I decided to send Pastor Fisk a question on his contact page, to see if he might address it on a future show. The upper limit was 500 characters, so I had to really slice and slice to get it under the limit, but I'm decently happy with what I was able to send:
To say "adult baptism is God’s work" is nothing less than special pleading. Why can’t I assign the label “not my work; God's work” to other things? By this principle, I could consistently be a tithing-circumcisional-abstentional-regenerationist and still profess that I hold to sola fide. Please tell me why I'm wrong. If your answer includes 1 Peter 3:21 or Romans 6, please prove that those are definitely not Holy Spirit baptism (Matt 3) but are definitely water baptism.
10 comments:
"Highly recommended" might be a stretch. Fisk is okay. He recently had a book published that I found to be less than helpful. In fact, I thought it was terrible.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/geneveith/2013/02/7-rules-that-christians-must-break/
Didn't realise that. Sorry for the mistake.
Well, I am just so angry that I could just not worry about it at all.
Rhology,, Is baptism something you do (or something that is done to you? IOW, can one baptize themselves? This is one thing that separates baptism from say 'tithing.'
Sure it is something you do.
You choose to go to the baptistry. You choose to get in.
You choose to stand there.
There's all sorts of stuff you do.
You might as well say that tithing is a work God does because you only let go of the money but God actually works to make the money fall into the plate.
clear confusion of law & gospel! The law doesn't come with the promise of forgiveness of sin and yet baptism does (Acts 2:38, Acts 22:16)
Your part in baptism is entirely passive (Yet God is working in and through His Word), not so in tithing (which btw isn't even a NT command, Paul says to give what is in your heart to give)
Baptism cannot be law because it does not fit what Paul says the law does; that is reveal our sin. (Rom 7)
Forget your presuppositions and read the Scriptures for what they actually say.
Baptism cannot be law because it does not fit what Paul says the law does; that is reveal our sin. (Rom 7)
The command to be baptised reveals our sin if we don't obey it. Just like any other law.
No, my friend; it is Lutheran theology that confuses law and gospel in this case.
Your part in baptism is entirely passive (Yet God is working in and through His Word)
Your part in circumcision is entirely passive (yet God is working in and through His Word).
Your part in tithing is entirely passive (yet God is working in and through His Word). (You might as well say that tithing is a work God does because you only let go of the money but God actually works to make the money fall into the plate.)
Your part in abstaining from fleshly lusts is entirely passive (yet God is working in and through His Word).
See? You can, using this reasoning, say that about anything.
So the church was entirely wrong on baptism for 1500+ years?
Yeah, I don't think so.
Apparently you know nothing about language because tithing is an active verb. Your reasoning still falls short.
What is even more interesting is that you use absolutely NO scripture in your argument, but rather your fallen and sinful reason to attempt to explain away God's Word.
"Oh, it can't mean that because MY reason says so"
Always put yourself in authority over the Scriptures?
You think the church taught Lutheran-style baptism for 1500 years?
As a matter of fact, the church's teaching throughout the years isn't monolithic on most anything, except monotheism.
Tithing is an active verb, sure. "Be baptised" is too. "Baptised" is the participle, and "be" is active and imperative.
If you need Scripture, here's one: Ephesians 2:8-10. For by grace you have been saved, THRU FAITH, and this not of yourself; it is a gift of God, NOT BY WORKS, so that men may not boast.
Baptism is a work. My arguments here have been to display the obvious - that baptism is a work - and to defeat the Lutheran objection - that baptism is God's work.
Logic is a good way to argue too.
As for this:
"Oh, it can't mean that because MY reason says so"
Always put yourself in authority over the Scriptures?
I don't have any idea what this means.
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