Baptism

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check out all the podcasts, but several of them will be represented here today, and you're going to get to hear their voices.

We are going to be talking about the topic of baptism. There's no controversy there at all.

Everyone in Christianity is 100 % in agreement on the purpose of baptism, what it signifies, the mode of baptism.

There's no dispute, no discussion at all. But we're going to do it anyway. I'm sure...

Are we supposed to be laughing right now? I'm sorry. Probably one of the most disagreed upon topics within Christianity.

So, we'll see if some of our... We do have, unfortunately, more of a number of the

Baptists represented here. We're hoping some of the Presbyterians will come in. Let's start off, and what

I'm going to do this week, because we have a new voice for you folks who are regulars, as we always get new podcasters that come in, and so I want to give you guys a chance to hear from one of the newest podcasters that we have, as he has joined.

And so, as we're going to go around, Brett, I'm going to end up starting with you to introduce yourself. And so, what we do is just introduce yourself, your podcast, what your podcast is about, just briefly, and that way everyone gets to hear your voice and know when they hear your voice because this is one of the things when you have a lot of different people, it's hard to remember the different voices.

Fortunately, we have Pastor Dom and his heavy accent, he stands out. Aaron kind of stands out.

I stand out. Actually, Daniel Minnick should be here later. His voice kind of stands out.

So, once you get the voices down, it's hopefully easier. So, Brett, you are the newest member.

Could you introduce yourself and your podcast? Sure will. My name is Brett Collier, and my podcast is titled

The Christian Rebel, where we essentially follow the teachings of Romans 12 to be not conformed to this world.

Yeah. I was paraphrasing there, and I forgot the verse. It's Romans 12 too. And essentially, by conforming with Christ, you're rebelling against the world.

That's how I got my name, The Christian Rebel, because I conform with Christ and not this world. And I want to thank

Andrew and the rest of the community for allowing me to be a part of this tonight and being a part of the community.

Well, thanks for being part of us. I enjoy your podcast. I'll put it that way. I don't know how many others are listening yet.

So, The Christian Rebel is one of the newest ones. Actually, we have one that is newer than Brett, The Christian Foundry.

But for regular listeners, Pastor Stephen Dew has the podcast

Doctrine Matters, but now he has about seven or eight guys from his church get together and talk theology.

So, that's actually the newest podcast we have. Aaron, I'll ask you to go next, if you don't mind. My name is

Aaron Brewster, and I have the privilege of having two podcasts on the Christian Podcast Network. First of those is

Truth, Love, Parent, which is all about parenting, recognizing that our parenting is not about us and it's not about our kids.

Our parenting really is simply an act of worship to our God. And we talk about how we can better worship

God through our parenting. And then there is Celebration of God. And I just have to say, I'm sorry,

Andrew. I never like to deliberately steal someone's thunder, but the most recent podcast episode that went out was all about baptism.

I didn't even know we were going to talk about this. But hey, it might be a nice supplement to anyone listening to this today.

They can check out celebrationofgod .com to learn more about that. I didn't get a chance to listen yet, so we could say everything you said that was wrong.

Yeah, I wish you had, because no doubt, there's got to be something. Yeah, you know, one of the nice things is we did the

Lord's Supper. And I think it was Daniel Minnick on his podcast that realized, hey, he couldn't be here.

So he just did a whole episode responding to what we said and the things he wanted to say.

I think he's done that a couple of times. And that's good. We can do that. Let's see.

Next up that I have in the list here is Melissa. Yes, my name is

Melissa Lex. I do go by Melba Toast. It's a nickname that was given to me. I use that on the podcast.

But my podcast is Thoroughly Equipped, where we look at women's ministry. We look at the books and the conferences and messages given by very popular speakers in women's ministry.

And I basically dissect them and go through it and compare it to Scripture.

I also have a series on there that talks about Titus 2, where I try to reinforce just the blessing and the wonderful things of being a woman who is following Christ.

I think on your first episode, you explained how you got the nickname Melba Toast, but I forget it now.

Well, I got the nickname by my parents. My parents called me Melba Toast because it's after a cracker.

My name is Melissa. I guess they just call me Mel, and then everybody called me Melba Toast. There you go.

Yeah. Next up that I have there is Eve, if you won't mind introducing yourself and your podcast.

Hi, yes. I'm Eve Franklin, and I am co -host of the podcast Are You Just Watching, where we talk about movies and other secular entertainment from a

Christian worldview. Not to bash them, but just to dissect them. Secular people think differently than we do, and it's always good to be able to apply the

Scripture and our Christian worldview to what we're watching and imbibing.

I also have a book called Are You Just Watching, which you can get on Amazon .com, which is a workbook that allows you to work through doing that kind of application of your worldview to what you're watching.

This is episode 21 of Theology Throwdown, and Eve is the only person to have made it to all 21.

We've got to eventually come up with some award that we can give to her. Next up is the

New York bomber there, Pastor Dominic. Can I take the fifth?

If anyone who has not listened to Pastor Dominic's Street Talk Theology, you may not get that joke of wanting to take the fifth, but I'm sure it'll come up at some point.

No, I do host a podcast called Street Talk Theology. I pastor a church here in Desert Sky Baptist in Casa Grande, Arizona, and we kind of take theology.

We bring it to the streets, and I do have a co -host, but he's in India, Pastor Michael Teddy, so he kind of gets on there with me.

I think this week, Andrew, we have a, what's his name, wrote a book.

One second. I think I have it right here. As he's reaching into his bag.

Yeah, so Am I Truly Saved by Pastor Joel Webben. We're going to have him on for an hour, and so we'll take that theology and bring it to the streets anyway.

If you want to know if you're truly saved, just tune in to Street Talk Theology next week.

All right, and then we have Rebecca, you're next up. You have to unmute though,

Rebecca. Working on that there. I am Rebecca and I'm the host of One Little Candle.

One Little Candle is based on Luke 8 16. This is no man when he's lighted a candle covers it with a vessel, puts it under a bed or said, but said it's not sets it on a candlestick, so that they which enter in may see the light.

So basically the podcast is to equip Christians to stand for God's truth and to live out that truth in their lives and consequently when we do so.

We're that light in the darkness, and we cover a wide variety of topics. Some on the heavy side some on the lighter side that pertain to our to our

Christian walk. And I just kind of like to wrap up each episode with a challenge to the listener to be the light in the darkness you know from their own little corner of the world.

And I so I encourage them with ways in which they can be that one little candle. There you go into my name is

Andrew rap report I have several podcasts but only mentioned the two main ones I do. Andrew reports rap report is my kind of flagship one, that is where we try to take biblical applications interpretations interpretations and applications and apply it to Christian living cultural all things we're right now working through a series of basically systematic theology, working through the doctrinal statement of striving for eternity, explaining what's behind that, why we wrote it the way we did and all that's that it's trying to answer all the heresies it's trying to correct and things like that.

And the other one that I do is a weekly show called apologetics live. I have some co hosts there that join me.

And since I'm do a lot of travel they fill in, they're going to be filling in much of May. And so that's a live program you can go to apologetics live .com

and there there's a link to join with that's Thursday nights, eight to 10 Eastern Time, and we get people that will come in, ask all kinds of questions we usually start have a theme.

And then people ask questions in the chat or they join we much prefer when they join and ask questions.

And that is a show designed to help in apologetics, not just seeing how it's done when we do debates and things like that but explaining the why we do it so with that wrap up.

That is all the shows represented here and as some come in later we will try to bring them in and let them introduce themselves so I'm going to start us off today with as we're looking at the topic of baptism, which is kind of fitting since the last episode was

Lord's Supper. Usually people do baptism before Lord's Supper but we're doing it backwards

Hey, what can we say. So the first question that that I have is for each of us to look at is what is baptism.

There's lots of different views that people have. And so we'll start we'll start with one of the ladies this time to start us off so I'll ask

Melissa. So from your, from your church and folks where you're going to see is we all heard from different churches, different church backgrounds, we're going to have some differing views.

You're not going to see anybody beating each other up except for well, Aaron, because he's a ninja, like, no.

So, we try to, we try to play nice with Aaron. So Melissa, you know, in your sense so what is baptism.

In my understanding, and I'm just gonna lay it out there like I did last time is

I'm a closet to Lutheran. So, um, but, um,

I grew up Baptist and well in a lot of Baptists I attend the church now that's non denominational but I'm baptism, in my understanding, is a work of God, that is, it's a signifies and it's a seal of our death and resurrection in Christ, and it's

Christ's work of circumcision of our, the removal of our flesh.

So, basically the old man dies, and the new is raised to new life.

And, and I know that I've done some study that it's that the

Presbyterians and Lutherans believe about the covenant of grace and entering into the covenant that way so I'm still learning in this.

But from my understanding growing up it's been taught that it was a symbol and outward symbol and a.

I hate to use this word because I don't agree with it anymore but I'm not this word but this terminology that it's an act that we do that's like our first act of being a

Christian I don't I don't like that anymore. I don't agree with that anymore. But, um, yeah, so I'm eager to hear what everybody else has to say, especially the, you know, especially

Daniel side to hear about either some more

Presbyterian view of it as well, because I'm still learning. Well, and so let me ask us as sincere closet

Lutheran. Yes. So who we have in here to right now this may not apply but so would you think of baptism as a sacrament.

In a way, yes, but because I believe the way I know

I'm still like I said still learning and I haven't read everything from the early reformers and everything that Martin Luther has written about it but that it's a work of God and the sacraments are something that are a work of God that are bringing into the covenant, in a way, and I mean am

I saying that the idea of a sacrament, it, it adds grace right is it'll add grace and so what what's meant by grace is not salvation.

Right, so some people will will have issue with that. Right. Right. And I do know that, at least from what

I've read from Martin Luther in, he did have an early view of the, the set of the communion, a very like the

Catholics did, but eventually change that. But now I don't know what his view on baptism was and I'd like to know more in regards to that, you know, early like if there was a transformation over time, because of this talk about grace, as in another

Catholics idea of grace is different, I think than what we have an idea of grace.

Yeah. So, yeah. Yeah, I'll just say before I go to the next person is,

I think I'd agree with you, baptism, you know, is going to change so nowadays it's not the first act we do as a

Christian so yeah I could see. So let me, I'll pose the question to the to Daniel he just popped in so that way he can introduce himself his podcast.

The question, Daniel is, what is baptism. So if you can introduce yourself your podcast so everyone gets to know your voice and answer the question.

Okay, so my name is Daniel Minnick I'm the host of the Truthspresso podcast and we do theology there my wife is also my co host.

So theology, church history, politics. Basically anything that will apply to the

Christian life inspirational stuff we've been recently going through the

Passion Week for Easter and so we have yet to do the resurrection, the burial resurrection and so that'll be fun.

So the topic of baptism, what is baptism. Well I think it's like I'm, I consider myself a

Reformed Baptist although I don't attend a Reformed Baptist church, I take a

Baptist covenantal perspective and so baptism for me is a sign of the covenant but the way, but it's different from the way like a

Presbyterian or Pato Baptist would understand that. It seems like from the

Bible it is the first step of obedience for someone who is outwardly determined to be a

Christian. So it's possible that someone could be regenerate could be a true believer and have a period of time before they get recognized as such and become baptized but it's, it's a sign of the new covenant in Jesus blood.

It identifies one with Jesus Christ as buried with him in baptism and then raised to walk a newness of life it identifies with the death burial and resurrection so it's also a sign of being one of those disciples or followers of Christ.

I think it also pictures being washed from sins.

And of course, I don't know if we have you gotten into like things like question is the first one.

I didn't miss anything too much here. To answer your question.

