Question about the nature of inclusion in New Covenant community...

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Taylor

Puritan Board Post-Graduate
Hi, all!

I spent a little time searching through these forums and nothing (that I can see) has turned up, so I'll just ask up front here.

One question I have wanted to ask a Paedobaptist for a while now is as follows: People entered the Old Covenant through physical birth. The sign of this entrance was circumcision. People enter the New Covenant by spiritual (re-)birth. The sign for entrance into this covenant community is baptism. I have been wondering, why baptize after physical birth when people can no longer enter the Covenant by physical birth? How does the contrast between the entrances into the two covenants play into the paedo-/credobaptism debate?

Thanks in advance for answers!
 
Taylor Sexton said:
People entered the Old Covenant through physical birth.... People enter the New Covenant by spiritual (re-)birth.
I would say that paedobaptists do not share these assumptions about entering into the covenant. It is held that people always entered the one Covenant of Grace by "spiritual birth" in both the administrations of the Old Testament and the New Testament. Circumcision and baptism are signs and seals of the covenant, but it is recognized that the covenant has both an internal and external aspect to it. Those who were circumcised or baptized would be externally in covenant, but only those who were born again (regenerate) could be internally in the covenant. Hence the paradigm for paedobaptists is not so much physical birth vs spiritual birth but rather external vs internal (or profession of Christ vs possession of Christ), and the question to ask for the subjects of circumcision or baptism is, "To whom do the covenant privileges belong to by right, according to God's promise?" not "To whom do the covenant privileges belong to in reality?"

Perhaps John 3 might be pointed to as evidence that the Jews should have known about spiritual birth or passages in Deuteronomy that physical lineage wasn't the substance of the covenant or that people did enter the covenant by ways besides having a parent who was in it.


Hopefully some knowledgeable member here can give you more detail or a better and more helpful answer.
 
A paedobaptist denies your first premise, in the form you presumably mean it, when you say: "People entered the Old Covenant through physical birth." The rest of your reasoning makes some sense upon baptistic principles; the result being the paedobaptist's reasoning seems confused or illogical to you.

In covenant theology (CT)--which I will distinguish here from baptist covenantalism (BC) which overlaps CT in places--CT makes the distinction, going all the way back into the OT, between "substance" and "administration" of the covenant; a distinction that continues in the NT age. In addition, the CT are used to thinking of a single covenant-of-grace (CoG) that expresses God's plan of redemption from the beginning, from the first indications of rescue from the fall in Gen.3. This one covenant is expressed in diverse administrations (sometimes called dispensations; but "dispensational theology," DT, has co-opted that term)--the primary expressions being covenant with Abraham, Moses, and Christ.

Therefore, CT does not interpret the covenants with Abraham or Moses as essentially physical, and entered into physically; but as principally spiritual, with physical analogues; and the new/Christic covenant in the same manner. CT thinks Paul expresses this thought with force and clarity in Rom.2:28-29, "For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God."

CT does not think Paul expresses a change of thinking in NT terms; but this is the truth going back all the way. All the way through Moses and Sinai back to Abraham, and even to Adam post-fall (in rudimentary form). People then in the OT, and now in the NT, enter a visible or administrative covenant-community by physical means. But they only partook/partake of the spiritual, invisible or substantive covenant by faith.

Circumcision is no more. Baptism supersedes it. That may suffice to clarify where the CT ends; and it goes back to where it begins. It does not start out in agreement with the original premise.

If you have other questions, feel free to ask.
 
Wow...

What wonderfully thoughtful and helpful answers from both of you! Bless you both for that. I have to be honest, even though it says in my signature that I subscribe to the 1689 LBC, I admit that, as of late, I have been struggling with the baptism issue. I desire earnestly to arrive at a conclusion/conviction soon. So, thank you two for your thoughtful answers to an ignorant, but sincere, question.
 
Also, thanks for pointing out my assumptions in the matter. I know I will learn quickly here!
 
Whatever becomes of your study into these matters, please remember that baptism isn't so much an "issue," with a focus on what/who/how. But a conclusion that grows out of a much bigger theology.

Sometimes people are tempted to move themselves into a completely different baptismal theory and practice chiefly because they think it will make aligning their convictions that much smoother. Without realizing it, they uproot a plant with unimagined deep roots and long-reaching tendrils. Unmoored as from an anchor, they surprise even themselves by drifting out to sea to be tossed by every wind of doctrine.

Peace.
 
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