Credobaptist objection
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Northern Crofter
Puritan Board Junior
Do you have a contemporary source discussing this or is this conjecture (not being snide - honestly asking and haven't had any success finding such sources)?
DanSSwing
Puritan Board Sophomore
My pastor actually said this in a sermon after some baptisms and before the Lord’s supper when he was discussing them pertaining to the catechisms and explaining the ordinances (or catechisms) of the church.
Northern Crofter
Puritan Board Junior
Sorry, I meant a source contemporary to the writing of the 1/2LBC like we have for the WCF (like the Minutes of the sessions of the Westminster Assembly or even Warfield's volume on the Assembly and its work).
This might need some explanation. If they wanted to distance themselves FURTHER from Rome it would appear that there was a difference AWAY from the way Protestants use the words. Unless one can go further and not move away from others. That would be interesting.
You seem to be saying that water baptism is irrelevant and does nothing. Peter says "baptism saves." The Reformed say that means it is a sign and seal of salvation. I am not sure how you can reconcile your views with the Bible or Reformed theology.
No Other Name
Puritan Board Senior
Slips out? How can this lose you?
How can you have a problem with the fact that now there is no longer a circumcision of the flesh and now (unlike then) there is an outpouring of the baptism of the Holy Spirit on all elect vs. then when that outpouring was promised-and-not-yet while the OT saints simultaneously were already saved by grace alone through faith alone in the coming Christ alone?
You may have misunderstood me?
If you say so.
I am happy to affirm Muller's definition: "sacramentum: sacrament; in churchly usage, a holy rite that is both a sign and a means of grace...
In the traditional Augustinian definition, a sacrament is a visible sign of an invisible grace.... Properly and strictly (proprie et strictè) sacraments must have three characteristics: they must (1) be commanded by God (a Deo mandata), (2) have visible or sensible elements prescribed by God, and (3) apply and seal by grace the promise of the gospel (promissio evangelicae). This strict definition applies to only two rites of the church: baptism (baptismus, q.v.) and the Lord’s Supper (coena sacra, q.v.). ... Protestant orthodoxy therefore defines a sacrament as a sacred action (actio) instituted by God that employs an external sign (signum) or element to confer on believers and seal to them by grace the promise of the gospel for remission of sins and life eternal."
But you aren't wrong. In the tacit agreement on the fact that we are not in sync here, it does seem we do differ from WCF on the nature of sacramental union; however, we do not differ on the fact of sacramental union.
DISCLAIMER: The following is for any who are interested and still cannot see it from the credobaptist lens. The following is not directed at any one person here.
Also, the following never once undercuts in any way the fact that Reformed paedobaptist churches are 100% faithful to the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. These are all true churches of Christ and must ALWAYS be seen and treated as such. Nothing but genuine love for brothers and sisters in their denominations.
I. Circumcision of the Flesh in the OT
Everyone - Israelite or Canaanite or whatever nation - is born into the Covenant of Works (the uncircumcised are outside of the Old Testament system). Adam is everyone's federal head.
In Gen. 17, God makes a covenant with Abraham and he is circumcised in the flesh - a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had yet being uncircumcised: that he might be the father of all them that believe, circumcised in the flesh or not. The sign and means of grace for Abraham here specifically is not extended to all male infants ever after. They are not circumcised as a seal of the righteousness of the faith they had when uncircumcised. They are not promised to be a father of many nations. They are marked with the sign of one born naturally to the household established by Abraham's faith and will live in obedience cut off from sin. They will be ones committed to a life that "does this and lives" and this includes the entire economy of God's covenantal laws and ordinances (positive commands along with the moral law that governs even the uncircumcised).
This means circumcision of the flesh cannot be a means of grace for the infant. A sign, yes, a type yes but no grace given to the infant due to the cutting off the foreskin.
This is my point with Esau and Saul. Was circumcising Esau a means of grace unto his faithful father Isaac? I imagine so as all obedience that is done in faith as one walks in the way of YHWH is pleasing unto him, thereby it folows Isaac circumcising his sons pleased YHWH.
