Post
by __id_1238 » Sun Sep 30, 2007 2:07 am
Dear Forum Readers,
I agree that in Catholic Christian, Lutheran Christian Churches and other churches that this application of an “age” is tied in with the age of catechism , confirmation and receiving the Eucharist. It is also obvious that it is necessary for a person to be able to have this “reason”, ie, knowledge, in order to do the above. I would also agree that the significance of this age of reason/discernment/accountability is not closely tied in to salvation because of what was said… “Salvation is seen an act of God's Grace and not an act of a person's reasoning , it is given not accepted.” BINGO. RIGHT ON THE NOSE. THAT ONE IS OUT OF THE BALLPARK!
God can give this gift of Grace to anyone at any time, as God sees fit! Grace is the gift that God uses to effect salvation on all believers. (New Compact Bible Dictionary [NCBD], Zondervan) Therefore, what is salvation? Salvation is the delivery of any kind of evil. It is brought by Jesus as the deliverance from sin (NCBD).
So, if God’s Grace is an act of God and not by reason, then this would explain why the paralyzed sinner in Luke 5 received salvation without any effort on his part. God saw his friend’s faith and imparted salvation (sin removal) upon the paralyzed man. Jesus healed him both physically and spiritually. This is a beautiful story of love …. friends bring another who is afflicted with a problem to God and God heals that person either physically, spiritually or both.
The Bible is replete with stories of such healings where the faithful parent or friend brings the afflicted to Jesus for a healing and Jesus does exactly that. Therefore, an age of reason/discernment/accountability is surely partially credible when applied to those believers that can have a level of knowledge and when there is a lack of this knowledge either partially or fully God will fill it in with His love, ie, Grace.
There was no water baptism in Luke 5 or the other healings. There was no verbal “I am a sinner” declaration by the person being healed in those same scriptural stories. It was the FAITH of another loving believer that God saw and imparted His Grace upon them as a complete gift, given unselfishly, with nothing requested back.
Therefore, the infant baptism that some Christian faiths impart on children by their parents is an act of love and faith. It is almost like Luke 5, but in an infant baptism usually there is no physical affliction yet loving believers, in faith, bring a person who can not speak for themselves for this gift of Grace, this gift of salvation, a deliverance from sin. Water is that earthly medium that Christians relate to from scripture where we see Jesus was baptized in water and the Holy Spirit came upon Him. We also see that previously baptized disciples re-received the Holy Spirit again at Pentecost (Acts 2) without any water baptism …. again, a free gift from God that was not requested, simply given without these disciple’s request.
Why do we Christians go through these earthly motions of water baptism? Is it to show other Christians at church our faith, our acceptance? Some do, but this would be against scripture as in Galatians 1:10 “Am I now seeking human approval, or God's approval? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still pleasing people, I would not be a servant of Christ.” Or, Matt 6:1-5
“(But) take care not to perform righteous deeds in order that people may see them; otherwise, you will have no recompense from your heavenly Father ….. "When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, who love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on street corners so that others may see them. Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward.”
Baptism is an act of the believer bringing those that can not speak for themselves to God and “also” those that can speak for themselves. Just as Peter states in Acts 2:38 "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the holy Spirit.” A baptized individual receives salvation with baptism … BE baptized … FOR forgiveness of your sins. Naturally, Peter is speaking to those that can/should have knowledge to accept the gift of Grace but it does state unequivocally that baptism is for the forgiveness of sins.
The fact that baptism saves is emphasized again in scripture. Just as the water in the story of Noah’s saved those who believed, Peter states that “ …. in the days of Noah during the building of the ark, in which a few persons, eight in all, were saved through water. This prefigured baptism, which saves you now. It is not a removal of dirt from the body but an appeal to God for a clear conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ” (1Pet 3:18)
We also know that baptism is offered to ALL and to those that “God calls”, again, the previous post statement that Grace, salvation, deliverance from sin is an act of God (whomever God will call) not of reason is perfect in scripture …. “For the promise is made to you and to your children and to all those far off, whomever the Lord our God will call.” (Acts 2:39)
That is interesting because if you look at the Holy Spirit (3rd person of the Trinity) it can not occupy a body with sin, so sin has to be gone, removed before the Holy Spirit will enter and abide within that person. In the OT, we can see that the Ark of the Covenant was so pure that no man could touch it because sin could not occupy it. The Ark was a pre-figuration of Jesus because no sin could occupy Jesus either. As the Ark contained the Ten Commandments, Manna from heaven and Aaron’s rod, Jesus is the fulfillment of the Commandments, food from heaven and the priesthood. The Holy Spirit could not and can not abide within a container with sin, so when a person receives the gift of the Holy Spirit at Baptism (Acts 2:38) then sin, as promised, is removed …. ie, Grace, Salvation, Deliverance from sin.
Even though Martin Luther appears to have been a very angry man in much of his writings, he still was “on the money” (so to speak) about a number of things that had gone awry in the Catholic Church’s leadership, he was also pretty sane when he said this about Baptism and infants ….
…. "Since our baptizing has been thus from the beginning of Christianity & the custom has been to baptize children, & since no one can prove w/good reasons that they do not have faith, we should not make changes & build on such weak arguments. For if we are going to change or do away w/customs that are traditional, it is necessary to prove convincingly that these are contrary to the Word of God”.
Even Luther was lucid enough to acknowledge that he had no idea if their was an age of reason/discernment/accountability for faith because there was and is no proof with good reason that an infant has faith or not. We can not think or comprehend on God’s level, yet some Christians attempt to by saying there must be a verbal statement of faith. Luther realized that God speaks all languages and even those we can not mutter.
Someone previously asked rhetorically, when talking about “limbo”, saying “[then why baptize at all if you have to be baptized to be saved]?” I would like to refer a number of you to an excellent article that I can not duplicate herein, but you can certainly find it with a little effort. It is an article in THIS ROCK magazine (Oct 2007, page 24) titled LET THE CHILDREN COME TO ME, by Matthew Newsome. It is published by Catholic Answers so you can go to their web site. It answers a lot of those limbo ambiguous questions very well.
Christ’s Peace and for those that know I am praying for some specifics, I placed some petitions before St. Therese today.
“Elisha died and was buried…. while some Israelites were burying a man, suddenly … they threw the man's body into Elisha's tomb. When the body touched Elisha's bones, the man came to life and stood up on his feet. (2nd Kings 13: 20-21)
Also, just as others brought and prayed for physical healing for others that did not ask for it, God healed the sick. God is giddy with joy when we do the same for those sick around us. The prayers continue.
Catholic Steve
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