Posted on 10/05/2001 11:02:13 PM PDT by Uriel1975
The question of the Subjects of Baptism is one of that class of problems the solution of which hangs upon a previous question. According as is our doctrine of the Church, so will be our doctrine of the Subjects of Baptism. If we believe, with the Church of Rome, that the Church is in such a sense the institute of salvation that none are united to Christ save through the instrumentality of her ordinances, then we shall inevitably determine the proper subjects of her ordinances in one way. If, on the other hand, we believe, with the Protestant bodies, that only those already united to Christ have right within His house and to its privileges, we shall inevitably determine them in another way. All Protestants should easily agree that only Christs children have a right to the ordinance of baptism. The cleavage in their ranks enters in only when we inquire how the external Church is to hold itself relatively to the recognition of the children of Christ. If we say that its attitude should be as exclusive as possible, and that it must receive as the children of Christ only those whom it is forced to recognize as such, then we shall inevitably narrow the circle of the subjects of baptism to the lowest limits. If, on the other hand, we say that its attitude should be as inclusive as possible, and that it should receive as the children of Christ all whom, in the judgment of charity, it may fairly recognize as such, then we shall naturally widen the circle of the subjects of baptism to far more ample limits. The former represents, broadly speaking, the Puritan idea of the Church, the latter the general Protestant doctrine. It is on the basis of the Puritan conception of the Church that the Baptists are led to exclude infants from baptism. For, if we are to demand anything like demonstrative evidence of actual participation in Christ before we baptize, no infant, who by reason of years is incapable of affording signs of his union with Christ, can be thought a proper subject of the rite.
The vice of this system, however, is that it attempts the impossible. No man can read the heart. As a consequence, it follows that no one, however rich his manifestation of Christian graces, is baptized on the basis of infallible knowledge of his relation to Christ. All baptism is inevitably administered on the basis not of knowledge but of presumption. And if we must baptize on presumption, the whole principle is yielded; and it would seem that we must baptize all whom we may fairly presume to be members of Christs body. In this state of the case, it is surely impracticable to assert that there can be but one ground on which a fair presumption of inclusion in Christs body can be erected, namely, personal profession of faith. Assuredly a human profession is no more solid basis to build upon than a divine promise. So soon, therefore, as it is fairly apprehended that we baptize on presumption and not on knowledge, it is inevitable that we shall baptize all those for whom we may, on any grounds, fairly cherish a good presumption that they belong to Gods people and this surely includes the infant children of believers, concerning the favor of God to whom there exist many precious promises on which pious parents, Baptists as fully as others, rest in devout faith.
To this solid proof of the rightful inclusion of the infant children of believers among the subjects of baptism, is added the unavoidable implication of the continuity of the Church of God, as it is taught in the Scriptures, from its beginning to its consummation; and of the undeniable inclusion within the bounds of this Church, in its pre-Christian form, as participants of its privileges, inclusive of the parallel rite of circumcision, of the infant children of the flock, with no subsequent hint of their exclusion. To this is added further the historical evidence of the prevalence in the Christian Church of the custom of baptizing the infant children of believers, from the earliest Christian ages down to to-day. The manner in which it is dealt with by Augustine and the Pelagians in their controversy, by Cyprian in his letter to Fidus, by Tertullian in his treatise on baptism, leaves no room for doubt that it was, at the time when each of these writers wrote, as universal and unquestioned a practice among Christians at large as it is to-day while, wherever it was objected to, the objection seems to have rested on one or the other of two contrary errors, either on an overestimate of the effects of baptism or on an underestimate of the need of salvation for infants.
On such lines as these a convincing positive argument is capable of being set forth for infant baptism, to the support of which whatever obscure allusions to it may be found in the New Testament itself may then be summoned. And on these lines the argument has ordinarily been very successfully conducted, as may be seen by consulting the treatment of the subject in any of our standard works on systematic theology, as for example Dr. Charles Hodges.2 It has occurred to me that additional support might be brought to the conclusions thus positively attained by observing the insufficiency of the case against infant baptism as argued by the best furnished opponents of that practice. There would seem no better way to exhibit this insufficiency than to subject the presentation of the arguments against infant baptism, as set forth by some confessedly important representative of its opponents, to a running analysis. I have selected for the purpose the statement given in Dr. A. H. Strongs Systematic Theology.3 What that eminently well-informed and judicious writer does not urge against infant baptism may well be believed to be confessedly of small comparative weight as an argument against the doctrine and practice. So that if we do not find the arguments he urges conclusive, we may well be content with the position we already occupy.
Dr. Strong opens the topic, The Subjects of Baptism,4 with the statement that the proper subjects of baptism are those only who give credible evidence that they have been regenerated by the Holy Spirit, or, in other words, have entered by faith into the communion of Christs death and resurrection a statement which if, like the ordinary language of the Scriptures, it is intended to have reference only to the adults to whom it is addressed, would be sufficiently unexceptionable; but which the only advertises us to suspect to be more inclusive in its purpose. This statement is followed at once by the organized proof that only persons giving evidence of being regenerated are proper subjects of baptism. This proof is derived:
From the command and example of Christ and his apostles, which show: First, that those only are to be baptized who have previously been made disciples. . . . Secondly, that those only are to be baptized who have previously repented and believed. From the nature of the church as a company of regenerate persons. From the symbolism of the ordinance as declaring i previous spiritual change in him who submits to it.