But Esau the infant? What grace could there be for him? If one contends there is a grace, what happened to it?
Did God author a faith but did not finish it? Did God begin a work and then was not faithful to complete it? I know paedobaptists would deny this. Probably even contend that my question is invalid somehow.
We know that Esau was hated and Jacob loved (Rom. 9) and this was parallel and incidental to the circumcising of their flesh on the 8th day. The correlation does not imply a causation.
Even Isaac's faithful obedience in circumcising his children was his own sanctification and contributed nothing to God's love for Jacob and God's hatred for Esau.
All the reprobate in and under the Old Covenant (the CofW) as a Testament: inaugurated in Eden, codified in its final form in Sinai - that legal bequest outlining the economy of God's covenant for his people as promised in the coming Work of Christ towards the gift of salvation for all his elect (foreknown, predestined, called, from eternity).
All those circumcised in the flesh are done so in faith: the faith of the parents heeding and obeying the command of their covenant LORD God of Israel. The infant himself has no faith in the action. And the only method for inauguration into the CofG is the good pleasure of YHWH which cannot be added thereunto, neither by parent nor infant.
II. OT Types of Baptism
a. The passing through the Red Sea by Israel in Exodus
Moses is a type of Christ and Israel a type of the Church. (NOTE: Before you get mad, please note that I affirm there are elect in this moment in space and time, and I am more than happy to AFFIRM that these OT saints walking through the Red Sea are ACTUAL members of the Church as their saving faith is counted unto them for righteousness grounded in the Covenant of Redemption as all elect are.) In this typology, Israel is a type of the Universal Church, the true elect saved, baptized from the old into the new.
They go into the Red Sea and come out of Egypt into a new beginning.
Going through and finally dying unto Egypt and being brought from death in sin to life in Christ - from old man to new birth - they now are submitted to the authority and submission to YHWH alone, the covenant LORD God of Israel. There is no more connection to Egypt, there is only the new life initiated as they follow the cloud and the fire into the Promised Land he has prepared.
b. The ark of Noah and his family -
Keeping in mind now, that the ark is a type of baptism (1 Peter 3), we see God set apart a family and save them from destruction. While the type includes a family, the anti-type always includes the individual only. EDIT: While the type includes individuals known not to be elect, the anti-type can be applied to indiviudals that are elect and part of the covenant community Peter is addressing here, and the believing community Paul addressed in 1 Cor. 10.
The type's illustration is one not only of salvation from death but a bringing unto a new beginning. Baptism has always never been solely about death or saving from death but brining about from old into new, from death into life, and always inside AND outside.
"Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch." (Gen. 6:14)
A covering of atonement both inside and outside ensuring salvation for Noah. The OT is replete with "inside and outside" motifs.
In Lev. 16, on the day of atonement, the high priest is to sacrifice the bull as a sin offering for himself carrying it in and covering the mercy seat with blood and before the mercy seat and outside: the horns of the altar.
When he casts lots for the two goats:
Goat A is the one will be kept *inside* the camp and blood shed as propitiation for the sins of the people. Again the blood covering inside on the mercy seat, before the mercy seat and outside at the horns of the altar.
While Goat B is sent *outside* after the laying on of hands and carrying the sins of the people into the wilderness.
Inside and outside. The "external" and the "internal" in use for OT types of baptism.
III. Doxology Intended for Edification of All
Baptism in the Spirit is the circumcision of the heart. A cutting off of the old man, dying to sin, a circumcision not made with hands. Stone is melted and flesh regenerated into a new birth. Angels who rejoice in repentance cannot produce it. Nor any Minister of the Gospel. Not by any might nor by any power but by Your Spirit, O LORD of hosts.
As the human Christ is a Tabernacle among men; he too not made with hands, all work, all gory all honor belongs to you only, Lord God.
You have put off from us these bodies of flesh, and we do magnify your work and give you glory alone. Christ put on my sins so I would bear them no more. Oh how is it possible that I yet sin in the body baptized and cleansed to your glory? Sometimes it feels as if am outside myself looking inside at myself and I can see the decay of the dead flesh hanging in ribbons and I think that could not possibly be me.
