Trying to Help the Baptists Not be Baptists

An example of Baptist reasoning touching infant Baptism

A man who belongs to Christ

Marries

A woman who belongs to Christ
AND
Have a baby.
This baby though, belonging to the man and woman who belong to Christ, should not be thought of as one upon whom Christ as a claim of ownership and so should not be baptized.
UNTIL
The baby is old enough to claim that Christ is owned by him.

So … claims of belonging and ownership moves from the divine to the acquiescence of the human who is owned.
And yet, the parents do not wait before being responsible for the child until the child asks the parents into their lives.

Charles Church objects.

Parents or children don’t ask because the child is begotten of them. No one wonders about whether those born of God are proper candidates for baptism either.

Unless, then, you are prepared to confess baptismal regeneration…not even that really, since your point is about who are proper candidates for baptism, so if you are prepared to confess that children of believers are automatically regenerate, then your parallel can make sense. But not until then.

Bret responds,

  • The children of Reformed parents are Baptized with the presumption of charity as to their redemptive identity. This presumption of charity as to their redemptive identity is valid because God Himself has been pleased to open the womb of His redemptive people and provide a covenant seed for Himself. Thus children of Reformed parents are Baptized with the presumption of charity as to their redemptive identity. Reformed people Baptize their babies, not because they know that the babies are regenerate but rather on the basis of God’s command and promise. God’s promises are to us AND TO OUR CHILDREN, (Acts 2;39) and Christ commands for the Nations to be Baptized (Matthew 28) and as children are part of those Nations to be Baptized they are to be Baptized.

    There is a key difference seen here Charles. Baptists do not baptize their children because they are operating with the presumption that their children are damned until those children are old enough to;

    A.) Be old enough to not be presumed damned
    B.) By offering up their ability to agree to God’s claim upon them from conception in exchange for God’s mark of ownership seen in baptism.

    Third, unlike Baptists, Covenantal Reformed do NOT hold to the doctrine of every member of a visible Church is automatically regenerate simply because they are members of the Church. We concede that there are within the visible Church those who are only administratively attached to the visible Church while others have the essence of what is promised by being marked by baptism into Christ’s and His body. As such, there is no claim on our part (unlike Lutherans) that Baptism itself brings regeneration.

    Baptism is God’s claim of ownership wherein the expectation is found that said Baptized child will grow up yielding to love and commands of He who has claimed Him. However, just as all of Israel was not of Israel in the Old Covenant (Romans 9:6-7), so today not all of grown up Israel (the Church) is of grown-up Israel. Just as then some who would fail were rightly marked with the sign of the covenant so today some who will fail are rightly marked with the new covenant sign.

    Baptists presume that the babies born of Christians are born as belonging to Lucifer AND as God having to wait on their decision to claim Him before God can make a valid claim upon them without their consent.

    It really is a matter of priority. Baptists believe that the priority of claim of ownership moves from divine to human before the claim of Divine ownership upon man, as communicated in Baptism, can be allowed.

    Baptists are latent Arminians because they are requiring that their babies are able to bring something they can’t as babies bring (their verbal testimony of conversion) to Baptism in exchange for the sign of the covenant that age-accountable people can bring.

Author: jetbrane

I am a Pastor of a small Church in Mid-Michigan who delights in my family, my congregation and my calling. I am postmillennial in my eschatology. Paedo-Calvinist Covenantal in my Christianity Reformed in my Soteriology Presuppositional in my apologetics Familialist in my family theology Agrarian in my regional community social order belief Christianity creates culture and so Christendom in my national social order belief Mythic-Poetic / Grammatical Historical in my Hermeneutic Pre-modern, Medieval, & Feudal before Enlightenment, modernity, & postmodern Reconstructionist / Theonomic in my Worldview One part paleo-conservative / one part micro Libertarian in my politics Systematic and Biblical theology need one another but Systematics has pride of place Some of my favorite authors, Augustine, Turretin, Calvin, Tolkien, Chesterton, Nock, Tozer, Dabney, Bavinck, Wodehouse, Rushdoony, Bahnsen, Schaeffer, C. Van Til, H. Van Til, G. H. Clark, C. Dawson, H. Berman, R. Nash, C. G. Singer, R. Kipling, G. North, J. Edwards, S. Foote, F. Hayek, O. Guiness, J. Witte, M. Rothbard, Clyde Wilson, Mencken, Lasch, Postman, Gatto, T. Boston, Thomas Brooks, Terry Brooks, C. Hodge, J. Calhoun, Llyod-Jones, T. Sowell, A. McClaren, M. Muggeridge, C. F. H. Henry, F. Swarz, M. Henry, G. Marten, P. Schaff, T. S. Elliott, K. Van Hoozer, K. Gentry, etc. My passion is to write in such a way that the Lord Christ might be pleased. It is my hope that people will be challenged to reconsider what are considered the givens of the current culture. Your biggest help to me dear reader will be to often remind me that God is Sovereign and that all that is, is because it pleases him.

One thought on “Trying to Help the Baptists Not be Baptists”

  1. Great Post!
    That is why I agree with the concept of Infant Baptism, but PLEASE don’t tell my Pentecostal peers, because baptism is a sign of covenant! We dedicate our children to the Lord and we use Hannah as the example, PROBLEM, Hannah had ALREADY CIRCUMCIZED Samuel into the Covenant. What she did was dedicate the First Fruits of her womb to God.

    Even non-church going parents want their child baptized, so what do I do, tell teh parent we don’t baptize babies? What a lost EVANGELISM Opportunity!
    My answer to the parents would be; Do you have a covenant with God, if they ask why? I would simply state that Infant Baptism is a sign of the parents wanting to bring their child up in the covenant they have with God. I would then offer to lead them to the Lord, set up a Baptism for them and baptize the child with them. The have the parents discipled and the Father taught how to disciple his family…

    To deny the infant entrance into the covenant of the parent is opening up the door for the child to walk away from the faith. It is interesting that all who were baptized under John would all have been circumcized.

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