Thanks Dannii and David for your responses.
That makes things a bit clearer, but am still not sure at what point I was saved. I am quite sure that I am now, but not sure about the time between praying the prayer at 8 and decided to really follow God and getting baptised at 17. In the time between I was going to church, attempting to read the bible and so on, just being particularly rebellious in my lifestyle as well. Does it even matter? I know lots of christians who also do not know when they were saved, since there was no definitive turning point or lifestyle change or whatever.
I think it may depend on the content of your prayer. Asking Jesus into our hearts is rather broad, though if it had an understanding of Jesus’ substitutionary sacrifice then I think that would be when you became a Christian. Though you don’t need to audibly say anything, I believe that the moment you first trust in God to pay the price for your sins himself, you are saved and the spirit begins to live in you.
I am one of those who don’t know when I was saved, I have been for all that I can remember, so it must have been when I was 3-5 or so. I remember watching the Jesus film and praying the prayer at the end of it, but that was a recommitment and not the first time.
And I haven’t been baptised, and have no plans to.
Most of the reasons people have given me as to why I should get baptised are along the lines of submitting or conforming to a church or other Christian group’s requirements. I don’t think that’s a good reason to do anything. I haven’t been convinced from scripture that someone in my position should be baptised, but as I study it further I may in the future, in which case I will of course get baptised.
I think it may depend on the content of your prayer. Asking Jesus into our hearts is rather broad, though if it had an understanding of Jesus’ substitutionary sacrifice then I think that would be when you became a Christian.
Now there’s an interesting question - perhaps for another thread - To what degree is understanding the substitutionary nature of Christ’s sacrifice essential to saving faith? If Jamie’s 8 year old prayer was something along the lines of, “Lord Jesus, please forgive my sins and bring me into your kingdom; I entrust myself to you completely” [pretty deep for an 8 year old really] is Dannii saying that he might not be saved because there is no evidence of such an understanding?
And I haven’t been baptised, and have no plans to.
Wasn’t there an article in the Briefing many years ago that suggested that children of Christian parents didn’t really need baptism at any point? Perhaps someone can go back over the archive (pre-internet days I think) to see?
Now there’s an interesting question - perhaps for another thread - To what degree is understanding the substitutionary nature of Christ’s sacrifice essential to saving faith? If Jamie’s 8 year old prayer was something along the lines of, “Lord Jesus, please forgive my sins and bring me into your kingdom; I entrust myself to you completely” [pretty deep for an 8 year old really] is Dannii saying that he might not be saved because there is no evidence of such an understanding?
Hmm, I would have thought that prayer would be enough for salvation… so maybe I don’t actually think an understanding of the substitution is required. Hmmm.
Wasn’t there an article in the Briefing many years ago that suggested that children of Christian parents didn’t really need baptism at any point? Perhaps someone can go back over the archive (pre-internet days I think) to see?
Hmm, I would have thought that prayer would be enough for salvation… so maybe I don’t actually think an understanding of the substitution is required. Hmmm.
Glad to see the discussion is still hmmming along!
Wasn’t there an article in the Briefing many years ago that suggested that children of Christian parents didn’t really need baptism at any point? Perhaps someone can go back over the archive (pre-internet days I think) to see?
Oh, and what about Psalm 84 folks? (Post 71)
Had a look. Great stuff. Bit weak as a support for paedobaptism.
The church is a safe place to bring the family to maturity. It’s the wilderness retreat where the immature are tested, threshed, before they join the army (Deut). Not everyone who leaves Egypt makes it to Canaan.
John Piper has a great (recent) podcast sermon on church membership and baptism. No ‘Trumpets’, no Jordan; and no Jordan, no Canaan. The Lord’s supper (feast) table is for the faithful who obediently follow our Joshua across the river.
Typologically, we dine with Moses and the elders of Israel above the crystal sea (Exodus 24:10), the Laver that washes us before we, as a church, ascend to the Holy Place.
