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kobudodave
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You have a good point there. One that should not be taken so lightly.
Question for Protestants: How do you interpret John 3: 4-5?
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selah603
Guest
Amen, brother! 
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kobudodave
Guest
There are historical evidences that can be used to ascertain the intent of baptism, as used in the early Church, that would bring to light the fact that water was needed for baptism. The Didache, written by early Christians and possibly Apostles themselves, often thought to have an apostolic origin, tells us how to baptize. The Didache was written around 60-80 A.D. and is accepted by almost ALL christian faiths as a work of credible early christian writing, sort of like the first “catechism” to define and explain positions and doctrine of the Church.
It says concerning baptism:
The evidence is striking folks. There is FAR more evidence telling us that Baptism IS water baptism, and that it IS salvific in nature. Water is a source of life. Water is also destructive. Water seems to contradict itself. How fitting is it that the most powerful thing on earth represents God’s redemptive grace on us.
It says concerning baptism:
With this, as well as other Biblical and early Christian writings from the first and second centuries, we can safely conclude the intent and meaning of baptism. The conclusion, when you look at all evidence, can only conclude this:
- Baptism removes previous sins.
- Baptism cleanses our conscience.
- Baptism is the vessel of our salvation, that which carries us in unity to Christ, uniting us in His sacrifice.
The evidence is striking folks. There is FAR more evidence telling us that Baptism IS water baptism, and that it IS salvific in nature. Water is a source of life. Water is also destructive. Water seems to contradict itself. How fitting is it that the most powerful thing on earth represents God’s redemptive grace on us.
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light1house
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light1house
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Well we have gone a few pages from this post where I made a point about the difference in baptism with water and the baptism of the HS.
forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=4922544&postcount=31
I suppose its just much more tidy to combine the two. It also gives a sense of insurance to the receivers that now they have received the HS. I would think that God reads your mind and thoughts and prepares you to receive his gift of the Holy Spirit, but according to you this all happens at the time of the submersion in water. No wonder we dont need the word, or cant trust it.“The evidence is striking folks” we have a magic bath tub that fixes every thing, inside and out…LOL just having a little fun.
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selah603
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selah603;4930491:
It is obvious to me that you are not really interested in intelligent conversation. You keep telling me what you think I believe, not answering to what I have already written I believe.
I wish you the very best in your journey and pray that you find peace!!
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kobudodave
Guest
There is NO mention in the bible that the baptism of the Holy Spirit gives salvation. I urge you to find me proof of this. I NEVER said that the two happened at the same time. You, however, have been trying to tell us that you only need one, and not the other to be “saved”. I have shown you that it isn’t HS Baptism that saves you, but Water Baptism, and yet you refuse to acknowledge the sources for which I have given proof.Well we have gone a few pages from this post where I made a point about the difference in baptism with water and the baptism of the HS.
forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=4922544&postcount=31
I suppose its just much more tidy to combine the two. It also gives a sense of insurance to the receivers that now they have received the HS. I would think that God reads your mind and thoughts and prepares you to receive his gift of the Holy Spirit, but according to you this all happens at the time of the submersion in water. No wonder we dont need the word, or cant trust it.“The evidence is striking folks” we have a magic bath tub that fixes every thing, inside and out…LOL just having a little fun.
There are accounts where the HS had been given BEFORE baptism, as well as after. The account in Acts 10, you see Cornelius the Centurion and his family filled with the HS before they were baptized. But if they were already “saved”, why did they still need the water baptism? For Peter said “Can anyone keep these people from being baptized with water?” And then he orders them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.
The issue here is to determine if water baptism is necessary for salvation. Not to determine which comes first, or if they come together at the same time.
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kobudodave
Guest
I think that you are still putting words in our mouths. NO ONE has said that we don’t, as Catholics, believe that God had his hand in making the Bible available for ALL future generations. But it WAS done through the Catholic Church, which speaks to the credibility of the Catholic Church, that God chose the Catholic Church, the institution that he created to be the “pillar and bulwark of truth” to have His word distributed. If the Catholic Church were not the “True” Church that Christ established, and the Catholic Church was a work of Satan, do you think God would entrust His word to us? How credible would that make the Word of God if it was left in the hands of Satan? God is NOT a fool, and neither is he the author of confusion. It is confusing to think that the Bible would be entrusted to an apostate faith, that smears the name and will of God. God first and foremost works through faithful and honest followers.
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kobudodave
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And also, the “Gift of the Holy Spirit” is NOTHING compared to the gift of salvation, made possible firstly through baptism. And then it takes a repentant life (meaning an active will to change for the better, to follow closely in Christ’s footsteps) to even have a hope of keeping that gift. Thats right… Salvation isn’t guaranteed, even to baptized Christians.
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light1house
Guest
Well Balaam’s donkey had more sense than Balaam and the LORD used him also.
I dont care if the devil himself had the only copy on earth the LORD would ensure that it was preserved.
