Forgiveness or Remission?

[coksiw]

Originally Posted by Costeon

Why has there ever been a debate in this history of the church? If indeed nothing is ambiguous, how have sincere believers disagreed on anything?

Where did you get that information?

From The New Birth by David K. Bernard:

Early post-apostolic Christians affirmed baptism as part of salvation. Latourette remarked, “Baptism was believed to wash away all sins committed before it was administered. After baptism, the Christian was supposed not to sin.”9 He also said, “Baptism seems to have been regarded as requisite for the ‘remission of sins’ and for the new birth through which alone one could enter the Kingdom of God.”10

With respect to baptism in the first and second centuries the Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics states, “The dominant ideas were those of forgiveness of sin, regeneration, and the gift of the Holy Spirit . . . The change effected by baptism was attributed to the ‘name’ and to the water, which were regarded as actually effective and not merely symbolic.”11 According to Heick, the postapostolic fathers (AD 90-140) taught that “baptism confers the forgiveness of sins.”12 For example, this was the teaching in the Epistle of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermas. For the Greek Apologists (AD 130-180) baptism was “a washing of forgiveness and a regeneration.”13 They said it “brings pardon and the new life, and is therefore necessary to salvation.”14

Other early theologians who taught that God remits sins at water baptism were Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Origen, Tertullian, and Augustine.15 Irenaeus, Tertullian, Hippolytus, and Cyprian specifically described water baptism as the birth of the water in John 3:5, and Hippolytus and Cyprian identified water baptism as the laver of regeneration in Titus 3:5. The Constitutions of the Holy Apostles paraphrases John 3:5 as, “Except a man be baptized of water and of the Spirit, he shall by no means enter into the kingdom of heaven.”16

Tertullian taught that at water baptism the believer has his sins washed away, is born in water, and is prepared for the Holy Spirit.17 He believed that John’s baptism pointed towards future remission of sins and that Christ’s disciples continued John’s baptism during Christ’s earthly ministry. He described baptism as a seal of faith that is necessary to salvation, stating that John 3:5 “has tied faith to the necessity of baptism.”
These men and writings represent many different theological factions, and we do not endorse all of their doctrines; nevertheless it is interesting to see that all agreed on the necessity of baptism. Third-century controversies over heretic baptisms demonstrate that all Christendom of the time agreed that “there can be only one baptism, and that this baptism is essential to salvation.”18

9Latourette, I, 135.
10Ibid., p. 194.
11“Baptism (Early Christian),” ERE, II, 389.
12Heick, I, 54; see Klotsche, pp. 20-21, 99.
13Heick, I, 62.
14Ibid; see Klotsche, p. 27.
15Heick, I, 62, 122, 129, 135; “Baptism (Early Christian),” ERE, II, 385. For further documentation of this paragraph see ANF, I, 444 & 574; ANF, III, 674-75; ANF, V, 237, 276, & 378.
16Constitutions of the Holy Apostles, 6.3.15, ANF, VII, 457.
17Tertullian, On Baptism, ANF, III, 669-679.
18“Baptism (Early Christian),” ERE, II, 391.

There was not "debate", the understand was clear, generally speaking, and reflected on writing.