A Short Rational For Infant Baptism

We baptize our children in obedience to the great Commission.

In Matthew 28:18-20 Christ commands us to Baptize the nations (the Greek word is ethnos Literally peoples). He who commands all Peoples to be baptized also commands infants to be Baptized; for a command concerning a group includes all those who fall in that group (genus – species). The design of Christ in the Great Commission is to teach the manner of collecting and conserving the Church in the World until the end of time and to prescribe that manner to the apostles and their successors. Now as the Church that the Apostles are being called to collect and conserve consists of infants as well as adults (that is the way it had always consisted and there is absolutely nothing anywhere in any text that reverses this paradigm) so that manner that Christ is teaching them in building the Church has reference to both adults and children, but according to the condition of each: that adults newly entering into the Covenant should be taught before they are Baptized, while infants should be Baptized as covenanted and Christian, and afterwards be taught in their own time.

If an objection is placed here that discipling of the Peoples precedes the Baptizing of Peoples we would observe that Christ speaks of discipling and teaching here first since a primeval Church among Gentiles would by necessity be first a collection of adults, therefore naturally discipling and teaching precedes baptizing, just as those strangers and aliens coming into the Covenant Community in the Old Testament would have been discipled and taught before they were circumcised. The goal then of the Gentiles entering into the Covenant as Covenanted parents wasn’t to get their seed to accept Christianity, rather their goal was to teach their children that they were Christian that they might not reject their covenant identity, conceding that if they fully and finally reject Christianity (a thing that by all rights should be uncommon among those trained in the Covenant) then their children were Gentile seed but not God’s seed (consider Esau).

The distinction and concession underscores the reality that Salvation is always by Grace and not Race while at the same time maintaining that because of Grace, Grace often runs in familial lines (Deuteronomy 7:9).

We believe that in the Great Commission passage when Christ lays the emphasis on All Nations He is doing so to firmly implant in Jewish thinking that the Gospel is not solely a Jewish concern. In this way our Lord makes clear that the Gospel is no longer provincial and in issuing the order unto Baptism we see a new sacramental sign given by our Lord Christ to replace the Old Covenant sign of Circumcision, just as He earlier gave His table as a sign of the New Covenant to replace and fulfill the old covenant sign of the Passover. The Great Commission underscores that the Church is no longer primarily Jewish. This New thing is given a new sacramental sign to replace and fulfill circumcision (a new sign for a new covenant). But the Church is not told to exclude its children and here in Matthew 28 is the place where by all rights that should have been said if it was going to be said.

We notice also in the Great Commission that Jesus, having now all authority in heaven and on earth, institutes a new covenant sign. Jesus commands that Baptism would be the new sign of the covenant. The former sign had been the blood rite of circumcision but now with the shedding of Jesus blood, all blood rites of the old covenant had been fulfilled and the new covenant would be marked by a bloodless rite that pointed to washing away of sins that only the blood of Jesus could effect. Note the continuity between the signs though. Both covenantal signs pointed and point to the establishment of a proper legal standing and relationship with God where sins have been removed and peace has been promised. In the old covenant if you were circumcised you were marked out as belonging to God. In the new covenant if you are Baptized you are marked out as belonging to God. However there are some other continuities we should note here. In the old covenant the sign of the covenant was to be placed upon the infants of the parents who belonged to the covenant.

Genesis 17:7 I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your [f]descendants after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your [g]descendants after you. 8 I will give to you and to your [h]descendants after you, the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.”

9 God said further to Abraham, “Now as for you, you shall keep My covenant, you and your [i]descendants after you throughout their generations. 10 This is My covenant, which you shall keep, between Me and you and your [j]descendants after you: every male among you shall be circumcised. 11 And you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskin, and it shall be the sign of the covenant between Me and you. 12 And every male among you who is eight days old shall be circumcised throughout your generations, a servant who is born in the house or who is bought with money from any foreigner, who is not of your [k]descendants. 13 A servant who is born in your house or who is bought with your money shall surely be circumcised; thus shall My covenant be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant. 14 But an uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that person shall be cut off from his people; he has broken My covenant.”

This requirement that the covenantal sign was to be placed upon the infants of God’s people was never rescinded when we get to the New Testament. In light of the New Covenant we have an alteration of the sign by the one who has all authority in heaven and earth but we do not have a alteration of who are members of the covenant. We do not have an exclusion of infants from the covenant.

