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Booklet: Baptism and Covenant
Theology
By Walter J. Chantry
No Baptist begins to
seek an answer to the question "Who should be baptized?" by studying
the Bible's doctrine of the covenants. Rather, he begins with New
Testament texts which deal directly with the term "baptize." In a
later study of Covenant Theology, he finds confirmation and
undergirding of his conclusions.
1. In the New
Testament, we discover the nature of baptism defined. In the
definition, something must be said about the person baptized. Its
central significance is that the one baptized is said to be savingly
joined to Christ. We agree that the definition in the Westminster
Confession of Faith is essentially biblical: "Baptism is a sacrament
of the New Testament, ordained by Jesus Christ, not only for the
solemn admission of the party baptized into the visible church, but
also to be unto him a sign and seal of the covenant of grace, of his
ingrafting into Christ, of regeneration, of remission of sins, and of
his giving up unto God through Jesus Christ, to walk in newness of
life . . ." (Chapter XXVIII)
2. In every clear New
Testament example, the person baptized made a credible confession of
faith in Jesus Christ prior to receiving the sacrament. This has been
called the Baptist's argument from silence. But that is an unfair
charge. To refrain from a practice on which the Bible is silent is not
wrong. But to build a positive practice on supposed but unwritten
premises is to build on silence.
Every New Testament text cited to support infant baptism appears empty
apart from a strong predisposition to find such texts and
presuppositions to impose upon them.
A) Amazingly, Matthew
19:13: "Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them
not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven," has been used frequently
by serious theologians to support infant baptism. We share the
indignation of B.B.Warfield who said, "What has this [verse] to do
with infant baptism?" Some point has been made of the related passage
in Mark where Jesus is said to bless the children, and note has been
taken of his placing his hands upon them. But, again, we find no
solemn ceremony in this passage indicating that the children were
acknowledged to be in the covenant of grace. Prayerful calling of
God's blessing upon any child would be most natural apart from such
restricted significance.
B) Acts 2:39 has also
been pressed into service to support infant baptism. "For the promise
is unto you and to your children . . ." Usually the sentence is not
completed. But the Scripture goes on, "and to all that are afar off,
even as many as the Lord our God shall call." The context has in view
specifically spiritual promises, namely remission of sins and filling
with the Holy Spirit. These promises cannot be said to attach
themselves to all the crowd before Peter (the "you " of the text), but
only to "as many as the Lord our God shall call." They could not be
said to belong to "all that are afar off", but only to "as many as the
Lord our God shall call." If that phrase qualifies the first and third
parties mentioned, it must also qualify "your children". The promises
do not belong unto the children of believers apart from effectual
calling. Only those children who receive this saving grace of God may
be conceived of as being heirs of the spiritual promises.
C) Household baptisms
are called upon, by paedobaptists, as evidence of infant baptism in
the New Testament. There are four references: Cornelius (Acts 10),
Lydia (Acts 16), the Philippian jailor (Acts 16), Stephanas (I
Corinthians 1). None of the references say that infants were in these
houses. Finding infant baptism here is built upon the dual assumption
that there were infants in the houses and that household must have
meant every individual in the household without exception. The last of
these is a road we Calvinists have been down with the term "world " in
Scripture. The first is very untenable. But the two together cannot be
held; for we find in the Bible itself, the pattern of these household
baptisms. All Cornelius' house gathered to hear Peter's preaching. The
Holy Ghost fell upon all--they all received the extraordinary gifts of
the Spirit. Then, all were baptized. Paul first preached to the
jailor's household. Then, all were baptized. After the baptism, all
rejoiced believing in God. Hearing the Word and believing upon that
preaching can scarcely be attributed to infants. No doubt, the same
pattern adhered to other cases of household baptisms. In LydiaÕs case,
there is the most doubt that a woman in business would be nursing an
infant. The Bible does not tell us she had a husband, let alone
children. Infant baptism can be found here only by those most anxious
to do so.
