Posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by m.t-tomb:
However, it does occur to me that if baptism really is the NT equivalent of circumcision (a rite that the NT overtly and unashamed does spiritualise) then is is possible that Christian baptism might also be understood in similarly figurative (anti-typological) terms.

---

Posted                      

quote:

---

"Commitment to ongoing discipleship" is the Christian life, but again, is this a water baptism thing? I understand how it might be used in that way in our prayer books, but I don't see the same emphasis in Scripture.

---

quote:

---

...go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.

---

Posted                          

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gordon Cheng:
[b]Josephine[b], I certainly meant no deliberate misrepresentation, but I apologize for my misrepresentation. It was unintentional.

---

Posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by m.t-tomb:

But to assert that Jesus wouldn't have instituted a parabolic (or even kerygmatic) act to ratifiy such an immersion is also to go beyond scripture. In fact it flies in the face of Christ's ordaining the Lord's Supper as a kergymatic (Luther said it was preaching!) and parabolic act that proclaims the soteriological centrality of the cross.

---

Posted                       

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gordon Cheng:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by m.t-tomb:
[qb]
Jesus could certainly have done this, whether he did is what I am questioning. I can't really see why he would need to, and as I said it seems weird to institute water baptism as his final act. Still, Jesus can do weird if he wants to, it comes with being Lord of all creation. I'm just not convinced he did.

---

Posted                          

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gordon Cheng:
It would seem to me quite bizarre if Jesus' final words to his disciples on earth concerned some ritualized aquatic ceremony.

---

Posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by John Holding:
It seems weird (to you) that he would institute water baptism -- but why? On this thread at least you've started from the basis that he couldn't have meant water basis, not concluded that. Lots of things seem weird to me -- but many of them are real and true and happened. Your own judgement that because something is weird to you, it probably didn't happen, is more realiable than anyone else's because?


You're not convinced he did institute water baptism -- but you have given no reason except your own feelings.

---

quote:

---

originally posted by me:
However. Is it true that baptism always involves water? If you were a follower of John the Baptist, this was clearly so, as he only ever did one sort of baptism. That Jesus and his followers knew of this is indisputable, since Jesus (at least) experienced this water baptism.

However again. John the Baptist clearly expected that the nature of Jesus' baptism would not involve water. So in Mt 3:11-12 John insists

quote:

---

originally posted by John the Baptist:
11 “I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. 12 His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

---

Given the expectation set up by this passage, together with the complete absence of any baptizing activity by Jesus himself (John 4:2), it is not unreasonable to tread cautiously before we ascribe large quantities of H2O to the activity of baptism. Whether or not water was used after John, Jesus' own attitude to baptism seems to indicate that it was symbolic or metaphorical. He called on his disciples not to baptize, or to baptize with water, but to baptize into (Gk eis the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (Mt 28:19).

---

Posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by Grits:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gordon Cheng:
It would seem to me quite bizarre if Jesus' final words to his disciples on earth concerned some ritualized aquatic ceremony.

---

Why would you find that any more bizarre than a ritualized food ceremony, aka Communion? That's what He had to leave us -- His words, His actions, the memorials to remember them by. What better way to be totally reminded of His death, burial and resurrection than to go through it ourselves?

---

Posted                          

quote:

---

However I don't really think what we call "Communion" is an idea found in Scripture either,

---

quote:

---

I Cor. 10 :16 The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?

---

Posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gordon Cheng:

quote:

---

Originally posted by m.t-tomb:

But to assert that Jesus wouldn't have instituted a parabolic (or even kerygmatic) act to ratifiy such an immersion is also to go beyond scripture. In fact it flies in the face of Christ's ordaining the Lord's Supper as a kergymatic (Luther said it was preaching!) and parabolic act that proclaims the soteriological centrality of the cross.

---

Try again: Jesus could certainly have done this, whether he did is what I am questioning. I can't really see why he would need to, and as I said it seems weird to institute water baptism as his final act. Still, Jesus can do weird if he wants to, it comes with being Lord of all creation. I'm just not convinced he did.

---

quote:

---

"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, and they will be spiritually baptised in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and you will teach them to obey everything I have commanded you.

---

Posted                      

quote:

---

"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, and they will be (spiritually) baptised in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and you will teach them to obey everything I have commanded you.