In point of fact the circumstantial evidence from the NT points in favor of infant Baptism. Throughout the NT we have repeated references to Household Baptisms.

There are five household (oikos) baptisms in the New Testament(Cornelius’, Acts 10:48; Lydia’s, Acts 16:15; the Philippian jailer’s, Acts 16:31; Crispus’, Acts 18:8; and Stephanus’, 1 Cor. 1:16). These five household baptisms illustrate a principle seen throughout Scripture that, the blessings of Salvation fall upon the entire household when the blessings fall upon the head of the household. This is due to covenantal inclusiveness, a principle that we find throughout Scripture. This principle teaches that the children go with the parents.

Now, it is true that in none of the household Baptisms of the NT do we find an explicit mentioning of infants being baptized. This can not be denied. However, even if we were to concede that no infants were involved in these household Baptisms it would make little difference to the support that Household Baptisms in the NT give to infant Baptism the credibility as that which is consistent with the mind and revelation of God since the Household Baptisms of the NT teach us that if there had been infants in those households they would have been baptized along with all the other members of the household. The Household Baptisms, by definition, were inclusive of all who made up the Household and even if their were no infants in the NT Household Baptism examples, if there had been infants, they would have been baptized as part of the Household.

This idea that in Christianity the children go with the parents brings us to another reason why we Baptize our children.

We have to understand that in a Biblical approach to Christianity God calls and claims not only individuals but families. We believe that Baptism clearly communicates the Scripture’s teaching that our children are born sinners and that they need the promise that Baptism signifies and seals, to wit, the cleansing of sin. We believe that to suggest that our children, only when they become “age accountable sinners” should be baptized is akin to saying that in the OT only alien and strangers could become part of the Covenant community and not the children themselves until they were old enough to think of themselves as being aliens and strangers.

And so we believe with Scripture that whenever God made covenant with man He always included the children of whom He made covenant with in that covenantal arrangement.

We see this in the Great Commission text where the Disciples are told to

Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you [f]always, even to the end of the age.”

We, as Americans, tend to think more in terms of the individual and not the family. But God’s word teaches us to think in terms of families of men. We see this in our evangelism. There was a time when Evangelism sought to convert people group by people group. When Missionaries would go to make disciples of all nations they would seek to gain an audience with a tribal chieftain or a Person of influence and standing. If that person converted then the whole people group would convert. Today, we no longer think that way. We think in terms of the individual and so thinking in terms of the individual we focus on getting individuals saved. We have forgotten that while God does deal with the individual (in the NT account we have two examples of individuals alone be baptized — the Ethiopian eunuch and Saul of Tarsus. ) He also deals with families.

God’s claim is on family units. God is so gracious that He saves us with our children and their children and their children’s children to a thousand generations. And the fact that we actually see so little of that in our families today does not call into question God’s faithfulness to His promises so much as it raises other uncomfortable questions.

God’s claim is on family wholes. The devil, being a pretty good theologian himself and knowing this, attacks the family unit as an assault on God and His truth and His people. Destroy the family, and you will weaken the Christian faith. Destroy the Christian faith and you will weaken the family. One way to do both is to deny the waters of Baptism to children born to Christian parents.

Finally, for this morning’s purpose we would say that God has us Baptize our children for the same reason that we name our children. When we name our children we don’t reason,

“Well, they ought to have some input on what they will be named. After all, they are going to carry this name with them forever. Therefore, we will not name this child until the child reaches an age of name ability and then can agree or disagree to their name.”

No, these children belong to us and so we name them.

In the same way God names us in Baptism and doesn’t wait for us to reach a certain age in order to agree or disagree. This naming that happens in Baptism is God’s work and not ours. In Baptism He marks and names us as His own and He does so with infants because He has somewhere marked and named a whole family line as His own.

He’s God … it is one of the perks of being divine.

Horton vs. Horton

“There is nothing, however, in two-kingdoms thinking itself that would ever justify sin and injustice, whether public or private, or keep the church from preaching all of God’s Word and disciplining members who refuse its clear instruction.”~ Michael Horton, 10/12/12

” it is certainly true that America is not a Christian nation and in any case Christians should not seek to promote distinctively Christian doctrines and practices through the properly coercive power of the state. …the only improvement that “marriage” brings is social approval—treating homosexaul and heterosexual unions as equal. Although a contractual relationship denies God’s will for human dignity, I could affirm domestic partnerships as a way of protecting people’s legal and economic security.” ~ Michael Horton, May 11, 2012

Your honor, if it please the court, I would move that we dismiss R2K as being inherently contradictory and that we strike this odd theology from the Record.