(NASB) Exodus 24:9-11 “Then Moses went up with Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel, and they saw the God of Israel; and under His feet there appeared to be a pavement of sapphire, as clear as the sky itself. Yet He did not stretch out His hand against the nobles of the sons of Israel; and they saw God, and they ate and drank.”
Notice that Moses is the chief cornerstone and his three mighty men are the other three corners. Beneath Christ, they are the four cornered Land of Israel, and the 70 elders represent the Gentile nations (Sea). They set the pattern for the city of God.
No baptism, no communion. No laver, no dinner. We wash before we come to the table.
Wasn’t there an article in the Briefing many years ago that suggested that children of Christian parents didn’t really need baptism at any point? Perhaps someone can go back over the archive (pre-internet days I think) to see?
Oh, and what about Psalm 84 folks? (Post 71)
Had a look. Great stuff. Bit weak as a support for paedobaptism.
The church is a safe place to bring the family to maturity. It’s the wilderness retreat where the immature are tested, threshed, before they join the army (Deut). Not everyone who leaves Egypt makes it to Canaan.
Let’s have a look at the psalm then.
If by “maturity” you mean the antitypal entrance into Canaan, that isn’t adulthood on earth but entry into heaven at death.
If the young chick’s placement in the “nest” of the church doesn’t stand for enrolment as a member, what does the arrival of the adult “swallow” signify?
If the “chicks” of believing “sparrows” don’t enter the church at that point, when do they?
In biology, the only time birds’ young ever enter their nests is when they’re laid as eggs; and they stay there until they’re big enough to fly out, after which they never return!
Personally I think Spurgeon essentially gave the whole game away with what he wrote. I can’t comment on what Gill thought about it ;)
If by “maturity” you mean the antitypal entrance into Canaan, that isn’t adulthood on earth but entry into heaven at death.
Aye, it is that at the very end, but throughout the Bible (as in Acts, see my above post) it is a washing at the beginning of ministry, which even Christ submitted to. By faith, every Sunday the assembled [baptized] church confesses sin and thus cleansed ascends boldly to the Holy Place for worship.
If the young chick’s placement in the “nest” of the church doesn’t stand for enrolment as a member, what does the arrival of the adult “swallow” signify?
In the feast pattern, Jordan/Jericho corresponds to atonement. There are two goats at atonement, and we know what happens to the second one. It doesn’t have a scarlet thread.
If the “chicks” of believing “sparrows” don’t enter the church at that point, when do they? In biology, the only time birds’ young ever enter their nests is when they’re laid as eggs; and they stay there until they’re big enough to fly out, after which they never return!
Actually, that’s the beginning of their ministry. You get baptized, you get wings!* Following atonement is booths. That’s ministry to the Gentiles. At this point in the pattern in Zechariah, the horses ride out of the Temple with living water.
*I learned recently that the word translated ‘tassles’ for the things the Israelites had to have sewn onto the ‘four corners’ of their clothes is literally ‘wings’. As mediators ‘between heaven and earth’, the people flew about symbolically, especially the priesthood. Now the church does the same thing, a four-cornered bride city suspended above the waters, with crystal walls that replaced the crystal sea. To enter the church is to pass through the laver - ie. baptism. That makes the saints, like NT Levites, God’s bouncers.
In the Piper sermon I recommended, he makes these points:
- He, as pastor, will answer to God for how he has cared for his flock. How is he to know who is his flock?
- When the NT says ‘the church at [city]’ it has a very particular group of saints in mind. There is a membership roll.
- It does not include the ‘regular visitors’, but the baptized, signed-on, voting members of the church (and their children under the federal care of their parents)
- Christians are required to be a member of a visible, local assembly. That is Christianity. There is a grace ministered to members of a church that others miss out on, part of which is submission to the care and discipline of the elders. Membership says, if I go off the rails, you can come after me.
Doug Wilson said something like “The church is our mother, and the Bible tells us to honour our mothers.”
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