67 - Ordinances of the Church, Part 1 | Baptism's incorrect meanings

Well, welcome to the

Striving for Eternity Academy. This is a ministry of striving for eternity. This is an academy where we teach you on all sorts of topics.

We have schools in systematic theology, which is the school that we're going to go through today.

We have schools in hermeneutics, how to interpret the Bible. We have schools in discipling schools.

We're adding some schools in apologetics. That's one of the ones going to be coming up next and the

Bible, we're going to have that as well. So, we have a lot of different disciplines that we will be having available to you.

This class, however, is systematic theology introduction. This is book number four of our, basically our fourth class within this.

We're calling this God's Program for the Ages, the Doctrines of the Church and the Doctrine of Last Things.

Today's class will be on the topic of the ordinances of the church.

That says church government. The ordinances of the church. Church government was last. I guess,

I guess somebody, me, forgot to, forgot to update that properly.

Yeah, okay, my bad. But the ordinances of the church we're going to talk about today, basically baptism,

Lord's Supper. What about foot washing? Is that an ordinance? Is it not? What exactly is an ordinance? Those are the topics for today's class.

I hope you have a syllabus. If you don't have a syllabus, you can get one at store .strivingforeternity .org.

You can pick up a copy of the syllabus, they're $25 each, has all of the notes and fill in the blanks.

Some other things I won't go over in class, try to cover most of it, but it also gives you a place that you can take your own notes and have it readily available, especially because in the future we're working on trying to get quizzes and tests and extra reading and things like that, that'll be part of the on -site or the website so that you could get more active in your education on theological matters.

So with that, we shall begin. I don't think I have any other announcements.

Last week we talked about the different types of governments within the church and we said that these are areas that we're not to die over.

I mean, these are areas we can disagree, we could peaceably fight, we could disagree even in strong ways, but I think it's on where there wasn't really clear, this is absolutely in Scripture, clearly taught and you die for this.

We're going to get into another one like that now. There are going to be some issues here when we talk about ordinances that some of them, they're preference issues.

Some of them are not. There's actually people who died because of their view of baptism.

Think about that. Is that something that you say that the meaning of the

Word of God is so important to you that you are willing to die over your understanding of it?

And that's what actually happened. There are people in history who literally were put to death because they had a different view of baptism.

Now I am not sure that baptism raises to the level that we need to be saying we can't have some give and take.

Really a lot of what was behind some of that was politics and really baptism was an issue that showed a division between two major systems, the

Roman Catholic Church and its influences and then the Anabaptists and those who were completely separate and not trying to reform the

Church but totally separate from the Church. So, I don't know that I'm willing to die for baptism and Lord's Supper and foot washing.

Just saying. But those are going to be the things we're going to cover and we'll go through this as we do.

I'm going to try to explain where the differing views are and where I land. Not saying

I'm absolutely right because I believe it. I believe that I'm right. And now, I want you to notice the two differences in what

I just said there because the fact that I believe something doesn't mean it's right, it means

I believe it. And this is an area where I think a lot within Christianity we need to start seeing some more humility.

We need to start seeing more people that are willing to disagree on different areas and do it in love and humility with a true genuine

Christian spirit like Christ would have and not trying to win an argument, not trying to prove that we're right, that our beliefs are better or actually in our own pride be trying to win a debate.

So as we go through this, I realize some of you are going to have a different conclusion than I have. I'm fine with that.

I hope you are too. But let's discuss this and go through this and see what the scripture says, see how people come to their conclusions fairly accurately.

Look folks, if you cannot honestly represent an opposing view to yours, then you're being dishonest and you're probably wrong.

This is something I say to the professing atheists all the time when they want to challenge me on Christianity and then they misrepresent what

Christianity believes. If you can't honestly debate what Christianity is, it means your argument is so weak that you know that you don't have the truth on your side and you can't even play in the realm of ideas.

So what we want to do here is include it in the church's calling to evangelize the lost, that's something the church is called to do, and edify the believers.

So after they become lost people, become believers, now we edify and we equip them and we're to exalt

God, and actually in the opposite order is how we have it in our doctrinal mission.

We say the mission of this ministry, the mission of the church is to exalt God, edify and equip the saints, and evangelize the lost.

But that's the calling, that's what we're called to do as a church. We've dealt with this in previous classes, so we're called to do this and we are to participate in two very special ordinances, oops, did

I just give something away? That's right, I only think there's two. Which two? Baptism?

