God Vs Religion – Protestant
According to Patheos.com, Protestantism, began in northern Europe in the early 16th century as a reaction to medieval Roman Catholic doctrines and practices. Along with Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, Protestantism became one of three major forces in Christianity. Protestantism, is not a specific denomination, rather a branch of denominations that stemmed off of the teachings of Martian Luther, Huldrych Zwingli (Ulrich Zwingli) (1484-1531), and John Calvin (1509-1564). Apart from salvation by grace, they encompass a wide theological spectrum ranging from conservative to liberal ideologies. So, when taking a look at churches labeled as Protestant make sure you do your research to see exactly which ones follow the Bible as their authority.
After a series of European religious wars in the 16th and 17th centuries, and especially in the 19th century, Protestantism spread throughout the world, it influenced the social, economic, political, and cultural life wherever they took it.
The word ‘Protestant’ comes from the protests made by German princes at the Second Diet of Speyer in 1529, which was an assembly of men forming together to prosecute anyone who disagreed with Roman Catholic rule. The Diet voted to end the toleration of those who followed the teachings of Martin Luther within Germany, who had previously been granted at the first Diet in 1526.
The core of Protestant teaching lies within the Five Solae (Latin, meaning ‘Alone’), which provide a summary of Protestant theology. Essentially, Protestantism is characterized by emphasis on the Bible as the sole source of infallible truth and the doctrine of salvation by grace through faith alone. Protestants traditionally encourage private interpretation of the Scriptures by individuals rather than relying on the interpretation of them from the church, for example the Roman Catholics using the Magisterium to interpret Scripture. And since each individual has their own interpretation of what the Bible says, especially if using modern day version, each denomination holds their own distinct doctrine.
When And Who Founded Protestantism?
On October 31, 1517, according to traditional accounts, this all started with Martin Luther (1483-1546), who posted up his 95 ‘Theses’ on the door of Wittenburg Cathedral. Luther’s major concern was the corruption in the practice of selling indulgences, defined in the Catechism of the Catholic Church as “…a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven.” Indulgences were being sold to reduce (or in some case eliminate) the time that departed souls would have to spend in Purgatory, a place the Catholics believed those who died would go in order for those living to pay their way into heaven quicker.
Luther, along with Huldrych Zwingli (Ulrich Zwingli) (1484-1531), and John Calvin (1509-1564), took their message of salvation by grace through Jesus Christ all over Europe. For all three leaders this was a hopeful message because if salvation were determined by ones individual hands, it would certainly fail. All three reformers denied human freewill with respect to salvation. In other words, they believed that salvation is not an act of ones own freewill rather something given to them by God if He chooses to do so.
It is also true for many Protestants that even after being saved Christians remain totally at the mercies of God. No action or work on their part keeps them in God’s grace, He alone sustains them in salvation and even though they are forgiven, they remain sinners.
What Do Protestants Believe?
Protestants share the same ideology as Catholics Eastern, Orthodoxy, and even Judaism in regards to creation: God created the world out of nothing; the world is good; God populated it with plants, animals, and humans who enjoyed the earthly paradise and direct contact with God. But Adam and Eve, rebelled against God, and one sinful act separated them from God, cursed human nature, subjected them to death, and marred His perfect creation.
The Five solae are the five Latin phrases that emerged during the Protestant Reformation and they are what reformers use as the basis for biblical doctrine beyond that, especially that of Christ. The Latin word sola means “alone”. So, this is the core of every Protestant church.
1. Sola Gratia (Grace alone) – Salvation is the free gift of God to man. It is given by God’s Grace alone and not through any merit on the part of the Christian.
2. Sola Fide (Faith alone) – We are judged righteous in the sight of God purely on the basis of our faith. The atoning sacrifice of Christ leads to righteousness being imputed to us as sinners through a legal declaration by God. This is often stated as Justification by faith alone. There is a clear distinction between Justification and Sanctification, the latter being the growth in holiness arising from the work of the Holy Spirit in the Christian.
