Posted on 03/23/2005 6:39:05 AM PST by arrogantduck
What do you when 3000 persons respond to a sermon and want to be immersed in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins? What do you do when this number of 3000 is added to daily?...
I am sure there are exceptions, but they are few and far in between.
For the rest of us, we hope for salvation, not tout it like we already got it.
I am sure there are exceptions, but they are few and far in between.
For the rest of us, we hope for salvation, not tout it like we already got it.
Another hard case. In short, we don't know for sure. All we can know is that the Lord is merciful and just. It isn't for me to say.
The same question could be asked of those children lost in abortion. I remember asking my pastor that in confirmation class when I was a kid. He just had a sad look on his face and said "We can't know, but we can trust God."
I suspect you all also believe you can lose your salvation too. A good friend of mine went to a Church of Christ and that was something they believed.
Things a child of God can do:
• He can fail of the grace of God (Heb. 12:15).
• He can be led away with the error of the wicked (2 Peter 3:17).
• He can err from the truth (James 5:19).
• He can turn aside after Satan (1 Tim. 5:15).
• He can fall from steadfastness (2 Pet. 3:17).
• A weak brother can perish (1 Cor. 8:11).
• He can forsake the right way (2 Pet. 2:14-15).
• He can turn from the Holy Commandment (2 Pet. 2:21).
• He can fall into condemnation (James 5:12).
• He may be a castaway (1 Cor. 9:27).
• He may be cast forth as a branch and be burned (John 15:1-6).
• He may become neither hot nor cold (Rev. 3:14-18).
• He can be spoiled through deceit (Col. 2:8).
• He can be moved away from the hope (Col.1:23).
• He can deny the Lord that bought him (2 Pet. 2:1).
• He can do despite unto the Spirit (Heb. 10:29).
• He can depart from the living God (Heb. 3:12).
• He can come short of the promise (Heb. 4:1).
• He can believe the gospel in vain (1 Cor. 15:1-3).
• He can fail to keep himself in the love of God (Jude 21).
• He can count the blood of Christ wherewith he was sanctified unholy (Heb. 10:29).
• He can depart from the faith (1 Tim. 4:1).
• He can be carried away with strange doctrines (Heb.13.9).
• He can be beset by sin (Heb. 12:1).
• He can draw back unto perdition and not save his soul (Heb. 10:38-39).
• He can fall after example of unbelief (Heb. 4:11).
• He can become worse than an infidel (1 Tim. 5:8).
• He can refuse him who speaks from heaven (Heb.12:25).
• He can have an evil heart of unbelief (Heb. 3.12).
• He can trod under foot the Son of God (Heb.10:29).
"Judas died before the Church was born."
Judas left the Last Supper before he received communion, so he lacks the sign of God's grace. The question: Was Judas' suicide a refusal to receive the grace of forgiveness (in which case he is probably in Hell), or an atonement for his sin made out of ignorance of what Christ would do (in which case he may later be raised out of Sheol into Heaven)?
Some intriguing thoughts:
Judas means "Jew." It is promised that the Jews will de grafted on to the tree of life at the end of days.
Even though we pray with a different Judas, the name of Judas is invoked every time we pray for hopeless causes. Judas died of hopelessness.
We we taught by the Blessed Virgin to pray for those most in need of God's mercy.
Even the gates of Hell shall not withstand the Church.
This particular debate seems always to degenerate into a shouting match about the "proper form" of baptism. Somebody on a thread last summer actually declared (with great sadness) that if a guy's little toe somehow remained dry in the process, that he'd end up going to hell.
I agree with your take on it.... If the Gospels tell us anything, it's that salvation is a matter of what happens inside, and not a strict adherence to precise (and Pharisaical) rules for every element of salvation.
God is infinitely more Just than the immersion advocates.
Yes, but it does not hurt to caution on the side of being safe. If you are going to do it, you might as well try to follow the Bible the best you can.
>> Well, baptism is a "act" or "deed" or "work" and your statement can be interpreted that this "act" is a requirement of salvation which strikes me as taking away from the glory and sacrifice of Jesus. <<
Obeying the commandments of Jesus is taking away from the glory and sacrifice of Jesus. That's pretty twisted.
