It is true a person must repent and believe before he can be baptized. You admit as much yourself by this quote from the thread “All have sinned… including Mary.” :
justasking4:
Yes. However, do they need to be baptized to be saved as if pouring water on them or dunking someone who does not understand really save them as if there is some special power in the water to do so?
guanophore:
The special power present in baptism comes from Jesus, ja4. Your statement here indicates that you have not understood the Scriptures:
" And now why do you wait? Rise and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on his name.’ Acts 22:15-16
In baptism, a candidate calls upon the Name of the Lord, and his sins are washed away by the blood of Jesus.
"… that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, Eph 5:26
It is required that the participants in baptism understand this, otherwise, it is not a valid baptism.
I agree with this last statement and the let me show you where this leads to: infant baptism’ would not qualify as being valid for the reasons you give. They are incapable of understanding.
Well, we see it differently, ja4. According to the Apostolic Tradiion, those present that are able to make a profession of faith are the parents, godparents, and faith community. Baptism is the initiation into the New Covenant, and replaces circumcision, the initiation into the Old Covenant. Obviously, God was clear that every male in the household committed to God was to be circumcised.
" In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of flesh in the circumcision of Christ; 12 and you were buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead." Col 2:10-12
Do you deny that baptism is the replacement of circumcision?
Do you deny that circumcision was given to all in a believing household, consent or not?
Do you deny that Mary and Joseph presented Jesus for circumcision?
Baptism of infants is based upon the faith of the parents and godparents, just as circumcision was.
Of course you pray to the dead i.e. those who have died and you believe are in heaven. You also do not know what the nature of life is in heaven in regards to this matter. It has not been revealed.
Where in the passage that you quote does it say that the dead can hear your prayers here?
We believe what Jesus taught, that God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. All are alive unto Him. Since we are not limited to the Scripture, we can confidently trust in the Teaching of Jesus through the Apostles. Just as Jesus conversed with those who had passed from this life, we can have confidence that all those who are absent from us are present with Him.
2 Cor 5:8-9
we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord.
In these passages that you are thinking of, was this the norm? Was this something that Jesus or His apostles taught that this was the grounds for communicating with the dead i.e. those whose bodies are in graves?
I am not sure what you mean when you say “was this the norm?” If you are speaking of the time prior to Christ’s resurrection, then I would say unequivacably no. Even though Samuel, Moses, and Elijah appeared before that time and demonstrated they were aware of events on the earth, the communion of saints had not yet been established by Christ.
Jesus created a Body, and made it clear that nothing, including death, would separate us from HIs love. It is His love that binds us one to another, therefore, to the extent that we are all in HIs love, we are connected both to Him, and one another.
It looks like you are appealing to Romans 8:35-39 which says
35 Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,39 nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Where in any of these verse does it say communication with those who are in heaven can hear your prayers?
Actually, no, I am not “appealing” to Scripture. Asking the intercession of those who have gone on before us in the faith is an Apostolic practice. It just so happens that some of the rationale for this is found in Scripture.
Those in heaven can hear whatever God wants them to hear. This was the case with Samuel when appeared to Saul, and when Moses and Elijah appeared at the Transfiguration.
Notice also that the “separation” has to do with the “love of God and Christ” and not with us in this world and the next. To say that is to read into the texts what is not there.
Separation and division is the fruit of the Reformation, of which you are a child. On the contrary, apostolic teaching makes it clear to us that there is only One Body, and that death does not separate us from it. It is the love of Jesus that makes use members of His Body, and members one of another.
It seems that this teaching about us being members one of another really grates on you, ja4, because I guess you don’t want to be joined with any Catholics. However, you do seem to accept the scripture, and it states very clearly that all that have been baptized into Him are members of the One Body. It is a mystery to me why you think that Jesus would have “dead” members of Himself.
I know that Jesus says there is joy in Heaven when a sinner comes to repentance, Hebrews 12:1 says we’re surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. Those in Heaven do not have the same limitations we have on earth.
