I’ve covered that desperate misreading of Psalm 8 here:

http://www.bullartistry.com.au/wp/2011/06/22/psalm-8/

Baptism puts us into the Body, and the Body is the Church. In baptism a new Christian submits to the authority of the Church, so I think I would advise rebaptism even where one has been credo-immersed but wants to become a member at a church where their old baptism for some reason is not recognized (I know some Independent Baptists require this).

If a saint hasn’t been immersed but has submitted to the Church, it’s no worse than the Church doing Communion wrong. It’s an institutional disobedience, not a personal one. Like any failure to obey, I believe they miss out on a blessing. But as for being in a Covenant relationship, this applies to the entire world, not just paedobaptistic “seed” (which is a ridiculous idea). The entire world is under the New Covenant, and those who obey the Gospel are blessed now with refining and finally on the day of reckoning. Paedobaptism messes up the refinement process. It muddies the New Testament definition of “Christian” by tying it to heredity. So their biblical postmillennialism is hamstrung. We’re not supposed to outbreed the godless (although this is certainly a factor in an apostate Christendom), we’re supposed to plunder them with a big net. Their federal vision is focussed on their physical progeny. They can point out the failure of baptists to discipline and parent, but it’s a false dichotomy. The Scriptures require godly parenting by credo-baptized believers JUST FOR STARTERS.

As I tweeted the other day, what good is reuniting baptism and communion if this reunion divorces them both from the new birth? It’s not just unbiblical, it’s illogical.

Cheers,
Mike

I suppose you could say that you’re not against infant baptism per se – that if you somehow found an infant who could give a profession of faith (like the one in Psalm 8 ) then you would baptise them.

So, on a separate (though not entirely separate) note, would you say that those baptised in infancy should be rebaptised if they come to faith later on? The ramifications are quite significant, you would effectively be saying that many of our paedobaptistic brethren are not in a full covenant relationship with God. It doesn’t affect me since I have had both but I know others who are struggling with this one.

Would you say that the fact that they have already been baptised means that they don’t need to receive it again since now their baptism is made complete by their faith? Or would you go with the more common baptist view that their first baptism is totally invalid?

Sorry to keep on pestering you!

1. Children that can respond to such a command in faith should be baptized. This verse actually supports my main assertion in this blog post. We fulfill all our “fleshly” stations in the power of the Spirit — as individuals.

2. The model we are given shows that baptism is for those who respond. A faithful response was a good enough testimony, and baptism was the first step of obedience as proof of that testimony. In many countries, identifying with Christ in baptism entails a great deal of suffering. For many Jewish, Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox families, a credobaptism “re-” baptism is seen as a betrayal of culture, a disloyalty to the clan. That both exposes paedobaptism for what it is – a carnal rite – and it displays the intended beauty of New Covenant baptism, a new allegiance that transcends heredity and culture.

Jesus was baptized at the beginning of His ministry. He didn’t say these babies should be baptized. They were not disciples. But disciples are to have the same kind of faith in God as children have in their guardians.

Beyond this, credobaptisms are way more edifying and way more fun.

Hope that helps. Thanks for your comments!

Let’s call the answer you’re about to give your last answer. I didn’t include questions for no reason!

And thanks a lot for your replies, they really mean a lot to me. I basically just want to figure out what on earth I’m supposed to do with my kids when I have them.

1. Good answer. Though how do you deal with the fact that Paul also uses the term “faithful in Christ Jesus” and “faithful brothers” to describe the children?

2. I can agree that baptism prepares us as witnesses but not necessarily straight away. It is a starting point in a journey. It kills us so that may may bear the marks of Christ to others, but in a way appropriate to our circumstances. Why did Jesus include babies in his kingdom (“such as these”) if the kingdom is not for them?

I wasn’t trying to prove infant baptism by the disability thing, I was just trying to show that it wasn’t wholly inconsistent with the Gospel. I think you often speak as if the Gospel is something we do and not something that Jesus has done for us. Please don’t take it as a watertight proof (excuse the pun!).

