Matthew 7 And Eternal Security

During his recent debate with Ryan Hemelaar, Trent Horn commented:

"Jesus even warns people who claim they will be saved because they call on his name or trusted him, but engaged in grave sin. He says in Matthew 7:21, 'Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.'"

And when advocates of eternal security put forward the idea that an alleged believer who commits apostasy may have never been a believer, that view is often dismissed as absurd, desperate, and so forth.

While Trent ended his citation of Matthew 7 at verse 21, we should go on to verses 22-23. As I noted in a post (not about eternal security) several years ago, "People often associate the thinking behind 1 John 2:19 with the fourth gospel, but some of the same concepts are found in Matthew 7:21-23." In addition to the agreement between such diverse sources as the gospel of Matthew and 1 John, there's also the fact that Judas was involved in so much apostolic work while being "a devil" (John 6:70).

I'm not citing such examples to argue that believers never commit sins that some people consider mortal or never go through lengthy periods of unrepentant sin. They do sometimes (e.g., David).

My point is that the first scenario I referred to not only isn't absurd, desperate, and such, but is even explicitly advocated by multiple Biblical authors in multiple contexts. The Judas material is about one individual, but the other two passages I've cited use the plural. Matthew 7:22 even uses the term "many". So, it isn't just some extremely rare scenario. Furthermore, the Matthew 7 passage has a significant number, variety, and quality of nominally Christian works being done, presumably over a long period of time. Yet, Jesus says he never knew the individuals involved. And 1 John 2:19 puts forward "they would have remained with us" as the normal scenario. John is putting forward perseverance as the norm (as he does elsewhere, in 1 John 5:18, etc.).

Trent refers to "people who claim they will be saved because they call on his name or trusted him". Who claims that you can just "call on his name" in the sense of saying "Lord, Lord" to Jesus and be saved by doing so? And where does Matthew 7:21 say that the individuals involved trusted him in a relevant sense? It doesn't. One of the biggest themes of the gospels is Jesus' commenting on the lack of faith of the people around him, even how small the faith of his closest disciples was at times. We shouldn't be starting with a default assumption that people have genuine faith or even faith of any type, and nothing in Matthew 7:21 justifies the conclusion that people who said "Lord, Lord" without doing the will of God had faith.

Raising Hypotheticals Against Eternal Security

A post I wrote last week addressed some problems with the claims Trent Horn has made about the history of belief in eternal security. Not only were there individuals who believed in some form of eternal security before the Reformation, but there were movements involving such beliefs spanning multiple regions of the world over multiple generations. Not only was there a mercyist movement that Augustine responded to in his day (see here and here), but he also thought that such beliefs were held as far back as the time of the apostles, even though he disagreed with the mercyists, and he acknowledged that some of them were Christians. Or, to cite an example from the medieval era, think of Gottschalk and his allies and the people who held similar views around the same time. These and other examples illustrate that Trent and others (e.g., his supporters in the comments section below his video) have highly inaccurate views of the historical theology on this subject.

Catholics Contradicting Each Other About Eternal Security

I recently saw a Catholic claim that no Christian believed in eternal security before the Reformation. Supposedly, only Gnostics believed in it during that timeframe. See the comments section of the thread here. And Trent Horn repeatedly denied that there was any pre-Reformation support for eternal security in his debate with Ryan Hemelaar (of NeedGod.net). Go here to watch Trent say that no "notable" Christian held to eternal security before the Reformation. He goes on to refer to how the concept is "absent" before the Reformation. And here he refers to how "nobody" held the view during that timeframe. Later he asks Ryan to name "any individual" from the second to the fifteenth centuries. Near the end of the debate, Trent comments that even "named heretics" didn't hold to eternal security, and he refers to it as a "radical, novel" concept.

So Quickly Drifting To A Different Gospel

Paul told the Galatians, "I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel" (Galatians 1:6). He expressed a similar sentiment to the Corinthians (2 Corinthians 11:4).

If churches as early as these Pauline ones were in such danger and sometimes erred while under Paul's supervision, there's even more potential in some ways for later individuals and churches to err in that manner. My post earlier this week provides many examples of how that sort of thing happened a lot in later church history, regardless of which side of those later disputes you take. The disputes happened, and both sides (or more than two in some contexts) couldn't be right, given the nature of their claims.

I'm not suggesting that every or almost every post-apostolic source before the Reformation wasn't a Christian or anything like that. As I've argued in many previous posts and elsewhere, there was far more belief in justification through faith alone among the pre-Reformation sources than people often suggest. And I allow for the salvation of people who hold false soteriological views. People are often inconsistent, as we see with Peter and the Galatians, for example. In some ways, later individuals and groups who have contradicted Paul's soteriology have been better than the Judaizers. They've accepted the authority of the apostles, have often read documents like Paul's letters in their church services, etc. So, when Cyprian sees two sacraments (baptism and the laying on of hands) as a means of justification in John 3:5 or a medieval Roman Catholic believes that you have to obey the Pope in order to be saved, for example, I allow for the possibility or probability of their salvation. I make a judgment based on the totality of the evidence, including their access to the gospel and their affirmations of it in some places, even if they were inconsistent with it at times.

My main point here, though, is that departing from the gospel isn't as difficult as some people make it out to be. It was a prominent concern in Paul's day, and it sometimes happened even with people under the apostles' supervision. People often underestimate the soteriological inconsistencies we see in post-apostolic church history. Supposedly, none or few of the soteriological contradictions we see among the church fathers, medieval theologians, and other sources rise to the level of a false gospel. But it makes more sense to acknowledge that the soteriological errors are more significant than that and allow for the salvation of the individuals involved, despite their false soteriology.

The Practicality Of Theology And Justification In Particular

It's often suggested that matters like theology and apologetics don't have much practical value. What significance do they have in everyday life? They aren't pragmatic enough to deserve much time or attention. And the doctrine of justification is often singled out for that sort of commentary. Supposedly, arguments about justification, between Protestants and Catholics and in other contexts, don't matter much, are a waste of time, and so on.

Notice how the soteriological issues I addressed in my last post provide evidence to the contrary. For example, whether you're forgiven by God and have peace with him immediately (2 Corinthians 6:2), as soon as you come to faith, or when you're baptized six months later is significant. Similarly, the issue of the efficacy of deathbed repentance is of major importance. Much the same can be said of other soteriological issues.

Ironically, the sort of pragmatism advocated by the people I referred to in my opening paragraph is very unpragmatic. It causes a lot of significant problems in people's lives.

More Soteriological Disagreement Before The Reformation

In the context of discussing baptismal regeneration, I've mentioned that there was widespread disagreement among the extrabiblical sources before the Reformation regarding initiatory rites. Things like regeneration, the forgiveness of sins, and the reception of the Holy Spirit would sometimes be placed at the time of baptism, but often would be placed in some other context instead (faith prior to baptism, prebaptismal anointing with oil, postbaptismal laying on of hands, etc.). The extrabiblical sources before the Reformation widely disagreed about baptismal efficacy, despite how popular it is to falsely claim that everybody before the Reformation believed in baptismal regeneration, that almost everybody did, or some such thing. What modern advocates of baptismal regeneration attribute to baptism was often attributed to prebaptismal faith, anointing with oil, foot washing, or something else by many pre-Reformation sources. For a discussion of some patristic examples, see here. On medieval sources, see here. And I've provided other examples in other posts.

The Importance Of Galatians 3:2

It's a highly significant passage in the context of justification. It's often neglected, though. I recommend committing the passage reference (Galatians 3:2) and at least a portion of its text to memory.

The verse begins with a reference to "the only thing" Paul wants to know, which reflects the verse's significance in the context of Galatians and, therefore, in the context of justification. And he goes on to refer to "hearing with faith", an important phrase that expresses two vital components of the gospel: the context in which justification occurs (hearing) and the means by which it's received (faith, not faith combined with baptism or faith combined with anything else). For a further discussion of the verse and its surrounding context (including the false claim that verse 27 supports baptismal regeneration), see here.

Was Ignatius of Antioch Roman Catholic?

He's been discussed a lot lately by various Catholics. See this recent video by Cameron Bertuzzi, for example. And Ignatius has often been cited in support of Catholicism and against Protestantism for many years. It's not just a recent development. It's been popular for a long time in Catholic circles to cite Ignatius as a major problem for Protestants, because of comments he makes about issues like the monarchical episcopate and how the eucharist is the flesh and blood of Christ.

But some Protestants believe in the monarchical episcopate and a bodily presence of Christ in the eucharist. And the sort of language Ignatius uses about the eucharist is also used by him in other contexts that aren't interpreted by anybody the way advocates of a bodily presence of Christ in the eucharist are interpreting his eucharistic comments. See my discussion here. And here are some other examples not discussed in that thread I just linked:

Evidence That The Thief On The Cross Is Normal, Not An Exception To The Rule

One of the subjects that sometimes comes up in the context of Good Friday is the thief on the cross. Advocates of baptismal regeneration and other forms of justification through works often dismiss the thief as a soteriological exception to the rule.