Foot washing? Lord's Supper? We're going to find out, and why I don't think one of them is an ordinance.

So as we go through what an ordinance is, we're going to see it. This lesson, we're going to explain the teachings and the purpose behind an ordinance, what's an ordinance versus a sacrament.

So let's define some of that. So let's first start with the definition. If you have your syllabus, which I hope you do,

I give you a definition. An ordinance is a ceremony or memorial which symbolizes some truth about salvation.

So it's some sort of ceremony or a memorial that symbolizes a truth about salvation.

Now, is that definition somewhere within scripture? No, it's not.

It's something that we use, and so a sacrament is going to have a different definition, and a sacrament is going to actually add grace.

Now, when we say that, there's two different views of sacraments that we have within the

Catholic Church and within the Reformed Churches. Okay, so let's explain those.

A sacrament within the Catholic Church actually adds grace. It adds merit to your salvation.

It's a work that you do to get more in your credit for that day of judgment when you go to purgatory, you have less you have to work off.

That's basically what it comes down to. Okay? It is this idea that you can earn salvation through these sacraments.

It adds grace. In a Reformed Church, non -Roman Catholic, they're going to talk about a sacrament, but they don't mean it as adding grace that adds to your salvation or earns or merits salvation.

They mean it in a sanctification way. In other words, when we get saved, that's regeneration.

That's a point where we're changed into new life. But after that is a process of sanctification.

It is a process of works where we are working our way to be more in the image of Christ. It is an effort.

And in that effort, sanctification process, the sacrament in the

Reformed Church would see as adding grace. By participating in sacraments, you are adding the grace in your sanctification, not regeneration as the

Roman Catholics would have it. Do you see that distinction? You're going to see actually, if you've started in the beginning of these lessons, you've seen already, we've brought this up several times, but there is great confusion people have over regeneration and sanctification and where these works come in.

And many people that believe that works save you or that you have to do works to maintain your salvation, that you're usually mixing up regeneration, sanctification.

Okay? I've, throughout this, these, how many classes we got now? 67? 67 classes.

This is the 67th. Okay. Out of 67 classes in theology, and we've had plenty of others in world religions,

I've covered it. In discipling, I think I probably covered it. You know, the reality is that we've covered this several times because it's something that so many people get confused.

And you're going to see people that when they do it, it's like, oh, yeah, that's what they're doing. They're confusing regeneration, sanctification.

All right? I better get going because we're only on point number two. All right.

I want to try to finish this today. We'll see if I can get through the entire class. All right. Distinctions of ordinances.

Distinctions of ordinances. So here you have a couple of things that distinct, make a distinction of an ordinance.

Now remember, I defined an ordinance as a ceremony or memorial that symbolizes salvation.

Okay? So first, an ordinance is a ceremony or memorial that symbolizes salvation. An ordinance is a command by Christ. That's your blank there, command. An ordinance is something that is commanded by Christ.

So when we're going to look at the different ordinances, we're going to say, was it something that Christ commanded? So when we do that, we see three things that people will argue

Christ commanded, baptism, Lord's Supper, and foot washing.

So the question is, were all of those commanded for all of us? Okay? So let's continue.

An ordinance presents a salvation truth, presents is your blank there. So it's commanded by God or Christ, and it presents a salvation truth.

Does baptism present a salvation truth? Well, yes, clearly in Romans 6, it talks about salvation being a picture of regeneration.

Very clear. Does Lord's Supper? Well, Lord's Supper brings us back to thinking about what happened at the time of Christ when

He gave Him His life on the cross. And so does it picture it? Well, the bread pictures

His body and the cup pictures His wine, as He used as an illustration in the

Passover meal. What about foot washing? Well, foot washing, it does, it is the idea of the humility.

Some people will try to argue that, but here's where you start to see the difference. See, Christ didn't specifically say that He was washing their feet for regeneration.

Now, there is the argument though, because you have Peter and he goes, hey, Lord, you're not going to wash my foot.

Why does he say that? Because what happens is foot washing is like the lowest job. It's the job of the lowest servant, it's something that no one wanted to do.

And so the fact that nobody, when they got into the Passover meal, did the foot washing,

Jesus washed the disciples' feet. Some might say, well, why did

He wait like halfway through the meal? That's because you haven't sat through a Passover. It's long. I mean, like three hours at least.

It's like, for a kid, it was horrible. But the thing though is, is that at some point

He decides He's going to wash their feet. And what He's doing is He's putting Himself beneath the other, the disciples.

