Taken
Well-Known Member
But you said...parents are choosing for a baby....and they then receive a born again spirit....
How is that so, when they have made no choice?
Glory to God,
Taken
Is there salvation outside the Catholic Church?
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But you said...parents are choosing for a baby....and they then receive a born again spirit....
How is that so, when they have made no choice?
Glory to God,
Taken
From John 3 I would see that it comes very much to the individual (not on someone else's behalf).
Yes, it is pivotal.
Many sacrifices were made in the time before Christ....
But Christ was the perfect sacrifice...the one that only HE,,being both man and God, could offer.
And now no other sacrifice is necessary.
In fact, about 30 years or so after Jesus died,,,the temple was destroyed.
Everything the N.T. says is true.
But you and I understand it a little differently, don't we?
The important thing is that we love God and serve Him.
Doctrine does not save.
The parent is held responsible for the child. Similarly the priest who is reckless about confession is held accountable if he is too lax. If he is sloppy and tells someone his sins are forgiven when all sins haven't been fully confessed, the priest is agreeing to bear the consequences. Jesus told his Apostle they could remit sins, and that's how they do it. It's also why being a martyr works. If you are willing to die because of the love you see in Jesus and wish others could see it too, God will not allow your blood to be wasted. Similarly if people persecute you for his name sake and you can still love them, you will be blessed because they are tied to you.
How do a fisherman catch a fish? Sometimes we must be willing to be the "bait" used.
It will be in the end. If someone is tied to you in love, eventually they will have to see how your love for God is personal and then they too will arrive in the kingdom. They will perceive your relationship with Jesus and come to know him too.
It takes time. There are people in Heaven who have ties to people on the earth. God respects those ties, and Heaven will move many things to answer the prayers of the saints in Heaven. Some may think God just makes people "forget" about bad things in Heaven in the following passage' but that is not so. In the end, we shall see how it is:
Revelation 21:4 And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.
Some may say God will impose a kind of forgetfulness on people; but God does better than that. He can answer prayers and remove the cause of our sorrows.
Tears are interesting.
Psalm 56:8 Thou tellest my wanderings: put thou my tears into thy bottle: are they not in thy book?
Angels collect the tears as prayers that cannot be answered immediately. It may take time for them to be answered. When it is time, an angel takes them and offers them to God. Then it is as if God "remembered" them.
Revelation 5:8 And when he had taken the book, the four beasts and four and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps, and golden vials full of odours, which are the prayers of saints.
The Roman soldiers almost had to be saved because Jesus was willing to forgive them. The Roman Empire was "on the hook" the way a fish is when it crucified Jesus unjustly because Jesus returned love. Anytime a Christian can forgive, returning good for evil, he is going to be rewarded since the other person is "on the hook." A bond has been created between the two that acts almost like a magnet.
Jesus went up to Heaven. The ties of Love remained; and they acted to pull the Apostles up to Heaven, pulling them up, up, up so they could be with Jesus; and as they went up, they also pulled up others who they had established bonds of Love with. Hate is temporary. Love is eternal. It is truer than we may suppose at first. Charity never fails. Isn't God good?
Gosh Taken...I'd have to go back and see my actual words...
I'm sure I didn't say the above.
Parents cannot choose salvation for their baby.
They can choose to welcome that baby into the Christian Community.
I also posted some reasons why Catholics baptize their babies. I did this because I know that the early church baptized infants and I was showing why.
This does not mean I agree with it.
I agree with the reasons they were doing this...it was NOT FOR SALVATION.
I thought I made this clear.
And I don't THINK I ever mentioned the words BORN AGAIN....
Baptism ALONE does not cause one to be born again...
it happens AFTER one is saved.
I think it confers a type of awareness that helps the conscience work better, in a more informed way. One of my sisters adopted a boy; and as he grew up, he seemed to want to be good but often strayed off. I asked her if he had ever been baptized and she said no. I think he would have made fewer mistakes in life if he had been baptized.
Well, this is the idea.
There is some mystery here...
Maybe the Holy Spirit stays with a child UNTIL that child decides not to follow God.
Your longer post is interesting, but must leave for a while.
Later.
Taken
Well-Known Member
GG ~ Jesus came to instruct and teach men HOW to be and what it Meant to be Baptized in the name of the Father, the son and the Holy Spirit.
Receiving of the gifts of Salvation and born again spirit are Spiritual. Men could not SEE anything. Men who were teaching, knew the point they were being saved and born again, and informed them....
Glory to God,
Taken
Taken
Well-Known Member
'Every one that is born of the Spirit'; it doesn't happen vaguely in groups.
That's the point...
What DOES it mean to be baptized?
Why did Jesus make such a point of this IF it's only a symbol?
Something to think about...
I don't have the whole answer either.
Well, it's pivotal doctrinally in the symbolism, and in John's Gospel we see Father, Son and Holy Spirit working together so closely in redemption.
I think it's like the Prodigal Son. He could wander off and forget things for a while; but eventually he came to his senses. I like how his father seemed to be expecting him back.
Luke 15:17 And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!
18 I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee,
19 and am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants.
20 And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.
People can experiment with selfishness if they want to; but sooner or later they run into trouble and come to their senses and say, "What am I doing?" Then they remember the person who loved them. "Is it possible that love is real? Could it be?" They're willing to find out. The person who wanders off and returns even understands love better than the person who didn't wander off.
Luke 7:47 Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little.
Sinners have great potential for love. I've seen some really bad people still confused by life and admired them for their strength, thinking, "Now if only all that energy could be directed the right way, they'd be better and stronger Christians than I am." It made me want to love them.
Philip James
Well-Known Member
Kind of, what you said was:
Which seems to cotradict this:
Now as to:
I would say rather, that it does not save unless they continue to grow and walk in the faith they have been given. And yes accepting responsibility (if they are able) for the promises their parents and godparents made on their behalf is part of that.
But thank you for your clarification..
Peace be with you!
Paul explains baptism clearly in Romans 6. We are baptised into Christ's death. The carnal nature we choose to put to death we then act out that decision by showing sometime rise to lower is into the grave... Symbolically speaking of course... An act a baby cannot choose to do and which sprinkling does not accomplish.
Did a baby have to choose that carnal nature to have it? Or did someone make the choice that gave him that? Why does what Adam and Eve did matter to people born today?
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