Posted on 06/14/2013 12:35:01 PM PDT by Colofornian
Years ago...I had lunch with a conservative Protestant clergyman and his wife...Personally friendly and pleasant, they were nonetheless outspoken critics of Mormonism who frankly considered its claims about God “blasphemous.”
Our conversation...turned to the ultimate fate of the unevangelized...To make the question specific, I proposed the hypothetical case of a medieval Chinese peasant who...had never traveled more than perhaps 20 miles from his home and who had never so much as encountered the name of Jesus.
“He’s damned,” the clergyman said...I responded that such a fate seemed terribly unjust, since this Chinese peasant had never had a fair chance — actually, he’d had no chance at all — to hear the gospel....
...I pointed out that their God seemed not only to hate the Chinese — not to mention Africans, residents of the pre-Columbian New World, and sinful, unredeemed humanity in general — but to be inordinately fond of the (historically Calvinist) Netherlands and Scotland.
“You say that my view of God is blasphemous,” I observed. “But your view of God seems to me infinitely worse. You believe that he created us out of nothing. He was under no obligation to create us, but freely chose to do so. Then, historically speaking, he put the overwhelming majority of us into situations where they could never possibly have accepted Christ. And, because those people haven’t accepted Christ, he intends to torture them forever. Forever. He could have given them another chance...”
SNIP
“Maybe God’s justice is different than our justice,” proposed the clergyman. “Yes,” I said. “It sounds much more like our injustice.”
SNIP
One of the very many aspects of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that I treasure is its belief in the vicarious redemption of the dead...Joseph Smith offered a fair and solid solution to it.
(Excerpt) Read more at deseretnews.com ...
Please re-read my first three posts...and then answer how Mormons are going to be able to baptize people they never knew existed...? (Most people who have ever lived have fallen beyond "recorded history")
The necro-baptism "beast" that needs to be fed includes...
...full names...
...date born; date died.
No such info, no such proxy baptism.
There's no "gold plates" hanging around somewhere that will give them all that pre-Gutenberg data.
And even since Gutenberg, I would seriously doubt that the Mormon church has even 25% of all people who have ever lived since then in their data banks.
Once the baptism of Jewish holocaust scandals was revealed -- along with other embarrassing celebrities and infamous (Hitler) necro-baptisms -- the Mormon church insisted to its members new "guidelines" that these members were only to proxy-baptize their own relatives...further making it highly improbable that not very many non-Americans and non-Europeans would be necro-baptized.
C'mon JA...what's happened to exercising basic logic on this one?
How can you NOT appreciate a strawman that is built without even referring to Scripture?
What!!??
The BIBLE??
—MormonDude(The BoM should be sufficient...)
Yeah; a rational MORMON would think so; but LDSism has a BUNCH more stuff found in the D&C collection.
Ron Popeil says, :But WAIT!!!
There's MORE!
Yes folks; for only lifetime payment of 10% of your income, you, TOO!, can put your trust in the Pearl of gGreat Price.
The one containing the WONDERFUL Book of ABRAHAM!!!
{Applause!!!}
This statement shows what an unbelieving, HATEFUL bigot you are!
You KNOW that GOD has a record of ALL these folks, and there could very well be another set of Golden Records, containing ALL these supposedly 'unknown' names just WAITING for our Living Prophet® to stumble across!
--MormonDupe(I sure know that I am ready for ANY kind of revelation that Tommy will deliver to the faithful from GOD!)
BL has never been considered before; so why start Now?
“He’s damned,” the clergyman said...I responded that such a fate seemed terribly unjust, since this Chinese peasant had never had a fair chance — actually, he’d had no chance at all — to hear the gospel....
Is The God not just?
Does anybody here on FR want The God to treat them fairly? Anybody?
Please respond, if you do.
Is John 3:18 correct?
THX 1138
Yes, of course it is correct, but the English here is too ambiguous to capture the precise nuances of the verb tenses of "belief" and "condemn." A more informative translation is as follows:
"The one persistently committing trust unto Him is not being judged. But the one not persistently committing trust already has been permanently judged because he has not permanently committed trust unto the name of The Only Begotten Son of The God" (The Gospels: A Precise Translation).
Christ did not come into the world to condemn the world, because it and the people within it--every one--had already been pronounced guilty unto death by The Righteous God, based on the sin of Adam (of whom every one bears his genetic substance).
But the love gift of God, the Person Jehovah (YHWH), invested a perfect sinless human body by standing in for us/me so as to receive our/my punishment--a piercing, burning mutilation and shameful reputation, paying the blood-price from his own veins; so that we/I might be judicially pronounced guiltless and free IF I would simply accept this release from condemnation as an undeserved but compassionate benefit of offered friendship.
Amen!
"Be not afraid, only believe." (Mark 5:36)
Salvation is not a consequence of being baptized, and most certainly not for infants nor for a person's eternal soul that has been separated from a dead, rotting husk.