HT — MVM

Leddihn & McAtee On The Conservative Disposition

“Conservatism on the Continent was based on disciplined thought from the start. Chronologically it falls into the period of late Romanticism and opposes ideas and ideologies emanating from the sentimental disorders of early Romanticism. Its opponent is the French Revolution (including the Napoleonic aftermath) with its egalitarianism, nationalism and laicism. But, as it so often happen in the battle of ideas, the good old principle fas est ab hoste doceri (it is right to learn even from an enemy) is applied a great deal to liberally, with the result that early 19th century conservatism has a rigidity and harshness reminding us of the hard school through which these early conservatives had to go: the school of French Revolution and the interminable sanguinary wars caused by the Napoleonic aftermath. Their school, as we said, was tough and therefore an element of severity and repression characterizes early conservatism, a certain belief in force if not in brutality, an unwillingness to enter any sort of dialogue or to conduct gentle and shrewd reeducation of its opponents. One does not discuss with assassins from whom one never expected humaneness, leniency, or tolerance. They must be mastered, fought, jailed, and, if worst comes to worst, locked up or exiled. In view of the horrors of the French Revolution and Napoleon’s trail of blood all over Europe from the gates of Lisbon to the heart of Moscow, this attitude is not surprising.”

Leftism; From de Sade and Marx to Hitler and Marcuse
Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn — pg 387

Conservatives practice tough love born of a love for God and people. This tough love that comes across, in Leddihnn’ words, “as rigid and harsh” and “severe and repressive,” is born of both a knowledge of where matters are going if Leftism and its practitioners are not stopped and of a love for God and people.

Epistemologically self conscious conservatives (and such people are always Christians) are aware of the stakes. They have read Shire, Conquest, and Solzhenitsyn. Epistemologically self conscious conservatives understand the anti-Christ ideology that animates Leftism and because conservatives are familiar with history they know where that ideology leads. Epistemologically self conscious conservatives have read the stories about what happened to those who have tried to resist the plans of the left; the Vendee, the Kulaks, and the Boer. They can recite the cruel accounts against Maria Luisa of Savoy, Hans and Sophie Scholl, and Isaak Babel. Countless are the names of those who have had the cruelty of the left visited upon them. Epistemologically self conscious conservatives are familiar with the cruel tools of the left; Necklacing, Gloving (peeling the skin off the hands,), aborting, and Madam La Guillotine. Epistemologically self conscious conservatives can tell you about the Gulag, the Concentration camp, and the Psychological ward — residences provided by the left for the burgeoning legion of dissenters. Epistemologically self conscious conservatives are mindful of the left’s brainwashing, propaganda, and manipulation machine. You can hardly blame epistemologically self conscious conservatives for not being sunny and cheery when it comes to warning people off of the ideology and practice of the Left. How many of millions of graves must conservatives weep over — graves that need not had been filled if conservative counter-revolutionaries had been listened to — until epistemologically self conscious conservatives will be cut some slack regarding the fact that they are not as nice as they might otherwise be?

It is not Conservatives who are the cold-hearted, rigid, and repressive bastards. Any edginess you see in a epistemologically self conscious conservative is a edginess that is born of compassion for people. We have seen the ugly maw of Leftism and we would walk through bedlam and chaos in order to deliver people from the Christ-less ugly and monochromatic world that the left always try to produce in its mad pursuit of Utopia.

When Presbyterian Were Presbyterians

“The nations are bound to recognize the Bible as the supreme law of the land; as the standard of civil legislation. God’s law as recorded in the Bible, reaches all the possible relations of humanity; extends to every duty that can be performed, and fastens its claims on associated bodies of men, as well as upon individual persons. Were this not true, we should have this monstrous anomaly in Jehovah’s government, that while men, as individuals, are bound by the laws recorded in the Bible, in their congregated capacities, they may set these laws at defiance, and even contemn as citizens, what as Christians they are bound to honor and obey. If we admit that kings, as such, are not bound by the laws contained in the Bible, they commit no sin in acting contrary to them, while they act in their official capacity. The moral laws recorded in the Holy Scriptures, are but a fairer copy, and more full and explicit declaration of the eternal and immutable principles of righteousness, which are contained in the law of nature.”

–James R. Wilson
THE SUBJECTION OF KINGS AND NATIONS TO MESSIAH

A SERMON, PREACHED ON MONDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1819,

IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE DISPENSATION OF THE LORD’S SUPPER,

IN THE REFORMED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK.

