Quote:
Originally Posted by armourbearer  The good conscience is the personal responsibility of the person baptised, not a pre-requisite for baptism. |
Even if this is so, does that mean we should give baptism to a person who we know 100% lacks a good conscience - ie an 18 year old or older person who gives no profession of faith?
Baptism and Noah's salvation may be figuratively connected, but that does not mean every aspect of Noah's salvation applies to baptism.
Because of the other NT verses on baptism, I do not believe that the covenant aspect of Noah's salvation, ie his unbelieving family members being saved through him, applies to determining the subjects for baptism. However, I guess a simple credo vs paedobaptism debate is beyond the topic of this thread.
Returning to the topic of the OT - which is an 18 or older child in the family of converted christian, it seems to be in every instance in the NT a person who was capable of making a profession of faith was only baptized after making such a profession - which is completely in line with 1 Pet 3:21 - they were answering God will a conscience made clean by hearing the gospel.
There were household baptisms, but on the strenght of this verse, why should we assume they included the baptism of unbelieving adults? For the jailor it tells us that Paul preached to all his house first (Acts 16:32), for Cornelius we are told he already feared God with his house before even meeting Peter (Act 10:2). When these examples are combined with 1 Pet 3:21, I see no reason to believe that all adults baptized in household baptisms in the NT had believed the gospel first.