Well, as you can see, the work here at salguod.net is progressing nicely. There's still much to do, no Scripturizer, no Acronyms, No subscribe forms, no formatting buttons and I haven't even begun to work on the individual pages yet. I have some thoughts for some more substantive posts, but that will have to wait until later.
Until then, I leave you with these tidbits:
1 - Someone left the door open and Greg has snuck back into the blogsphere while we weren't looking. The sentry must have been napping. I've returned his link to it's rightful place in my newly returned blogroll.
2 - In a somewhat rambling thread (registration required) at ICOCnews that I haven't even read all of, I found this gem of a quote on baptism from Mark, aka Snookerdoodle:
The answer I like best goes like this: God can save anyone he darned well wants to, even if they don't get Immersed For The Forgiveness Of Sins. But he has promised said salvation to folks who do so. So, we are left with a choice between taking him up on his offer or turning it down and hoping we'll be another Thief On The Cross Special Case.
What about Grandma Who Never Got Baptized? That's really none of our stinking business and we have no way of knowing anyway.
My thoughts exactly.
Anyway, back to the updates.
Hey doug: what's the relevant scripture passage(s) where god promises salvation to anyone who gets baptized? Thanks, E
Well, growing up in the CoC (traditional CoC), these are the ones I remember off the top of my head:
Acts 2:38
Peter replied, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
1 Peter 3:21
and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also, not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a good conscience toward God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ,
I think Colossians 2:11-14 could imply the same:
11In him you were also circumcised, in the putting off of the sinful nature, not with a circumcision done by the hands of men but with the circumcision done by Christ, 12 having been buried with him in baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead.
13When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, 14having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross.
I think since he connects the idea of baptism in v11-12 with the forgiveness of sin in v14, the implication is strong that baptism is the avenue of salvation. But then again, I'm not a theologian and am doing a lot of study on this myself, having mostly just accepted a lot of these verses at face value, the way they were taught to me as a child.
Thinking about it a bit more, I think I'd replace the word 'salvation' with 'forgiveness'. Forgiveness is perhaps the main point of salvation, but not the only point, so it really would be saying the same thing essentially.
Erik - I had a hunch I'd get some questions from you. :-)
Gem - Those are good scriptures, but there are more.
I'm going to put some more thought into it and post my response later.
Yep, I'm sure there are more, although I did a search at BibleGateway.com and these were the ones I felt most connected baptism with salvation. I'm looking forward to more.
Personally, I think we spend way too much time being opinionated about The Command of Baptism and not nearly enough viewing it as the The Gift of Baptism.
I think it'd be an easier "sell" expressed that way.
And a greater joy to all.
Keith, thanks for the link, it's a great post. I'm not sure I've got my mind wrapped around the idea yet, I'll have to chew on it for a while.
Heh - seeing this on my screen is WAY better than seeing "snookerdoodle was railed by arcticseaturtle" on my screen, though not as fun as seeing "arcticseaturtle saw the pretty lights from snookerdoodle's BFG". (If you don't know what that means, you're better off for it!) :)
Seriously, I agree that forgiveness is probably more what I meant.
More importantly, any discussion of "salvation" that avoids God's gifts ("charis" == "grace") and mercy (e.g.: forgiveness) is bound to miss the boat. I'm really glad to see it brought back into the mix and confess that I don't remember the whole discussion on icocnews and am off to re-read it. I also really enjoyed Keith's post on "gifts" on his blog.
I think we're all just grateful to get invited to the party. It's like Jesus is our well-connected friend sneaking us in or something. 'Dunno what made me think of that while reading these comments...
Doug:
I like that quote alot.
-Clarke
Erik - Since I've got some other things on my mind that I'm eager to post about, I'm not sure I'll get back to this soon.
You can check out my post on "What is Salvation" (from a year ago) for a pretty thorough take on baptism in the Reconciliation section. You and I went back and forth a bit on it then in the comments. :-) It's interesting to read, I'm not sure I'd write the same things now that I did then, but my fundamental convictions are still the same.
Argh! For some reason, MT is now stripping the links & formatting out of comments!
You can use the search box at the upper right, or the link to 'October 2004' in the archives to find that post.