D) I Corinthians 7:14
is another favorite verse. There we are told that children are "holy".
The text does not have even vague reference to church membership or
baptism. It is talking about mixed marriages in which one spouse is a
believer and the other is not. The question is whether such a
relationship is proper, moral, or holy for those who were converted
after marriage to the unbeliever. Paul reasons from the obvious to the
doubtful. It is obvious that your children are not bastards. They were
born in wedlock. They are holy. Therefore, it ought to be clear to you
that your marriage relationship is holy. Don't feel guilty about it or
wish to be free from your obligations. If the word ÒholyÓ suggests a
covenant relationship or cultic purity, making the children proper
objects for baptism, then the unbelieving spouse is also a valid
candidate for the sacrament. The verb "sanctify" has precisely the
same root and signification as the adjective "holy." And it is the
holiness of the spouse that the passage belabors.
With such appalling
lack of New Testament evidence for infant baptism, those who support
such a practice have rapidly retreated to Old Testament texts and an
argument from the unity of the covenants. The practice of baptizing
infants of believers is founded on Old Testament Scripture, or upon
texts of the New Testament where suitability for baptizing infants is
read into them with a predisposition and presupposition drawn from the
Old Testament.
I. HISTORIC COVENANT
THEOLOGY AND INFANT BAPTISM
The argument has hung
upon a syllogism that goes something like this: There is a unity
between the Old and New Covenants. Circumcision in the Old is parallel
to baptism in the New. Infants of believers were circumcised in the
Old. Therefore, infants of believers should be baptized in the New.
Many tell us that this syllogism is so strong that New Testament
silence is a major argument in favor of their position. The New
Covenant is so like the Old, and baptism so parallel to circumcision,
that unless the New Testament absolutely forbids the baptism of
infants, it must be practiced.
As B.B. Warfield
said, "It is true that there is no express command to baptize infants
in the New Testament, no express record of the baptism of infants and
no passage so stringently implying it that we must infer from them
that infants were baptized. If such warrant as this were necessary to
justify the usage, we would have to leave it completely unjustified.
But the lack of this express warrant is something far short of
forbidding the rite; and if the continuity of the church through all
ages can be made good, the warrant for infant baptism is not to be
sought in the New Testament, but in the Old Testament where the church
was instituted and nothing short of an actual forbidding of it in the
New Testament would warrant our omitting it now."
1. Immediately we
Baptists raise our first objection. There is here a serious
hermeneutical flaw. How can a distinctively New Testament ordinance
have its fullest--nay, its only foundation--in Old Testament
Scripture? This is contrary to any just sense of Biblical Theology and
against all sound rules of interpretation. To quote Patrick Fairbairn
in The Interpretation of Prophecy, "There cannot be a surer canon of
interpretation, than that everything which affects the constitution
and destiny of the New Testament church has its clearest determination
in New Testament Scripture. This canon strikes at the root of many
false conclusions and on the principle which has its grand embodiment
in popery, which would send the world back to the age of comparative
darkness and imperfection for the type of its normal and perfected
condition." If you allow Old Testament examples to alter New Testament
principles regarding the church, you have hermeneutically opened the
door to Rome's atrocities. It is upon such rules of interpretation
that the priest and the mass have been justified. We find the clearest
expression, of that which is normative for the New Covenant's
ordinances, in the New Covenant relation.