---

Posted                       

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gordon Cheng:
No, that's fair enough Numps, but I just don't think that Mt 28 is about water baptism. It's about making disciples (that's the main verb in the Greek), explained then as including them into the name of the F,S, and HS (ie they become Christians) and then continuing to teach them.

It would seem to me quite bizarre if Jesus' final words to his disciples on earth concerned some ritualized aquatic ceremony.

---

Posted                       

quote:

---

Originally posted by craigb:
I think the passage about baptism in Mathew 28 is more about the Spiritual baptism of the Baptism in the Holy Spirit, more so then water baptism.

While water baptism is an important part of Peters theology, the baptism of the Holy Spirit is also a big part of it

---

Posted                       

quote:

---

"Such teachers pointed out ... Jesus saying that he had "another baptism to be baptised with" and they explained that this means that those who advance on the spiritual path are to receive that second baptism.

Furthermore, they said this higher baptism marks a major transition in the initiate's relationship with God ....Prolemy calls this second baptism apolutrosis, which means 'redemption' or 'release', alluding to the judicial process through which a slave becomes legally free.

When we look back to our examples of 'evil interpretation' we can see that Iranaues's characterisation, however hostile, is accurate"

---

Posted                       

quote:

---

Originally posted by m.t-tomb:
Carys said:

quote:

---

This is in fact the point from which this entire thread started as I cited this passage as an example of where I thought evangelicals brought their prior pre-suppositions (about the non-sacramental nature of baptism in this case) to their reading of the text and thus misunderstood what appears to me as a sacramentalist to be the plain meaning of the text!

---

With respect, I'm about as evangelical as they come and I don't have a problem with sacraments; sacramenatalism perhaps, but not sacraments. It's perfectly possible to hold an evangelical view of the sacraments that isn't contrary to Anglican doctrine: in fact I'd venture to say that historical Anglican sacramental doctrine is evangelical.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gordon Cheng:
No, that's fair enough Numps, but I just don't think that Mt 28 is about water baptism. It's about making disciples (that's the main verb in the Greek), explained then as including them into the name of the F,S, and HS (ie they become Christians) and then continuing to teach them.

It would seem to me quite bizarre if Jesus' final words to his disciples on earth concerned some ritualized aquatic ceremony.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Grits:
However, I don't believe Romans 6 is really all about baptism, and I would not use it as my text if I were teaching someone about baptism. I think it is more about being united in Christ by putting off the old man of sin. Baptism is just one part of that.

---

Posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by Carys:

It would seem to me quite bizarre if Jesus' final words to his disciples on earth concerned some ritualized aquatic ceremony.

---

Posted                       

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gordon Cheng:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gordon Cheng:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Carys:

It would seem to me quite bizarre if Jesus' final words to his disciples on earth concerned some ritualized aquatic ceremony.

---

As others have asked, why?

---

And as I've already answered, it doesn't matter. It doesn't affect my argument either way, as I can live with bizarre, unexplainable, mysterious and even divine in my religion. It was not a part of forming my views, which have altered over the years. Please stop telling me my presuppositions are shaping the way I read the text. My original presuppositions were sacramentalist in nature.

---

Posted                       

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gordon Cheng:
The outline of the argument is there in my post on page 1 of this thread, and I'd be happy to expand on any part of it, although I've (with varying degrees of success) tried to limit myself to the Romans 6 passage we're discussing.

Part of the difficulty in approaching the discussion, I would suggest, is that we give such overwhelming weight to our own sacramental traditions without reflecting on the relative infrequency and paucity of references to baptism in the New Testament. When we do come to the New Testament, our traditions and our lexicons take precedence and tend to fill in the blanks whenever we come to the word "baptism".

Which is probably just as insulting to your sense of your own objectivity as your comment was to mine

---

quote:

---

However the evidence that Alan Cresswell and others have already summarized from Acts is, I think, the best biblical evidence we have to think that there was a primitive Christian tradition of water baptism that continued unbroken from the day of the apostles. My own reading is that, like some of the practices imposed upon Gentiles by Jerusalem council in Acts 15, these traditions are dispensable. You can't move from the narrative "is" to the sacramentalist "ought" without committing a naturalistic fallacy.

---

quote:

---

That there should be a (very) few references to baptisms in the epistles is hardly surprising; just as it is not surprising to find references to New Moon festivals, circumcision, special days, and vegetarian diets.

---

Posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by Carys:
Why? On what basis do you think that the tradition is dispensable?

---

quote:

---

Huh?

