Imperishable Inheritance

In being the­o­log­i­cally Reformed, it lumps me with a large group of believ­ers who adhere to the Doc­trines of Grace; but there are times when being Reformed is not enough. I can­not sim­ply be seen as Reformed, because a very crit­i­cal issue divides those who pro­fess the same the­o­log­i­cal stance. We can go even far­ther and say that the major­ity of Reformed the­olo­gians also adhere to a Covenan­tal view of the Old/New Tes­ta­ments. That is, they see the Church as the ful­fill­ment of Bib­li­cal Judaism, and the Church is not sep­a­rate but grafted into God’s elect (Romans 11; cf. Romans 4, 9; Gala­tians 3; Hebrews 8). Unfor­tu­nately, some take the super­s­es­sion­is­tic view of the Church in per­verted man­ners; and that is man­i­fest most observ­ably in the sacra­ment of baptism.

In the his­tor­i­cal creeds and con­fes­sions, two stand out to me as the most pow­er­ful. They are the West­min­ster Con­fes­sion of Faith (here­after WCF, Pres­by­ter­ian) and the The 1689 Lon­don Bap­tist Con­fes­sion of Faith (here­after LBC, Bap­tist). While both say great things, only one stands out as truly indica­tive of a Bib­li­cal under­stand­ing of the New Tes­ta­ment sacra­ments under the umbrella of Covenant and Reformed The­ol­ogy. We can exam­ine both on their stance of baptism:

The West­min­ster Con­fes­sion of Faith, Chap­ter 28: Of Baptism

III. Dip­ping of the per­son into the water is not nec­es­sary; but Bap­tism is rightly admin­is­tered by pour­ing, or sprin­kling water upon the person.

IV. Not only those that do actu­ally pro­fess faith in and obe­di­ence unto Christ, but also the infants of one, or both, believ­ing par­ents, are to be baptized.

The 1689 Lon­don Bap­tist Con­fes­sion of Faith, Chap­ter 29: Of Baptism

2. Those who do actu­ally pro­fess repen­tance towards God, faith in, and obe­di­ence to, our Lord Jesus Christ, are the only proper sub­jects of this ordinance.

4. Immer­sion, or dip­ping of the per­son in water, is nec­es­sary to the due admin­is­tra­tion of this ordinance.

Now, we see two issues from these two creeds that sep­a­rate the Reformed com­mu­nity. First, the issue of defin­ing what the phys­i­cal act of bap­tism entails. The WCF states (num­ber 3) that immer­sion is not nec­es­sary but sprin­kling is per­mit­ted; but the LBC states (num­ber 4) that the ordi­nance of bap­tism is to be engaged with an immer­sion. The sec­ond issue is that the WCF (num­ber 4) states that infants should be bap­tized, but the LBC (num­ber 2) states only pro­fess­ing believ­ers should be baptized.

Now, my inter­est in this arti­cle is not around the first issue as it is the sec­ond. Briefly, the argu­ment for sprin­kling is not per­sua­sive in any fash­ion I’ve encoun­tered. First, noth­ing in the New Tes­ta­ment even leads to a con­clu­sion that bap­tism was admin­is­tered by sprin­kling (as if John the Bap­tist took Jesus into the river to sprin­kle his fore­head). Also, Strong’s (G907) defines the mean­ing of the Greek word bap­ti­zoÌ? (trans­lated into “bap­tize”) as, “to make whelmed (that is, fully wet).” This issue is not one that can­not be the­o­log­i­cally defined as any­thing other than com­plete immer­sion. But now for the sec­ond issue.

Argu­ment for Pae­dobap­tism from the Replace­ment of Covenants

My Pres­by­ter­ian brethren would define an argu­ment for Pae­dobap­tism (“paedo” trans­lates “infant,” so this is the need­lessly tech­ni­cal term for infant bap­tism) as follows:

1. The sign of the Old Tes­ta­ment covenant was that of cir­cum­ci­sion man­dated for the all males as early as 8 days old (Gen­e­sis 17:10–14).
2. The old [Mosaic] covenant was replaced by a new covenant with the arrival of the Mes­siah (Matthew 26:28; Hebrews 8), and the sign of that covenant is bap­tism (Mark 16:16).
3. There­fore, since there is a new covenant with a sim­i­lar sacra­ment, the rea­son­ing and prac­tice behind both admin­is­tra­tions must be the same.

