A person Becomes a Christian at the Point of Baptism and not before

INTRODUCTION It appears as though my opponent thinks we disagree on much more than we actually do. I will point out how most of what my opponent said in R2 is exactly in line with what I already said in R1, aside from a slight twist at the end on which the resolution of this debate hinges. HOW TO BE SAVED My opponent correctly points out via Ephesians 2:8-9 that we are saved because of what God has already done on our behalf. Because of His grace, God has freely given us the gift of salvation that must simply be accepted. I completely agree with all of this, as I already explained in R1. Now let's ask, "When was this gift offered?" It doesn't make sense for me to be able to accept God's gift if He hasn't offered it to me yet because He is waiting for me to do something first. "Christ died for sins once for all" (1 Peter 3:18 NIV). Those who lived and died before Christ's time on earth looked ahead by faith to the fulfillment of the promises they were given, and those of us who came after the time of Christ look back by faith to the fulfillment of the promises our ancestors were given. The gift is our Savior Jesus Christ, who existed before time began (John 1:1). Thus, to answer the question, the gift is received the moment it is accepted by faith because it has already been offered. To clarify some misunderstandings that may come from reading my opponent's R2, I never claimed that God's grace was not part of the Gospel that saves. Obviously God's grace is the starting point of the Gospel (Eph 2:8). What I explained in R1 is Paul's clear explanation of what the Gospel is and what it isn't. God has different roles for different people, and Paul explained that his calling was to preach the Gospel, not to baptize. THE IMPORTANCE OF ACTIONS If one truly does accept God's gift by faith and is saved as per above, what should be the result of that? This is where again my opponent seems to think he is disagreeing with me, whereas he actually repeated much of what I said in R1. My opponent said in R2 that "the Gospel is something to obey as well as believe." This makes me wonder if he even read my argument! I agree with this statement wholeheartedly and stressed it GREATLY in R1 under THE IMPORTANCE OF ACTIONS. I never downplayed but rather emphasized the importance of walking the walk in the Christian life, and I encourage my opponent to reread my R1 argument more carefully. My opponent said in R2 that "…none of them kept the law good enough to be saved. Yet this is not saying obedience is not required to be saved." Although this is a misleading way of stating it, I agree with what I believe is the the intent of this analysis. I'll reword it as follows: "this is not saying that whether or not you obey has no bearing on the status of your salvation." I spent more than a third of of my R1 argument stressing the fact that faithful actions is evidence of a heart that truly believes. Someone who says that he believes in God but doesn't allow this belief to change his life at all is only claiming to believe in God and is thus fooling himself. Being saved from your sins is as simple as confessing them and accepting Christ as your Savior by faith (Ephesians 2:8-9), but you have to mean it (James 2:14,17). Words by themselves are empty if they aren't backed up by true meaning. And how can you know if a person's words have true meaning? By looking at what he DOES (Matt 7:20). This is the proper place for actions. They are not a prerequisite for but rather a consequence of one's saving faith. MARK 16:16 I would like to address my opponent's inaccurate analysis of an example I gave to parallel Mark 16:16. For reference: Mark 16:16 - Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. My example - Whatever has feathers and flies is a bird, but whatever does not have feathers is not a bird. Swordmaster's - He who reads and is comprehending will be enlightened, but he who does not read will be ignorant. My opponent claims that the lack of the words "and is" in my example makes the analogy fail. To demonstrate the fallacy of this argument, I will rewrite my example as: Whatever has feathers and and is a flying creature is a bird, but whatever does not have feathers is not a bird. Ta da! My example has not changed meaning in the least, and it now has the words "and is" just to make my opponent happy. Likewise, I can take my opponent's example and rewrite it as: He who reads and comprehends will be enlightened, but he who does not read will be ignorant. Ta da! The meaning of my opponent's example has clearly not changed in the least, but it is now missing the words "and is." My opponent's appeal to grammar is a poor attempt to disregard the point I made. To get back to the point, my opponent's example actually adds to my example as further confirmation that Mark 16:16 is NOT claiming that unsaved believers aren't yet saved. As Pro said, "How can you be baptized if you do not believe?" Exactly. Going through the motions of being baptized MEANS NOTHING unless you understand what you are doing. My opponent's example stresses the importance of understanding the meaning behind the actions. Simply going through the motions that make you look like a Christian, such as reading the Bible, going to church, helping the poor, fasting, praying, and being baptized is meaningless and gains you nothing in eternity unless you have the proper understanding (beliefs) about these actions. QUESTIONS In response to my opponent's questions: 1. Were the People in Acts 2:37 saved at that point in their lives? No. 2. Were the People that Acts 2:47 is talking about saved at that point? Yes. 3. What did they do between verses 37-47 that got them saved? Verse 41 says that "Those who accepted [Peter's] message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day [or were saved]." The message that Peter shared with them was to "repent and be baptized…in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit" (verse 38). This is no different than the discussion of Mark 16:16 above. Those who repented (asked God for forgiveness of their sins and turned from them, meaning they had faith) and were baptized were saved (received the gift of the Holy Spirit). My opponent unfortunately misunderstands these verses in the same way he misunderstands other verses where salvation and baptism are mentioned in the same sentence. Although the people in Acts 2 repented and were "baptized…in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of [their] sins", this does not mean that they were baptized "in order to obtain" forgiveness. The most literal translation of this verse would render the verb in question "unto" instead of "for", giving the indication of being baptized "because" they have already been forgiven and are thus taking an important next step in the Christian life. Because of the ambiguity of the English word "for", these confusions can arise. For a clearer understanding of when a person is saved, we should look to passages like Ephesians 2:8-9 which directly address only the issue of how to be saved: "It is by grace you are saved, through faith." To comment briefly on my opponent's response to one of my questions: "If a person waits until Sunday when they were taught Saturday night to be baptized, they had their opportunity." I never asked you about a person who was told that he needed to be baptized but about a person who professed faith in Christ and made the decision on his own to be baptized because he understood the meaning of it. And as far as why he waited one day, well, it was 3am when the Gospel was shared with him for the first time by his roommate and there's no such thing as a 24-hour drive through baptism pool. That's why. But according to your answer, this person had his opportunity?