Status of Baptist Children in the CoG

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Justified

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I have a couple questions regarding the status of Baptist children in the CoG. First, if a Baptist doesn't baptize their child are they in anyway external members of the CoG? Also, what advantage does a baptized child have with an unbaptized child, who is still a child of a believer?
 
The child is still holy, regardless of whether the sign has been applied or not (1 Corinthians 7:14). Baptism doesn't make them holy, it just is a recognition of the fact that they are holy and set apart for God.

The advantage the baptized child has is that they have the external sign of the covenant applied to them, and so there is an ever-present reminder of a spiritual reality that they need to seek in their life. I can remind my children that they have been baptized, that the name of God has been applied to them - that they are disciples of Christ, and that they should live as Baptized members of the Church - to seek out the promises of God, to make sure that they are found in the Invisible Church, and not just the Visible Church.

The sacraments are an aid to our faith. And just as the circumcised of Israel were to seek heart circumcision (for example, Deut. 10:16), my children are to seek the spiritual washing away of sin that their baptism represents. So we remind our children they are baptized, and just as the vessels in the Temple were set apart for a holy use, they too are set apart for a holy use.

They also have the advantage that there is a treatment of them by the Officers of the Church that they are a member of the Church. My children are members of my Church, and the officers of the Church address them as members, just as surely as Paul addresses the Children of the Church (Colossians 3:20, Ephesians 6:1).
 
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I'm in the somewhat unusual position of having paedo-baptist convictions but regularly teaching kids in a (Calvinistic) Baptist church. I treat them as covenant kids, the same way I would treat Presbyterian kids who'd been baptized. The only difference I see in their status is that the Baptist kids don't have the sign of being convenant kids, which is at times something of a hinderance in teaching. I like to be able to look at a kid and say, "God has made a covenant with you too, and it's important that you live like it." With Baptist kids it's harder to point to evidence that this is true. My experience is that they don't readily feel as included.

There are some Baptists who believe a church kid who has not yet professed faith should be regarded (and treated) as a heathen until he does so. They take issue with the way I speak to Baptist church kids. This is a huge hinderance to discipleship, since you can't really teach a child to love and serve God while at the same time treating him as if he is on track to receive God's eternal wrath. There's no ground for Christian growth without faith in God's promises.

But the majority of Baptist parents at churches I know want their kids to be treated as young disciples who are part of God's family. Their practical theology is not much different from that of a Presbyterian when it comes to actually raising their kids. This can make it seem as if baptism has no apparent benefit. But I find myself speaking more forcefully to Presbyterian kids about their responsibilities to God and to the church to which they belong, and about God's love to them in Christ. Maybe that's just due to tentativeness I still feel around Baptists, but I suspect there's also a different vibe I'm detecting: Baptist kids tend to be not quite sure they belong when compared to Presbyterian kids.

That's surely not true of all Baptist churches, but I've been around enough Baptists and Presbyterians that I think I detect a difference.
 
Regarding the first query: you seem to ask an "objective" question, when the answer must be theologically contingent; that is, dependent on a whole theological system. The idea of "external members of the CoG" is coherent within classical covenant theology. Even Baptists who subscribe to the CoG (e.g. 2LBC) are not themselves operating in this day and age (the New Covenant) by means of this category. To put it finely: the adult Baptist believer may not even think of himself as somehow being an "external member of the CoG," when the CoG/NC in his book has no external administration; but is wholly of spiritual administration.

For our part, we envision the CoG being functionally, administratively operative (visibly, externally) through the church. But to actually see it requires the whole system of theology--biblical, systematic, practical. What about churches that don't have what we think of as "the whole package," (not that they share our impression of them)? In an irregular sense, we might say that the baptized members of a Baptist church are in fact external members of the CoG, even if they themselves do not own the category.

Similarly but taking it a step further, we can say that their children are (or would be, if those families were members in our churches) at a minimum visible, external participants in the covenant administration. But the reality is, that "external administration" is only available in the truest sense where it is acknowledged. So there is also a sense in which those who don't have it--being rejected in principle in some places--therefore do not draw on such benefits as may be offered by that administration.

With no disrespect intended (to anyone), consider the illustration of some Amish living by their principles next to their "ordinary" neighbors. If we try to describe these Amish in terms of "US citizenship," such might be a category that in principle they (some of them anyway) reject. And yet, there are shared factors of our common and local existence that allow us to interpret their experience using our categories of description. Plus, they cannot help but ride their buggies on the ubiquitous asphalt-paved roads of America. So, irrespective of how they might view the reality, there is a sense in which their lives conform to the rules of "ordinary Americans."

But since they do not take advantage of numerous "benefits" as could be offered by that administration (of secular government) surrounding them, and that possesses in a deeper sense their fully invested neighbors, is it accurate in the truest sense to describe these Amish as "members/citizens" in the society they reject? This example, it seems to me, gets at the difficulty of describing someone of the Baptist persuasion, while using vocabulary and ideas that do not map to his self-understanding, which produces a particular ecclesiastical exhibit of faith and theology.