2. Beyond this, there
is a theological flaw. It is nothing new for Baptists to adhere to
Covenant Theology. They have done so since the Seventeenth Century. We
conceive of God's dealings with man in a covenantal structure. We
believe that every covenant made with man since the Fall is unified in
its essence. In all ages there has been one rule of life--God's moral
law. God's standard of righteousness was the same before Moses
received the Ten Commandments, and it is the same today. There has
been but one way to salvation in all historic covenants since the
Fall. The Gospel by which Adam was saved is the same as that by which
we are saved. Genesis
3:15 declares a salvation that is wholly of grace through faith
in Christ. The basic differences between the covenants of history in
these essential matters are those of Biblical Theology. The promises
of the Gospel have become more clear with each succeeding age of
revelation, though the promises have been identically the same. The
moral law has been more fully expounded, though never changed. So we
agree about the unity of the covenants recorded in the Bible. But
paedobaptists have been negligent in defining the diversity in the
administrations of the Covenant of Grace. As dispensationalism has
erred when it has failed to see the essential unity of the covenants
since the Fall, many serious errors have arisen from a failure to
acknowledge diversity in these historic covenants. An example may be
seen in the ReformersÕ failure to distinguish church and state. In the
administration under Moses, the church was coextensive with the state.
In the administration of Christ, the extent of church and state are
not to be thought identical. In the Mosaic economy, magistrates
administered the church and prophets made their authority felt in
government. In the Christian administration of Grace, a strict sense
of the church separate from the state must be maintained. We must
define the diversity as well as the unity.
Paedobaptists have
unconsciously recognized a difference between the Old Testament and
New with respect to the constitution of the church and subjects of
their ordinances. In the Old Covenant, adult sons and servants were
circumcised, and thus incorporated into the visible church. Now, only
the infants of believers are baptized. In the Old, children came to
the Passover at a very young age. Now small children are not admitted
to the Lord's Table. Whence this change? When the principle of
diversity is formulated, it will exclude infants from the sacrament of
baptism. Jeremiah 31:31-34 is pivotal to expressing the diversity of
covenant administrations. It is quoted in Hebrews 8 and again in 10 to
prove that "Christ is mediator of a better covenant." There is an
emphatic contrast made in verses 31 and 32. The differences are so
striking and dramatic that one covenant is called "new" and it is
implied that the other is old. The Jews under the Old Covenant were
warned that revolutionary changes would be made. The covenant in force
was inadequate except to prepare for the New. So surpassing is the
glory of the New, that it should lead them to look for the demolition
of the Old. The passage suggests two vital distinctions ushered in by
the effusion of the Spirit. This effusion made a change in
administration possible.
The first difference
is found in verse 33 of Jeremiah 31. The Old Covenant was
characterized by outward formalism. The New would be marked by inward
spiritual life. This is not an absolute distinction but it is a marked
contrast. Of course, there was spiritual religion and heart commitment
to God in the Old Testament. Abraham's faith would put ours to shame.
We must wonder if any but Christ Himself ever equaled the prayer life
of David addressed in the Psalms. Moses spoke to God as face to face.
Yet, these are refreshing streams in the midst of Old Testament
attention to outward, formal, national religion. There is a mass of
outward rules, a history of formal religion, a ponderous
identification of church and nation. Relatively little attention is
given to inward life. If a man is circumcised, he is counted a Jew. If
he is conformed to outward practices, he is called clean and welcome
at the ceremonies of worship. Paul tells us that this system of
religion was like the strict tutor who tells a child what to do at
every turn.
But the New Testament
church is come of age. It is, by way of contrast, inward, spiritual
and personal. Certainly there is outward formality in the New
Covenant, but it is minimal; and the most formal ceremony calls
attention to the inward. The New Testament presses personal
self-examination everywhere and constantly makes spiritual application
of its truths. There is a notable shift to questioning experience of
grace at every point.
Verse 34 of Jeremiah
31 suggests the second distinction. There will be a marked contrast in
the knowledge of those in the New Covenant. As the coming of the
Spirit will add a new dimension of life to the church, so He will add
a new dimension of light. "From the least to the greatest" in the New
Covenant will know the Lord. The subject matter of their knowledge
will not be shadows but the living reality of Christ. The mysteries
hidden in the Old will be made known to them. The manner of
instruction will shift from repetitious ceremonies, for they will all
know the Lord. So then, we will expect the New Covenant to stand in
contrast with the Old in that its members have greater life and light.