You are serious and not joking ? He actually said that on the air ?
[ NOTE : I’m sure he thinks that way just surprised he’d say that since most of his audience is conservative Christians ]
[Be sure, when you get to heaven, you let Peter know that...The New American Standard is one of the most literal versions of the Bible: ...the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through the water. 21 Corresponding to that, baptism now saves you—not the removal of dirt from the flesh, but an appeal to God for a good conscience—through the resurrection of Jesus Christ... (1 Peter 3)]
(And Luke): 38 Peter said to them, “Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 For the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call to Himself.” (Acts 2)
(And Paul): 5 He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the WASHING of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, 6 whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior... (Titus 3)
Noah was obedient to Jehovah because he completely trusted in Christ. According to The God's specific direction, dear Father Noah (and his family following him by faith in Christ) were saved by grace through faith, not by being dipped in water (Eph. 2:8, Heb. 11:6-7)
This saving of Noah is not by water. The verse completely well defined that the washing was a figure of speech. It is the faithfulness of God that saved, with Noah and his family completely relying on the Word of God. Relying on water for Eternal Life? Duh.
=======
Acts 2:38 is almost always completely misinterpreted by mistranslating the function of the preposition εις in Acts 2:38, where the AV has "... be baptized ... for the remission of sins ...". The casual (lazy/ignorant/unregenerated?) expositor would just put in place of "for" the common clause "with a view toward", which is very frequently a correct translation of εις -- but in this case it is not, because it makes verses such as Eph. 2:8 doctrinally nonsensical and inconsistent, along with the overall context that salvation is truly by faith, not by works/literal aitch-too-oh.
If you had Thayer's Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, you would find out that there are many different uses of the preposition in view, to which 70 column inches of very fine print are given over to εις. And you would find that, taking the Bauer-Arndt-Gingrich The Greek-English Lexicon (2nd revision by Gingrich & Danker) in one hand, and Scrivener's Textus Receptus in the other, you would find thirteen different ways that implementation of εις in a sentence needs to be translated just for the Gospels.
The correct hermeneutics of Acts 2:38 demands that where the action contemplated is based on a previous action, the foundational use is to be applied, which has the sense of εις being translated as "on the basis of" or "based upon." One such related passage is from Mt. 12:41 where:
οτι μετανοησαν εις το κηρυγμα ιονα
"because they repented on the basis of Jonah's proclamation as an herald"
(This is what we call a literal/grammatical/syntactical/cultural hermeneutic.)
Thus, theologically and doctrinally Peter (only within the last few days converted, and giving this sermon on the very day he was spiritually reborn) was urging these listeners who had already just themselves demonstrated belief and thus been saved, to "... be baptized ... on the basis of sins remitted/abandoned ...". Now, the intolerable doctrinal discontinuity is relieved, and Eph. 2:8 and Acts 2:38 are wedded in inseparable unity, rather than diametrically opposed by interpretive ignoramuses.
Furthermore, the Great Commission was being carried out as Christ authorized and delegated. This baptism, according to Christ's command of Mt. 28:18-20 was being fulfilled. The end of this baptism was not like John's, which was a baptism unto repentance (but not salvation); nor was it a baptism like that of Jesus, which was a baptism to fully fulfil all righteousness (Mt. 3:15). No, it was a baptism unto discipleship, by which the 12 had been ritually inducted by Jesus (Jn. 4:1), after which they continued to induct more disciples by mikvah-type immersion baptism of grown, decision-capable adults (Jn. 4:2) to follow Jesus as a Teacher. Most unarguably certainly these baptisms did not and could not impart regeneration of the spirit, for Peter was not converted until days after the Crucifixion, Judas Iscariot was absolutely a partaker of this baptism unto discipleship, and regeneration by the agency of the Indwellimg Holy Spirit did not happen until Pentecost Sunday!
The baptism that Peter supervised was NOT one of baptismal regeneration. It was a public affirmation of commitment of thousands of new followers of The Way into union with the local εκκλησια at Jerusalem, on the basis that they had repented and committed full trust on the authority of the Risen Christ, with sins washed away (not just blotted out) by His Precious Incorruptible Blood, their minds washed by the water of The Word (Eph. 5:25-27), a new spiritual man born inside by regeneration; then accepted ritual mikvah-immersion whilst being made to figuratively drink into one spirit of unity as local disciple-members (1 Cor. 12:13). =========
Now, dealing with your waving Titus 3:5 again, regeneration is not in the water by washing with it literally, even ritually. Do you not know about mikvah ceremonies? It is a ritual cleansing, requiring full, complete immersion and soaking in "living" water. This is still going on, across the world in the Jewish practice at synagogues. It is so thorough the women even have to unbraid and comb out their hair to make sure it is wet out on the minutest scale. But above all, it is a work, which is unacceptable as a precondition for Biblical salvation/regeneration/sanctification. Come on!
