Originally Posted By: JUGHEAD
The book of Acts is a transitional book that give the account of God shifting gears from the Gospel of the Kingdom to the Gospel of Grace and it has to be read as such. Phillip was simply doing what all that he knew at that moment. God had not yet revealed to Paul, the priest of the Gospel of Grace and the one that God would use to teach the apostles accordingly, about the age of Grace. Repent and be baptized was the Gospel of the Kingdom, intended for the Jews and ushered in by John the Baptist. The Jews rejected their Messiah and nailed him to the cross and God shifted gears to the Gospel of Grace, intended for Jew and Gentile alike in this current age, which says to believe in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Same Messiah, 2 different dispensations/ages.


Respectfully, you cannot prove these assertions by using the Bible. If baptism was not needed in the time period when Paul preached, the account of Acts 19:1-5 would not exist. This passage very clearly claims there was a difference between John's baptism and Christ's baptism. Also, this same Paul that you claim didn't include baptism stated in Galatians 3:27-28 that both Jews & Gentiles had been baptized into Christ and become part of the body. Furthermore, this same Paul claimed in 1 Corinthians 1:14-16 that he had baptized Chrispus, Gaius, and the household of Stephanus. Finally, this same Paul wrote in Colossians 2:12 that people were "buried with Christ in baptism"... and the letter of Colossians was addressed to the church at Colossae... not just Jewish Christians who met there. As someone else mentioned above, Scripture is the authority... and we must correctly handle it (2 Timothy 2:15).

Last edited by Bamarich2; 12/14/12 12:49 AM.