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Originally Posted by TK Burk
Did Cornelius receiving the Holy Ghost before being baptized in Jesus name prove water baptism is not necessary for salvation? THIS STUDY by DD Benincasa answers this often asked question. |
What it shows is that God apparently will forgive someone's sins prior to water baptism if they have come to faith but are in a situation where believers will not lead them to baptism first, as was most likely Cornelius's situation. Of course the normal place for the faith and repentance that bring the remission of sins to be expressed is water baptism, but God's actions in
Acts 10 show He is not bound by that if a someone is in a situation like Cornelius's. The only thing that brings the forgiveness of sins at baptism is true faith and repentance, not the ceremonial act itself. If someone thinks that Cornelius's sins were still not remitted yet even at the point when he received the Spirit, then he or she has to believe what I find impossible to believe that Cornelius was still lost till he got in the water since his sins were still against him
Cornelius's situation was unusual and called for an unusual experience. He was a Gentile. Gentiles had not come into the church yet. The conference in
Acts 15 had not occurred yet and the gathered leaders had not concluded that Gentiles did not have to become Jews first and embrace the Torah before becoming followers of Christ. Most Jewish Christians would not have baptized Cornelius and his household without a revelational action from God authorizing it, so God gave the Spirit to them immediately upon them coming to faith and forgave their sins before being baptized ultimately to show that Gentiles who came to faith in Christ were accepted as they were without having to embrace the Torah first. After the Gentiles received the Spirit, no Jewish Christian could deny that they should be baptized. Cornelius's situation did not devalue baptism or show that baptism is not the normal place for saving faith to be expressed and the remission of sins to occur.
Cornelius's experience was not intended to be paradigmatic--we do not see it happen again in Acts, and we do not see it preached that the order of baptism to Spirit baptism doesn't matter, though Pentecostals generally seem to think the order doesn't matter and, in my experience, seem to prefer the experience of Cornelius to the order of
Acts 2:38. Countless times I've seen people try to get people to repent apart from baptism and to seek to receive the Spirit, and if that doesn't quite work out, then urge them to go ahead and be baptized.
The normal pattern is to repent and be baptized and then seek the baptism of the Spirit. This avoids the theological conundrum of standard Oneness Pentecostalism's soteriology of having people filled with the Spirit but still apparently lost since their sins are still against them till they get in the water to be baptized for the remission of sins. I, for example, received that Spirit during a revival service I was invited to, but nobody got around to telling me about the necessity of baptism in Jesus' name for many months after that. I had been baptized in a Baptist church years before this, and I was obviously growing in my faith and loved my experience in the Spirit, so I didn't think I needed to be rebaptized. As it turned out I immediately said yes when I was finally taught about Jesus's name baptism and was asked if I wanted to be baptized to obey Scripture. I cannot believe I was lost for those many months simply because I was in a situation where believers failed to lead me to baptism sooner. What seems apparent is that God forgave me of my sins the night I repented and was filled with the Spirit.
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