Each of these items is supported by Scripture texts, though some of them are no doubt sufficiently inapposite. As, for example, when only John iii. 5 and Rom. vi. 13 neither of which has anything to do with the visible Church are quoted to prove that the visible Church (of which baptism is an ordinance) is a company of regenerate persons; or as when Matt. xxviii. 19 is quoted to prove that baptism took place after the discipling, as if the words ran maqhteujsante" baptijzete, whereas the passage, actually standing maqhteujsate baptijzonte", merely demands that the discipling shall be consummated in, shall be performed by means of baptism; or as when Acts x. 47, where the fact that the extraordinary power of the Holy Spirit had come upon Cornelius is pleaded as reason why baptism should not be withheld from him,5 and Rom. vi. 25, which only develops the spiritual implication of baptism, are made to serve as proofs that the symbolism of the ordinance declares always and constantly a previous spiritual change. Apart from the Scriptural evidence actually brought forward, moreover, the propositions, in the extreme form in which they are stated, cannot be supported by Scripture. The Scriptures do not teach that the external Church is a company of regenerate persons the parable of the tares for example declares the opposite: though they represent that Church as the company of those who are presumably regenerate. They do not declare that baptism demonstrates a previous change the case of Simon Magus, Acts viii. 13, is enough to exhibit the contrary: though they represent the rite as symbolical of the inner cleansing presumed to be already present, and consequently as administered only on profession of faith.
The main difficulty with Dr. Strongs argument, however, is the illegitimate use it makes of the occasional character of the New Testament declarations. He is writing a Systematic Theology and is therefore striving to embrace the whole truth in his statements: he says therefore with conscious reference to infants, whose case he is soon to treat, Those only are to be baptized who have previously repented and believed, and the like. But the passages he quotes in support of this position are not drawn from a Systematic Theology but from direct practical appeals to quite definite audiences, consisting only of adults; or from narratives of what took place as the result of such appeals. Because Peter told the men that stood about him at Pentecost, Repent ye and be baptized, it does not follow that baptism might not have been administered by the same Peter to the infants of those repentant sinners previous to the infants own repentance. Because Philip baptized the converts of Samaria only after they had believed, it does not follow that he would not baptize their infants until they had grown old enough to repeat their parents faith, that they might, like them, receive its sign.
The assertion contained in the first proof is, therefore, a non sequitur from the texts offered in support of it. There is a suppressed premise necessary to be supplied before the assumed conclusion follows from them, and that premise is that the visible Church consists of believers only without inclusion of their children that Peter meant nothing on that day of Pentecost when he added to the words which Dr. Strong quotes: Repent ye and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ unto the remission of your sins those other words which Dr. Strong does not quote: For to you is the promise and to your children (Acts ii. 38, 39). This suppressed premise Dr. Strong adjoins in the second item of proof which he adduces; but we must observe that it is not a second item, but a necessary element in the first item which without it is invalid. In a word, when we correct the Scripture he adduces and the illegitimate use he makes of Scripture, Dr. Strongs whole argument reduces to the one item of the nature of the Church, as a company of regenerate persons. It is only on the ground that this is the true idea of the Church that the passages quoted to prove that baptism is to be administered only to such as have previously repented and believed, and those quoted to prove that the symbolism of the ordinance declares a previous spiritual change in him who submits to it, will justify the only and previous in which lies their point. The validity of the proof he offers thus depends on the truth of the assertion that the Church consists of regenerate persons; and whether this be true or not we need not here stay to examine: certainly the texts he adduces in proof of it, as already intimated, make no approach to establishing it. We rest securely in the result that according to Dr. Strongs argument as well as our own conviction, the subjects of baptism are the members of the visible Church: and who those are, will certainly be determined by our theory of the nature of the Church.
A page or two further on6 he takes up the question of Infant Baptism ex professo. This we reject and reprehend, he tells us, and that for the following reasons, viz.:
Infant baptism is without warrant, either express or implied, in the Scripture. Infant baptism is expressly contradicted [by Scriptural teaching]. The rise of infant baptism in the history of the church is due to sacramental conceptions of Christianity, so that all arguments in its favor from the writings of the first three centuries are equally arguments for baptismal regeneration. . The reasoning by which it is supported is unscriptural, unsound, and dangerous in its tendency. . The lack of agreement among paedobaptists as to the warrant for infant baptism and as to the relation of baptized infants to the church, together with the manifest decline of the practice itself, are arguments against it. . The evil effects of infant baptism are a strong argument against it.
Here is quite a list of arguments. We must look at the items one by one.
(a) When we ask after a direct Scriptural warrant for infant baptism, in the sense which Dr. Strong has in mind in the first of these arguments, we, of course, have the New Testament in view, seeing that it is only in the new dispensation that this rite has been ordained. In this sense of the words, we may admit his first declaration that there is no express command that infants should be baptized; and with it also his second that there is in Scripture no clear example of the baptism of infants, that is, if we understand by this that there is no express record, reciting in so many words, that infants were baptized. When he adds to these, however, a third contention, that the passages held to imply infant baptism contain, when fairly interpreted, no reference to such a practice, we begin to recalcitrate. If it were only asserted that these passages contain no such stringent proof that infants were baptized as would satisfy us on the point in the absence of other evidence, we might yield this point also. But it is too much to ask us to believe that they contain no reference to the practice if fairly interpreted. What is a fair interpretation? Is it not an interpretation which takes the passages as they stand, without desire to make undue capital of them one way or the other? Well, a fair interpretation of these passages, in this sense, might prevent paedobaptists from claiming them as a demonstrative proof of infant baptism, and it would also certainly prevent anti-paedobaptists from asserting that they have no reference to such a practice. It should lead both parties to agree that the passages have a possible but not a necessary reference to infant baptism that they are neutral passages, in a word, which apparently imply infant baptism, but which may be explained without involving that implication if we otherwise know that infant baptism did not exist in that day. Fairly viewed, in other words, they are passages which will support any other indications of infant baptism which may be brought forward, but which will scarcely suffice to prove it against evidence to the contrary, or to do more than raise a presumption in its favor in the absence of other evidence for it. For what are these passages? The important ones are Acts xvi. 15, which declares that Lydia was baptized and her household, and Acts xvi. 33, which declares that the jailer was baptized and all his, together with I Cor. i. 16, And I baptized also the household of Stephanas. Certainly at first blush we would think that the repeated baptism of households without further description, would imply the baptism of the infants connected with them. It may be a fair response to this that we do not know that there were any infants in these households which is true enough, but not sufficient to remove the suspicion that there may have been. It may be a still fairer reply to say that whether the infants of these families (if there were infants in them) were baptized or not, would depend on the practice of the apostles; and whatever that practice was would be readily understood by the first readers of the Acts. But this would only amount to asking that infant baptism should not be founded solely on these passages alone; and this we have already granted.
