However, there are four conditions of faith that God asks of each person who is emersed in order to receive these promises: 1) hear, 2) believe, 3) repent and 4) confess Christ as the Son of God. As we teach others in following the great commission, let us always remember that these issues of faith are absolutely God’s standards as presented in his inspired word and not any human’s. If anyone is willing to confirm and affirm his faith by these standards and then is clothed with Christ in emersion-baptism then God will be his final judge and not any human. They are added by God to the Church of Christ and not by any man nor institution of man.

God’s love is unconditional but his grace is not unconditional. What then remains is staying faithful to Christ and his Church as revealed through the whole counsel of the inspired word of the Bible.

We must be willing to ask questions and be willing to respond to anyone and always out of love, kindness and gentleness but with a firm conviction and knowledge of what and why we believe and the reason for the hope that we have.

Love of God and love of “lost people” will hopefully be our motivation and purpose.

Ron

I currently live and work in the northwest and I could not answer affirmatively to any of those questions. You need a fifth option that says: “Accept them regardless and teach them and allow them to come to their own conclusions about their salvation.” All to often many of the churches of Christ look for reasons to exclude instead of reasons to include. I agree that baptism for remission of sins is very important but if we use it as a tool for exclusion (which is the feeling I got from the survey although I know this was not the intention) then we are in the wrong. If God has brought them into your sphere of influence than it is your God given responsibility to accept them no matter how your opinions of salvation differ. We do not decide who is accepted and who is not, that is Jesus’ job and we have no say in it. Bottom line: The decision is up to the individual because they bear the responsibility for their souls. Our responsibility is to teach and allow the Spirit to do his job.

To my mind the “right reason” would include any and/or all of the various things for which one is baptized, because all of them are with a view toward a salvation to be received upon one’s obedience to the gospel. If one has the view that baptism is NOT essential to salvation, then they would need to be reimmersed properly. If one has the view that bapism IS essential unto salvation, then THAT is the right reason.

Now, as far as perfect understanding about the Kingdom and one’s responsibilities after baptism, if that is a requirement, then we are all in a great deal of trouble. SOME understanding is likely necessary, but one wonders just how much understanding those on Pentecost had about the various matters concerning the Kingdom.

Let’s not add requirements God did not, and let’s not relinquish requirements He did make!

Also still studying…

Emmett

I, too, have having trouble choosing one of the options, but for a different reason than the brothers above. My dilemma involves “accept them for whatever reason” and “accept them only for the right reason”. I cannot choose the first option since “whatever reason” is so broad as to include all sorts of nonsense. But I cannot choose the second option because it suggests that there is only one “right reason”. The New Testament indicates that there are many “reasons” to be baptized — to receive remission of sins, to obey Jesus, to be added to the one body of Christ, to receive the Holy Spirit, etc. If someone says, “I was baptized for the remission of sins, but I didn’t know I received the Holy Spirit”, were they baptized for the “right reason”? Most of us would say, “yes” because we think there’s really only one “right reason”. We’re willing to overlook ignorance on some of the other reasons, but not on the one we think really counts. So how many of the ten or so “reasons” for baptism does someone have to know before the baptism “counts”? And why do we think that one reason is more important than the rest?

Still studying,
Alan

In evangelistic Bible studies, well before we get around to baptism, I ask some questions about folks’ conversion and baptism and write it down. The purpose is have an idea of where they are, but also so that, as we study, they do not re-write their past to accomodate new info. I don;t thing folk have done that purposefully, more of a, “oh, so that is what I did…” kinda thing.

Only three times in over a hundred studies did the person have an accurate knowledge concerning Biblical baptism. In 2 of those cases they did not know anyone out there agreed with them.

Scott P. Wiley

I answered the survey the best I could with the choices given. To me there are two issues. Phillip preached the kingdom of God and then some were immersed. First, I think there must be an understanding regarding the kingdom and its nature. If this is understood, then any baptism that associates one with a denomination needs to be considered very carefully. Secondly, if one is questioning his/her immersion the issue will be did they believe their sins were remitted before their immersion. Many will then answer there sins were remitted upon repentance or prayer prior to immersion. If this is their mindset then the immersion could not possibly be for the remission of sin. It takes some time for this realization to occur for some. But when it happens they will happily respond to the one baptism of scripture.