The Program Of Religious Humanists

www.amazon.com/The-City-Man-Declaration-Democracy/dp/B000EO93EQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1350069999&sr=8-1&keywords=The+City+of+man+A+declaration+on+World+Democracy

The book linked above was written in 1940. It is but one book of many document of humanism that reveals the world-view and agenda of the religious humanists. (Sometimes mistakenly referred to as secular humanists.) One could easily compare the Humanist manifesto I and II with the The City of Man; A Declaration on World Democracy,” and find a common motif. The religious humanists today still have much the same agenda and goals as those in this book who openly expressed the desire for a World Government animated by a type of Democracy that has been apotheosized into a unitary world religion. According to those who affixed their signatures to this manifesto,

“Democracy is nothing more and nothing less than humanism in theocracy and rational theocracy in universal humanism.”

That in this religious humanism envisioned a one world order that would create a kind of multi-faithism can be seen by their acknowledgement that democracy, as the highest all embracing religion is a,

“universal religion of the Spirit acknowledging with reverence the incorruptible substance of truth which lies under the surface and errors of the separate confessions risen from the common ground of ancient and medieval civilization — democracy, in the catholicity of its language, interprets and justifies the separate creeds as its own universal vernacular.”

Of course what we get here is a Democracy that champions not only the brotherhood of all men but also the brotherhood of the faiths of all men, as long as those faiths are reinterpreted through the prism of humanist theo-democracy. Reformed, Lutheran, Catholic, Islam, Judaism all speak the same truths as those truths are filtered through our undoubted holy Democratic faith and because there is only one faith, there will only be one amalgamated people and one World order.

The day comes when the heresy of nationalism is conquered …. Then above the teeming manifold life of free communities … there will be a Universal Parliament representing peoples, not states, — a fundamental body of law prevailing throughout the planet in all those matters that involve interregional interests … an elected President, the President of Mankind — no crowned emperor, no hereditary king … embodying for a limited term the common authority and the common law; and a federal force ready to strike at a anarchy and felony.”

Of course anarchy and felony will be defined as whatever runs contrary to the theo-democracy of world-view religious humanism that is supported by a multi-faithism that has a universal meaning given to it by religious humanism.

In the book “City of Man,” we are given a thirteen point program for achieving the new world order.

1.) The Promise of Utopianism — One of the integral components of any world-view is a teleology. The humanist teleology (end goal) is some kind of promised Kingdom of Man — Utopia.

In the religious humanist world-view some sort of salvation for all lies in the future and every piece of legislation is a building block to craft the coming salvific age of man. The latest building block being put into place is universal health care.

Of course this teleology is taken as a article of faith as religious humanism has no evidence whatsoever for the flowering of a Utopian New World Order.

2.) Planning — According to the book, “Planning is implicit in the spirit of Democracy.” Of course this planning is Statist planning and not individual planning. In point of fact the Statist Democracy planning obviates the need for individual planning. Freedom for individual planning is eliminated in favor of planning by the democratic elite.

Planning starts with economic planning (5 year plans) and moves to social engineering done in order to create “New World Order” man. Eventually the theo-democracy ends with planned elections.

3.) Centralization — No planning is possible without centralization, and there is no Utopia without planning. This is the centralization of the hive and the anthill. There is a non-resolvable contradiction here. The religious humanists believe in the inevitability of Utopia, yet in order for the inevitable to come to pass there has to be a humanist plan for it that requires centralization. Centralization as found in the State is God and so rejects any free will except the free will of the elite Centralizers. Man is only free to live and move and have his being in the New World order State.

4.) Identity, Sameness — Individuals are cogs in the machine of the social order. They are interchangeable undifferentiated grains of sand. This is why the term “masses” arose in our lexicon. Individuals do not exist in religious humanism but merely belong to the masses. Religious humanism requires the cult of sameness (sometimes called egalitarianism) where if differences exist they must be dismissed as meaningless. Where differences actually exist they must be explained away. Where difference cause problems to the Utopian plan those differences square pegs must be pounded into round holes. This demand for Identity and Sameness explains our current move towards claiming all sexuality and gender to be equally valuable.