Neither of these lines of argument is adduced by Dr. Strong. They would not justify his position which is not that the baptism of infants cannot be proved by these passages, but much more than this that a fair interpretation of them definitely excludes all reference to it by them. Let us see what Dr. Strong means by a fair interpretation. To the case of Lydia he appends cf. 40, which tells us when Paul and Silas were loosed from prison they entered into the house of Lydia, and when they had seen the brethren they comforted them and departed from which, apparently, he would have us make two inferences, (1) that these brethren constituted the household of Lydia that was baptized, and (2) that these brethren were all adults. In like manner to the case of the jailer he appends the mystic cf. 34, which tells us that the saved jailer brought his former prisoners up into his house and set meat before them and rejoiced greatly, having believed, with all his house, on God from which he would apparently have us infer that there was no member of the household, baptized by Paul, who was too young to exercise personal faith. So he says with reference to I Cor. i. 16, that I Cor. xvi. 15 shows that the whole family of Stephanas, baptized by Paul, were adults. Nevertheless, when we look at I Cor. xvi. 15, we read merely that the house of Stephanas were the first fruits of Achaia and that they had set themselves to minister unto the saints which leaves the question whether they are all adults or not just where it was before, that is, absolutely undetermined.
Nor is this all. To these passages Dr. Strong appends two others, one properly enough, I Cor. vii. 14, where Paul admonishes the Christian not to desert the unbelieving husband or wife, for the unbelieving husband is sanctified in the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified in the brother; else were your children unclean; but now are they holy. This is doubtless a passage similar to the others; a passage certainly which does not explicitly teach infant baptism, but equally certainly which is not inconsistent with it which would, indeed, find a ready explanation from such a custom if such a custom existed, and therefore stands as one of the passages which raise at least a suspicion that infant baptism underlies the form of expression since the holiness of the children is taken for granted in it and the sanctification of the unbelieving partner inferred from it but is yet no doubt capable of an explanation on the supposition that that practice did not exist and is therefore scarcely a sure foundation for a doctrine asserting it. Dr. Strong is, however, not satisfied with showing that no stringent inference can be drawn from it in favor of infant baptism. He claims it as a sure testimony, a plain proof against infant baptism, on the grounds that the infants and the unbelieving parent are put by it in the same category, and (quoting Jacobi) that if children had been baptized, Paul would certainly have referred to their baptism as a proof of their holiness. And this in the face of the obvious fact that the holiness of the children is assumed as beyond dispute and in no need of proof, doubt as to which would be too horrible to contemplate, and the sanctification of the husband or wife inferred from it. Of course, it is the sanctity or holiness of external connection and privilege that is referred to, both with reference to the children and the parent; but that of the one is taken for granted, that of the other is argued; hence it lies close to infer that the one may have had churchly recognition and the other not. Whether that was true or not, however, the passage cannot positively decide for us; it only raises a suspicion. But this suspicion ought to be frankly recognized.
The other passage which is adjoined to these is strangely found in their company, although it, too, is one of the neutral texts. It is Matt. xix. 14: Suffer the little children and forbid them not to come unto me; for to such belongeth the kingdom of heaven. What has this to do with baptism? Certainly nothing directly; only if it be held indirectly to show that infants were received by Christ as members of His Kingdom on earth, that is, of His Church, can it bear on the controversy. But notice Dr. Strongs comment: None would have forbidden, if Jesus and his disciples had been in the habit of baptizing infants. Does he really think this touches the matter that is raised by this quotation? Nobody supposes that Jesus and his disciples were in the habit of baptizing infants; nobody supposes that at the time these words were spoken, Christian baptism had been so much as yet instituted. Dr. Strong would have to show, not that infant baptism was not practised before baptism was instituted, but that the children were not designated by Christ as members of His Kingdom, before the presumption for infant baptism would be extruded from this text. It is his unmeasured zeal to make all texts which have been appealed to by paedobaptists not merely fail to teach paedobaptism but teach that children were not baptized, that has led him so far astray here.
