John 3:5... YES! ANOTHER BAPTISM THREAD!

[bbyrd009]

"Knowing" and knowledge come from God. "Opinions" are from men.

The ritual for baptism by fire, is that you receive the Holy Spirit, to open when He knocks at the door.

its like this and like that, Scott. And uh.
in my opinion that would be the baptism of the Spirit, and not the one of fire though

 

[Mungo]

Mungo, the positions I take might be considered by some to be "imaginative," but when I post something, it invariably will have substance and scripture behind it. I was hoping we could discuss what the substance and scripture is behind what you believe and maybe discuss it.

The above is sort of a non-response...
But I'm at peace with it if that is all you wished to say.

Blessings in Christ, as always.

I don't see any scripture in what you posted.

 

[Hidden In Him]

I don't see any scripture in what you posted.

"I believe with others here that the way we are born from above is by receiving the incorruptible seed of God's word within us, and that by receiving the word of God we are receiving Christ, the Word made flesh. I therefore believe baptism is only a ceremony, and should be withheld for a later time, when that believer (whether they be young or old) is fully prepared to take the step of living out what water baptism represents; dying to the old man."

I was assuming you would see scripture behind the statements I made above...
Which of these statements, then, would you be wanting supporting scripture on? The last one maybe?

 

[VictoryinJesus]

ppl who are convinced their beliefs are ATs :rolleyes
View attachment 7905


which is btw getting really harder to find now, a la Trump lol
i have an...unmarked copy in meme dump, didnt feel like digging it out

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ok, not sure how that made you think of that?

Just because “chosen” of God is misused doesn’t make it none existent.

Luke 23:35 And the people stood beholding. And the rulers also with them derided him, saying, He saved others; let him save himself, if he be Christ, the chosen of God.

1 Peter 2:4-5 To whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious, [5] Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.

 

[VictoryinJesus]

The waters refer to "the waters above and the waters below" spoken of in Genesis. The the one is natural, and the other is spiritual, on of heaven and the other of the earth. "Living water" is not of the earth, but of heaven.

As Jerusalem below and Jerusalem above?

 

[Philip James]

But this to me seems to position water baptism as the very means by which we become children of God

Yes, but this is no ordinary water, it is the living water, through which the Holy Spirit regenerates us by His power.

This is the narrow gate by which we are united with Jesus' death and ressurection and enter the kingdom of God.
All who climb in another way are theives and robbers..

Here's St Cyril, bishop of Jerusalem on it: CHURCH FATHERS: Catechetical Lecture 3 (Cyril of Jerusalem)

Peace!

 

[Mungo]

"I believe with others here that the way we are born from above is by receiving the incorruptible seed of God's word within us, and that by receiving the word of God we are receiving Christ, the Word made flesh. I therefore believe baptism is only a ceremony, and should be withheld for a later time, when that believer (whether they be young or old) is fully prepared to take the step of living out what water baptism represents; dying to the old man."

I was assuming you would see scripture behind the statements I made above...
Which of these statements, then, would you be wanting supporting scripture on? The last one maybe?

All of them

 

[ScottA]

its like this and like that, Scott. And uh.
in my opinion that would be the baptism of the Spirit, and not the one of fire though

Hebrews 12:29
For our God is a consuming fire.

 

[ScottA]

As Jerusalem below and Jerusalem above?

Yes, exactly!

 

[Grailhunter]

I get this question quite a lot, and as I was telling Mungo, what water baptism does is reinforce a teaching in the minds of those who go through the experience; i.e. that they are now dead to the old man and should live to the new.

It's the same with communion. Communion reinforces the teaching in the minds of a congregation (or at least it was supposed to anyway) that they are one body together in Christ and should therefore strive to keep the unity of the faith in the bonds of peace. It was supposed to be a continual physical reminder of this. The very same could be said for observing many of the Jewish customs. All of them can bring reminders of great spiritual truths to believer's minds, and reinforce them through physical actions.

Well the discussions of Baptism and communion....salvation in general, has ripped the church apart over the centuries. So it will continue and scriptures really do not win the discussion...No matter what Christ said...no matter what Paul said...no matter how much it is repeated...let me show you....this will mean nothing to many people.