The washing is one on the inside of a sentient logical/reasonable human accountable for both mindset and behavior, in whom the regenerative seed (1 Jn. 3:9; Ps. 126:6; Mt. 13:33)--the voice of the Holy Ghost--has lodged, echoed in the halls of the soul, convicted in the intellect(Jn. 16:7-15), brought a godly sorrow in the heart (2 Cor. 7:9-11), imparted the essence of The Faith to the mouth, brought a saving belief, and a call out to the Lord for salvation (Rom. 10:8-10, 13), and regenerated in the spirit.
We don't birth physical babies under water. Why then a spiritual one? The washing here is by the Blood of The Christ and the Water of The Word. Tap or river water has nothing to do with spiritual regeneration. And it most certainly can never save someone who went to their grave rejecting Christ--or even being ignorant of Him.
I think it's about time to give up false doctrines and cry out for instruction, as did the believing eunuch (Acts 8:37).
The Plan: Washing by the Word-->conviction-->repentance/belief-->crying out to the Lord-->regeneration-->baptism affirmation of commitment to discipleship for ever-->union with a local assembly.
Give it up, FRiend, give it up!
And, oh! If I were you I would toss the New American Standard Version, and a lot of other versions like it, all of which are translated from a poisoned stream of corrupted textforms.
1 Corinthians 1:17 (niv)
For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with wisdom and eloquence, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.
(If baptism was REALLY important in the salvation PROCESS; a rational person would thing it would not be dismissed so lightly here.
Peter and Paul seem to have a different take on it; don’t they!
Almost right: The washing here is by the Blood of The Christ and the water THROUGH The Word... [Fixed it: See Ephesians 5:26: to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water THROUGH the word...]
That’s an interesting observation, Elsie. I’ll take it under advisement. Thanks for your thoughtful reply!
Give me a break! The literal word for "regeneration" occurs ONLY twice in the New Testament. And one of those times is in Titus 3:5. And so one of only two times where regeneration is most clearly delineated -- Titus 3:5 -- you convert the meaning into a man-based "work"!!!????
Now what is consistent with these passages? (Titus 3:5-6; John 3:3-5; Rom. 6:4-5; Col. 2:11-12) Well, each of them link baptism/water to that which yields regeneration/new life!
regeneration by the agency of the Indwellimg Holy Spirit did not happen until Pentecost Sunday!
(Did you happen to notice that Acts 2:38 appears after Pentecost -- at the beginning of Acts 2?)
Re: ark: ...they that were not immersed, and it was not a baptism
(Hey, anybody on an ark would at least be sprayed...and in a pelting constant rain, could readily have been showered in water!)
It was what 1 Peter labels a "correspondence" -- a "parallel"
Just like 8-day old Jews were identified as being part & parcel of the covenant people...so, likewise, circumcision was yet another parallel to baptism: 11 In him you were also circumcised with a circumcision NOT performed by human hands. Your whole self ruled by the flesh was put off when you were circumcised by Christ, 12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through your faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead. (Col. 2)
IOW, the main import of baptism isn't something men do; it's something Christ has accomplished: 3 Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. (Romans 6)
Both Col. 2 & Rom. 6 present the baptism act of humanity as something humans are passive -- and Christ/God/Holy Spirit as the active Agent. [Gal. 3:27 also highlights this exact same sense of those being the recipients of baptism as something acted upon them]
Now why is that of special import re: what you said about Acts 2:38??? You wrote: "The correct hermeneutics of Acts 2:38 demands that where the action contemplated is based on a previous action..." -- yet the two actions in Acts 2:38 are (1) repent and (2) be baptized. Repent is what man actively does; "be baptized" is what man passively does -- what he receives.
What is the result of this? "For the forgiveness -- KJV says "remission" -- of sins."
Who gets more credit/glory for those who stress man's repentance leading to forgiveness? [the repentant do] Who gets more credit/glory for those who stress God's actions in a person's life -- where men are passively baptized as a "reception"? [God does]
Forgiveness is a divine act -- not human. Confessional repentance is merely man agreeing with God's view of things.
As Neil T. Anderson wrote: "Paul writes, 'For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body...(1 Cor. 12:13). The Spirit's indwelling (see John 14:17, Rom. 8:9); sealing (see 2 Cor. 1:22; Eph. 1:13); and baptism (see Gal. 3:27) all occur at the time of regeneration and are therefore never commanded"
...as something for men to accomplish.
According to The God's specific direction, dear Father Noah (and his family following him by faith in Christ) were saved by grace through faith, not by being dipped in water (Eph. 2:8, Heb. 11:6-7)
I think the father of the Protestant Reformation understood what he was talking about:
“Note well, therefore, that baptism is water with the word of God, not water & my faith. My faith does not make the baptism but RECEIVES the baptism, no matter whether the person being baptized believes or not; for baptism is not dependent upon my faith but upon God’s Word.” (Martin Luther)
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