The Timing of Cornelius’ Baptism of the Holy Ghost

[Antipas]

It is my understanding that when one receives the baptism of the Holy Spirit they are regenerated (John 3:5-8; John 6:63; Titus 3:5). This means that new life has been spiritually imparted to their spirit (born of spirit). Of course, in order to receive this regeneration, they had to be previously justified by faith as a part of their repentance.

With the above in mind we can say that according to the Bible (not feelings) anyone who has received the baptism of the Holy Spirit has experienced the biblical realities of both justification and regeneration.

According to Scripture, what soteriological reality is experienced in water baptism? Most will say "the remission of sins". But that was the result of one who has obeyed the command to "Repent, and be baptized..." The operative action, in "Repent, and be baptized", being repentance. Does baptism serve any other function beyond serving as an indication of one's repentance through obedience?

[Apostolic1ness]

Originally Posted by Antipas

It is my understanding that when one receives the baptism of the Holy Spirit they are regenerated (John 3:5-8; John 6:63; Titus 3:5). This means that new life has been spiritually imparted to their spirit (born of spirit). Of course, in order to receive this regeneration, they had to be previously justified by faith as a part of their repentance.

With the above in mind we can say that according to the Bible (not feelings) anyone who has received the baptism of the Holy Spirit has experienced the biblical realities of both justification and regeneration.

According to Scripture, what soteriological reality is experienced in water baptism? Most will say "the remission of sins". But that was the result of one who has obeyed the command to "Repent, and be baptized..." The operative action, in "Repent, and be baptized", being repentance. Does baptism serve any other function beyond serving as an indication of one's repentance through obedience?

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.

[Antipas]

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.

Baptism doesn't provide the remission of sin in and of itself. The command from Peter was to, "repent, and be baptized", repentance being the operative term.

The theological conundrum we're all struggling to come to terms with is the notion that baptism brings the remission/forgiveness of sin. That becomes problematic. Because if one receives the baptism of the Holy Spirit prior to water baptism, they have experienced justification and regeneration... without even having their sin forgiven. Which is an impossibility.

I contend that water baptism is a command. And refusal to obey this command within a reasonable time will cost one their soul.

[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.

[Evang.Benincasa]

The worst handicap in reading, studying, and researching the Bible. Is our own personal experiences in whatever denomination or religion we happen to be affiliated with. It actually hijacks any sort of objective research. Mother Foofoofnick got the Holy Ghost 80 years before she was baptized in Jesus name. Uncle Stickwither came up out of the water speaking in tongues. Sister Nasaldrip would fall backwards everytime she had the pastor pray for her. Everytime Brother Tithemister put a dime in the offering plate he would win the state lotto. Everything from vials of oil on a keychain, to who got what in what order trumps scripture. You aren't saved, you are saved, you might be saved, MeeMaw Willy was saved, she spoke in tongues and never got baptized in Jesus name. She prayed all the time, fasted until the skin feel off her bones, and she was sweeter then a wet bag of Dixie crystals. Who cares, but everyone will write out a 50 page essay complete with Greek, Hebrew and Swahili, and be right, because they will place their own testimony on it as a stamp of final approval. Sorry, but the Bible doesn't care about our personal experiences or perceptions of the world around us. Pentecost is made up of 100 different points of view and opinions. But the Bible doesn't care, it will keep telling the truth whether we like it or not.

[coksiw]

Originally Posted by Costeon

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.

[Rom 6:3-4 NASB] 3 Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? 4 Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.

Paul is just making an analogy. Notice the last part of the last sentence (v4): so as ... so you. The analogy doesn't set an order of salvation, as the testimony of Cornelius explains. The part that is not an analogy is the "baptized into His death", meaning what I posted earlier, that to be part of the blessing of forgiveness of sins you must apply the blood of Jesus, and that's through baptism.

Someone dies and is buried and is raised with Christ by faith.

Paul is making an analogy. The point he makes is that as He resurrected from the death, you should walk in newness of life after the forgiveness of your sins through baptism.

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.

God gave us a way of salvation, not an order of salvation. He knows your heart, and he is the judge. You must complete the two goals to be saved according to Acts. If you repented, and came to him, at that point he started to guide you into salvation. He completed the gift of the Holy Spirit first on you and guided you to the correct baptism.

"contrite" means broken because of guilt, repentance. The day you decided to humble and repent he looked at you and started the process:

[Psa 51:17 NASB] 17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.
[Isa 57:15 NASB] 15 For thus says the high and exalted One Who lives forever, whose name is Holy, "I dwell [on] a high and holy place, And [also] with the contrite and lowly of spirit In order to revive the spirit of the lowly And to revive the heart of the contrite.
[Isa 66:2 NASB] 2 "For My hand made all these things, Thus all these things came into being," declares the LORD. "But to this one I will look, To him who is humble and contrite of spirit, and who trembles at My word.

You need baptism in Jesus' name to be part of the benefits of the cross, to be participant of the blessing of forgiveness of sins (Acts 2:38, Acts 22:16). Of course, you need to come with faith to make it valid. There is no order of salvation, that's not what the Bible teaches. There is a way of salvation. The only "order" is that you need to believe in God and in the gospel, and repent; before the being born again part. The fact that there is no order, doesn't make one part more important than the other, or one part just symbolic and the other one critical. They are both necessary as the Bible teaches it.