He Will Never Fail To Succor His People

Writing of the Garden of Gethsemane, Matthew tells us that Jesus took some of his disciples with him, but "went a little beyond them, and fell on his face" (Matthew 26:39). That's a useful metaphor of how we can share in Jesus' suffering in some ways, but not fully, how there are significant differences between our suffering and his.

Is baptismal regeneration a significant problem only if baptism is a work?

Baptism is a work, for reasons I've discussed elsewhere, like here. But even if it weren't a work, there would still be many reasons to consider baptismal regeneration problematic and in more than a minor way. See here for an overview of a double-digit number of problems with viewing baptism as a means of justification. Here and here are a couple of posts in which I discuss some of the bad fruit of baptismal regeneration, bad fruit that I think is significant and doesn't require viewing baptism as a work.

People often frame things in terms of whether including baptism with faith as a means of justification constitutes a false gospel. (It does, but that's not what I'm addressing here.) They'll often cite Galatians 1:8-9 in particular. But this isn't an all-or-nothing situation. Baptismal regeneration wouldn't have to be maximally bad in order to be bad or to be bad to more than a small extent. We recognize that in other contexts. If a church leader has some moral problems in his life, we don't dismiss those problems as insignificant just because they aren't maximally bad. It's remarkable how many people will acknowledge that baptismal regeneration is false, yet will act as though it should be of little concern if it doesn't rise to the level of Galatians 1. There's a large gray area between something being of little concern and something rising to the level of the anathema of Galatians.

How unusual is Galatians' approach toward the gospel?

Critics of how Evangelicals use Galatians could raise objections to the effect that Galatians is just one document, it's such a short letter, the approach Paul takes there isn't found much or at all elsewhere, etc. On the more liberal side, Galatians could be dismissed as an occasion when Paul lost his temper, a reflection of a bad aspect of Paul's character that we shouldn't emulate, or whatever. From a more conservative or traditional Christian perspective, it could be argued that we should be agnostic about or not base much on certain aspects of Galatians, since it's such a short letter, we don't know much about the context, the themes in question there aren't found much or at all elsewhere, etc.

But even if something Paul said in Galatians were only found there, it ought to be accepted as part of apostolic teaching, what's taught by scripture, and so on. That point could be conceded, yet the alleged rarity of what Galatians says could be appealed to in order to argue that the themes shouldn't be as prominent in our thinking as they are among many Evangelicals. Though I think Galatians expresses views like the foundational nature of sola fide more forcefully than any other source, that sort of material in Galatians is corroborated elsewhere more than people typically suggest.

Is the gospel larger than sola fide?

Many Evangelicals have cited Galatians and other parts of scripture against Roman Catholicism and other groups they think hold a false gospel. A common response has been to cite passages in the Bible that refer to the gospel without defining it the way those Evangelicals are defining it (Mark 1:1, 1 Corinthians 15:1-8, etc.).

The Diversity Of Baptismal Beliefs And Practices In The Medieval Era

It's often claimed that every Christian before the Reformation believed in baptismal regeneration, that only heretics opposed it, that only an extremely small number of Christians did, or some such thing. That kind of claim simultaneously makes the concept of justification apart from baptism look weaker and baptismal regeneration look stronger.

But many people believed in justification apart from baptism prior to the Reformation, as I've documented elsewhere. And among those who assigned some type of soteriological efficacy to baptism, there was widespread disagreement about the sort of efficacy involved, and soteriological efficacy was also attributed to other rituals (or sacraments, ceremonies, or whatever you want to call them): the laying on of hands, foot washing, etc. See here for a discussion of many examples from the patristic era. So, justification apart from baptism was more widely held before the Reformation than is typically suggested, and there wasn't the sort of unified alternative to it that we're told there was. Rather, there was a wide diversity of alternatives.

Advocates Of Baptismal Regeneration Rely On Implicit Arguments

In a post last year, I discussed several implicit lines of evidence for belief in justification apart from baptism among the early extrabiblical sources. As I mentioned there, all of us rely on implicit reasoning across many contexts in life, including when making judgments about Biblical and patristic issues. You wouldn't be able to function for a single day in your life without relying on implicit reasoning at some point. I gave some examples of how advocates of baptismal regeneration use some implicit arguments to support their own position. Yet, people often reject implicit arguments because of their implicit rather than explicit nature, or they assign implicit arguments less significance than those arguments actually have. Even many opponents of baptismal regeneration seem to get taken in by that sort of bad reasoning, to the point that they won't cite any extrabiblical sources who seem to support their view in an implicit way, since the evidence isn't explicit. Whether that's due to peer pressure, confusing a preference for explicit evidence with a need for it, or whatever else, it's a mistake.

More Pre-Reformation Support For Reformation Beliefs Among The Lollards

I've discussed their support for Reformation views in other posts, like here and here. And here's one about a book on Lollard heresy trials in the first half of the fifteenth century.

Implicit Exclusions Of Baptismal Regeneration In Early Christian Literature

As I discussed in another post, we find baptismal regeneration contradicted in a large number and variety of ways in the extrabiblical sources before the Reformation. Sometimes an exclusion of baptism as a means of justification is implicit rather than explicit.

And people will often object to the use of implicit evidence. But we all rely on it. For example, we depend on implicit evidence when deciding how to translate a word in a document, basing our conclusion on what the surrounding context seems to imply. Christians have often said, rightly, that it's unreasonable for a Muslim to ask us for a passage in the gospels in which Jesus says "I am God. Worship me." or some equivalent. A term like "Trinity" doesn't have to appear in the Bible for Trinitarianism to be Biblical. Roman Catholics often use arguments from typology that aren't explicit. And so on. Advocates of baptismal regeneration rely on implicit argumentation in the context of supporting that doctrine. The appeal to alleged references to baptism in terms like "water" in John 3:5 and "washing" in Titus 3:5 relies on implicit argumentation, so does their reasoning that baptismal regeneration has been in effect during certain circumstances and not in others (e.g., not being applicable during the Old Testament era and some portion or all of Jesus' public ministry), etc. Since proponents of baptismal regeneration rely on implicit argumentation in their reasoning about the subject, they're not in a position to object to their opponents' use of implicit argumentation. The fact that we prefer explicit evidence doesn't mean that implicit evidence has no value. Something can be less valuable, yet still have value to some extent. The nature of life is such that evidence comes in both implicit and explicit forms, with people sometimes disagreeing about whether something is implicit or explicit, and we have to take all of the evidence into account.

More About Maximus Of Turin And Eternal Security

I've written some posts over the years about belief in eternal security before the Reformation. Contrary to what's often asserted by critics of eternal security, the concept was held in various forms by some extrabiblical sources before the Reformation, as my series linked above argues.

In one of those posts, I cited some comments the Roman Catholic scholar Brian Daley made about Maximus of Turin. Since then, I've read a collection of Maximus' sermons, and I think Daley's comments should be supplemented. While there is some material in Maximus that seems to support eternal security, there's also some that seems to go against it if taken in isolation. I think more should be said than what Daley provides, so you can scroll to the bottom of that post just linked for an update I just added.

Interpretations Of Interpretations

We're often told that disagreements over how to interpret scripture suggest that we should look to extrabiblical sources to interpret scripture for us. There's some validity to that notion, as long as due weight is being assigned to the evidence scripture itself provides and the extrabiblical sources are being handled appropriately. But when you get to the extrabiblical sources, such as the church fathers, you find that they sometimes seem unclear, inconsistent, or problematic in some other way. Even where there isn't a problem, or much of a problem, with those extrabiblical sources, different people interpret them differently. It's similar to the situation with scripture. And if you look to other sources, such as scholarship, to clarify the extrabiblical sources in question, you find that there sometimes are ambiguities, disagreements, etc. among those sources as well.

Circumstances like these range across a spectrum. There's less disagreement on some issues than others. But the need for going to extrabiblical sources and how much help they provide are often overestimated.

Elsewhere, I've cited G.W.H. Lampe's comments on the many ambiguities, inconsistencies, and other problems among the patristic sources concerning baptism, the laying on of hands, and other rites. Here are some of Lampe's comments on problems in later sources commenting on the fathers:

"Many modern writers have adopted the unhappy course of trying to pick out from the vast mass of patristic literature on Baptism such texts as favour their own theories. Such methods ignore the confusion to which we have just referred. The Fathers did not try to resolve this confusion as long as the rite of initiation remained one whole, comprising both Baptism and Confirmation, for so long as that state of affairs was maintained the theological difficulties remained latent. It is not therefore surprising to find that, for example, Mason and Umberg were able to discover plenty of authority for the view that the gift of the indwelling Spirit is bestowed by means of the laying on of hands, and not by water-baptism, Wirgman was no less easily able to show that the Fathers taught that the indwelling presence of the Spirit was conferred by water-baptism and that an increase of grace was given for spiritual progress by the laying on of hands, while Thornton finds it equally possible to demonstrate that in the teaching of the Fathers the indwelling of the Spirit is regarded as being withheld until Confirmation, which he associates particularly with anointing. It is also unfortunate that some important books were written on this subject before the date and authorship of some of the relevant documents had been fairly established, and that, as a result, the picture which they present of the historical development of the doctrine of Baptism and Confirmation is distorted." (The Seal Of The Spirit [Eugene, Oregon: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2004], 194-95)