3. You’re right, a national circumcision would fit much better with a national baptism. I’ve never heard that “those afar off” could refer to the scattered Jews, but it does seem to make more sense of the phrase and of the Caiaphas’s use of the phrase “gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad” in John (given that he was so nationalistic).

Well, you’ve given me some food for thought. Let’s call this your last answer, unless you have any questions for me. Hopefully I’ll have made up my mind by the time I have kids

1. Unbelieving children and spouses were not to be “put away” as they were in Ezra. The reason is that the New Covenant is about the touch of life, not the touch of corruption.

2. The only response to the gospel is repentance and faith. And as regards the babies, baptism is not about who can be brought to Jesus. Baptism is about who can go out again as a witness, a qualified representative. It is a robe of authority. Jesus didn’t come out of the tomb naked.

I’ve covered this “disability” excuse elsewhere. It’s like arguing that murdering 30 million unborn infants is justified because of the previous 37 deaths due to backyard abortions. If we baptize unbelieving helpless people, aren’t we simply bringing more judgment upon them when they can’t keep their “proxy” Covenant vows. Nobody seems to think this through very well. They are blinded by the carnal security they find in baptizing their physical offspring.

3. Yes, there were uncircumcised foreigners present, and even the Israelites didn’t circumcise their baby boys in the wilderness. But the “national” circumcision was Passover. The Egyptian firstborn flesh was cut away to reveal the people of the true God. The other “flesh” was the flesh of faith. It is possible to draw too many comparisons, because the first Pentecost resulted in 3000 deaths, and the last resulted in 3000 believers. Paul corresponds Israel’s wilderness testing with the period from AD30 to AD70. It was the end of Israel according to the flesh. The promise at Pentecost (to you, your children and those [Jews] afar off) was to the last generation of the physical children of Abraham. It does not apply to us.

1. Our children are to be regarded as saints, as among the faithful, unless there are good reasons to doubt this. If they are not saints, then why does Paul call them saints in Ephesians (compare 1:1 with 6:1-3) and Colossians (compare 1:2 with 3:20)?

2. The Gospel is not repentance. The Gospel is the proclamation that the man Jesus who was crucified is now the risen and exalted Lord of Creation (How appropriate on Easter Sunday!). Jesus did not expect a confession of sins or repentance from the babies who were brought to him (Luke 18:15-17), he took them in his arms and into his kingdom just as they were.

The Gospel means including the weak and helpless. Infant baptism means including in the covenant those who are our children by birth or by mental disability (if we are their carers). When Paul talks about “another Gospel” he is talking about excluding gentiles from the table. Inclusion of our children doesn’t seem to go against the central truth of the Gospel, but is rather supported by it.

3. See argument 1 for a paedobaptist interpretation of “believers”.

Also, Israel was not a unity of flesh when she passed through the red sea. There were many uncircumcised foreigners in her midst that nethertheless became part of the nation through that baptism which came to define Israel as a people. And God would continue to remind her of how he rescued her through baptism and “brought [her] out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery” (Ex 20:1). Her baptism was spiritual, as made clear by 1 Cor 10:1-5.

But please do keep coming back to me, i appreciate it a lot. You’re the only credobaptist I’ve come across who has convincing arguments for your position. I’m even a member of a baptist church and I’ve never heard a decent defence of it there.

1. Chris, if this were the case, we should be attempting to baptize the world instead of preach the gospel. Paedobaptism quite obviously gets the cart before the horse. Bad argument. The apostle’s words in Romans 6 and Colossians 2 are for believers, who are required to walk in Christ.

2. There’s no evidence that entire families were brought into the New Covenant “uncut.” Even when a “household” is baptized in Acts (and the literary purpose of Luke here is to fulfill the Feast of Tabernacles), they all believed. If baptism makes fleshly children into spiritual children, without repentance, you have invented another gospel. It’s entirely carnal.