Are the people that were taught the triune formula, and never the baptism in the name, saved? What's up with the people that never heard the gospel but were good people and died? It is hard sometimes to understand and accept those cases, but I think the best you can do is to just accept that according to the Bible they are not complete into the truth in the first case, and in the second case they are lost, ... and God is the ultimate judge.
I personally was filled with the Spirit in 1998, and baptized in the triune formula. During all that time I didn't have no doubt I was saved and I had a relationship with God. But then one day I went to a UPCI church without knowing and they grabbed me by the neck and challenged me with the their doctrine. The Spirit confirmed to me that I needed to listen instead of arguing during the meeting, and I obeyed, and was baptized in Jesus' name.
God knows your heart and he is powerful to guide you to all truth. What would've happened if I had died before that happened? well, thankfully, I didn't die.

[Costeon]

Originally Posted by coksiw

Paul is just making an analogy. Notice the last part of the last sentence (v4): so as ... so you. The analogy doesn't set an order of salvation, as the testimony of Cornelius explains. The part that is not an analogy is the "baptized into His death", meaning what I posted earlier, that to be part of the blessing of forgiveness of sins you must apply the blood of Jesus, and that's through baptism.

Paul is making an analogy. The point he makes is that as He resurrected from the death, you should walk in newness of life after the forgiveness of your sins through baptism.

I appreciate your post and have tried to think about it carefully. I'm not sure, however, that I fully understand how you're using the term analogy.

I agree that Paul is making an analogy, but I don't conclude the same thing about it that you do, that because an analogy is involved, the passage does not speak at all to the order we experience the saving work of Christ.

Whether we’re looking at the literal experience of Christ dying, being buried, and being raised from the dead or at our spiritual and metaphorical experience with Christ, the order of the elements is essential to the experience—the order is the experience.

An analogy shows a correspondence between two things to make a point. Regarding Christ’s literal experience, he could not have been buried, raised up, and then die. That’s illogical. It would be just as illogical to say we can receive new life before dying to the old life. Paul’s ultimate point is that we should not go on sinning because in Christ we have died to sin and been buried and have been raised up to walk in newness of life.

He emphasizes the order of events: "5 For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection." The resurrection of course must--and Paul's point, will--come after death.

It would destroy the analogy to say the order of the events of our experience has no direct correspondence with the order of Christ's literal experience.

Regarding the experience of Cornelius explaining something, to me this entire issue is raised because Scripture does not, in fact, explain his experience. We have Acts 2:38 and all the other conversion experiences conforming to the order of Acts 2:38, and then Cornelius's experience related without explanation. Oneness Pentecostals have taken the exception to the rule and made it the rule--at least it has been in my experience.

You need baptism in Jesus' name to be part of the benefits of the cross, to be participant of the blessing of forgiveness of sins (Acts 2:38, Acts 22:16). Of course, you need to come with faith to make it valid.

I agree. Baptism is a powerful enactment of our dying and rising with Christ by faith. I think it is better to understand baptism as the sign and seal of the faith that justifies us, similar to how circumcision was the sign and seal of the righteousness of faith that Abraham had before he was circumcised. It signified and confirmed the presence of his faith. If he would have refused circumcision that would have shown he did not have faith. I think baptism may function this way and therefore is always tied directly to repentance.

A few passages I think show that, in the remission of sins, repentance is the primary element:

Luke 24:47: "and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem" (NKJV). There is an interesting variant reading for this verse, with some Greek manuscripts having "repentance and remission of sins" and others having "repentance for the remission of sins." The other main conservative translations render the verse that way: ESV, NIV, NASB, CSB.

Acts 3:19: "Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out" (ESV).

Acts 5:31: "Him God has exalted to His right hand to be Prince and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins."

Repentance brings remission of sins; baptism powerfully signifies and confirms it.

There is no order of salvation . . . . The only "order" is that you need to believe in God and in the gospel, and repent; before the being born again part.

I just have to disagree. Either there is an order or there is not. It seems erroneous to me to say, "this part must come first, but then the order of the other parts doesn't matter," based on Cornelius's unexplained experience in Acts 10.

Now I do in fact agree that repentance must come first, with baptism signifying and confirming it.

The main thing I have been criticizing by emphasizing the order of things is the traditional teaching that repentance = death, water baptism = burial, and Holy Spirit baptism = resurrection." If this scheme is true, you end up with many examples of people rising again with Christ before they were ever buried with Christ, which doesn't make sense.

Paul clearly is locating our symbolic identification with Christ's death, burial, and resurrection as occurring in the waters of baptism. Our burial is when we go down in the water; our resurrection is when we come out of the water. This shows the significance of what repentance really is: dying to the old life and rising to the new life when we turn from sin and turn to Christ. Sure God could have had it where we could just say that this is what happens, but God has instead given us this incredibly powerful symbolic experience to signify and confirm our repentance.

Are the people that were taught the triune formula, and never the baptism in the name, saved? What's up with the people that never heard the gospel but were good people and died? It is hard sometimes to understand and accept those cases, but I think the best you can do is to just accept that according to the Bible they are not complete into the truth in the first case, and in the second case they are lost, ... and God is the ultimate judge.
I personally was filled with the Spirit in 1998, and baptized in the triune formula. During all that time I didn't have no doubt I was saved and I had a relationship with God. But then one day I went to a UPCI church without knowing and they grabbed me by the neck and challenged me with the their doctrine. The Spirit confirmed to me that I needed to listen instead of arguing during the meeting, and I obeyed, and was baptized in Jesus' name.
God knows your heart and he is powerful to guide you to all truth. What would've happened if I had died before that happened? well, thankfully, I didn't die.

I like your approach here. I do not, however, believe that you were lost until you were baptized in Jesus' name. The signs of true faith and spiritual life were there.