Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: garyh@crash.cts.com (Gary Hipp) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Validity of Baptism Message-ID: Date: 23 Nov 90 07:22:07 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Crash TimeSharing, El Cajon, CA Lines: 37 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article wagner@karazm.math.uh.edu (David Wagner) writes: >In article jhpb@granjon.garage.att.com writes: >I thank the moderator for his quotes from Luther and his comments >thereon. I don't want to argue about what Luther said, but I >certainly believe that Baptism works faith, even in infants. >That it has the power to do this is indicated in 1 Peter 3:21, Ephesians >5:25,26, and Titus 3:5, which I quoted in another article. Am I hearing you right in saying that baptism is a ticket into heaven? That regardless of a persons condition and position with Christ, that by act of baptism the person is justified? That by simply quoting some Scripture and splashing some water, that faith is produced and sins are washed away? Even the verses you mentioned above don't state that. Have you differentiated between the baptism of the Holy Spirit and water baptism? Doesn't your assertion that baptism saves put it on the same plain as works? Something that man can do to enter heaven aside from accepting the atoning work of Jesus? I am quite sure that I, a born again Bible believing Christian who has baptised others, could take an ordinary non-believer and soak him in the ocean saying a few verses over him and come up with a perfectly wet sinner. I agree with you on a lot of things, David, but this one I am having trouble with. Gary Hipp [I don't know what David is saying, but Luther certainly did not say that. He made it clear that someone who had been baptized and did not believe was not saved. It was Luther's view that baptism, because it embodied the Word, was capable of calling forth faith. But not that it always did so. --clh]