Anyone else, raise your hands anyone else want to answer this question. Okay, I would just,

I would just add to what everyone said so far is, for me, I always have considered baptism to be an outward demonstration of an inward experience.

So we've been, you've been baptized in the Spirit, and you go forward to publicly testify of that change through baptism with water.

Right. Actually, Eve said the same thing I was going to say. She stole my thunder.

Sorry about that. Stealing thunder, Aaron. So, I think one thing that it's really important just as we frame this discussion is to recognize the fact that the

English word baptize or baptism shows up a lot in scriptures. And I think one of the defining things we need to need to discuss potentially in this conversation is the fact that the word is used to describe different things.

For example, we have the word marriage, that can be used of a husband and a wife, it can be used of Christ and the church these these images of marriages like we know that the, the, the human marriage between husband and wife is a picture of the marriage that happens between Christ and the church.

Every time we encounter the word baptism, though, in the scriptures, we're not encountering somebody being dunked underwater, somebody getting wet, because the word is used in various ways in the scriptures.

So I think as we as we talk through this be really interesting. If we can do our best to share as many scriptures as possible, you know, so here's, here's the chapter and verse why

I say this, because it'll be interesting to have a conversation about Okay, well, is that use of the word baptism, they're actually referring to the act of baptism, where somebody gets wet.

Oh, or is that particular word talking about the spiritual reality that's happening.

You know, the, as you use the term you baptize in the spirit. Does that happen when

I'm dunked. Does that happen at a different time I think there's really important things that we need to discuss. Yeah.

So, so let me, I was gonna say something else to start but I'll pick up where you were you left off Aaron because I had this kind of up and ready is the word that we think of for baptism, which is transliterated.

This is a, I actually would argue and we'll get to this I'm sure when we get to the modes of baptism, but I think that part of the the dilemma that we have with the whole thing of baptism is when we had the

English Bible. When we start being translated. We have an English word for baptism.

It means to plunge or to dip. That's, that's the meaning. Now it ends up having some other uses.

As Aaron already kind of mentioned, though, when it was translated into English the

Anglican church which was doing the translation practiced sprinkling as a mode.

And so the word got transliterated so what that means is they found it they they're translated would have been to take the word and to put it from the

Greek into the English and say to dip or plunge. Instead, what they did was create a brand new

English word baptism from baptism. Oh, so it sounds similar. This happens sometimes when you don't have an

English word, though, they'll create a new English word that sounds like the Greek. We have sometimes where they transliterate, even though we have a known

English words for example, deacon us sounds like a word you may be familiar with deacon.

What actually means a servant of tables, but at the time, the deacons were leaders and so that became a problem.

I think same with baptism. Now, the word baptism. As we look at it can mean cleanse.

So if since you you wanted some some scripture for this. If you were to look in Mark seven for it says and they came up from the marketplace, and they, they did not eat unless they cleansed themselves that were cleansed is this word baptism.

Oh, you'll see it. And this is at least translated new American standard, I should say. It's translated in Luke 1138 as ceremonial washing.

So it says when the Pharisees saw it. He was surprised that he had not first ceremonially washed before the meal.

That's the same word. It's, it's the word baptism, baptism. In Luke 1250.

It's the word undergo. Now this is interesting because the passage says, but I have a baptism to undergo and how distressed am

I until it's accomplished. Well, the word undergo is baptism. Oh, and the word there that we have baptism is baptism.

So it's kind of thing he says bit baptism baptism. Oh, so he's using two similar.

And so we have two different words typically used for baptism. Now, I will end up,

I'm going to give a view that's not my own because we don't have any Presbyterians here. And you guys already mentioned my view, but I'll give at least a little bit historical understanding of baptism as well in answering what is baptism.

Baptism did not start with the church. And a lot of Christians don't know this.

I'm not familiar with it, maybe, but when someone would become Jewish, this is before the time of Christ.

There was what's called a mitzvah. And it's a, it's a big bath that they would fully submerge someone in and they would come out and you'd have these in the synagogues.

And that was to identify someone that was becoming, that was now becoming Jewish. That was the first thing they would do.

That was part of their kind of, if you want to say conversion. And so I think John the

Baptist, and therefore everyone should be Baptist because clearly it's John the Baptist in scripture, right?

So no, no arguments. I'm sure. Hence the Presbyterians usually call him

John the Baptizer. But what we end up seeing is that there is a historical understanding of baptism prior to John.

So let's talk about a Presbyterian view. And some of you, let me just preface this because some people say, well, how could

I give the Presbyterian view? I remember I was, I was preaching at a Presbyterian church and a visitor had come in and he comes up as, since I was the guy at the pulpit, he says,

Hey, I'm new, my first time at this church. I grew up Baptist. What would this church believe different than how

I grew up with say something like baptism? And so I said, well, I am a

Baptist. However, I will explain the church's position. When I went to lunch with the pastor afterwards, he puts his hand on my shoulder and says,

Andrew, I wish some of my congregation understood Presbyterian baptism as well as you a Baptist do.

And that's what we should strive for folks is not to bash those we disagree with, but to understand them. And so the

Presbyterian view of baptism, and we'll get into what we talk about infant baptism and why that, but they're going to see, you know, as Melissa said a little bit, it's part of a covenant or relationship.

And so they will look at this and see that baptism is a covenant.

It's really the entrance into the covenant, much as circumcision was. And so they're going to see it as a kind of the entrance into a covenant relationship with God.

And they're also going to see it, that it could apply to the family. Okay. So when we look at that, we realizing whereas we heard from Eve, it's an outward symbol, we heard from Melissa that it's a work that adds grace, not adding salvation, but adds, you know, grace that we have in our life to do when we get when we obey

God, there's grace in that. And so Presbyterian is going to see that and say that this is something that is a sacramental, but it's part of entering into a covenant relationship with God.

And so an interesting question that we have some groups that have differing views on this.

If any of you are familiar with the Church of Christ, I read on Apologetics Live, we had a couple shows where we had a

Church of Christ minister come in and we debated this topic for like, I think there's a total of seven hours of content, maybe even 10.

But is baptism necessary for salvation? I'll start off with Pastor Dom this time.

Yeah, I think just the elements that we use in baptism of being outward water and stuff, it would not be necessary for salvation because it's more the elements that we use are outward.

It's not inward. I mean, it's an outward show of an inward conviction, an inward work of Christ.

So we want to be careful if we want to say that baptism has anything to do with salvation.

That means salvation will be outside of the Holy Spirit. And so I would disagree with that.

And I do understand the lightly disagree with the Presbyterian view.

They don't baptize unto salvation. They baptize really covenantal. And I think it puts an onus on the parents to bring the child up in the fear and admonition of the

Lord. But I don't think they're claiming salvation there. I think it's more covenantal.

But yeah, I don't think anything outside can save.

So I think baptism is an outward work or an outward show of an inward work that God the

Holy Spirit has done in somebody's life. Okay. Aaron. Well, I just want to play a little bit of a maybe it's wrong to call it a devil's advocate because people holding this view probably don't want to be seen as the devil.

And I'm not saying that they are necessarily. Take the opposition side.

I'll be the opposition for the moment. You know, there are people listening who and there as a biblical counselor,

I work with people all the time and I never want to assume what they know about scriptures. And I'll just tell you, there are a number of examples

I could read off a handful of verses. But one of the examples that I think really rocks people is when they're reading through 1

Peter and they get to chapter 3. 1 Peter 3 has got a lot of great stuff in it. And it's talking about Noah and how those eight were saved through the ark and going through the water.

It's using the idea of water. It's talking about baptism. Verse 21 says baptism, which corresponds to this, talking about what happened to Noah, now saves you.

Not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

So when somebody encounters that, you know, I have my thoughts, but, you know, first of all, I want to say

I completely agree. I do not believe that baptism saves us. And I believe that it's going back to what

I said earlier about recognizing what baptism is being discussed here. That is desperately important because otherwise there are a number of passages where we could solidly land on baptismal regeneration, where you have to be baptized or you are not saved.

So we need to understand this. And I guess I invite anyone to chime in here and share my opinions if no one else does.

Go for it, Melissa. Well, I do understand. I think the

Lutherans have a great way of looking at this verse, especially when talking. I love the way that they they really look and try to find

Christ in the Old Testament, in the stories. And I think they do a great job of doing that.

So they would say, if I'm understanding them correctly, they would say that the

Ark is a picture of Christ and baptism places us literally spiritually we are placed in Christ in that Ark.

So like Noah going through the flood, through the waters, and in the

Ark, we are placed in Christ, and then we are buried with him and raised with him.

And that's why I say I'm a closeted Lutheran because somehow I think spiritually don't know how it's done.

But we are literally, I can't say literally, but we are spiritually placed in Christ, and we are spiritually buried and we are spiritually raised.

And that is how we have, or that's how we come to God to appeal for a good conscience, because that is the only way that saves us is through dying with Christ and being raised with him, you know, because of his work being placed in him is how we are saved.

So I think they do a great job. A follow up question for you, Melissa, would be then, to your best of your knowledge, because I know

I think you're representing the Lutherans as well. Would you say though that that baptism, that's, can we say it a spiritual baptism into Christ, does that happen before, after, or concurrently with the physical baptism of actually getting what?

Um, that's good. That's a very good question. So like I would say, and then

I have to do more, more research. I myself would say it's when I have faith that I look that it is, you know, literally when it happened because, well, but also have to say you know it's

God's and what it's God's salvation is God's work so it was God working in it. But baptism is like something from physical on our earth that we can see and participate in.

And this is where I think the, the idea of giving us grace.

If I'm, if I'm, you know, understanding it correctly, that the grace is given to us by building our faith because we see the baptism or partake in baptism we see the washing.

There are physical things like when we take communion, we are holding the bread and drinking the cup and, and they are symbols of something, but we are literally taking them in.

And in the same way we are participating in this symbol of washing but we are also physically using water.

And while the water is not actually cleansing us our faith in Christ has cleansed us.

I hope I'm explaining that. I hope I'm answering your question. Let me say this.

So, there, there are Lutherans and you'll see, let me give you a resource is if you go to Christian podcast community just search for Ken Cook.

There's two debates he did where he debated Lutherans as a Baptist. The one debate is baptism does not save men and and that was actually the debate does is baptism does baptism save people.

And so the Lutheran there took the position that yes, baptism was was necessary.

And this is something where when some people hear that. Okay, baptism necessary for salvation.

Some will take it the way Church of Christ, people take it that like it's the waters and baptism actually save you, you, you believe is only part of it.

They'd have five steps. You have to hear the word, you have to believe it, you have to repent, you put faith in, in Christ, and you have to be baptized.

And you're like you're not saved if you don't do that last one. And people tend to hear that one with the Lutheran position. And so I encourage you to go listen to that debate, because you'll hear the position but remember, this is why we started with what is baptism.

There's a different understanding of what baptism actually is. And so when you're gonna when you're gonna if you're going to address the

Lutheran position, do so from their position. And so,

Brett, you had your hand up and then if you don't answer what I was going to answer for the first Peter passage and I will. So I was gonna give my background a little bit

I was raised in a Nazarene church and my dad went Pentecostal. So my viewpoint of is baptism required for salvation, in my opinion,

I don't believe it is, because I think there's a good example in the Bible and that's the thief on the cross. He said,

Jesus remember me when you go and come into your kingdom, and he had no chance of being baptized and I believe that man was saved.

And I also think it's an outward symbol of what Christ has done for you. And you're showing

Satan, who you're following now you're showing the world who you're following now through the physical baptism of being immersed in water.

