Do You Have to Believe the Bible to be Baptized?
A good friend of mine asked me the following question:
Yes and no (how is that for Anglicanish clarity?). Yes in the following sense: to be baptized one must commit to continue in the Apostles' teaching and submit to the Lordship of Christ. If the New Testament's claim with regard to the exclusivity of salvation through Christ alone is heard and rejected then the baptismal candidate, in my view, cannot in good conscience make the commitments baptism requires because he has rejected Apostolic teaching.
Yes in this sense: people come into the church with all kinds of strange opinions that will, through study and the sanctification of the Holy Spirit, be corrected. So if a candidate has a commitment to follow Apostolic teaching and submit to Christ's Lordship but because he has yet to encounter the Apostolic teaching regarding the exclusivity of salvation he does not believe it...he may be baptized. So I am speaking theoretically here of a candidate who for whatever reason has simply never heard the claim Jesus and his apostles make about his sole mediatorial role.
One of my prerequisites for adult Baptism is a commitment on the part of the candidate to submit his or her own opinions--whatever they are--to the teachings of scripture in every matter. So if a candidate's baptismal preparation cannot for some pressing reason cover every article of doctrine, I can still be reasonably assured that if it can be proven in the bible it will be believed by the candidate.
Do you think that believing that non-Christians will not go to Heaven is a prerequisite to getting baptised?Here's my answer:
Yes and no (how is that for Anglicanish clarity?). Yes in the following sense: to be baptized one must commit to continue in the Apostles' teaching and submit to the Lordship of Christ. If the New Testament's claim with regard to the exclusivity of salvation through Christ alone is heard and rejected then the baptismal candidate, in my view, cannot in good conscience make the commitments baptism requires because he has rejected Apostolic teaching.
Yes in this sense: people come into the church with all kinds of strange opinions that will, through study and the sanctification of the Holy Spirit, be corrected. So if a candidate has a commitment to follow Apostolic teaching and submit to Christ's Lordship but because he has yet to encounter the Apostolic teaching regarding the exclusivity of salvation he does not believe it...he may be baptized. So I am speaking theoretically here of a candidate who for whatever reason has simply never heard the claim Jesus and his apostles make about his sole mediatorial role.
One of my prerequisites for adult Baptism is a commitment on the part of the candidate to submit his or her own opinions--whatever they are--to the teachings of scripture in every matter. So if a candidate's baptismal preparation cannot for some pressing reason cover every article of doctrine, I can still be reasonably assured that if it can be proven in the bible it will be believed by the candidate.
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