This diversity is
nowhere more evident than in the ceremonies of worship. New Testament
worship presents us with a most striking contrast with Old Testament
ordinances. This can be illustrated by looking at the Lord's Supper,
which finds a counterpart in the Old Testament Passover. The great
spiritual truth of redemption by blood is figured in the Passover, but
it is somewhat obscured beneath an outward and formal atmosphere.
Then, too, the ceremony mixes the figures of personal redemption and
national deliverance. Even those who had no acquaintance with
spiritual redemption observed it. This they should have done; for
their national life arose from the historic event remembered. Very
young children came to the Passover as participants that, by it, they
might ask the significance and as they grew older, come to understand
the redemption figures. (cf. Exodus 12:24-27, etc.)
In the New Testament,
things are quite different. I Corinthians 11:23-30 gives instruction
for the most formal ceremony of the New Covenant. Here very young
children must not come. Only the "worthy" with "discernment" are
welcome at the feast remembering our redemption. It is not marked by
any of the nationalism of the Old Covenant. Each person is charged to
"examine himself" before daring to partake. He must find himself
"worthy"--a personal recipient of grace. He must have
"discernment"--that inward, spiritual light that peculiarly marks this
covenant. Light and life are prerequisites of joining this most
outward and formal act of worship.
The same is true of
the waters of baptism. This ceremony does not desert the New
Covenant's pattern to revert to the Old. It belongs to those who are
"worthy" and have "discernment". Repentance and faith are everywhere
demanded as prior conditions for baptism.
To summarize: IN THE
OLD COVENANT,
ALL THAT WAS SPIRITUAL WAS IDENTIFIED WITH AN OUTWARD NATION. IN THE NEW
COVENANT, ALL THAT IS OUTWARD IS IDENTIFIED WITH A SPIRITUAL NATION.
3. Then, there are a
number of exegetical flaws in the paedobaptist theology.
A) Many have reasoned
thus: "Infants of believers were circumcised in the Old Covenant.
Therefore, infants of believers should be baptized in the New." Though
in Abraham's case faith preceded circumcision of his children, this
cannot be said to be the rule of the Old Covenant rite. There were
times when faith in the subjects of circumcision or in their parents
was all but ignored. In the time of Joshua, an entire nation was
circumcised in a day. There was no concern for personal election or
personal faith. It was clearly administered as a sign of the outward
privileges in belonging to the elect nation. Circumcision was never
withheld because a parent had no faith. Even when the prophets
denounced the Jews for being uncircumcised in heart, they did not
suggest that the sons of these unconverted Jews be excluded from the
rite of circumcision. To attempt to find a warrant for seeking faith
in the fathers of those who are baptized in these Old Testament texts
is wholly unsatisfactory.
B) It is also said
that just as baptism is a sign of heirship to the spiritual promises
of grace in the New Covenant, circumcision was a sign of heirship to
the same spiritual promises in the Old. This is only partially true.
Baptism is a sign of spiritual blessing in Christ and only that.
Circumcision, too, depicted unity with Christ in His death and
heirship to spiritual blessings (cf. Colossians 2:11-13). But there
was more to its significance. The distinctive aspects of the covenants
cling to their signs just as surely as the common elements of the
covenants do. In the LordÕs Supper and the Passover, redemption by
blood is signified. Yet, they differ in this: The Old ceremony
suggested the outward and national aspect of that administration. The
New ceremony stresses the inward and personal aspect in its
administration. So circumcision could be given to 13-year-old Ishmael,
who, Abraham was assured, would not be a partaker of the spiritual
blessings. But for him and other non-elect Jews, it was proper by
circumcision to be identified with the outward aspects of blessing and
administration. It was proper to be circumcised as the literal seed
and heir of the literal land and as one by whom, according to the
flesh, the Messiah would come, while not being of the spiritual seed
and heir of heaven. Baptism has no merely earthly significance. There
are no blessings figured in it that can be conceived of apart from an
experience of grace.