And Peter is saying, Lord, you should be lifted up, not lowered. So He sees this issue there.

And because of that issue, He's saying, you know, it's beneath you to wash my feet,

Lord. And Jesus does say, if I don't do this, you know, you have no part with me.

And He's like, okay, wash my whole body. And Jesus does explain, well, you don't need your whole body washed again. That was done already.

You just need daily cleansing. Now, that is a point, if you notice, what He's talking about there in the foot washing,

He's not saying you needed your feet washed to be regenerate, because He talked about the whole body doing that.

He's talking about the foot washing actually in the part of sanctification. Notice the distinction. And so this is where I start to see a difference, because I don't think it has to do with regeneration.

I think it has to do with sanctification. So now if someone does a foot washing and they believe that's an ordinance, I know churches that do that,

I don't see a big deal with it, okay? Do I define it as one of the two ordinances? I don't.

And this is where I start to see it differentiate. But I'll see it even more in the next one. An ordinance was practiced by the early church, practiced, that's your blank there, practiced by the early church.

And so what we see here is that in the early church, we clearly see baptism was practiced.

In fact, baptism was so significant that it was almost synonymous with salvation, because people did not go get baptized unless they really believed in Christ.

Because when you got baptized, you were cut off from your family, your work, everyone in the neighborhood.

You were cut off. You were treated as if you were dead. Most of those people had to move or try to start a whole new life again.

And so baptism back then is like baptism in the Middle East when it was very public and you could lose your life over it.

Baptism is not something people do easily. They take it serious. The Lord's Supper, we see that continued throughout the early centuries.

We see it in the Scriptures. We see Paul giving instructions in 1

Corinthians 11, so it continued on for many years. We see it in the

Didache. The Didache is a book, an ancient book of the Christian church, basically kind of rules for church, how to do church.

It was one of the earliest documents of the church that we still have. Very helpful because it shows how they practiced within the church.

And so we see that they had Lord's Supper. What about foot washing? Well, foot washing actually was a cultural thing. So did they continue it?

Well, yes, but did they continue it as a separate church function? See, baptism got a new meaning.

Baptism was something that was done when a Gentile became Jewish. It was a ceremonial washing within Judaism.

But the church gave it a new meaning. The Passover was something that Jews participated in and they practiced it, but the church gave it a new meaning.

But we don't see that in history, a new meaning for foot washing. And last is, an ordinance is confirmed by the epistles.

Confirmed by the epistles. So you have commanded by Christ, you have presents the salvation truth, practiced by the early church, and confirmed by the epistles.

So you end up seeing here in the distinction, that with these distinctions, as we saw, we saw that throughout the epistles you see talk of baptism, you see talk of Lord's Supper, you don't see continued talk of foot washing.

So now someone could say, but Andrew, who made up that definition for an ordinance? I fully admit that's a man -made definition.

It's not something that God says, only these two and no more. So we don't have that. So this is just a way of us understanding it.

If someone wants to put foot washing in, based on the distinction I make with it, I'm going to disagree with it, but I'm not going to say you're not a brother in Christ.

If you don't want to put the Lord's table in there, I'm not going to say you're not a believer in Christ. You see the distinction

I'm making? The distinction on the distinctions, yeah. I'm making a distinction as I talk about the distinctions of ordinances.

Okay, let's get to the descriptions of the ordinances. The descriptions of the ordinances. So as we describe these two ordinances, based on the definition of an ordinance and the distinction of an ordinance, we can determine there's only two that were practiced,

I believe, and that was baptism and the Lord's Supper. So let us begin with the dreaded

B word, baptism. I understand there is lots of debate on this.

Should infants be baptized? Should only believers be baptized? What's the appropriate age to be baptized? How should you be baptized?

Should you be baptized by immersion? Should you be sprinkled? Should you be poured? Do you need to be baptized? Is baptism saved people?

Do you need to be baptized to be saved? All these questions get into it.

I'm going to try to go through it quickly, but if I can't, well, then we're going to do Lord's Supper next week. But I have in other areas talked about baptism.

When we talked about the class on an introduction to discipleship, when we're discipling people and talking about baptism and the

Lord's Supper, we have two lessons in that, maybe more actually, where we dealt with baptism and Lord's Supper.

So with that, I'd encourage you, you could always go back to those lessons and look at those that's in the class on discipleship, the

School of Discipleship and an Introduction to Discipling. But I'm going to try to go through it here. Let's first look at baptism and the mandate to baptize.

We see that Christ commanded it. Remember, we mentioned the distinctions.

