Quote:
Originally Posted by Aquila
I believe that full New Testament salvation contains repentance, water baptism, and Holy Ghost infilling. But I've always had this question.... I was filled with the Holy Ghost immediately after repentance. I spoke in tongues and wept for nearly 40 or more minutes. If my sins weren't remitted until water baptism (which happened later) .... how did God fill me with the Holy Ghost seeing that I was still, according to some, covered in sin? I've wrestled and wrestled with that. It's like I compare my EXPERIENCE to what people are teaching and it doesn't mesh. People are filled with the Holy Ghost before water baptism all the time. That in itself testifies to the fact that sins are forgiven and one is justified at Repentance. However, this doesn't mean that one shouldn't obey and be water baptized, it's only a practical example that experience doesn't match what is often taught.
What if I repented of sin, was filled with the Holy Ghost and was then killed crossing the street on the way to the creek to be water baptized? Many would say that I was lost because I wasn't baptized. Others would say that I was acting in obedience and therefore God would have mercy.
Just some questions that roll around in my crazy head.
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Aquilla, I understand the dilemma you are trying to reconcile in your mind. I personally believe that it takes the full new birth, repentance, water, and Spirit (whichever order they occur), in order to attain full remission of sins. Having said that, according to
1 Pet 3:21 regarding baptism, it's "not the washing away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good consceince toward God"... Remission of sins does not mean that the filthiness of the flesh is wiped out, nor does repentence or even the infilling of the Holy Ghost... baptism is the "pledge", the "answer", or as Talmadge French suggests, the "begging for" a good conscience - to have the conscience cleared of the fear of judgement of sin, or to have the eternal record wiped clean.
Therefore receiving the Holy Ghost before baptism does not mean one is clean of the "filth of the flesh", any more than being baptized does. The filth of the flesh is going to be extant in us until glorification. It's merely the grace of God that allows us to have these conversion experiences, and begin a new life in Christ. So it doesn't matter what order conversion takes place, whether Spirit first, or water first, etc... those experiences lead us into a place where the blood continually washes away our sins, past, present, and future. The entire conversion process is necessary, repentance, water, and Spirit, in order to enter into that position in Christ.
Having said that, allow me to attempt to answer your question about a believer who repents, is filled with the Spirit, and dies on the way to the "baptismal". Here is how I see it: 1.) God CAN keep that person alive until they are baptized. I have full confidence of that. Thus we have to acknowledge divine providence here, and trust in that. 2.) Consider Abraham, he was commanded to offer Isaac, but God stayed Abraham's hand. It was God who stopped the process. Yet Abraham was still accounted for righteous. Therefore if an individual is in the process of completing the New Birth as you suggest, but God through divine providence, takes the person out of this life before they are able to be baptized, God's hand in that must be recognized, and their intents acknowledged. God is the righteous judge, and he knows the internal state of the indivual. If God stopped it, or allowed it to be stopped, as Scripture says "I'll have mercy upon who I'll have mercy".... God can very well have mercy on that person, in the same way he can righteously judge them. At that point it's in the hands of God!