How could the Jews bring their children into the covenant of the Circumcised without their permission?I didn’t say by the power of god, I said will. How can we will someones reception of the spirit for them?
God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are three Persons, but one God, acting with one Divine will. So, the Holy Spirit certainly goes where He wills - which is the same as where the Father wills, and where Jesus wills, because they all share the same will. So when Jesus (in His priest) acts to baptize someone, regardless of their age, Jesus wills for the Holy Spirit to come on to that person - and since the Holy Spirit shares the same will as Jesus, the Holy Spirit also wills to do so - there is no conflict and no contradiction.When Jesus told Nicodemus that one must be born of water and spirit in order to enter the kingdom of God he also said that the Spirit is like the wind and that you cannot see it where it goes or where it is coming from but that you can only see the affects such as the wind blowing on the trees.
How should we respond to a protestant argument which says that infant baptism destroys this principle of the Spirit because we are declaring that the Spirit always comes from God through the Priest into every born infant whose parents are Christians.
In other words, Jesus seems to say that the movement of the spirit is spontaneous where it wants to go, but in the sacrament of infant baptism there is not spontaneity but 100% spirit infusion.
Is the underlying suggestion in this thread basically that once you’ve received God’s love once, you can’t receive it again?Yes but the one passage which connects baptism with circumcision speaks of “faith” as the mediating instrument of the circumcision of the heart.
Without trying to read his mind thereI really doubt that Paul had that in mind in colossians 2. It is very straightforward
The infant can be made holy by the faith of the parents.Yes but the one passage which connects baptism with circumcision speaks of “faith” as the mediating instrument of the circumcision of the heart.
Fair enough; the Spirit is like the wind in that it is invisible per se yet it’s effects can be visible.When Jesus told Nicodemus that one must be born of water and spirit in order to enter the kingdom of God he also said that the Spirit is like the wind and that you cannot see it where it goes or where it is coming from but that you can only see the affects such as the wind blowing on the trees.
Some refutations are very easy - this happens to be one of them.How should we respond to a protestant argument which says that … Jesus seems to say that the movement of the spirit is spontaneous where it wants to go, but in the sacrament of infant baptism there is not spontaneity but 100% spirit infusion.
Irrelevant. The initial Prot argument was that John 3:5 reveals that the Spirit is spontaneous (Prot claim) and that the Cath claim of predictability in baptism contradicts this. That argument fails for two reasons:And acts 2:38 is still a promise to repentance and faith which are already gifts of the spirit.
I don’t know…there is a recurring theme in the johannine literature…]
The theme? Water and miracles
Ch 1 Jesus is God
Ch 2 Wedding at Cana - first miracle involving…water
Ch 3 Nicodemus and the supernatural birth involving…water. Followed by:
“After these things Jesus and His disciples came into the land of Judea, and there He remained with them and baptized.” The discussion with Nicodemus involves water baptism.
Ch 4 The woman at the well involving…water
Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”
Ch 5 The pool of Bethseda where there was healing involving…water. Christ show that He contains the very power of the Spirit by healing the man who could not get to the pool.
Lots of water stuff going on, doncha think??
:clapping::clapping:Fair enough; the Spirit is like the wind in that it is invisible per se yet it’s effects can be visible.
Some refutations are very easy - this happens to be one of them.
The verse says absolutely nothing regarding the spontaneity of the Spirit; it speaks to it’s* invisibility even though it’s actions are often visible. * As support for my position I would offer Peter’s words on the day of Pentecost to the Jews (Acts 2:38):
Then Peter said to them, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
It sure sounds like Peter had the expectation that the Holy Spirit was also very predictable and ordered in it’s response to repentance and baptism just as Catholics believe (even though the Spirit also has a level of autonomy and spontaneity in other things). I’d then point out this closing point directly from Peter’s words: “For the promise is to you* and to your children…”*
In short, he says: Baptize your selves and your children and you will all receive the gift of the holy spirit! Is there really any question who’s position has a stronger Scriptural basis?
Blessings!
