Featured Open Baptists & Paedobaptism

Yes, as plain in the great Commission how valid water baptism is to be administered!
And any baptism done by Rome not valid, as not a NT church!

 

...nor any other Christian.

 

Mikey, I showed you the scripture whereby the children are sanctified by the believing parent. The argument by paedobaptists is that the covenant covers these children as being a part of the community of believers until such time as they display faith or follow their carnal nature. The infant baptism signifies they are members in the covenant, just as circumcision signified Hebrews as being in the Old Covenant. Those 8 day old boys had not expressed faith. Should the elders have waited until evidence of faith before circumcising them as members of the covenant?
If, baptism takes the place of circumcision as a sign of the covenant, should the child, whose parents are members of the covenant, be held out of the covenant until faith is confirmed?

Do you see the thought process of paedobaptists? Do you see the legitimacy in their position? You may not agree, I can concur, but surely you can see their reasoning and the legitimacy of their thought.
If a child of believing parents has been baptized into the covenant and then displays faith at a later date, should they be forced to be re-baptized a second time or is God pleased with the original baptism so that they are acknowledged as being in covenant membership?

I, personally, would not require a second baptism. I would accept their membership in the covenant.

 

Big Issues Facing Baptists Today


(part of the Baptist Heritage in the 21st Century Pamphlet Series)

by Charles W. Deweese
Although Baptists routinely deal with critical issues, at least five rise to the top in 2005. These issues have the potential to disrupt forward progress; frankly, they have already contributed to such disruption. However, the Lordship of Christ, the authority of the Bible, and historic Baptist ideals rise above all Baptist issues. In fact, all issues challenging Baptists today must be measured by, put in line with, and subjected to the plumb lines of Christ, Scripture, and Baptist values.

RAW SECULARISM—Raw secularism daily rips holes into the morality and spirituality of Baptists. It affects individuals, churches, associations, conventions, fellowships, unions, federations, and alliances. No facet of Baptist life is exempt from the temptation to succumb to the powerful influence of worldly enticement. In the past, Baptists exercised strong patterns of discipline in church life; today, that is virtually non-existent. Therefore, when churches take less interest in the accountability side of church membership, individual church members must become more responsible for their own patterns of conduct and behavior.

The good news is that millions of Baptists regularly fight off the secularistic impulse and its temptations through private prayer and Bible reading, corporate worship, attention to Christian ethics, and massive contributions to humanity through Christ-centered discipleship, education, lifestyle evangelism, ministry, and missions.

WIDESPREAD REJECTION OF HISTORIC BAPTIST VIEWS OF CHURCH-STATE SEPARATION— Today, church-state issues dominate religious news. Faith-based grants, “Justice Sunday” telecasts, Ten Commandments cases, Supreme Court appointments, religion in public schools, religious discrimination, religious fundamentalism’s cozy relationship with right-wing politics—these are just some of the topics that work their way into the news. The work of the Baptist Joint Committee on Religious Liberty in combating illegitimate mergers of church and state has become more challenging.

Early Baptists in England and America in the 1600s struggled mightily to convince themselves and the world around them that a state-church was a mockery of New Testament teaching, an affront to infants baptized into it against their will, an endorsement of civil religion, and a disservice both to the church and to the state. Those Baptists took two simple positions: coerced faith driven by directives of the state was meaningless, but free faith driven by liberty of conscience and sheer voluntarism was the pattern taught and practiced by Christ. Perhaps the time has come to listen up to these Baptist heroes of religious freedom.

LOSS OF THE PROPHETIC VOICE IN BAPTIST NEWSPAPERS AND PULPITS—Many Baptist state paper editors and preachers have abandoned the prophetic element of their calling. They simply refuse to provide “Thus-says-the-Lord” editorials and sermons. The net effect is that they routinely subject Baptist readers and congregations to biblical half-truths, leaving out the prophetic thrusts of the Old Testament and the prophetic claims of Christ. A big question arises: Where are the leadership models of courage like that of Daniel willing to defy the dictates of a king and to go to a lion’s den rather than worship a false god?

