Saved by faith alone?
- Thread starter Lamar
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1. You're missing the point. It's a divine righteousness. It's source is God.
2. A person's own righteousness need not be imputed. The person already possesses it.
You for sure certainly don't know the truth, as you continually demonstrate it by going way out of your way in feeble attempts to distort the plain, straightforward words of scripture by offering your convoluted, complicated logic as to why the aforementioned straightforward, simple words of scripture don't mean what they clearly say, words that can be understood by children.
How many children would read these simple words of scripture (John 3:15,16,18; Acts 10:43; 13:38-39; 15:7-9; 16:31; 26:18; Romans 1:16; 3:24-26; 4:5-6; 5:1-2; Ephesians 2:8,9 etc..) then, walk away saying we absolutely must be water baptized in order to be saved? - 0
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.
You have just proven my point by your response and have exposed yourself. You are funny, but not really, because your message is false, which is sad.
Succinctly, it was Abraham's faith that was imputed to him for righteousness, as is stated in scripture. There is no 'effort' in faith, in fact, it only requires a rest from one's own exertions. Would you consider the act of worrying to be any sort of work? "...as if worrying could add a day to your life."
And I hope that my thoughts are not taken as dismissing the righteousness of Christ to have no effect on man.
God confers (grants) faith in Jesus Christ as righteousness, once they display that.
You have exposed yourself by ignoring the second half of Mark 16:16 and also by failing to properly harmonize scripture with scripture before reaching your conclusion on doctrine.
No. God confers the righteousness of Christ upon believers.
Go back to the beginning of chapter 3. Paul asks a series of questions that he anticipates his Jewish audience would ask given that he has espoused salvation by grace through faith rather than by the law. And he works through the argument in the chapter. In chapter 4, he uses Abraham as an example that his audience would be familiar with.
The righteousness of God is what is conferred. It is conferred through grace, and not through the law. This is what is being taught.
Sorry for the length. The bold near the end kind of sums up what I think is going on in 1Pet3:21.
Thanks! I admittedly was waiting to see if you’d do your interlinear. Some observations:
- Baptism:
- There are different baptisms in the Text. Baptism needs to be considered in context.
- I see this one as primarily being our baptism of suffering as believers at the hands of sinners in similarity to the baptism of suffering Jesus went through at the hands of sinners Matt20:22-23; Mark10:38-39; Luke12:50. The entire context here (I went from 1Pet1:1-4:3) is suffering as believers.
- If this has application to initial baptism when we first believe, it would be secondary and I’d have to work through it.
- Salvation:
- Being saved also always has a context.
- Assuming baptism is primarily as stated above, then salvation is also in the context of being saved from or through undeserved suffering at the hands of sinners.
- Eperōtēma:
- I agree with what’s been said about it – both in Greek and compared to the Hebrew.
- BDAG defines it in 2 senses: 1. the content of asking, question; 2. a formal request, appeal. It identifies 1Pet3:21 under this second definition.
- I earlier said I’d have to think about how to translate a couple other words that have similar meanings. In NKJ 1 Peter 3:12 "For the eyes of the LORD are on the righteous, And His ears are open to their prayers-deēsis, this Greek word according to BDAG means urgent request to meet a need, exclusively addressed to God, prayer."
- So, I would probably go with something like “urgent appeal” for eperōtēma (agreeing with @PaulThomson re: the compound word with epi intensifying the base word & with @ChristRoseFromTheDead re: some of the formality of a petition) and “urgent request” for deēsis rather than "prayer" which is too general. I also think these 2 words and verses are being basically paralleled here in 1Peter and that each has this sense of urgency, which fits with the concept of salvation from suffering.
- Conscience:
- Suneidēsis: BDAG 1. awareness of information about someth., consciousness; 2. the inward faculty of distinguishing right and wrong, moral consciousness, conscience; 3. attentiveness to obligation, conscientiousness
- We can see the range here which speaks of both the faculty of conscience and of awareness and attentiveness to obligation.
