Why I am Still a Baptist - Gonzales

[JML]

Here is a blog post entitled "Why I am Still a Baptist" by Robert Gonzales. I thought I would share it with the board and perhaps begin some discussion on it.

Why I’m Still a Baptist | It Is Written

Here is the major theme of the post:

But after “revisiting” the issue several times, I’m still a Baptist. I could offer several reasons. But one reason involves the teaching of a text that’s often overlooked in the Infant Baptism (Paedobaptism) vs Believer Baptism (Credobaptism) debate. That text is John 1:12-13. I’d like to make three observations on this text and explain why I believe it doesn’t support the idea of baptizing non-professing children of believers and bringing them into the membership of a New Covenant church.

Here are three main points that he notes:

1. The passage is not merely explaining the “way of salvation” (ordo salutis), that is, God’s method of saving sinners at all times; it’s primarily highlighting a shift in redemptive history (historia salutes), that is, God’s manner of administrating the paradigm of redemption (commonly called the Covenant of Grace) in history.

2. The passage is not merely referring to the divine causation of a moral change in individuals, that is, regeneration; it’s primarily highlighting a divine conferral of legal covenantal status, that is, adoption.

3. The passage predicates the divine conferral of a legal covenantal status no longer on natural descent but on supernatural descent, the fruit and evidence of which is saving faith in Jesus Christ.

To get the full argument, it would be beneficial to read the whole article.

Is there a response from the paedo side on the views presented about this particular text of Scripture? or any comments from the Credo side?

 

[py3ak]

2. The passage is not merely referring to the divine causation of a moral change in individuals, that is, regeneration; it’s primarily highlighting a divine conferral of legal covenantal status, that is, adoption.

The observation here is true enough; but it seems that any relationship to baptism would rely on confounding the distinction between the visible and the invisible church. Adoption is a blessing tied to effectual calling, not to church administration.

 

[Contra_Mundum]

Nor is the observation, strictly speaking, a NT truth or category. This is an artifact of revelation that begins in Genesis, is powerfully present in Exodus, illustrated by the books of Samuel, and is pervasively distributed throughout the OT.

So, on what basis shall we conclude that John, by highlighting this point in his Gospel prologue, has introduced a theme that sets God's relations with his people on an entirely new footing? It is necessary to demonstrate that John intends by his explanatory comment to radically reshape biblically informed minds that have preconditions already drawn from revelation. Is this the case, really? But the OT shows that adoption and covenant have never been incompatible concepts.

Why should these verses lead us to conclude that John is teaching a new ontology so radical, it disconnects from and discards the former patterns for pre-eschatological living, that were divinely ordained?

I don't see anything new here, that does not connect to the older observations: that the heart of the dispute is the question of "how much/what kind of continuity" exists between the people of God before Christ and after.

There are other, less obvious differences tied to hermeneutics and unstated axioms, which may presume agreements that are less total than expected.