There you go. So, I had skipped Rebecca I wanted to ask Rebecca that question let her answer, because she didn't get to pipe up too much so is baptism necessary for salvation.

And what do you think about the first Peter three passage that Aaron brought up. Yeah, actually,

I do not believe that it's necessary for salvation, I believe, pretty much along the lines of what

Eve had spoken earlier, that it's, it's a public profession of for me for my faith in Jesus Christ, the whole purpose of being baptized and it's representative or symbolic of having died to sin, being cleansed from my sin, dying to myself even, and being, you know, resurrected with Christ and living a new life in him so for me that is what baptism is.

I do not again do not believe that it is necessary for salvation, and yes, you're talking about.

He was talking about Noah's Ark and that is in the Catholic catechism, by the way, they do refer to that with baptism they talk about the

Red Sea as well. Using water, and they kind of bring forth their baptismal the nest, the necessity of baptism for the forgiveness of sins moving origin, removing original sin within the

Catholic Church. I, I've attended a Presbyterian Presbyterian Church for years.

And so I've witnessed several infant baptisms, and they, you know, they do make it clear to people that it is not for the removal of sin, that they're very clear about that.

Although I find myself still uncomfortable, personally with the, with the baptism baptisms because I also spent many years in the

Catholic Church, and, and seeing where and as a matter of fact, this is kind of a,

I think I told you, Andrew, that I had a dispute with a family member about baptism just this past week because I have a husband who grew up Catholic and I have one of my children who still would like to be within the

Catholic Church so my youngest grandchild is going to be baptized in the Catholic Church on Sunday, this coming

Sunday, but I've watched the Catholic Church for years. I'm very much declare that this baptism removes original sin.

And I always when they stand there and they hold up the children and say, you know, child of God they introduce them as once they're baptized as a child of God I just kind of inside.

I feel awful. You know, because their belief is, this is what does make them a child of God and my own daughter's fear was well what if something happens to, you know, her son, and she didn't get him baptized and I tried to explain to her that it's not the purpose biblically, it's not the purpose of baptism.

Yeah, and so, not to leave Aaron's opposition question out there without response.

So, so when we look at this. The verse 21 says first Peter 321, it says corresponding to that baptism now saves you will corresponding to what that becomes the question.

What people like Church of Christ and those that believe baptism saves what they're going to say that corresponds to is verse 18 for Christ also died for sins once for all the just for the unjust, so that he may bring us to God, having put to death to put to death in the flesh was made alive in the spirit, they say that's what it corresponds to the salvation that Christ did on the cross it baptism corresponds to that.

However, the more immediate context remember the Bible didn't have chapter breaks or verse breaks for 7800 years.

So that's not inspired where those are there was actually no punctuation either. So, context is what ends up being the most important thing.

And when we look at this, it's really when you look at verse 22, sorry, 19 and 20.

It speaks about these, these that Christ goes into hell to preach to those in prison now these are spirits that were changed not preaching the gospel to them.

He's more proclaiming that he's, he's, he finished the work on the cross, but it says that speaking about these spirits.

Who, in verse 20, who once were disobedient. When the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah.

During the construction of the ark, in which a few that is eight persons were brought safely through the water, corresponding to that baptism saves you.

Well, the water is the is the connection there. And so the corresponding is just as eight people were saved on the

Noah's Ark. So, is the baptism that saves you so in that the salvation is the same way remember salvation is a broader term.

Then we often just refer to it as regeneration. But you could be at a storm, and you're overboard, and someone saves you.

That doesn't mean they regenerated you. It's a different use of the word. So, people read save and they think regeneration, but eight people were saved in the ark.

When all of humanity was wiped out, there were eight people save safely through water.

And it's that's what it's corresponding to that baptism saves in that way. It's not the removal of dirt, but an appeal to God, which then can be used to reference back to the way people will use it with circumcision as being something that's that is a sign of a covenant, not saying

I hold to this position, just giving an opposition view. But that it is a sign of a covenant.

It doesn't wash away sin, but it brings you to God. Right. So, my response to your opposition there,

Aaron, would be that the saving is not necessarily regeneration. But the baptism there is referencing the water from Noah's Ark.

And that's the connection. That's what it corresponds to. Yeah. And what's interesting is that I can totally see how that is read.

But I guess from my perspective, I understand it a little bit differently. We both come to the same conclusion that baptism doesn't save us.

But I see this particularly is not referencing the actual, the physical act of baptism.

Correct. It does. It does talk about this idea of, you know, water cleansing and that type of thing, and that the word baptism was used often of dipping things and so on and so forth.

But the reality that we are spiritually baptized, we are baptized into the spirit. We're told in the scriptures that we're baptized into Christ's death and resurrection.

But that happens separately. So in a way, where I see the idea of salvation here being saved is the idea of regeneration.

But baptism being spoken of here is not the actual getting wet. In a way, you see, if I understood you correctly, the baptism was the getting wet, but it wasn't referring to the salvation, a .k

.a. regeneration. Correct. And there's another view, and maybe Pastor Dom was going to say this, because I saw his hand start going up, but we'll see.

But yeah, the other view is that the corresponding does correspond to verse 18. And like you had said, people will say that corresponds to that.

But this is baptism of the spirit, right? Because that is salvific, when we're baptized in the spirit.

So we have to remember that baptism has different uses as well. And I used to hold to that view, but when

I was preaching through 1 Peter, I kind of realized it's more connected to the plunging in, like Noah was plunged into the ark.

So we're plunged in that way. So I do think the connection is that first. Dom, you start getting ready to say something.

Yeah, one of the verses that one of the sections of scripture that people don't use a lot is in Galatians concerning baptism.

And if you go to Galatians 3, and it talks about an inward faith, and then it says, for all of you will baptize into Christ, have clothed yourselves with Christ.

And so if you read the context there, it's speaking about an inward faith and being clothed with Christ is that outward appearance of an inward conviction.

So that's a passage that people really do not use. But I think it's a strong argumentation because it comes against the law.

And it's actually showing an inward that faith is an inward thing. And then being clothed with Christ is that outward show of what happened inward.

And people don't use that a lot in Galatians. But I think it's a it's a powerful passage for being clothed with Christ is a representation of the faith that has been given to you by God, the

Holy Spirit. Yeah, that's good. You know, verse and we're going to try to get to some of the other questions, but there are topics that we have.

But real quick, if you do run into someone that that holds us, you see on Apologetics Live, go and look at my debate.

Does baptism save with the Church of Christ pastor or minister? One of the passages he really struggled to answer is that I brought up was

Colossians 2, 13 and 14. They say, well, wait a minute. That doesn't mention baptism at all. Correct.

What this talks about is when our sins were paid for. Because if you're

Church of Christ, you're going to say that baptism is what washes away sin. That's what saves. That's that's when the payment, the final payment is it's done.

It's in the in the waters of baptism. But according to Colossians 2, 13 and 14, it says, when you were dead in your trespasses and your transgressions and uncircumcised in the flesh, he made you alive together with him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, having canceled them, canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which were which was hostile to us.

And he has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.

You see, according to to Paul, all of our sins, all transgressions were paid at the cross. Well, guess what?

Every sin we've ever committed is post cross. Our baptism is post cross.

So if they were all paid at the cross, then baptism can't pay it. Baptism can't provide that.

It can't they can't forgive us if we are forgiven at the cross. And Andrew, you one second.

And that word, that Cairo graph on that word in the Greek, that those written that the written document that's against you has been canceled.

But, you know, that's an interesting word. It's a it's a really theological word that these these these writings were against you.

And Christ canceled them out. So that's it. That's a that's a good, good reference of Scripture there.

I think that's a good, good argumentation. Yeah. And what you're referencing is the phrase, the certificate of debt in the

American standard. It's the right. Correct. And it's the only use of that in the

Greek. Yes. So let's go to the next question we wanted to answer is.

So if we realize what baptism is and it doesn't save us, the question would be who should be baptized.

So with this is going to come the question of really what we're asking here is. So let me ask it.

The general one first. Well, the question most people are thinking of, well, should infants be baptized?

Let's hold off on that one. There'll be a bigger discussion. Should this be only believers?

Can nonbelievers get baptized? In other words, when you look at baptism, for example, like the

Anglicans, people would get baptized and that makes them part of their they're now Anglican. They're now, you know, back in the day, they were now

English, like you needed baptism. That was kind of your your stamp of citizenship.

So biblically, who should be baptized? I'll start this one off with Daniel. Yeah, it seems like from the record of Scripture, the candidates for baptism are those who could make a credible profession of faith or like, say, you know,

John the Baptist. I know there's a difference there, but it's, you know, starting with John the

Baptist, where it says in Matthew 3, 6 and Mark 1, 15, that the people were baptized in the

Jordan confessing their sins. And then verse 8 where, well, verse 7, it has the

Pharisees and Sadducees coming, but John criticizes them and says, bring forth therefore fruits, meat for repentance.

And so it seems like with John, then you see later on, it says that Jesus baptized more disciples than John in John 1, 4.

So there's nothing saying that anything changed from that. And then with the

Great Commission, Jesus tells his disciples to make disciples of all the nations. You know, the goyim, the what's the

Greek word? I forgot. But, you know, like the concept of baptism there, it seems to be like it's all repent and be baptized, you know, in Acts 2, 38.

And those that gladly received his word were baptized, and the

Lord added to the church, such as should be saved. The Ethiopian eunuch sees water.

He says, what hinders me to be baptized? Because he believed the message. And yeah, we'll go on to,

I'm sure, you know, that will carry over into the question of infant baptism. You know, it's kind of hard to separate a little bit, but it seems like I compiled all of, like, a lot of the passages talking about who was baptized.

And it seems to me that everyone, you look at the context, everyone was a believer or made a profession.

Now, that doesn't mean that the one baptizing someone knows infallibly whether the person baptized, in fact, was elect, was a believer.

But it's based on, is there evidence that this person believes? And so that's why

I see the candidates for baptism. And that's what's often referred to as believer's baptism.

So anyone here disagree with believer's baptism? I think everyone agrees.

So let me ask this question. Before we get to the infants, let me ask a question. Do Presbyterians believe in believer's baptism?

Aaron. Yeah, they they tend to most of them, whether the Reformed ones.

I've known Presbyterians who were baptized as infants who were then baptized again when they were born again.

However, I've also known Presbyterians who weren't like that when my first baptism covered it. So there's a little bit of a split there.

I think, though, that what you said earlier, Andrew, is really important. During this time, as we're seeing the

Gospels unfolding in Jerusalem and the surrounding areas, baptism was a thing.

It was a thing that meant a thing. It was very clear. There wasn't confusion. It was a complete, total immersion.

Maurice Lamb describes the Jewish immersion like every strand of hair, every blemish.

It absolutely had to you had to have witnesses there to make sure it was done correctly. So people understood that.

And Maurice Lamb also talks about how there is something about, you know, how baptism in the symbol of the symbolism of being born again in birth, as well as the symbolism of being washed, as well as the symbolism of the fact that this land dwelling creature is being completely plunged into a totally new environment.

All of this symbolism in ancient Jewish culture, that this is what you do when you join something new.

Right. And so the Presbyterians, obviously, with the connection you made to the circumcision, I'm going to set that aside just for a second.

But this idea of can a person or is baptism solely for regeneration? I believe that Christ did for baptism what he did for everything else, what he did for the

Old Testament law. He said, you have heard it said, but I say to you, he came, he fulfilled the law. He broadened it.

He specified it. He applied it. And because of that. Baptism was given a new thing, a new understanding among believers, whether they be

Jewish or Gentile. That is not to say, though, that when somebody converts to Judaism, even if it were to be

Messianic Judaism, that it would be inappropriate for them to be baptized following the traditions of Judaism.

