Until you run into...
Posted on 03/12/2016 9:36:07 AM PST by Salvation
“Wrong, for the heart is purified by faith, then it is the faith that is behind baptism that is salvific, being counted for righteousness, and can precede it.”
I never said it wasn’t or it couldn’t. Doesn’t mean what the Bible says about baptism isn’t true though.
Regarding most of your next bit - the reference to the Holy Spirit “falling on” people occurs three times in Acts: Acts 8, Acts 10-11, and Acts 19. These were not baptisms - they were ordinations. People being made pastors.
Taking them out of order, Acts 8, Philip is being a missionary to Samaria. And what would you need if you’re a missionary to a place when you leave? You’ll need to leave behind pastors. So he Peter and John come up from Jerusalem, lay hands on them, and the Holy Spirit falls on them (the group) - and they received the ability to do signs and wonders. Laying on of hands was (and is) ordination. Notice Philip, who was just a deacon, didn’t do it.
Acts 19, same deal. Paul was doing missions work in Ephasus. Same deal. He baptizes the believers, and when then (doesn’t say how long after) he lays hands on them, and they begin to speak in tongues and prophesy. i.e., they were preaching.
Acts 10-11, a little different. Here God makes an apparent exception to the norm (He can do that) - he ordains these Gentiles himself (much like he did with the apostles on Pentecost in Acts 1 - a similarity Peter makes note of) before they were even baptized. And they begin to speak in tongues and extol God. And Peter was like “um we should baptize these people now.” And they ask Peter to stay a while... not explained why but one can presume that this new Christian assembly can learn the faith. Much like the other two occurrences which both involved missionaries.
Here, this will explain it better than I. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kDriLjXSt4
Nothing else much objectionable to what you wrote other than a) calling baptism “body language” and b) what does Hebrews 6 actually say about baptism that I supposedly disagree with?
Pure speculation? If Mary was ever virgin, the Bible would say so, with corroborating evidence. It does not.
"For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin" (Heb 4:15 AV).
Jesus did not write himself a free ticket to anywhere, but experienced all the rigors humans must, lest anyone accuses Him of shirking by counting Himself privileged.
He suffered everything He should, and therefore Mary brought Him forth as all babies arrive naturally (no Caesarean birth, no avoiding the labor stresses and tearing of flesh) in order that He might have the minutest faithful history of the birth process.
The whole false narrative of post-partum virginity is a useless and meaningless fiction merely to satisfy some theogistic innovator's claim to fame for whipping it up that Mary might be worshipped for a purity supposedly conferred by a sexless life.
This is a totally unnecessary embroidery of the part of life that Jesus and Mary needed to experience that nothing be left out of His humanity and she hers also. There is nothing whatsoever written about it, and no reason why she and Joseph should be deprived of the joy of having more children as normally expected and divinely commanded. Without these subsequent children as firmly stated in Scripture,
And furthermore, He would also have been deprived of the rough-and-tumble joint vying with siblings for parent's attention, s well as the intimacies that nake passing through childhood with beloved brothers and sisters the full experience of family-ness, and they of his care for them.
Come on, people! Let's get real on this, as Scripture says we ought! Give Joseph, Mary, Jesus, and His brothers and sisters all that the Heavenly Father has planned for the complete, rich, abundant life that one's family brings!
The one dreamed up by Catholic theologians is so arid and brittle and dead that it cannot be holy.
The Socratic method sometimes works better than lecturing, one finds out, eh?
I choose to believe Jesus implanted in Mary's womb without sex involved. I choose to believe Jesus left her womb without violating her virginity thus not taking any right away from Joseph. I can't prove it, but I choose to believe it because it fits the CHARACTER of MY GOD. By the same reasoning, it would be cheating Joseph if Mary never had any of his children in their marriage, so I choose to not believe the Blessed Mother Mary remained a virgin after carrying The Christ for nine months.
Your mileage may vary. That's okay with me, since it does not affect/effect our Born from above status. See you in the clouds, Brother.
Normal birth is one of them, and until His birth, it is beyond question that Mary's virginity was unbreached. After His normal delivery, the issue of being born of a virgin is forever settled, and the status of Mary's body is no longer of consequence.
If one wants to force him/herself to believe something of which the Holy Ghost, Jesus, and the Father are silent, and make up one's own unsupported conjecture, that's only backing out into the same briar patch that the Romanists and other cults get themselves into. It's a time-waster and doesn't make sense to me, nor does it jibe with a literal hermeneutic upon which expositional teaching is based.
But as they say, it's a free country.
Place maker
Search the Scriptures and find just one passage where God cheats anyone He has called to His Holy work. IF you find that, I will reconsider what I choose to believe about my God.
Here; have some DATA; too!
Until you run into...
Yes; it's 'possible'; but that is an example of the Catholic method; used over and over; to 'explain' Rome's version of what happened.
I kinda go along with:
"...woman, why do you involve me? My time has not yet come."
Which indicates (to me at least) that Jesus had not yet used any of His GOD powers.
Water into wine is known as His FIRST miracle for a reason.
Now you've peeved our Predestination FRiends!
Daniel 5:5 In the same hour came forth fingers of a man's hand, and wrote opposite the lampstand upon the plaster of the wall of the king's palace: and the king saw the part of the hand that wrote.
The 'man' stood in a different where/when and reached forth into the where/when of Palace Party Central to write the judgment upon the wall. I point to this scene in Daniel because it is Biblical evidence that a different but very close other where/when exists. The first miracle in the Life of Jesus Christ is God placing the body of Him in Mary's womb.
When you consider that the Archangel will call from their graves all those who have believed and been born from above, at the event written of by Paul in 1 Thess 4:13-17, well ... the Bible tells us that GOD raised Jesus from the grave. It does not say He, Jesus, raised Himself from the grave. Jesus died. He died as a man, because you cannot kill God. Jesus even told us when God left the Spirit of Jesus the man.
During His life on this planet, Jesus was God intersecting our spacetime plane. He was also a man like as we are. When He died, He died like a man. GOD raised that Jesus from the grave and had exalted Him for the seal of God's salvation we receive when we believe.
In John 14, where Philip says 'if you will show us The Father, we will know you are Messaih', Jesus responded with a sort of physics lesson.
John 14:8 Philip said unto him, Lord, show us the Father, and it will satisfy us.9 Jesus said unto him, Have I been so long a time with you, and yet have you not known me, Philip? he that has seen me has seen the Father; and how say you then, Show us the Father?
10 Believe you not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwells in me, he does the works.
11 Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works' sake.
Jesus was telling Philip --and us-- that all Philip could see of The Father was where The Father intersected the spacetime reality of Philip, in the person of Jesus.
While it is true that the first miracle recorded for us of Jesus was the marriage feast at Canna, from the placing of Him in Mary's womb, the miraculous entered our spacetime.
5 At that moment, humanlike fingers of a hand appeared near the lamp stand of the royal palace and wrote on the plaster of the wall. 6 While the king watched the back of the hand as it was writing, his facial expression changed. Utterly frightened, he lost control of his own bowels and his knees knocked together.
I wanna go back to the ‘Angels on a Pinhead’ thing!
Don’t ridicule that which you do not understand.
Hahahaaha oh! Haaaaahahaaha! (wiping tears from eyes)
Eeets fr-r-r-eee, mon! Eeets fr-r-r-eee!
Is that the infamous ‘Mormon wannabee’?
I am working on writing something up using his citations, but have limited ability to use the computer at this time. It might take me several weeks to complete it. Given how long this thread is already I am guessing it still might be going on.
Of course given the FR history it might just be coming up again at that point anyway.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.