I occasionally see people claim that debates on the subject, like the recent one between Joe Heschmeyer and Ryan Hemelaar, should only involve passages (in the Bible, in the church fathers, or wherever else) about baptism. Supposedly, passages that only mention faith, for example, aren't relevant. After all, the title of the Heschmeyer/Hemelaar debate, for example, was "Does water baptism save us?". It's a debate about baptism.
Yes, but it's also a debate about salvation. And it's simplistic to suggest that you can only get information about baptism or salvation from baptismal passages.
For example, if somebody thinks that a passage about the nature of justification, a passage that doesn't directly mention the means by which justification is obtained, implies the exclusion of baptism, then it's relevant to the debate. I've argued, for instance, that passages like Romans 10 and 2 Corinthians 6 refer to the immediacy of justification in a couple of ways (the immediate availability of the means by which we're justified, chronological immediacy). Both types of immediacy make more sense under justification apart from baptism than under justification through baptism. The fact that neither passage mentions baptism doesn't change the fact that both provide evidence against baptismal regeneration. As I've argued, baptism is conspicuous by its absence in a passage like Romans 10. When Paul is discussing at such length how to bring the gospel to people and the means by which people are justified after receiving the gospel, and baptism is absent and excluded in the ways I've discussed in the posts linked above, it's unreasonable to respond by objecting that the passage is irrelevant because it doesn't mention baptism.
Similarly, when Jesus and the apostles refer to the continuity in how justification has been received throughout history, that favors justification apart from baptism. Advocates of baptismal regeneration claim that baptism was added as a requirement at the time of John 3:5, at the time of the cross, at the time of the resurrection, at the time of the Great Commission, or whenever, so that we should think that Jesus and the apostles only referred to partial continuity accompanied by some discontinuity in the later adding of baptism. But full continuity makes more sense of the unqualified language of Jesus and the apostles when addressing continuity.
And I could give many other examples of how passages don't have to directly mention baptism in order to be relevant to a debate over baptismal regeneration. All of us rely on this kind of reasoning in many contexts throughout life.
Let's think of the example of a debate over whether we're justified through foot washing. It would be absurd to claim that the only relevant passages are ones like John 3:5 and Titus 3:5 (with the water and washing referring to foot washing) and the foot washing material in John 13. There's nothing wrong with pointing out that justification through foot washing wouldn't be relevant to the Old Testament context Jesus expected Nicodemus to be familiar with in John 3; that the gospels are filled with examples of people being justified apart from foot washing, including in passages that seem to be addressing what's normative; that Acts and other parts of the New Testament provide such examples as well; that various early patristic sources mention faith without mentioning foot washing; that Titus 3:5 seems to be referring to a washing done by the Holy Spirit rather than by a human foot washer and excludes works, with foot washing apparently being a work; that though a passage like John 13:8 can be taken as referring to justification through foot washing, it can plausibly be interpreted otherwise as well; etc. In other words, it would make sense to address the passages that directly mention foot washing (or allegedly do so, as with John 3:5 and Titus 3:5) and other material that doesn't directly mention foot washing, but is relevant.
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