PANEL DISCUSSIONS w ith D n Samuel H. Sutherland and Dr. Charles L. Feinberg
Q. “W ill you please explain John 3:5, ‘Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be bom of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God’.” A. Some people have erroneously in ferred from this passage that water baptism is necessary to salvation. Three principal views of this Scripture are as follows. Being bom of water and of the Spirit has reference to physical birth. (That is not a generally accept ed view..) The next is that the Lord Jesus is requiring traditional baptism with water of Nicodemus. If this were so then the order would he wrong. Throughout the New Testament it is always that we are to believe and then to be baptized in water. The Lord asked, “Are you a teacher in Israel and yet you do not know these basic spiritual truths?” Whence did our Sav iour expect Nicodemus to know these things? R e m e m b e r Ezekiel 36:25, “Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you.” This is God’s purg ing and cleansing Word through His Holy Spirit. Notice the order of clean water and then the Spirit. The verse here in John’s Gospel refers to the Word when it mentions water. Again, when the Lord referred to the man who believes He said that out of his innermost being there would flow riv ers of living water. In this case, water refers to the Holy Spirit. This third view is the proper Scriptural meaning of the passage.
Q . Pony, Montana — “How can one tell which is the correct religion?” A. The word “religion” is being very loosely translated today. It does not refer to denominations but to the major beliefs such as Mohammedanism, Bud dhism, Shintoism and others. Religion is pictured as man groping and reach ing out to find God. Christianity on the other hand is God reaching down to man in the person of His only be gotten Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the vital difference between Chris tianity and world religions. As to which is correct, as one example, look at the status of women and see how they are degraded in lands where true Christianity is not practiced. Another external evidence is that of the Jew. Read the accurate fulfillments of prophecy relative to them. The Jew has been portrayed and pictured in de tail in both the Old and New Testa ments. This race is one of the greatest miracles of all mankind. The Word of God tells us what is the true religion and that all others compared with it are false (I John 4:1). Q . Albany, Oregon — “Please give me your position on capital punishment.” A. There is only one Scriptural posi tion on capital punishment, “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man” (Genesis 9:6). There is a great deal of modern sentimentalism that is in the world today but this does (continued on next page) 15
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