How Baptism Of Blood And Baptism Of Desire Work Against Baptismal Regeneration

Advocates of baptismal regeneration frequently allow for many exceptions to the rule of baptismal regeneration: people were justified differently during the Old Testament era, people were justified differently during part or all of Jesus' time on earth, Cornelius and those with him who were justified before baptism were exceptions to the rule, and so on. Two of the exceptions they make involve supposed other forms of baptism, such as being baptized by blood if you die as a martyr before being water baptized or being baptized by desire if you intended to get water baptized, but died before the water baptism was carried out. Much can be said about the problems with such views. John 3:5, probably the passage most prominently cited in arguments for baptismal regeneration, appeals to Nicodemus' knowledge of the Old Testament scriptures, which makes less sense if Jesus was referring to a means of justification different than that of the Old Testament era, and the passage says nothing about blood or desire. And see my post here about how unknown and contradicted baptism of blood and baptism of desire were among pre-Reformation sources. Baptism of blood was popular, but not universally accepted. Baptism of desire seems to have been initially absent, then became a minority view, then reached majority status hundreds of years into church history. That doesn't sit well with what many advocates of baptismal regeneration say about how their church is the church of the earliest centuries of Christianity, how they passed down all apostolic teaching in unbroken succession throughout church history, how the alleged early unpopularity of justification apart from baptism supposedly is such strong evidence against that view of justification (compare that to the early unpopularity of baptism of desire), etc.

How do we best explain what happens with the unbaptized martyr or the catechumen who dies before being baptized, for example? Instead of proposing a baptism of blood or a baptism of desire, it makes more sense to conclude that they were justified through faith without baptism. The martyr gave his life for Christ because he was already regenerated. He had no need for being regenerated in a future baptism of water or blood. Similarly, the catechumen was going through the catechetical process because he was already regenerate. Both the martyr's behavior and the catechumen's make more sense if regeneration had already occurred. As I've said before, people like Abraham, the tax collector in Luke 18, and Cornelius aren't exceptions to the rule. They are the rule. That's why Paul cites Abraham as if he's normative, Jesus speaks in Luke 18 as if what he's describing is normative, Acts 11 and 15 refer back to the events of chapter 10 as if they involve the normal means of justification, etc. Similarly, the martyrs and catechumens under consideration aren't exceptions as far as their regeneration and justification are concerned. They're further evidence for the rule. The rule is justification apart from baptism. It's the regeneration, faith, and justification the person already has that motivate the person to get baptized.

Part of what's involved here is the principle of simplicity. We prefer the simplest explanation, all other things being equal. Dividing up history as advocates of baptismal regeneration do, with different means of justification during different periods, and proposing other forms of baptism (blood, desire) not suggested by Jesus and the apostles, among other complications introduced by advocates of baptismal regeneration, doesn't provide the simplest explanation of the evidence.

What's the significance of something like baptismal regeneration or the perpetual virginity of Mary?

I've been posting a lot on both subjects lately, but people often dismiss such issues as insignificant. A recent post I wrote about baptismal regeneration focused on one of the reasons why that issue is important. And I linked another post that discusses thirteen problems with baptismal regeneration, which provides other reasons for considering the subject significant.

Another reason for thinking more highly of these issues is how they're connected to other topics. Whatever significance the perpetual virginity of Mary has when considered in isolation, it takes on more importance when you consider how it has implications for claims about church infallibility, papal authority, the nature of extrabiblical tradition, and so on. Similarly, something like whether Mary was assumed to heaven doesn't have a lot of significance in isolation, but it becomes more significant when it's attached to other things, like papal infallibility and the infallibility of one institution or another.

There's also the issue of Biblical precedent. Many of the arguments used to underestimate the significance of baptismal regeneration could also have been used to underestimate the significance of adding circumcision as a means of justification, for example. Yet, the apostles treated the adding of circumcision as a major issue. (They also applied that reasoning more broadly, since they refer at times to the broader subject of adding "works", "conditions", etc. They didn't think circumcision was the only thing that couldn't be added.) As I've argued elsewhere, Peter probably was criticizing the concept of baptismal regeneration in 1 Peter 3, which is why he framed things so similarly to how Josephus did when addressing that sort of misconception of baptism in the context of John the Baptist.

And an issue doesn't need to have maximal significance in order to have some. I do a lot of work on Christmas issues. There's some value to knowing whether Jesus had siblings, the nature of his relationships with those siblings, and so forth. Though those aren't foundational issues or highly significant in some other way, they do have some significance. It's the type of information people often look into when studying the background of any historical figure, writing biographies, etc. It's information that tells you something about how the person's character was shaped, what experiences he had in life, how reliable certain people are (like siblings) as witnesses of his life, and so on.

I'm not trying to be exhaustive. These are just some examples of reasons why these issues are important.

Baptismal Regeneration As A Gateway To Other Forms Of Justification Through Works

Adding baptism to faith makes it easier to add other things. Just as many ancient sources viewed baptism as a means of obtaining things like regeneration, the forgiveness of sins, and the reception of the Holy Spirit, many ancient sources also saw other rites as a means of obtaining those things (prebaptismal anointing with oil, postbaptismal anointing with oil, the laying on of hands, foot washing, the eucharist, etc.). See here for a discussion of many examples. It's probably not merely a coincidence that such views of justification through works (or sacraments, rites, or whatever other term you want to use) became popular around the same time. Since baptism predates these other rites in the context of Christianity, is a valid part of the Christian life, and is one that occurs early on, and the other rites I'm referring to were often closely associated with baptism, a misunderstanding of baptism probably was more responsible than anything else for the misunderstanding of these rites in general.

And if you're going to add works at the start of the Christian life, why not add them later as well? It's probably not just a coincidence that the large majority of people who have accepted baptismal regeneration have also rejected eternal security. They don't just add works in the context of what you could call initiatory rites or initiatory sacraments, but also in other contexts, making other works a means of justification as well.

My point isn't that adding baptism always leads to the adding of one or more other works. It doesn't. And my point isn't that the adding of baptism is the only factor that facilitates the adding of other works when others are added. Rather, my point is that the adding of baptism has a lot of potential, among other factors, for facilitating the addition of other works and that it seems to have often had that sort of facilitating role.

Many people acknowledge that baptismal regeneration is false, but think or act as if it's an error that doesn't have much significance. One way to appreciate the significance of it is to think of it as the sort of gateway I've described above. If adding a work to the gospel doesn't concern you much, though it should, you ought to also consider how the adding of that work facilitates the adding of more.

For an overview of some of the other problems with baptismal regeneration, see here.

The Importance Of The Wind In John 3

There are a lot of problems with using John 3:5 to support baptismal regeneration. I've written about those problems in many posts over the years. I'll briefly summarize some of the points I've made before, then move on to what I want to focus on in this post, verse 8.

Jesus' rebuke of Nicodemus for not understanding what he's saying (3:10) makes more sense if he's referring to something that can be more easily derived from the Old Testament than baptismal regeneration can be. He goes on to refer to justification through faith a few times (verses 15-18), without any reference to baptism, which also makes more sense if baptismal regeneration isn't involved. The other New Testament passage that uses the born again language, 1 Peter 1:23-25, associates that language with a response to preaching, which is a prebaptismal context. See my discussion of justification apart from baptism in 1 Peter here. For a discussion of how the preaching context of justification is problematic for baptismal regeneration, see my post on Galatians 3 here. In the timeframe after Jesus spoke to Nicodemus, the fourth gospel and the other gospels give us several examples of people being justified apart from baptism, including in contexts that seem to be normative rather than exceptional, and there aren't any examples of people being justified at the time of baptism. See my post here on the double healing phenomenon, for example. The evidence for justification apart from baptism in the gospels is such that advocates of baptismal regeneration frequently concede the point and claim that baptismal regeneration didn't go into effect until after the crucifixion or at some other later stage. That creates problems for their view of John 3:5, which uses the present tense and makes no suggestion that what Jesus is discussing wouldn't go into effect until later. There's also the fact that the evidence suggests continuity in how people were justified throughout history, not the sort of discontinuity baptismal regeneration involves. For more about that subject, go here. And contrary to what advocates of baptismal regeneration often claim, there wasn't universal or nearly universal agreement about their interpretation of John 3:5 prior to the Reformation. For discussions of the many interpretations of the passage that circulated before the Reformation, including some that are inconsistent with each other, see here, here, and here, among other relevant posts in our archives.

Most likely, what Jesus is doing in John 3 is drawing from some material in Ezekiel 36-37. Those chapters in Ezekiel refer to water, wind, and the work of the Holy Spirit in contexts that involve the bringing about of new life (being born again, as Jesus puts it; being made a new creature, as Paul puts it in 2 Corinthians 5:17; etc.). Ezekiel uses a lot of eschatological language and refers to a new covenant. In contrast to how baptism was typically practiced at the time when Jesus spoke to Nicodemus, Ezekiel refers to sprinkling with water (36:25). And he goes on to discuss wind in chapter 37, which Jesus discusses in John 3:8 (in the same order as Ezekiel: water, then wind). Most likely, then, the water of John 3:5 is summarizing one aspect of the Spirit's work, namely his cleansing, while the wind of 3:8 is summarizing another aspect of his work, its unpredictability. In addition to the close association of the water and the wind in both Ezekiel and John, the two are closely associated conceptually. They're both commonly experienced elements of nature. The wind obviously isn't literal in John 3. It would make more sense for the accompanying water to not be literal either. Furthermore, the unpredictability of the wind doesn't sit well with a highly visible ceremony that's anticipated ahead of time, like baptism. That's reminiscent of what we see elsewhere in scripture about the immediacy of justification, how it can happen at any moment (2 Corinthians 6:2) and by a means we have immediate access to (Romans 10:8-10). Baptism violates both of those kinds of immediacy, and it makes less sense of John 3:8.