John 6:40-67
For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.” Therefore the Jews were grumbling about Him, because He said, “I am the bread that came down out of heaven.” They were saying, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does He now say, ‘I have come down out of heaven’?” Jesus answered and said to them, “Do not grumble among yourselves. No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day. It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught of God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father, comes to Me. Not that anyone has seen the Father, except the One who is from God; He has seen the Father. Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread which comes down out of heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread also which I will give for the life of the world is My flesh.” Then the Jews began to argue with one another, saying, “How can this man give us His flesh to eat?” So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. As the living father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me, he also will live because of Me. This is the bread which came down out of heaven; not as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live forever.” Words to the Disciples These things He said in the synagogue as He taught in Capernaum.
Therefore many of His disciples, when they heard this said, “This is a difficult statement; who can listen to it?” But Jesus, conscious that His disciples grumbled at this, said to them, “Does this cause you to stumble? What then if you see the Son of Man ascending to where He was before? It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life. But there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who it was that would betray Him. And He was saying, “For this reason I have said to you, that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted him from the Father.” As a result of this many of His disciples withdrew and were not walking with Him anymore. So Jesus said to the twelve, “You do not want to go away also, do you?”

And I have to ask, when Christ says...Truly truly...do you know what that means?

The whole Christian theme….the fact that Christ was serving as a sacrifice and His blood having power or divine effects…and…and this ritual where the bread and wine symbolized His body and blood and they eat it and drank it, is extremely sacrilegious to the Jews. His apostles were Jews. This ritual was tantamount to sacrificing a human being on the alter in the Temple. He was risking loosing His apostles, it would seem completely Pagan to them. And as you can see, He lost many of His disciples. That is how serious this is. So performing this ritual has to be very important, even crucial.

If it was not so important….He would not have proposed it and have them actually do it and then establish it as a common and frequent ritual. Why do such a thing if it was not absolutely necessary, to have the life Christ spoke of? If it didn't really have a purpose, why do it? They took a lot of heat from this because the non-Christians knew they were doing this and accused them of horrible things…like baking babies in loaves of bread and eating them. This had to be absolutely important for Christ to explain that you have to do this or there is no life in you. For those that would attempt to explain away the words of Christ and say that He was talking about the earthly life or his words, you have to apply this to all the scriptures that Christ discussed life. This is not about earthly life or His word because they went on to do it.... The nature and concern Christ is talking about here is crucial and necessary.

You would have to ignore the specific words of Christ....deny them....to change the meaning this. Baptism, is the same way, for different reasons.....There is no scripture that describes baptism as meaning nothing...or just a symbology or a public display...no such scripture. John the Baptist was baptizing for the remission of sins....big deal...after Christ was crucified...it was a still a big deal and referred to as for the remission of sins and continued to be believed to be for the remission of sins...for centuries....until a segment of Protestants started hacking away at the spirituality of Christianity.....gutting the meaning of Christs words and the words of the Apostles that described the process of salvation.

Don't feel bad, people have been chasing their tails on this for centuries......they have been debating this for centuries....But instead of figuring it out....they are all guilty of fracturing Christ's purpose.

 

[amadeus]

are we generally aware that the Jordan is almost always like 4 inches deep, except when it is raging? Or even 2 inches deep? Not saying that cuts here and there might not be 4 feet deep, too, but imo there is a point to be made there. Most, the vast majority, of the entire Jordan, could not even get your calves wet! I even recall some cognitive dissonance when i saw it, although i didnt pursue that at the time.
The amazing name Jordan: meaning and etymology
"The name Jordan in the Bible" is brief, and has some interesting reflections in it imo

"how could anyone get baptized in the Jordan river, so shallow"
an interesting search imo

now i dunno what literally happened, but yall should maybe look at some pictures of the Jordan and contemplate what you see
which i just went and did, and most of them are deceiving, note the one "i thought it would be bigger," and i can tell you that this one,
View attachment 7904 is like the Jordan in flood stage, ok. The ones with still stretches you find, look like they could be whatever, 8 feet deep or whatever? With rafts going down them? Thats for like 3-5 days in the spring thaw, and even then its mostly more like 6-10 inches in the deep parts ok.

