Jonathan R
Puritan Board Freshman
Presbyterians do not typically believe in a promissory union to Christ for baptized infants. Union with Christ is reserved for those who are regenerate, which could include infants, but not by assumption, and certainly not by baptism. We would phrase it this way: baptism is a sign and seal that marks out the infant as set apart from the world, and joined to the visible church. The child is already part of the visible church by virtue of being born into a covenantal family of the church. But baptism is the formal sign and seal of what already exists.
My selection of the word promissory was an attempt to define the relationship between Christ and an unregenerate church member, which, if I recall from most Presbyterian baptisms, is to the effect that Christ in some manner has marked the child as his own via the believing parent(s) and the baptism is done in hope of a future faith in the child.
How can you practically assure this level of vetting when even the apostles couldn't do it, and when even the whole book of Hebrews assumes this level of scrutiny as an impossibility?
Would it also be a logical conclusion of your use of the word "ought" that if the pastor baptizes or accepts someone into membership who is not regenerate, that the pastor has committed sin?
May I ask you to consider how you would fence the Lord's Table without using the standard that I have noted? And would you say that the minister has sinned in serving the supper to one who has falsely professed? I think not - rather the sin is on the side of the false professor. My use of the word ought implies the standard, but the blame, however, is on the side of the deceiver not the deceived.
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