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Regarding the second query: "advantages" are inseparable from the context in which they are offered. To borrow the Amish analogy again, just because my child under the laws of some state may obtain a learner's permit at 14.75yrs of age (perceived/real advantage), does not mean that the similarly situated Amish teen has the same "advantage." By the non-discriminatory laws of the state, the Amish child has the same opportunity as my child. But driving a motorized vehicle (probably?) isn't even thought of as "advantageous" by the Amish community as a whole, or the individual.

In other words, I interpret the privilege of driving as an advantage for a variety of reasons, but that perception is conditioned by my context. And saying (petulantly?) to the Amish person, "It's an advantage, whether you are willing to accept it or not!"--even if at some level it could be objectively "proved" I was correct--it still comes across as pushy and parochial.

Being Presbyterians, we see distinct advantages--flowing out of a whole context of theology (biblical, systematic, practical)--to acknowledging our minors as being "members/citizens" of the ecclessia, visibly, externally, administratively. It is the way we see the world, through glasses we have no wish to part with. We think this is the biblical way to view our Kingdom, though we have not yet arrived at the end of our pilgrimage in the homeland (the world to come). The advantages to our children are obvious to us--too obvious to deny. Even as we would say something similar about our minors' possession of earthly citizenship in earthly realms (though partly limited, as in driving or voting or marriage etc., until certain yrs).

Our Baptist brothers have their own context and perspective. There is a degree of "overlap" in the observable manners in which they and we do things. But it is our respective theologies that make us see our way as "advantageous," and the other's ways as "deficient." Then, our practice ends up reinforcing our theology.
 
Your questions raise a cornucopia of other lines of thought--which is good. I agree that the children are holy via 1 Cor. 7, as Rom noted;therefore, they must be external members of the COG. I agree with Jack that the "covenantal-force", for lack of a better term, possesses more impact when dealing with a child baptized as an infant;therein, lies the greatest advantage from my view of the field as a pastor; I can tell the children under my care, "You're baptized...act accordingly." This is a great means of "improving our baptism". And lastly, I agree with Bruce that the questions you pose must be viewed in a certain theological context, and that the given answers are contingent upon one's theology.

The systematic/confessional query arises when we realize that the COG is not visible in and of itself, but we risk going Kantian if we push that line of thought too much. Also, we come against resistance when we investigate whether or not "external members of the COG" is a legitimate theological/ecclesiastical expression; the implicature is valid via 1 Cor. 7, and I think most confessional NAPARC-type folk would agree. But the expression is a bit clumsy and artificial, in my view. On the other hand if one drops the term "external" then you've dipped your toes into Federal Visionista waters, wherein all manner of unclean seafood swim. The same can be said for the PCA's "non-communing member" language, which describes a child negatively, and, I think, distastefully. But there it is--the limits of plain English,and the vagaries of our BCO!

The WCF declares that baptism is, at a bare minimum, for the "solemn admission of the party baptized into the visible church". Therefore, an unbaptized child is not, in anyway, a member of the visible church. When I was a Baptist I would have assented to that proposition, and most Baptists would agree, I think. They are to be subjects of evangelism in that world; for confessional Presbyterians they are to receive instruction in discipleship. As Jack pointed out, the functioning mode of child rearing is the same in both camps, but our baptistic friends are, at the least, inconsitent on this score. We've got our own problems, btw.

While I strenuously object to Federal Vision thinking, a number of prominent Visionistas are close friends of mine, and their questions regarding the "external nature of the covenant" are worthy of careful thought, and can be used profitably in discussions such as these.
 
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what advantage does a baptized child have with an unbaptized child, who is still a child of a believer?

My thoughts below are original so I am ready to be told it is not a good analogy. I can take it.

But couldn't we ask the same questions about marriage? Is there a difference between a couple that has just decided to live together verses a couple that is married first? To me there is an analogy between marriage and baptism.

What really happens at baptism? Does anything happen? And then ask, What really happens at a marriage? A few words are spoken in the presents of witnesses and everything changes in heaven and earth. In marriage, is there not also a real change taking place in the eyes of God and man? I think there is. To give one example—before marriage sex is a sin, but after marriage sex is a good gift from God. I think there is a similar change in the eyes of man and God at baptism. Salvation may not take place there and then, but there is a real change. The baptized are now members of the covenant with all its duties and benefits. I think a real change takes place.
 
I have a couple questions regarding the status of Baptist children in the CoG. First, if a Baptist doesn't baptize their child are they in anyway external members of the CoG? Also, what advantage does a baptized child have with an unbaptized child, who is still a child of a believer?

By and large, I agree w/ Rom's post; however, if one looks at Gen 17, there are repercussions to failing to place the sign-we have discussed this ad nauseum here on PB in days past. This 'cutting off' that is described in Gen 17 is there for a reason! By not placing the sign upon the child, the fecderal head and family suffer under a certain condemnation. This condemnation is not fully spiritual, but physical. Spiritually speaking, the child is denied a means of grace, which will affect the family unit; the federal head is affected as the community of Christ at large, i.e. the local church considers them to be in rebellion.This rebellion filters all the way down through the family unit as the local church would have reacted accordingly by shunning the rebellious. Spiritually, I disagree that the child is still seen as 'holy'. At least in the fuller measure described by the apostle.
 
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