The Highway Forums General Discussion Theology Discussion Forum Thoughts on 1Cor 7:12ff

Hi Joe,
No, I didn't know your history (any more than you know mine). Let me say that I still regard any use of the word 'dispensational' with reference to me as insulting and I wish you wouldn't do it.

With regard to the word holy (1Cor 7:14), I dealt with this in my very first post and you have never interacted with that. You say, 'I have given the definition for holiness from several different angles.' Well, you haven't given it from mine, and I don't think you have given it correctly in the context of mixed marriage in 1Cor 7:14. Read my first post again

The change in covenants may be the reason that the vast majority of Jews hated first our Lord and then the Apostles (Acts 7:54ff). Christianity is more than a sect of Judaism, otherwise it would never have caused the hostility it did. Again, with the greatest respect, you are sewing the new cloth on the old garment, and putting the new wine in the old wineskins. The Old Covenant may have included children, but it did not save them (Exod 33:19); rather it put the yoke of the law upon them ( Acts 15:10; Matt 11:29-30). The promise of the New Covenant is that 'Everyone who calls on the Name of the Lord will be saved.' That is why the New Covenant is a 'better covenant' (Heb 8:6), based on 'better promises' bringing in a 'better hope' (7:19).

You mention Acts 2:39. 'For the promise is to you and your children and to all that are afar off.' Amen! What is thje promise? That they should repent and be baptized (v38). [I'm sure you will agree that faith in Christ is assumed in the repentance- cf. vs 36-37] Infant children are not able to repent and therefore they were not baptized. How easy it would have been for Luke to have written 'along with their children' in v41. But he didn't do it and you have no right to write it in for him.

I have no time to deal with 'oikos' in this post, but I'm happy to come back to it if you'd like me to.

Yes, Christians are the true children of Abraham (Gal 3:29). But if we are Christ's, as the verse says then we shall never perish (John 10:28). This cannot be said authoritatively of infants, baptized or not. 'For you are all sons of God.....' How? 'Through faith in Christ Jesus.' There simply isn't any other way, and rooting through the Old Covenant and imposing it on the New isn't going to find one.

Finally, with reference to Abraham and Ishmael, you are assuming that circumcision and baptism are the same thing. This is never stated in the Bible.

Time has prevented me frm dealing with this as I would wish. However, it's clear that we are just going over very old ground. I shall try to come back once more to address the original topic of the thread, but then I think it's probavbly best if we agree to disagree and move on.

Every blessing,
Steve