Monday, April 27, 2009
Baptism or Belief?
This is something that has really been on my heart lately and I think it is such a huge issue today in the religious world. The community church says that baptism is how we show publicly our belief in Christ. The Churches of Christ say that baptism is the way by which we are saved. The community church makes a fairly big deal about believing in the Christ, and belittles baptism (this is obviously a generalization). The Churches of Christ, I believe, build baptism up to be the end all, and we don't talk much about the belief aspect of our salvation. Why can't we have both? I believe the Church of Christ has a lot to add this conversation. Are we as a church perfect? Not by any means. What I would like to argue is that "belief" in and of itself, is just as important and necessary as the act of baptism. If you read through the scriptures you would find that "belief" is always accompanied by baptism with few exceptions. In fact, one might could argue that Jesus dealt more with belief than he did baptism. The roman centurion wanting Jesus to heal his daughter-Jesus says this, "Go! It will be done just as you believed it would." The leper, the woman who touched Jesus garment, the men who lowered their friend through the roof to be healed-there are so many accounts where people "believed" and were healed! We must remember in the first century it was blasphemous to "believe" in a king other than Caesar. That to "believe" in Christ was to risk your life. To say what you thought to be right, to change your lifestyle to mesh with what you believed, to tell your friends about it, was to say the Roman government was wrong. Baptism or belief? I believe both of these to be indispensable equals in talking about salvation.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
you're right, "baptism only" is every bit as erroneous as "belief only." but i think we've also made a mistake by treating belief and baptism as though they're separate airtight compartments (the "step" approach to conversion). Paul's line of questioning in Acts 19:1-6 definitely does *not* treat belief and baptism as though there's a clear and distinct line between the two.
ReplyDeleteBoth and then some. There are so many verses on salvation in the scriptures, we can easily get confused and focused on one or two specific passages. Belief, faith, confession, repentance, baptism? Yes. But then again Jesus, in Matthew 6:14-15, seems to indicate that forgiving others is also a pretty important part of our salvation. What about works? James 2:24 would seem to indicate that they are pretty important too. This discussion could (and in many cases does) go on and on, but for me the gist of it is: salvation is a process (1 Cor. 1:18), it has nothing to do with anything I accomplish (Ephesians 2:8-9 & Titus 3:5-7), yet we must still accept the free grace that is offered to us by and through Jesus. How do we accept that free grace? Jesus said simply, "Follow me." If I follow him and live my life according to his example, (i.e. belief/faith, baptism, good works, forgiving people, loving people [especially sinners], treating people better than we want to be treated, serving and helping people who can't help themselves, love for and relationship with God the Father) I believe that I am continually in the process of being saved by Jesus. I just always hesitate to classify salvation as one event that I do over another. Salvation is something Jesus does for me and is really out of my control. I think the reason this debate is such a hot topic with people is because we're always trying to boil down our salvation to one moment in time, or one action we do, OR (though this is probably not a conscious thought a lot of people have) what is the bare minimum that I have to do in order to go to heaven. If we approach salvation as something that can be reduced to one thing, the scriptures seem to contradict themselves many times throughout the new testament. However, if we approach salvation as a process that Jesus is in control of once we're following him, there are no contradictions because their is no bare minimum... he demands that we follow him with all of our heart, all of our soul, and all of our mind.
ReplyDelete