A Final word on Infant Baptism

Two sobering truths about infant baptism demonstrate that the doctrine is derived not from exegetical proofs but rather a faulty theological scheme. This post will serve as a summary to my very discursive interaction with paedobaptism and specifically, Paul Manata’s argument in favor of that doctrine. The first is a logical syllogism from New Testament evidence and the second is from the first 200 years of church history.

1      Every article of church polity, worship, conduct, doctrine, discipline and activity are all clearly contained within the confines of the New Testament.

2      Infant baptism is not clearly contained within the confines of the New Testament.

3      Therefore, infant baptism is not an article of church polity, worship, conduct, doctrine, discipline and activity.

The first premise is very simple. This premise is not asserting that no church has ever instituted policies or worship practices, etc. that have no support in the New Testament. What it is claiming is that these elements have their authority from the clear teachings and principles of New Testament Scripture. When we look for polity of elders and deacons, we see it in Acts 6 and 1 Timothy 3 as well as other places. We can read about how the church worshiped in Acts and Ephesians as well as other places. We know that Christian conduct and doctrine must have their only source in New Testament Scripture. We also see that Christian activities and even discipline are spelled out in black and white in the New Testament Scripture. The New Testament Church is indeed a New Testament Church. And members of the New Covenant are members in the New Testament Church.

There is no connection, not a single shred of connection between New Covenant baptism and Old Covenant circumcision. The circumcision of the flesh was a type of the New Covenant circumcision of the heart. In other words, physical circumcision was the type while regeneration is the antitype. There is no proof anywhere in the New Testament that baptism and circumcision are related. We have been circumcised by a circumcision made without hands. (Col. 2:11) The opportunities for God to reveal such a basic element of Christian doctrine abound throughout the New Testament. God had no reservations about revealing to us all the other aspects of basic Christian doctrine, like baptism, faith and repentance, regeneration, Christian duty, worship, prayer, etc. Jesus could have said something about this doctrine but He did not. Luke, in recording the history of the ancient church had almost endless opportunity but said nothing about it. Paul, Peter, and John had enough space to include this doctrine but nowhere bothered themselves with it. The writer to the Hebrews most certainly could have made the connection but ignored it completely. One has to ask if it makes sense to permit such silence on something as basic as our paedobaptist brothers consider it to be in the life of the church. At a minimum we have to admit that it is indeed puzzling that something so basic would be accompanied, not by scant evidence, but rather by absolutely no evidence whatsoever.

Historically speaking, there is no evidence from the first two-hundred years in the church that infant baptism was ever practiced. For the time before this (200 AD) we do not possess a single piece of information that gives concrete testimony to the existence of infant baptism. (Aland, 101) So then what is the historical basis for infant baptism in the Christian Church? Contrary to our paedobaptist brothers’ connection to the covenant, when the Christian Church first began to baptize infants, it was due to the issue of original sin. The struggle with infant baptism in the early church was related to the doctrine of original sin. We see the remarks by Tertullian, “Why should innocent infancy be in such a hurry to come to the forgiveness of sins?” Tertullian associated baptism with cleansing and forgiveness of sins. Origen, although he accepted the view that infant baptism was of apostolic origin, struggled to understand why an infant would require forgiveness and pardon of sins. Origen then connected baptism with pardon and forgiveness of sins. Cyprian was the first to connect infant baptism to original sin. There was a practice in come churches to wait until the 8^th day to baptize the infant. But Cyprian argued that if the worse of sinners ought to be baptized immediately, receiving pardon and forgiveness of sins, why then should we withhold such grace from a newly born infant? Augustin followed both Ambrose in his view on original sin and Cyprian in his logic on baptism.

The earliest available evidence from the ancient church is clear. When infant baptism was introduced to the church, whenever that was, it was done so as a result of the logical inference of original sin. The argument was not made from the Old Covenant pattern of circumcision even if a loose connection from a religious rite may have been present somewhere in their thinking. The thrust of the belief supporting infant baptism was inferred from the belief in the doctrine of original sin. If all Adams progeny is wholly contaminated from the womb, then infants are in need or pardon from birth. And if baptism provide for pardon and forgiveness of sins, then infants ought to be baptized. Augustine referred to infants as being in the clutches of the devil because they were born contaminated with the sin of Adam.

These facts pose a serious problem for a paedobaptist brothers. If they are going to call on evidence from the ancient church, a few generations removed from the apostles, then they will have to accept the justification for the practice of infant baptism from that ancient church as well. One cannot use the historical evidence that the church baptized infants in the third century unless one also uses the same argument in support of that practice. Do paedobaptists argue that baptism provides for pardon and forgiveness of sin? Indeed, they do not. Their argument for the legitimacy of infant baptism is fundamentally different from that of the ancient church. For that reason, we can reject the paedobaptist claim that church history supports their practice. Indeed, church history is in clear dispute with their practice. Tertullian, Origen, Cyprian, and Augustine would all disagree with the reasons offered by the reformed paedobaptists for their doctrine of infant baptism.

