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Then, there are a number of exegetical flaws in the paedobaptist theology. Many have reasoned thus: "Infants of believers were circumcised in the Old Covenant. Therefore, infants of believers should be baptized in the New." Though in Abraham’s case faith preceded circumcision of his children, this cannot be said to be the rule of the Old Covenant rite. There were times when faith in the subjects of circumcision or in their parents was all but ignored. In the time of Joshua, an entire nation was circumcised in a day. There was no concern for personal election or personal faith.

Likewise, in the Visible Church, there has been many an age in which it could realistically be argued that there were more Tares, than Wheat. So what?

God will know His Own.

It is also said that just as baptism is a sign of heirship to the spiritual promises of grace in the New Covenant, circumcision was a sign of heirship to the same spiritual promises in the Old. This is only partially true. Baptism is a sign of spiritual blessing in Christ and only that…. Baptism has no merely earthly significance. There are no blessings figured in it that can be conceived of apart from an experience of grace…. Romans 9 discusses Abraham’s immediate, physical offspring. Some were of the flesh; some of the spirit. There was a personal election within the family election. Abraham could not look upon his own immediate seed as heirs of the promises. "They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed." (v. 8). How can believers today lean upon the promise to Abraham which is clearly interpreted in the New Testament and find for themselves a greater expectation for their children than Abraham had a right to? The New Testament is not silent about this seed. It tells us they are believers alone!

And this is as true of adults, as of children. There are indubitably millions throughout history, baptized as adults, who enjoy no spiritual union with Christ.

But again…. So what? God will know His Own. Schlissel again:

It seems to me that the Reformed faith has been the most faithful of all traditions in fairly treating all of what the Scripture has to say on the subject of baptism. On one side stands the Roman Catholic church which believes that the sacrament is efficacious in itself, conferring the grace of salvation, the subjects being reborn by means of it. On the other side we find our Baptistic friends who believe that baptism is to be administered only after a credible profession of faith. Often unnoticed by people examining this question is the fact that Romanists and Baptists share an error in common: both assume the necessity of a one for one correspondence between the number of persons baptized and the number regenerated. The Baptists try to insure this correspondence by requiring regeneration prior to administration, Catholics by imagining that regeneration occurs during administration.

According to the Reformed view, however, the efficacy of baptism is not tied to that moment of time wherein it is administered. (Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter XXIX, paragraph VI) Moreover (and this is vital), the grace promised is not only offered, but really exhibited and conferred by the Holy Spirit to such (whether of age or infants) as that grace belongeth unto, according to the counsel of God's own will, in His appointed time. (ibid)

Thus, our concern in the administration of baptism is not to ascertain the regenerated status of the candidate, but simply to ascertain if, according to Scripture, he is lawfully to be regarded as a member of the covenant which baptism signifies and seals.

The Covenant is Visible and One.

Lastly, there are practical flaws in the paedobaptist theology. Those who sprinkle infants are on the horns of a dilemma. Either they must tamper with the definition of baptism to make it signify something less than personal spiritual union with Christ as the Bible clearly teaches; or they will be driven to teach infant salvation or presumptive regeneration. If the first course is chosen, one must also corrupt the New Testament view of the church and its discipline. If some who are less than saved are properly to be considered as members of Christ’s body.

Here Chantry simply identifies in Presbyterian churches, a problem common to all churches – the problem of Tares and Wheat.

Is the fact that some, who participate in “believer’s baptism”, fall away from the Church and thereby prove their own lack of regeneration, an indictment of the propriety of baptizing new adult converts into the Church? No, it is not.

All churches teach “presumptive” regeneration to at least some extent, for while God looks on the heart, Man looks on the outward appearance. Chantry’s argument here really has no particular and unique applicability to paedobaptism at all.

I can sympathize with students who are wrestling with the problem of baptism. I can remember when I wished to be convinced of the paedobaptist position. There would be many practical advantages. Another forceful factor is the great history of godly men who were paedobaptists, especially the Reformers and Puritans. But as history gave me the problem, so it has suggested a solution…. Once the constitution and discipline of the New Testament church has been rightly conceived, the hangover of infant baptism must fall way.