3. Solus Christus (Christ alone) – Christ is the one Mediator between God and man and our salvation is accomplished only through His death and resurrection. In addition, every believer is a priest before God, with immediate access to him for the forgiveness of sins. This is known as the doctrine of the Priesthood of all believers. Protestants insist that no other special form of Priesthood is necessary, as opposed to the Catholic view of a ministerial priesthood being required for the administration of the Sacraments and forgiveness of sins.
4. Sola Scriptura (Scripture alone) – Scripture alone is the only infallible source of divine revelation and the final authority for matters of faith and practice. Sola Scriptura does not mean that all truth is contained in the Bible, but rather that all mankind needs to know for salvation is contained within its pages. Protestants typically argue that Scripture is clear to all people regarding the essential truths of the Christian Gospel of salvation. In contrast to the Roman Catholic view of a Magisterium (teaching office) of the church, which is required to infallibly interpret scripture; Protestants argue that through the Holy Spirit, individuals can, by themselves interpret the scriptures responsibly.
5. Soli Deo Gloria (To the glory of God alone) – Every aspect of the Christian life is to be seen as giving glory to God. It also stemmed from the reformers opposition to what they perceived as the unwarranted glorification of the Popes and other clergy.
What Does The Bible Say About This?
1. Sola Gratia (Grace alone) – Salvation is a free gift from God granted solely by grace to those who believe in and accept that His Son, Jesus Christ died on the cross a sinless man, was buried, and arose three days later to put an end to the curse of death and hell. “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” – Romans 6:23
2. Sola Fide (Faith alone) – Salvation is only granted by grace through our faith alone in Jesus Christ. The is absolutely nothing that we can do to merit salvation on our own. “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.” – Ephesians 2:8-9.
When we accept Christ for our salvation, we take on His righteousness, and that is what justifies us. Justification means, pardoned from the punishment of sin. “Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;” – Romans 3:24-25.
Sanctification means to be cleansed from our sin. Jesus does both. As we walk in the newness of Christ He does purge sin away from us, cleansing us from all unrighteous as we confess sin. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” – I John 1:9.
3. Solus Christus (Christ alone) – Christ is the only Mediator between God and man, without Him we cannot reach God. “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus;” – I Timothy 2:5.
And yes, every believer becomes a priest of God, having been consecrated by His blood, which enables us to be able to speak directly to God. “But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light: Which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.” – I Peter 2:9-10.
4. Sola Scriptura (Scripture alone) – Scripture is the infallible, meaning without error, words of God, penned down by men who were inspired by the Holy Spirit to tell His story and the people He used to tell it. Scripture does give a clear, and to the point understanding of the Gospel, and it is the Holy Spirit that directs us to that understanding. “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.” – II Timothy 3:16-17.
5. Soli Deo Gloria (To the glory of God alone) – Every blessing, every pain, every sorrow, every trial, and every bit of chastening we get needs to be given glory to God. It is God who creates us and does not give us what we rightfully deserve. Everything from salvation to our provisions, to our enduring temptation and sin is worthy of giving praise to Him. “For if I by grace be a partaker, why am I evil spoken of for that for which I give thanks? Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.” – I Corinthians 10:30-31.
About Sin:
In Protestant thought, as in most traditional Christian teaching, humans were created in the image of God. That is, they are stamped with certain characteristics of God—rationality, moral integrity, freedom, and spiritual life—and are made to glorify God and live in a joyful and loving relationship with God and with others. Adam and Eve had this relationship in the Garden of Eden and lost it through sin. The image of God was irretrievably (from a human perspective) shattered. The entire drama of redemption through the incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection was God’s way of restoring this right relationship.
Protestants teach that in rejecting God’s way, humans put their own desires above God’s, and thus this has been the mark of human nature since the fall; humans place themselves rather than God in the center of creation and in the center of their own existence. This self-centeredness is what the reformers meant by original sin. Because of the unity of the human race, including unity with Adam, human beings are born as sinners, not as innocents.