Carys

---

"Huh?" yourself. Or is this a ritualistic precursor to the Toronto Blessing (=> )



[ 28. April 2006, 00:00: Message edited by: Gordon Cheng ]

--------------------
Latest on blog: those were the days...; throwing up; clerical abuse; biddulph on child care

Posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by Barnabas62:
<meander warning>

Here is an extract from Elaine Pagels' summary <snip> She's not everyone's cup of tea .


<meander over>

---

Posted                          

quote:

---

That there should be a (very) few references to baptisms in the epistles is hardly surprising; just as it is not surprising to find references to New Moon festivals, circumcision, special days, and vegetarian diets.

---

Posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by Grits:
I think the "huh?" must mean that your statement:

quote:

---

That there should be a (very) few references to baptisms in the epistles is hardly surprising; just as it is not surprising to find references to New Moon festivals, circumcision, special days, and vegetarian diets.

---

is fairly unsupportable. Which epistles are YOU talking about?

---

Posted                          

quote:

---

I am suggesting (on the basis of other arguments already touched upon in this thread) that water baptism may well be one of those traditions which we ought not to feel any compulsion to pass on.

---

Posted                          

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gordon Cheng:
Vegetarian diets and special days are in Romans 14:1-6 .

---

quote:

---

*There are a few circumcisions floating about in Galatians and Philippians, but not in a positive sense.

---

quote:

---

*Limiting meat from the diet for religious reasons is in 1 Corinthians 8 and 10.
*Special diets, new moon festivals and Sabbaths are mentioned in Colossians 2:17.
*Special diets are mentioned in 1 Timothy 4:3.[/quote}
Gordon, just because these things are mentioned or referred to in the Bible doesn't mean they're things we're supposed to do. They are merely used as cites or examples.
[quote]*Food, drink and washings most likely relating to the Mosaic law are mentioned in Hebrews 9:10, where it is explained why these practises are only pointers to true Christian spirituality.

---

Posted                       

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gordon Cheng:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Barnabas62:
<meander warning>

Here is an extract from Elaine Pagels' summary <snip> She's not everyone's cup of tea .


<meander over>

---

Indeed. This Roman Catholic writer is less than impressed by what he's found. It's a rather damning article. Pagels telling us what Irenaeus said about what Gnostic writers said that might be similar to what some people say today is a bit too Mills and Boon for mine.

---

Posted                       

quote:

---

Now applied to baptism, that means that even if we can establish that water baptism was a universal practice of the primitive church in Acts, we don't have license to go from that universal practice in and of itself to imposing it as a duty for all Christians, especially when there is so much evidence that it relates to a Jewish but non-Mosaic ritualistic precursor; one that has already had a "use-by" date set on it by the words of John the Baptist.

---

Posted                       

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gordon Cheng:
Now applied to baptism, that means that even if we can establish that water baptism was a universal practice of the primitive church in Acts, we don't have license to go from that universal practice in and of itself to imposing it as a duty for all Christians, especially when there is so much evidence that it relates to a Jewish but non-Mosaic ritualistic precursor; one that has already had a "use-by" date set on it by the words of John the Baptist.

---

Posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
But, am I reading you right in accepting that baptism (in and/or with water) was a wide-spread practice in the early church? Some of your last few posts (not just the bit I've just quoted) do seem to suggest that, though you're still not convinced it was a universal practice, you're more willing to accept that it was common and wide spread.

---

quote:

---

Alan:
Which brings us back to Romans 6. If there was a wide spread or near universal practice of water baptism, it would therefore surely make sense that Paul is here refering to that practice - even if he's expanding upon the meaning of that baptism beyond what might have been understood at the time.

---

Posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by Grits:
I think the "huh?" must mean that your statement:

quote:

---

That there should be a (very) few references to baptisms in the epistles is hardly surprising; just as it is not surprising to find references to New Moon festivals, circumcision, special days, and vegetarian diets.

---

is fairly unsupportable. Which epistles are YOU talking about?

And as far as baptism being a "tradition", I disagree. Tradition has almost an inherent human quality, and I don't consider anything instituted by Christ to be tradition... including the Lord's Supper. (Sorry, Pyx_e, dear -- I couldn't help myself.)

---

quote:

---

...stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter.ESV

---

So it seems that traditions were actively taught by Paul, presumably because 'tradition' - when correctly applied - is a superb means of communicating truth over an extended period of time. In fact tradition, in and of itself, is no bad thing.