More Pre-Reformation Disagreements Over Baptism And John 3:5

I've written a lot over the years about how diversely John 3:5 was interpreted prior to the Reformation, contrary to the popular suggestion that there was more agreement about the passage. For example, it's sometimes claimed, falsely, that everybody or almost everybody thought the passage teaches baptismal regeneration. I've discussed many examples of Christians who rejected baptismal regeneration before the Reformation, like here. Those who assigned some kind of high efficaciousness to baptism widely disagreed with each other about the sort of efficaciousness involved. Go here for a discussion of some examples. People often lowered their view of baptism in order to heighten their view of something else (prebaptismal faith, prebaptismal anointing with oil, postbaptismal anointing with oil, the laying on of hands, etc.). Such tradeoffs would inevitably affect the sort of efficaciousness assigned to baptism in an interpretation of John 3:5. Some people held a highly efficacious view of both prebaptismal faith and baptism. To the extent that they were consistent in maintaining those views, there would have to be a tradeoff. Heightening your view of prebaptismal faith lowers your view of baptism in some contexts, as I've discussed elsewhere. And there were many other issues that influenced how people understood John 3. As I've discussed elsewhere, there was widespread disagreement before the Reformation about types of baptism other than water baptism, such as baptism of desire. And there were disagreements over whether Jesus' comments in John 3:5 were in effect at the time when he spoke the words in that passage or wouldn't go into effect until later. Those who thought John 3:5 wouldn't be applicable until later disagreed over which later point in time that was.

Robbing Prebaptismal Faith To Enrich Baptism

There's a lot of talk in some circles about the alleged importance of having a more efficacious view of baptism. Supposedly, it's a problem (often treated as if it's a big problem) that some people aren't assigning more significance to baptism. Typically, that concern is out of proportion to other concerns we ought to have.

The Evidence Against Baptismal Regeneration In Galatians 3

I've written about how the context of justification is inconsistent with baptismal regeneration. Paul describes that context in Galatians 3:2 when he refers to "hearing with faith".

Should debates on baptismal regeneration only involve the discussion of passages about baptism?

I occasionally see people claim that debates on the subject, like the recent one between Joe Heschmeyer and Ryan Hemelaar, should only involve passages (in the Bible, in the church fathers, or wherever else) about baptism. Supposedly, passages that only mention faith, for example, aren't relevant. After all, the title of the Heschmeyer/Hemelaar debate, for example, was "Does water baptism save us?". It's a debate about baptism.

The Debate Between Joe Heschmeyer And Ryan Hemelaar On Baptism And Salvation

The large majority of what I would argue regarding both the Biblical evidence and the extrabiblical evidence didn't come up in the debate. See here for a collection of resources outlining my views on many of the relevant issues. I'll say a small amount about some Biblical topics that are relevant to other points I want to make, but my focus here will be on the extrabiblical sources.

Why am I citing minor historical figures against baptismal regeneration?

An objection that some readers might have to posts like the two I put up earlier this week is that they involve relatively minor individuals in the historical record, people whose names we don't even know. If baptismal regeneration is false, shouldn't that have been known to more significant figures as well? Sometimes that sort of objection will be put in terms of asking for church fathers, church leaders, or some other such group instead of the sort of lesser individuals my recent posts have discussed.

Justification Apart From Baptism In Augustine's Day

In a previous post, I said I might address the subject in the future. Here are a couple of relevant passages in Augustine:

How Diversely John 3:5 Was Interpreted Before The Reformation

The claim is often made that everybody agreed about the meaning of John 3:5 before the Reformation. Supposedly, there was universal agreement that the passage teaches baptismal regeneration.

Crushing Our Sluggishness And Arrogance

"On the one hand, we know, men are often so dull that when they hear that grace is offered them through Christ and that they may enjoy it through the gospel, the message is brushed off as if it were worthless. On the other hand, we are not easily persuaded to abandon our silly pride: we fancy we can find some way or other of pleasing God and of winning his favour. Something strong is needed to excite our sluggish spirits and to remedy, or rather crush, our arrogance....How often, instead, are we excited by the trivia and nonsense of this passing world, and by our own sinful pleasures, so that we fail to glorify God as he deserves, and speak so feebly of his grace that it is clear we would suppress it if we could." (John Calvin, in Robert White, trans., Songs Of The Nativity [Carlisle, Pennsylvania: Banner of Truth, 2008], 124-25)

More Than A Dozen Reasons To Reject Baptismal Regeneration

I've discussed many problems with it in a lot of posts over the years, but I want to provide a list in one place. I'll include a link to a post addressing each of most of these items. This isn't meant to be exhaustive:

The History Of Beliefs About The Unbaptized

Anthony Lusvardi recently published Baptism Of Desire And Christian Salvation (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University Of America Press, 2024). He's a Roman Catholic priest and scholar who did a doctoral dissertation on baptism of desire. Though the book is primarily about that subject, the book also addresses some related concepts to a lesser extent: baptism of blood, invincible ignorance, limbo, outside the church there is no salvation, the salvation of infants who die without having been baptized, etc.

Justification Apart From Baptism In The Eighth Century

Several centuries before the Reformation, Bede wrote against viewing 1 John 5:5 as support for justification through faith alone and, more specifically, justification apart from baptism:

How Problematic Acts 10 Is For Baptismal Regeneration

Jordan Cooper recently released a video that's partly an argument for baptismal regeneration. I've already interacted with the large majority of the points he makes (e.g., here on the alleged parallel between Acts 2:38 and 16:30, here on 1 Peter 3:21, here on the extrabiblical sources). What I want to do in this post is say more about Acts 10.

The Gospel That Would Go Throughout The World

Tertullian acknowledged that people were justified apart from baptism during Jesus' public ministry. But in response to critics of baptismal regeneration, he wrote, "in days gone by, there was salvation by means of bare faith, before the passion and resurrection of the Lord", whereas now "the law of baptizing has been imposed" (On Baptism 13).

A Reminder Of The Importance Of Josephus' Comments On Baptism

Josephus is an important source on some baptismal issues, but he often gets overlooked or underestimated. He refers to how John the Baptist's baptism wasn't meant to be a means of obtaining justification. Dismissing Josephus as a non-Christian isn't an adequate objection, since the significance of his earliness and his knowledge of recent Jewish history don't depend on his being a Christian. You can be a non-Christian, but still be right about something. And if the advocate of baptismal regeneration wants to acknowledge that John's baptism wasn't justificatory, then he needs to address some implications that follow. John's baptism is discussed and practiced alongside the earliest form of baptism administered by Jesus and his disciples (John 3:22-4:2), and that overlap between the two makes more sense if there was more rather than less continuity between the two. In all likelihood, both John's baptism and the earliest baptism administered by Jesus and his disciples were non-justificatory. So, that gives us a double precedent for non-justificatory baptism. That's another problem the advocate of baptismal regeneration has to address. Furthermore, Peter uses language about baptism similar to the language used by Josephus, which adds further evidence for the conclusion that Peter rejected baptismal regeneration. See here for further discussion of that issue. So, Josephus' comments are relevant to multiple baptismal issues and provide multiple lines of evidence against baptismal regeneration.

When Protestants Handle Debates Poorly

I'm not just referring to formal debates, though they're part of the problem. The bigger problem is how Protestants in general handle certain debates in general, whether formal or informal ones.

Another Reason To Reject The Baptismal Regeneration Interpretation Of John 3:5

In other posts, I've discussed some of the problems with taking John 3:5 as a reference to baptismal regeneration. The exchange between Jesus and Nicodemus is set in an Old Testament context, and baptismal regeneration isn't taught in the Old Testament. Even advocates of baptismal regeneration frequently admit that it wasn't in effect at the time when Jesus spoke to Nicodemus (thus explaining why so many people are justified apart from baptism in the gospels while nobody in the gospels is justified at the time of baptism). The claim that everybody agreed with the baptismal regeneration interpretation of John 3:5 prior to the Reformation is far from true. And so on. You can go here to find links to some of the relevant posts in our archives. What I want to do in this post is focus on another line of evidence.

The terminology of being born again is also used in 1 Peter. I've written elsewhere about how 1 Peter contradicts baptismal regeneration, including in 3:21. 1 Peter 1:23-25 tells us that people are born again in the context of preaching, which is distinct from the later context of baptism (1 Corinthians 1:17). I've discussed the importance of distinguishing between the preaching context and the baptismal context at length elsewhere, like here. So, not only is John 3:5 poorly explained by a baptismal regeneration interpretation in its own context, but such an interpretation also poorly explains the other New Testament passage that uses the language of being born again.

