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Baptism, being one of the two sacraments, is an outward sign of an inward
grace.
Just as the other sacrament, the Lord's Supper, is not a 'means of grace' as
the Catholics call it, but in fact gives you no benefit, (and at least in
the apostolic period if not today actually physical harm, if you eat and
drink unworthily), so also baptism makes not a blind bit of difference to a
person's salvation.
Even in the Covenant theology applied by Presbyterians and
Congregationalists who are evangelicals which baptise the children of
believers, there is no suggestion that a believer's children are more likely
to get saved if they are baptised than if they are not. Baptists on the
other hand believe that a person should be converted already prior to
baptism. Very well then, if they are converted, then is the blood of christ
already applied to them or not at that time, or are they on a kind of
provisional licence, before they actually get baptised, and if they let too
many weeks run by between conversion and baptism, they could actually fall
away?
There is not any suggestion of that in scripture. The sign of baptism is to
strengthen the believer and give a blessing. That's one of the reasons why I
didn't get my kids baptised, although I am a Calvinist.
When we say that baptism is a necessary part of what we need to have for
salvation, then why not the Lord's supper every week as well? And then we
fall right into the sacerdotalism that characterises most of Anglicanism,
Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism.
At the end of the day baptism is an act which we carry out, and in fact a
God-centred view of salvation ought to see that salvation is what God does,
rather than what we strive for. Grace is irresistable, redemption perfect.
No works from us required in the salvation process.
I'm sorry if that's not a webpage, or an essay, or a research paper, but I'm
a Usenetter; I do Usenet posts.
Uncle Davey
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