Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeffrey
I can't see how baptism is at a "heart level" at all, and it's clearly separable from believing/trusting. When I trust someone, my heart is instantly turned toward them. Baptism doesn't fit these category, Mike.
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I stated this before, but although baptism involves a physical act, and repentance is a heart act, both are still acts. Acts are works. People seem to think that because repentance is done in the heart that it does not make it a work. But that is not the issue. The issue is whether or not ANY WORK, even repentance, depends SOLELY upon the cross for the actual work that makes us righteous in and of itself, and not the repentance or the baptism.
That is why I have been saying for days now, to no avail it seems, that baptism (as I see baptism) is no more a work than repentance is. Baptism is not something I do that in and of itself makes me righteous. Same with repentance. In fact, before I am baptized, I am deemed righteous due to my faith. But that faith is a "faith that works" kind of faith. It does not matter if the heart works or the flesh works, a work is a work. But the ONLY issue the bible takes with works is that they cannot be used as though they make us righteous without any inkling of the cross.
This is also why I say that if someone has the FAITH that they NEED to be baptized to obey the Lord, and they die before they get baptized, THEY ARE SAVED.
It's not the water or the lowering into the water that does anything. It is the faith I have in me that obeys God that moves God to circumcise my heart from the body of sins of the flesh WHEN BAPTIZED.
It seems those who espouse never a need for baptism circumvent these passages, which NO EARLY CHURCH WRITINGS after the bible ever espoused, let alone the bible!
If baptism is not at the heart level, then IT IS INVALID!
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