Is the Thief in Heaven Without Baptism?
Today, as I was talking theology with my Church of Christ buddy, he presented an interesting thought to me. You see, those in the Church of Christ denomination believe baptism is necessary for salvation. They will quote Acts 2:38 and Mark 16:16 saying that Scripture demands baptism for eternal life. I disagree with their interpretation, because the translation from Greek, which is how those books were written, to English is not perfect. When you go back to study the original texts, you will see that baptism is not necessary for salvation. I will leave that for you to check out.
In our discussion today, talking about baptism, I said that the thief on the cross was a perfect example that baptism is not necessary for salvation. The reason I said that was because I have always been taught he was in Heaven. I didn't know why I could say he was in Heaven, the fact was that I only said he was there because of my upbringing. See my previous post, and you should see how this discussion helped me to "check it out" for myself. His point to me was that we cannot be sure of this assumption. He told me that because the two theives died before Christ that His blood had not forgiven their sins, which means they were still under the old covenant. I thought for a minute, and I couldn't respond. So, I checked it out, and found the answer in John 19.
The answer is that Christ had died before the two theives, because their legs had to be broken in order for them to die so they wouldn't be hanging on the Sabbath. They didn't break Christ's legs, because He was already dead. All this leads to is another way to show and prove that it is a safe and Biblical truth that the theif is truly in Heaven, as if the proper studies of Acts and Mark aren't decisive enough and as if Christ's very words in Luke 23:42-43 don't seal the deal. Christ's atoning blood had been shed for them already. He was forgiven in the eyes of the Holy God because of the blood, and thus was allowed entrance into Heaven without baptism or works of any kind.
posted by Jon Canler at 9:55 PM
3 Comments:
is the greek word for paradise the same as the one for heaven or eternity...just a question
heaven
My son is sixteen. He says that he does not need physical baptism to get into heaven and that any God that would send him to hell because he does not have it is not a God he would believe in, in the first place.
I as his mother, have been raised believing that physical baptism follows spiritual baptism. I see where Christ having no sin at all underwent physical baptism because it is part of the way to heaven. That all righteousness should be fullfilled.
What does the original greek say? Where can i find what you spoke of concerning the original greek word, sayings concerning baptism and Yesuah?
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