And the NT was mainly constructed to keep the division of Christians from expanding. It didn’t take long for differences to form and we have plenty of evidence that false teachers were prevalent in the times of the Apostles also. Given that and the word that says not many shall enter into the narrow gate. You have to wonder about the catholics roots, the fall of the Roman empire the power given the church from the east in 530 something AD. The ability for the church to put down all the pagan religions in Rome and become the religion of Rome is that the work of Jesus or men building or trying to save an empire. The dogma that no one else can represent God. The similarity’s in some of your traditions that were also found in pagan beliefs. Please there is plenty to consider but I dont wish to discredit your faith. The very fact that Rome was perhaps the power that brought the church and the pagans under one roof is suspect to any amateur history reader. But you are here and you have faith in Jesus even if it does not agree with mine. I have liberties that I take in Christ and you dont. You have practices that in no way can the Spirit in me submit to like praying to Mary or the saints. Their are others that I dont need to mention, I rejoice in the fact that you teach Jesus, but you by proclamation of your church will not or cant do the same for me. BTW the true church will be gathered together by Christ He will separate the sheep and the goats. The wheat and the tars grew up together. The sheep know His voice and will not follow another. The body of Christ has different members.
Did you know that you can not tell the difference between tars and wheat until the ears open.
“Tares
The bearded darnel, mentioned only in Mt 13:25-30 It is the Lolium temulentum, a species of rye-grass, the seeds of which are a strong soporific poison. It bears the closest resemblance to wheat till the ear appears, and only then the difference is discovered. It grows plentifully in Syria and Palestine.” The tare’s fruit, the seeds, contains a poisonous soporific drug. A drug that induces deep sleep, or causes one to become drowsy and lethargic.
The word soporific used in English.
soporific \sop-uh-RIF-ik; so-puh-, adjective:
- Causing sleep; tending to cause sleep.
- Of, relating to, or characterized by sleepiness or lethargy.
A medicine, drug, plant, or other agent that has the quality of inducing sleep; a narcotic.
Hamilton’s voice droned on, hypnotic, soporific, the gloom beyond the windows like the backdrop of a waking dream.
–T. Coraghessan Boyle, Riven Rock
They were almost an hour behind in their daily schedule, and both women looked tired after a soporific afternoon of three executive meetings.
–Gabriel Garcia Marquez, News of a Kidnapping
Happily, these three lullaby books offer the sort of comforting bedtime soporific that has delivered generations of children, young and older, into deep, safe slumber.
–Lisa Shea, review of The Animals’ Lullaby, by Tom Paxton; Time For Bed, by Mem Fox; and I Love You as Much . . ., by Laura Krauss Melmed, New York Times, January 30, 1994
Thought you might be interested in that bit of trivia
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kobudodave
Guest
Sense and intent are not the same. If God would have his word spread by “trustworthy” and “righteous” men, and men with “good standing” amongst the community, it also stands to reason that God would have the Bible also brought about by the same method. Of COURSE God would ensure that it was preserved. And Scripture tells us that the “deposit of faith” WAS/IS preserved by the Holy Spirit. But how can the Catholic Church have the Holy Spirit so validly present to preserve the “deposit of faith” if the Catholic Church was so apostate?
Of course few will enter by the narrow gate. The Catholic Church understands that. Not every Catholic or Christian is going to heaven. We are not guaranteed salvation, only the hope of salvation. I have been a Christian almost my entire life, but there was a time after I was a baptized Christian that I would have gone to Hell. I know I would have. I was completely separate from the faith. I went off and became a Buddhist (and later became a wiccan). I swore that there was no God. But by way of baptism, I would have been considered an apostate Christian. Someone who once followed Christ. I was lost. Catholics are only a fraction of the Worlds population. And among them, about half are lax, and a fourth of the lax no longer hold to their faith at all. That leaves less than a 20th of the world that practice their Catholic faith in Christ. And even then, some of those may not make it into heaven. There are some Christians, outside of the Catholic faith, who will make it too. But still, the number is a fraction of the worlds pop. A minority. Many will seek, but few shall enter.
You know, I don’t have to worry about Catholic’s roots. I have been studying this history in GREAT detail. It doesn’t matter if Catholicism became the religion of Rome. It was because people were turning to God. Hallelujia! Praise Jehovah! They were turning away from Satan, paganism. And yet, Satan uses that against the Lord’s Church. He turns a triumph of God’s into matter of contention. “How dare the Lord’s Church become an official Religion.” That sounds like the Leftist America that we Christians are having to contend with today!
You know, ALL of Christianity resembles some form of paganism somewhere along the line. Zorostrianism, for instnace, looks a LOT like most Protestant Christianity, but it pre-dates ALL of christianity. Why? Who knows.
I take plenty of liberties in Christ thankyou. It is because of Christ that I have liberties, and it is by His grace.