What Does The Bible Say About This?
Mankind is created in God’s image, that means we have the same characteristics of God as pertaining to our senses. For example, God is a jealous God, He grieves, He repents, He hears, He sees, and we do have the ability to reason. “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” – Genesis 1:26-27.
God gave man everything they ever needed, including Himself, He only had one rule to keep that friendship, and that was obedience. If man disobeyed, they would not only lose that friendship, they will die. “And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” – Genesis 2:16-17.
That one act of disobedience caused enmity between God and man, the curse of mortality and suffrage, as well as death upon the soul. That was when God removed His Spirit from mans soul, having realized that the second we are created we are born with a sin nature. “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;” – Genesis 3:15-17.
About The Bible:
In the beginning, Protestants, emphasized by Luther, believe the Bible as the highest source of authority for the church. The early churches of the Reformation believed in a critical, yet serious, reading of scripture and holding the Bible as a source of authority higher than that of church tradition. The many abuses that had occurred in the Western Church before the Protestant Reformation led the Reformers to reject much of its tradition, though some [who?] would maintain tradition has been maintained and reorganized in the liturgy and in the confessions of the Protestant churches of the Reformation. In the early 20th century, a less critical reading of the Bible developed in the United States, leading to a “fundamentalist” reading of Scripture. Christian fundamentalists read the Bible as the “inerrant, infallible” Word of God, as do the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Anglican and Lutheran churches, but interpret it in a literal fashion without using the historical critical method.
What Does The Bible Say About This?
The Bible is the inerrant, infallible written Word of God. God uses forty men who were inspired by the Holy Spirit to either tell their own story or what God instructed them to pen down. Some of the writers were told word for word what to write, like when God instructed Moses on the mount what to write in the Law. Others were told to tell their side of the story, like the four Gospels, each person told their side if what they witnessed walking with Jesus for three and a half years. Regardless of what is penned down, there are no missing books, there are no errors in the Scriptures, and everything that was written was truly inspired and directed by God. “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.” – II Timothy 3:16-17.
About Jesus:
Most Protestants also maintain the traditional belief in Christ’s substitutionary atonement. In other words, the way that Jesus saves humans is by taking up the punishment for sin, which is death, on their behalf. This is the supreme act of love: God suffering, laying down life, bearing shame, and embracing death. Having paid the penalty and mended the relationship between humanity and God, Jesus can freely offer divine forgiveness. Such a belief is related to a doctrine of two natures, fully human and fully divine. Jesus took on humanity because it is humans who have incurred an infinite debt for sin, and so humanity must pay it. But because the debt of sin is infinite, only an infinite being (a God) can pay it. Thus a God-man is in some sense necessary.
Since the Enlightenment in the 18th century, some Protestants have rejected the idea that Jesus is God, and some have rejected the doctrine of the substitutionary atonement. Unitarians, for example, conclude that both make no sense. They, along with some liberal Protestants from other denominations, tend to see Jesus solely as an emissary from God, a human model of sacrifice and service, and the most effective teacher on morality.
What Does The Bible Say About This?
There are so many things wrong with this statement, the Bible clearly tells us not only that Jesus, the Son of God, is also God, but that He is a man as well. “I and my Father are one.” – John 10:30. Even the Jews sought to kill Him, knowing that when He said He was the Son of God that made Him of God. “Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God.” – John 5:18.
The Bible also clearly tells us that Jesus is the atonement sacrifice, “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement.” – Romans 5:9-11.
Jesus was not the substitute, the animal sacrifices were the substitute, Jesus made atonement possible permanently. “But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins. But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God; From henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool. For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.” – Hebrews 10:3-4,12-14.
Jesus paid the penalty of sin, which is death and hell, for all who believe in this sinless sacrifice. “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” – Romans 6:23.
