Forgiveness or Remission?

[Costeon]

Originally Posted by Esaias

1. The Bible connects water baptism and remission of sins directly, by direct plain statements.

I agree.

2. The Bible nowhere makes the same type of connection between receiving the Spirit and remission, in the same way.

I do not agree.

Paul does so explicitly, for example, in Col 2.13-14: "And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14 by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands."

Paul explicitly says that God made us alive having forgiven us, that is, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us. Paul directly connects being given new life by the Spirit with being forgiven. In addition, we can easily see the logic of this, that these things necessarily occur at the same time. If our trespasses are what made us dead, then we cannot come alive when what made us dead still remains. When what made us dead is removed, the Spirit at once makes us alive.

Paul makes the same point in Eph 2.4-5, 8: "4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved. . . . 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith."

We were dead in trespasses, but God made us alive. Obviously this is parallel to Col 2.13-14, so what I said there including the logic of it all applies here too.

Paul also adds here that, when they were raised to life from being dead in trespasses, this meant that they were saved--saved by his grace through their faith. To be saved, that is to be "in him," by definition means to be both forgiven and to have the Spirit. (See Eph 1.7 and 1.13.) You can't be said to be saved by grace through faith if one of those essential elements is lacking, so when he describes them as having been raised to life and so saved, this necessarily means they had also been forgiven.

3. To connect receiving the Spirit to remission one has to do so indirectly, by a series of assumptions, which are not spelled out as clearly as the situation with number 1 above.

I have shown that they are directly connected and logically required.

I would add another example that shows that receiving the Spirit and being forgiven cannot logically be separated.

In 2 Thes 2.13, Paul says we were saved “through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth.” Being forgiven cannot be separated in time from the initial work of sanctification received in salvation. To be sanctified is to be made holy and set apart for God. This obviously must include the removal our our sins. We can’t be holy in God’s sight when what had made us unholy in his sight, our sin, remains. In 1 Cor 6.11, Paul says that, when we were saved, we were washed and sanctified in the name of Jesus and by the Spirit of God, that is, we were cleansed of sin and made holy, and as a result, we were justified, that is, declared righteous before God because we’re now forgiven and holy in his sight. Again, we can’t be cleansed and made holy by the Holy Spirit while what had polluted us and made us unholy before God, our sin, remains.

In short, forgiveness and the regenerating, sanctifying work of the Spirit must occur simultaneously. Scripture says they do, and logic recognizes that they must.

4. Those assumptions include some that are not necessary inferences. That lack of necessary inferences makes the teaching (no. 2, Spirit and remission) essentially a speculative "what if?" scenario.

I have shown that connecting forgiveness with the Spirit is not an assumption and is also logically required, and so it is not a “what if” scenario.

5. Speculative what ifism cannot be the basis of anything sound or authoritative.

Agreed

Therefore, it would be perfectly reasonable to reject such a thing.

But since I have shown this is not a speculative "what ifism," we cannot reasonably reject it.

I understand what you are saying, but I think you are basically assuming too many things to be true, in order to support the claim that remission of sins is a requirement to be met prior to or synonymously with receiving the Spirit. And I just don't see such claims being made by Jesus or the apostles.

If people did not receive the gift of the Spirit with the sign of tongues before baptism, that is, if they were not born of the Spirit/raised from the dead by the Spirit/regenerated by the Spirit before baptism, I would agree with you that baptism is what effects the forgiveness of sins. But since people constantly do receive new life from the Spirit before baptism, I do not believe that baptism can be what effects forgiveness.

I have given some of the reasons why I think it is unscriptural and logically impossible for forgiveness to occur at a different time from receiving new life in the Spirit. If forgiveness cannot be separated from the Spirit and the Spirit can be received before baptism, then baptism can’t be what effects forgiveness. What comes after can’t effect what comes before. Obviously.