Tag Archives: Baptism

Do Muslims and Christians Worship the Same God?

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DO MUSLIMS & CHRISTIANS WORSHIP THE SAME GOD? JACK COTTRELL (composed NOVEMBER 14, 2015) Islam is the world’s second largest religion, with around two billion adherents. This is nearly one-fourth of the world’s population. Fifty countries are mostly Muslim. Europe has around 50 million Muslims, and the USA around 7 million. These numbers are increasing rapidly. But isn’t that a good thing? Aren’t Muslims a religious people, and isn’t Islam similar to Christianity? Don’t we both trace our faith back to the Old Testament, to Abraham? Don’t Christians and Muslims worship the same God? In 2007 George W. Bush said, … Continue reading →

Saved by Grace #4 — SAVED BY GRACE, THROUGH JESUS CHRIST

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Romans 3:24-25 says, “We are all justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth to be a propitiation—a sacrifice of atonement—through faith in his blood” (composite translation). The only way to be saved from sin is by grace, and the only source of grace is what Jesus has done for us on the cross. Here we are seeking to understand exactly what Jesus was doing on the cross to make salvation by grace possible. I. GRACE COMES BY JESUS CHRIST. The general or generic meaning of the Greek word for grace … Continue reading →

Saved by Grace #5 — JUSTIFIED BY FAITH: THE KEY TO ASSURANCE

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The immediate practical benefit of understanding that we are saved by grace is that we have assurance of salvation. Assurance is not the same as “once saved, always saved.” It is a confidence in our present security in Jesus Christ. Ask yourself the question, “If I were to die right now, or Jesus were to return right now, would I be saved?” Assurance is being able to say “YES!” to this question, and every Christian should be able to do this, because of grace. The problem is that many Christians do not have this assurance, because they do not understand … Continue reading →

Saved by Grace #6 — GRACE VS. GALATIANISM

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In lesson five I said that many Christians lack assurance of salvation because they do not understand how “justification by faith” relates to STAYING saved, once one has become a Christian. It is important to distinguish between these two questions: (1) How does a sinner BECOME saved? and (2) How does a Christian STAY saved? Many Christians, especially in the Restoration Movement, know how to answer the first question; but many are seriously confused about the second one. A common but faulty approach to this issue is often called Galatianism. It is called this because it is the false view … Continue reading →

Saved by Grace #8 — SAVED BY GRACE, SAVED IN BAPTISM

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We are now ready to explain how baptism and grace are related. First, I will state several basic principles to keep in mind when studying baptism. (A) Every doctrine, including baptism, is based on Scripture first, not on experience. (B) We cannot draw our conclusions about the meaning of baptism from non-Biblical sources, such as the Latin word sacramentum (which often meant “oath, pledge, covenant”). (C) Christian baptism began on the Day of Pentecost. Thus we must not try to base our understanding of it on pre-Pentecostal practices, such as OT circumcision or John’s baptism. (D) There is only ONE … Continue reading →

Saved by Grace #9 — IS BAPTISM A WORK?

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Many in the Christian world will vehemently reject just about everything I said in the previous lesson (part 8, “Saved by Grace, Saved in Baptism”). This is because they view baptism as a work, and believe that this automatically prevents baptism from having anything to do with salvation, since salvation is by grace. In this lesson I will show why this is false thinking. Historically, for its first 1,500 years Christendom was nearly unanimous in its belief that water baptism is the moment of time when God initially bestows saving grace upon the sinner. This includes Martin Luther, who forcefully … Continue reading →

YOUR WORST ENEMY: DEATH

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YOUR WORST ENEMY: DEATH! (A sermon by Jack Cottrell — October 2014) INTRODUCTION. We all know about villains: Darth Vader, Hannibal Lecter, Freddy Krueger, Godzilla, the Joker, the Penguin—to name a few fictitious ones. In real life we could name Stalin, Hitler, Idi Amin, Pol Pot, and Sadam Hussein. The worst villain of all, though, is DEATH! The event of death may be defined simply and briefly as the loss of life. As a state, death is simply the absence of life (where life is the normal state). It is a state of separation from the source of life. We … Continue reading →

THE TYRANNY OF THE PARADIGM Part 3

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THE TYRANNY OF THE PARADIGM Part 3 Jack W. Cottrell      Previously I noted that Michael Denton speaks of how modern science regards Darwinian evolution as the determinative paradigm or controlling interpretive principle to which all scientific data must be made to conform—even when the data are in conflict with the paradigm.  He calls this faulty methodology the “priority of the paradigm” (a la Thomas Kuhn). In that earlier essay I applied this concept to certain faulty theological systems, which likewise are distorted by the tyranny of their respective paradigms.  (I have changed the word “priority” to “tyranny,” a word that … Continue reading →

A NEW BOOK ON BAPTISM: A REVIEW

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I really like this book! It is arguably the best book on baptism (except my Baptism: A Biblical Study, of course!) since George R. Beasley-Murray’s Baptism in the New Testament appeared in 1962. The book is called Recovering the Evangelical Sacrament: Baptisma Semper Reformandum (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2013; 403p., pb.), written by Anthony R. Cross. Like Beasley-Murray, Cross is a British Baptist. A member of the faculty of theology and religion at the University of Oxford in Oxford, England, Cross is an expert in Baptist history and doctrine and in the theology and practice of baptism. This work is … Continue reading →

The Holy Spirit and Acts 8

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QUESTION: As Philip evangelized the Samaritans, many believed and were baptized (Acts 8:12). But verses 15-17 seem to say that the converts did not receive the Holy Spirit at their baptism, but rather when apostles from Jerusalem came and laid hands on them. Other texts also separate the receiving of the Spirit from baptism (e.g., Acts 10:44-48). How can we explain this, especially in light of Acts 2:38? ANSWER: All Zwinglians—those who separate baptism from salvation—love to call attention to such data from the book of Acts. They believe that the data show that there is no appointed connection between … Continue reading →