Several factors help to account for a decline of the prophetic side of the Baptist experience. First, many Baptist state newspapers and pulpits have been converted into public relations outlets; thus, there is no reason for an editor to write an editorial countering a convention’s decisions or activities or for a preacher to question obvious doctrinal flaws in church or denominational life, no matter how wrong they are. Second, many editors and preachers have virtually abandoned studies of Baptist history, and therefore are unfamiliar with the thousands of highly prophetic writers and preachers who, at whatever risk was necessary, told the truth and nothing but the truth. Third, job security sometimes provides a powerful motivation to keep one’s pen quiet or mouth shut.

PERSISTENT FRAGMENTATION—Baptist fragmentation started in the early 1600s, and it has never stopped. Baptists disagree about everything; sometimes, that causes organizational rupture and the multiplication of new Baptist bodies. Today, in the United States alone, there are more than 50 Baptist groups or sub-groups. That number grows many times when one looks at Baptists worldwide. The nature of Baptist life feeds disagreement and diversity. Put simply, no authority exists in Baptist life that can control how Baptists think, believe, and practice their faith. Respect for the rights of private interpretation of Scripture is paramount. Congregational self-determination is important. The power of dissent, nonconformity, and liberty of conscience drives Baptists in different directions. Personality factors feed Baptist battles. A decline in trust always causes Baptists to view one another suspiciously.

Crises, however, have helped some Baptists rediscover more accurate biblical perspectives of what it means to be Baptist. They have also learned some valuable lessons through controversies. For example, championing biblical causes in the context of heated debate, even if it results in organizational fracture, can lead to spiritual progress.

ENTRENCHED FUNDAMENTALISM—Religious fundamentalism has rigidly entrenched itself into some facets of Baptist life. Built on the need to control religious thought, faith, and practice, fundamentalism constructs tactics designed to guarantee such control. One obvious technique is to convert voluntary confessions of faith into enforced creeds, to which absolute compliance is expected of all denominational professors, missionaries, curriculum writers, and the news media. It focuses on Old Testament law, not on the freedom-based ministry of Christ. It is a religion of regulation, rather than deregulation.

Despite it all, wonderful resources for Baptists result when fundamentalism systematically squeezes out of its camp those Baptists who refuse to buy into its tenets and practices. New seminaries emerge. New mission programs are born. New publications find the light of day. New centers for ethics and Baptist history come into being. New life is breathed into hurting people.

My reply to these and other issues facing Baptists today is this: Being Baptist is still worth the effort. Careful reading of the primary resources produced by the earliest Baptists in the 1600s reveals heavy reliance on the Lordship of Christ and the authority of the Bible. Rather than cave in to secularism, church-state mergers, prophetic decline, more fragmentation, and religious fundamentalism, perhaps we should focus increasingly on what we can do to advance the cause of Christ, as defined by him in the New Testament, in every phase of life.

The best Baptist principles are biblically-based and positive; they rise above negativity. They recommend aggressive efforts to be in the world, but not of it; they urge appropriate contributions to church and state, but not a marriage between the two; they make bold calls for justice by editors and preachers, not pathetic departures from the prophetic call; they offer opportunities for conversations and joint actions among Baptist groups, not endorsements of continuing segregation and relational breakdowns; and they endorse liberty of conscience and authentic voluntarism, not the control orientation of fundamentalism.

Charles W. Deweese is executive director of the Baptist History and Heritage Society in Atlanta, Georgia.

[1] John Smyth, “Paralleles, Censures, Observations,” The Works of John Smyth, 2 vols., ed. W. T. Whitley (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1915), 2:509. Spelling updated.

[2] William L. Lumpkin, Baptist Confessions of Faith, rev. ed. (Valley Forge: Judson Press, 1969), 121-22. Style and spelling updated.

[3] John Calvin, “Draft Ecclesiastical Ordinances,” in Calvin: Theological Treatises, trans. J. K. S. Reid, Library of Christian Classics 22 (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1954), 58.

[4] Lumpkin, 210.

 

This is certainly a regulative view argument.

The normative view argument might respond by asking if the believing parent sets the baptized child apart.

