Sexual Transmission of Holiness?

[Taken]

Point taken. But the question remains whether the unbelieving spouse, while ONE with the believing spouse, is somehow saved despite his/her nonbelief.

The argument that

x is holy;
x is one with y; therefore
y is holy

will be valid if “one with” is understood such that the amalgam is homogeneous. Add some food coloring to a lump of dough, knead it in thoroughly, and voila, we have colored dough. Marry a holy spouse to an unholy one, let the two become one flesh, and voila, we have a holy couple capable of producing holy kids.

Since obtaining “Salvation” is the bottom line question.

WHAT exactly IS “Salvation”?
...Salvation IS precisely the “Saving of ones SOUL to remain Living, Forever With the Presence of God”.
...How that is accomplished precisely by, though, of the Power of God to “restore” that individuals Corrupt soul...
...What it was when God Gave it to the man. was...Very Good.

WHEN does ANY person “RECEIVE” Salvation?
...Always AFTER a bodily Death has occurred.

So, what is the “IF” requirement?
A Husband AND Wife. Ie a man and a woman, Married, Joined as ONE.
“IF” they divorce, one leaves the other, a physical death, they are no longer Married.

“IF” One believes...say (the wife believes), and her husband physically dies....he shall receive Salvation at his physical death...BECAUSE his wife Believed at the time of his physical death.

“IF” one believes...say (the husband believes), and the husband physically dies...The husband shall receive Salvation at his physical death....BECAUSE he Believed at the time of his physical death.

Now what about the remaining WIDOW? (Say who herself did not Believe) ? She is no longer “JOINED” as “one” with a believing spouse.

Nothing says or implies, this “unbelieving, unjoined widow”, Shall be Saved, once she physically dies. That “unbelieving, unjoined widow”’s Salvation is in jeopardy, unless she again become “JOINED” in marriage to a Believer, or she herself, “joins” herself “with” God, “by, through, of Christ Jesus.”

 

[RedFan]

Since obtaining “Salvation” is the bottom line question.

Actually, I wasn't focused on salvation so much as on holiness. Transmission of holiness was my bottom line question.

 

[Taken]

Actually, I wasn't focused on salvation so much as on holiness. Transmission of holiness was my bottom line question.

Okie dokie, gotcha.

 

[Aunty Jane]

The Corinthian practice of being baptized on behalf of the departed was neither condoned nor condemned by Paul -- only mentioned by him as a point of argument ("how can you deny bodily resurrection when you yourselves do this baptism-on-behalf-of-the-dead thing, which would be pointless if bodily resurrection were impossible?").

Stepping back to OT scripture, nowhere was baptism part of Jewish religious practice. John the Baptist introduced it as a public display of repentance over sins committed against the Mosaic Law. So any kind of baptism was something new to Jewish experience....and introduced by one whom they saw as a prophet.
His role was to 'prepare the way' for the Messiah who was to come after him. That meant having many in a receptive and repentant state, ready to accept the teachings of Jesus Christ. So because all the first Christians were Jewish, baptism was not connected in any way with the dead.

Full immersion baptism was highly symbolic. It wasn’t a washing away of sins as some assume....it symbolized a ‘death’ to the former way of life and a ‘resurrection’ to a new way of living. Being buried under the water and then being raised up, was connected to the Jewish belief in the resurrection, rather than a belief adopted later from Greek influence....the idea that there was an immortal soul that survived the death of the body. In order to baptize a dead person, they would have to still be alive somewhere. The ancient Jews had no such belief. (Ecclesiastes 9:5, 10) The dead were actually dead...unconscious...inactive...”sleeping” in their graves, awaiting the promised resurrection. To a Jew, that meant a return to life on earth under Messiah’s Kingdom. There was no notion of going to heaven or hell. Those ideas came later and were greatly embellished.

I can't conclude, as you do Aunty, that "this is not a 'vicarious baptism on behalf of the dead', because there is no such provision in scripture." No doubt it offends your theology. (It offends mine too, not because it isn't mentioned elsewhere in Scripture but because it is inconsistent with what IS mentioned elsewhere in Scripture).

So what do you see as being inconsistent then? The idea of baptizing the dead ‘offends’ scripture not just theology.

It is not the act of baptism in itself that means anything.....it is what is symbolizes. Why did Jesus undergo full immersion water baptism when he was sinless?

But it does not follow that because none of the later-written gospels or letters in the NT mentions the practice, it wasn't being used in Corinth for its hoped-for vicarious effect. Paul must have thought they were trying to use it that way, for otherwise he could not make the argument he did, an argument which would be nonsensical if the Corinthians were attaching any other meaning to the practice.

But I am curious to know why you think the Corinthians engaged in the practice.

I don’t believe any first century Christian would have 'engaged in the practice'. As I have explained already, the words of Paul were in no way a reference to something that was not part of Christian, or even Jewish practice. I believe that translation is the problem and Paul’s words have been both mistranslated and misinterpreted. Some of Paul’s writings are a little hard to understand, (as they were when they were written) but also now, especially in English.
2 Peter 3:15-16...
“Furthermore, consider the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote you according to the wisdom given him, 16 speaking about these things as he does in all his letters. However, some things in them are hard to understand, and these things the ignorant and unstable are twisting, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction.”

Those who believe that the dead can be baptized by proxy are the same ones who believe that infant baptism is legitimate.
Baptism has to be a choice of the living...not the infant or the dead, neither of whom are in a position to make that choice. It is the very reason why children of an unequal yoking (believer with an unbeliever) are considered "clean" or "holy" in God's sight. The mate is sanctified because the union is honorable under his marriage arrangement, and the children are covered by their believing parent until they are of age to make their own choice to become a disciple of Christ. Timothy was a product of such a union. His mother was Jewish but his father was Greek. The believing parent can do much to influence children to be worshippers of the true God....and even a mate if their heart is so inclined.