3. The other satisfactory reading is that it applies only to believers. Credobaptists don’t always get the significance of baptism right, but they do understand who qualifies. There is no reason for credos to have a problem with any of these texts on baptism. Israel did not pass through the Red Sea as individuals, but as Israel, as “one flesh.” That is not the case with the New Israel. We pass through as individuals united not in flesh but in Spirit. That means believers only. Unregenerate flesh doesn’t qualify. If it turns out that someone got baptized who wasn’t regenerate, we preach the gospel to them again in Church discipline.

Cheers,
Mike

Thanks for the response. I think I have read most of your main arguments for the credo position from this blog, so I will respond to them as best I can from a paedobaptist position.

1. Baptism is for the mature

I agree that baptism is linked to maturity, but I would say it is more a means of maturity than a result of it. Our children are Adams and need new life breathed into them so that they can grow up in the kingdom of Christ. Baptism puts them in Christ. Both Romans 6 and Colossians 2 teach that baptism unites us to Christ’s death, enabing us to walk in newness of life (maturity/resurrection).

2. Our “children” in the new covenant are those we bring to faith in Christ.

That would make my girlfriend my spiritual daughter, eww! Joking, she is my sister in Christ and that’s just as weird

I’m not convinced, I think that (for example) Timothy’s grandmother brought him to faith and that Paul’s fatherhood related to him being a mentor/authority figure for him. In the new Covenant, we become children of God, not of man. Hence I would agree with Leithart that the family as an institution in and of itself must die in order to become swept up into the wider priesthood of the church family. Baptism is an act of God which makes fleshly children of Adam into spiritual children of Christ. The promise to us and our children still applies in the new covenant, but in a new way.

3. Baptism makes us martyrs

Yes, and in the deepest sense. As I have strongly argued above, baptism really does cut the heart, it slays us. I have never found any other satisfactory reading of the new testament passages on baptism. Baptism kills, it drowns us with the heavenly waters of the blood of Christ, just as many were drowned by heavenly waters in the flood and the waters held above by the spirit drowned the egyptian army at the exodus.

Well, that’s my best shot. I know it’s not great. Not sure how representative this all is of general FV rhetoric on baptism, but I hope you can at least see where I am coming from. Don’t feel your responses are a wasted effort though, I’m not fully decided yet.

- You have turned baptism into another gospel. It is not baptism that cuts the heart, but the the gospel. This is very clear. So preach the gospel to your infants first. When they respond, baptize them. The verses you quote offer no support for PB at all.

- Plain teaching? There is not a single instance of it in the Bible, it defies everything the Bible says baptism is for, and, as I have hopefully shown over the last couple of years, the OT typology actually supports credobaptism. Links here: http://www.bullartistry.com.au/wp/baptism/

Circumcision was not replaced by baptism but by the gospel. See: http://www.bullartistry.com.au/wp/2012/01/16/circumcision-and-apocalypse/

- I take your point about an objective baptism, but there’s nothing keeping a credobaptist from applying all the good stuff Dr Leithart says about baptism and Covenant to a believer. It actually works much better with credobaptism. In truth, it is a paedobaptism that is nothing, because the “object” is not regenerate, whatever miracles they claim. The prerequisite is always repentance. This is really basic stuff.

- The reason it’s heresy is because it is another gospel. The reason the FV guys are not heretics is because they preach the true gospel. They just don’t seem to understand that this teaching conflicts with it, because of their dastardly PB goggles. Dispensationalists only preach the gospel, as far as I can tell, even to Jews, at least in this dispensation. Their doctrine doesn’t make them heretics until after the rapture!

- Yes, baptism can be death to the family, but only if it divides the family. That is Jesus’ point. But it doesn’t result in a new version of the old family. It results in the Church. Preaching the gospel to our families is the New Covenant method, but the family is not a New Covenant vehicle per se. This is not hard to understand.