1 Corinthians 7:14 For the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy.

They would also point out that the Bible tells us that entire households were baptized. It is not told to us how old the people were or whether they first, individually, made confessions of faith.

For me, this is a gray area and this I personally err on the side of grace.

 

This is an assertion not backed up by scripture. Instead, you are making an assertion from Baptist tradition.

 

The main reason for persecution was the Anabaptist call for separation of church and state, followed by bad doctrine of the Prophets of Zwickau, who labeled themselves Anabaptists and thus lumped all Anabaptists in that fold. Anabaptists were then considered anarchists who wanted to disrupt the government power structure. This was the primary reason for persecution of Anabaptists.

 

The only persons included in the NC in the NT would be those saved by the Lord Jesus , correct? Those holding to infant baptism would seem to be stating to us that once water baptized, receive the Holy Spirit and are in the Kingdom, and then if they reject Jesus, then undo it all?

 

Where in the NT is it stated that others then those saved gte water Baptized? ONLY can get there by assuming Presbie theology, not Baptist!

 

Were the only person's under the Mosaic Covenant only those with faith or was all Israel under that covenant? Are the only persons under the New Covenant only those with faith or does the faith of the believing parent set apart the children? You have to wrestle with Paul's comments in 1 Corinthians 7 to try answer this. This is where your understanding of covenant theology will help. John MacArthur is a dispensationalist so he will blow that passage off as unimportant, but if God is a covenant making God and he sets apart the children of the Israel of God as he did with those under the nation of Israel, then you have to wrestle with how that works.

 

Here is where we have to either make a hard rule to only follow a regulative rule or whether a normative rule also may apply. As one who holds to covenant theology one has to wrestle through this issue. As I said earlier, I will not die on this hill. I am still wrestling with how this functions in light of baptism as an ordinance.
As I mentioned in the topic thread asking what denomination would you be if not a Baptist, I answered...Presbyterian.

 

How can you be a Baptist yet believe infant baptism is legitimate? Your position seems to me inconsistant.

Don't jump from one frying pan into another.

This video may be useful. Describes the differences between 1689 federalism and the presbyterian form.



Also, I suggest that you have a watch (audit for free) of lectures 21 -25 of the creeds and confessions module from the Reformed Baptist Seminary, those cover covenant theology.


Another useful website: 1689 Federalism | The distinctive biblical theology of confessional particular baptists

 

Mikey, I appreciate the resources.

I will simply state that my faith is not wrapped up in denomination, but in knowing my God and what pleases Him.

 

If baptism takes the place of circumcision as a sign of the new covenant, the correspondence is that the sign would only be administered after one was born into the family. This birth is spiritual, not natural.

 

There is the rub. 1 Corinthians 7 is used to indicate that the children of spiritually reborn family member are made holy by that family member and therefore the unity of membership into that holiness is the baptism of that child. Just as the children of physical Israel are brought into the Mosaic Covenant via circumcision, so the children of spiritual Israel are brought into the New Covenant via baptism.

Back to the original topic.

If the child is baptized into the covenant as an infant and then is drawn by God into saving faith, are they needing to be re-baptized into a covenant in which they were already previously baptized? The answer comes in how you determine the process of covenant. Can one be set apart in the covenant before they have displayed saving faith? If God has predestined that person to be saved into the New Covenant, does it matter the order by which they are brought into covenant? Can water baptism come first before spiritual baptism? Here the Bible gives no explicit nor implicit answer. Therefore, speaking only for myself, I choose to extend grace.

 

No rub whatsoever, and no baptism in view. The statement of Paul in verse 14 is set in the larger context of instruction on marriage found in 1 Corinthians chapter 7. Verses 12 through 24 address questions on the marriages of believers and unbelievers. Should Christian believers stay married to unbelievers? Paul stresses that coming to faith in Christ does not dissolve natural bonds or blood relationship. They should remain married.