Yet it is. When alone, when cut off from others in the faith or good works God calls me to. When feeling rested and full and satisfied, the old man rises like a monster from his grave. O wretch that is ME! I cannot pretend that it is not me, that I am separated from his actions for the filth covers my hands.
Yet your Word promises that I am a branch grafted into you as the vine. United to you walking in your Spirit, my new man raised above the sins of my flesh. Revealing your greatness, revealing my own wretchedness when I forget it or think lesser of it than it is. Drawing me to a dependence on you and your works alone as the only ground for anything I do or say or think that is holy and acceptable to you. In you I trust, in your gospel of salvation alone. In you I believe, and having believed, am sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, covered by the shedding of your blood, buried with you in baptism, and it is you who has raised me up to new life.
God the Father loved us and sent Jesus to redeem us. God the Son loved us and assumed our nature, shed his own blood to wash away our sins, wrought righteousness in us to cover over our unworthiness;
And O Holy Spirit, you loved us and entered our heart, implanted inside there eternal life, revealed to us the glory of redemption. Three Persons and one God, we bless and praise you alone,
"for love so unmerited, so unspeakable, so wondrous,
so mighty to save the lost and raise them to glory."
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As a reformed Baptist, would say and see that water Baptism is the outward confession of what had already happened in the life of the redeemed, and would be an identification as being now part of the local assembly and the Body of Christ
So I would see the entry point into the New Covenant of Grace as being the faith in the person and Work of the Lord Jesus as my savior and Lord
Northern Crofter
Puritan Board Junior
I don't think the 2 sides will ever get past these points.
No Other Name
Puritan Board Senior
It's healthy to keep it always in mind in a solid thread like this one from time to time.
It's also healthy to know when to agree to disagree and hold out charity for the other as genuine believers. Just my two cents from the other side of the aisle. And the
are offered not thrown! hahahaIt seems to me that the way you are breaking down the typology determines the conclusion you reach. You begin with the assumption that baptism is signifying an individual's inward grace, and then you interpret the type accordingly. But that means the individual‑only baptism is already built into the premise. The typology is not doing the work; your definition is.
In the type of the ark, God saves a household. In the anti‑type of baptism, Peter explicitly says the pattern continues: "the like figure now saves you." But "you" in 1 Peter is not an isolated individual; it is the covenant community addressed as a body. It is the holy nation. The anti‑type as an "individual" is simply not something Peter says.
But even if we went the route of the "individual," there is still the fact that infants are individuals and there are elect infants who are saved by baptism. With all the ingenuity in the world one does not evade that fact. Break it down any way one pleases, it is not going to nullify the truth that is professed.
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Which applies to elect infants, as we have already established in an earlier round of posts.
No Other Name
Puritan Board Senior
There is no "individual-only" baptism. My "individual" comment was simply to eliminate the offhand possibility anyone out there would interpret the ark-as-type-of-baptism with any kind of phantom "issue" that swirls out there that a particular member of the family was saved-from-Flood but not-saved-from-sin (Ham for instance).
Or the fact that not all individuals crossing the Red Sea were elect. So the fact that the type included all Noahs' family or all Israelites does not mean that all are elect and that does not undermine the typology the NT employed. That was all I meant there.
Quite the leap to make to presume I intended to undercut or deny the fact that Peter was addressing the covenant community as a body. I affirm that.
And I stand by the fact that baptism is also an individualistic action between God and the believer. Even in covenant community-wide baptisms like Acts 2, the sacramental union is both a union with Christ and his Church and also Christ and me and you and you etc.
I am very sure that I am innocent of coming at typology with a pre-determined conclusion (or at least no more so than we are all susceptible to at times). But I am very sure this time is not the case since I deliberated as hard as I could to be faithful to all texts consulted.
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No Other Name
Puritan Board Senior
All right, I fixed my original wording. Original wording remains in blue. New text added to replace it in green.