 

[RedFan]

I don’t believe any first century Christian would have 'engaged in the practice'. As I have explained already, the words of Paul were in no way a reference to something that was not part of Christian, or even Jewish practice. I believe that translation is the problem and Paul’s words have been both mistranslated and misinterpreted. Some of Paul’s writings are a little hard to understand, (as they were when they were written) but also now, especially in English.

Well, it was a Christian practice at Corinth in mid-first century. Paul says the Corinthians engaged in the practice -- the Corinthians he was writing to in the Church at Corinth (i.e., per 1 Cor. 1:2, Christians). And while you don't believe him, preferring to conclude that the text is just difficult to understand, or that translation is the problem, I prefer to give the text its ordinary meaning. The Corinthians' reasons for engaging in the practice of baptism on behalf of the dead may be difficult to understand, but that the Corinthians were engaged in it jumps out at us from Paul's words.

 

[RedFan]

Those who believe that the dead can be baptized by proxy are the same ones who believe that infant baptism is legitimate.

Where are you getting this from, Aunty? There is no evidence I am aware of that this bizarre practice was anything other than a localized, mid-first century Corinthian practice engaged in by nobody else at no other point in time. There is no evidence that those Corinthians also believed infant baptism to be legitimate.

 

[Aunty Jane]

Well, it was a Christian practice at Corinth in mid-first century. Paul says the Corinthians engaged in the practice -- the Corinthians he was writing to in the Church at Corinth (i.e., per 1 Cor. 1:2, Christians). And while you don't believe him, preferring to conclude that the text is just difficult to understand, or that translation is the problem, I prefer to give the text its ordinary meaning. The Corinthians' reasons for engaging in the practice of baptism on behalf of the dead may be difficult to understand, but that the Corinthians were engaged in it jumps out at us from Paul's words.

If it is not mentioned anywhere else in the Bible, and one ambiguous verse seems to say something that is not a Christian practice spoken about anywhere in the scriptures, then you are free to hold whatever opinion you wish about Paul’s words. You may think they “jump out”, but unless there is other scripture to confirm what you suspect he may be saying, all you have is an opinion. We can all have those, but it doesn’t mean that they are correct. The Bible explains itself....we “go beyond what is written” when we try to make it say something that is out of sync with everything else.

Where are you getting this from, Aunty? There is no evidence I am aware of that this bizarre practice was anything other than a localized, mid-first century Corinthian practice engaged in by nobody else at no other point in time. There is no evidence that those Corinthians also believed infant baptism to be legitimate.

I believe you missed my point.....I am speaking about the reason why we get baptized....I thought I explained this already. Baptism itself is meaningless unless you understand the symbolism and what motivates a person to submit to it. Babies and dead people cannot be baptized because there is no “proxy” arrangement. It is a very personal commitment.

And you didn’t answer my question.....”why did Jesus undergo full immersion baptism?” Can you tell me the reason?

 

[RedFan]

And you didn’t answer my question.....”why did Jesus undergo full immersion baptism?” Can you tell me the reason?

That topic has been the subject of varying opinions since the patristic period. Robert L. Wilken, "The Interpretation of the Baptism of Jesus in the Later Fathers," Studia Patristica 11 (1972) 271, has a decent summary if you want to canvass the period. I suggest you start a new post posing the question, so that you can get a bunch of different viewpoints. (I might even weigh in, likely with the view that it was an expression of Jesus' solidarity with sinful man, given that God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, 2 Cor. 5:21. I'm rather fond of Athanasius' explanation, found in Against the Arians 1.47, that "when the Lord, as man, was washed in the Jordan, it was we who were washed in Him and by Him.")

Of course, if you have already convinced yourself that you know the answer and are simply trying to bait me, don't bother. The question is off topic from my OP. Neither the reason we get baptized, nor the reason Jesus did, advances that topic.

 

[Aunty Jane]

That topic has been the subject of varying opinions since the patristic period. Robert L. Wilken, "The Interpretation of the Baptism of Jesus in the Later Fathers," Studia Patristica 11 (1972) 271, has a decent summary if you want to canvass the period. I suggest you start a new post posing the question, so that you can get a bunch of different viewpoints. (I might even weigh in, likely with the view that it was an expression of Jesus' solidarity with sinful man, given that God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, 2 Cor. 5:21. I'm rather fond of Athanasius' explanation, found in Against the Arians 1.47, that "when the Lord, as man, was washed in the Jordan, it was we who were washed in Him and by Him.")

Of course, if you have already convinced yourself that you know the answer and are simply trying to bait me, don't bother. The question is off topic from my OP. Neither the reason we get baptized, nor the reason Jesus did, advances that topic.

No Christian can baptize a dead person for the simple reason that dead people are dead and unable to make a free willed choice to become a disciple of Jesus Christ. I believe that your OP is nonsense and that I explained why the Bible itself confirms that. What more needs to be said? You are free to believe whatever you wish, regardless of what anyone says.

Enquiring about the level of your knowledge concerning the topic’s related questions is quite revealing to me......Isaiah 65:13-14 prophetically explains many things about the spiritual state of affairs in which we find ourselves in “the time of the end”. The “sheep” are being separated from the “weeds” as we speak. God feeds and waters his sheep, whilst the goats struggle with starvation and thirst, not understanding much at all....puzzled and at odds with each other over many things.

I might start a thread on Christ’s baptism.....it’s a good question and fascinating to me that despite the simple answer provided in the scriptures, there is still so much conjecture about the subject.

I will trouble you no further on this topic....