im telling you idk ezackly whats going on, but "holding back the waters of the Jordan with the ark" is more like a joke, ok, and if you saw it--even in "flood" stage--you would laugh at that right off. Its like some little trickle was purposely chosen to make some point about shallowness or something.

ok, i sure dont know ok, but imo do some investigating

i guess down lower there are some "marshy" pools, which to me invokes Javan right away, dunno if you know about Javan yet though, maybe look him up

My old pastor has been to Israel more than 30 times since his first visit in 1963. On one of his early visits he has often told about him and another minister baptizing some of their fellow visitors in the Jordan River. At that time it was not controlled so anyone could have done that. Since then the local government has placed restrictions on it. I don't have more details on that.

As to the water being deep enough other than in the spring floods, I don't know. I will being seeing him in a couple of days and will certainly ask him.

 

[bbyrd009]

Just because “chosen” of God is misused doesn’t make it none existent.

ah ok, and iyo the Jordan was chosen, so to speak?

fwiw i think i agree, but why, in this case?

 

[bbyrd009]

Hebrews 12:29
For our God is a consuming fire.

ok well then what iyo is the baptism of Spirit, how would you diff them ty

 

[amadeus]

In a theocracy, at least one run by men, I would likely get snuffed within the first year, LoL.

Shades of Ananias and Sapphira!

 

[bbyrd009]

hmm. seems diff to me, i mean JohnB and Jesus were nipped by the Theocracy, basically? The literal one, not the spiritual one i mean

My old pastor has been to Israel more than 30 times since his first visit in 1963. On one of his early visits he has often told about him and another minister baptizing some of their fellow visitors in the Jordan River. At that time it was not controlled so anyone could have done that. Since then the local government has placed restrictions on it. I don't have more details on that.

As to the water being deep enough other than in the spring floods, I don't know. I will being seeing him in a couple of days and will certainly ask him.

ok cool, ty. must have been down lower, toward the "swamp."

 

[bbyrd009]

"Knowing" and knowledge come from God. "Opinions" are from men.

The ritual for baptism by fire, is that you receive the Holy Spirit, to open when He knocks at the door.

so anyway, imo we have a prefectly good current idiom for "baptism by fire" that translates pretty good

 

[ScottA]

ok well then what iyo is the baptism of Spirit, how would you diff them ty

They are one and the same. But to one death, and another life.

 

[ScottA]

so anyway, imo we have a prefectly good current idiom for "baptism by fire" that translates pretty good

What "baptism by fire" are you referring to?

 

[amadeus]

its like this and like that, Scott. And uh.
in my opinion that would be the baptism of the Spirit, and not the one of fire though

The fire baptism is that which is burning up that which is not good [only things of God are good] within followers of God now. In the OT we types or shadows in the burning bush Moses saw not being consumed and the three Hebrews thrown into the fiery furnace at the command of Nebuchadnezzar were not hurt at all. On the other hand the soldiers who threw them into the fire burned. Likewise the people of Sodom and Gomorrah died by the fire from heaven.

Those were types or shadows what is happening now. Someone who completely overcomes the world will be able to approach God, the consuming fire, without being burned. He will be able to see the face of God without dying.

The burnable parts of everyone in the end will be gone, burned up. The non-burnable parts which are the substance of the "new man" are seen also in the silver, gold and precious stones which have also passed through the fire to remove all of the dross...

"Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble;
Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is.
If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward.
If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.
Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?
If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are." I Cor 3:12-17

It is the "consuming fire" … our God that burns up anything, or better said, anybody, unable to endure with Him to the end.

Where then is the baptism of fire for us? It is God in us cleaning out the garbage, the dead remnants, the remaining binding ropes and so forth.

Anyone with nothing of God will be completely consumed!

 

[amadeus]

ok cool, ty. must have been down lower, toward the "swamp."

I don't know. His recent memories are terrible [he's 94], but he loved Israel and remembers a lot about it. I will get back to you on this.