Actually, no - we are responding to His promise that He will come down when we do these ritual actions. Remember, He “invented” the ritual - not us!I’m just trying to understand jesus’ teaching on the self will of the spirit and infant baptism. Its a bit difficult since we are telling the spirit to come down
- But in respect of the case of the infants, which you say ought not to be baptized within the second or third day after their birth, and that the law of ancient circumcision should be regarded, so that you think that one who is just born should not be baptized and sanctified within the eighth day, we all thought very differently in our council. For in this course which you thought was to be taken, no one agreed; but we all rather judge that the mercy and grace of God is not to be refused to any one born of man. For as the Lord says in His Gospel, “The Son of man is not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them,” Luke 4:56 as far as we Can, We must strive that, if possible, no soul be lost. For what is wanting to him who has once been formed in the womb by the hand of God? To us, indeed, and to our eyes, according to the worldly course of days, they who are born appear to receive an increase. But whatever things are made by God, are completed by the majesty and work of God their Maker.
- Moreover, belief in divine Scripture declares to us, that among all, whether infants or those who are older, there is the same equality of the divine gift. Elisha, beseeching God, so laid himself upon the infant son of the widow, who was lying dead, that his head was applied to his head, and his face to his face, and the limbs of Elisha were spread over and joined to each of the limbs of the child, and his feet to his feet. If this thing be considered with respect to the inequality of our birth and our body, an infant could not be made equal with a person grown up and mature, nor could its little limbs fit and be equal to the larger limbs of a man. But in that is expressed the divine and spiritual equality, that all men are like and equal, since they have once been made by Cool; and our age may have a difference in the increase of our bodies, according to the world, but not according to God; unless that very grace also which is given to the baptized is given either less or more, according to the age of the receivers, whereas the Holy Spirit is not given with measure, but by the love and mercy of the Father alike to all. For God, as He does not accept the person, so does not accept the age; since He shows Himself Father to all with well-weighed equality for the attainment of heavenly grace.
- For, with respect to what you say, that the aspect of an infant in the first days after its birth is not pure, so that any one of us would still shudder at kissing it, we do not think that this ought to be alleged as any impediment to heavenly grace. For it is written, “To the pure all things are pure.” Titus 1:15 Nor ought any of us to shudder at that which God has condescended to make. For although the infant is still fresh from its birth, yet it is not such that any one should shudder at kissing it in giving grace and in making peace; since in the kiss of an infant every one of us ought for his very religion’s sake, to consider the still recent hands of God themselves, which in some sort we are kissing, in the man lately formed and freshly born, when we are embracing that which God has made. For in respect of the observance of the eighth day in the Jewish circumcision of the flesh, a sacrament was given beforehand in shadow and in usage; but when Christ came, it was fulfilled in truth. For because the eighth day, that is, the first day after the Sabbath, was to be that on which the Lord should rise again, and should quicken us, and give us circumcision of the spirit, the eighth day, that is, the first day after the Sabbath, and the Lord’s day, went before in the figure; which figure ceased when by and by the truth came, and spiritual circumcision was given to us.
You should read the whole letter, but as a father of 4 and 3/4 kids, I love that part of in bold … “since in the kiss of an infant every one of us ought for his very religion’s sake, to consider the still recent hands of God themselves, which in some sort we are kissing, in the man lately formed and freshly born, when we are embracing that which God has made.” Beautiful!!
- For which reason we think that no one is to be hindered from obtaining grace by that law which was already ordained, and that spiritual circumcision ought not to be hindered by carnal circumcision, but that absolutely every man is to be admitted to the grace of Christ, since Peter also in the Acts of the Apostles speaks, and says, “The Lord has said to me that I should call no man common or unclean.” Acts 10:28 But if anything could hinder men from obtaining grace, their more heinous sins might rather hinder those who are mature and grown up and older. But again, if even to the greatest sinners, and to those who had sinned much against God, when they subsequently believed, remission of sins is granted— and nobody is hindered from baptism and from grace— how much rather ought we to shrink from hindering an infant, who, being lately born, has not sinned, except in that, being born after the flesh according to Adam, he has contracted the contagion of the ancient death at its earliest birth, who approaches the more easily on this very account to the reception of the forgiveness of sins— that to him are remitted, not his own sins, but the sins of another.