Again, Chantry assumes his own conclusion.

At a fundamental level, Chantry is arguing a discontinuity of Covenant… for which he simply does not have the Scriptural support he requires. “If, after two thousand years of having their children included in the covenant, the fulfillment of that Covenant in Christ now meant the exclusion of their children from the covenant (for if they are in fact members of the covenant, to withhold baptism would be to exalt the sign above the reality signified), if they were now excluded, that would not only be regarded as covenant regression, it seems reasonable to assume that quite a ruckus would be raised over that very point and would have needed to be addressed in the early church…” (Schlissel). Yet there is no instruction of Covenantal exclusion whatsoever.

The Covenant is Visible and One.

These are issues over which we do not wish to lose fellowship with paedobaptist brethren. Yet they are principles which we will not jettison for the sake of fellowship.

I have no desire to break fellowship with Mr. Chantry over this matter.
Rather, I leave the ball in his court.

Thus, our concern in the administration of baptism is not to ascertain the regenerated status of the candidate, but simply to ascertain if, according to Scripture, he is lawfully to be regarded as a member of the covenant which baptism signifies and seals. - Schlissel

This presupposes that Christianity, like Judaism, is primarily hereditary. However, the ancient situation in Israel and throughout the Empire is not addressed.

Baptism as practiced in the New Testament was a sign of those who joined themselves to the New Covenant in Christ in rebellion to the state religion of Rome and often in a second rebellion against the state religion of Israel which had special exemption from spiritual acknowledgment of the pagan state religion. There were many other religions in the Roman empire. But the Roman emperor demanded lip service of everyone except Jews. Except for Jews, everyone had to publicly acknowledge the emporer's genius, his supposed divine spirit. Other religions were not persecuted as long as they did not refuse this token obedience to the emporer and his farcical state religion.

As we all know, this obeisance to the emperor became a test of early Christians. To refuse to sacrifice to the emperor was a capital crime, inviting prison and torture and execution by the state. Christians were oppressed and perecuted by both observant Jews and by Rome in this early period.

Generally, we can simplify the fluctuating situation of Roman tolerance of Jewish monotheism in this way: Rome and Jerusalem were partners in maintaining the two state religions of the Roman Empire. Judaism, because of its nationalist aspirations in Palestine, often became rebellious and disruptive, a tendency that surfaced repeatedly and resulted ultimately in the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in Rome's version of a Final Solution to the "Jewish problem". However, Rome tolerated and allowed exemption to pagan worship of the emperor for Jews provided that the Jews did not try to rebel against Roman authority. The Jewish priests became the willing partners of Rome, knowing the terrible retribution Rome would exact upon a rebellious Israel. This is why by Roman and Jewish authority persecuted and crucified so many tens of thousands. Jesus ultimately fell into this net and was crucified. He was, in the eyes of the authorities of the time, a danger to both Rome and to Israel. So were his followers until the time of Constantine.

These early Christians were of two types. The first were Christians of Jewish descent who refused to worship and obey the strictures of the Old Covenant. Therefore, they were not protected from persecution by the state as Jews, having repudiated the only alternative to the state's pagan accepted by Rome. These Jewish Christians were fair game to both pagans and to Jews for denunication and persecution to torture and to death. The second type of early Christian was the Gentile Christian which had no exemption to the state pagan religion. Since he could not be regarded as a Jew, being a follower of Christ, he was also persecuted and often martyred for refusing to worship the pagan emperor.

New Testament baptism was an invitation to a death sentence. It was the mark of the believer, often performed publicly and invited denunciatoin by Jews and by pagans. This is consistent in the New Testament and in the recorded history of the early Church.

The unscriptural expansion of baptism to include infants ignores this early history of what the public testimony of faith in Christ as signified by baptism actually meant and the often lethal consequences of a public profession of Christ by baptism. These were days when speaking a single sentence for the cause of Christ could bring a death sentence.

Can you tell me exactly how infants fit into this picture of the early church and the realities of Christian life and Christian evangelism? The truth is, they simply do not.