Three Problems With Baptismal Regeneration

There are more than three, but here's an easy way to remember three of them. Baptismal regeneration is inconsistent with:

- The freeness of justification (the exclusion of works).

- The immediacy of justification (you can be justified at any moment through a means you always have access to).

- The context of justification (the prebaptismal context of believing while hearing the gospel proclaimed).

You can click the three links above for further discussion of each.

How many ways are there to be justified?

There are some Biblical passages that can seem to support justification through something other than faith if the passages are taken in isolation. For example, Matthew 19:16-21 could be taken as evidence for salvation through selling your possessions and giving the money to the poor. John 6:53, if it's thought to refer to the eucharist, could be taken to prove justification through participation in the eucharist. John 13:8 teaches salvation through foot washing. Acts 2:38 teaches baptismal regeneration. Acts 8:17 teaches that we're justified through the laying on of hands. Etc.

The Parallels Between Acts 10 And Galatians 3

When Cornelius' justification apart from baptism in Acts 10 is discussed, the focus tends to be on verses 44-48 and the timing of the reception of the Holy Spirit. But we should also include verse 43 and notice some other issues in verses 44-48.

Verse 43 refers to how "everybody" is justified by "believing". Peter isn't anticipating that his audience will be some kind of exception to the rule ("everybody"), and he mentions faith without saying anything about baptism. What happens in verse 44 seems to be what Peter was anticipating and what's normative, not exceptional.

In verse 44, we're told that Cornelius and those with him received the Spirit while "listening". That should sound familiar. Paul refers to how the Galatians were justified through "hearing with faith" in Galatians 3:2. That's further evidence that what happened to Cornelius, in terms of being justified and receiving the Spirit before baptism, is normative. The "listening" and "hearing" in Acts 10 and Galatians 3 are references to a prebaptismal context. You hear the gospel message being proclaimed, and you believe while hearing it. Baptism doesn't occur until later. And that helps explain why Paul distinguishes between preaching and baptizing (1 Corinthians 1:17). He was the spiritual father of the Corinthians through the proclamation of the gospel to them (1 Corinthians 4:15), even though he didn't baptize many of them. The preaching context of justification is another among many lines of evidence against baptismal regeneration, and it's another way in which Cornelius' justification is normal rather than exceptional.

Why is there prebaptismal justification in Acts 10?

An explanation often put forward for why Cornelius and those with him were justified prior to baptism in Acts 10:43-48 is that the prebaptismal reception of the Holy Spirit was offered as proof of God's acceptance of Gentiles. But that acceptance had already been revealed to Cornelius by an angel and to Peter in his vision. And a reception of the Spirit at the time of baptism would also have been proof of the acceptance of Gentiles. Changing the timing of the reception of the Spirit wasn't needed. The best explanation for the prebaptismal timing of the reception of the Spirit is that that's the normal scenario. Its normativity is further evidenced by how Cornelius and those with him are cited as being justified in the same way as others in Acts 11:17-18 and 15:7-11.

The Prominence Of Sola Fide In Acts

One of the factors to take into account when judging the small number of passages in Acts that are cited against justification through faith alone is how often only faith or repentance (two sides of the same coin) is mentioned as the means of receiving justification: 2:21, 3:16, 3:19, 4:4, 9:42, 10:43-44, 11:17, 11:21, 13:39, 13:48, 14:1, 14:27, 15:9, 16:31, 16:34, 17:34, 19:2, 26:20.

I'll expand on some of those passages, to clarify why I've cited them. Acts 3:16 refers to a healing, but it's probably the sort of double healing passage I've discussed elsewhere. The healed man is referred to as praising God after the healing and is described as following the apostles (3:8, 3:11). Both of those make more sense if he had converted than if he hadn't. And Peter and John don't say anything to the man about a need to do anything else in order to be reconciled to God, which also makes more sense if the man had already been reconciled to God. Furthermore, Peter refers to the healed man's faith as "the faith which comes through [Jesus]" (3:16). A reference to "the faith" makes more sense if it's a faith that people in general are supposed to have, not just people seeking a healing.

Some of the passages I've cited mention faith without mentioning justification (4:4, 9:42, 14:1, 17:34), but the passages make the most sense if faith is viewed as bringing about justification. If something more was needed for reconciliation to God, then it would make less sense to highlight faith so much and not mention more. Seeing these passages as referring to justification also aligns them better with the rest of the material in Acts, like the other passages cited above.

Some Agreements Between Paul And The Gospels On Miracles

In a recent post, I discussed the double healing passages, which involve incidents in which people are healed both physically and spiritually. Notice that those passages provide more examples of agreement between the Synoptics and the fourth gospel. And notice that Paul corroborates some of what we see in those passages. In Galatians 3:5, he refers to how miracles are often received through faith, as we see in the double healing passages in the gospels. And he compares that reception of miracles through faith to receiving justification through faith, as in the double healing passages.

The Double Healing Passages

One of the reasons why the evidence against baptismal regeneration is underestimated is that much of that evidence is overlooked. An example of that is a category of passages that could be referred to as involving double healing. An individual is healed both physically and spiritually. But the physical healing tends to get more attention, sometimes even to the point of not noticing or forgetting the accompanying spiritual healing.

How Luke 3 Sheds Light On Acts 2

I want to comment on one of the issues involved in the controversy over Acts 2:38 and the relationship between justification and baptism. Sometimes the question of verse 37 will be highlighted, and it will be suggested that baptism shouldn't be mentioned in verse 38 if it isn't a means of obtaining justification.

The assumption seems to be that the question of verse 37 is equivalent to the one in 16:30. But the "to be saved" qualifier of 16:30 isn't present in 2:37.

Furthermore, there's a parallel between Acts 2 and Luke 3. The question of "what shall we do" comes up a few times in Luke 3:10-14. And John the Baptist keeps answering by mentioning actions that go beyond obtaining justification. He's addressing what should be done in general, which goes beyond acquiring justification (the "fruits" he had referred to earlier, in verses 8-9). Similarly, Acts 2 seems to be addressing a broader rather than narrower context.

Peter goes on to provide them with many other words and to tell them to be saved from "this perverse generation" (verse 40). It seems that more than justification is in view.

The Abuse Of Water-Related Language In The Bible To Support Baptismal Regeneration

I've written before about the many Biblical passages that refer to water, cleansing, and such in relevant contexts without having baptism in mind. But advocates of baptismal regeneration take certain passages out of context to make them seem supportive of baptismal regeneration because of the water-related terminology that's used. Even where the context goes in the opposite direction, they appeal to phrases that can be made to appear supportive of baptismal regeneration if taken in isolation (e.g., citing the reference to water in John 3:5, even though Jesus goes on to refer to the Old Testament background of his comments and keeps referring to people being justified apart from baptism elsewhere in the gospels; citing the reference to washing in Titus 3:5, even though it's accompanied by an exclusion of works). I want to expand on my previous post, linked above, with a discussion of some other relevant passages.

Potential Objections To The Immediacy Of Justification

I've written before about the Biblical theme of the nearness of redemption, the concept that you can be justified at any moment through a means you always have access to. That theme is inconsistent with baptismal regeneration and every other form of justification through works.

But somebody could raise an objection along the lines that what these passages (2 Corinthians 6:2, etc.) are addressing is the nearness of starting the process of getting justified, not obtaining justification itself. There are some problems with that view.

Biblical Interpretation In Support Of Eternal Security Before The Reformation

Over the years, as I've read pre-Reformation sources who advocated some form of eternal security, I've noticed that they often cite some of the same Biblical passages advocates of eternal security bring up today. That's significant, given how often critics of eternal security suggest that nobody believed in the concept before the Reformation, that modern interpretations of the relevant Biblical passages are novel and wouldn't have occurred to the pre-Reformation sources, etc. See, for example, my comments in the posts here and here concerning the use of 1 Corinthians 3:11-15 by proponents of eternal security more than a thousand years before the Reformation. In a previous post, I mentioned a book on Gottschalk by Victor Genke and Francis Gumerlock. When I read that book, I repeatedly came across examples of Gottschalk citing certain passages of scripture in the same way or a way significantly similar to how I and other advocates of eternal security interpret those passages (e.g., the citations of John 6:37 and 10:28-29 on page 129, the discussion of Romans 5:9 on page 63 in Gottschalk And A Medieval Predestination Controversy [Milwaukee, Wisconsin: Marquette University Press, 2010]).

Even when a particular Biblical passage isn't brought up, we have indirect evidence for how the passage was interpreted. As I've said before, if a Jehovah's Witness were to interpret a passage of scripture in a manner that contradicts the deity of Christ, we wouldn't need to have an extant document in which Athanasius comments on that passage in order to conclude that he probably didn't view the passage as the Jehovah's Witness does. Since Athanasius affirmed the deity of Christ, we would assume that he didn't interpret the passage as the Jehovah's Witness interprets it. The same principles apply to how scripture was likely interpreted by the people who held to eternal security in the pre-Reformation era.

More About Eternal Security In Jerome

In a post several weeks ago discussing some support for eternal security found in Jerome, I mentioned that I was waiting for the publication of an English translation of his Letter 119. That translation was delayed, but recently came out (Thomas Scheck, trans., St. Jerome: Exegetical Epistles, Volume 2 [Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University Of America Press, 2024]). I've now read it.

