the Script. teach water baptism is to a penitent believer is essential to salvation from alien sins.

I would like to request that my opponent wait to post his responses as long as possible. I am traveling this week and would like to avoid missing a round. This round shall take form in two parts. The first part will be a response to my opponent's attack on my position found in his round 2 post. the second shall be a more indepth rebuttal of my opponent's opening argument. Response to Round 2) My opponent has brought up the dichotomy of "Are they obedient believers or disobedient believers? " Now, while this has great soteriological bearing, I am not sure what bearing it has on this debate. We are not debating the overall proposition of Sola Fide, we are simply debating the necessity of baptism as a contingent requirement of salvation. My opponent seems to be conflating the two. In all actuality, we know nothing about these individuals either before or after their encounter with Jesus. What we do know is only what the text has shown us. Regardless of this fact, their relative obedience does not bear any impact on the debate, as the topic at hand is baptism. For the sake of the debate, however, I shall answer my opponent's questions. Example 1) The kind of believer that is presented in this account is a believer which baptism is not mentioned. While it is possible that the person had been baptised, we simply do not know. However, what is striking about this account is that Jesus does not command her to be baptised. He simply proclaims that by means of this woman's faith, she has been saved. Example 2) Similar to the first story, this woman's story is entierly unknown in regard to her baptism. We simply see her approach Jesus and exercise her faith. She is then declared saved as a result of that faith. Once again, no indication of baptism happening prior to the encounter, nor a command to be baptised after the encounter, is given. Example 3) Like the first two, this person is declared saved simply because of his faith. Jesus does not indicate that this person had been baptised, nor does he indicate that the person will be baptised. No command for baptism is given. This person is simply declared saved because of his faith. Please note that all three of the prior examples use the same word to describe their salvation. That word, "sesōken," is a Perfect Active Indicative verb. For those of you who are not trained in advanced grammar, let me unpack that for you. When a verb is in the Perfect Tense, it conveys a sense that the verbal process happened in the past and continues to have implications for the present. An Active verb simply means that the subject of the sentence (in this case "faith") is doing the verbal process. Indicative verbs make statements of fact. They indicate what reality is. When taken together we have the verbal process of "save" being used to state the fact that at the point in time of the speaker salvation has already occured, has present implications, and is a statement of fact. Simply put, Jesus is stating that these persons are currently in a state of "saved" and that salvation was conducted by their faith. Example 4) This person is entierly theoretical, so we must recognize that Jesus constructs this reality out of his imagination. As such, he very easily could have indicated that the tax collector was baptised. If baptism is such an integral part of justification, as my opponent asserts, then why is it entierly absent from this entierly theoretical situation. Would we not expect Jesus to include ALL contingent parts of salvation in a theoretical description of what saves a person? In fact, he does not indicate that baptism is a requirement for salvation, and we should take Jesus at face value, that in fact baptism is not a contingent requirement for salvation. To summarize, unless my opponent can conclusively show that the persons in these passages were indeed baptised prior to salvation occuring, we have four examples of persons who were in a current state of salvation without having been baptised, nor recieving a command to be baptised at a later point. Rebutall to Pro's Round 2) Obedient Faith My oppoenent spends a substantial amount of time defending the fact that faith saves only when it acts. However, this is irrelevant to the resolution. The resolution only includes the act of baptism. As such, all discussion of the difference between "by faith alone vs faith that acts" is a red herring and must be ignored. Beyond that, to paint a picture of Sola Fide that presupposes that salvific faith without action is possible is a strawman. The core of Sola Fide is to describe the active agent in salvation, that it is our faith alone that saves us. .. not that obedience is not a necessary result of faith, only that it doesn't play a part in our justification. Ordo Salutis The Order of Salvation, that my opponent presents is based on a faulty understandin of Greek Grammar. My opponent presents several passages in which an apparent sequence is given. However, this is not the case. In Greek, there are several grammatical differences from English. The primary difference is that Greek is not bound by a certian word order. That is to say that in Greek the sentence "Store to I wen tto get juicy oranges many" is identical to "I went to the store to get many juicy oranges. " They convey the same meaning, regardless of the word order. That means that the passages in question very easily could have been written in a different order and meant the same thing. Acts 2:38 could have been translated "Remission of sin, Belief, Baptism" or "Baptism, Belief, Salvation" and still meant the same thing. The implication that this has is that the order of words does not necessarily indicate sequencing unless specific temporal sequences (typically then) is used. So my opponent's point falls apart because it is entirely based on sequencing that he eroneously read into the text. In addition, my opponent asks "Is it not strange that the Holy Spirit never one time had these in the right order? " My response is to point at the four examples presented in my first round in which Baptism is not a part of the equation at all. The order that is presented in those four examples is "Faith" leading to "Saved" which then leads often to "Go and sin no more (be obedient). " For Remission of Sins - Acts 2:38 This passage is commonly brought up in this instance, and I will admit that this is ONE possible interpretation. However, the Greek preposition "eis," which is translated as "for" can mean many things. It could also mean "for" in terms of "to bring about. " This is how the term is being understood by my opponent in Acts 2:38. His interpretation is that Baptism brings about the remission of sins. However, there is another possibility. The word "eis" can also indicate that the word prior to the preposition, baptism, is done because of or a result of the word after, remission of sins. We see a similar construct in Philemon 1:6. "and I pray that the sharing of your faith may become effective for the full knowledge of every good thing that is in us for the sake of Christ. " Paul is not indicating that he prays that the sharing is to bring about the sake of Christ. That translation would be nonsensical. Rather, he is saying that BECAUSE of the sake of Christ he prays for full knowledge. Is it not POSSIBLE that a more proper translation for Acts 2:38 is that we are baptised BECAUSE of the remission of sins? That baptism is done as a resultative requirement of the forgiveness of sins? I am running out of space, so I will address other points as needed in future rounds. At this point, my opponent has not fulfilled his burden of proof to show that universally, baptism is a contingent requirement of salvation. I have, on the other hand, presented four examples of person who were saved without baptism.