We cannot profess to admire, then, the fair interpretations which Dr. Strong makes of these texts. No one starting out without a foregone conclusion could venture to say that, when fairly interpreted, they certainly make no reference to baptism of infants. Nevertheless, I freely allow that they do not suffice, taken by themselves, to prove that infants were baptized by the apostles they only suggest this supposition and raise a presumption for it. And, therefore, I am prepared to allow in general the validity of Dr. Strongs first argument when thus softened to reasonable proportions. It is true that there is no express command to baptize infants in the New Testament, no express record of the baptism of infants, and no passages so stringently implying it that we must infer from them that infants were baptized. If such warrant as this were necessary to justify the usage we should have to leave it incompletely justified. But the lack of this express warrant is something far short of forbidding the rite; and if the continuity of the Church through all ages can be made good, the warrant for infant baptism is not to be sought in the New Testament but in the Old Testament, when the Church was instituted, and nothing short of an actual forbidding of it in the New Testament would warrant our omitting it now. As Lightfoot expressed it long ago, It is not forbidden in the New Testament to baptize infants, therefore, they are to be baptized.7 Dr. Strong commits his first logical error in demanding express warrant for the continuance of a long- settled institution, instead of asking for warrant for setting it aside.
(b) If thus the first argument is irrelevant as a whole as well as not very judiciously put in its details, is not its failure well atoned for in the second one? His second argument undertakes to show that infant baptism is expressly contradicted by Scriptural teaching. Here, at length, we have the promise of what was needed. But if we expect stringent reason here for the alteration of the children-including covenant, we shall be sadly disappointed. Dr. Strong offers four items. First, infant baptism is contradicted by the Scriptural prerequisites of faith and repentance, as signs of regeneration, which is valid only on the suppressed assumption that baptism is permissible only in the case of those who prove a previous regeneration which is the very point in dispute. Secondly, by the Scriptural symbolism of the ordinance. As we should not bury a person before his death, so we should not symbolically bury a person by baptism until he has in spirit died to sin. Here not only that the symbolism of baptism is burial is gratuitously assumed, but also that this act, whatever be its symbolism, could be the symbol only of an already completed process in the heart of the recipient which again is the very point in dispute. Thirdly, by the Scriptural constitution of the church where again the whole validity of the argument depends on the assumption that infants are not members of the Church the very point in dispute. These three arguments must therefore be thrown at once out of court. If the Scriptures teach that personal faith and repentance are prerequisites to baptism, if they teach that one must have previously died to sin before he is baptized, if they teach that the visible Church consists of regenerate adults only why, on any of these three identical propositions, each of which implies all the others, of course infants may not be baptized for this again is but an identical proposition with any of the three. But it is hardly sound argumentation simply to repeat the matter in dispute in other words and plead it as proof.
The fourth item is more reasonable By the Scriptural prerequisites for participation in the Lords Supper. Participation in the Lords Supper is the right only of those who can discern the Lords body (I Cor. xi. 29). No reason can be assigned for restricting to intelligent communicants the ordinance of the Supper, which would not equally restrict to intelligent believers the ordinance of Baptism. Hence Dr. Strong thinks the Greek Church more consistent in administering the Lords Supper to infants. It seems, however, a sufficient answer to this to point to the passage quoted: the express declaration of Scripture, that those who are admitted to the Lords Supper a declaration made to those who were already baptized Christians should be restricted to those who discern the Lords body, is a sufficient Scriptural reason for restricting participation in the Lords Supper to intelligent communicants; while the absence of that Scripture restriction in its case is a sufficient Scriptural reason for refusing to apply it to baptism. If we must support this Scriptural reason with a purely rational one, it may be enough to add that the fact that baptism is the initiatory rite of the Church supplies us with such a reason. The ordinances of the Church belong to the members of it; but each in its own appointed time. The initiatory ordinance belongs to the members on becoming members, other ordinances become their right as the appointed seasons for enjoying them roll around. We might as well argue that a citizen of the United States has no right to the protection of the police until he can exercise the franchise. The rights all belong to him: but the exercise of each comes in its own season. It is easily seen by the help of such examples that the possession of a right to the initiatory ordinance of the Church need not carry with it the right to the immediate enjoyment of all church privileges: and thus the challenge is answered to show cause why the right to baptism does not carry with it the right to communion in the Lords Supper.8 With this challenge the second argument of Dr. Strong is answered, too.
(c) The third argument is really an attempt to get rid of the pressure of the historical argument for infant baptism. Is it argued that the Christian Church from the earliest traceable date baptized infants? that this is possibly hinted in Justin Martyr, assumed apparently in Irenaeus, and openly proclaimed as apostolical by Origen and Cyprian while it was vainly opposed by Tertullian? In answer it is replied that all these writers taught baptismal regeneration and that infant baptism was an invention coming in on the heels of baptismal regeneration and continued in existence by State Churches. There is much that is plausible in this contention. The early Church did come to believe that baptism was necessary to salvation; this doctrine forms a natural reason for the extension of baptism to infants, lest dying unbaptized they should fail of salvation. Nevertheless, the contention does not seem to be the true explanation of the line of development. First, it confuses a question of testimony to fact with a question of doctrine. The two baptismal regeneration and infant baptism do not stand or fall together, in the testimony of the Fathers. Their unconscious testimony to a current practice proves its currency in their day; but their witness to a doctrine does not prove its truth. We may or may not agree with them in their doctrine of baptismal regeneration. But we cannot doubt the truth of their testimony to the prevalence of infant baptism in their day. We admit that their day is not the apostles day. We could well wish that we had earlier witness. We may be sure from the witness of Origen and Cyprian that they were baptized in their infancy that is, that infant baptism was the usual practice in the age of Irenaeus a conclusion which is at once strengthened by and strengthens the witness of Irenaeuus. But the practice of the latter half of the second century need not have been the practice of the apostles. A presumption is raised, however even though so weak a one that it would not stand against adverse evidence. But where is the adverse evidence? Secondly, Dr. Strongs view reverses the historical testimony. As a matter of history it was not the inauguration of the practice of infant baptism which the doctrine of baptismal regeneration secured, but the endangering of it. It was because baptism washed away all sin and after that there remained no more layer for regeneration, that baptism was postponed. It is for this reason that Tertullian proposes its postponement. Lastly, though the historical evidence may not be conclusive for the apostolicity of infant baptism, it is in that direction and is all that we have. There is no evidence from primitive church history against infant baptism, except the ambiguous evidence of Tertullian; so that our choice is to follow history and baptize infants or to reconstruct by a priori methods a history for which we have no evidence.