Did Christ command baptism? Well, we see that in Matthew 28, Matthew 28 and verse 19.

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the

Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. So this was commanded by Christ.

The issue there is that go is an adverb. It's not the command.

It's to make disciples. The baptizing and teaching are two supporting verbs to the make.

So how do we make disciples? We make disciples according to Christ by baptizing them and teaching them.

That's how we make disciples. So the first step in making a disciple is to baptize them.

Now, when? I mean, how soon? In the early century in the scriptures, you see people getting baptized immediately after getting saved.

And yet in America, we have this time. Why? Well, basically, here's the reason why.

And I kind of hinted to it already. In the first century where baptism meant death, meant if not physical death, it at a minimum meant death to those around you, your family, your friends, your co -workers, everyone.

I mean, they would basically bury an empty casket in Judaism.

And it's called being dead to someone. And you're dead to the family. And so they would bury an empty casket that actually have a plot.

And you know, for some who know my background, my parents actually told me they discussed doing that.

And there was a situation that happened in our family that got them to rethink whether they wanted to do that.

But they said that they seriously discussed making me dead to them. And I would have been cut off.

They would not even recognize if I was in a room. They would not even recognize my existence.

And that's what it means. Now, in the Middle East today, someone gets publicly baptized in a country that's

Muslim where deconversion from Islam means death. You get baptized and you are serious about your faith.

You're going to take it serious. And that was the way. You can't see whether I'm saved. I can't see whether you're saved.

So we're going to look at fruit of someone's life. And baptism was a fruit that people looked at and said, well, if you were willing to get baptized, you must be a

Christian because no one was willing to do that. So in the first century, that's what was considered the watershed issue.

You know, in this toward the second century, what happened was the Roman Empire came in. And the Roman Empire came in and said, give us your scriptures.

We want your scriptures. And there were some people that said, you know what? The Romans are going to come in.

What are they going to do? If I don't give up the scriptures, they're going to just take me out and throw me in prison, go through my house and get the scriptures anyway.

So you know what some people did? They said, OK, they'll give up partial scriptures. They gave up part of the scriptures and said, that's all

I have. And they were allowed to continue to stay in their home and live and work and things like that.

But they gave up at least portions. Some gave up probably all of the scriptures that they had.

Others, though, said there is no way you could take them from me. You could pry them from my dead hands, as did happen with some.

Or you can haul me off to prison. But I am not freely giving up the word of God.

And so what happened? Well, many of them went to prison. They were thrown in prison in the second and third centuries.

And they were put in there because they wouldn't give up the scriptures. And then, yeah, the Romans would ransack the house and look for them.

Did they always find them? No. Sometimes people find really good hiding spots. Adonai Judson, a missionary to Burma, he was translating the

Bible into Burmese. And he was imprisoned because of the war that went on, the

World War. And because of that, his wife decided to hide the scriptures.

Where did she hide them? She made a rock that was a pillow. She basically made a pillow that was so hard, it was like a rock, and gave it to her husband as a, you know, gave it to guards to give to her husband.

It wasn't soft. The guards figured, who's going to sleep on this? But what they didn't know is he was hiding his

New Testament translation there so that they couldn't find it. She had buried it in the, I think he actually, before he got imprisoned, had buried it in the garden and she was afraid they'd dig it up.

So that's how they hid it. People did that in the second, third centuries as well. So here's what happened. Constantine comes in and says, everyone's

Christian. We're a Christian nation. Boom, overnight everyone claims that they're Christians. Suddenly you have all these prisoners who are imprisoned because of their

Christianity and they're let go. Now you have a dilemma. They come out of prison and what do they say?

Hey, you guys, you're not real Christians. Because when the

Romans came, you gave up the Word of God. You aren't real Christians because you compromised.

And that was the word for them, compromisers. They compromised with the Romans to save their soul.

And so what happened was the people that went to prison were arguing that the evidence of their faith was that they were willing to go to prison.

I think in today's day in America, you know what the watershed issue for us is? Are you going to take a biblical stance on homosexuality?

The culture wants us to compromise on that issue and kowtow and bow down to their desires and their idea of what the culture should believe.

Why should their culture believe it? Because they say so. It's not because God says so. So what you have is throughout history there have been many, many watershed issues that Christians hold to and say, look at the fruit of that person's life.

He must be a Christian. Baptism was at one time that issue. So it was commanded. Does it save?

No. It pictures salvation. It's a picture of salvation.

