An Old High School Chum wrote this:
The biblical justification that Lutheranism uses for infant baptism is Acts 2:38-39. I also read a new term for me anyway this morning. Anabaptist. Since you definitely have more religious education than I, who were they?
I responded:
Read this carefully as if under the tutelage of Ms Logsdon (examine the grammar, especially the antecedents):
38Peter replied, "Repent and be baptized, everyone of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call."
How do babies repent?
The promise of the Holy Spirit is for all coming generations... When and if they repent. Baptism follows repentance, no? And I can't say that I've met a "spirit filled" baby...maybe poopy filled.
Anabaptists... they were the group that strongly advocated believers Baptism.
My religious education mostly taught me how to find information. If there had been Google and Wikipedia, I could have saved myself 3 extra years of education.
Here's your answer in greater depth: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anabaptist
The biblical justification that Lutheranism uses for infant baptism is Acts 2:38-39. I also read a new term for me anyway this morning. Anabaptist. Since you definitely have more religious education than I, who were they?
I responded:
Read this carefully as if under the tutelage of Ms Logsdon (examine the grammar, especially the antecedents):
38Peter replied, "Repent and be baptized, everyone of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call."
How do babies repent?
The promise of the Holy Spirit is for all coming generations... When and if they repent. Baptism follows repentance, no? And I can't say that I've met a "spirit filled" baby...maybe poopy filled.
Anabaptists... they were the group that strongly advocated believers Baptism.
My religious education mostly taught me how to find information. If there had been Google and Wikipedia, I could have saved myself 3 extra years of education.
Here's your answer in greater depth: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anabaptist
This wiki has a great graphic comparision of how differing groups perform and interprete baptism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baptism
Hope this helps. Thanks for asking.
Slipnaught the Piewit
Hope this helps. Thanks for asking.
Slipnaught the Piewit
2 comments:
I can see both sides of the baptism controversy, the "baptise em all," and the "baptise only the believers (and repenters)."
Whatever we do in terms of the outward expression of baptism, the important thing is that a disciple is made, that is, a follower of Jesus is created (or re-created, created anew, "born again").
Matthew 28:19 JB
Make disciples of all the nations; baptise them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teach them to observe all the commands I have taught you.
Discipleship, according to Christ, begins with baptism and is perfected by teaching. This would not disqualify the Orthodox baptism of infants: baptism precedes instruction.
Mark 16:16 JB
He who believes and is baptised will be saved.
Salvation, according to Christ, begins with belief (in Him) and is validated by baptism.
Acts 1:5 JB
John baptised with water but you, not many days from now, will be baptised with the Holy Spirit.
Acts 1:8 JB
You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and then you will be My witnesses not only in Jerusalem but throughout Judæa and Samaria, and indeed to the ends of the earth.
Jesus distinguishes the baptism that makes people His witnesses from that which is a ritual using water, as performed by John. The first kind of baptism is validated by its effect. The second kind of itself has no power at all; it is just a ceremony.
John 3:3, 5-6 JB
I tell you most solemnly, unless a man is born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
I tell you most solemnly, unless a man is born through water and the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.
What is born of the flesh is flesh; what is born of the spirit is spirit.
Here, Jesus teaches that being "born from above" (literal Greek translation, "ana-" meaning "up," but also "again," hence the alternate translation "born again," both describing the same event) is the qualification for "seeing" the kingdom of God. But seeing is not enough. Man must enter the kingdom of God, and that happens by being born through water and the spirit. The Orthodox along with most other churches interpret this as baptism and another rite following it, such as chrismation (Orthodox), confirmation (Catholic and Protestant), or bring baptised in the Holy Ghost (Pentecostals).
What Jesus says next provides the best insight into the matter. Natural and spiritual (super-natural) events or experiences are two completely different realms, and something in one realm cannot produce something in the other. A ceremony cannot produce spiritual events, and spiritual events do not require a ceremony to validate them. This undercuts the claims of sacramentalism as well as the religious protocols of non-sacramental Christian churches.
The argumentation that has been going on in Christendom since Luther published his treatise The Babylonian Captivity of the Church, in which he demolished Roman sacramentalism, needs to be finished today.
To the Orthodox, baptism does not save us, only Christ does, and so we must come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ in order to be saved. The baptism of infants is therefore seen for what it is, a rite that must be performed in order for other rites, communion for example, to follow. All of these rites or ceremonies can be aids to acquiring that saving knowledge, or else not.
For the Baptists (I use this term generally for any group that insists on believer's baptism), whether different sects believe that baptism saves you or not, the bottom line is still the same: only Christ can really save you, and you have to know Him personally and confess Him to be saved. This is another way of saying, you must have saving knowledge of Christ.
(Continued in my second comment.)
In the Church of Jesus Christ, which is already One and has never been anything but One in spite of our denominationalism, salvation is of Christ alone, and so it doesn't matter when people are baptised. What matters is that they become disciples, followers of Jesus. What matters is that they are born from above by knowing the Lord personally, and confessing Him before men (another verse which I didn't cite, but which everyone knows).
What is born of the flesh is flesh; what is born of the spirit is spirit. Do not be surprised when I say: You must be born from above. The wind (ha-Ruach, to Pnevma, the Spirit) blows wherever it pleases; you hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. That is how it is with all who are born of the Spirit.
John 3:6-8 JB
And yet, with Nicodemus we play dumb, we play church, and ask "How can that be possible?"
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