Category: Word/Sacrament

I am always pleased to see any article stressing the necessity of weekly communion. Here is Kim Riddlebarger’s article on the Reformation of the Supper in pdf format.

It is important to note that circumcision and baptism are not always direct parallels, yet it is undeniable that there are several parallels between the two rites. Bill Dejong notes:

It’s obvious how the waters of baptism are a cleansing ritual. The Heidelberg Catechism (in answer 69) compares the waters of baptism to the blood of Christ which washes away our sins. But the “cutting off” of circumcision is also a means of cleansing. That the foreskin was regarded as something unclean is obvious from Paul’s equating of the removal of the foreskin with the “putting off the body of the sins of the flesh” in Colossians 2. The “flesh” is synonymous with foreskin and represents man’s need for cleansing.

Consider in this connection the Israelite leper. The “flesh” of the leper was unclean and could be cleansed in two ways. One, he could be “cut off” (Lev.14), and since the verb here is the same as in Genesis 17, this must be construed as a circumcising process. Two, he could receive a ceremonial cleansing with water, identified in Heb.9:10 as a baptism. The leper thus personifies death and impurity and thus pictures the condition of man in general. The paradigms of cleansing and purification for the leper are circumcision and baptism.

Note: I owe many of these thoughts to Neil Jeffers who reviewed the book in the first volume of Ecclesia Reformanda.

The volume entitled Believer’s Baptism: Sign of the New Covenant in Christ published in 2006 is in the words of reviewer Neil Jeffers, “the most significant contribution on the Baptist side since Fred Malone’s The Baptism of Disciples Alone.” The book edited by American Reformed Baptists, Thomas Shreiner and Shawn Wright, expresses clear concerns about the “paedobaptist theology and practice.” This book is the best response to Presbyterian paedobaptism ever written. It marries, to borrow Jeffers’ language, “careful biblical theology with appropriate systematic deductions.” At the same time, this book is an inadequate response to paedobaptism. Let me explain this supposed contradiction in affirmations. First, this volume offers a valid and definitive response to the commonly accepted paedobaptist version so common in our own day. According to certain factions of Presbyterianism, baptism–applied to infants–is only a sign without any efficacy attached to the rite (sacrament). It singles out an individual to receive special and prayerful attention from parents and congregation for the future conversion of the child baptized. The child is merely dedicated in a sophisticated manner to differentiate it from a Baptist’s dedication ceremony. This is nothing more than a “wet dedication.” The trivializing of paedobaptism in Reformed circles only confirm the denigration of sacramental theology; an un-confessional position denied by Calvin and the Westminster Divines.

Secondly, Shreiner advocates that passages like Titus 3 “have in mind water baptism, not just spirit baptism.” This is Calvin’s position, especially in I Corinthians 12 (contra Charles Hodge). In my estimation this is a fortunate move forward for modern reformed baptists. This duality is fabricated in some Presbyterian circles and I am pleased that certain Baptists are not afraid to affirm the obvious.

Thirdly, the reason this is an inadequate response to paedobaptism is that it does not address a growing consensus withing the Reformed Faith, and that is that  believers must have access to the Lord’s Table. Baptists have argued correctly and consistently that if paedobaptists are correct then they must give access to the table to their baptized children, since as Schreiner and Wright observes: “Such a divide between baptism and the Lord’s Supper cannot be sustained from the NT, for it is clear that those baptized participated in communion (pg. 5 in Believer’s Baptism).” Yes, exactly. Precisely. But this criticism does not affect me or those in the Reformed circles and pubs I abide.  Presbyterian arguments based on I Corinthians 11:29 carry no weight whatsoever. Paul has been largely misinterpreted and I have no problem with respectfully disagreeing with my Reformed forefathers, especially Calvin who denied paedocommunion. Semper Reformanda means correcting past errors even of our esteemed forefathers.

