This weekend I went to Church with my parents up in Huntsville. My ex pastor Barney Heyward from Southwood days was teaching the Sunday School lesson on "Union with Christ". The Scripture passage he read was Romans 6:1-14. He went through the standard "we have union with Christ by grace through faith" stuff--which I agree with. But to read verses 2-5 and not mention Baptism as having something to do with it, is a travesty:
"Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
5If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. "
Add that with Galatians 3:27 "for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ, " I think that Baptism has to be part of our union with Christ.
I asked Barney about it and he said that when Paul said "Baptism" he meant the inward Baptism of the Holy Spirit when we commit our lives to Christ.
I don't buy it. Take a passage like Acts 22 where Ananias heals Paul: "Then he said: 'The God of our fathers has chosen you to know his will and to see the Righteous One and to hear words from his mouth. 15You will be his witness to all men of what you have seen and heard. 16And now what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized and wash your sins away, calling on his name.'
That passage has to be talking about water baptism.
The funny thing was that the book they were studying was written by a friend of mine, Jeff Jones, and he's a dispensationalist, but he understood the importance of Baptism and made it clear that being Baptized was a part of our union with Christ. Barney said Jeff was just wrong.
Some people around me in the ss class had their Bibles out and were already asking some probing questions. I hope he can keep a lid on it. Lids seem to be popping off all over.
I would like to stress that I wholeheartedly believe that faith in Christ is vital to our union with Christ. Without faith anything we do as Christians is meaningless. I simply think the Bible is clear that Baptism is also part of the picture.
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5 comments:
Papist. Crawl back under the Vatican-owned rock from whence you came.
Well, why is he even teaching anything anyway? If he opens his mouth, nothing which is said has not been said before. Not an original thought has that man had. Idea thief.
Most of what anyone teaches, or preaches has been said before and could not be considered "original thought". Just because something has been said before does not invalidate it the thought. Go teach your own bible study so that we can judge you on how much of what you say hasn't been said before. I promise you that it has.
Not what I meant. What I meant is that he has NEVER preached his own sermons. NEVER. Word for word. It's plagiarism.
Sad that some people have nothing better to do than sit behind their computer and make malicious posts about others.
Be careful with the word never. Rumors are poison.
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