Safe Haven

Recently, I embedded myself in a discussion (once again) as to whether baptism effects the forgiveness of sins, or rather testifies to it. The Scripture verse in question (as always) is Acts 2:38. I’ll start you with verse 36 just for fun. It reads, “Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.” Verse 37 says, “Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, ‘Brothers, what shall we do?’ And here’s verse 38: “And Peter said to them, ‘Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” (Acts 2:36-38, ESV) Generally, Protestants deny that baptism regenerates the person (with Lutherans as notable exception), but the Churches of Christ say to varying degrees that baptism does forgive sins. For the record, I capitalized ‘Churches’ back there to specificall...