this person? And yes, the pastor said he'd bring communion just in case the client confessed the sins of double murder.
Where would sinners be if we were not the road back to the Lord when they took the wrong turn?
Isn't sanctimony and piety very un-Christ-like behavior in themselves?
Where would the young teenage girl be if I had refused to see her because she was dabbling in Satanism?*
Or how about the wife who had committed adultery and was afraid to confess her sin to her pastor.* Even though her husband had forgiven her, she was most hopeful that God had too.
How can any one of us ever say that just because someone got off on the wrong path that they weren't Christians anymore?
Rather, it's our job as Christians to pray for sinners that they may somehow find the way back to a loving and forgiving Lord.
We are never, ever supposed to crawl back into our sanctimonious little turtle of a shell and declare a sinner a non-Christian. God does not like that.
*used with permission
P.S. It's discouraging that a very small percentage of pastors, priests and other spiritual leaders shed such a dim shadow across the field of spiritual shepherds who are very compassionate and loving and Christ-like. I thank God that these pastors outnumber those who focus on negativity and unforgiveness with sinners who seek their counsel; with sinners who need most of all to know that their sins are forgiven. There are a great many pastors who do not withhold the Means of Grace to repentant sinners.
i thought you were someone who accepts the Scriptures as authoritative, correct?
i will proceed on that assumption.
Ephesians 4 is very clear, there is one baptism.
so when you ask the question, is the baptism of Jesus one of water or spirit, that implies there are two baptisms, which violates Ephesians 4.
i have searched the Scriptures and can’t find the terms “water baptism” or “spirit baptism” anywhere.
can we agree on that?
the Lord doesn’t have a physicial body?
the body doesn’t have a physical body?
why do i say baptism is physical? the Scriptures teach it and the Church has believed and taught it for 2,000 years.
It was God's CHOICE and Christ Jesus's CHOICE to raise up the Apostle Paul, who is the only Apostle for us today, to all the Gentiles/heathen, not Jews. Peter was the Apostle to the Jewish people in the Gospels and throughout Acts. Read 2 Peter as he extols Paul's grace knowledge. Read also Galatians carefully to learn when Paul corrects Peter for Peter's own hypocrisy of trying to live unto the Law and encourage the Gentile believer-saints to live under the Law: Paul correctly pointed out Peter's hypocrisy.
Galatians 2:14: But when I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, I said unto Peter before them all, If thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, why compellest thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews?
Galatians 2:15: We who are Jews by nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles,
Galatians 2:16: Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.
Galatians 2:17: But if, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is therefore Christ the minister of sin? God forbid.
Galatians 2:18: For if I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor.
Galatians 2:19: For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God.
Galatians 2:20: I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
Galatians 2:21: I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.
Here the Apostle Paul clearly teaches us from the revelation given him BY Christ Jesus, regarding WHO is the Apostle for the Gentiles:
Galatians 2:6: But of these who seemed to be somewhat, (whatsoever they were, it maketh no matter to me: God accepteth no man's person:) for they who seemed to be somewhat in conference added nothing to me:
Galatians 2:7: But contrariwise, when they saw that the gospel of the uncircumcision was committed unto me, as the gospel of the circumcision was unto Peter;
Galatians 2:8: For he that wrought effectually in Peter to the apostleship of the circumcision, the same was mighty in me toward the Gentiles:
Galatians 2:9: And when James, Cephas, and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given unto me, they gave to me and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship; that we should go unto the heathen, and they unto the circumcision.
If you can read carefully, otherwise..., you can clearly see Christ giving words, via the Holy Spirit, to Paul to indicate accurately that Paul is the Apostle to the Gentiles/heathen, and that Peter is the Apostle to the circumcision (Jews).
Now read 2 Peter, if you can understand it, otherwise...unlearned and unstable...Peter here gives primacy and authority to the value that the brother Paul writes, according to the wisdom given unto him (those doctrines were not given unto Peter, but Paul alone, regarding the mystery of the Body of Christ and the headship of Christ over the Church).
2 Peter 3:15: And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you;
2 Peter 3:16: As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.
If you fail to observer 2 Peter 3:15-16, then you "are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction".
There is only one baptism that makes you a Christian.
Is it water baptism? Or is it baptism (immersion) by Jesus in the Holy Spirit?
“You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.” - Romans 8
There are 7 ‘one’s in Ephesians 4. How many of those ‘ones’ refer to a physical act or being? ZERO.