C) Much weight has
been placed on the formula "Thee and thy seed" in Genesis 17.
Paedobaptists insist upon an outward, literal significance of the term
"seed." In their scheme, the New Covenant counterpart to Abraham's
seed is the physical offspring of believers. This is done while
totally ignoring the fact that the New Testament says a great deal
about the Covenant with Abraham, for it is central to New Testament
religion. Romans 4, Romans 9, and Galatians 3 and 4, especially
Galatians 3:7, belabor the point that believers, and believers alone,
are the seed of Abraham. These texts further insist that the promises
which are spiritual and eternal belong to no physical seed.
Romans 9 discusses
Abraham's immediate, physical offspring. Some were of the flesh; some
of the spirit. There was a personal election within the family
election. Abraham could not look upon his own immediate seed as heirs
of the promises. "They which are the children of the flesh, these are
not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted
for the seed." (v.8) How can believers today lean upon the promise to
Abraham which is clearly interpreted in the New Testament and find for
themselves a greater expectation for their children than Abraham had a
right to? The New Testament is not silent about this seed. It tells us
they are believers alone!
4. Lastly, there are
practical flaws in the paedobaptist theology. Those who sprinkle
infants are on the horns of a dilemma. Either they must tamper with
the definition of baptism to make it signify something less than
personal spiritual union with Christ as the Bible clearly teaches; or
they will be driven to teach infant salvation or presumptive
regeneration. If the first course is chosen, one must also corrupt the
New Testament view of the church and its discipline. If some who are
less than saved are properly to be considered as members of ChristÕs
body, there is a great deal of stress with the New Testament's view of
membership and fellowship. If the second course is chosen, oneÕs
pedagogy will be affected. How are parents and pastors to address the
children if they are viewed as joined to Christ? Unfortunately, much
paedobaptist literature written for children reflects a tendency to
address them as believers, not as in need of evangelism. Note the
interesting historic dispute on this subject by paedobaptist
theologians J.H.Thornwell and R.L.Dabney on one hand, and Charles
Hodge on the other.
II. HISTORICAL
PERSPECTIVE
I can sympathize with
students who are wrestling with the problem of baptism. I can remember
when I wished to be convinced of the paedobaptist position. There
would be many practical advantages. Another forceful factor is the
great history of godly men who were paedobaptists, especially the
Reformers and Puritans. But as history gave me the problem, so it has
suggested a solution. Paedobaptism is clearly tied to sacralism in
church history. After Constantine and his associates succeeded in
getting across the idea that church and state are coextensive, baptism
identified a person not only as a member of ChristÕs church but also
as a citizen of the state. The Anabaptists in the Middle Ages were not
so concerned about the subjects and mode of baptism as they were about
the purity of the church. Believer's baptism has always naturally
followed the concept of a believer's church. When Zwingli worked
closely with Anabaptists (whom he later helped to condemn to death),
he had a rather different view of the church from that which he
adopted later. Consequently, he had a believer's baptism view. But
when he moved to the concept of a state church, he vigorously defended
infant baptism.
So, too, in England.
So long as the concept of a state church reigned, there was very
little interest in a baptism position. But as soon as the separatist
movement arose, the Baptists emerged naturally from the paedobaptist
midst. Just as the sacralist principles were drawn from the Old
Testament improperly, so the retreat from national religion to family
religion has rested upon Old Testament practices. Once the
constitution and discipline of the New Testament church has been
rightly conceived, the hangover of infant baptism must fall way.
These are issues over
which we do not wish to lose fellowship with paedobaptist brethren.
Yet, they are principles which we will not jettison for the sake of
fellowship.
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Published by The Association of Reformed Baptist Churches of America
ARBCA Publications
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