You must believe that Jesus is the Son of God, born of the virgin Mary, who was conceived through immaculate conception of the Holy Spirit (that makes Him God). This is what enabled Him to be able to become the sacrifice that would save those who believe in Him. Jesus was capable of sin just as we are, but remained sinless. “Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.” – Hebrews 4:14-15.
Again, all this was done exactly as it was foretold for Jesus to be able to be the sacrifice that would save those who believe in Him. “And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift: for the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offences unto justification. For if by one man’s offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.)” – Romans 5:16-17.
Jesus came here to be more than the atonement sacrifice, He came here to be an example of how we are to live as believers. Except for dying on the cross, we are very capable of living the way Jesus lived while was here. “For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you. Verily, verily, I say unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord; neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him. If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.” – John 13:15-17.
About Salvation:
Protestants believe that believers are not justified, or pardoned for sin, solely on condition of faith in Christ rather than a combination of faith and good works. Good works are a necessary consequence rather than a cause of justification. However, while justification is by faith alone, there is the position that faith is not. John Calvin explained that “it is therefore faith alone which justifies, and yet the faith which justifies is not alone: just as it is the heat alone of the sun which warms the earth, and yet in the sun it is not alone.”
Some Protestants hold that there is nothing one can do to earn a spot in heaven; God freely chooses to forgive the sins of some, and they can enter heaven. Others hold that though forgiveness is only possible through God’s grace, it is offered to all and anyone can freely accept this forgiveness. These Protestants, who endow humans with some degree of freewill and some responsibility for effecting their own salvation, tend also to believe that one’s ultimate fate rests to some extent on one’s works—both in actively choosing God through faith, and in a life of growing conformity to the teaching of Christ.
What Does The Bible Say About This?
The Bible clearly states that salvation is the gift of God, by our faith in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and not of our own works. God does decide who gets to go to heaven, it is those who received His Son as their Saviour, trusting in His Gospel. There is absolutely nothing one can do to receive, earn, or keep their salvation except for accepting Jesus Christ as your Saviour upon your faith in His finished work. Which by the way, is His sinless death, burial, and resurrection. While would have been perfectly justified by believing that Jesus died on the cross, Jesus took that a step further by raising from the dead three days later. “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” – Romans 10:9-10,13.
Salvation not only gives eternal redemption from sin, it gives eternal life as well, as all believers will be resurrected as Jesus upon His return. “For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.” – I Thessalonians 4:16-17.
About The Trinity:
Protestants believe in the God revealed in salvation history. This God is One, the only true God. Yet, most Protestant churches also embrace the traditional doctrine of the Trinity, formulated at the Council of Nicea in 325, which teaches that God is one God in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The three Persons of the Trinity are distinct, but not separate; united in essence and purpose; each involved in the activities of creation, salvation, and sanctification. The Father creates through the Word and by the power of the Spirit; the Son is sent by the Father and saves by becoming incarnate as a human, through the Spirit overshadowing Mary, and dying for our sin; and the Holy Spirit, who breathed over the creation and anointed the Christ, was also active in inspiring prophets and scripture writers, and is active now in bringing people to salvation, forming the Church, and enabling people to live lives pleasing to God and themselves.
What Does The Bible Say About This?
This seems to all be true, but I do not think they practice this as this statement seems to contradict everything else they have quoting. God is all three in one, God, the Father; Jesus, the Son; and the Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost. God is one God, in the form of three persons. It is not that hard to explain, you can use the analogy of an egg, the shell, the while, and the yolk. You can use the analogy of a woman, a mother, a daughter, and an aunt. You can use the analogy of a man, a father, a son, a grandfather. These are all one, they serve specific roles that make them three different people, but they are one person. “This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth. For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.” – I John 5:6-7.
Jesus is also the Word, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. John bare witness of him, and cried, saying, This was he of whom I spake, He that cometh after me is preferred before me: for he was before me.” – John 1:1,14-15.
The trinity is also known as the Spirit, the water, and the blood, but it is all the same thing. “And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one. If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater: for this is the witness of God which he hath testified of his Son.” – I John 5:8-9.