“’And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh,and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions,
and your old men shall dream dreams;
even on my male servants and female servants
in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy.
And I will show wonders in the heavens above
and signs on the earth below,
blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke;
the sun shall be turned to darkness
and the moon to blood,
before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day.
And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.’” - Acts 2
“But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” John 4
“salvation by granted by works + faith or faith alone?”
neither, salvation is by grace.
you see no where where the Scriptures teach baptism taking our sins or giving us the Holy Spirit. change “or” to “and” and that’s almost exactly what Peter said in Acts 2:38.
you apparently believe in the Holy Spirit, great, so do i. I believe Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to the Church to lead it to all truth. and what truth did the Holy Spirit lead Christians to believe from 33ad to the present? that baptism is for the remission of sins and receiving the Holy Spirit. this is the orthodox Faith.
Does Jesus have a physical body constrained by time and space? No. Do physical bodies enter locked rooms? No.
The body referred to in Ephesians is not an organism.
“1I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, 2with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, 3eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 4There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. 7But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift.”
The “body” is the church itself, but that is a ‘body’ in a spiritual sense, not a physical one.
The passage doesn’t have 6 spiritual terms mixed with one physical term. You either have been baptized in the Holy Spirit by Jesus Christ, and belong to Him, or you have not. No splash of water will save your soul.
Baptism is something we then do out of joy and obedience to the Lord
the above is from your post #18, so yes you did post something about getting baptized to be obedient to the Lord.
of course, no one was ever told to be baptized to be obedient to the Lord in the NT, right?
“neither, salvation is by grace.”
Yes, salvation is by grace, but it is through faith and not of works - Ephesians 2:8-9
the problem is many reject the historical, orthodox Faith that the Church received from the Apostles. that Faith was articulated by Peter in Acts 2:38.
some teach two baptisms, unheard of by anyone until the 16th century. this is not the Christian Faith, it is not Biblical.
When Jesus gave His authority to the Church in Matthew 28, He didn’t say to “water baptize” or “spirit baptize”, He said baptize.
as Paul says in Titus 3, “he saved us, not because of deeds done by us in righteousness, but in virtue of his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal in the Holy Spirit”
BTW - do you believe the old Gnostic heresy that Jesus did not have a real body? you seem to with that Ephesians 4 theory of yours.
you have some very interesting theories about what the Scriptures teach about baptism.
we know the Apostles went all over the known world, preaching Jesus Christ and Him crucified. when they all died, they left a Universal Faith, including what baptism is for.
if you are right in your theory, we should expect to find the successors to the Apostles believing what you teach.
if you are right, you should be able to give me some Christian leaders or theologians between 95ad and the start of the 16th century that denied baptismal regeneration and taught this “two” baptism theory. can you give me three names of such individuals??
excercising faith is a work, no? it’s something you are doing.
true faith is a gift from the Holy Spirit, just as is grace which saves us.
Whoops- Sorry- was doing a drive by posting in a hurry and mistyped. the correct answer is what you have posted- we are saved by grace through faith.I mentioned that in my first post.
I believe the same as you on the Holy Spirit to the Church to lead it to all truth.
I’m also quite familiar with Acts 2:38. What isn’t clear to me is where you are coming from in the One baptism area. I read Act 2:38 as “ Repent and be Baptized, every one of you , IN THE NAME OF JESUS CHRIST for the forgiveness of your sins and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” -
So then can you clarify your position on the One baptism? I’m not being argumentative, just curious. Is the moment of Baptism the moment you have accepted Jesus as your Lord and savior ( Baptized in the name of Jesus Christ is my belief and personal experience when I was saved, as well as how I read the scriptures) or when you physically are baptized with water by a priest or witness?
Well let’s read on in Acts 22:16 and see what Saul ( Paul ) was told:
“and now why do you wait? Rise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on his name”
please tell me where you see in Scripture Baptism is the moment you accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior? or for that matter, where anyone was told to “accept” Jesus as Lord and Savior?
you seem like a sincere person, surely you must believe some Christian correctly understood Baptism between 95ad and the beginning of the 16th century, if so, can you name a few?
Ah- I see that I did post that in 18-
I am speaking of Baptism by water, which I do not believe cleanses you of sins nor does it offer salvation or give you the Holy Spirit. If you disagree, show me some scripture in that area specifically and I’d be happy to consider it.