It doesn't save a person. So Andrew, why is it that baptism and salvation are so tightly coupled in the

New Testament? Well, I just went through all that and I hope now you understand why. Because of the emphasis given on baptism, because it meant that someone that was willing to be baptized had the fruit, because they understood, they counted the cost, they knew what it was going to cost them to be baptized, they trusted that that person must have counted the cost and would be a believer.

Does that make sense now to you? All right. So it was commanded by Christ. Does it symbolize salvation? Well, it doesn't save a person, but in Romans 6, as I mentioned earlier,

Romans 6, 1 -6, it definitely symbolizes or memorializes salvation.

What shall we say then? This is Romans 6, 1 -6. What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?

By no means. How can we die to sin still live in it?

Do you not know that all of us have been baptized into Christ Jesus, were baptized into His death?

We were buried therefore with Him by baptism into death in order that just as Jesus was raised from the dead by the glory of the

Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with Him in death like His, we shall certainly be united with Him in resurrection like His.

We know that our old self was crucified with Him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, that we might no longer be enslaved to sin.

So what you see there, now this is, he's using the death, burial, resurrection of Jesus Christ and he's saying that when we get baptized, what that's picturing is it's picturing back what

Christ did for us, that He died, He was buried in the ground, He rose from the dead.

We come, we're buried in the water, we're rose again. Well, I guess only one type of mode of baptism could picture that, right?

Just saying. We're going to get to that in a bit. But we talk about the mode, but you're seeing the point.

It's the idea of that our old self is buried with Christ and we now live to newness of life, alright?

Was it practiced by the early church? Well, yeah, I mean

Acts 2 .38, Acts 8 .18, Acts 10 .47, Acts 16, 14 .15,

Acts 18 .8, Acts 19 .5.

All of these, you're going to see if you go through those, and there's plenty of others, you're going to see baptism being practiced.

And this is, again, we went to Romans 6 .1 -6 and you're seeing in there, you're seeing very clearly that it is something that was confirmed by the epistles.

So it was confirmed in the epistles, alright? So, we look at the meaning of baptism.

Alright, let's look at the incorrect views. I already mentioned the idea that the

Catholic Church has with their sacraments, okay? So they believe, the

Roman Catholic Church believes that baptism is a sacrament that bestows grace, that's your blank there, bestows grace upon the recipient.

So it gives grace. Now, I'm saying this again because I want to point out the fact that the

Roman Catholic Church uses the term sacrament, and you'll go to some Reformed churches and they use the term sacrament, it does not mean they mean the same thing, okay?

Why? Because the grace is different, okay? I don't have the time to go through all this with the

Catholic Church if you disagree with me. You can pick up my book, What Do They Believe?, and you can look in the section of Catholicism and you can find it there in my book,

What Do They Believe?, A Systematic Theology of Major Western Religions, it's available at strivingforeternity .org,

and in our store you can get that, and what you're going to find there is that they believe baptism is what actually is necessary to save a person, you must be baptized to be regenerate, okay?

So there's a different view than what the Reformed churches are going to believe because they believe you must first be saved, regenerate, to be able to be baptized.

You see, it's flipped. The Catholic Church says you get baptized and then you can get saved.

The Reformed churches are going to say, no, no, no, you get saved, regenerate, and then because you're regenerate, you get baptized.

Now what's the grace that the Reformed churches are going to say? Well, they're going to say that it's adding grace in those works of sanctification, making you more obedient to Christ.

Baptism is the first step of obedience is how many would say it, and so it's the first thing you should do.

You should get baptized because it is a step of obedience, and we should be obedient to Christ.

Do you see that? So the Catholic Church has it flipped, okay? And so what baptism is not is it's not a sacrament that saves you or adds to your salvation, adds to your regeneration.

Let me be more specific here because salvation can be used to speak of regeneration or sanctification. So when we talk about it, baptism might add a grace, but that grace is in our sanctification, not in our regeneration.

So this is where the Catholic Church has it wrong. This is where we'd say the Roman Catholic Church has a different gospel because they're seeing that you must be baptized as a work in order to be regenerate, and what the

Bible teaches is you must be regenerate, and then once you're regenerate, you go and get baptized. Washing away sins is another.

Many Protestants and liberal Baptists teach that baptism washes away original sin.

Your Seventh -day Adventist will teach this. The Roman Catholic Church will teach this. The idea that we see passages, oh we saw a little bit of it even in Romans 6 when we looked at that, that the idea that, but you'll see it more in like I think it's 1

Peter 3 where it'll say with the washing and renewing of your faith, the washing away of sins.

