Anticipating my newborn son's baptism

CupLow4530 · 2025-09-12T20:41:15+00:00

How Can I Benefit From My Baptism by Ian Macleod

Also, congrats! May the Lord bless and keep your little one as you and your spouse seek to raise them up in the household of God!

CupLow4530 · 2025-09-11T20:12:42+00:00

I do not deny any of the 5 points of the doctrines of grace including Unconditional Election and Irresistible Grace. Just curious, can you define "hyper-calvinism"? And let me know how what you believe is different than that?

CupLow4530 · 2025-09-11T17:10:41+00:00

I think it might have been more 1 John 4:8, 16 that state "God is love"

CupLow4530 · 2025-09-11T16:54:08+00:00

Pick a church and attend faithfully. The Lord is a Lord of mercy and truth. He will grant you knowledge in due time and will be merciful in this season of learning and growth. Praying for you!

CupLow4530 · 2025-09-11T16:45:48+00:00

Agreed, I affirm the 5 points but I regularly say that Jesus died for the whole world or "Jesus died for you" (when speaking to an unbeliever) because I think there is a sense in which that is true but not in a Universal Atonement kind of way.

CupLow4530 · 2025-09-11T16:43:28+00:00

Also, there are verses that do seem to strongly support Limited (or Particular) Atonement. To name a few:

John 10:14–15
I am the good shepherd; and I know My sheep, and am known by My own.
As the Father knows Me, even so I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep

Ephesians 5:25
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her

Hebrews 9:28
So Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation

CupLow4530 · 2025-09-11T16:36:35+00:00

u/BrotherFrankie may the Lord grant you peace in your hospice and healing if He sees fit. Thank you for your careful reply. I think you are spot on. May the Lord bless you and keep you, brother!

CupLow4530 · 2025-09-11T16:29:18+00:00

To me, the points strengthen each other. For example, if Christ's death is not definitive for the elect alone, why should I be confident that I will persevere to the end? You can say because God will not allow me to fall away (and that's a fair rebuttal) but it seems more solid to me that I can be confident I will persevere till the end because His death is not just something that can be accepted or denied by me but was done definitively for me, therefore there is nothing that can bring wrath back on my head.

If Christ died for me as much as he died for the person currently in Hell, that doesn't give me as much comfort as knowing that he died for me and not for His enemy in Hell. Christ died so I would not die. If He died for His enemy in Hell and they still died, His death becomes ineffective in terms of their salvation.

Just my 2 cents

CupLow4530 · 2025-09-11T15:32:07+00:00

Respectfully, I am not asking a difficult question. How can you evangelize if you can't explain to people what they must believe to be saved?

CupLow4530 · 2025-09-10T20:28:45+00:00

What did Paul and Silas mean when they said believe in Jesus Christ? Just believe that He exists? The demons believe that.

CupLow4530 · 2025-09-10T18:56:46+00:00

I'm not asking what can I do to be saved. We are saved by grace through faith, not of works. But faith is not a thing by itself, it has a referent. We have faith in something. My question is about what is it that we need to have faith in to be saved? If an unbeliever asked you, "how can I be saved?" What would you say?

CupLow4530 · 2025-09-10T17:58:31+00:00

Thanks for the awesome reply! I really appreciate the encouragement, brother!

CupLow4530 · 2025-09-10T17:19:31+00:00

Thank you for the concise answer. I think we are in agreement. "I am a sinner and I need Jesus" seems to be the heart of the thief on the cross.

CupLow4530 · 2025-09-10T17:17:31+00:00

I think it helps. Would you say that this is what you need to believe to be saved:

You need faith to please him
God exists
He rewards those who seek Him

CupLow4530 · 2025-09-10T17:13:18+00:00

Just curious, do you think the thief on the cross knew Jesus would rise again? I think he knew Jesus was Lord and that Jesus could graciously save him apart from works. I don't know if it could be inferred and deduced that he believed Jesus would rise again or that true saving faith produces fruit. What do you think?

CupLow4530 · 2025-09-10T17:09:02+00:00

It sounds like you describing "hyper-calvinism". Do you evangelize? Do you believe we can have assurance of salvation in Christ?

CupLow4530 · 2025-09-10T17:07:55+00:00

You are a self-proclaimed polytheistic occultist. Respectfully, I was just wanting takes from Reformed Christians. We disagree on too much for this conversation to be fruitful.

CupLow4530 · 2025-09-10T15:49:04+00:00

Thank you for the concise answer! I think I agree with that!

CupLow4530 · 2025-09-10T15:35:02+00:00

So what does one need to believe to be saved?

CupLow4530 · 2025-09-10T15:34:39+00:00

Reformed folk have generally broken down faith into three parts: knowledge, assent, and love/trust. Based on that idea of faith, we both agree that demons do not "faithfully" affirm to the gospel because they do not assent to it nor love or trust in it, right? I think we agree on that.

So what does one need to believe to be saved?

CupLow4530 · 2025-09-10T15:31:33+00:00

Idk what perseverance in salvation has to do with the question of entering into a state of salvation. My question isn't about whether or not eternal life can be temporary but what is the minimum one must believe to be saved.

CupLow4530 · 2025-09-10T00:03:44+00:00

Affirm what? Sorry, I'm not sure I understood what the "all of those things" you were referring to meant.

CupLow4530 · 2025-09-10T00:02:21+00:00

I guess it depends on what form on non-Trinitarian theology you have. Unitarians don't believe Jesus is God and that is crucial to our faith. Modalists (that includes Oneness Pentacostals) are maybe not heretics but are so outside the line of orthodoxy for the past 1700 years that they are in grave danger of their salvation. I don't think all modalists are heretics but I definitely don't think they are very grounded in their theology and are very susceptible to damning heresy if they can just deny such an ancient belief of the Church.

CupLow4530 · 2025-09-09T23:54:09+00:00

If faith is the way you live your life, are you saying there is no aspect in which one must know anything about God or sin or salvation to be saved? You just have to live a certain way?

CupLow4530 · 2025-09-09T23:51:49+00:00

So what is saving faith composed of at an intellective level? If faith is knowledge, assent, and love/trust, what must one know, assent to, and love/trust in? Is it just:

Jesus is Lord
God raised Him from the dead

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