Tyrese
Puritan Board Sophomore
Why I became Reformed after having been a Reformed Baptist for 30 years. I defended the RB Position here for a few years even as a Moderator. The Substance of the Covenants matter.
Just saying. https://rpcnacovenanter.wordpress.com/2012/09/14/the-mosaic-covenant-same-in-substance-as-the-new/
I was trying to figure this stuff out for years. Not sure I have it down yet but I think I have pin pointed some things that have even caused other denominations to rethink some of their own Professors stances on Covenant Theology.
https://rpcnacovenanter.wordpress.c...chapter-19-the-law-and-the-covenant-of-works/
Follow the links in blue of the blog post below if you really want to follow my thought process.
https://rpcnacovenanter.wordpress.c...nced-republication-and-mosaic-covenant-study/
If you are a Reformed Baptist you can read most of my Reformed Baptist Arguments on my early Puritanboard blogs. I left them alone as I believe they support my findings through the years. There is a dichotomous view of the Law and Grace that is not supported as some theologize by making the Mosaic Covenant and the New Covenant different in substance and nature. I believed that. Thus making the Church of the Old Covenant and the New Covenant to be different. One was made up of an invisible regenerate people and the other of non regenerate and regenerate. The Covenant of Grace only overshadowed the regenerate in the New Covenant. The Mosaic Covenant was a mixed Covenant of those who were to submit to a Covenant of Works in some sense and a group who found faith. In other words the Mosaic Covenant administered both a New Covenant of Works and a Covenant of Salvation for eternity called the Everlasting Covenant. I have even left most of my Baptist arguments everywhere where I blogged. There are a lot of various ideas on these topics. But the 1644 and 1689 Baptist's, the 1646 Westminster, and Savoy Declarations hold the best prolific theologies handed down to us. I honestly believe that.
The Substance of the Mosaic and the New Testament were my arguments against Paedobaptism and Covenant Theology for Particular Baptist Theology for many years. Around 2011 or 2010 that changed. I started looking away from John Tombes and Nehemiah Coxe because their theology was leading towards things I found out of bounds when I looked at the Doctrines of Grace in any age.
https://rpcnacovenanter.wordpress.c...nced-republication-and-mosaic-covenant-study/
You also might want to read the Jeremiah passages with more light than assumption. https://rpcnacovenanter.wordpress.c...ovenant-a-better-mediator-of-the-word-of-god/
If you have ever tried to defend your position of the Covenant of Circumcision and the Everlasting Covenant you should know that there is a lot of reading to do. I and many of the guys on this forum have done this. Some remain unmoved in their arguments and some of us have changed for various reasons. But I honestly believe we do hold the Word of God to be Central to our understanding. Some are just wrong. I hope I am not one of those. I can say that some declare to be of a Reformed Theology and they are not. It is new. That has to be declared. It is a new thing. It is an odd mix.
Hi brother Snyder,
Thank you for your input. However, I maintain that many brothers become Paedobaptist because they simply don't want to be called a Baptist and they definitely don't want to be called a dispensationalist. I'm not saying this was you, but I'm uncomfortable with even your words:
'I was trying to figure this stuff out for years. Not sure I have it down yet but I think I have pin pointed some things that have even caused other denominations to rethink some of their own Professors stances on Covenant Theology.'
I'm not saying you're wrong for your hard work and effort that you have put into your studies but the concept of figuring 'this stuff out for years' is unsettling to me. Could it be that the paedobaptist construct is simply not in scripture, and as a result one has to do endless reading and reading before he finds an argument that makes a little sense to him? I fear our brother Taylor Sexton could be going down this road as well. He himself said:
'Heck, I want to be a paedobaptist so that I feel I have better fellowship with those theologians whom I admire (Calvin, Turretin, Hodge, etc.), including those whom I admire on here.'
He has a right to do as he pleases, but it's discouraging to know one can read the Bible for years and years and still be carried about with every wind of doctrine and not have a foundation to stand on. Or, one is looking to intentionally undermine and destroy the foundation that He has from scripture and replace it with something that is not in scripture simply because it sounds good. Do you disagree? I ask because you all treat the Bible like it's not written in English. Many of you argue down our brothers for promoting the KJV and you say it's 'hard to understand' and people won't understand it. But it seems to me you all treat other translations the same way.
Like I said I respect you men, but I for one am satisfied with being a Baptist. Colossians 2:11-12 says, 'In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.' A plain reading of this passage tells us that we need to be born again. We need a changed heart and the evidence that we've been circumcised by Christ is we'll put 'off the body of the sins of the flesh,...'. This is how circumcision is applied under the NC, not infant baptism. When one of you circumcise/baptise and infant 'without hands', I'll take back everything that I've said.
Your brother,
Tyrese