No Baptism necc

[jemfinch]

Thats the good news? A significantly large list of requirements?

Do you determine your doctrine based on what you’ve predetermined to be a “short enough” plan of salvation, or by reading and understanding the Bible?

1 Pet 3:21

Corresponding to that, baptism now saves you–not the removal of dirt from the flesh, but an appeal to God for a good conscience

 

[jemfinch]

Peter explains himself. Negatively, baptism does not save because water is applied to the body: “not the removal of the filth of the flesh.”

Here again, you read what you want to see in the text. Peter doesn’t say “baptism does not save because water is applied to the body,” he says it does not save by removing filth from the flesh. Someone could come up out of the water of baptism still covered in mud, and yet they would be saved.

Water can only cleanse the flesh outwardly; it does not cleanse the heart from sin.

I won’t argue with that. Only God can cleanse the heart from sin. That’s exactly why we ask Him to.

Positively, **baptism saves because it follows a personal response to God as indicated by the phrase “the answer of a good conscience toward God.” **

Ah, but here’s where you miss the boat. Baptism is the personal response to God. That’s exactly what Peter’s saying. “Baptism now saves you; not the removal of dirt from the flesh, **but as an appeal for a good conscience from God.” Baptism is the appeal, the request for a good conscience from God. This is what 1 Peter 3:21 says: that baptism now saves us as an appeal to God for a good conscience. Baptism isn’t something that follows the personal response to God; it is the personal response to God.

Fundamentally,

The Bible usually uses such terms as “believe,” “repent,” and “call upon” to describe this personal response to God.

No, it doesn’t. The Bible uses three different words there because it’s talking about three different things.

It is that aspect of baptism (what is signified, “the answer of a good conscience toward God”)

Nothing in that passage indicates that baptism signifies salvation; the passage itself flatly denies it by saying, “Baptism now saves you,” and not “Baptism signifies your salvation.” Indeed, when the verse continues, it says that baptism saves us as an appeal for a good conscience toward God.

And now I have to complain about your poor translation again. The Greek word “επερωτημα” (epero^te^ma) means a question, an appeal, not an answer. Again, the translators of your Bible have chosen their own theological traditions rather than the Word of God. The translators of the NASB and the ESV haven’t made the same mistake.

rather than the external rite (the sign, the application of water) that saves.

Baptism is an external rite, and Peter says that it saves.

In this sense, we affirm that baptism saves.

No, you don’t affirm that baptism saves. You say that a personal response to God saves. You say that baptism is a sign that follows that response. That stance of yours is mutually exclusive with saying “Baptism saves.” You cannot say both at the same time. God did not say both at the same time; God said only one, and He said, “Baptism saves.”

So, when we say that baptism saves us, we do not mean that the sacrament saves us apart from faith in Christ;

Whoa whoa whoa. No one’s saying that. No one is saying that baptism alone saves. What we are affirming here is the necessity of baptism for salvation, and the salvific nature of the sacrament. Don’t argue against a strawman.

we mean that baptism signifies our salvation by faith in Christ.

That’s a claim not only entirely unsubstantiated by the Bible, but one that contradicts what the Bible clearly says.

Think of Paul’s argument in Romans 3 and 4. He uses Abraham as an example of justification by faith.

Yes. And when James wrote to clarify Paul, he said, "Was not Abraham our faither justified by works, when he offered his son Isaac upon the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by works, and the Scripture was fulfilled which says, ‘Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.’ "

At least for Abraham, faith was sufficient to justify him

Only complete faith, only living faith, only faith completed by works.

Moreover, since Paul uses Abraham as a model for all of us (in New Testament times), it is impossible to deny the saving efficacy of faith

Please argue accurately; no one here is denying the salvific nature of faith; what we’re denying is that faith alone is efficacious for salvation

even before it is accompanied by good works

Abraham’s faith did not justify him unti lhe offered up Isaac; James makes this clear. You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone.

Jeremy**

 

[dpwilson]

How do you know that water means the rite of baptism? And if it is baptism, how do you know that it is the cause, rather than the sign, of regeneration? You are simply assuming that it refers to baptism. However, there are no compelling reasons why it must have that meaning and there are strong arguments against such an interpretation…

How do we know that born of water and the spirit refers to baptism? We have a 2000 year old church which teaches that. The fathers of the church taught that. These are the guys who learned from the apostles themselves. If you have proof that it means otherwise, provide it.

*As many as are persuaded and believe that what we [Christians] teach and say is true, and undertake to be able to live accordingly, and instructed to pray and to entreat God with fasting, for the remission of their sins that are past, we pray and fast with them. Then they are brought by us where there is water and are regenerated in the same manner in which we were ourselves regenerated. For, in the name of God, the Father… and of our Savior Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit [Matt. 28:19], they then receive the washing with water. For Christ also said, “Unless you are born again, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Justin Martyr, First Apology 61 [A.D. 151]).
*

[N]o one can attain salvation without baptism, especially in view of the declaration of the Lord, who says, “Unless a man shall be born of water, he shall not have life” (Tertullian, On Baptism 12:1 [A.D. 203]).

But you will perhaps say, ‘What does the baptism of water contribute toward the worship of God?’ In the first place, because that which has pleased God is fulfilled. In the second place, because when you are regenerated and born again of water and of God, the frailty of your former birth, which you have through men, is cut off, and so . . . you shall be able to attain salvation; but otherwise it is impossible. For thus has the true prophet [Jesus] testified to us with an oath: “Verily, I say to you, that unless a man is born again of water . . . he shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Recognitions of Clement 6:9 [A.D. 221])

The Church received from the apostles the tradition of giving baptism even to infants. The apostles, to whom were committed the secrets of divine sacraments, knew there is in everyone innate strains of [original] sin, which must be washed away through water and the Spirit (Origen, Commentaries on Romans 5:9 [A.D. 248])

It is this one Spirit who makes it possible for an infant to be regenerated . . . when that infant is brought to baptism; and it is through this one Spirit that the infant so presented is reborn. For it is not written, “Unless a man be born again by the will of his parents” or “by the faith of those presenting him or ministering to him,” but, “Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Spirit.” The water, therefore, manifesting exteriorly the sacrament of grace, and the Spirit effecting interiorly the benefit of grace, both regenerate in one Christ that man who was generated in Adam (Augustine, Letters 98:2 [A.D. 408])

*[l]t behooves those to be baptized . . . so that they are prepared, in the lawful and true and only baptism of the holy Church, by divine regeneration, for the kingdom of God . . . because it is written “Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God” (Cyprian, Epistles 72 [73]: 21 [A.D. 252]).

As to what pertains to the case of infants: You [Fidus] said that they ought not to be baptized within the second or third day after their birth, that the old law of circumcision must be taken into consideration, and that you did not think that one should be baptized and sanctified within the eighth day after his birth. In our council it seemed to us far otherwise. No one agreed to the course which you thought should be taken. Rather, we all judge that the mercy and grace of God ought to be denied to no man born" (Cyprian, Letters 64:2 [A.D. 253]).*

Nobody here is arguing that faith is not required for salvation, only that along with that, you must be baptized.

 

[mdcpensive1]

Another possible reason that baptism was not required at this time is that the New Covenant was not yet established. Christ had not yet died and ushered in the Church Age of which the sign of the Covenant is Baptism.
mdcpensive1