And the idea there is that what happens is that we're actually cleansed, washed away our sins are actually washed away in the waters of baptism.

That's not what it's saying in Romans 6, it's not what it's saying elsewhere. It's using baptism as a picture, as a symbol, the symbol of the actual regeneration that does do the washing away.

It's the regeneration that actually changes us from dead to new life, from enemies of God to children of God.

And that's pictured in baptism, but there's another baptism and this is the thing that often people confuse as well.

There's two types of baptism specifically in Christianity that are mentioned, water baptism and baptism of the

Holy Spirit, which is not speaking in tongues and charismatics. There's a difference there and confusion on that as well.

Baptism of the Holy Spirit just means that the Holy Spirit indwells the believer. That's the New Covenant mentioned in Jeremiah 31 and Ezekiel 25 -26 where it mentions that with the

New Covenant, the sign of the New Covenant would be that the Holy Spirit would indwell the believers and live with them forever.

They would no longer need priests to tell us what God's Word says, but that God Himself would indwell us and He would interpret

His own Word for us. That is the promise. And that is called a baptism.

Baptism, we do have an English word for it, it means to dip, to plunge, to immerse. That's what it means.

So why do we have a new word baptism? Well, quite honestly, it's very simply because when the

Anglican Church was translating the Bible into English, they came to the word baptismo, the Greek word for baptize, which means to dip or plunge, and they went, wait a minute, we can't dip or plunge because we sprinkle.

If we translate this to plunge into the Holy Spirit or to plunge into water, people are going to go, how's that when you're just sprinkling?

You see the difference. And so what you see is that there is this idea that we have where we have the creation of a new

English word, baptismo, became baptize because they wanted to confuse.

I'm sorry, there's no other way to say it. They knew that translating the word properly would show that what they're doing is wrong.

That was a big struggle at the time because the Anabaptists were being killed over the fact that they said you had to be re -baptized.

You were baptized as an infant, fine. You're poured and sprinkled, fine. Now you've got to be re -baptized as a believer.

That's what Anabaptist means, re -baptizers. They were saying you had to be baptized again as believers and not by sprinkling but immersion.

That was a big struggle. So when they translated it, they created a new word. That's what they did, okay?

And so with that, you end up having this confusion that comes in. So if we say that we're plunged in by the

Holy Spirit, it just means He indwells us. He comes and lives within us. Can we understand that?

No, we can't, not fully, but it's the language we use. So we say that we're baptized with the

Spirit. Well that's what happens at salvation when we're regenerate, regenerated. One of the many things that happens at that moment, not only do we go from an enemy of God to a child of God, but we get indwelt with the

Holy Spirit. We are baptized with the Holy Spirit at salvation, okay?

Which is a proof that baptism is not, baptism of the

Spirit, is not seen only by speaking in tongues. Why? Because they were baptized first and spoke in tongues later.

That's why, okay? That was something different and I would say it was for that time period, just saying.

So what is baptism? Well, it's not a sacrament in the way that the Roman Catholics mean it, as in other words, it doesn't remove original sin, okay?

That's what they say. Now they would say it's the washing away of the original sin, meaning that now it's up to works.

With original sin, you and I cannot do anything to earn our salvation.

We cannot, with the sin, the idea of original sin, even the Catholics understood this, that with original sin in play, we are totally depraved, even our will is affected by the curse of sin.

So what do they say? Well, baptism washes that away so that as you're washed away from original sin, now you can do works to earn your salvation.

Now some will say, whoa, it doesn't wash away original sin. No, no, no, no, it doesn't do that. But it does wash away sins.

And so that's just the saying now. What they're going to say is that you need to be baptized to be saved then. They're going to argue,

Church of Christ would argue this, Seventh -day Adventists would argue this. I think even,

I'm not sure whether Jehovah's Witnesses would argue that. I think they might. But then you have liberal denominations that would argue that, that baptism is what actually saves a person.

So some churches will say, when you ask, hey, when did you become a Christian, they'll give you their baptism date.

Well, I was baptized such and such a date. That's not what I was asking. You see, then you start to realize that person is not understanding that baptism is not salvation.

Alright, one more. I don't know that we're going to get to the correct view. We'll try. The last incorrect view is that baptism is a necessary element of salvation.

Now you see, these are moving in a progression. One removes original sin, and so it washes away original sin.