5.) Majoritism — Here we will simply quote Eric von Kuehnelt-Leddihn’s analysis written in 1974,

“There are minorities (‘never majorities’) who are obnoxious and are declared to be the real cause of all or at least most iniquities. These conspiratorial and domineering minorities are not content to ‘be like everyone else.’; they crave privileges, thus depriving the ‘underprivileged’ of their rights; they destroy equality, identity, and ‘social harmony.’ The main criminals are the ‘ruling classes,’ composed in the United States of the ‘white Anglo Saxon Protestant minority….’ Leftist ideologies rest on the existence of ‘badmen’ who can be made objects of general hatred.”

6.) Hostility against organized religion — The standard religious humanist reaction to religion that does not bow to the humanist elite establishment in lapdog subservience by reinterpreting its belief system through the prism of humanism is the effort to marginalize and eliminate that religion from the marketplace of ideas and from the public square. We see this today in our culture by the never ending attempt to “otherize,” and “demonize,” the Biblical Christian who dares question the hostility of the humanist world and life view.

7.) Socialist hatred of free enterprise — Free enterprise runs contrary to centralized planning. If individuals are free to be entrepreneurs who plan for their own future and their own goals they get in the way of the humanist elite central planners. Free enterprise also runs contrary to the goals of Identitarianism, Egalitarianism, and sameness since a free economy gives man the opportunity to build up something that might make him unique from the hoi poloi.

8.)Anti-familism — The family as a closed and emotionally marked-off unit is an obstacle to total sameness and worse yet, from the religious humanist point of view, the traditional family contains its own hierarchic structure that is distinct from the hierarchic structure of the World Paternal-State. Progressive taxation, as well as our current Death Inheritance tax, is an attack by the State on the family as the State works to make sure that it is strengthened by its work to weaken the family. This anti-familialism also explains the States propensity to support every type of deviant perversity that demands recognition. When perversity is given sanction the effect is not to raise the perversity up in status but the effect is to drag down the traditional family in esteem.

9.) Intolerance

“Inflexible principles must be stated in a renovated law, beyond which freedom is felony.”

Religious humanism forever moans about tolerance but it is itself one of the most intolerant belief system in existence. Religious humanism (and remember religious humanism comes in various flavors and stripes including the Christian flavor) wants freedom only for the various “isms” that make up its constituency (i.e. — Feminism, Sodomitism, Liberationism, etc.). Because this is so, religious humanism is prone to carrying out all kinds of different inquisitions in the name of “tolerance.” Universities shut down academic freedom when ideas challenge the religious humanist world and life view. Hollywood will shut down people who don’t share their view of tolerance. Politicians will be intolerant towards those ideas that don’t fit their view of toleration. (Witness Obama’s latest speech that those who recently said in a UN speech, “The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.” Here we see that Tolerance will not be extended to those who know and say true things about the prophet.

10.) Statism — This has already been implied with our categories of “planning,” and “centralization.” Religious humanism believes that everything within the State, nothing against the State, nothing outside the State. In the State we live and move and have our being. Statism is Hegel’s vision come to pass.

11.) Messianism — Messianism is linked to Utopianism. Every Utopia must have a Messiah that leads men into the great new promised future age. The Messiah is not only a King but a savior. In religious humanism the Messianism can come in the way of the “great leader,” (think of Obama and the Greek Colonnades when he accepted the 2008 Democratic nomination and his language about slowing the rising tides of the oceans, etc.) or it can come in the way of a racial character (think of the Nazi’s and their Aryan vision or James Cone and his vision of Black nationalism) or it can come in the way of some kind of Nationalism that has run off the rails. In whatever way it expresses itself you will always find a element of Messianism is religious humanism.

12.) Colonialism — This Messianism has the task of eventually saving all mankind. As such there will be a push towards Colonialism of one form or another. We have seen this recently with the US led colonizing of Ethiopia. People think that the Arab Spring is about “freedom,” but this isn’t “freedom” we are seeing but religious humanism Colonialism.

13.) Interventionism — Due to its Utopianism, Messianism, and Colonialism, a highly aggressive interventionist and bellicose element in Religious humanism. The “City of Man” Declaration tells us that,

“Peace at any price is peace at the price of submission.”

and so we learn that war is a price that will be paid in order to cause those who disagree with the tenets of religious humanism to submit. Indeed, religious humanists usually love armed conflicts because during war a crisis is created whereby the State can use as excuse to expand its powers of centralization, and Messianism.

That the book, “City of Man” was written in 1940 is irrelevant because it can be clearly seen that the religious humanist agenda has been the same for hundreds of years. The goal is a New World Order Utopianism.