A man hears the good news of the Gospel.
I believe that the grace of God is sufficient. However, shouldn't we be like Phillip and the ethiopian eunuch. If water is available and someone believes repents confesses shouldn't they be immediately baptised. Also, when the Lord appeared to and blinded Saul and changed his name to Paul (Acts 22) What are you waiting for... the text reads.
True enough. As long as we don't fall into the same trap as the Pharisees. Baptism -- of whatever form -- is more than anything else a public declaration of faith, and that's an immensely important step in joining the Body of Christ.
However, to stomp around declaring that only certain styles of baptism will work ... well, the Pharisees said such things too, and were wrong.
Yes. Answer this question, how did he get there?
You have to obey every commandment of Jesus for salvation?
If all one needs is to profess a belief in Christ, and can therefore be "secure" in their salvation, then by all accounts Judas should have been "saved."
You're misunderstanding what "faith" really is. It is not merely an intellectual assent to certain doctrines; it is a living trust in God through Jesus Christ for salvation. When you sin, you repent in the trust that God will continue to forgive you and that Jesus took that sin up on Himself on the Cross.
Such a trust cannot help but lead into action: If you truly trust God to care for you and lead you well, you will follow Him even when it seems intellectualy crazy to do so. When Jesus sent out the Twelve, and then the Seventy, without provision to minister in His Name, they had to trust God to provide for their food and water, to heal and deliver in the Name of their Rabbi, and so on. When Paul and Silas were praying and singing in prison, it's because they trusted God to take care of them one way or another, not because they were having a grand old time.
To touch on the original question of the thread, I don't think immersion is necessary for salvation per se (if it were, the theif on the cross next to Jesus would've been in trouble), but I do believe that as an act of obedience, it is evidence of your trust in Him. A person who goes unbaptised due to circumstances beyond his control is still saved by faith; but a person who refuses baptism is evidencing that they have not fully come to trust Jesus yet.
I don't think Judas ever really had the kind of trust it takes to be saved, not matter what he agreed to intellectually at first. If he had truly trusted that Jesus was the Messiah sent to deliver Israel, would he have sold Him out? Oh, he may have trusted Him at first, but he lost it somewhere along the way, and Satan took the opportunity to enter in.
What does that mean for you and me? Can we too lose our trust, and with it our salvation? That's a complicated question. Without getting too deep into Scripture (since I don't have all my materials with me here at work), let me suggest that while no one is cast out of Christ's body for their 491st sin of the day, if you do have a "lifestyle" sin (like porn, sexual immorality, greed, gossiping, pride, etc.) that you have not yet repented of (or become ensnared in after your conversion), there will come a day when you will have to make a choice between that sin and your Lord.
1. Prugatory is a Latin term. The scriptures are written in Greek and Hebrew. So, no, the word "purgatory" does not exist. 1 Peter 3 talks of a fire which will consume the unGodly works of the disobedient Christian, though "he shall survive, as one passing through fire."
2. There are many references to Hades, Sheol, or "the guard/the prison" which describe it as a temporary existence.
3. Revelations describes Saints already in Heaven, praising God, and praying for those on Earth. Then comes judgment, when others are raised from to be judged. They are not all consumed in eternal fire, so there must be two classes of the saved:
Those who are saints and who have been in Heaven.
Those who enter Heaven only after judgment.
4. The concept of being cleansed (in Latin, purgatio), is in many places in the old and new covenant.
5. This is what survived Luther's censorship, of course. Maccabees plainly depicts the Dedication of the Temple as an atonement for the souls of people who died fighting for righteousness but guilty of sin. And a prophet teaching that such atonement is a worthy act, noting that if there was no hope for the dead, such an atonement would be worthless. The dead are in purgatory.
Is this Dedication unholy? Hardly. In the gospel of John, Jesus goes to the Temple for the Feast of the Dedication.
Certainly, no one on this earth has absolutely knowledge of how God will or will not judge the method baptism and certainly lack the authority to make such judgements.
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