It washes away sin. It's necessary for salvation. Next one down, well, they get rid of the original sin component, but they still will say, well, it washes away sin, so it's going to be necessary for salvation.

Some will now go and say, well, we're not going to say it washes away sin. We know that it doesn't do that. But it's necessary for salvation.

Why? Because they're going to say, well, look at how baptism is in the New Testament. Everywhere you look, you see baptism and salvation married together.

They're tied right next to each other. Why? Well, I hope by this point, you now know why. The reason why is because of what salvation pictured.

Nobody would get baptized, I said that wrong, thank you. It's what baptism pictures, not salvation.

Baptism pictures salvation. No one, no one, no one is going to get baptized in the first century if they're not regenerate.

Only a regenerate believer in Jesus Christ was willing to get baptized. Very similar to the

Middle East today. Nobody in the Middle East is going to publicly go into the lakes and the streams and publicly get baptized for everyone to see when they know it means that any family member, any neighbor, any

Muslim can kill them and be justified in doing so. They're going to count the cost.

So that is why you see it so closely connected, regeneration and baptism.

And so the Church of Christ is a denomination that teaches this formula. So you'll see there are some blanks in your syllabus.

So they teach faith plus baptism equals salvation.

Faith, these are your blanks, faith plus baptism equals salvation.

So clearly I already said Church of Christ would hold to this, Seventh -day Adventist would still hold to this because they hold to the previous one, but you see how it's watered down.

It goes from, it actually removes original sin, therefore it is a work that's necessary to wash away sins and to be saved, you need to do it to be regenerate.

That's Catholic. Then you go to a little bit more watered down, we get rid of the original sin portion, but we're saying, hey, it washes away sin.

You need to be baptized to wash away that sin, maybe not original sin, but the sins that you do.

With that, I mean, I've always wondered, shouldn't you get baptized multiple times then? And you go, well wait, that takes us right back to the foot washing passage with what

Jesus said. No, your whole body needs to be washed once and just your feet need to be cleaned, you know, once in a while.

You see the point there. So what he's saying is, is that you don't need to be completely, you're not being regenerated over and over.

You don't need to be washed to picture the baptism, sorry, the baptism to picture the salvation over and over, okay?

You get baptized once because it pictures what happened once. It's one of the things

I never really thought about until now. I mean, for those people that believe you can lose your salvation, when you get saved again, you lost your salvation, you get saved again, do you get baptized again?

Because you should. If that's going to be your doctrine, that you think you can lose your salvation, you should get baptized again to picture the new salvation.

Because I mean, if you're getting saved multiple times, then you should get baptized multiple times I think, right?

Just the weird way my mind wanders, sorry. But I think, yes,

I'm weird. So the thing is, is that when we get saved, it's a one -time thing.

And some of us, I know for some of us, it's a long, long, okay, so yesterday was the birthday of one of the guys who works for us.

He works in our sales, for the sales department for Striking Fraternity. His name is

Mitchell. And he is, this is really, it really is painful to think of, that when he was, now that I know that yesterday was his birthday, when he was two months old,

I became a Christian. I would like to say that he got, that he's only four, you know?

Because that means I'm not so old. But realizing he is, yeah, so I have been a

Christian for 33 years, wow. So maybe I got saved when I was four,

I wish I could say that. Yeah, so I'm an old dude, I understand.

But no, I was saved once. And that day that I became regenerate,

Mitch was only a two -month -old. I mean, he was still in diapers. The picture of Mitch in diapers, he probably still had his beard, didn't he?

Yeah. He was probably dressed as bald as he is today, but had a beard, that's my, we should get some memes of, you know,

Mitch's head on a baby in diapers, that'd be, you know, anyway. So I digress.

But the point being is that you're, you know, when I became regenerate, do you know it was two years later, actually more than two years, before I was baptized?

Does that mean that I wasn't regenerate for that time? Well, you know, honestly, I didn't know anything about baptism. See, I got saved when

I was out in California. I went back to my Jewish family. I didn't understand anything. I didn't have a church to go to.

In fact, I didn't even know much about, I just had my Bible. It was just me, my Bible, I read every day until I got to Daniel, got the book of Daniel and realized that Daniel read three times a day.

So you know what I did? I started reading three times a day. I'd get up in the morning, I'd read in the morning before I'd go to school. I'd come home from school before I started my homework,

I'd read the Bible. Before I went to bed, I'd read the Bible. Three times a day, I was reading the scriptures. And so I did that and read through the

Bible twice in, you know, a year. And I would go through the scriptures. And then

I turned 17, I discovered Christian radio. Yeah. And I used to spend all the time in the car.