So though I completely agree with believers baptism that must be practiced within the church,

I am open enough to say that if there are people who follow the ancient ways and understand baptism to be a symbol of converting to something or embracing something,

I'm not going to completely throw those people on the bus as long as they're not saying, yes, being dunked in this tank of water makes me right with God.

Melissa. Oh, you didn't have. OK, so so it's actually this is a trick question.

That I asked, and I'll tell you why, although you did a good job, Aaron, of answering, but it's a trick question because people often think that it's either believers baptism or infant baptism.

And so when I say, well, do Presbyterians believe in believers baptism? Baptists will say no.

And then I say, so what do they do when an adult gets saved? Well, they practice believers baptism is what they do.

Right. So it's Presbyterians baptize adults as well. And so it's not just that they baptize infants as if that's the only time they do this.

So the issue is, do we should we baptize infants? And so I'll start off with the counter argument.

I'll take the Presbyterian argument here and say the view that they have is not that it's not the

Catholic view, as was mentioned earlier, that baptism is washing away original sin. The Presbyterian view is going to be one where what they're looking at is saying that this brings the child into a covenant relationship with God through the family, just as circumcision did for those of Israel.

So that's why they will even Catholics will do it after eight days. They tie it.

They make a connection between circumcision and baptism. One of the arguments many will make is to say that when you look at all the covenants, all of the covenants are familial.

They have to do with the family. There's a family relationship there. And therefore, the new covenant should likewise be and the sign of the new covenant being baptism.

That also should be. I have a friend of mine. He's a fellow podcaster in the

Christian podcast, Matt Slick. He and I have actually debated each other more than any other people that we've ever debated.

We've debated covenant theology versus dispensationalism, charismatic gifts, baptism, because he's

Presbyterian. We disagree on things. He's a weird Presbyterian. He's a Presbyterian that goes to a Calvary chapel.

So how you figure that, I don't know. And he believes in a future for Israel. But the thing is that when we had the debate, it was very interesting because he said, well, baptism is the sign of the covenant.

And I said, well, I disagree. I said, because I'm coming at it from, remember,

I'm from a Jewish background. I'm coming from that perspective. I'm looking at Ezekiel 36, 25 and following Jeremiah, I think it's 29, 29 and following those talks of the new covenant.

What was the sign there in the new covenant was the indwelling Holy Spirit, and that's individual. And so for me,

I would look at that as the sign of the new covenant. Though we do get baptized, but I don't think that baptism is familial, but Presbyterians would.

And so the Presbyterian view would be that we baptize children so that they're in a relationship with God through the family.

Now, some, not all Presbyterians will hold to the view that if a child dies that is baptized, they will go to heaven up till some age of accountability.

And so I forget who referenced it earlier. I've been Aaron, but someone referenced of does the baptism save with children?

There are some that will say that it does bring the children into a covenant relationship with God.

Therefore, if they die before they're accountable for their sin, they would be saved.

I'm going to take a different tack on that. I'm going to say that we're accountable for our sin immediately, like at conception.

So that's my view with that. But let's see, we'll start with Rebecca. We haven't heard from you for a bit.

So your view on should infants be baptized? I don't know if I can say whether they should.

For me, I feel like it's, I don't want to offend here. For me, I personally feel it's pointless,

I guess. But only because, again, I believe that baptism is for someone who has made a confession of Christ.

And aligning even with the Presbyterian Church doing it, it just has made me uncomfortable because it so much resembles what the

Catholic Church does. My thought is why not just dedicate the child, you know, having the dedication ceremonies for the children.

Dedicate your child to Christ and do your best to raise them that way. But I just think it's dangerous in the fact that it causes a lot of people,

I guess, to have the wrong idea that they're somehow right with God because of baptism.

You know, the parents thinking that, as well as the child when they're growing up, that I'm good.

I was baptized as an infant, and that's that. I'm okay. So there's probably,

I'd say, more harm than good, for sure, in baptizing infants. Brett, I haven't heard from you in a while.

Your thoughts. Yes, I agree with Rebecca that babies should be dedicated. No, should they or should not.

I have an example of one of my babies was baptized. Without my permission,

I'll give you the backstory. My oldest kids were twins, a boy and a girl. They were a pound and 13 ounces, and my son died 10 days later.

So they took my son, and I didn't know it, and they sprinkled him in water and baptized him.

Now, did I have a problem with it? Not really, because, I mean, I'll see my son again.

But it didn't do any good or harm, or bad or harm, good or harm to my son to have him baptized after he already died.

Because that was just one example of my child being baptized without my permission.

And on the other hand, should an infant be baptized? I would say no, they shouldn't.

Because, like Rebecca said, there's no profession of faith. There's no giving your life to Christ. So that's my opinion on why infants should not be baptized.

And there's a little, like she said, there could be a hope that my child will be in heaven if they're baptized, even though they live a sinful life.

Yeah, yeah. Maybe that'll be an episode to do at a future time is, do children go to heaven?

Eve, we haven't heard from you in a bit. Hi. Yes, I was thinking, you know, even to the previous question, being in a

Baptist church for as long as I have, I've actually been in multiple denominations growing up, but I've been

Baptist the longest. But the issue that I have, and we're talking about infant baptism, but a lot of things that I see happening in the

Baptist church are children who get saved in VBS or as young children in the children's program at church.

And they get the high pressure altar call and they go forward and they make a profession and they get rushed to the baptismal waters because everybody's so excited.

You know, they baptize these children right after VBS or whatever. And then they grow up to be teenagers, completely leave the faith, go do their own thing.

And then as adults, I've seen it multiple times, they come back to the church and go, I don't feel like I was ever saved.

And I need to get baptized again because it wasn't a real baptism when I got saved as a child.

So I don't think infant baptism saves anything, saves anybody.

And I also kind of am a little concerned about rushing young children to the baptismal waters as well, because I really feel like it's very easy for children to be impressed by the adults around them and by the, the traditions and the, just the,

I don't want to call it legalism, but just the, the tradition and seeing what their, their family, what other people are doing and they want to do it too, but they don't actually really understand what they're doing and what the baptism means.

And so it doesn't have an impression on them going forward. I'm not saying that a child can't have an authentic conversion and, but my parents did me,

I think a blessing in that they didn't pressure me to get baptized when I went forward for a high pressure altar call.

And I did not get baptized until I graduated from high school. And that gave me something as, as an adult to be able to present my renewed walk with the

Lord before my church. And it was that public testimony that I would have lacked if I had done it as a child, because I wouldn't really have understood what it meant.

And so if we're talking about believers baptism, I would say there is an age of accountability that we were just discussing and we might be better off to not pressure our young children to get baptized right away.

Yeah. And let me, before I go to Brett, because I know he's got his hand up, let me just give a good resource for that. And this is more resource for Baptists, but one of our fellow podcasters,

Justin Peters has a book called Do Not Hinder Them. And you can get that at justinpeters .org.

That is a book on really answering the question, should we, should we rush children into baptism?

And he's going to make a case saying, no, we shouldn't. And one of the things he does in that book is really define what conversion is.

So it's, it's a book, the more designed for those that would hold to a believer's baptism. So that's a resource for you,

Brett. I want to post this question out there about my wife is a

Seventh -day Adventist. That's an interesting marriage. They use baptism as a way of, after you get your professional faith, a profession of faith, but also as a way to become a member of the church, which

I don't agree with at all. If you're going to be a member of the church, you'd be a member of the church and your baptism, like we said before, is not worth showing of what

Christ has done in you. So I want to throw that out there and see what happens if, I know some churches use that as a way, they use that, you become a member of the church through baptism.

Well, I think that for me, in a Baptist church, and actually in every Baptist church

I've been in, they do, baptism is, could be, I'll say, could be a form of membership.

Because if you've been baptized in another church with the same mode of baptism, with the same understanding of what your baptism was, then it would be accepted.

And if you haven't been baptized, or were baptized before salvation, they would re -baptize you.

And it's not the re -baptism that would get you into membership, but it would be required for membership in each of the

Baptist churches I've been in. And I have re -baptized someone who feels that she got saved a year after her baptism, and she was a child, very much like you've explained.

Aaron? I had a similar experience. I was, I made a profession of faith when I was five, and I got into the baptismal.

But I tell people that I was truly baptized after I was truly born again at the age of nine. And even then

I recognized that, with the help of my parents, that what I had done before was I had just gotten wet in a ceremonious way.

But the reality was that now that I truly am born again, and I want people to know that.

That's another thing that we know about ancient baptism, is that it was a very public thing, far more public than our churches normally do it.

You know, nowadays we put a huge emphasis on, you know, being baptized in front of God's people. But back then, you didn't have baptismals, you didn't have churches the way we do.

They would go to a local watering hole, lake, river. People would be washing their clothes, going by.

And it really was a public testimony, not just to the believers, but to the unbelievers. My life is changing.

You live with me. You walk by my field. You used to drink with me. And now you can see that I am publicly testifying before all of you that I am changing.

And I think that we lose that in our churches a lot when we just use our baptismals.

But all of that to say that, you know, as that public testimony, I recognized that I needed to be baptized for the first time.

Because I wasn't previously born again. Yeah. I have a question.

And just in my reading of those verses about baptism,

I see clearly the baptism is that God's hand is in it, that there is a work that God does.

And so I'm having a hard time meshing the claim that, you know, baptism is our profession, our work, our going and dedicating ourselves to Christ.

When I don't really see that in scripture, unless I could be missing something. I do see that it's

God putting us, you know, clothing us with Christ and circumcising. So maybe somebody could help me with that.

Aaron, you have your hand up. Yeah, I would say, Melissa, I actually completely agree with you.

But this goes back to the first comments I made. I totally believe that God does the work. We are baptized in the spirit into Christ.

100 % on page with you. I'm referring to the baptism where a man, an elder from the church, dips me under the water and brings me back up as a public testimony.

So that's where I think that distinction is. Yes, God, I believe that I was baptized into the spirit.

I believe that I was baptized into Christ, you know, when I was born again at the age of nine.

It was months or weeks, however long later that I was physically baptized as a representation of the spiritual reality that had taken place.

And it's that baptism that I believe that second one, that physical one, that is not a work so much.

It's nothing to do with being born again, but is a public testimony of what Christ has done in me. Yeah, so baptism of the spirit,

I think, Melissa, would be the Holy Spirit baptizing you in the spirit and you becoming born again.

And the outward baptism that we're talking about would be representing that, as you profoundly said, that inward work of God.

I mean, that's the baptism of the spirit is, I believe, regeneration. And then that's shown outwardly through the, you know, the outward show of baptism, showing the profession of faith that God, the

Holy Spirit has worked, baptized you in the spirit and in regeneration. So then my question, too, is like Presbyterians, how does that relate then with the covenant?

Now, I'm just trying to understand that with them bringing them into the covenant. Yeah, so Andrew can probably answer that a little better.

But I think if I'm understanding what the Presbyterians do, they baptize into the covenant,

I think, and the parents have to bring up their child in the fear and admonition of the

Lord. And so that enters them into the covenant. I don't believe the

Presbyterians think, though I did hear Andrew say a little something. I don't think

Presbyterians believe their babies saved at that time, but I think that they're entering into a covenant.

And it's the parents responsibility to bring them up in the fear and admonition of the Lord. But maybe

Andrew can kind of nuance that a little better. But I think that's some of the and I think it's almost analogetic to the baby dedications that we do as Baptists.

