Inside the Mind of a Reformer

[mizpeh]

Adino,

Have you read what these men have written on water baptism and the new birth? How would you harmonize what they say above if they believe the new birth included water baptism?

I agree with ""...But the Lord Christ is both God and the mercy seat, both the priest and the lamb, and he performed the work of our salvation by his blood, demanding only faith from us."

Theodoret of Cyrrhus (393 - 457ad)

Faith (and grace) are the means by which we obtain the promises of God.

[mizpeh]

I'll leave you to harmonize this quote of Origen with what Oden quoted.

I would like to cite Origen more fully:

The church has received from the apostles the tradition to give baptism even to infants. For those who were entrusted with the divine mysteries knew that all men have the natural pollution of sin, which must be washed away through water and the Spirit. No man is free from the defilement of sin, even if he is one day old. Since the inborn uncleanness is washed away through baptism, little children also come to be baptized. For unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter the kingdom of God. (Origen, "Commentary on Romans," V. 9)

http://weekendfisher.blogspot.com/20...f-infants.html

[Adino]

Mizpeh, I do recognize that, as Oden said, "one can always find non-consensual aberrations and debates". Oden says he drew the Origen quote from commentary on Romans 3:28. How Origen reconciled statements such as this with his baptismal leanings, I do not know. Even Luther was ultimately held to task on his wrestling with the issue of water baptism and his views of justification. He concluded:

"....Baptism certainly does not justify without faith, but faith does justify without baptism; therefore no part of justification may be ascribed to baptism...." [What Luther Says: An Anthology, compiled by Ewald M. Plass (Concordia Pub. House, St. Louis, MO, 1959), Vol. II, entry 2213, p. 708.]

Origen saw the thief on the cross as being cleansed without baptism, so I have to wonder whether Origen would have ultimately agreed with Luther.

The quote you offered concerns me in another way... if Origen uses the phrase "inborn uncleanness" in reference to the sinful nature of man it sounds as if he leans toward the complete eradication of this nature at baptism. Did he hold to justification before God at faith and complete eradication of the sinful nature at baptism? Hmmm... I dunno. If this is the case, Luther held that man was both saved and sinner at the same time so, at least on this point, I would say they seem to part ways.

[pelathais]

Originally Posted by RunningOnFaith

There is nothing disingenous about it whatsoever. The similarity is that both Oneness Pentecostals and those of the Reformation view both regard the Baptism of the Holy Spirit as essential, the conflict arises concerning the evidence of the Baptism. Lewis Sperry Chafer, a dispensational Calvinist, in his Systematic Theology outlines HS baptism and it relationship to conversion, regeneration and the empowering affect that it has in life of a Christian in a way that would be very similar to what a Oneness Pentecostal says happens in regard to HS baptism apart from the evidence. If I am confused please explain to me the Reformed perspective of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit.

In short, Oneness Pentecostals agree with the Reformed people on the essentiality of HS baptism and disagree with them about the evidence of it, we agree with the Trinitarian Pentecostals on the evidence of HS baptism, but disagree with them on its relationship to regeneration. In other words, there is not a two level Christianity (those with the HS Baptism and those without it).

When the point of distinction is "the evidence of the baptism of the Holy Ghost" then you are potentially dealing with 2 different phenomena. When the "evidence" is so remarkably different as between Oneness Pentecostals and the Reformed faith - you're really dealing with two different things.

To tell a Reformed believer that subsequent to conversion they must undergo a Borat-like ordeal in a Pentecostal altar in order to have been baptized in the Spirit would provoke a disagreement. And I'm understating things by calling it a "disagreement."

Attempts to bolster the OP position by saying, "The similarity is that both Oneness Pentecostals and those of the Reformation view both regard the Baptism of the Holy Spirit as essential" is like saying ice cream and charcoal taste the same because they both have carbon atoms.

Originally Posted by RunningOnFaith

If you where to tell Sproul, Piper, MacArthur or other mainstream Evangelicals that Calvin was a brute, they would think you where off your rocker. They look at the man as a hero, they have entire seminary courses where they disect his "Institutes", repeat prayers that he said, etc. Even the Charismatic Roberts Liardon had him listed as one of God's generals. When you throw out the fact that Calvin had Servetus killed that will throw out responses like "Oh he was a man of his times, etc". My point was if this was some kind of great Reformer who had committed some atrocious crimes, and yet the wider Christian community at large cuts the man slack...........why is it that conservative Oneness brethern are regarded as legalists and slandered for applying standards in the Church.

And some of the same men would say I'm "off my rocker" because I believe the earth to be billions of years old and not mere thousands. I'm quite comfortable where I sit and have no need of those kinds of rockers.

Calvin is often excused with the statement, "He was a man of his times..." Michael Servetus' slow roast was not Calvin's only crime. Amputation of the limbs of children, forced expulsion of women and children from Geneva in winter when it was a death sentence to do so and a host of other crimes that would have gotten him a rocker on the gallows at Nuremberg had he been tried there, are just a few examples. He was a very sharp thinker but we don't need to be beholden to his worldview. This planet is a much better place without men like Jean Calvin.