My parents thought it was just because I loved driving. No. It was the only place that I could hear and get some

Christian teaching. But it wasn't until I went to college and met other Christians and started going to church on Sundays that I found out that I should be baptized.

So does it mean I wasn't regenerate for two years? Does it mean that my sins weren't washed away? No, they were washed away in 1984 when

I became a Christian. All right. So on that, you know, actually,

I said it was actually, Mitch would have been three months old when I saved, because it was July 21st.

July 21st of 1984, I became a Christian. I was regenerate.

I wasn't baptized until 1986.

The winter of 1986 is when I got baptized. So it was a while after.

It was like November, December when I got baptized. And so that doesn't mean

I was without faith. No, I was regenerate. So there can be a gap.

Scripture doesn't play much difference in that gap because it doesn't say that distinction.

So what we'll do, maybe I was too ambitious to think that I could finish this in one class. Next lesson, we'll finish up.

We'll talk about is we're going to talk about the correct meaning of baptism. Isn't that so wrong of me? I'm leaving you guys hanging.

No, not really, because if you paid attention in the beginning of class, then you caught on to what I think the real meaning of baptism is.

If you have a syllabus, well, you can read it or just read Romans 6 and you're going to see it. But, you know, the thing is that we're going to talk about the correct mode, the correct meaning of baptism.

We'll talk about the mode of baptism, the different incorrect views, what I think is the correct view. Then we'll talk about the

Lord's Supper. So we're going to have to end there. I know, I'm sorry, some of you hate it, but we're going to stop there.

We'll pick it up next class. If you have questions about this or anything else, please email me at academy at striving for eternity .org,

academy at striving for eternity .org. If you want to pick up a syllabus, you can go to our store, store .strivingforeternity

.org. You could pick up our syllabus, any of the syllabuses. Actually what you could even do, I don't know if it's on the website yet, we're working on a brand new website.

When it's there, you're going to see a bundled package. If you want, just email shop at striving for eternity .org.

If you want to get a bundled pack, you can get, if it's not on the website, but you can get a bundled pack, four of the syllabuses for $75 or all six that we currently have, or any six actually, for $100.

Another way you could support us is on Amazon. Go to AmazonSmile, smile .amazon .com, appreciate it.

They give us half a percent of everything you buy and we have been appreciating those checks. Some of you are buying a lot of stuff.

I'm just saying, someone out there must be doing some serious buying on Amazon, but we appreciate that you do it.

You just go to smile .amazon .com instead of amazon .com. When you do that, you put in striving for eternity, or you could just go to the link that's down there, but you go to smile .amazon

.com, search for striving for eternity, look us up. Real quick, in two weeks, if you're watching live, we're going to be going to the

Reason Rally Outreach. The reasonrallyoutreach .org is where you can find out information, living waters, karm, and striving for eternity.

You're going to be doing a thing beforehand, we're going to be having a lot of fun doing some training and hanging out.

And then on Saturday, we're all going to go out as part of a DC outreach.

Living Waters is going to be doing some open air preaching for recording for their new Way of the

Master TV season, so I encourage you to come out. Lastly, Jersey Fire is coming up July 8th and 9th.

Jerseyfire .org will have Matt Slick, Justin Peters, myself will be speaking on the topic of the Word of God. That one is really, really going to be good.

If you have never seen Matt Slick and I together, it's a lot of fun. Justin Peters has a good sense of humor with us as well.

I loved it. I have to pick up Justin from the airport and I said, you know, we're going to have like four hours before Matt flies in.

What do you want to do? I can bring you to your hotel and bring you back. He's like, brother, just bring some tracks.

We're going to find a place where there's people. I was like, I love this guy. It's like we got four hours to kill. Some people will be like, oh, let's go get dinner.

He's like, just bring tracks. Bring some gospel tracks. We'll find a place with people and hit the streets.

I love that guy. But most people know him only for his critiques of the prosperity gospel movement.

They don't know his handling of the Word of God and he does that well. If you've never heard him proclaim

God's Word and talk about God's Word, he handles it so well. He's going to do a two -part series on how to interpret the

Word of God, which I know from our students, you go, Andrew, you've already taught us that. We've got 20 lessons in the

School of Biblical Harmonetics. He's going to add it. He's going to teach similar principles in a different way and you're going to still learn things.

It's going to remind you of things and he's going to say it in different ways that's going to strike you where you're going to learn better ways to interpret and handle