You know, we'll take a baby and we'll have the parents up there and we'll say, listen, you know, we are this child is going to be dependent upon you to bring them up in the fear and admonition of the

Lord. Of course, it's by God's sovereign work and regeneration to save them.

But you do have a responsibility as parents to bring them up in the fear and admonition of the Lord. So I don't see, though,

I don't see anything really terribly wrong with that. And in fact, Matt Slick, Andrew, he'll give you a thing where he'll try to really argue that John the

Baptist could not have been dunking people, but sprinkling people. At least he'll say that he sprinkled

Jesus. We've debated that. Yeah, I know. I already know. I listened to it. It's amazing. But he will give you timelines and he'll come up with hours that John the

Baptist, there's no way he could have dunked people. But anyway, it's interesting. That's a story for another day. But I think you did get it essentially right.

The baptism for the infant brings them into the covenant relationship. Now it's the parent's job to raise them as a covenant member.

You know, and so they would do it that way. Now, Daniel, I saw your hand up and then

Aaron. Yeah, I think with Presbyterians, there can be a range of understandings, like some nuances, or there are some that might be closer to Baptists in which they might specifically nuance by saying that when a child is born, the child is born into the covenant by physical birth.

And then baptism is basically the wet dedication kind of thing to, you know, as a sign of the covenant on them.

But their entrance into the covenant is by birth. Other Presbyterians would say that the sign of the covenant of baptism enters them into the covenant.

And I think especially more like what would be called the federal vision would emphasize that, such that the act of baptism, you know, places someone into the covenant, whether a child or an adult and so on.

I know from like Melissa's perspective, if you're thinking kind of like a

Lutheran, and the difference between Lutherans and Presbyterians with their understanding of baptism, and I know that Lutherans will, you know, talk about just like the

Reformed will, they'll use the term like monergism. But their understanding of monergism is different because the

Lutheran understanding of monergism is applied through the sacraments such as baptism.

So I think that's where you might be thinking along that line. Yes, I actually identify with that.

Yeah, so I mean, I had a conversation with a Lutheran about what monergism means to both of us.

And so like Lutherans believe just as we do in,

I mean, yeah, Lutherans believe in justification by faith. And they would also, they might say that a baptism is a believer's baptism.

But via monergism, kind of like, you know, you're marrying the physical and the spiritual in one event, you know, in one act.

And so a baptism, they will affirm baptismal regeneration.

But you're also, in a sense, baptizing a believer because God monergistically will supply faith.

And so a believer is getting baptized at the same time. Is that correct, the way you might understand it?

Right. I think one of the, my understandings is like they would say that baptism is only really effective with faith.

That's the water and the word. Yes. And it has to be accepted by faith. That's at least my understanding of it.

Yep. Aaron, I think I saw your hand up. Yeah, I think it's unfortunate to a degree that we don't have a solid

Presbyterian here with us. But the difference in this particular understanding of baptism really is tied to their covenantal beliefs.

If you believe that the church is the God's people,

God's chosen people, the nation of Israel, you see those as being the same thing. Then the idea of circumcision, the idea of the sign of the covenant and all of that makes a lot of sense.

So what I find is very difficult in debating baptism, infant baptism with a

Presbyterian is that you can't just debate infant baptism. You actually have to go after the fundamental tenet of their entire doctrinal belief system, which is this covenant theology.

But I will say this, though, that regardless of who we are, we need to be very, very, very, very careful that we allow scripture to interpret scripture.

We all get in trouble. You know, God did not write the scriptures as a textbook.

All right. He unfolded it in the best way possible. And it puts a lot of there's a lot of, you know, illumination by the

Holy Spirit and a lot of work on our part to allow the scripture to mean what God says it means.

And so when I'm talking with a Presbyterian, I say, listen, I recognize your viewpoint.

I recognize what you're trying to do. I recognize how that makes sense to you. But my struggle is that nowhere in the scriptures does it say that baptism replaced circumcision.

It just doesn't say that anywhere. Nowhere in the scriptures do we see a child.

Do we see an undergender person being baptized? So these are these are important questions that, you know, when we look at what is there in the scriptures.

Yes, it's nice that we can can by God's grace, we can sit down and as friends, we can have conversations about how many angels would fit on the head of a pen.

Right. But when it's all said and done, we cannot build our doctrinal systems around those ideas because they're not in scripture.

Yeah. And I mean, that's one of the things I've often brought up is you have circumcision when they try to make the connection there.

Circumcision is for the men only. And so it'll be interesting because they'll say, well, because the men are the representative, the federal headship, except you're doing it to infants, not the fathers.

Right. So they're not really acting as the federal head. But baptism, we baptize the infants, both men and women.

So suddenly the federal headship go out the window. I sort of approach it the same way you do,

Aaron, in that sense. But that's the point with it is we got to get back to it's just like we said with the

Lutheran view. There's a whole lot behind it that when you're going to argue it, you need to argue it from their position.

And this is a very valuable thing for all of us always to remember and to learn is when we are discussing, debating, differing views.

Don't argue it from your position, what you hold and why you see them wrong. Argue it from their position and why you see it's wrong.

Much more powerful to do that. So let me ask. Let me ask this question. When should someone get baptized?

Pastor Dom, you had your hand up there pretty quick, so it looks like you want to. No, no, I didn't. I was stretching. No, but we baptized.

We baptized someone yesterday. But yeah, so I got a would be

Aaron that I got a weird view on this. Right. But I, I, I, I really for me and I'm probably a minority voice on this.

I want somebody to come and tell me they want to be baptized. I really do.

I had a girl yesterday that I believe that God. I mean, just when you get to see stuff from a front row seat and you don't get to see this.

You know, some pastors have seen it, you know, 50, 100. But I've seen this one girl that is a young girl in the church.

And she come from a background of alcoholism. And she was sitting in the pews one day, listening to a sermon from the.

I don't know. I was preaching to revelation a couple of years back. And she just believe

God saved her. And she's been a member of the church now. She went through church membership and joined the church.

And just about three weeks ago. And she said at one time she had gotten baptized just about three weeks ago.

She came up and she says, Pastor, when I first got baptized, I was not a believer. In fact,

I was I was I believe at the time I could have been even drunk.

But but she said that I am truly a believer in Christ and I'm reading the scriptures and I need to get baptized yesterday.

And that's a blessing, man. When when the spirit of God convicts somebody. And we were all over that.

So we baptized her in a week. And, you know, and so I I'd like to see people come and tell me they want to be baptized.

Then we have a little baptismal class that we do and tell them what baptism is and isn't. So I I'm a little nervous,

Aaron, just inviting people to be baptized. I know that Southern Baptists are.

Well, whatever. I mean, they're big on, you know, don't laugh. I see you,

Andrew. Anyway, they're big on just say a prayer and let's get the water rolling and stuff.

I want somebody to come and tell me, listen, I've been saved.

And the Bible says I need to be baptized and I need to be baptized. And I says, OK, that's so I might not.

I'm a minority voice. And I'm sorry. The scripture seems to make it pretty clear. It should be immediate.

I mean, Stephen was with the eunuch and get saved, goes, gets baptized. Well, he got saved.

They asked. Yeah, they should not be baptized. Yeah. And Matt Slick will make an argument and say he went in there and just poured water on him in the water with him and stuff.

Anyway, that's right. If you're if you're a minority, I'm there a minority with you. Children, my children were born again younger, but they they were just now.

My daughter's almost 13. My son's 15. They were just now baptized this year. And there are a lot of reasons for that.

Some logistical, some spiritual. My wife and I wanting to as best as we can get a handle on whether or not my children were born again.

But I think I think you're approaching in a very wise way. Right. You had your hand up. You know, I was going to I agree with Dominic that a person should ask to be baptized because I know with me,

I was I was saved. But my walk with Christ wasn't real close with them. I had to grow over time.

My walk with Christ got closer and then I realized I want to get baptized. I want to show people what

Christ is doing for me in my life as an outward showing about what Christ did for me.

So I wholeheartedly agree with Dominic that we should wait for that person to be asking that, you know, as soon as they get saved.

You can get tripped up, double dipped and that's not going to do anything. Do you have that walk with Christ? I just wanted to say that I agree with Dominic 100 percent.

And Andrew, you know, you've been, you know, past Andrew, you've been around a long time, you know, that would especially with Southern.

No, I'm serious. But, you know, everything is about numbers. Right. I mean, it's right. I mean, every number, you know, we baptize 500 people.

I'll get emails and this is, you know, anyway, that's a story for you get emails.

I don't want to start in with this stuff because I get Aaron, don't charge me on this, man. But, you know, you get emails and how many people are you?

How many people did you baptize and stuff? And, you know, so I'm going to be quiet.

Danny, your hand up there. Oh, yeah, I think what complicates this question a little bit is probably the record of Scripture, because as you mentioned,

Andrew, they most of when we see baptism in the

Scripture is of adults who repent. And so, yeah, it does seem the apostolic example is you get baptized immediately after you repent.

And but then when we bring in children into the mix, that's what makes the question more complicated, because we don't have a whole really any clear examples in the

Bible that specifically say children were baptized. And so trying to figure out,

OK, what age can we evaluate their profession? Some Baptist churches will not baptize anyone younger than 18.

Others will baptize three -year -olds if they say, I believe in Jesus. And so, yeah, it is kind of complicated there.

And I don't know if this, could I ask a question about the household baptisms in the

Bible? I mean, that would relate to both the question of infant baptisms and this question of when is someone subject to baptism?

So, you know, from the Presbyterian or otherwise Pado -Baptist perspective, they'll bring up the household cases from the

New Testament. So you have Lydia and her household were baptized in Acts 16.

You also, in Acts 16, you have the Philippian jailer, possibly

Stephanas there. It shows that he and his household were baptized.

You have Crispus and his household in Acts 18. And Paul mentions it in 1

Corinthians 1. So what about those household baptisms? And do they pose any challenges?

Are there answers, like, Baptistic answers to that? And also to the question of, well, when can someone be baptized?

Look at Andrew. Andrew's chomping at the bit for this one. I am, because this is one I hear often with it.

And here's the thing. How often do you have an infant in the home?

I mean, the argument is it says household, therefore it must be infants. In each of those cases, you see someone who is more well -established.

They have some money, unless they had it from family. They probably were older.

And so you think about what's the proof that they had infants? Because infants are, you only have an infant for what, like six months, a year?

And what do you define as the infant? But remember, they're saying that this is the argument for baptizing infants, like eight days old.

So you have them for eight days times the number of kids you have. How much of that is, what's the probability that they had an infant in the home?

Very low. Very low, because the infant stage is very short. So they probably didn't have that long of a period where they had infants.

Besides that, because they probably were more established, they probably weren't of the age where they had infants anymore in the home.

So, but here, oh, go ahead, Aaron. Oh, just real quick. I think it's interesting, too, when it comes to discussions about scripture.

We just toss out the normal understanding of language and context. That's a great point.

If I had four kids, two teenagers and two three -year -old twins, and I told you that my kids and I rode that newest roller coaster, every single one of you would understand it, that the kids who were old enough and big enough to ride the roller coaster rode it.

And it would not be inappropriate for me to say, my kids and I rode the roller coaster. So it would not be inappropriate to understand that, you know, for example, the

Philippian jailer and everyone in his house. Because Paul had just said, believe on Jesus Christ.

He had just said, that's how you're born again. Because the question had been asked. So it would not be inappropriate to read the texts and all in his household who believed on Christ.

So language, you know, it's a thing. I mean, stuff. I'll go ahead. Eve, go ahead.

Okay. Well, I. Slightly want to change the subject subject. You guys can finish the thought.

