Comments on: New Covenant Virility

By: Mike Bull

Mike Bull — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 05:02:58 +0000

Hi Steven

Thanks for your interesting comment.

I take your point, but my point was that the New Covenant doesn’t abolish physical offspring (whether biological or adopted) but entirely transcends it. The Old Covenant was almost completely about maintaining a godly bloodline until the Christ. People could join the Covenant people, but they weren’t required to. The New Covenant is exactly the opposite. Yes, we are to raise godly children, but now God commands all men everywhere to repent and join the Covenant people. The focus is no longer succession by child rearing.

Repentance is the key here. It is required for baptism. The concept of ‘children’ has been transfigured. The ‘children’ of Abraham are those of faith, and the arguments that babies can ‘believe,’ however true such infant faith might be, don’t qualify as this kind of repentant faith. If we have to un-redefine everything that the New Covenant has redefined to keep our errant tradition, it’s the tradition that must go.

By: Steven Opp

Steven Opp — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 04:52:36 +0000

Is paedobaptism really about bloodlines? My boss has nine kids, two adopted from ETHIOPIA! and they’ve all been paedobaptized. I would think that the argument against paedobaptism would make more sense if it was against the socialization of grace. I don’t know that anyone would claim a biological connection into the kingdom, it’s all sociological. That is, saying that each member of the tribe (and this large, homeschooling baby-baptizing families like I’ve been encountering since I moved to Moscow, ID are indeed quite tribal) must articulate his beliefs to a board in order to become a child in the kingdom results in no children at all. Tribes, like large, close paedobaptizing families, are have very strong social bonds which are behind this. If there is an argument to be made against paedobaptism as not being legit because it bypasses a spritual birth, the greatest counterfeit is not an imposing biological bloodline argument, but rather a sociological/metaphysical argument. If the eunich went and adopted some orphans and baptized them and raised them up in the Lord, would those baptisms not count? He’s not using nullified physical testicles to have children. He would be using either sociological or true spiritual balls. This creates a whole new argument.

By: Mike Bull

Mike Bull — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 23:59:23 +0000

Thanks, Doug

My point is that this choice is a false dichotomy. As always, our offspring are to be a blessing to the nations. And the New Testament is pretty clear on who are God’s children now and how they are defined.

Plus, the New Covenant is not about a “bloodline” succession that can be cut (by Athaliah, Haman, Satan, etc.) In fact, any time Satan tries to stamp out this new Messianic line, it simply grows, because of the testimony of those who suffer. Raising godly offspring is crucial, but witness, not child-rearing, is postmillennialism’s true heart. This “multiplication by Spirit” is Satan’s worst nightmare. It miraculously raises living sons out of dead stones.

“Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance, and do not think to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as father.’ For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones.” Matthew 3:8-9

By: Doug Roorda

Doug Roorda — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 19:07:59 +0000

Mike,

So there are no promises of God to bless the physical children of believers any more? it’s all outward? “Kids, God used to promise to bless you and make you love him, but that’s no more, it’s just about bringing unbelievers in from the outside — you’re pretty much on your own, and if you want to come in to the church you may, but you aren’t really God’s children now.”

Or stated another way, are children in the Lord now, or not?

Blessings,
Doug