Yes, but "all are elect" is no part of the type, is it? As soon as you have Ham and the wilderness Israelites typically "baptised" you have to account for that. Individualising it in the antitypical baptism is not part of the movement from type to antitype. You are introducing that idea as a new element that is no part of Peter's presentation.
Well, if it is the covenant community, that community has a make-up similar to the household of Noah. It is not the elect as elect that Peter addresses, but the elect as a professing society. So, again, there is a disconnect.
Yes, but it doesn't come to the individual except through the church. The connection to the church as a visible body is fundamental to the thing.
I grant your intention; but I am looking at the results.
DNM300
Puritan Board Freshman
I should have said it always “comes out” or “shows up.”
“circumcision of the flesh ceased by the work of the Holy Spirit and it by His grace, our hearts of stone are now cut out and replaced with hearts of flesh.” - you, from post #223.
Your statement that I have emphasized here, I would affirm of OT saints also. Your use of the term “now” - I take to be an indicator that the current heart replacement was not that which OT saints experience. There’s gracious heart replacement now, (but not then.) That’s what I find disagreeable. And my judgment is: that disagreeable take is caked and baked into reformed baptist covenant theology.
DNM300
Puritan Board Freshman
The Paedobaptist view is quite different; I trust you know this. (Interested readers could confer with Stephen G Myers, David Gibson, Cornelis Venema, John Murray, etc.)
If circumcision was a seal of the righteousness of faith Abraham had in his state of uncircumcision, then it as a seal guarantees the promise that God counts faith as righteousness. This is good news to every male, and indeed every household of Israel.
If circumcision was a seal of the righteousness of the faith which would be in the uncircumcision (that is to say, in the gentiles), well it still preaches justification sola fide!
The then-present pedagogical force of circumcision is as follows: “Father Abraham received this righteousness by faith. In a distant day the gentiles will receive this (same) righteousness by faith. You too, young Isaac, young Ishmael, young Jacob and Esau, may have this same righteousness right now by faith in the promised Messiah.”
That does not sound like an administration of the CoW. That’s a “serving-up” of the Covenant of Grace. And I contend that belongs to the Abrahamic covenant.
No Other Name
Puritan Board Senior
No there is not if you take the whole post into account. You may not agree with my position but it has coherence and consistency.
I have spent multiple posts over and over again saying the opposite of what you take as an indicator.
Sure, I do not deny; I affirm. My question is how can infants have faith to be counted as righteousness? Do you claim male infants have a faith counted as to righteousness in their circumcisions?
Amen.
So then they are not circumcised into the Covenant of Grace yes? Since entry is solely justification by grace alone through faith alone in Promised Messiah alone. Yes?
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No Other Name
Puritan Board Senior
Frankly, this all is getting kind of ridiculous.
Richard Feynman was a deeply flawed secular materialistic scientist who had one redeeming quality by God's common grace: he was an excellent teacher. When he said "If you cannot explain something in simple terms, then you really don't understand it", he put his metaphorical money where his mouth was and published his "Lectures on Physics" which - to this very day - has no equal in its simplicity and layers of depth in all introductory topics in the field. (NOTE: I do not recommend picking it up and devouring every claim wholesale as he does approach science from the materialistic worldview.)
This is for all those lurking and watching and thinking and praying:
Laying out simply a deep and complex system was always my goal. I included definitions of terms and made as many connections as I could Biblically while limiting the word count to a reasonable degree for a PB post.
This thread is not a debate.
One side is being cross-examined (credobaptists). The other side is picking at the quotes produced by the other and not producing a simple straightforward case for their system top to bottom for you to consider.
This thread is the equivalent of a credobaptist sitting at a Jubilee table while paedobaptists tag team posts (often the same post) and rotate out while there is no clock on the table. And there is no moderator to insist the padeobaptist lay out their full affirmative case for why infants should be baptized with no positive command to baptize infants. Can you? Can you guys lay out your case simply and fully in one post including definitions of covenants, sacraments etc?