Some Church Fathers On The Efficaciousness Of Prebaptismal Faith

Some of the church fathers who use highly efficacious language about baptism also use highly efficacious language, including language about the new birth and salvation, when discussing prebaptismal faith. However you explain that (that they viewed justification as a multistep process, that they were inconsistent, or whatever), it offers partial corroboration for the view that we're justified through prebaptismal faith. They ascribe more to prebaptismal faith than advocates of baptismal regeneration typically do. It also provides another example of the diversity of the baptismal beliefs of the pre-Reformation sources. The historian Nick Needham writes that the view of these fathers "effectively makes initial justification itself a twofold process: faith introduces us to salvation, and baptism perfects the introduction" (in Bruce McCormack, ed., Justification In Perspective [Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2006], 42). He cites Origen, Cyril of Jerusalem, and Basil of Caesarea as examples. He goes on, "Basil's use of 'seal' imagery may indicate that he regarded baptism as the public and official declaration of a justification that until then has been private and unofficial" (ibid.). Whether you explain these fathers' comments as Needham does, explain them in some other way, or remain agnostic about it, I agree that such comments are found in the three fathers he mentions. At least in the passages I've read, it's clearer in Cyril and Basil than in Origen, but seems likely to be present in Origen as well. It may also be present in a Western source of the fourth century, Fortunatianus, though his comments are highly metaphorical and harder to interpret. He wrote in his Commentary On The Gospels:

An Important Point To Keep In Mind In Baptismal Discussions

Advocates of baptismal regeneration make their position seem more plausible and historically popular than it actually is by assuming the presence of baptism in passages (in the Bible or elsewhere) that don't mention it. Even if an entire document or everything we have that was written by a particular individual says nothing about baptism, it will be assumed that baptism is meant to be included in any reference to faith, repentance, justification, or whatever. Something similar is done by advocates of infant baptism. If baptism is discussed without any mention of baptizing infants, even if the comments on baptism seem to be of a highly credobaptist nature, it will be assumed that the author believed in infant baptism. Supposedly, there was no need for him to spell out his belief in infant baptism, since it's so obvious, was part of the background knowledge of his audience, etc.

One of the problems with that sort of approach, in the context of baptismal regeneration or in the context of infant baptism, is that some of the relevant documents were addressed to non-Christian audiences. I've discussed some examples in the past (e.g., The Epistle To Diognetus, Justin Martyr). See this post on Aristides, for example. The best explanation for why these authors don't mention baptism in the relevant contexts is that they didn't think baptism was involved. It would be problematic to conclude that Christian audiences assumed the inclusion of baptism without any mention of it in these contexts, and it's even more problematic to make that assumption about non-Christian audiences.

Belief In Faith Alone And Eternal Security At The Time Of Caesarius Of Arles

Caesarius lived in the fifth and sixth centuries. I've occasionally mentioned him in other posts. I recently saw a quotation from him related to sola fide and eternal security, from his Sermon 186. I'd read some of his other material, but not that sermon. Having read it since then, I want to quote a relevant portion of it, then comment on it:

The Recent Disputes Over Baptismal Regeneration And The Southern Baptist Convention

There's been a lot of discussion lately about how Southern Baptists view the reference to baptism in the Nicene Creed. I've seen the usual false claims about how everybody in the early church believed in baptismal regeneration, all of the church fathers believed in it, nobody opposed it before the Reformation, and so on. Few opponents of baptismal regeneration say anything significant about the extrabiblical evidence for their position, and the few who speak up typically only mention a small percentage of that evidence. For example, it's seldom mentioned that the ancient sources who held some kind of highly efficacious view of baptism widely disagreed about the nature of that efficaciousness. Christians of the patristic era disagreed about the meaning of "baptism for the forgiveness of sins". That's not a later development. There's a major need for opponents of baptismal regeneration to improve their handling of the issue. Here are some resources to that end.

Faith Alone In Celsus And His Sources

I've often mentioned that we need to take more than the church fathers into account when thinking about the patristic era. (See here for one of my posts discussing the topic.) Several decades ago, Thomas Torrance published a book that was highly critical (overly critical) of how the earliest church fathers viewed grace (The Doctrine Of Grace In The Apostolic Fathers [Eugene, Oregon: Wipf and Stock, 1996]). Despite being so negative about the earliest fathers, he was more positive about some sources later in the second century:

What type of justification through works?

Critics of Protestantism often appeal to the popularity of justification through works among pre-Reformation sources as an argument against justification through faith alone. There's some merit to that argument, but it's often overestimated. The significance of the Biblical evidence is often underestimated, along the lines of what I've referred to elsewhere. And the amount of support for justification through works among the extrabiblical sources is often exaggerated.

Another point that should be made, which isn't made often enough, is that the extrabiblical sources who advocate justification through works widely disagree in what form of it they advocate. I've provided many examples with regard to what might be called initiatory rites, for example (baptism, the laying on of hands, anointing with oil, etc.). See here. And there was widespread disagreement about the issues surrounding whether justification can be lost and, if so, which sins are mortal. Think, for example, of what Hermas wrote about the concept of limited forgiveness or limited penance (The Shepherd, Visions, 2:2). Or see the post here for further examples. In the medieval era, think of Pope Boniface VIII's claim in 1302 that "it is absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman Pontiff" (Unam Sanctam).

It could be objected that people have also disagreed about what type of faith is justificatory. But justification through works includes faith alongside the works, so the same objection can be raised against justification through works. And proponents of justification through works disagree with each other about the nature of the works that justify, just as people disagree about the nature of justifying faith. When you add something to faith, whatever that something else is, you have a more complicated situation. And there have been many something elses added over the years, with widespread disagreements from the earliest centuries onward about what those something elses should be. So, the appeal to an alleged unified opposition to sola fide is weakened accordingly.

More Examples Of Extrabiblical, Pre-Reformation Support For Eternal Security

In the ninth century, Rabanus Maurus wrote:

The Day Of Salvation Is Several Months From Now

I recently came across an article I'd read many years ago about the conversion of Bernard Nathanson, a former abortion doctor, to Roman Catholicism. The article quotes some comments he made about his upcoming baptism: "'I will be free from sin,' he says. 'For the first time in my life, I will feel the shelter and warmth of faith.'" That's an illustration of a point I've made before about how baptismal regeneration interferes with the Biblical theme of the nearness of redemption.

The title of this post is meant to draw attention to the contrast between the Biblical theme of the nearness of redemption, such as the reference to how "now is 'the day of salvation'" in 2 Corinthians 6:2, and the absurd putting of off redemption under baptismal regeneration. The inconsistency between baptismal regeneration and how Jesus redeemed people independent of baptism in the gospels led Tertullian to concede to the critics of baptismal regeneration in his day, "Grant that, in days gone by, there was salvation by means of bare faith, before the passion and resurrection of the Lord." (On Baptism, 13) But John's gospel emphasizes Jesus' statements about salvation during his earthly ministry (John 3:16, 5:24, 11:25-26, etc.), and John tells us that he wrote his gospel to lead people to salvation (John 20:31), using language similar to Jesus' language earlier in the gospel. If the means of being justified had changed so much after the resurrection, then John's emphasis on Jesus' pre-resurrection teachings about justification makes less sense. Paul, like Jesus and others, thought of Abraham as the Christian's spiritual father, citing Genesis 15:6 as the paradigm example of how we're justified. No baptism was involved, and the phenomenon of justification apart from baptism continues beyond the gospels (Cornelius, Paul's expectation of the reception of the Spirit "when you believed" in Acts 19:2, Galatians 3:2, etc.). The reason why Abraham, the tax collector in Luke 18, and Cornelius are all justified through faith alone rather than through faith and baptism is that it's how God has been justifying people "from the beginning" (Clement of Rome, First Clement, 32). They're not exceptions. They're the rule.

As I've discussed elsewhere, there are many problems with baptismal regeneration. Its inconsistency with the Biblical theme of the nearness of redemption is one that gets discussed far less than it should. As I mentioned in a post last year, we've seen many and widely contradictory views of the efficaciousness of baptism over the centuries, and, unsurprisingly, it also became popular to add various other works along with baptism as initiatory rites, means of receiving the Holy Spirit, means of remitting sin, etc. Once the door is opened to making baptism a means of obtaining justification, people often let other works through the door as well. The response to somebody like Bernard Nathanson isn't to tell him to wait several months for baptism or whatever other initiatory rite or group of rites. You tell him, "Your faith has saved you; go in peace." (Luke 7:50)

What should we make of the discussion of confession in Romans 10?

Somebody wrote to me on Facebook:

The Problems For Baptismal Regeneration In Romans 10

I want to expand on what I've said about the subject in other posts (like here and here). Notice that baptism is absent across multiple contexts addressed in Romans 10: the activities of the justified person and others involved (no getting baptized, no baptizing, no sending a baptizer), the means by which justification is received (no baptism), the nearness of redemption (as referenced in verses 8-11, and both the theme of nearness in general and what this passage in particular says about it make more sense if you don't have to wait until baptism to be justified), and the Old Testament passages cited (involving no baptism or equivalent of it). The absence of baptism across such a large number and variety of contexts is conspicuous and is best explained by justification apart from baptism.

