This is a terrible analogy.
Taking your medication and washing it down is the same thing.
Believing and baptism are two distinct things.
You are getting desperate.
Saved by faith alone?
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Taking your medication and washing it down is the same thing.
Believing and baptism are two distinct things.
You are getting desperate.
Mark 16:16 - He who believes and is baptized will be saved (general cases without making a qualification for the unusual case of someone who believes but is not baptized) but he who does not believe will be condemned.
The omission of baptized with "does not believe" shows that Jesus does not make baptism absolutely necessary for salvation. Condemnation rests on unbelief and not on a lack of baptism. *NOWHERE does the Bible say, "baptized or condemned."
If water baptism is absolutely required for salvation, then we would expect Jesus to mention it in the following verses. (3:15,16,18; 5:24; 6:29,40,47; 11:25,26) Yet what is the ONE requirement that Jesus mentions NINE different times in each of these complete statements *BELIEVES. *What happened to baptism? *Hermeneutics.
John 3:18 - He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who (is not water baptized? - NO) does not believe is condemned already, because he has not (been water baptized? - NO) because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
it's actually a great analogy. Taking your medication and washing it down with water are two distinct things. Just as believing and baptism are two distinct things. This is common sense.
But that is the effect of what you're doing. You say you're not discouraging people, but you really are. I know because I was influenced by your way of thinking that I heard from others like yourself. You in effect minimize the importance of water baptism, whatever purpose it was meant to serve. But it obviously is important to God as much as it's mentioned in scripture.
Selective Emphasis is a recurring fallacy used to imply exclusion. You're applying it again in John3:18. Just because baptism isn’t mentioned in every verse doesn’t mean it’s not required. That’s not hermeneutics - it’s system-driven omission. We don’t build doctrine by counting verses that mention belief while ignoring the ones that join it to baptism.
I wonder if people who are so obsessed with works and spend so much time and effort denigrating them are recovering cathaholics, who are so fearful of a relapse that they eschew anything work related.
Nothing personal towards anybody, but I agree with this.
The mental - spiritual - effects of right & of wrong doctrine can be profound. Placing some wood, hay, and straw among the gold, silver, and precious stones in the building weakens and lessens the quality of the entire individual and corporate structure. The "workers" are going to suffer loss for this.
It's human nature to speak and write in ways that get the point across without having to repeat every little detail every single time.
In my experience the answer is some but not all. But I do think the whole system was built, expanded, and even perverted in response to RC. It became absurd with the dreaded "works" hiding behind every door.
Thus and also Biblical reality. The shorthand type techniques are extensive.
Salvation is by faith alone placed IN the Saviour Christ Jesus.
Water baptism is not included in the ordor salutis of scripture and you have explained it correctly many times.
The End.
Just because water bathism is not the means by which we obtain salvation does not mean that it's not important. That fact did not discourage me from being water baptized and I could not wait to get water baptized after my conversion!
Baptism is a symbol of salvation in that it pictures Christ's death, burial and resurrection and our identification with Him in these experiences. In reality, believers are literally saved by what baptism symbolizes--Christ's death, burial and resurrection. (1 Corinthians 15:1-4)
Baptism would have no meaning without Christ’s death, burial and resurrection, but Christ’s death, burial and resurrection would still have meaning, even if there were no baptism. In other words, Christ’s death, burial and resurrection is the substance and baptism is the symbol/picture. Without the substance there would be no symbol/picture.
Baptism is not the "symbol" of the remission of sins, it is the "when" of the remission of sins.
The remission of sins is signified but not procured in water baptism. I received the remission of sins and the Holy Spirit when I believed in Him (Acts 10:43) just like these Gentiles did prior to receiving water baptism. (Acts 10:47)
Water immersion was "when" temple priests were commissioned into the Levitical priesthood, was "when" Jesus was commissioned into the order of Melchizedek and possibly is "when" believers in Christ are commisioned into the kingdom of priests.
Water baptism's purpose is a pledge of a good conscious towards God. Have you now gone to the other extreme and say water baptism is essential for salvation?