Fourthly, another reason this book failed to address the real issue is because the authors assume that only adults can have faith. But as Rich Lusk observes in his book Paedofaith,  Reformed commentators differ on the issue of infant faith. If it is true that only normal adults can profess faith in Jesus Christ, then as Jeffers notes, “this raises serious questions about those with severe mental handicap.” Infants can have faith. Faith is not a one-size-fits-all-deal. Faith is expressed at unique and different levels. As James Jordan observes, “every baptism is infant baptism.” Even an adult baptized is infant in his faith.

Finally, the idea of regenerate church is quite absurd. What certainty can one have of one’s profession? A pastor may think he is absolutely sure of a man’s profession and baptize him, but what if he abandons the faith a year later? Does this happen? I’d say quite regularly.

Conclusion: If Baptists (especially these fine writers) applied their view of baptism to infants we would have an identical position. For us paedobaptists, adult baptism is not enough. Even in this new creation and new world established and founded by Christ, our Great High Priest, the promises remain to you and to your children.

My friend Bill DeJong says the following about Mark 10:13:15:  Jesus receives infant children and blesses them, saying, “for of such is the kingdom of God.”

Baptists are fond of saying that the kingdom is for those of age and maturity who can repent and believe and not for children. Jesus here says the exact opposite. The kingdom of God is for children: they don’t need to become like us; we all need to become like them. The entrance of children into the kingdom is the norm (cf. Matt.18:3). I think we can safely assume that Jesus is talking here about covenant children. He would not bless non-covenant children or else he would contradict Paul who calls them unclean.

Wellum declares that paedo-baptists do not see the newness of the New Covenant. This is a fair criticism of some, but undoubtedly not of those who see New Covenant and New Creation as identical. Wellum criticizes well the pietists in the Reformed world, but he does not come near to addressing those of us who see the New Covenant as God’s New World for a New people. Wellum does not see–because of his baptistic presuppositions–how the new world affects everything.The truth is it affects everything. Everything is transformed. For credo-baptists-only like Wellum, it’s about what applies and what no longer applies when the better way to phrase the distinction between before and after Christ is that everything before Christ is transformed after Christ, not annihilated or set aside. Thus, children have a newly transformed status as citizens of a new world, yet the sign is not absent in this new world, it is rather transformed. What once signified death–Old Creation through circumcision, which is bloody–now signifies life–New Creation through the cleansing waters of baptism.

My friend Bill Smith answers Steven Wellum’s argument for credo-baptism by making a crucial point:

While Wellum is correct to warn us of an under-realized eschatology–flattening out Scripture so that we do not see the discontinuities (126-7)–we must also be careful of an over-realized eschatology which understands the church as being in its final, resurrected form in which family structure as we know it will be completely done away with. While the unmarried state is exalted to new heights in the NT, possibly indicating this greater eschatological realization and anticipating that which is to come, the family as family is still presupposed as a spiritual institution within the contextof the church.

Bill DeJong reminded me of the infamous R.C. Sproul vs. John MacArthur debate on infant baptism many years ago. I remember listening to that debate sometime in 2001 and finding R.C.’s arguments fairly weak.  Fortunately, I went far beyond that debate and today I am a happy paedo-baptist.

Among MacArthur’s many observations, this one inference became a crucial argument for credo-baptism:

“Scripture nowhere advocates, commands, records any instance of infant baptism.”

As DeJong observes, the simplicity of the argument is attractive initially. However, it’s as attractive and persuasive as:

(a) the Jehovah Witness argument that there is no Triune God because the Scriptures repeatedly say: “The Lord our God is one.”
(b) the Arian argument that Jesus isn’t God because the Scriptures repeatedly talk about Jesus being “seated at the right hand of God.”
(c) the Open Theist argument that God doesn’t know the future and keeps changing his mind because the Scriptures say repeatedly, “God relented of what he had done.”
(d) the Roman Catholic argument that Christ is bodily present in the elements of the Lord’s Supper because Jesus, holding the bread in his hand, says, “This is my body.”

Inferences are a dangerous thing indeed.