Doug,
I read the articles and here are my responses. First, I find the top article to be typical of "faith only" approaches to Scripture that I feel are quite inconsistent and misrepresentative of those who argue for the significance and meaning of baptism as portrayed in the Bible. My response to this author would be, "Suppose a person prays to Jesus to forgive him of his sins, but he refuses to repent. Does this mean that faithful trust in Christ is insufficient for salvation?" "Suppose a person prays to Jesus for forgiveness of his sins, but refuses to forgive those who have sinned against him. Does this mean that faithful trust in Christ is insufficient for salvation? Or, suppose a person prays for Jesus to forgive him of his sins, but is not willing to confess Christ to others. Does this mean...." The author has already determined baptism to be a mere ceremony and therefore has pitted it against faith in his portrayal of this scenario. If baptism is considered a work, so too must repentance, confessing Christ and forgiving others be considered works. The simple fact is that the Bible does not separate out mere cognitive faith with faithful response as many reformed traditions do today. Baptism is not antithetical to faith any more than repentance is. Rather, baptism is an act of faith in the same manner as forgiving others, repentance and confessing Christ are responses of faith. I find it strange that the author would Matt. 28:18 as part of Jesus call for people to ask him for salvation due to his authority, but fails to connect Jesus same command to baptize disciples in that same context. There is no example of a "sinners prayer" as this author wants to establish as the means to call for salvation (John 14:14 as his proof text is completely out of context and has nothing to do with requesting salvation). Yet the NT gives us a host of examples of people being baptized as the biblical model of how a person becomes a Christian. My question is, "What has caused us to recreate the biblical model for coming to Christ and how has the biblical model somehow become viewed as a dangerous act that could promote works-based theology?" It just doesn't make any sense to me.
As for the second article, I wont be able to respond to all the texts right now as I do not have the time. As for Matthew 28, I think this author clearly has another grossly unbiblical view of "salvation." To try to separate out salvation from discipleship is another reformed/Western idea that is completely foreign to how the early believers understood what it meant to be a Christian. The idea that we can be "saved" and not a disciple is ridiculous.
As for the verse in Mark, this is completely terrible exegesis. The author is clearly predetermining what words are significant. The author has determined that belief is important, but baptism is just a meaningless add-on. He argues that its no different than saying "believe and go to church" or "believe and read his Bible." But would this author ever say, "In order to be saved you must believe and read your Bible?" I doubt it. Again, the author is assuming what Mark is valuing and what words can be thrown away. This is irresponsible in my opinion. Suggesting that Mark does not (if Mark wrote this section) add "and be baptized" for the second part of the condition as validation that Mark was not considering baptism to be important is errant. Why would Mark mention baptism for an unbeliever? It is assumed here that believers are baptized whereas obviously someone who is not a believer would not feel compelled to be baptized and be saved by one in which they do not believe! This is simply a matter of basic logic. Mark (or other author) assumes that believers will be baptized...and he assumes that non believers will not be baptized. It is really that simple. Even if Mark did not write this (I do not believe he did) it still reflects the early church view on the significance of baptism. It was simply understood that all believers are immersed...without exception.
I agree the Luke passage is referring to John's baptism. Yet, I think its clear that Luke has a message for his audience as well. Clearly baptism relates the purposes of God for people. Wouldn't those who reject baptism in Christ find themselves in even greater rejection of God's purposes if the Pharisees could be considered to be rejecting God by failing to submit to John's baptism? Can you imagine the audience in Acts 2 saying, "Peter, we believe you but we don't want to be baptized. We don't think that's important." Such a notion is pure nonsense and I think teachers will be held to account for discounting direct commands and teachings from God on this issue. I fail to understand how people can so flippantly dismiss something Christ commanded as a means to make disciples. BTW, the article assumes that "teaching all I have commanded" and "baptism" would both be essential for salvation if we maintain baptism as part of the salvation process. The problem is, the author makes it sound as if "teaching all I have commanded" means "perfectly obeying all I have commanded." The clear implication is that the means of making disciples is, 1) Go out to them, 2) baptize them, 3) teach them what Jesus taught. There is nothing here about perfect obedience, but obviously, making followers of Jesus means teaching them what Jesus taught. Does this author suppose we can make disciples without teaching? Is this author a Moravian? How else does someone come to a knowledge of the truth? I've never heard someone try to discount the importance of teaching unbelievers as a means of discrediting the significance of baptism. If anything, it only emphasizes its importance!
The text in John 3 is also poorly handled in my opinion. By this author's rationale, Jesus could not have been alluding to communion when he spoke of eating his flesh and drinking his blood. Clearly Jesus often spoke of things that his original audience would not have understood until later. In fact, this seems to be almost a given in his teaching. The fact is, this passage certainly is not referring to natural birth (it doesn't make sense contextually, nor is "water" ever used in Greek literature to refer to amniotic fluid), there is no mention of Water/Word here, the water could not be the Spirit since the Spirit is mentioned independently of water, and John the Baptist's baptism doesn't seem to make sense either since Jesus seems to be giving a timeless principle about being "born again." The fact is, every first century reader would likely think of Christian baptism when reading this and make that association. Remember, not only did Jesus have a context, but the author John has a purpose in writing this as well that should not be dismissed. It is quite reasonable to think that Jesus was speaking of something that was yet to come about and that John records this for the purpose of saying something about the people who find eternal life...they belong to the Church. Everyone who joined the church in the first century did so by immersion in water. I think the implications for early readers would have been evident and we have developed some really strange notions (in my opinion) to dismiss how early readers would have likely understood this text.
I don't think John 19 refers to water baptism.
As for Acts 2, this authors Greek is really poor. I am amazed that he would try to use the plural and singular forms of words to disassociate the clear grammatical connection of both baptism and repentance to forgiveness. This is pure nonsense. The Greek connective kai connects both of these words equally to forgiveness and the number has nothing to do with how this is to be understood. It is why all the English translations read as they do. Again, the author simply tries to discount this verse by essentially saying, "If it says what it looks like, than its teaching salvation by work ceremonies, and we know that cant be true!" This is a predetermination the author has made and is rejecting this reading based on his own preconceived theology rather than accepting the verse for what it says. Comparing baptism to circumcision is nonsense. The fact is, the author doesn't like what this verse teaches and is trying to find a reason to dismiss it. I think we need to allow the text to say what it says, rather than contriving theological reasons for why we shouldn't accept the clear teaching of a passage.
In Acts 8, what is compelling here is that in this short journey where Philip is witnessing to this Ethiopian, baptism is mentioned. If baptism was a meaningless ceremony as this author argues, why would Philip even mention it at all? And not only does he mention it, but apparently he emphasized it to the point that the Ethiopian felt compelled to be baptized that moment. I find this passage very compelling and I am amazed that anyone would read it and conclude baptism is meaningless.
His Acts 22 explanation is ridiculous. I think any casual reader can see how faulty this argument is so I wont waste my time on it.
Im out of time. Ill try to address the other texts later, if you want me to.