I haven’t watched the sermon, so I’m not sure to what extent baptism was explained. Therefore, you’ll have to accept my hypothetical agreement

Circumcision has no spiritual significance to Christians now, but God did use it for a long time as a sign of his covenant. It was God who picked a non-repeatable, non-reversable physical sign that was to be administered to ignorant children.

Keitho,

I join CC in his compliments on your previous comment.

CC,

You’re sounding like a Calvinist (minus Calvin’s position on immersion). The ironic thing about this discussion is that I do endorse a method of baptism where mass baptisms of people who did not fully (or even partially) understand the sacrament is acceptable. So if a church baptized a thousand people in a couple of hours, I think that’s very good. After all, that’s what Peter did in Acts 2.

The problem, and the motivation for my earlier criticism of Noble and Furtick, is that their rushed and man-centered mode of baptism contradicts their understanding of its purpose. If it’s all about obedience and public statements, one would imagine that you would enhance the experience with a little information about what one is doing. There’s a big difference between obedience because you’ve been commanded to do something and obedience because you understand and agree that it should be done.

The other reason is that a massive rush waters down the public-announcement aspect of the exercise. If I don’t know what I’m saying, am I saying much that anyone would care to hear?

I do believe that circumcision can be a farce. Circumcision was not presented to me or my wife as a religious alternative when my son was born, rather one of hygiene. Do we understand the religious implications of a circumcision? (No.) It is possible to be circumcised later in life if you so chose (if you were not and decided that your religion dictated that you needed to be.) There are, however, physical limitations here as opposed to spiritual ones (making this a somewhat different topic in my opinion.)

Whether baptism has a mystical otherwordly application, I’m not so sure … but I’m glad to see that you’ve made a clear distinction between it and regeneration.

Duncan,
Your followup was spot-on as well.

Would you say that circumcision was a farce? How much did the kids understand about that?

If they gained a better understanding later in life, should they do it again?

It is in my opinion, that an act for the sake of the act is nothing but a farce. Therefore if said Christian did not feel that they truly understood what they were doing then were they really baptized? No. If that’s the case then that deeper understanding has driven them to do this again, this time with a full understanding of what they were doing, making it a much bigger deal to that person.

You absolutely have to understand what you are doing when you are saved by Grace. You can’t say, I just thought getting saved was the write thing to do because everyone else was doing. You have to have the absolute understanding that Jesus was sent as God’s only son to die for us and through resurrection give us a chance at eternal life. It is my same belief that this follows through for baptism as well. As with everything in this world, understanding is KEY.

I don’t know what otherwordly thing may or may not have occurred when I was baptized, but because I was, Romans 6 has a much vivid and deeper meaning to me, taking grace and salvation from abstract concepts to more concrete terms.

A question for Simon P. You mentioned preachers asking if people understand what they are doing before baptism. I am aware some knowledge prior to is a good thing but does this set people up for later in life when they don’t believe they knew enough and they feel compelled to go through baptism again? Are they placing their faith in Jesus, or in what they knew or didn’t know at the time? What saves us? Grace or correct understanding? I would suggest what we believe about baptism may be somewhat irrevelant, given we are saved by grace. Our simple obedience is our demonstration, and we rely on the spirit to do the rest.

Other comments welcome.

2. I have no idea. Do you?

3. I’m generally not a “poker” or a “prodder”. I just wanted to know. Many times people who ascribe to reformed theology also ascribe to baptismal regeneration. Thought that might be the case here, which would have explained things.

Duncan,
A sacrament is traditionally considered a means of grace. I do realize that some people only consider it a sign of grace, which is why I asked where you stood on the issue of baptismal regeneration.

As for your last sentence, I don’t quite understand what you mean. If it is a sign, then it’s only a sign. If it’s part of regeneration, then it’s not a sign. I don’t see a lot of middle ground, nor do I see room for any one sign being closer to being part of regeneration than any other sign.

Baptism is a sacrament. It’s a sign of a spiritual reality, not the thing itself; however, as a sacrament, it’s closer to its referent than ordinary signs.

Do you believe that Baptism is such an unimportant act that 1k people can be done in 1 day? My main question here would be, how long did this take…. did the preacher ask them to acknowledge (before they were dunked, individually) that they understood what they were doing? Did he proclaim to everyone what it was they were doing for each individual person?

Baptismal Regeneration… come on, are you simply trying to poke and prod here… much like many of your argument. I see no where in the above that he is saying that Baptism is a pre-cursor or requirement for redemption through salvation. He is simply stating that there is much more importance in Baptism than being rushed through a VERY important part of any Christian’s maturing process.