It is Just so Refreshing.....
Posted: Sat Dec 09, 2017 9:46 pm
Just thought I would share that my New Path was so refreshing from one primary standpoint: the liberation of my mind....to be able to think with previous shackles removed is so wonderful. Whether reading scripture or listening to ministers of any kind, the freeing of the mind is something that one cannot really articulate well, but instead just "feel" it. To look back at yourself and see yourself in that packed bondage and then just feel the unpacking and just breathe....is such a great feeling of freedom and salvation.
As an example,
BEFORE: the ridiculous view of water baptism by the cofC...a legalistic view based in baptismal regeneration (which of course, they deny)....esp w/r/t the fact that you're not a Christian before the baptism, only after, even though before the baptism you became a believer. As I look back on it now, a water baptism obviously was considered the gospel of God itself or the most important part of it, rather than a response to it.
AFTER: an understanding of grace, of faith, of coming to faith, of saving faith.....and a baptismal ceremony that does not act as a mystical substitution of what happened on the cross.....but rather celebrates and proclaims to the world what Christ did for us on the cross and that His Holy Spirit plunged us into His death, burial, and resurrection when we came to faith. I never understood how there could be a "hybrid" believer which the cofC by necessity really was creating....that is one who truly believed in Christ yet was not considered a Christian until the dunk. So just before going into the water, you have a believer yet a "non-Christian"....in other words, a hybrid of a believer and a non-believer....yet no such hybrid exists in scripture.....one is either a believer or not, a child of God or not.....and it is so simple to understand that baptism, as a sacrament or ordinance, is only for Christians, reserved for them only....it is not contemplated to be something a non-believer (i.e., a non-Christian) or a hybrid "believer who is still a non-Christian" would do to then be able to be pronounced "a Christian".
Just wondering if anyone else would like to share any such refreshing "Before" and "After" changes in belief??
As an example,
BEFORE: the ridiculous view of water baptism by the cofC...a legalistic view based in baptismal regeneration (which of course, they deny)....esp w/r/t the fact that you're not a Christian before the baptism, only after, even though before the baptism you became a believer. As I look back on it now, a water baptism obviously was considered the gospel of God itself or the most important part of it, rather than a response to it.
AFTER: an understanding of grace, of faith, of coming to faith, of saving faith.....and a baptismal ceremony that does not act as a mystical substitution of what happened on the cross.....but rather celebrates and proclaims to the world what Christ did for us on the cross and that His Holy Spirit plunged us into His death, burial, and resurrection when we came to faith. I never understood how there could be a "hybrid" believer which the cofC by necessity really was creating....that is one who truly believed in Christ yet was not considered a Christian until the dunk. So just before going into the water, you have a believer yet a "non-Christian"....in other words, a hybrid of a believer and a non-believer....yet no such hybrid exists in scripture.....one is either a believer or not, a child of God or not.....and it is so simple to understand that baptism, as a sacrament or ordinance, is only for Christians, reserved for them only....it is not contemplated to be something a non-believer (i.e., a non-Christian) or a hybrid "believer who is still a non-Christian" would do to then be able to be pronounced "a Christian".
Just wondering if anyone else would like to share any such refreshing "Before" and "After" changes in belief??
