# Water baptism essential to salvation according to the early church?



## Trinity Apologetics (Oct 14, 2015)

Hi brethren.

I just heard a moment ago from a Oneness Pentecostal debater that the Christians from the first 500 years of Christianity believed that water baptism was a requirement for salvation and there is no evidence in early writings to the contrary. He even referenced Irenaeus and Justin Martyr and others in attempt to prove they believed water baptism was necessary for salvation. Can you help me with quotes refuting this idea? Are there excellent quotes demonstrating salvation is through faith alone in the first 500 years of church history?

And random question: Are all the BDAG lexicon scholars Trinitarians? I think Thayer is a Unitarian.


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## OPC'n (Oct 14, 2015)

This isn't a quote but biblical evidence is when Chist told the thief who was being crucified along with him that he would see him in paradise. Maybe that's a starting place.


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## earl40 (Oct 14, 2015)

Well here is one piece of evidence vs. "no evidence" this man may want to consider....

St. Augustine: “I have in mind those unbaptized persons who die confessing the name of Christ. They receive the forgiveness of their sins as completely as if they had been cleansed by the waters of baptism. For, He who said: ‘Unless a man be born again of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God,’ made exceptions in other decisions which are no less universal: ‘Everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge him before my Father in heaven’; and again: ‘He who loses his life for my sake will find it.’ So, too, in the psalm: ‘Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.’ For, what could be more precious than a death, which remits all sin and amasses merit? Men, unable to defer their death, who are baptized, and thus depart from life with all their sins forgiven, are not equal in merit to those who have not postponed death, although they could have done so, because they preferred to lose life by confessing Christ than, by denying Him, to gain time for Baptism.” (City of God, Bk. XIII, Chap. 7.)


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## Semper Fidelis (Oct 14, 2015)

Trinity Apologetics said:


> I just heard a moment ago from a Oneness Pentecostal debater that the Christians from the first 500 years of Christianity believed that water baptism was a requirement for salvation and there is no evidence in early writings to the contrary.



Strange for a heretic to be insisting on what the early Church believed was necessary for salvation for the first 500 years. Someone will certainly find quotes for you but what is indisputable is that modalism has always been rejected by the Church.


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## Trinity Apologetics (Oct 15, 2015)

Interestingly, the same man also maintains that the early church was majority Modalistic and the rest were semi-Arians.


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