(d) Dr. Strongs fourth item is intended as a refutal of the reasoning by which the advocates of paedobaptism support their contention. As such it naturally takes up the reasoning from every kind of sources and it is not strange that some of the reasoning adduced in it is as distasteful to us as it is to him. We should heartily unite with him in refusing to allow the existence of any power in the Church to modify or abrogate any command of Christ. Nor could we find any greater acceptability than he does in the notion of an organic connection between the parent and the child, such as he quotes Dr. Bushnell as advocating. Nevertheless we can believe in a parent acting as representative of the child of his loins, whose nurture is committed to him; and we can believe that the status of the parent determines the status of the child in the Church of the God whose promise is to you and your children, as well as, for example, in the State. And we can believe that the Church includes the minor children of its members for whom they must as parents act, without believing that it is thereby made a hereditary body. I do not purpose here to go over again the proofs, which Dr. lodge so cogently urges, that go to prove the continuity of the Church through the Old and New dispensations remaining under whatever change of dispensation the same Church, with the same laws of entrance and the same constituents. The antithesis which Dr. Strong adduces that the Christian Church is either a natural, hereditary body, or it was merely typified by the Jewish people is a false antithesis. The Christian Church is not a natural, hereditary body and yet it is not merely the antitype of Israel. It is, the apostles being witnesses, the veritable Israel itself. It carried over into itself all that was essentially Israelitish all that went to make up the body of Gods people. Pauls figures of the olive tree in Romans and of the breaking down of the middle wall of partition in Ephesians, suffice to demonstrate this; and besides these figures he repeatedly asserts it in the plainest language.
So fully did the first Christians the apostles realize the continuity of the Church, that they were more inclined to retain parts of the outward garments of the Church than to discard too much. Hence circumcision itself was retained; and for a considerable period all initiates into the Church were circumcised Jews and received baptism additionally. We do not doubt that children born into the Church during this age were both circumcised and baptized. The change from baptism superinduced upon circumcision to baptism substituted for circumcision was slow, and never came until it was forced by the actual pressure of circumstances. The instrument for making this change and so who can doubt it? for giving the rite of baptism its right place as the substitute for circumcision, was the Apostle Paul. We see the change formally constituted at the so-called Council of Jerusalem, in Acts xv. Paul had preached the gospel to Gentiles and had received them into the Church by baptism alone, thus recognizing it alone as the initiatory rite, in the place of circumcision, instead of treating as heretofore the two together as the initiatory rites into the Christian Church. But certain teachers from Jerusalem, coming down to Antioch, taught the brethren except ye be circumcised after the custom of Moses ye cannot be saved. Paul took the matter before the Church of Jerusalem from which these new teachers professed to emanate; and its formal decision was that to those who believed and were baptized circumcision was not necessary.
How fully Paul believed that baptism and circumcision were but two symbols of the same change of heart, and that one was instead of the other, may be gathered from Col. ii. 11, when, speaking to a Christian audience of the Church, he declares that in Christ ye were also circumcised but how? with a circumcision not made with hands, in putting off the body of the flesh, that is, in the circumcision of Christ. But what was this Christ-ordained circumcision? The Apostle continues: Having been buried with Him in baptism, wherein also ye were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. Hence in baptism they were buried with Christ, and this burial with Christ was the circumcision which Christ ordained, in the partaking of which they became the true circumcision. This falls little, if any, short of a direct assertion that the Christian Church is Israel, and has Israels circumcision, though now in the form of baptism. Does the view of Paul, now, contradict the New Testament idea of the Church, or only the Baptist idea of the Church? No doubt a large number of the members of the primitive Church did insist, as Dr. Strong truly says, that those who were baptized should also be circumcised: and no doubt, this proves that in their view baptism did not take the place of circumcision. But this was an erroneous view: is represented in the New Testament as erroneous; and it is this exact view against which Paul protested to the Church of Jerusalem and which the Church of Jerusalem condemned in Acts xv. Thus the Baptist denial of the substitution of baptism for circumcision leads them into the error of this fanatical, pharisaical church-party! Let us take our places in opposition, along with Paul and all the apostles.
Whether, then, that the family is the unit of society is a relic of barbarism or not, it is the New Testament basis of the Church of God. God does make man the head of the woman does enjoin the wife to be in subjection to her husband and does make the parents act on behalf of their minor children. He does, indeed, require individual faith for salvation; but He organizes His people in families first; and then into churches, recognizing in their very warp and woof the family constitution. His promises are all the more precious that they are to us and our children. And though this may not fit in with the growing individualism of the day, it is Gods ordinance.
