During the first two centuries most Christians believed that baptism canceled all sins committed up to that moment in the believer’s life. Serious postbaptismal lapses called for special treatment. Three sins in particular—sexual immorality, murder, and the denial of the faith (apostasy)—were considered forgivable by God, but never by the church. The penalty for any one of these was exclusion from the fellowship of the church and deprivation of the Lord’s Supper. Since the Communion, most believed, was a special channel of divine grace, withholding it placed a person’s salvation in peril.
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