Extrabiblical, Pre-Reformation Support For Eternal Security

I wrote a post about the subject in 2007. Below are links to my recent series on the topic. I expect to add further links to this page in the future, as I write more material that's relevant.

Part 1: Preliminaries, Some Earlier Sources
Part 2: Augustine And His Opponents
Part 3: The Mercyists
Part 4: Some Other Sources

I later wrote about some medieval sources supporting eternal security.

And here's a post about some relevant comments made by Caesarius of Arles.

Go here for a discussion of support for eternal security in Jerome's Letter 119 and his commentary on Amos.

Another post discussed how pre-Reformation sources interpreted Biblical passages that have been cited in support of eternal security.

Extrabiblical, Pre-Reformation Support For Eternal Security (Part 4)

Jerome wrote, regarding Jovinian, a monk who was a contemporary:

"He endeavours to show that 'they who with full assurance of faith have been born again in baptism, cannot be overthrown by the devil.'…The second proposition of Jovinianus is that the baptized cannot be tempted by the devil. And to escape the imputation of folly in saying this, he adds: 'But if any are tempted, it only shows that they were baptized with water, not with the Spirit, as we read was the case with Simon Magus.'…Does any one think that we are safe, and that it is right to fall asleep when once we have been baptized?…And we flatter ourselves on the ground of our baptism, which though it put away the sins of the past, cannot keep us for the time to come, unless the baptized keep their hearts with all diligence." (Against Jovinianus, 1:3, 2:1, 2:3-4)

Whether Jerome was consistent in his beliefs on these matters and how to reconcile them with the later comments he made about mercyism, discussed in my last post, are distinct issues from what I'm focused on in this post. My focus here is on Jovinian's views, not Jerome's.

The Protestant historian Philip Schaff wrote:

"Jovinian's second point has an apparent affinity with the Augustinian and Calvinistic doctrine of the perseverantia sanctorum. It is not referred by him, however, to the eternal and unchangeable counsel of God, but simply based on 1 Jno. iii. 9, and v. 18, and is connected with his abstract conception of the opposite moral states. He limits the impossibility of relapse to the truly regenerate, who 'plena fide in baptismate renati sunt,' and makes a distinction between the mere baptism of water and the baptism of the Spirit, which involves also a distinction between the actual and the ideal church." (History Of The Christian Church, 3:4:46)

Gregory Lombardo, a Roman Catholic scholar, wrote:

"Jovinian exaggerated the justifying efficacy of baptism, so much so that he asserted that it was impossible for a baptised person to commit sin…What Jovinian was really teaching was salvation by faith alone, without works. All that is necessary is to receive baptism with a full faith. The rest - marriage, virginity, fasting, and any other good work - mattered little, since one was no better than the other in merit, and since it was really not necessary to perform them to be saved. Baptism and a full faith made it impossible for a person to fall away." (St. Augustine: On Faith And Works [New York, New York: The Newman Press, 1988], n. 10 on p. 65; n. 34 on p. 75)

In the eighth century, Bede wrote against "those who understand by this [justification apart from works] that it does not matter whether they live evil lives or do wicked and terrible things, as long as they believe in Christ, because salvation is through faith" (cited in Gerald Bray, ed., Ancient Christian Commentary On Scripture: New Testament XI: James, 1-2 Peter, 1-3 John, Jude [Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2000], 31). He made those comments in his commentary on James. I've read that commentary, and the version I've read renders Bede's comments in a way that suggests that Bede is placing the individuals in question in the first century (David Hurst, trans., Bede The Venerable: Commentary On The Seven Catholic Epistles [Kalamazoo, Michigan: Cistercian Publications, 1985], 30). Hurst's translation suggests that Bede was attributing the view in question to some people the apostles were correcting in the first century, whereas the translation used by Bray leaves the timeframe unspecified. Whichever translation is correct, Bede thought that such a view had been held by some people by the time he wrote.

As I have time for it in the future, I may discuss further examples of partial or full support for eternal security among extrabiblical, pre-Reformation sources. But the examples I've provided over these last few posts are enough to demonstrate some significant problems with the documentary I'm responding to.

Extrabiblical, Pre-Reformation Support For Eternal Security (Part 3)

In his translation of Augustine's work cited in my last post, Gregory Lombardo wrote the following about some of the individuals Augustine was responding to:

Extrabiblical, Pre-Reformation Support For Eternal Security (Part 2)

My last post mentioned that Augustine wrote against some advocates of eternal security in his day. See, for example, section 21:17-27 in The City Of God. He describes a few different forms of eternal security that existed in his day, involving anything from no discipline or punishment in the afterlife to a large amount of it, though all of the individuals in question would eventually go to heaven: "he shall either quite escape condemnation, or shall be liberated from his doom after some time shorter or longer" (21:22). It should be noted that Augustine opens his comments about these individuals by saying, "I must now, I see, enter the lists of amicable controversy with those tender-hearted Christians who decline to believe that any, or that all of those whom the infallibly just Judge may pronounce worthy of the punishment of hell, shall suffer eternally, and who suppose that they shall be delivered after a fixed term of punishment, longer or shorter according to the amount of each man's sin." (21:17) He refers to these opponents as Christians. He does the same elsewhere, commenting that "those who believe this, and yet are Catholics, seem to me to be led astray by a kind of benevolent feeling natural to humanity" (The Enchiridion, 67). As he mentions in the passage just cited, he wrote an entire work responding to a particular group who held such views. It's titled On Faith And Works, and you can get a twentieth-century English translation of it by Gregory Lombardo (Mahwah, New Jersey: The Newman Press, 1988). In that translation, Lombardo, a Roman Catholic scholar, tells us:

Extrabiblical, Pre-Reformation Support For Eternal Security (Part 1)

A documentary arguing against eternal security recently came out. It's mainly about the Biblical evidence, but it makes some comments about extrabiblical history along the way. Since it makes some misleading comments about the extrabiblical sources, and advocates of eternal security have handled those sources so poorly, I want to comment on the subject. It's not one of my primary areas of research, but I know enough about the topic to provide some information that significantly undermines the documentary's claims.

The King Is Here, Dispensing Favors

"And after rebuking the other [thief on a cross], he [the repentant thief] says, 'Lord, remember me; for with Thee is my account. Heed not this man, for the eyes of his understanding are blinded; but remember me. I say not, remember my works, for of these I am afraid.'...Therefore also he justly heard the words, 'Be of good cheer'; not that thy deeds are worthy of good cheer; but that the King is here, dispensing favours. The request reached unto a distant time; but the grace was very speedy. 'Verily I say unto thee, This day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise; because today thou hast heard My voice, and hast not hardened thine heart. Very speedily I passed sentence upon Adam, very speedily I pardon thee. To him it was said, 'In the day wherein ye eat, ye shall surely die'; but thou today hast obeyed the faith, today is thy salvation. Adam by the Tree fell away; thou by the Tree art brought into Paradise.'...O mighty and ineffable grace! The faithful Abraham had not yet entered, but the robber enters! Moses and the Prophets had not yet entered, and the robber enters though a breaker of the law. Paul also wondered at this before thee, saying, 'Where sin abounded, there grace did much more abound'. They who had borne the heat of the day had not yet entered; and he of the eleventh hour entered. Let none murmur against the goodman of the house, for he says, 'Friend, I do thee no wrong; is it not lawful for Me to do what I will with Mine own? The robber has a will to work righteousness, but death prevents him; I wait not exclusively for the work, but faith also I accept. I am come who feed My sheep among the lilies, I am come to feed them in the gardens. I have found a sheep that was lost, but I lay it on My shoulders; for he believes, since he himself has said, 'I have gone astray like a lost sheep'; 'Lord, remember me when Thou comest in Thy kingdom.''" (Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures, 13:30-31)

The Consistent Gospel Of The Gospels

A couple of years ago, I put together a collection of posts on agreements between the Synoptics and the gospel of John. I've updated it since then. One of the posts there is about the soteriology of the gospels. It's focused on the gospels, but also addresses, to a lesser extent, how consistent the gospels are with the rest of the New Testament.

O all ye who passe by, behold and see;
Man stole the fruit, but I must climbe the tree;
The tree of life to all, but onely me:
Was ever grief like mine?
(George Herbert, "The Sacrifice")

"O happy is that man that shutteth his eyes from all other sights, and will neither hear nor see any other thing than Jesus Christ crucified; in whom are laid up and bestowed all the treasures of God's wisdom and divine knowledge!" (The Benefit Of Christ's Death, 93)

Freed To A Higher Standard

"Christ hath delivered us, he [Paul] says, from the yoke of bondage, He hath left us free to act as we will, not that we may use our liberty for evil, but that we may have ground for receiving a higher reward, advancing to a higher philosophy. Lest any one should suspect, from his calling the Law over and over again a yoke of bondage, and a bringing on of the curse, that his object in enjoining an abandonment of the Law, was that one might live lawlessly, he corrects this notion, and states his object to be, not that our course of life might be lawless, but that our philosophy might surpass the Law. For the bonds of the Law are broken, and I say this not that our standard may be lowered, but that it may be exalted. For both he who commits fornication, and he who leads a virgin life, pass the bounds of the Law, but not in the same direction; the one is led away to the worse, the other is elevated to the better; the one transgresses the Law, the other transcends it. Thus Paul says that Christ hath removed the yoke from you, not that ye may prance and kick, but that though without the yoke ye may proceed at a well-measured pace." (John Chrysostom, Commentary On Galatians, 5, v. 13)

There Were Many Views Of Baptism Before The Reformation

I've been seeing a lot of comments lately to the effect that every Christian believed in baptismal regeneration before the Reformation, that the church fathers all held a particular view of baptism that contradicts what most Evangelicals believe, etc. Typically, almost always, issues like these are approached as if there was one view of baptism that was held universally or almost universally prior to the Reformation.