(e) Dr. Strongs fifth argument is drawn from the divergent modes in which paedobaptists defend their position and from the decline among them of the practice of the rite. Let us confess that we do not all argue alike or aright. But is not this a proof rather of the firm establishment in our hearts of the practice? We all practise alike; and it is the propriety of the practice, not the propriety of our defense of it, that is, after all, at stake. But the practice is declining, it is said. Perhaps this is true. Dr. Vedders statistics seem to show it. But if so, does the decline show the practice to be wrong, or Christians to be unfaithful? It is among paedobaptists that the decline is taking place those who still defend the practice. Perhaps it is the silent influence of Baptist neighbors; perhaps it is unfaithfulness in parents; perhaps the spread of a Quakerish sentiment of undervaluation of ordinances. Many reasons may enter into the account of it. But how does it show the practice to be wrong? According to the Baptist reconstruction of history, the Church began by not baptizing infants. But this primitive and godly practice declined rapidly declined until in the second century all infants were baptized and Tertullian raised a solitary and ineffectual voice crying a return to the older purity in the third. Did that decline of a prevalent usage prove it to be a wrong usage? By what logic can the decline in the second century be made an evidence in favor of the earlier usage, and that of the nineteenth an evidence against it?
(f) We must pass on, however, to the final string of arguments, which would fain point out the evil effects of infant baptism. First, it forestalls the act of the child and so prevents him from ever obeying Christs command to be baptized which is simply begging the question. We say it obeys Christs command by giving the child early baptism and so marking him as the Lords. Secondly, it is said to induce superstitious confidence in an outward rite, as if it possessed regenerating efficacy; and we are pointed to frantic mothers seeking baptism for their dying children. Undoubtedly the evil does occur and needs careful guarding against. But it is an evil not confined to this rite, but apt to attach itself to all rites which need not, therefore, be all abolished. We may remark, in passing, on the unfairness of bringing together here illustrative instances from French Catholic peasants and High Church Episcopalians, as if these were of the same order with Protestants. Thirdly, it is said to tend to corrupt Christian truth as to the sufficiency of Scripture, the connection of the ordinances, and the inconsistency of an impenitent life with church membership, as if infant baptism necessarily argued sacramentarianism, or as if the churches of other Protestant bodies were as a matter of fact more full of impenitent members than those of the Baptists. This last remark is in place also, in reply to the fourth point made, wherein it is charged that the practice of infant baptism destroys the Church as a spiritual body by merging it in the nation and in the world. It is yet to be shown that the Baptist churches are purer than the paedobaptist. Dr. Strong seems to think that infant baptism is responsible for the Unitarian defection in New England. I am afraid the cause lay much deeper. Nor is it a valid argument against infant baptism, that the churches do not always fulfill their duty to their baptized members. This, and not the practice of infant baptism, is the fertile cause of incongruities and evils innumerable.
Lastly, it is urged that infant baptism puts into the place of Christs command a commandment of men, and so admit[s] . . . the essential principle of all heresy, schism, and false religion a good, round, railing charge to bring against ones brethren: but as an argument against infant baptism, drawn from its effects, somewhat of a petitio principii. If true, it is serious enough. But Dr. Strong has omitted to give the chapter and verse where Christs command not to baptize infants is to be found. One or the other of us is wrong, no doubt; but do we not break an undoubted command of Christ when we speak thus harshly of our brethren, His children, whom we should love? Were it not better to judge, each the other mistaken, and recognize, each the others desire to please Christ and follow His commandments? Certainly I believe that our Baptist brethren omit to fulfill an ordinance of Christs house, sufficiently plainly revealed as His will, when they exclude the infant children of believers from baptism. But I know they do this unwittingly in ignorance; and I cannot refuse them the right hand of fellowship on that account.
But now, having run through these various arguments, to what conclusion do we come? Are they sufficient to set aside our reasoned conviction, derived from some such argument as Dr. Hodges, that infants are to be baptized? A thousand times no. So long as it remains true that Paul represents the Church of the Living God to be one, founded on one covenant (which the law could not set aside) from Abraham to to-day, so long it remains true that the promise is to us and our children and that the members of the visible Church consist of believers and their children all of whom have a right to all the ordinances of the visible Church, each in its appointed season. The argument in a nutshell is simply this: God established His Church in the days of Abraham and put children into it. They must remain there until He puts them out. He has nowhere put them out. They are still then members of His Church and as such entitled to its ordinances. Among these ordinances is baptism, which standing in similar place in the New Dispensation to circumcision in the Old, is like it to be given to children.
I have completed the primary reading..but have things to do..when I get back I will read the rest of your argument...I have a few things from the first article I have general agreement with and some things I do not...
Thanks for your work
terry
You are so thoughtful:>)
What of children or adults who are severely mentally retarded and cannot make such a decision? Would you hold that they should not be baptized? And if so, would you then say that for similar reasons - because they cannot choose - they cannot be saved?
On the one hand, I find myself at variance with a brother-in-Christ (you), while on the other I find myself on the same side of this issue with a wolf in sheep's clothing (GWB).
Yes, I am a Baptist, yes I believe in the practice of "believer's baptism" by immersion administered only to those who have already professed faith in Christ. However, the fact that a "fellow" Baptist would bring this up and use it as a tool for divisive schism is troubling. What is interesting is the fact that you see very little Baptist condemnation of paedobaptists. This is primarily due to the fact that Baptists do not see baptism as essential to salvation, but view it as a symbolic remembrance of what has already occured in the believer's life. To try to use this issue as a stumbling block between Christians is an abomination.
You will excuse me if I choose not to participate in this discussion.
But this is a secondary argument. Uriel's points make the convenant argument well enough.
Baptism can become works. You cannot tell true elected saints from those that are not. So baptism becomes the sign of our covenant with Christ. My children bear that name. If they prove to be covenant breakers later, their punishment is worse. Why?
Because they bear the name of Christ already. Not less because they were never really christians.
Like Noah, I bring my children into the ark. I consider and treat them as covenant members till they prove themselves disobedient. Even then they will be disobedient covenant members, not heathen.
