Dr Stephen Wellum's Defense of Credo-Baptism

[Robert Truelove]

http://kingdomresources.files.wordpress.com/2007/08/wellum_baptindd.pdf

I'd be interested in getting feedback from other fellow paedobaptists willing to read this article. What is your overall evaluation?

 

[JoshBrisby]

This article is in the book Believer's Baptism in a collection of essays. As a paedo, I was impressed by the scholarly aspects of many of the credo essays in this book, but overall this book actually was one book which convinced me *not* to continue being a credo. Wellum makes the familiar arguments that only the elect are in the NC based off of Jer 31:31-34. But this reading and understanding of Jer 31 cannot be sustained from various NT texts such as Jn 15, Ro 11, 1 Co 5, Heb 6 and 10, etc.

Also, Wellum seems to reject covenant theology and seems to espouse New Covenant Theology. New Covenant Theology has problems of its own. I would recommend critiques of NCT from Reformed Baptists Greg Welty (numerous articles online) and Rich Barcellos (In Defense of the Decalogue: A Critique of New Covenant Theology).

 

[JoshBrisby]

Almost forgot another thing. Wellum also, like most Reformed Baptists, assumes that all of the older covenants are completely replaced by the New Covenant, but he fails to realize that in Jer 31 itself the contrast is made *not* between the Abrahamic and the New, but between the *Mosaic* and the New. This is one reason we as paedos still believe the covenant is made with us and our children, even as it was made with Abraham and his children. Surely the Abrahamic Covenant promises still apply.