Quote:
Originally Posted by InChristAlone
You may be surprised, but it doesn't matter if the Baptism formula was added or not to the book of Matthew. The absence of the text doesn't disprove the Christian faith in the Holy Trinity.
We don't believe in Sola Scriptura. For the Orthodox, the Bible is the book of the Church, written by and for those who believe in God and constitute His people.
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That may be so, however it shows that your previous claim is not correct where you said:
Christians have from the beginning recognized that the correct form of baptism requires one to baptize "in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."
The Trinitarian formula did not become universally adopted until years after Christ. The early church all baptized in the name of Jesus and did not invoke a Trinitarian dogma. In fact as I am not against the Trinity I am not saying the formula is wrong. I am saying there were at least two methods of baptism in the early church and you cannot claim one over the other, given the evidence - the Trinitarian one was not the first.
This is not a problem for my view because we do not claim history as our ground. This is a problem for your view because it means your faith is not based upon the Church in Jerusalem of 33 AD where baptism "in the name of Christ" was the norm. The history and apostleship you lay claim to is not from AD 33 but from later.
The Hasting's bible dictionary makes this clear:
http://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/hdb.html
It must be acknowledged that the formula of the threefold name, which is here enjoined, does not appear to have been employed by the primitive Church, which, so far as our information goes, baptized ‘in’ or ‘into the name of Jesus’ (or ‘Jesus Christ’ or ‘the Lord Jesus’: Acts 2:38 ; Acts 8:16 ; Acts 10:48 ; Acts 19:5 ; cf, 1 Corinthians 1:13 ; 1 Corinthians 1:15 ), without reference to the Father or the Spirit.
it is better to infer the authority of Christ for the practice from the prompt and universal adoption of it by the Apostles and the infant Church, to which the opening chapters of Acts bear witness; and from the significance attached to the rite in the Epistles, and especially in those of St. Paul.
Quote:
Originally Posted by InChristAlone
You consider the New Testament to be a part of the Scriptures only because the Church decided to do so. Nowhere in the New Testament the Apostles asked to include their writings into the canon of the Scriptures. The Church did that. And now you are denying one of the teachings of the Church. Why do you trust the Bible then? Again, you are not consistent.
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Who do you say is "the Church"? The history shows that your church was lazy and slow to develop a canon. Your church did not even think it necessary to strictly define the canon. It is the latin church we should thank for the canon we have today more than the Eastern churches.
http://www.ntcanon.org/closing-east.shtml
The eastern churches had, in general, a weaker feeling than the western for the necessity of making a sharp delineation with regard to the canon. It was more conscious of the gradation of spiritual quality among the books that it accepted (e.g. the classification of Eusebius) and was less often disposed to assert that the books which it rejected possessed no spiritual quality at all.
Your church had uncertainty for many years about what should go into the canon:
As an example of the uncertainty in the east, the Trullan Synod of 691-692 CE endorsed these lists of canonical writings: the Apostolic Canons (~385 CE), the Synod of Laodicea (~363 CE ?) , the Third Synod of Carthage (~397 CE), and the 39th Festal Letter of Athanasius (367 CE). And yet these lists do not agree. The Synod of Hippo Regius (393 CE) and the Synod of Carthage (419 CE) also addressed the canon and are discussed here.
There are even differences between the canons of the different churches:
Similarly, the New Testament canons of the national churches of Syria, Armenia, Georgia, Egypt (The Coptic Church), and Ethiopia all have minor differences; see [Metzger] pp. 218-228 for details. The Revelation of John is one of the most uncertain books; it was not translated into Georgian until the 10th century, and it has never been included in the official lectionary of the Greek Church, whether Byzantine or modern.
There have been many canons. So which "the canon" are you referring to?:
Eastern Orthodox canon?
The Roman Catholic canon from 1546?
The Roman Catholic canon from before 1546?
The Lutheran Canon?
Thirty-Nine Articles of 1563?
Origen of Alexandria's canon?
The Syrian canon?
The Coptic canon?
etc.
Which one of these do you think gave me the canon in my bible, which is the Recovery Version by Living Stream Ministries?
Quote:
Originally Posted by InChristAlone
That's a misquote. Those Roman Catholics who really read the book say "that the Cardinal was referring to the Apostles Creed. Developing a Creed is not an invention, it's a declaration of a believe that already has existed but has been defined and articulated for edification."
Evangelical, you just repeated someone's lie and manipulation and showed no proof again.
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This quotation was to emphasize that the Apostles Creed came from Rome, not the Church in Jerusalem of AD33. The claim is that Jesus taught it in Matthew 28:19 but this is not evident in the book of Acts, which shows that the apostles baptized in the name of Christ. The writings of the early church father Eusebius confirms that baptism in the three-name formula was not a universal practice at the time. Your assumption that the practice had always existed is wrong, as I have shown in the other quotations.
Quote:
Originally Posted by InChristAlone
The Didache (around 70 AD) is the oldest extra-biblical source for information about baptism. If you want to know how the Christians of the 1st century practiced baptism, check out with the Didache:
Chapter 7. Concerning Baptism. And concerning baptism, baptize this way: Having first said all these things, baptize into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, in living water. But if you have no living water, baptize into other water; and if you cannot do so in cold water, do so in warm. But if you have neither, pour out water three times upon the head into the name of Father and Son and Holy Spirit. But before the baptism let the baptizer fast, and the baptized, and whoever else can; but you shall order the baptized to fast one or two days before.
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There are some interesting things you should know about the Didache (taken from
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Didache).
The New Testament is rich in metaphors for baptism but offers few details about the practice itself, not even whether the candidates professed their faith in a formula.[36] The Didache is the oldest extra-biblical source for information about baptism, but it, too lacks these details
The Oxford History of Christian Worship. Oxford University Press, US. 2005. ISBN 0195138864 p. 36–38
So the Didache is no better than the New Testament, and in fact in a number of ways the Didache is less reliable than the New Testament. That is, just because you have an extra-biblical writing does not make void the New Testament which clearly shows baptism was done in the name of Jesus as early as AD33.
The date of 70 AD you gave could be wrong - the Didache was originally dated to the late 2nd century, not 70AD. In fact, the precise date unknown, it could be as late as 150AD.
"Dating the document is thus made difficult both by the lack of hard evidence and its composite character".
-It is an anonyomous work - it was probably not written by any early church father. It is probably not written by anyone so important.
-Lost for centuries, a Greek manuscript of the Didache was rediscovered in 1873, a latin version in 1900.
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The Didache may have been compiled in its present form as late as 150, although a date closer to the end of the first century seems more probable to many.
Quote:
Originally Posted by InChristAlone
Your faith about baptism is similar to that of Jehovah Witness, another organization that preaches a different Christ. What you are doing is just protecting their heresy. This is another thing to ponder on.
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Do you believe that to baptize in the name of Christ is a heresy? That is the only similarity between us and the JW.