Excuse the intrusion, but I wanted to respond to your logical and (quite common) question regarding infant baptism although I have no desire to enter a tedious debate over infant baptism, as I find it divisive and unproductive with little bearing on anyone's salvation.
God is perfection and his justice is therefore perfect. If a person is incapable of understanding the path to salvation due to youth or retardation or whatever other reason beyond their ability to change or overcome, I don't see how there can be any doubt that these persons would be saved through their innocence (of knowing of sin) and their inability to obtain salvation by repenting and receiving Christ due to their handicap or in the case of infants and small children, immaturity.
To put it bluntly; our God does not play games with his creation. If a human being is allowed to be born with a mental handicap that prevents them from ever understanding God, Christ or anything else, that person's creator is not going to then send them to a spiritual death (hell) based on a condition they had no control over in any way and could not change. That would not be just; and God is just.
I agree that infant baptism 'does no harm' to the child. Assuming that the child grows up to understand that he or she must come to Christ on their own, repent, believe and accept the Holy Spirit as well as be baptised and confess themselves 'before men', as scripture states. The only harm I could see with infant baptism would be if that infant grows up believing they have been saved and so, they do nothing spiritual their entire life, based on a false assumption that some water sprinkled on them at a few weeks old gave them a ticket to heaven with no other spiritual responsibility on their part for the rest of their life. I doubt that happens very often, but it could be a risk and about the only one I can see for infant baptism.
In most fundamental Protestant churches, including mine, baptism is important and not done unless the person seeking to make their confession of Christ has been questioned and the Elders or minister is fairly sure that they understand what they are confessing and what baptism actually represents. This is especially important with younger, pre-teen children. I've not seen any child under 11 baptised in my church and only a few under 14 years old. This makes sense to me. I was 13 at the time of my baptism and although I did understand what I was doing, it took some years for me to get a real grasp of my Christianity.
Final point; baptism in and of itself cannot 'save' anyone, in my opinion, but it is a stong sign of salvation obtained through the acceptance of Christ and - most important - it's scriptural.
Infant baptism strikes me as similar to a eulogy at a funeral; the person being baptised/eulogized is not the real beneficiary, the audience is.
In most fundamental Protestant churches, including mine, baptism is important and not done unless the person seeking to make their confession of Christ has been questioned and the Elders or minister is fairly sure that they understand what they are confessing and what baptism actually represents. This is especially important with younger, pre-teen children. I've not seen any child under 11 baptised in my church and only a few under 14 years old. This makes sense to me. I was 13 at the time of my baptism and although I did understand what I was doing, it took some years for me to get a real grasp of my Christianity.We routinely see very young children baptized in Baptist churches. I've seen them as young as five. I have a few questions about the practice but do not object. Like you, I trust in God's justice and mercy to those who die in infancy or those who never heard the Gospel preached or the developmentally disabled.
That was basically my thought. My post was mostly to try to find out what sort of level of intelligence the other poster thought was required for baptism (and, I thought that could imply salvation). Your points are valid and I think I disgree only on minor issues.
John Piper
I recall a beautiful day in 1973. Prof. Leonhard Goppelt had invited his university seminar on baptism to a retreat south of Munich in the foothills of the Bavarian Alps. He was Lutheran and I was the lone American - and a Baptist. We met in a monastery and for several hours debated the issue of infant baptism vs. Believer baptism. It was a two-man show: sort of a David and Goliath affair. Only there were no Baptist Israelites cheering me on. Nor did Professor Goppelt fall. But to this day I believe the flight of my stones was true and that only the impervious power of a 17-century tradition protected the bastion of pedobaptism.
But now I have come to see that the "battle of Bavaria" was fought at the wrong level. Since coming to Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, I have taught about ten four-week membership classes. Almost every time, there have been Lutherans or Catholics or Presbyterians or Covenanters or the like who were "baptized" as infants but want to join our church. Month by month my understanding of why I accept believer baptism has increased. And now I see that I never got to the root in Bavaria.
Here's the way my thought has progressed. There have been three stages (not unlike childhood, adolescence and maturity).
First I saw that every baptism recorded in the Bible was the baptism of an adult who had professed faith in Christ. Nowhere in Scripture is there any instance of an infant being baptized. The "household baptisms" (mentioned in Acts 16:15, 33 and 1 Corinthians 1:16 are exceptions to this only if one assumes that the "household" included infants. But, in fact, Luke steers us away from this assumption in Act 16:32 by saying that Paul first "spoke the word of the Lord. . .to all that were in his [the jailer's] house," and then baptized them.
Besides the absence of infant baptism in Scripture, I also notice (as every Baptist schoolboy knows) that the order of Peter's command was "Repent, and be baptized" (Acts 2:38). I saw no reason ever to reverse the order.
But I gradually came to see that these observations were only suggestive, not compelling. That no infant baptism are recorded does not prove there weren't any. And that Peter said, "Repent, and be baptized," to an adult audience does not rule out the possibility of his saying something different about infants. So I grew up to my second stage and decided, "I had better turn away from the examples of baptism to the teaching about baptism." Perhaps the meaning of Luke's narrative would be clarified by the exposition of Paul and Peter.
Of course Romans 6:1-11 came to mind. But this was Professor Goppelt's favorite weapon, because it contains not a word about faith or about any conscious response to God until verse 11; and there the response came after baptism. So he uses Roman 6 as the classic defense of infant baptism. To me it goes either way in isolation.
But Colossians 2:12 and 1 Peter 3:21 seemed to me to be devastating to the pedobaptist viewpoint. Paul compares baptism with circumcision and says, "You were buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead." This says clearly: in baptism we are raised through faith. Baptism is effectual as an expression of faith. I did not see how an infant could properly accept this sign of faith.