Then, then. Daniel, you, you go and then I'll go and we'll change subject. Did you have more you want to say,

Daniel? Okay. Yeah. I was going to reply to answer to Aaron.

Yeah. Aaron from a Presbyterian argument, because the text in the

Greek doesn't say that they all believed. It just says the

Philippian jailer, singular Billy rejoiced and believed in God.

So, but the whole household was baptized. Yeah.

But yeah. Here'd be the Pano, Pano, Pano. Kai there shows that the rejoicing is with the, is with the whole household.

So yeah. If, if the whole household rejoiced, then why would non -believers rejoice that someone believed the gospel?

And also, you know, why would we say that an infinite than an infant, if there was an infinite there rejoiced with the

Philippian jail, or if he couldn't believe, but yeah. So here's the thing when, when we asked the question of when someone should get baptized, scripture does seem to be very clear that they got baptized immediately after belief.

And yet as you know, pastor now I'm forgetting it.

Dominic had said, why do we wait? Why do we wait in America? Why do we want them to ask? Well, very simple.

Baptism doesn't have the same impact and meaning in our day and age and our culture as it did in the first century.

It's a great point. Okay. You go somewhere in the Muslim world and you're going to you're where, where once, if you convert from Islam to another religion, it's a death sentence.

Anyone can then kill you to vent, to go out in public and get baptized in public where all your neighbors see you.

That is a risk that you're taking. So to do that act, why did they put so much emphasis on baptism?

Why does it seem like the scriptures say like you almost have to be baptized to be saved? Well, it's because people could say they're saved, but if they're not willing to take the risk of being baptized publicly so that all their neighbors see this act and realize,

Hey, we're going to cut you off because this is what happened within Judaism. When someone got baptized, they, they would bury an empty casket.

You were dead to the family. Now consider that. When you lived with your family, you worked in the town.

Most people didn't travel from outside their village. So having everybody in the village cut you off and treat you like you're dead, it's a major, a major thing you have to do.

So the choice of being baptized, that's counting the cost. So it's a thing where you look at that and being willing to do that means you're willing to sacrifice the cost.

It's no different than when the Romans came in and said they take all the scriptures. And if you didn't give up your scripture, they'd let you live if not, or, or be free.

But if you gave, if you wouldn't give up your scriptures, they took you to jail. And so when those people, when Constantine Christianized Rome, those people got out of jail and all of a sudden it was like,

Oh, well, you guys were compromisers. You weren't willing to hold onto the scriptures. And it, the scriptures, that became an act of test of saying it's a watershed thing of, are you a

Christian? Well, let's prove it by your acts. And if you gave up, if you gave up any part of the scriptures, they said, well, you were compromised and you weren't really

Christian. We kind of have it today. People look at the issue. Where do you stand on homosexuality? That becomes a watershed thing for some people, but baptism was that watershed thing.

I know that when I got back to them, my parents found out that I converted and I was baptized, but they didn't actually find out

I was baptized at this point. They just found out I was Christian, but I had been baptized. They went out casket shopping.

They were going to bury an empty casket. And I expected that. That's exactly what I expected that they would do.

I had a conversation with my parents, but it wasn't until they found out I was baptized that it turned violent and literally violent with my mother.

And so that's something that I expected, but we don't expect that generally in America.

And so I think that baptism does have a different meaning for us today than it does in the first century.

In the first century, it was a watershed thing. You're being cut off by everyone you know, and we don't have that.

So I don't think it has the same weight. So when we look at scripture, why is there such an emphasis on it? Because if you said you were a

Christian, but you weren't willing to be willing to lose everything, your family, your friends, your job, they questioned whether you're really saved.

So Eve, go ahead. Or were you going to follow up there? Did you want to follow up there, Melissa? I did have a question in regards to what you said in the first century.

Then was there a difference between the baptism that John the Baptist brought versus baptism after then?

I think John the Baptist baptism was confusing people because what he was doing prior to the time of Christ was he was doing a ceremony that would be to bring people into Judaism.

And so I think they were like, what are you doing? These are Jewish people coming into Judaism. I think what he was declaring was the rabbinic

Judaism was dead. That's interesting. Because there wasn't.

Oh, I'm sorry. It was different than biblical Judaism. Rabbinic Judaism came about. It's more legalistic.

It's what the Judaism we see today. It's not from the scriptures. And that kind of makes sense.

Him baptizing in repentance, calling to repentance. Yep. Yeah. So Eve, go ahead.

Well, it was interesting going back maybe a little bit. We were talking about who should be saved and when

I've not been. Who should be baptized. Yeah. Who should be baptized. Sorry. Who should be baptized and when they should be baptized.

And I've not been a member of a Christian denomination. That's the actual

Christian denomination. I think it's unfortunate that they call themselves the

Christian denomination. Cause that then says everybody else is a Christian. Yeah.

That's probably their purpose. Kind of like the Christ. Yeah. They're the church of Christ. Yeah. So they, they have the immediate baptism and they also are the ones,

I think I mentioned them or I thought about them when we were talking about communion, they take communion in every service.

And if somebody goes forward at the end of, of a service and say, says that they are professing

Christ, they are immediately stop the service, pull out the whatever's covering their baptism and baptize them right then.

And so it's a very much an immediate thing at a Christian church. And I was, you know, as I've mentioned earlier,

I, I have a problem with, you know, the immediate baptism, but I do think that there,

I, as an adult, I think there is scripture to support saying, you know, if you come forward and make a profession of faith that baptism should be soon, maybe not right that moment, but it should be soon.

But I, I think my church does like a week or two of, of counseling before they do the baptism, which

I, I appreciate. I do like pastor Dom saying that they need to ask for it.

And that was me is like, I, I went forward and profess Christ as a child, but it wasn't until I graduated from high school that I felt the need to do that public testimony.

And at the time I was going to, I don't know whether anybody here is familiar with the Christian missionary Alliance, but my family was attending a

CMA church at the time. And they required a testimony, a public testimony before baptism.

So I had to get up and, and testify before the church, my belief in Christ and, and all of that.

And then they immediately took me back and, and I got baptized, but I think there are ways of doing that, but I do think the public testimony should be part of it.

I know in my current church, they require a videoed testimony the day of.

So they usually have them somewhere in a quiet room and they ask them a series of questions and they're videoed. And then that video was played for the church before the baptism.

And so I think that that public testimony, especially if you're not getting baptized right away, after you've gone forward and profess

Christ, that there needs to be that public testimony because that, that is what you were doing by baptizing.

It is the action of a public testimony. And I think the words help, especially in our culture today, understand what you're seeing when you're seeing the baptism.

Yeah, I agree that there should be a public testimony, but can I give a warning folks, if you're going to be baptized in a public testimony and you're in the water of baptism, do not touch the microphone.

It's electric. I have heard stories where people think like they go to move the mic.

I used to, I used to sit there. I remember when I was a deacon and I counsel each person, we got them ready for baptism.

Do not touch the mic. You're wet. It's electric.

Not a good combination. If they're sprinkled, they don't have to worry about that. I gave my testimony in front of the church prior to going back to the baptism.

And that's something that that's actually what I've recommended doing is we got zoom mics,

Andrew. Yeah. Nowadays. Yeah. So here's the thing. And, and you Melissa, you kind of hinted to her, but let's get to the last question.

Probably the most controversial question is the modes of baptism. So what, you know, does it matter how someone gets what the mode is?

So does it matter if they're sprinkled? Does it matter if they're, and he's, here are the different modes that I know of, at least they're sprinkling, there's pouring, there's immersion, there's immersion three times.

Once for the father, once for the son, once for the spirit, there's immersion forwards versus backwards. Okay. So let let's deal with this.

I think we've kind of dealt with some things on this already, but we haven't heard from Rebecca for a while.

So I'm going to ask her to start us off and then we'll go to Brett. So Rebecca, what's your thoughts?

I honestly, cause I've, I've thought about this at times if, you know, if, if it makes a difference or not.

I think what matters is the intent of the heart in all of this, that this person again is a professing believer is truly saved and they're being obedient unto baptism.

I don't think it matters really as much. I mean, I would prefer, you know, the, the dunking mode because of what, what it represents, but I don't think it's any less of a baptism if someone is sprinkled or, or poured upon,

I really think God, God is looking on the heart at that moment. So if you had

Rebecca, you had someone that got well, let me start with this one.

They got baptized as an infant with sprinkling and now they're adult. Would you think they need to get rebaptized?

Definitely. Okay. Now, so now that, let me give it, cause I think I know where you're going to go with this though. They got, they got saved as an adult, got baptized through sprinkling.

Do they have to get rebaptized? If they got saved and then got sprinkled? Yes. Afterwards? Correct.

After being saved again for my, my personal thought is that again, if it were, if they're, if their heart were really repentance and they were a true believer, a true profession of faith,

I believe that that would still be a legitimate quote unquote, legitimate baptism.

I would prefer that they'd be dunked. I would want to be dunked if it were me, you know, but.

Yeah. In all the churches I've been in, they would have to be dunked. Would they? Okay. Yeah. And all, all, all except one, actually one church

I was in, there was a Presbyterian. He was, and he was baptized as an infant.

And it became an issue in that church. Now I think I will admit, I think part of it was he was a medical doctor and they really wanted him to be in the church.

I think that may have played a part in their changing their, their view. But it was actually kind of interesting because when that pastor left, another pastor came in and, and that guy got rebaptized.

By immersion. Just needed to be taught through it. Yeah. But, so what are the rest of you guys?

I said, Brett, you were next. Yeah. I agree with that. Was it Rebecca who said that? Yes. My brother,

Brian had muscular dystrophy, so he couldn't be immersed in water and he led more people to Christ from his wheelchair than some pastors

I know do. And so they did, I remember him, they took him out of his electric wheelchair, thank

God, and put him in a regular wheelchair and they poured water over his head.

And that's how my brother Brian was baptized. And I agree with what Rebecca said. It comes with what the attentions of the heart is and their profession of faith.

And like I said, God raised my brother. So he led more people to Christ from his wheelchair than I know some people that have working legs, you know, lead people to Christ.

I did, I did baptize someone with cerebral palsy. And so I had to pick her up out of her wheelchair and carry her into the waters of baptism.

And, and, you know, I did submerge her, but, you know, we held her nose, held her, take a deep breath and she went down and up.

So it was, I won't, I won't say it wasn't difficult. It was probably the more difficult baptism

I've ever been involved with, but yeah, it can be done. Aaron.

I will be the first to admit that I am all for, you know, if, you know, like you mentioned

Brett, I think the observation that, you know, the thief on the cross didn't have the opportunity to be baptized.

Right. That didn't, he was still, he'd still join Christ in paradise. So, and I think that there are times when, and just like the teeth on the cross couldn't be baptized.

I think there are other people who can't necessarily be baptized. And what I'm going to say would be the, the biblical way.

And I'll explain that in a second. As somebody who is bound in a hospital gurney, you know, we can do something for them.

And I do believe that that's, that's appropriate. However, I'm going to go back to that regular normal use of language thing.

The word you might as well just put in the word immerse most often, you know, when that, when that is that word shows up in scripture, the idea of sprinkling is in a way absurd.

I dealt with this in my podcast recently, when we talked about baptism, it's, it's akin to, to someone saying that the passage that says that Jesus walked on the water just refers to him riding in the water on a boat.

When you hear someone say something like that, you're going to hear, you're going to believe one of two things, either a, that person is trying to deny the miracle of Christ or B, they don't understand what walk on the words, walk on the water.

Me, the word baptism means to be plunged. That's what it meant to the ancient peoples.