About Heaven:
To Protestants, Heaven is a real place where Christians will connect with and adore God. It is the final destination. Good works can be done only because God asks us to do them. They will not serve to get one into Heaven.
What Does The Bible Say About This?
First of all, God cannot ask us to do good works no more than Satan can ask us to do evil. Despite what people think about God or Satan controlling anyone (although Satan can possess unsaved souls), neither one can. Everything is about choice, that is what freewill is all about. “When your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you. Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me: For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the LORD:” – Proverbs 1:27-29.
Humans and angels are the one beings created by God that can make choices, every other creature naturally does what God made them for. “For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment; And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly; The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished:” – II Peter 2:4-5,9.
Second, our good works cannot get us into heaven. For one, our human comprehension of what constitutes as good is different from God’s. The word good means perfect, and since we are all sinners, that means none of us are perfect, therefore, no good that we do can get us into heaven on our own. “As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;” – Romans 3:10-12,23.
And third, if we do not know Christ as our Saviour, there is no heaven for us. “Be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by him doth this man stand here before you whole. This is the stone which was set at nought of you builders, which is become the head of the corner. Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” – Acts 4:10-12.
About Hell:
Protestants have traditionally believed in the existence of a devil, not as a metaphor for evil but as an actual being who, in conjunction with his emissaries—demons or dark angels—deceives humans and tempts them into sin. The fall of Lucifer, Satan, preceded the fall of humans. When he refused to submit to God’s authority, he was cast out of heaven, where he continually tries to thwart God’s purposes by creating chaos and tempting humans away from God. Protestants believe that even these attempts to obstruct God’s will are in fact used by God to further God’s plans, and at the end of history Satan will be defeated. Similarly, angels are beings sent by God to do God’s work, to protect humans, and to counteract the activities of the devil. All of these—devil, demons, angels—are created beings, not divine beings, and have their existence in God’s purposes.
Today, many Protestants retain traditional beliefs in the devil and in angels. For others, angels seem either uncomfortably pre-modern, or simply have no relevance to their belief system, and the devil is only a symbol of evil. Surveys show that increasing numbers believe in angels (and heaven) but reject belief in the devil (and hell).
What Does The Bible Say About This?
The final judgment, known as Judgment Day, is when all unsaved souls will resurrect to face Jesus, they along with Satan, and all his demons will be cast into the lake of fire, which by the way is, a fiery lake of torment. It is also known as eternal death because they will be in utter darkness, separated from everyone, and tormented with pain and fire for eternity. And
Jesus Christ is the only one who can save us from hell, and the second death.
“And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever. And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.” – Revelation 20:10-15.
“And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely. He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son. But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.” – Revelation 21:6-8.
About Baptism:
Reformed, Lutheran, Anglican, and Methodist Christians continued the practice of infant baptism, though they disagreed with the Catholics that baptism was strictly necessary for salvation (thus they discouraged emergency baptisms of sick infants). For Luther, infant baptism was a sign that salvation was purely a gift from God, not an act of human understanding. Calvin in addition argued that there was only one covenant between God and humans, the sign of which for the Israelites was circumcision, and now for Christians is baptism. Baptism was the precise functional equivalent of circumcision among the Jews, and so Christians ought to baptize at about eight days of age, as the Jews did.
What Does The Bible Say About This?
Water baptism does not remove sin, only Jesus Christ does that, and He did that with His blood. The only way we are cleaned from sin is by confessing to Jesus that we are a sinner, that we believe in His sinless death, burial, and resurrection, and confess that we are only trusting in Him for our salvation. “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him.” – Romans 10:9-12.
Water baptism is a profession of our faith in Christ, it does not save us nor is required in addition to our salvation. However, we do need a spiritual baptism. The second we believe in and receive Christ as our Saviour we are baptized in Him, redeemed forever. “Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead. And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses;” – Colossians 2:12-13.
Resources: Encyclopedia Britannica, protestantism.com.uk, Patheos.com