And the whole sheep thing… Well, Christ is coming back, and of course he is going to separate the righteous from the wicked. Don’t use that to be pompus. You are acting like you speak for God when you say things like that, passing judgments. I have done nothing wicked here today. So for all I am concerned, you could be being hypocritical, since I don’'t know what you have done today. And I can, by way of my religion, be proud to call you brother/sister for trying your hardest to do as God wills. There are TONS of misconceptions about the Catholic Faith, and that is just one of them. We are Catholic for a reason. Catholic means “Universal”. You would be considered by the Catholic faith, a lost brother/sister in Christ.
Satan works hard to try and discredit the Catholic Church, yet for 2000 years it has stood strong, still full of God’s grace and merit.
You will have to go to another thread to see what we really think about asking Mary and the Saints to Pray for us. They are the “Cloud of witnesses” that seek for us to win the race, and they cheer us on until the race is won.
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kobudodave
Guest
The trivia was interesting. I wasn’t aware that tares were poison… You learn something everyday.
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light1house
Guest
In the secular world people would refer to that statement as, the pot calling the kettle black. No religion is more pompus than the catholics, you proudly pass judgment on the world apart from our church membership rolls. Turning a blind eye to short comings within its own walls, then condemning the world outside to separation of God by virtue of its presumed authority. I find it amusing that you accuse me of judging yet you stand and judge all except your own. I also find it interesting that all over the world you find the catholic church, yet in many of these cultures they still retain practices of their former faith within the church, could the same have accured in Rome? The injection or retaining of old practices?
“Do not judge so that you will not be judged. 2 “For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you. 3 “Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? 4 “Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ and behold, the log is in your own eye? 5 “You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.
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mlchance
Guest
Jesus Christ said:
You yourself should heed the advice above that you earlier quoted. It’d keep from saying nonsense such as this:
You’ll find that heeding the aforesaid advice improves not only your own character but also the moral weight of your witness. Your fuzzy logic and unclear syntax also do not help your case. For example, “catholics” is not a “religion” and it is silly to say otherwise.
– Mark L. Chance.
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kobudodave
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Listen here, friend. You came to a Catholic web forum, and you post about how “wrong” we are, and you have the audacity to tell me that I am a pot calling the kettle black? You say that the Catholic Church is the most pompous religion out there? The Catholic Church happens to be (at least currently) one of the most accepting of the Christian faiths. No religion has been perfect. All faiths have done something they are ashamed of. But it wasn’t the Church that did those things, it was people within the Church. I condemn no one. Not even you. Not even the child-molester in the prison two towns over. That is not my place. But when you so nicely said “BTW the true church will be gathered together by Christ He will separate the sheep and the goats”, you in fact are the pot calling the kettle black. You are passing judgment on me by saying that. It points out that you think you are of the sheep, and we are of the goats. I don’t go around to other “religions” web forums and tell them that they are wrong. But if you come here, to OUR forums, and tell us that we are wrong, don’t you dare think you can take the high road and act all high and mighty. Most of us try to be humble in our presentation, just as Christ was. Unless you turn our Lord into a mockery, we treat you with respect. And you are venturing into that area.
I think I am done conversing with you for a time. You obviously have no interest in taking the scriptures as a whole, as you generally gloss over the scripture we provide and try and circumvent it by saying that “this verse means that this is the way it is”, when there are multiple verses that show a more complete picture.
I wish nothing but the best for you, but you try my patience and you are becoming less and less friendly in your presentation.
May God Bless you further,
David
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kobudodave
Guest
So, back to the original topic. I feel that the passage in John 3: 4-5 is speaking of the water baptism, of dying in Christ, and being Born a New Creature through Christ, as well as the birth of your new spirit in Christ. Now, spirit and soul should not necessarily viewed as the same thing. The spirit of giving is obviously different than the spirit of killing. We are born with a stained spirit, one of sin, and through being “born again” in water baptism, we are given a new purpose, a new spirit, to live a God filled life.
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BRB1
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Southern Baptist would generally agree with you. Other Baptist and Pentecostals will say Christ meant born of women … amniotic water.
But, then ask them why Christ was Baptized, if it wasn’t essential. They don’t have an answer.
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BRB1
Guest
The Church teaches that Baptism by water ‘marks’ or ‘seals’ one into Christ. However, the H.S. is not necessarily ‘poured out’ on one. It would depend on the circumstances. If an infant is baptized … the ‘pouring out’ of H.S. might necessarily occur at a later date. Perhaps at Confirmation ?
Or, if an adult being baptized has some unconfessed sins … the receipt of H.S. may of necessity be delayed until one is properly disposed to receive the ‘outpouring’ of grace.
Same applies for receipt of full grace of Eucharist … when one withholds confession of a mortal sin.
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selah603
Guest
My concern is that syntax will not be understood. As a former English teacher, I gave up last night.
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Jerry_Marino
Guest
would this be water baptism?
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