Having said that, The Baptism in the Name of Christ, which occurs when you gain salvation at the moment of acceptance of him as your savior, is a whole other story. I regard that as the baptism of the Spirit which does All of those things in my personal experience and my understanding of scripture.
Having said all of that, I believe everyone should be baptized with water ( Dunked) as a physical representation and proclamation of what Christ has done, so you and I can agree that
The Holy spirit is real.
Christ is the way the truth and the Life, and no one comes to to the father but through him.
Everyone should be baptized.
We are to take up the great commission wholeheartedly.
Reading the Nicene Creed, I agree 100% with all parts of, including the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, providing we use the definition of Catholic in greek at the time of the writing of the Nicene Creed - ( Universal) - Which means you and I are brothers and I appreciate you sharpening me when I misspeak or have a lax interpretation. Peace and thanks for the good conversation. God Bless you and yours.
I am sincere as are you. We simply disagree on water vs spiritual baptism, and I suspect we both have enough ammunition to never agree.
Lets also read Acts 9:17, another description of the same encounter.
“Acts 9:17 Then Ananias went to the house and entered it. Placing his hands on Saul, he said, “Brother Saul, the Lord—Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here—has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” 18 Immediately, something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and he could see again. He got up and was baptized, “
I read this as Saul/Paul lost the scales from his eyes, and could see again before he got up and was baptized ( which by the way, the word Washed here is only used in one other place in the new testament - 1:corinthians6:11 which is pretty specific that you are washed in the spirit of God and mentions nothing about water. ) -
I mean no disrespect, I simply disagree from my reading of the Bible and the conviction of the Spirit telling me my action of getting washed with water does nothing to clean my sins away or get me the Holy spirit. That also comes through Grace and during the Baptism of the Spirit.
“can you give me three names of such individuals??”
Peter: “...when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ...”
Did the flood ‘save’ Noah, or did it separate him from the evil world? THAT is the salvation offered by water baptism: separation from the world!
Paul & Silas: “30Then he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” 31And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” 32And they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. 33And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their wounds; and he was baptized at once, he and all his family. 34Then he brought them up into his house and set food before them. And he rejoiced along with his entire household that he had believed in God.”
Water baptism is important to do, but it doesn’t save you. Jesus saves. And Jesus baptizes with the Holy Spirit, not water!
John: “...31 but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”
We receive life by believing, not by water baptism. What does the word of God say?
“For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body— Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.” - 1 Cor 12
One spirit, one body, and “in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body...and all were made to drink of one Spirit.”
Frankly, I don’t think Catholics really believe in baptismal regeneration either. If they did, they would not wait to baptize a convert, since the convert would be in danger of hell from the moment he had faith until he was baptized. Indeed, it is hard to see how anyone would WANT to be baptized, since they would not be spiritually alive to recognize their need until AFTER water baptism.
I reject baptismal regeneration, but I believe water baptism is an ordinance of God, and I believe that someone who refuses to be baptized doesn’t truly believe. OTOH, many delay in baptism simply because it is not widely taught. We assume converts know, when most have never read the scriptures in detail yet.
Please see here:
http://sharperiron.org/article/baptism-history-part-2
You will find a number of church fathers who taught to delay baptism, not only until a believer but even later, which is also unscriptural. However, delayed baptism would be utter nonsense if they believed that baptism caused one to be born again. How can one grow until one has been born? How could one grow spiritually prior to water baptism if water baptism conferred spiritual life?
“excercising faith is a work, no? it’s something you are doing”
There is no passage of scripture where saving faith is described as a work except John 6:
28Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” 29Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”
I think it is obvious Jesus is being sarcastic - “You want a work to please God? OK, here it is - BELIEVE!”
There is also no passage that describes saving faith as a gift given by God to humans, and a great many that indicate the opposite.
Roman?
Southerners?
Salt lake?
or Good Works ...what’s this obedience nonsense types?
I’m oldish now...back when I was a kid Christians were more monolithic...Catholics or Protestants and Prods ranged from very devout to devout.
Now...I think apostates have too much presence in “name your Christian”...very few denominations have escaped the scourge of diluting that behavior and obedience counts
“excercising faith is a work, no? it’s something you are doing.”
I’m not sure what your point is. Eph 2:8,9 makes it clear that outward works are not necessary for salvation - only faith. Whether or not you think faith is a work doesn’t impact the statement that outward works don’t have anything to do with salvation.
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