You're a smart person and you seem to know how to do theology; but the similarity in Spirit baptism that you advance is really a non sequitur.

[mizpeh]

Originally Posted by pelathais

And some of the same men would say I'm "off my rocker" because I believe the earth to be billions of years old and not mere thousands. I'm quite comfortable where I sit and have no need of those kinds of rockers.

In view of your understanding of creation, how do you explain the phrase "and the evening and the morning"? And does understanding in Genesis that a day is not really a 24 hour day and the evening and the morning is something other than the evening and the morning that we recognize as constituting a 24 day throw off what the rest of the Bible defines as a day and as the evening or as the morning?

Gen 1:5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

[mizpeh]

Originally Posted by pelathais

Attempts to bolster the OP position by saying, "The similarity is that both Oneness Pentecostals and those of the Reformation view both regard the Baptism of the Holy Spirit as essential" is like saying ice cream and charcoal taste the same because they both have carbon atoms.

You're squashing Dan's ecumenical defense.

[mizpeh]

Originally Posted by Adino

Mizpeh, I do recognize that, as Oden said, "one can always find non-consensual aberrations and debates". Oden says he drew the Origen quote from commentary on Romans 3:28. How Origen reconciled statements such as this with his baptismal leanings, I do not know. Even Luther was ultimately held to task on his wrestling with the issue of water baptism and his views of justification. He concluded:

"....Baptism certainly does not justify without faith, but faith does justify without baptism; therefore no part of justification may be ascribed to baptism...." [What Luther Says: An Anthology, compiled by Ewald M. Plass (Concordia Pub. House, St. Louis, MO, 1959), Vol. II, entry 2213, p. 708.]

Origen saw the thief on the cross as being cleansed without baptism, so I have to wonder whether Origen would have ultimately agreed with Luther.

The quote you offered concerns me in another way... if Origen uses the phrase "inborn uncleanness" in reference to the sinful nature of man it sounds as if he leans toward the complete eradication of this nature at baptism. Did he hold to justification before God at faith and complete eradication of the sinful nature at baptism? Hmmm... I dunno. If this is the case, Luther held that man was both saved and sinner at the same time so, at least on this point, I would say they seem to part ways.

How do the verses that say we are saved by faith and others that say baptism saves us or without the Spirit of Christ we are none of his all mesh together to form one cohesive doctrine of salvation?

In my opinion we as humans are stuck with the sinful nature (in our flesh) until we are resurrected/changed.

[mizpeh]

In view of your understanding of creation, how do you explain the phrase "and the evening and the morning"? And does understanding in Genesis that a day is not really a 24 hour day and the evening and the morning is something other than the evening and the morning that we recognize as constituting a 24 day throw off what the rest of the Bible defines as a day and as the evening or as the morning?

Gen 1:5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

bump

[pelathais]

Originally Posted by mizpeh

bump

Sorry... you didn't bump hard enough... I didn't see this until I'm just getting ready for bed.

The creation/day debate goes a bit off the topic of the thread. I only brought up the age of the earth to point out that some of the folks cited can call me all the names they want; reasonable and educated people are with me on this.

I don't really need to explain the "evening and morning" structure of the Hebrew prose in Genesis 1. This is inspired literature that, if we forced a literal interpretation upon, we would have to reject Creation Ex Nihilo because "the deep" (or the waters) existed before God said anything.

So, in view of your understanding of creation, how do you explain tehôm (or Tiamat) in the beginning with God before anything was created?

[mizpeh]

Originally Posted by pelathais

Sorry... you didn't bump hard enough... I didn't see this until I'm just getting ready for bed.

The creation/day debate goes a bit off the topic of the thread. I only brought up the age of the earth to point out that some of the folks cited can call me all the names they want; reasonable and educated people are with me on this.

I don't really need to explain the "evening and morning" structure of the Hebrew prose in Genesis 1. This is inspired literature that, if we forced a literal interpretation upon, we would have to reject Creation Ex Nihilo because "the deep" (or the waters) existed before God said anything.

So, in view of your understanding of creation, how do you explain tehôm (or Tiamat) in the beginning with God before anything was created?

What a coincidence, I was thinking just this morning before I got up about creation ex nihilo and Genesis 1:2. I don't know the answer to your question. My pastor believes and teaches the Gap Theory.

My preference is to take the word of God as it is written or literally whenever I can. My first reading as a new believer was creation happened in 6 literal days consisting of an evening and a morning. The Gap theory has some good things. Evolution is my least preferred theory of creation. But I'm not dogmatically settled in my mind on any one of these.

I could understand different meanings placed on the word, day, in Genesis 1 because of the way it is used and how some interpret it in other places in the Bible, but I can't get past 'the evening and morning' phrase. Is it used anywhere in the Bible as meaning something different than what we know an evening and a morning to be? I thought you might have a logical and biblical answer.

There is something else in the Genesis account and elsewhere that seems to refute the theory of evolution in that most everythings reproduces after its kind. There are no leaps from one kind to another although there is variety within a kind. Gen 7:14