Does baptism save?

Obviously (1 Peter 3:21). It's remarkable that so many Evangelicals deny it or try to avoid saying it. What they ought to do, instead, especially when it's so evident what the people asking them the question are up to, is say something like, "Yes, baptism saves, but in the sense of sanctification, not justification." That's the context in which Peter was writing. The surrounding context is primarily about sanctification, such as "good behavior in Christ" (3:16) and "suffering in the flesh" as Christ did (4:1). There's a reference to a good conscience in 3:16, which is about sanctification, and verse 21 refers to a good conscience, which makes more sense if both passages are addressing sanctification. The context discusses how believers should approach opposition from non-Christians. Baptism involves a public commitment to God that sets the Christian apart in front of the surrounding culture, including those in the culture who are hostile to Christianity. Peter occasionally mentions justification in his letter, much as he occasionally mentions other topics, but he's primarily addressing post-conversion issues. That context favors a non-justificatory interpretation of "saves" (as in Matthew 8:25, 1 Timothy 4:16, Hebrews 5:7, 9:28, 1 Peter 3:20, etc.). Noah was already saved in the sense of justification when the flood occurred. His salvation in the flood context was of a different nature, as Peter's readers were saved through baptism in a non-justificatory manner. The parallel with Noah and the flood is vague under either reading, but makes somewhat more sense if Peter's focus is on sanctification rather than justification.

The Price You Pay To Start Baptismal Regeneration At The Great Commission

Advocates of baptismal regeneration sometimes claim that it didn't go into effect until the time of the Great Commission, thereby avoiding arguments against the doctrine from the thief on the cross and other earlier individuals justified apart from baptism. There are some problems with that position, however:

Early Christian Conversions Independent Of Baptism

I want to discuss a neglected line of evidence against baptismal regeneration and baptismal justification. There's a widespread pattern of early Christian conversion accounts that involve significant changes in the individual's life prior to his baptism. Those changes range across a spectrum. Often, it can be shown to be probable that regeneration or justification occurred before baptism (e.g., through a reference to forgiveness of sins, through a reference to the reception of the Holy Spirit). But even if prebaptismal regeneration or justification is only possible rather than probable when a conversion account is considered in isolation, that account can have more evidential significance than is typically suggested, such as when it's considered in a larger context, like one of the ones I'll be discussing below.

How Baptismal Justification Conflicts With The Nearness Of Redemption

The concept that salvation is at hand, often expressed by the phrase "Today is the day of salvation", is common in scripture (2 Corinthians 6:2, Hebrews 4:7) and Evangelicalism. In the first of the two passages just cited, we see not just the term "today", but even "now". In Romans 10:8, Paul writes of the nearness of redemption in a context in which faith is mentioned as the means of justification without any reference to baptism or people sent to baptize (whereas people sent to proclaim the gospel message are mentioned). Tertullian advocated justification through baptism, but conceded that "in days gone by, there was salvation by means of bare faith, before the passion and resurrection of the Lord" (On Baptism, 13). Cyril of Jerusalem, one of the church fathers who used highly efficacious language both when discussing faith prior to baptism and when discussing baptism, commented, "Die to thy sins, and live to righteousness, live from this very day….Say not, How are my sins blotted out? I tell thee, By willing, by believing. What can be shorter than this?" (Catechetical Lectures, Prologue, 5, 8) A line of a popular hymn tells us, "The vilest offender who truly believes, that moment from Jesus a pardon receives" (Fanny Crosby, "To God Be The Glory"). That theme doesn't go well with the concept of justification through baptism, however. Under baptismal justification, not only are we not justified the moment we believe, but we often have to wait until a baptism days, weeks, or months later.

Justification Apart From Baptism Among Pre-Reformation Waldensians

In an article published in 1900, Henry Vedder quoted what some Roman Catholic sources reported about the beliefs of the earliest Waldensians ("Origin And Early Teachings Of The Waldenses, According To Roman Catholic Writers Of The Thirteenth Century", The American Journal Of Theology, Vol. IV, no. 3, July 1900, pp. 465-89). You can read the article on the page just linked. I want to quote some portions of what a few of those Catholic sources said about how the Waldensians viewed salvation and baptism. As with other issues, there is no one view that every Waldensian held. And it could be that one or more of these Waldensians was misunderstood, that somebody who wasn't a Waldensian was mistaken for one, and so on. But since I'm citing a few different Catholic sources (whose reliability is discussed in the article linked above), and those sources sometimes use the plural to describe the Waldensians they're discussing, for example, it seems highly unlikely that no Waldensians actually held the views in question.

My understanding is that the large majority of pre-Reformation Waldensians believed in justification through works of one variety or another, including justification through baptism. But it seems that a small minority of them rejected baptismal justification. Here are some of the relevant comments from the Catholic sources as Vedder quotes them:

The History Of Belief In Justification Apart From Baptism

We've written far too much on the subject for me to link everything here. But I want to provide links to some examples of our more important posts on the topic. I plan to supplement this post with more links in the future when warranted. You may want to periodically return here to check for updates.

The Early Development Of Baptismal Beliefs And Practices

Advocates of baptismal justification and some other views of baptism (e.g., infant baptism) often speak of their views as if they were universally agreed upon in earlier centuries. Some of the groups involved even claim that they belong to an institution that's always held all apostolic teaching in unbroken succession throughout church history, that the institution is infallible, that all or a large percentage of the church fathers were part of their institution, and so forth. So, it's significant accordingly if we see early baptismal theology being more developmental and varied than claims like the ones I just mentioned would suggest. And for those who think there was an early departure from apostolic teaching on one or more baptismal issues, evidence of development and variation in early views of baptism can provide significant evidence for their position accordingly.

Baptism And Justification In The Odes Of Solomon

The Odes Of Solomon is more difficult to judge than other sources in some ways. It's a songbook, consisting of poetry, and poetic language is often less exact and more difficult to interpret. And the speaker in the odes sometimes seems to change, even within a single ode, and it's sometimes hard to tell who's doing the speaking. For reasons like those, we have to be more cautious than usual in interpreting the document accordingly.

Baptism And Justification In Aristides

Aristides is one of the most neglected of the earliest church fathers. He seldom gets mentioned in patristic discussions, and I don't remember ever seeing anybody bring him up in the context of soteriology in particular. He didn't write much about soteriology, but he did make some comments of significance that are worth discussing.

Baptism And Justification In Polycarp

It's often claimed that belief in justification through baptism was universal among the church fathers, that everybody between the time of the apostles and the Reformation held that view, or something similar. I've periodically responded to that claim over the years, such as here, and I added some other posts on the subject last year. I want to add a few more this year before collecting links to some of these posts in one place for future reference.

Polycarp's Letter To The Philippians occasionally discusses soteriological issues, but not in a lot of depth. For example:

"'In whom, though now ye see Him not, ye believe, and believing, rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory;' into which joy many desire to enter, knowing that 'by grace ye are saved, not of works,' but by the will of God through Jesus Christ….If we please Him in this present world, we shall receive also the future world, according as He has promised to us that He will raise us again from the dead, and that if we live worthily of Him, 'we shall also reign together with Him,' provided only we believe." (1, 5)

The focus is on faith, but he requires works in some sense as well, probably in the sense of works being the fruit of justifying faith. Just before what I quoted in section 1 of the letter, Polycarp refers to how "the strong root of your faith, spoken of in days long gone by, endureth even until now, and bringeth forth fruit to our Lord Jesus Christ". He had noted that justification is "not of works". He connects that comment in section 1 of the letter to 1 Peter 1:8, which refers to believing in Jesus. In that passage, Peter is addressing the present faith of people who are already Christians, so he doesn't have some sort of combination of faith and baptism in view. Polycarp refers, in section 1, to how people want to "enter" the joy referred to in 1 Peter 1:8, so his references to faith and the exclusion of works probably are focused on the beginning of the Christian life at that point. Near the end of Polycarp's letter, he refers again to those who "shall believe in our Lord Jesus Christ" (12). There's no reference to being justified through baptism, being justified in the context of baptism, or anything like that anywhere in the letter. The most natural reading of the references to faith is that they're meant in an unqualified sense, not in the qualified sense of faith accompanied by baptism, faith at the time of baptism, or some such thing.

The letter isn't long, and there isn't much relevant material in it. But what's there leans against baptismal justification rather than in favor of it.