- NKJ 1 Peter2:19 For this is commendable, if because of-dia conscience-suneidēsis [toward] God one endures-hupoferō grief-lupē, suffering-paschō wrongfully-adikōs.
- "if dia conscience [genitive] God"
- The NKJ sees the genitive as objective – conscience toward God
- It could also be descriptive – God-consciousness
- We could probably boil this down to a preference, but at times I like to be able to apply whatever makes sense and all 3 of the BDAG definitions have merit that I could apply here. And all 3 are oriented toward God. And in this sense, both the objective and subjective-descriptive genitives can have some application.
- This is setting the tone for how Peter is speaking of having a conscience oriented towards God and doing His will 1Pet2:15; 1Pet3:17; 1Pet4:2
- 1Pet3:15-16 But sanctify the Lord God in-en your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to-pros everyone who asks you a reason for-peri the hope that is in-en you, with-meta meekness and fear; 16 having a good conscience, that-hina when-en they defame you as evildoers, those who revile your good conduct in-en Christ may be ashamed.
- Having & maintaining a “good conscience” here is part of the command to sanctify the Lord in our hearts, so we're also commanded to have a good conscience.
- A “good conscience” I’d see in context at minimum as one oriented to God and doing His will and in close context in 1Pet3:12-13 being righteous and being “zēlōtēs of what is good”.
- Suneidēsis: BDAG 1. awareness of information about someth., consciousness; 2. the inward faculty of distinguishing right and wrong, moral consciousness, conscience; 3. attentiveness to obligation, conscientiousness
- Rather than continuing for now, based upon the above and a few more observations in 1Pet3:21 itself:
- 1Pet3:20 is obviously setting up the comparison for 1Pet3:21.
- As @PaulThomson showed in his interlinear, “water” in v.20 is what’s being referred to at the beginning of v.21.
- Grammatically if we take “baptism” = “___________” = a corresponding thing (antitupos – to the Noahic flood) – everything else in 1Pet3:21-22 fills in the blank describing what this baptism is.
- Interestingly Peter doesn’t really focus on the destruction of the disobedient ungodly in the flood but uses the water as the means of saving Noah and family, which parallels His using the resurrection of Christ to save believers in suffering.
- Also, there is some wording I think the English translations I looked at are missing in v.20: “diasōthēsan di’ hudatos”. If we note “dia” is repeated in the compound and then on its own. Again, to BDAG, diasōzō means to rescue or deliver from a hazard or danger. Other Lexicons are more literal and essentially say “to save or deliver through a danger”. If we take dia hudatos as “by means of water” then we have something like “saved through danger by means of water”. So, God used water to save Noah and family in the ark and from destruction of the disobedient ungodly.
- To end this, 1Pet3:21 I think is telling us that this corresponding baptism of believers is an urgent appeal – an urgent request/prayer – made toward God in undeserved suffering (at the hands of the disobedient ungodly) made from [and in effect also for] a good conscience [toward God].
- I also think the genitive “appeal [] good conscience” is purposefully ambiguous making us think and I think the appeal is made from a righteous believer – a believer with a good conscience toward God – for saving him through suffering, and in effect also for a good conscience in the sense of maintaining a good conscience doing God’s will through experiential suffering.
Sounds like a lawyer looking for a loophole.
Agreed but it is the when.
Baptism is not the wedding ring but the wedding vow that seals the marriage. Baptism is the signature on the marriage license that binds couples together.
Without baptism you are but an unwelcome guest attempting to explain your lack of proper attire at the wedding.
That makes as much sense as your correction of everything in the bible.
Are you truly suggesting that the second clause of Mark 16:16 negates the first clause? Really.Was this taught to you in school?
No loopholes. The wedding vow seals the marriage and baptism is the wedding ring which symbolizes this. Baptism put it in its proper place, subsequent to salvation through faith in Christ as all good works must be. This does not remove good works (including water baptism) from the Christian life, it just puts them in their proper place, subsequent to regeneration and salvation. (Acts 10:43-47; Ephesians 2:10)
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. 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.
Not negates. CLARIFIES the first clause.
Was this taught to you in school?