Comments on: A Burden of Proof

By: Doug Roorda

Doug Roorda — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 04:15:49 +0000

Mike,

I’ll be mostly off line until Monday or so. Stay tuned.

Blessings,
Doug

By: Mike Bull

Mike Bull — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 23:07:09 +0000

Yes please!
Post away…

By: Doug Roorda

Doug Roorda — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 15:21:24 +0000

Mike,

That helps me to understand what you’re thinking, and what you see as the PB position. I agree with you that it’s not New Testament doctrine nor what baptism is for. But . . . I don’t recognize it as what I or other PBs believe, either.

If you would like to investigate why I don’t recognize that as my position, and would be willing to try to understand to the extent that you can restate my position in words I can agree with, I think it would be a fruitful discussion for both of us.

Blessings,
Doug

By: Mike Bull

Mike Bull — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 23:32:34 +0000

Doug

My point was when can we say someone belongs to Jesus? Is it when we are preaching the gospel to them, or after they are converted?

The FV view of paedobaptism seems to be that even if a child is unregenerate, baptism somehow makes them “belong to Jesus,” hence the “magic words” that give the child a sort of halfway house between spiritual life and spiritual death until we see how they turn out.

This is not New Testament doctrine. That’s not what baptism if for.

Hope that helps.

Blessings,
Mike

By: Doug Roorda

Doug Roorda — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 13:41:20 +0000

[Mike, you didn't answer my question. I can't follow what you're saying. I'm trying to understand where the comment "If we tell our kids they belong to Jesus because we sprinkled some water on them and said some magic words" came from. I never said anything like that. What was that comment about? When I don't recognize my own arguments in what you say, we're not getting anywhere, right?]

By: Mike Bull

Mike Bull — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 13:30:15 +0000

Doug

All the unregenerate will perish, including those of our children who remain unregenerate. I wouldn’t tell anyone they belong to Satan unless I also told them that Jesus has paid the price for their redemption.

You can’t import the promise to Abraham’s physical seed into the New Covenant era. It finished in AD70. Under the New Covenant, God is only God to our children as we preach the gospel to them. If you want to publicly vow (dedicate) that you will raise them as unto the Lord, so be it, but it is not mandatory. When they repent and believe, we baptize them, and only then. Baptism is for the second ‘hatch’. It is no longer about physical descent. I’ll say that again, it is no longer about physical seed and physical descent. That is an entirely carnal idea and foreign to the New Testament.

The New Covenant is a Lamborghini and you guys insist on hitching it up behind a horse.

Mike

By: Doug Roorda

Doug Roorda — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 13:22:40 +0000

I’m still not following; maybe I misunderstood. I thought you said that the kids belong to Satan. I’m not understanding where the magic words thing came from. Are you saying “we Baptists say (hah hah)’the kids belong to Satan’ (but we’re really just sayin’ that they need to get saved) — and you PBs say (hah hah) just a few magic words and a sprinkle of water and everything is ok (but you’re really just saying that God promises to be God to your children just like He is to you)”?

If not, I don’t get what you’re saying.

Blessings,
Doug

By: Mike Bull

Mike Bull — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 03:18:38 +0000

Hi Doug – it’s as perverse an overstatement in one direction as telling kids they belong to Satan is in the other. Both directions want to call the match before it’s over, but the paedobaptistic one is the most easily understood, i.e. “What is a Christian?”

Blessings,
Mike

By: Doug Roorda

Doug Roorda — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 03:15:45 +0000

Well, “If we tell our kids they belong to Jesus because we sprinkled some water on them and said some magic words” doesn’t describe anything I’ve said. So I wouldn’t really know how to respond to that.

Blessings,
Doug

By: Mike Bull

Mike Bull — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 00:22:51 +0000

So have your objections!

I’ve put that link up top:
http://www.bullartistry.com.au/wp/baptism/