Whether it was plunging your hands, Plato used the word to describe being plunged with, with covered in questions by his students.

The word did not. And I'm going to argue, cannot mean sprinkle.

It can't mean poor. And that's just, I think it's just really the desperately important thing that we see when we look up, look back at church history, so much, so many of our traditions, so many of our beliefs, so many of our hardcore doctrines were not wealth researched and based in the actual truths of scripture.

We came to them and forgive me, but we came to them in similar ways that the book of Mormon was written.

You know, he at least proclaims that, you know, you know, an angel came down and gave him this message.

Right. But here I stand up and I go, well, I think that we're just going to sprinkle people and it'll be okay, you know?

And, and it's just so, so dangerous. And it's just a challenge to all of us to really make certain that we are doing due diligence to truly understand

God's word. And I think, may I, Andrew, two seconds. I think Andrew makes it.

My room, my wife got me this real dark bread. It's hard to get. It's from Walmart, but I didn't want to say that this spread is hard.

It's anyway, I'll talk about that another time, but listen, no, no, I'm no, it's a great point, but it goes back to what you say,

Andrew, you know, in that, in that time in, in the, in the new Testament, the death burial and resurrection baptized into Christ represented by being, you know, immersed and brought up was basically like Aaron is saying a profession of faith.

Why do you want to downplay that today? Yeah, no, I mean, one of the things is when we look at this,

I agree with you, Aaron, the word, so we've already said, we see the word baptized in scripture and we always think water baptism, but there's other meanings of that word because they created a new

English word. They'll often translate baptism like being plunged into the Holy spirit.

So I, I've always, you know, the legacy standard Bible just came out. And when they were doing that,

I've asked this with, you know, I never had an opportunity to give input into a translation other than the, the new

English translation, but no one will do what I've asked. I've Holman did do where they used to have tongues were translated languages and they clarify the issue.

So, so they got rid of the Holman Christian standard, went to Christian standard, went back to tongues. But I've always said translate deacons as servants, translate baptism baptismal as plunge dip, immerse.

And you're going to clarify a lot of the issues that people have, right? We, we know historically why they did that, but let me throw this out though.

Why historically, how did we get to the sprinkling and the pouring? And you can see this in, in an early church document known as the dedicate.

The dedicate is a, is an account of the early church. It's kind of like a, like an instruction manual for church in the early church.

And remember they went around to desert areas where there is no water. And so some of the thing is where they would say, if you don't have enough water to be baptized, if you're somewhere in the desert, there's not enough water to be baptized.

Pouring was a substitute. Now notice it was a substitute only when you didn't have enough water, right?

We can look at the fact that when John the Baptist baptized, he goes where there's much water. Why does there need to be much water?

If you're pouring or sprinkling, you know, Matt Slick will make the argument. It had to be sprinkled because when the, the when the disciples baptized, they would see his argument at Pentecost.

You have 2000 people getting baptized, 12 people doing the baptism. He makes the case that the water would be too cold.

They'd have hypothermia. They couldn't do it because they'd be in the water too long. We actually did this in a debate and I actually looked up the water temperatures in April and we realized, no, they wouldn't have hypothermia.

I also changed his numbers because he argued for 12 people and I argued for 120 because that's what was in the upper room.

And so you could have had 120. So that reduced his time by 10, a factor of 10, right?

So you, but that's the argument he would make is for this. Now, historically what we see is that they would allow pouring where you don't have enough water for immersion.

So that was the standard later. I think when they started to look and, and every group tries to do this, the

Catholics, the Mormons, everyone, they want to pretend that they're Old Testament Israel. And I think that's how you have the thing of looking at circumcision, bringing that into the church and replacing it with baptism.

And so to do that at an eight year old or eight day old, you're not going to pour, they could choke. So you sprinkle.

And I think it was more of a practical decision. Now, as, as Pastor Don brought up,

Matt Slick will argue at least for Christ's baptism, that it was sprinkling. He argues it out of the, the fact that you have the

Aaronic priesthood would be sprinkled. Jesus said he had to do this to fulfill the law. Therefore he had to be sprinkled in the order of Aaron.

No, not this Aaron here, right? The Aaronic priesthood, but guess what?

Jesus wasn't of the Aaronic priesthood. We actually know that he wasn't a

Levite. He was of Judah. He had to be. So he was not of Aaron.

He was of the Melchizedek order. And when I debated Matt on this once, I said just show me the instructions where someone in the order of Melchizedek gets sprinkled.

You see, we can't assume that just because the Aaronic priesthood is sprinkled with oil means that Jesus was sprinkled with water.

It's not a connection. These are the fun debates, Matt, I get into. And there's usually lots of fun name calling back and forth because we're really good friends.

And we, we tend to do that. If you, if you see any of our debates.

But the mode I think is, is probably the biggest debated issue. And yet Aaron, I'm going to agree with you.

I think the only biblical argument you can make for a mode is going to be immersion. You know,

I think anything else becomes a. Gymnastics of, of trying to fit in because you can't appeal to a covenant other than unless you're going to do like, like Matt tries to do with the

Aaronic priesthood and sprinkling there, but circumcision wasn't sprinkled.

So you can't go back to that. They're really, I think that's the big thing is that it's more of a tradition, which is like what you said.

And I think too, when you look at these, the examples of scriptures, you see that men who are respected elders, maybe not like the quote unquote preaching pastor of the church, but men who are respected mature believers are doing the baptizing of people who themselves have believed in Christ and they are being immersed.

That's what we see. That's what we know. Whether or not they were baptized forward, whether baptized for the father, son, and Holy spirit, all of that.

It's debatable. And we could even argue that there's freedom for those unique expressions because it's not illustrated specifically in the scriptures.

But, but we can't, we can't ignore what we do see. Okay. Let me, let me take, I'll take the opposition side now for you.

But we don't see a lot of passages that deal with it. So baptism in particular with baptism, do we have enough that we can, that we can make the claim that you just made and I'll, I'll tell you why.

And I'll put this at maybe as the final question that, because this leads into it is who should baptize?

Because I make a claim now, Presbyterian, the Presbyterian view would be, it would have to be an ordained elder that does the baptism.

I will argue from, and I'm just, I just looked, went to look at the scriptures.

I realized I had Roman six up here that to bring up and I forgot, but read Roman six. That's a perfect picture of baptism being buried, you know, in the ground raised.

But when you look at Matthew 28, 19, and 20, what we know is the great commission going, therefore, and I properly translated that, sorry,

I correct then as be going, therefore make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the father, son, and Holy spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I've commanded you and lo,

I will be with you always to the end of the age. So there's there, we end up seeing here is a couple of commands.

One is to make disciples and the, you know, we then see that, that that's the, that's the command there.

But how do we do that? We, we see the, a verb here of baptizing and a verb here of teaching.

That's how we make disciples. So if the great commission is for all Christians, I would argue all

Christians should be baptized. And so, so now I'll throw this out to see how you guys feel about this in our church.

We have a position that we will have a pastor in the waters of baptism, but not necessarily being the one to do the baptism.

For example in, in our church, we have a church plant. That's about a year old. The first baptism

I had the husband back in there with me, baptizing his wife.

And so why do I do that? Well, I believe from Matthew 28, 19, and 20, that the one who's, who is discipling them,

I'm going to want them to be the one to baptize them. Was the husband already born again?

Had he been baptized before? Was he baptized that day? No, he was baptized before. Okay. Many, many years before.

Yeah. Yeah. Well I would say that if somebody qualifies to be a pastor or a deacon, you know, not newly born again, mature, you know, that would, they would fall into the category of an elder, not elder as we understand it nowadays.

Right. But as an actual elder in the church. And I made, I made an argument on my podcast that I think there's great value.

And when I say elder or mature male believer, right, we're talking about spiritually mature. It would be very appropriate for fathers to baptize their children, for husbands to baptize their wives, for the, for a man who led somebody to the

Lord, again, a mature tested believer, somebody who we used easily would be chosen to be a deacon or pastor to baptize the person who they led to the

Lord. I think that definitely would be something that we would be consistent with in scripture because not all of the people who we see baptizing in scripture, you know, they weren't all apostles.

They weren't all preachers. We see a deacon. Right. Which one?

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So I mean, it wasn't a, no, no. What Presbyterian argument

I've heard is, well, he might've been a deacon at that point, but then he became a pastor. Well, of course he has to be a pastor.

That's putting the cart before the hearse. Right. That's like, well, we know because we have a position that only pastors, so he must've become a pastor.

So, well, let me, let me just open it up. I know we've, we've gone almost two hours. Anyone want, anyone have any last things they, they want to say that we haven't touched?

I'd like to have you guys look at a scripture. All right. Daniel briefly mentioned it.

And it's what was it? Acts 2 .38. Because, and I love to, and as Aaron said, you know, interpreting scripture with scripture, this is not a verse that I would take and run with it because, but people do and people have, have come to me and said, well, this is what it says.

And I'm talking from someone who's coming from believing that before we're baptized, we must be saved.

And that when we're saved, that is when we, the Holy spirit comes to and dwell within us.

But this verse here that says, and Peter said to them, 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. And so I've had many people tell me that this is, you know, this says that when you're baptized, that's the forgiveness of your sins.

And that's when you receive the Holy spirit. Yeah. No. Andrew, you want to look at that in the

Greek? If you know, I'm sure if you look at it in the Greek, it's, it's, it's two 38.

If you want to, I'm trying to look at it now, but I. This in the, in the, well, in the Greek it's baptism. Yeah.

And which is a different plunge, but again, you know, here's the thing that I think the mistake that people make is, is this water baptism.

Okay. So looking at the context, which is all we can do. It just says plunge the

ETB plunged in the name of Jesus Christ. So there's, there's two easy,

I think, ways of explaining this. One is plunged, meaning that they're there, they're get plunged in with the spirit.

Now that one, I don't think is, you know, that this is a baptism of the spirit.

That one could be, I think, easily argued against because it says and you will receive the spirit. Well, baptism of the spirit is receiving the spirit.

And therefore I think that that would be a harder one. I would just say it. This is, you're being plunged into the name of Christ. What does it mean in the name of Christ?

Why do we appeal in their prayers in the name of Christ? It means in his reputation, in everything that, that he is.

And so if we plunge in that way, then it, then there's no issue. Melissa though, has a response.

Could that, could that also be, because I saw there were other texts about being baptized into Moses.

And so could you be saying the same thing? Into the law typically is how we'd say that.

Right. You're completely immersed into the law. What you said,

Andrew, is one way of understanding it. If this, if this particular be baptized is not actually referring to the physical act of being plunged under water, but being baptized into Christ.

Yes. I think Rebecca, the second part of your question was that, and as a dispensationalist, all right.

I recognize that here at the beginning of the early church, there was a delay in when they received the

Holy spirit. That was just a reality. Christ actually told them that was going to happen. So we had men who had followed

Christ, who were truly born again, who had not received the Holy spirit as believers do today when they are born again.

And so, yes, early on, if, even if this is a, an actual water baptism for, for us to argue now that we do not quote unquote, receive the

Holy spirit or we receive us a second special indwelling of the Holy spirit or whatever else, when we are physically baptized, it's very tenuous.

I say it's nearly impossible to actually argue from scriptures because we know that there in the early church, something different was going on than what goes on since then.

Okay. Let me, and I, and I know Dom, you want to say son, but let me just piggyback off that answer this question real quick.

So would you say, are you thinking that then this is the baptism of repentance that John had done?

So this is like the baptism into Judaism type of baptism, what they do in a mitzvah. Are you asking me or Rebecca?

I'm asking you. Well, I, I, I have to be honest and say that I have not studied this particular one of the ones that people go to, to argue baptismal regeneration.