I admit myself that argu­ment is a lit­tle ver­bose, but let me elab­o­rate. Since infants were cir­cum­cised, they like­wise should be bap­tized since that is a sign of the new covenant. Again, this is a time when being Reformed/Covenant the­olo­gian is not enough.

Under­stand­ing the Bib­li­cal Empha­sis on Each Sacrament

The act of cir­cum­ci­sion, first of all, was obvi­ously applied only to males; and if we take as the same mea­sure of the replace­ment the­ory then we like­wise should only bap­tize male infants. On this point, Pres­by­ter­ian bap­tize both males and females as infants. The sup­porter of infant bap­tism will declare that it is not enough to say that bap­tism is only a sign of believ­ers as opposed to cir­cum­ci­sion because Paul in Romans 4 says that Abra­ham after hav­ing faith and imputed right­eous­ness, “received the sign of cir­cum­ci­sion, a seal of the right­eous­ness of the faith which he had while uncir­cum­cised” (vs. 11).

We should under­stand that this sit­u­a­tion, that cir­cum­ci­sion was given to Abra­ham on the account of faith, that he was the first and only. I can­not find another exam­ple of any­one else in the Old Tes­ta­ment that believed and then was cir­cum­cised. The rea­son for this is because the cir­cum­ci­sion was enacted for a Jew­ish male eight days after birth (Gen­e­sis 17:12). Not only this, but Paul makes the point clear as to why this sit­u­a­tion occurred as it did, “and the father of cir­cum­ci­sion to those who not only are of the cir­cum­ci­sion, but who also fol­low in the steps of the faith of our father Abra­ham which he had while uncir­cum­cised” (vs. 12). Abra­ham was imputed with right­eous­ness uncir­cum­cised “so that he might be the father of all who believe with­out being cir­cum­cised, that right­eous­ness might be cred­ited to them” (vs. 11). And in Gala­tians Paul speaks more of Abra­ham being the father of all who believe (the elect regard­less of a cer­tain admin­is­tra­tion of the Covenant of Grace):

There is nei­ther Jew nor Greek, there is nei­ther slave nor free man, there is nei­ther male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descen­dants, heirs accord­ing to promise.
Gala­tians 3:28–29

It then becomes appar­ent that this out­stand­ing cir­cum­stance is that to which the Pres­by­ter­ian would base such an argu­ment, and their argu­men­ta­tion stems out of a mis­un­der­stand­ing of that par­tic­u­lar instance. Also, at the Coun­cil of Jerusalem (Acts 15) did not cor­re­late bap­tism in any fash­ion to cir­cum­ci­sion; they only decided that it was not nec­es­sary to fol­low the sign of the Old Covenant (Judaic cer­e­mo­nial law is one great exam­ple of some­thing that was done away with in the New Covenant).

Through these argu­ments, the strongest is that bap­tism in the New Tes­ta­ment is always attached directly to being admin­is­tered after faith (Acts 2:38 is one such exam­ple). To den­i­grate the New for the Old, seems to me to be a very basic mis­un­der­stand­ing of the chang­ing of Testaments.

Con­clu­sion

Covenant the­ol­ogy is one, and I would argue the most impor­tant, doc­trine for us to under­stand the Bible as a true teach­ing of God’s redemp­tive pur­pose. As we have seen though, being Reformed/Covenant the­olo­gian is some­times just not enough. I agree with John Piper’s sen­ti­ment on this issue:

“The Church is not a replay of Israel. It is an advance on Israel. To admin­is­ter the sign of the covenant as though this advance has not hap­pened is a great mis­take. We do not bap­tize our chil­dren accord­ing to the flesh, not because we don’t love them, but because we want to pre­serve for them the purity and the power of the spir­i­tual com­mu­nity that God ordained for the believ­ing church of the liv­ing Christ.”