The Timing of Cornelius’ Baptism of the Holy Ghost

[Costeon]

Originally Posted by Apostolic1ness

I think you answered your own question with the phrase "the remission of sins". Other than being identified with Christ in his death and burial through baptism among other "functions" of baptism. I think you gave the greatest function of baptism and that is simply the remission of sins.

Remission of sins is the greatest soteriological reality in my opinion, keep the understanding simple and the simple will understand.

Unfortunately it gets complex when someone has received the Spirit but has not been baptized. You allude to Rom 6. In the scenario I mention, according to standard Pentecostal teaching on the conversion experience, this person has been resurrected with Christ, though they apparently have never died and been buried with Christ yet since they have not been baptized.

Someone dies and is buried and is raised with Christ by faith. The normal biblical place for this faith to be expressed is water baptism, which is a powerful symbol of what repentance truly is: a dying to self and a turning to Christ in new life. Since baptism is the normal place for saving faith to be expressed, saving activity is often attributed to baptism itself, but contrary to what Catholics and Orthodox teach, there is no saving power in the ceremony itself.
Faith alone gives meaning to the ceremony.

The point is God is not bound by the ceremony. If someone is not going to be led to water baptism first when they come to faith in Christ (as in Cornelius's situation and in my own experience) and are led to seek the baptism of the Spirit first and He gives them this gift, it seems reasonable to understand that God had forgiven their sins in response to their faith/repentance in light of the extenuating circumstances they were put in. Again, this is not the biblical norm, and is not something I would preach, but if you don't think God can possibly forgive sins at faith/repentance, then you have to argue that someone, if they have not been baptized, can still be as lost as they ever were even at the moment they received the Spirit since only baptism brings the forgiveness of sins.

I was baptized in the Spirit many months before I was taught about Jesus' name baptism. During this time, my life was transformed. I grew greatly in the Lord. According to the traditional Pentecostal view, all this doesn't really matter, because I was still going to burn in hell just as much as I was going to before I had received the Spirit because I had not been forgiven in baptism. This is unreasonable, which is why no group in the history of the church besides the largest segment of Oneness Pentecostals has ever taught that you could be filled with the Spirit but remain at that very moment lost and dead in sins.