An unbeliever, by virtue of his or her being married to a believer, is set apart or holy. A child of a believer, by virtue of being the child of a believer, is set apart or holy. Both the unbelieving spouse/parent and unknowing child are sanctified by their relationships to the believer. The unbelieving spouse and unknowing child share in the blessings available to the believer, because of their being in a relationship with that believer. The unbelieving spouse and the unknowing child have the same sanctified relation to the believer. (If this sanctification qualifies the child for baptism, the like sanctification would also qualify the adult for baptism.) This relation is in the marriage covenant, not in the church covenant.

Interestingly, when Paul addresses the children -- else were your children unclean -- he does not speak of “their” children (that is, the children of the husband and wife addressed) but rather of “your” children (Gk. humon ὑμῶν your, genitive plural) -- the children generally of the people of the church of Corinth. Understanding this statement cues us to the fact that Paul is not making a cause and effect argument, but rather is comparing the like status of different individuals in the family. The holiness of the children is not an effect of the sanctification of the unbelieving spouse; it is a situation like it. Children are unclean with the exception of the same kind of holiness as the unbelieving adult parent has. If the unbelieving spouse were not sanctified by the marriage, it would be true also that an unknowing and unbelieving child, born by nature a sinner, is not sanctified by the relationship to a believing parent (not because of it, but for the same kind of reason). If unbelieving spouses should be cast off from with their believing spouses, then children also ought to be severed from familial connection to believing parents as well. The whole of family and society would thereby be disrupted. As such, Paul makes a forceful argument for the maintaining the marriages of believers and unbelievers. It says nothing of infant baptism.

According to John Leadley Dagg in A Decisive Argument Against Infant Baptism: Furnished by One of Its Own Proof-texts, Paul’s insight here provides proof that infant baptism was not practiced by the church at Corinth. He writes, “The church at Corinth was a Pedobaptist church, or it was not. If it was a Pedobaptist church, the argument of Paul was invalid; because it was based on the false assumption, that the children sealed with the seal of God’s covenant, dedicated to Him in the holy rite of baptism, and admitted within the pale of the church, were in like circumstances with unbelieving and unbaptized adults, who were out of the covenant, and out of the church. But Paul did not use an invalid argument: therefore this church was not Pedobaptist; and the same must be true of all the churches planted by the Apostles, since they were, doubtless, all similarly organized.”

The big IF is whether or not infant baptism into the covenant is scriptural. If it is, then they would be baptized and have no need to be “re-baptized”. The “rub” is that most Baptists still do not recognize infant baptism as any form of baptism at all, scripturally. If that is correct, then infants have never been baptized, not matter what paedobaptists think, and Baptists do not baptize them a second time, but the first time in response to their faith.

Baptism is a command of God to be performed (e.g. Matthew 28:18-20) and to be submitted to (e.g. Acts 2:38; 10:48; 22:16). The order of the command to baptize is make disciples, baptize, and teach. We are commanded to baptize believers. The command to be baptized is to those who have repented and believed the gospel. The command to baptize and the command to be baptized revolves around faith in Jesus Christ, a response of faith, an answer of a good conscience toward God. There is no command to baptize infants who have not been discipled, or for parents to have their infants be baptized.

I am quite willing to extend grace to paedobaptists, in acknowledging their right to observe the ordinances in the way they understand them. I am not willing, however, to countenance what I believe is an unscriptural act. I believe that extending grace in that case requires teaching the truth to someone who wonders if they should be baptized, rather than recognizing something we do not believe is scriptural. Hopefully they can extend the same grace toward our practicing what we believe.

 

Well said and spoken from a regulative argument of what is provided in the Bible and the implications thereof.
I suspect there is a normative argument that can be made as well.

 

Most congregations will only baptize members of that congregation. There used to be two traveling evangelists in this area who, twice a year, would come around, hold a "revivaL", (They didn't work together, nor were associated), and a baptism, either in the Ohio River, or a local creek, depending upon the weather & water levels. Either of them would baptize anyone who wanted to be baptized. As one of them told me, he didn't question their salvations; that was between each person and Jesus, so he baptized without question.

As for children' being saved or not, the only example we have is David's son by Bathsheba, who died shortly after birth. David, who was a prophet, said he'd join him in heaven some day.

 

David did not say any such thing. ". . . But now he is dead, wherefore should I fast? can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me. . . ."