Then 1 Peter 3:21 said, "Baptism. . . saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a clear conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ." This text frightens many Baptists away because it seems to come close to the Catholic, Lutheran and Anglican notion that the rite in and of itself saves. But in fleeing from this text we throw away a powerful argument for believer baptism. For as J.D.G. Dunn says, this is the closest thing we have to a definition which includes faith. Baptism is "an appeal to God." That is, baptism is the cry of faith to God. In that senses and to that degree, it is part of God's means of salvation. This should not scare us off any more than the sentence, "If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord. . . you will be saved." The movement of the lips in the air and the movement of the body in water save only in the sense that they express the appeal and faith of the heart toward God.
So it seemed to me that Colossians 2:12 and 1 Peter 3:21 sewed up the case against baptizing infants who could not yet believe in Christ or appeal to God.
But that is where my Bavarian battle stopped. Since then I have been shown by a long succession of arguments in my membership classes that even these texts leave open the [remote!] possibility that an infant can be baptized on the strength of its parents' faith and in hope of its own eventual "confirmation." It is just as possible that these passages have relevance only for the missionary setting where adults are being converted and baptized. If Paul and Peter had addressed the issue of new infants in Christian homes, maybe they would have come off as good Presbyterians.
I doubt it. For there is now a third stage of reasoning in favor of believer baptism. There is a grand biblical and Baptist response to the Heidelberg Catechism, which says that infants of Christian parent "belong to the covenant and people of God . . . they also are to be baptized as a sign of the covenant, to be ingrafted into the Christian church and distinguished from the children of unbelievers, as was done in the Old Testament by circumcision, in place of which in the New Testament baptism is appointed." In other words, the justification of infant baptism in the Reformed churches hangs on the fact that baptism is the New Testament counterpart of circumcision.
There is in fact an important continuity between the signs of circumcision and baptism, but the Presbyterian representatives of Reformed theology have undervalued the discontinuity. This is the root difference between Baptists and Presbyterians on baptism. I am a Baptist because I believe that on this score we honor both the continuity and discontinuity between Israel and the church and between their respective covenant signs.
The continuity is expressed like this: Just as circumcision was administered to all the physical sons of Abraham who made up the physical Israel, so baptism should be administered to all the spiritual sons of Abraham who make up the spiritual Israel, the church. But who are these spiritual sons of Abraham who constitute the people of God in our age?
Galatians 3:7 says, "So you see that it is men of faith who are the sons of Abraham." The new thing, since Jesus has come, is that the covenant people of God are no longer a political, ethnic nation, but a body of believers.
John the Baptist inaugurated this change and introduced the new sign of baptism. By calling all Jews to repent and be baptized, John declared powerfully and offensively that physical descent does not make one part of God's family and that circumcision, which signifies a physical relationship, will now be replaced by baptism, which signifies a spiritual relationship. The apostle Paul picks up this new emphasis, especially in Romans 9, and says, "Not all are children of Abraham because they are his descendants. . . it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God" (vs. 7-8).
Therefore a very important change has occurred in redemptive history. There is discontinuity as well as continuity.
Zwingli and Calvin and their heirs have treated signs of the covenant as if no significant changes happened with the coming of Christ. But God is forming His people today differently than when He strove with an ethnic people called Israel. The people of God are no longer formed through natural kinship, but through supernatural conversion to faith in Christ.
With the coming of John the Baptist and Jesus and the apostles, the emphasis now is that the spiritual status of your parents does not determine your membership in the covenant community. The beneficiaries of the blessings of Abraham are those who have the faith of Abraham. These are the ones who belong to the covenant community.
And these are the ones who should receive the sign of the covenant: believer baptism. So if I could go back and do Bavaria again, I would get to the root in a hurry. This is where our "defense and confirmation" will be won or lost. But the Lord brings us through childhood, adolescence and maturity for a reason. Every stage of reasoning is useful. Know your audience, brothers, and magnify the meaning of baptism.
DGM's toll-free number (888/346-4700) and web site address (www.desiringGOD.org)
Male or female? *grin*....
See Ezek 37 and Jer.31:31 and Heb.8:8.
There are three groups of people, not two, Jew, Gentile and Church (1Cor.10.32), and the Church today is a combination of the two (Gal.3:28,Eph.2:11-22). But when the Church is called home (1Thess.4:16-17,1Cor.15:51-54) the groups will go back to two, Jew and Gentile.
Infant baptism is nothing but Roman Catholic nonsense that the Reformers never shook themselves free of. It does not even makes sense on the basis of the Reformed view of election. You are baptising both 'elect' and 'non-elect' infants so what good is it. Can baptism make one part of the elect (without faith?).Can the non-elect be part of the Covenant?
To claim Lk.18:15 as a basis for infant baptism is really straining the verse.
Even so, come Lord Jesus
Maybe you should have kept reading.
The Essay (article + first 9 posts) argues for the validity of infant baptism.
Thanks for the posts I've been wanting more info on this subject for some time 18 Posted on 10/06/2001 06:06:47 PDT by winslow
Most welcome.
I generally don't get into this fight, as my own Orthodox Presbyterian teaching elder is pleased to, several times a year, leave his flock under the care of a Reformed Baptist pastor when he is travelling. And, as this pastor is a duly-ordained presbyter of the church of Jesus Christ (albeit one with a slightly different view of sacramental practice), the congregation treats him with all the respect and consideration which is rightly due an Elder. We even feed him 'n stuff.
I generally do not address the matter unless Presbyterian sacamental practice is termed a "silly superstition". In that instance, I shall respond.
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