Polaris said:
A single Apostle can call and ordain a Bishop. As illustrated in Acts 1, the same is not true for an Apostle. Calling and ordaining of Apostles would have required that the Apostles meet together for the proper selection and ordination to fill the vacancies. Hence they themselves realized that "distance, persecution, and martyrdome, was inevitably going to keep that from happening."
Except that the Church did meet together when it was necesary, even in spite of such trials. The Apostles managed to elect Matthias (and also apparently Barnabus at some point). They also met together in the first Church Council in Acts 15 to address a major problem facing the Church. Clearly, when the overall health of the Church was in jeopardy, the Apostles did what it took to keep it together and correct error. The sudden take-over of the Church by some renegade Bishop taking too much power and authority surely would pose a major threat to Christianity as a whole, and the Apostles would have done everything they could to correct such egregious error. But they didn't. They had 20+ years to address the issue as heresy, but they never did. They accepted Apostolic authority passed on from Peter, and thus so did the rest of Christianity.
You didn't really address the issue I raised. How does "falling away" describe the emergence of an anti-Christ, unless he was originally part of the Catholic church?
The verse simply says he will emerge, it doesn't say he will be a former Church member.
I can still quite easily see this describing the falling away of the church, and how Satan's influence (i.e. erroneous teachings) infiltrate it and present itself as God's true church.
Except that it refers to a singular man...not the Church entity as a whole. While I agree that there may be "antichrists" or an antichrist mentality at certain times in certain places, Scripture seem quite clear that an individual Antichrist will appear.
"Little children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard the Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come, by which we know it is the last hour." 1 John 2:18
I agree. Children can repent and be baptised as long as they meet the qualifications for baptism. The main purpose of baptism is for "repentance for the remission of sins" (Mark 1:4). Repentance requires two things: sins in need of remission, and a personal decision to forsake and make restitution for your sins. A child who fits both of these requirements can be and needs baptism. Infants do not fulfill either requirement for repentance: they have no sins (sins require an ability to make conscious decisions) and they are not capable of choosing to repent. Since infants do not need repentance and aren't even capable of repenting, baptism of infants makes absolutely no sense. So ... "Repent and be baptised" was not a commandment for infants because they clearly aren't capable of repenting for their sins.
The Greek word for children in that verse is
teknon. The same word is used in these verses:
"but they have been informed about you that you teach all the Jews who are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, saying that they ought not to circumcise their
children nor to walk according to the customs." Acts 21:21
"But we were gentle among you, just as a nursing mother cherishes her own
children." 1 Thess. 2:7
Clearly in both of these cases (children who are circumcised, which occurred at 8 days old; and children who are still nursing), we see that the word
teknon is not a word that is exclusive to children old enough to make their own decisions. Thus, to say that the verse could only apply to such children ignores the meaning of the word, which clearly includes infants. In regards to the necesity of the remission of sins, even infants need salvation, no? If Baptism is a channel of grace which is necesary for salvation, why restrict it from children? Jesus said, "Let the little children (Greek
paidion)come to me," Baptism allows them to do that through a divine channel of grace. There's simply no need to forbid it or condemn it.
Just because a passage says a family was baptised doesn't mean that infants were baptised.
It says the WHOLE family was baptized, as was clearly the custom that the Apostles followed in the early Church. I would assume you believe that infants are a part of the family, no? Therefore, if a man's whole family was baptized, and they had a baby, the baby clearly must have been baptized.
If both of these men believed in the baptism of infants (Irenaeus doesn't specifically refer to baptism of infants), then I flat out believe they are wrong. Baptism of infants contradicts the very fact that baptism is for repentance. How can an infant possibly need or choose to repent? There is no scriptural support for infant baptism.
In terms of adults, you're absolutely right. A cognizant convert to Christianity would need to repent and be baptized. But again, the promise is not just to adults, it is to the children, even the small children still nursing. For these babies, through the decision of the parents since the child cannot decide, a divine channel of grace is opened for them. There's just nothing wrong with that, it is at least implied various times in Scripture, and it is and has been Church practice since the beginning. Again, if these teachings were around so early on in Church history, when exactly was the practice fabricated?
These men were not Apostles and the fact that they lived around the time of the Apostles doesn't necessarily make them authorative.
They were clearly authoritative, they were the leaders of the early Church, who the Apostles said to obey.
There were obviously church members and even leaders that were in error during the lifetime of the Apostles, as is clearly evidenced by Paul's corrective epistles
Yes, and the evidence of corrective epistles clearly indicates that the Church was (and still is) pretty quick to correct error, especially within its own ranks. Yet infant baptism was never condemned.
FerventGodSeeker