Salvation the Pentecostal Way

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Dear Bro. Starcher,

If I have not satisfactorily commented on your 'exegesis', it is because
your ideas are still emerging.  As I statated in my last post, your
constant ambiguity makes it impossible to apprehend your meaning.  What
began as a benign-enough discussion on 'moderate' Apostolics has
progressed into a full-blown diatribe against Apostolics who do not
doubt the reality and absolute truth of their message.  Your columnar
tables suggest only that either Luke has not fully described the
conversion experienc ein many passages or that conversion is not
expected to be based upon any necessary relation to Acts 2.38.  I agree
with Bro. Berger, who has noted that Acts 2.38 salvation must be
identified elsewhere in Scripture.  And, I believe it can be.  Often
throughout the Acts of the Apostles, we find the connexion between water
and Spirit baptism.  The epistles also assume that believers have
received both Crhsitian and Spirit baptism.  If you are willing to admit
the salvation of those outside of these experiences, at what point is
the conversion experience completed?  I cannot deal with this topic
further until I understand whether you believe baptism has any
sin-remitting efficacy and that the Holy Ghost is a vital, quickening
component of our personal salvation.

You criticise my 'either/or' logic as Enlightenment Rationalism, but the
Scripture clearly divides between the sacred and profane (Mt. 6.24), the
saved and the damned (Mt. 25.32), the true Church and the false church,
(Mt. 7.21-3), the True Jesus and another Jesus; the True Gospel and
another gospel (II Cor. 11.4).  There is an existing dichotomy between
the two--either/or--parameters established clearly in the Word that
cannot be expanded or retracted based on our human understanding.

Yet, we know that there is but One Way to God--Jesus Christ.  Through
our baptism, we have put on Christ (Gal. 3.27); and through His Spirit,
we are baptised into His body (I Cor.12.13).  Without those elements, it
seems plain to me that we are without the body.

You obviously, and arrogantly, perceive yourself as a transcendentalist
who has laid aside dogmatic trappings and escaped into the Platonic
world of ideas:  out of the cave, as it were.  You indict me for
attempting to understand the Scripture, placing it in some box of human
understanding, appealing to the higher ways and knowledge of God.  Bro.
Starcher, I believe that we *can* know that which God has placed in our
hands through His word.  God, in and through His divinely inspired
Scripture, has made the infallible pronouncements that you refer to.  If
we take this solipsistic approach to Scripture, then we deny that the
Word is indeed profitible for 'doctrine, for reproof, for correxion, for
instruction in righteousness' (II Tm. 3.16).  The Word is our basis of
understanding God.  If you are suggesting that our human faculties do
not allow us to apprehend the reality of God through Scripture, then you
negate its infallibility and its entire purpose.

In my harmonisation of the Gospel accounts and the various writings of
the Apostolic body, I'm not synthesising 'another Gospel' as you charge.
I'm viewing the canon in completion and complementation.  There are not
contending ideas concerning the Gospel and message of Jesus Christ.
There are perspectives that unify to provide the total picture.  You
must remember, dear brother, that God has ordained and inspired the
Word.  It is not a pastiche of author-specific works that we read for
individual merit.  It is a collective, inspired work that intimates the
character and work of God to mankind.

I'm not sure *how* you are charging me with Fundamentalism.  If you'll
make your accusation more clear, perhaps I can address it.  I'm not
relying upon a dogmatic tradition.  Isn't the aim of Apostolics to
divide tradition from Scripture?  When you've properly established your
own stance on such things as baptism in Jesus' name *for* (in the
literal sense) the remission of sins and the necessity of the Holy
Ghost, I can better understand and comment upon your 'exegesis.'

Save your keystrokes on the comparison between myself and Catholics.
I've no use for such rubbish.  Being Apostolic will naturally cause us
to identify with an Apostolic history and understanding of the New
Testament.

Bless you.

Bro. Matthew Shaw