I have not studied this one in as much depth. So I'm not as familiar with the prepositions and all that kind of stuff in here.

I was wanting to focus primarily on the Holy spirit side of it. I, at first glance, and I'm, and I'm an

English guy. Okay. English is my first language, but I'm also a language person. I either speak or am semi comfortable in five different languages.

Pig Latin doesn't count. No, I know you're right. And I, I stink at pig Latin too. It's awful. But anyway, so this idea here that this idea of being baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins is going to be the debated part, you know, and I'd love to hear

Dom's cause Dom's there with his new Testament. He's got it out. He's ready to go. I think he can speak into it, but I, but I believe here, this is, this is a truly, you know you know, this is

Peter talking. So this baptism he's talking about is either a going to be baptism into Christ spiritually or be the physical representation of my spiritual baptism into Christ.

But we have to let scripture interpret scripture. Scripture is never going to contradict itself. And if the, even if this is referring to the physical representation of the spiritual reality we know that the forgiveness of sins is not contingent upon the baptism.

And though, again, to my second point though, yes, we do see potentially in the early church that people receive the

Holy Spirit after being regenerated. That would not be a surprising thing to see at this time in Acts but definitely would not be something that we would see later.

Well, one thing that is interesting with this, Rebecca, I'm just looking this up. This, this word is a passive, not active.

So if, if this was someone who is being baptized in water baptism, they would, it would be an active thing that they do.

It's, but this is saying this baptizing in the name of Jesus is being done to the subject.

The subject isn't doing it. And so. Is that the same for verse 41 where it says, so those who received his word.

Yeah, it's the same for 41. It's an heiress passive indicative. So where, so the difference there is in 38, this is an heiress passive imperative.

And so it's a command. The, the 41 is indicative.

And so the, the meaning, the idea behind it being that one is one's commanded one is an event that's happening.

See, that's really helpful because again, my response would always be to tell people, well, no let's interpret scripture with scripture and go to all the other scriptures about repenting first.

And, but that verse always bugged me, you know, because when you just at face value, when you read it, it's like, ah, why does that say that?

So that, that's, that was really helpful. I appreciate that. Yeah. So yeah.

So Dom, you, you were, we're looking something up. Yeah, no, I just got from the Greek text. I, it, it gives a little interpretation and I don't want to get too

Greek issue, but it says, finally, it's possible that to the first century Jewish audience, as well as the Peter, the idea of baptism might incorporate both the spiritual reality and the physical symbol that Peter connects both that, that, that Peter connects both correct.

Then in Acts 2 38 is saying very little about the specific theological relationship between symbol and the reality only that historically they were viewed together.

So, you know, it's just, I was just looking at that.

So I, I always thought it to be, and basically I think the way they say it, Andrew is repent with reference to your sins and, and let each one of you be baptized against it.

So that's the way they're kind of looking at it there, but who knows? Yeah. And it's, it, the, the reason it's interesting, both words baptismal in 38 and 41 are in the arist.

So I focus on the passive meaning it was done to them being an arist means the arist is idea.

It's a, it's a snapshot of time. So it's, it's not, it's not necessarily, it doesn't necessarily have a process to it.

Okay. And so this is something that's just, it's, it's speaking of an event, typically, typically in the past, but it, it's just an event.

It's like a picture, right, Andrew? It's just, it's like a picture. Yeah. And so, so because of that, if, if this was a water baptism that we think of it, it would be a past event that I'm active in.

So let's, let's, you know, if we, if we go, for example, to you know, to what we looked at Matthew 28, 19 and 20, uh, 19, right there, you have a present active participle.

And so there it's, it's a present, which is what we'd expect if they're getting baptized, that it's a present thing.

It's, it's an active, meaning they're the ones that the person that's, that's involved is the one actor he's, he's taking the action.

Okay. He's the one that's doing it. And that's the idea of the action. And that's what I would expect with water baptism.

If they're speaking of a water baptism in the past, I could see it being a past active instead of a present active.

But if it's the water baptism, we would expect that to be, uh, I would think an active.

So, uh, Daniel, you had your hand up for last questions. Oh yeah.

So for acts two 38, like I know it's not the strongest argument, but like, uh, with the grammar there in the

Greek, the fact that, I don't know if you would make anything of the fact that repent is a plural.

So it's a plural imperative there. You all repent and then for the forgiveness of your sins, that's also plural, but then be

BAP, let each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. The be baptized there is kind of like every single one of you.

Like, so there could be a grammatical disconnect. So the repent ties with, for the forgiveness of sins and the let each of you be baptized as singular can also some ways function, parenthetically like associated with it.

And it's not like you must do, you individually must do these two things to obtain the

Holy spirit. But so it's, so yeah, it's interesting because when you, the repent that you, you mentioned is a arist active imperative.

So it's a command that is the person's active. He's, he is repenting. Where the baptizing he's passive.

All right. Uh, it's interesting because when you go to the receive that you brought up, uh, the receive is a future, a future middle indicative.

So being future, right? It means it's something in the future to the event. So, so what you're repenting, the, the receiving his future and the middle is the middle voice.

The subject is taking action on himself. So, so it's, it's an action that's caused because it's something he does.

So what that would say is because he did the repenting, the repenting carry, he did the repenting that brings upon him the receiving.

So again, I, you know, I would, I would, I think a good way to argue it would be that way is to look at the

Greek and, and this is on it's hard sometimes. Cause you know, I mean, how many of us here know

Greek? So, but you have tools. That's what

I was going to ask was, can you recommend tools for those of us who don't understand Greek? Logos. Logos.

Logos. If you want to get me longer, Logos Bible software can be expensive. I'll give a pitch.

If you want to get it, we do have an affiliate code at Striving Fraternity. The short code, the short way of doing it is just use bit bit .ly

bit .ly slash S F E Logos. It stands for Striving Fraternity Logos.

But if you go to bit .ly slash S F E Logos and you get

Logos or you get an, even if you have it and you get a new package, we, the arrangement we have with them is you get the discounts that you would get with them, but you get five free books from Striving Fraternity.

I use Logos all the time. It's, it is easy to use. It is very, very powerful.

There are other tools out there. Blue letter Bible is free. So if you're Jewish out there, free is for me.

And so blue letter Bible is a good tool to use. There's, there's other tools out there.

There's other apps. And some of them have gone by the wayside now. So I'm trying to remember which ones are no longer in existence.

So I'm, I'm hard pressed to, to give some of the others. But there are some, some tools out there that you could get, but I recommend

Logos. If you're going to go free, then I recommend blue letter Bible.

And you can, even in some Bible apps, you can click on, on the word and it'll bring some of this up, but sometimes it'll bring up these, what's called the tense voice and mood.

And, you know, you're going, okay, what does this mean? And so, but sometimes it's just a, just a quick search on the internet for, you know,

Greek arist. And that could help you, you know, but this, this is when it comes to, you know, a lot of what we're talking about really tonight actually is hermeneutics and, and, you know, looking at how, what the word means in its context and things like this.

And a basic understanding of, of Greek is helpful. You don't have to know Greek.

I mean, it's helpful if you do, but if you have a basic understanding for, for example, and I guess

I could close out with this since we're talking baptism in my debate on does baptism save with the guy who was from the church of Christ?

One of the things I asked him is he was making a case that baptism was, that is, was necessary.

He turned to a passage. And now I'm not remembering which one, but there was a condition there.

And he was arguing that because of the condition, it means that if you got baptized, you were saved.

But there's, there's actually four different condition, if conditions in Greek and they can have a very different meaning, you know, some mean this is like, this is a hypothetical, like I'm going to pretend like this can't happen, but it it's reality to the other extreme where it's, you do this, then that happens.

So understanding those things can really make a big difference in understanding the scriptures.

And we don't get that from English. And that can sometimes affect the way people interpret things.

This is why, you know, I go into churches at Striving Fraternity, we go into churches and teach our Bible interpretation made easy.

I mean, we make it easy for people to handle some of these, these things and, and looking at things, give you a, for instance, one

I always like to look to is in the ending of John, you have Peter. He denies

Christ three times. He asks, you know, Christ asks him, do you love me three times?

And everyone will make the reference that you see the third time. Peter is upset because he asked him a third time because he, he denied him three times and everyone makes that connection because the word love in English is used in all that case, but that's actually not the way it is in the

Greek two different Greek words. It's agape love. So Jesus says,

Peter, do you love me? And Peter's response is I like you. And he said, well, do

Peter, do you love me? I like you. So third time he says, Peter, do you like me?

And Peter is grieved because the third time he said, asked, do you like me?

And Peter says, you know, all things. You see the reason he was grieved was not because it was three times. The reason he was grieved because Jesus is saying, do you love me?

And he's saying, I'm not at that level, but I'm at this level. And then on the third time he said, are you even at that level?

So he totally changes the way we can interpret that just by realizing two different Greek words for love are used.

And, and so studying the scriptures, if we want to be accurate, it does take time.

It does take some work. You know, And we do want to say you don't need Greek to be saved, but it does.

It does help. It does. Well, it helps in understanding the scriptures. Yeah. Yeah. And here's one here.

English grammar to ACE new Testament Greek. This is a short. Copy. This is a little helpful.

If you, if you're pretty good with English grammar, this will help a little bit. On the Greek here.

It's a short read. And this is here. Greek for life by mounts.

This is a little more detailed, but this one here is not too bad. If you're pretty good in English.

This one here and two for an audio audience. So English, English grammar for ACE is the one you're lifting up.

Yeah. I'm sure, you know, that one, right, Andrew? No, I don't actually. I mean, this is a short read.

It might help. This is a little tougher. This is Greek for life by mounts. You know, just learning

English, knowing English, like, like Aaron said. It helps. It does. It does help because you just look,

I teach people, just look for the noun that, you know, what's the subject, the predicate, the complete thought.

I mean, Andrew, that's exactly what this book is about here. The learning English grammar to ACE new

Testament Greek. The problem is most people in America don't learn English and we still, we still don't know what it is.

Pastor Dom there speaks, you know, that's New York -ish, but you know, I figured he would get to that, right?

Daniel, you got to help me out on this, man. I don't speak New York -ish, but.

I speak a mix of Pennsylvania and Floridian and Colorado and I guess. Oh, well,

Hey guys, this has been good. It's been fun. Got a lot of good discussion and our, our, our

Presbyterian podcasters, this was a shout out to bring them in. And Daryl Updike was, was trying to get in.

I know he said he was going to be, he thought he'd be late. He we, in our group where we discuss these different things, those of us who are part of the

Christian podcast community. And he said he was going to be late. Daryl Updike is from what are we even doing here podcast.

And he did say, he did say, he goes, I said, well, come in late. You know,

I said, that way we can make fun of your position, you know, like before he gets here. And his response was, but I, I don't want to be the only one who is right.

And, and I said, you're right. You're not. Now that doesn't mean he's not the only one.

It means you're not right, Daryl. I know you're listening. I know you're going to respond to this on your podcast, but Hey, here's the question for Daryl and the other

Presbyterians, you know, seriously, do you think I presented your position? Right? Because if not,

I want to make sure I correct that. But I hope that what you, you learn here tonight, folks is there's differences.

We even had here. There's some things we disagree. I hope this was educational, helpful for you to get a better understanding of the issues within baptism, the different views, but most of all, what we want to do is show how we can have disagreements and still show love and charity because we are believers in Christ.

So I hope that came through. And with that, let me just close out with a promo for the Christian podcast community.

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Christian living, evangelism, apologetics, parenting, homeschooling, sermons, and much, much more.

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