Now I am on record, and I will go again on record as saying that I would love for there to be an actual debate on the issue with clear guidelines and responsible and thorough scholarship on both sides. A deep dive with fallacies cut out by an impartial moderator whenever one loses a bit of cool, and pointed questions and genuine answers that reveal the fullness of each system to its most theological robustness.
This is not that thread.
That would have to be some other hypothetically possible thread, but it is not this one. I wouldn't even vote on myself for the credo representative, as I have not one millisecond of seminary. I am just a guy. I know that sounds like a "humble brag" but it is really not.
How was that not a "humble brag"? Consider this:
there has to be a reason my summary "position posts" (as in Post # 248) gets not even one like, not even from other credos. I really don't know why, but I am more than prepared for the possibility I am making some error in my definitions and connections. I am pretty sure there are no errors "found out" by my interlocutors though as they pull sentences here and there and handwave by way of assertion that I am wrong without considering the actual argument I laid out in its entirety.
EXAMPLE: I am told I have to account for non-elect in a type. Period. That's it.
Why though? If it is not a baptism itself but a type of baptism, then why should I assume that the anti-type must include non-elect as well as the type? Do other types work this? Not that I know of. It is why a type of Christ can be very much not like Christ in substance. We know the type (shadow) of Christ in the figure of Moses, Samson, David includes unChristlike attributes in their substance, so that the type is a shadow and the substance of the type is NOT the same as the substance of the anti-type.
I hope this gets better and full and developed positions start being laid out by the other side instead of pulling sentences and sniping while getting up from the chair so that another interlocutor can snipe at other carefully-chosen sentences, ... which is why this gets tiring so fast
Richard Feynman was a deeply flawed secular materialistic scientist who had one redeeming quality by God's common grace: he was an excellent teacher. When he said "If you cannot explain something in simple terms, then you really don't understand it", he put his metaphorical money where his mouth was and published his "Lectures on Physics" which - to this very day - has no equal in its simplicity and layers of depth in all introductory topics in the field. (NOTE: I do not recommend picking it up and devouring every claim wholesale as he does approach science from the materialistic worldview.)
This is for all those lurking and watching and thinking and praying:
Laying out simply a deep and complex system was always my goal. I included definitions of terms and made as many connections as I could Biblically while limiting the word count to a reasonable degree for a PB post.
This thread is not a debate.
One side is being cross-examined (credobaptists). The other side is picking at the quotes produced by the other and not producing a simple straightforward case for their system top to bottom for you to consider.
This thread is the equivalent of a credobaptist sitting at a Jubilee table while paedobaptists tag team posts (often the same post) and rotate out while there is no clock on the table. And there is no moderator to insist the padeobaptist lay out their full affirmative case for why infants should be baptized with no positive command to baptize infants. Can you? Can you guys lay out your case simply and fully in one post including definitions of covenants, sacraments etc?
Now I am on record, and I will go again on record as saying that I would love for there to be an actual debate on the issue with clear guidelines and responsible and thorough scholarship on both sides. A deep dive with fallacies cut out by an impartial moderator whenever one loses a bit of cool, and pointed questions and genuine answers that reveal the fullness of each system to its most theological robustness.
This is not that thread.
That would have to be some other hypothetically possible thread, but it is not this one. I wouldn't even vote on myself for the credo representative, as I have not one millisecond of seminary. I am just a guy. I know that sounds like a "humble brag" but it is really not.
How was that not a "humble brag"? Consider this:
there has to be a reason my summary "position posts" (as in Post # 248) gets not even one like, not even from other credos. I really don't know why, but I am more than prepared for the possibility I am making some error in my definitions and connections. I am pretty sure there are no errors "found out" by my interlocutors though as they pull sentences here and there and handwave by way of assertion that I am wrong without considering the actual argument I laid out in its entirety.
EXAMPLE: I am told I have to account for non-elect in a type. Period. That's it.