As to what these 'traditions' are? I don't know. Could one be water baptism? The NIV translates them as 'teachings'; the YLT 'deliverances'; Wycliffe 'traditions'; the NASB 'traditions'; the KJV 'traditions'. Perhaps someone who knows their Greek could shed some light on this?

[ 28. April 2006, 09:45: Message edited by: m.t-tomb ]

Posted                       

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gordon Cheng:
There would almost certainly be some sense in which Paul was referring to water baptism in Romans 6

---

Posted                       

quote:

---

Originally posted by Grits:
I think the "huh?" must mean that your statement:

quote:

---

That there should be a (very) few references to baptisms in the epistles is hardly surprising; just as it is not surprising to find references to New Moon festivals, circumcision, special days, and vegetarian diets.

---

is fairly unsupportable. Which epistles are YOU talking about?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gordon Cheng:
They are all mentioned in connexion either with endorsed Christian practices, or practices that are being commended as things that Christians might or could or should take part in. In each case, there is no expectation that these received traditions would be passed on to new generations of christians, and in some cases there is explicit warning that such practices may be spiritually dangerous.

So we find that various tradtions, some Jewish, some not, are routinely if not frequently picked up as topics for comment by various epistle writers.

---

quote:

---

I am suggesting (on the basis of other arguments already touched upon in this thread) that water baptism may well be one of those traditions which we ought not to feel any compulsion to pass on.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Nunc Dimittis:
I also think it does a great disservice to us as humans made in the image of God. It's not for nothing God gave us the five senses. It's not for nothing God had to assume human flesh and physicality. And it's not for nothing we believe we will be resurrected from the dead.

If there are no such things as sacraments - ordained by Christ himself, God Incarnate - then you leave me a world devoid of the touch of God.

And my heart breaks.

---

Posted                          

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gordon Cheng:
Grits: Water baptism is however, on my view, an Old Testament practice that, like a number of Old Testament practices, eg meeting at the temple, was legitimately carried on into the New Testament era for a time.

When I say it was an OT practice, I mean not that it was ordained there, but that it was developed in the OT era for use then, and was eminently suited to John the Baptist's purposes of preparing people for the coming of Christ. He picked up and used the practice for his own purposes, and it's not in the least surprising that Christianity, beginning as a 100% Jewish religion, did the same.

---

Posted                      

quote:

---

That there should be a (very) few references to baptisms in the epistles is hardly surprising; just as it is not surprising to find references to New Moon festivals, circumcision, special days, and vegetarian diets.

---

quote:

---

For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew (by which Paul means both Jewish and Gentile Christians) is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter.

---

quote:

---

The main reason that this great Reformed tradition endorses the baptism of infants of believers is that there appears to be in the New Testament a correspondence between circumcision and baptism. Just as circumcision was given as a sign to the "children of the covenant" in the Old Testament, so baptism - the new sign of the covenant - should be given to the "children of the covenant" today. For example, in Colossians 2:11-12 there seems to be a connection between circumcision and baptism: "In Him [Christ] you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ; having been buried with Him in baptism . . ." So for the sake of the argument, let's grant that there is some correlation between circumcision and baptism.John Piper: How Do Circumcision and Baptism Correspond?

---

Posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by Carys:
I've finally got round to looking at Mark 7:3 which you've cited a lot on this thread and remain uncnovinced of its link to baptism. Yes, the Jews had ritual washings, but that is not necessarily the same as baptism. As Psyduck argued early in this thread βαπτιζω is not primarily about washing and the verb used in the Greek of Mark 7:3 is νιψωνται so I think you are making too much of the link to baptism. Just becase it involves water doesn't make it baptism!

---

Posted                       

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gordon Cheng:
There would almost certainly be some sense in which Paul was referring to water baptism in Romans 6, as if people don't understand what baptism is at all, then he might as well have used the word 'xvfdjsk' for all the good it would have done them. But even if water baptism wasn't practiced by Roman Christians, they might have seen similar practices in other religions from which they'd been converted, and they might have read or heard of it in Mark's gospel (or Q, for those who are into that sort of thing).

---

Posted                      

quote:

---

Originally posted by John Holding:

And BTW, your use of the word "read" in this context I find revealing -- it demonstrates an altogether anachronistic approach to how people learn, how they believe, how they know, and how they pass on what matters to them.

---

quote:

---

read or heard

---