Why though? If it is not a baptism itself but a type of baptism, then why should I assume that the anti-type must include non-elect as well as the type? Do other types work this? Not that I know of. It is why a type of Christ can be very much not like Christ in substance. We know the type (shadow) of Christ in the figure of Moses, Samson, David includes unChristlike attributes in their substance, so that the type is a shadow and the substance of the type is NOT the same as the substance of the anti-type.
I hope this gets better and full and developed positions start being laid out by the other side instead of pulling sentences and sniping while getting up from the chair so that another interlocutor can snipe at other carefully-chosen sentences, ... which is why this gets tiring so fast
Venator Veritatis
Puritan Board Freshman
I have been following this thread and I really appreciate this. Thank you.
I'm not nearly well studied enough to jump into this discussion at this point, and while I do think you are being "tag teamed" so to speak I do think that there have been several good posts from the paedobaptist side that have answered objections to their position, at least in a way that was helpful to my understanding. But maybe that just speaks to my level of learning on this subject.
I’ve started a couple of other threads breaking down the conversation into its particulars so some headway can be made. I haven’t seen you participate there.
No Other Name
Puritan Board Senior
If I ever feel the need I will.
I mean your way over there is a perfectly valid way to go about it and this thread included my attempt(s) at going from the other end so to speak. And I am not convinced the issues here in this thread are endemic to the process of going at it from top down as I have tried opposed to bottom up as you are doing over there.
That is the claim; but I was testing the claim. Protestations of coherence and consistency are not going to meet the criticisms. One must answer the criticisms to SHOW coherence and consistency.
DNM300
Puritan Board Freshman
I would say they are circumcised into the administration of the CoG. I intended to be pretty clear on that in my last post…
But let’s go with what you have written. No ritual can instate someone intentionally and really into the Covenant of Grace. Thus no one is ever baptized into the CoG. Which down the line means the perfect/ideal nature of the CoG has no bearing on who to baptize.
Does water-baptism instate someone into the CoG? If you say “yes, it does (at least in some sense”) then you must confess the covenant is in some sense “breakable.” If you say “no, baptism never instates individuals into the CoG,” then there’s no covenantal ground to fault anyone for baptizing an unbeliever/not-yet-believer. The covenant is pure, yes, but I cannot even adjust its “mixture” by baptizing in the first place.
Think that would appear to be the dividing issue on this entire discussion, as to what actually constitutes the person entry way and point into the COG, the New Covenant?
Alive in Christ
Puritan Board Freshman
The Bible clearly teaches that baptism saves. It is not the act itself that saves, despite what Rome teaches. But baptism is the normal means by which God saves, and through a present or future faith. It is like the blind man whose sight was restored by washing in the pool of Siloam. It was Jesus (God) who restored the man's sight, while the elements were the visible means through which God worked. Likewise, the sacraments are a work - not of man, but of God.
No Other Name
Puritan Board Senior
Amen
Baptism in the Holy Spirit is regeneration, the act where the Holy Spirit applies the work of Christ and the heart of stone is excised and the heart of flesh imputed. The "willingness and ability to believe" (7.3) is evidence the Spirit has immersed the believer into the body of Christ.
Even as WCF identifies water baptism as seal and sign of the NC, I always thought we were at least agreed on the Spirit baptism into the CofG. I guess I was wrong?
But again, how could I have known? And whatever difference there is between being baptized by the Spirit into the CofG vs. being circumcised into the administration of the CofG must hold some kind of meaning for you somehow?
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Insisting I must account for a one-to-one correspondence for all elements from a shadow in a type to the substance of the antitype is not "testing the claim". It is an assertion and is no argument.
DNM300
Puritan Board Freshman
Every instance of the term “baptism” in my last post was a reference to the water ritual. I figured that was evident given the context. The sign, not the thing signified.
No Other Name
Puritan Board Senior
And every instance of the term "baptized into the CofG" was always referring to the seal of the NC: the thing signified, not the sign.
DNM300
Puritan Board Freshman
Meaning with water. No one is ever water baptized into the CoG in an ex opere operato way.
Give me the read I intended and now am explicitly asking for.
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