In summary then, we have seen that a survey of the New Testament shows no clear evidence that infant baptism ought to be included in the polity, doctrine, or worship practice of the catholic church. If it is true that Christian polity, doctrine, and practice ought to have clear support in the New Testament or ought to be so clearly derived from principles of clear doctrine, then we have no choice but to admit that infant baptism is lacking in that support. We have also seen the that the first evidence of infant baptism in the history of the church in the extant records shows that the practice was built upon an argument that took on a fundamentally different structure. Like the New Testament teaching on the relationship between baptism and true repentance, the practice of infant baptism seemed to emerge as a product of an attempt to ensure the salvation of infants. If this is not baptismal regeneration, it is only a step removed. In light of these two very basic and simple observations, I think it is more safe to reject the doctrine of infant baptism. I think of the principle that the more obscure a doctrine, the less likely it is to be true, or useful to the spiritual growth and well-being of the Church. For this reason, it seems prudent to me to reject the claims of Paul Manata and our paedobaptist brothers. We simply must demand that something so basic and so imposed upon the lives of believers as infant baptism must be accompanied with the strongest and clearest support of New Testament Scripture which is the only guide for the Church and it is also our only guide for how we should approach the rest of Scripture, meaning, the Old Testament. In other words, the New Testament is the grid through which everything else must be interpreted because it is the clearest and final revelation from God.

Interacting with Paul Manata’s Why I am not a Baptist (again)

In this post I will continue my interaction with Manata on the subject of a mixed community in the New Covenant. Manata writes, The EP, as presented in the New Testament, provides extremely strong support for a continued external dimension to the New Covenant community. Only in the new heavens and earth will the covenant community be a pure, unmixed community. Here I think Manata presents his weakest argument. The exclusion principle is not unique to the Ancient Hebrews. The practice was commonplace in the Mediterranean world. Second, to be excluded from a local fellowship does not imply one is a bona fide member of the New Covenant. Nowhere in the NT do the writers ever imply that there are two components of the New Covenant. John’s words serve as an excellent reason for us to reject this idea immediately.

If we are to accept Manata’s argument that the New Covenant will not be written on the hearts of all those who are members in it, we run into a number of problems. On the one hand, is the New Covenant made with all of Israel and Judah? If it is as like the Old Covenant as Manata suggests, then we must admit that national Israel is a member of the New Covenant. But I don’t think Manata would go that far. After all, what is the basis for membership in the New Covenant? Moreover, what are the benefits of being in the New Covenant. Is there any material difference between the Muslim and the Jew in terms of being under the wrath and disfavor of God for their rejection of Jesus Christ? I would think not. At best, this sort of understanding of the New Covenant reduces membership in it to a meaningless status. Manata cannot have it both ways.

The New Covenant is expressly identified by Jeremiah as that activity of God where He writes His law on the hearts of the covenant members, the elect, true Israel. Those who are in the New Covenant have God as their God and they are God’s people. They will not need to teach each other how to know God because all the members in the New Covenant will know God. Jesus quotes this passage in John 6 in the context of all those that are His. Jesus says that everyone who is taught of God, something Jeremiah reserves for the recipients of the New Covenant, will come to Him. The idea that one could be a member in the New Covenant and not come to Christ is simply not true. John echoes Jeremiah’s words twice more when he informs his church that they have an anointing from the Holy One and do not need a teacher. Why? Because they have been taught of God just as Jeremiah said the New Covenant members would be and Jesus Himself interpreted Jeremiah this way as well.

Romans 9-11 provides excellent material to understand membership in the New Covenant. It is those elect Jews and Gentiles who have faith in Christ. The Gentiles have been grafted into the Covenant by faith in Christ. Unbelief excludes people from the covenant regardless of race, gender, social status, or relations. Only faith in Christ results in membership in the New Covenant community. This is clear when Paul says, “And they also, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again.” (Rom. 11:23)

The writer of Hebrews tells us that Christ is the mediator of the New Covenant, a better covenant. What Christ mediates is efficacious. He offers up for members of the Covenant a better sacrifice. Would Manata say that Christ is the actual mediator for the non-elect? Does Christ offer up sacrifice for those who actually reject Him, those who are not His sheep? The writer goes on to say that the blood of Christ is efficacious, being offered through the eternal Spirit, to cleanse our conscience from dead works to serve the living God. (Heb. 9:14) This is the mediator of the New Covenant mediating for members in that covenant. The writer then says, “For where a covenant is, there must of necessity be the death of the one who made it. (9:16) Is Manata claiming that Christ’s death included those who were not elect? It is only those who have been called that will receive the promise of the New Covenant. (v. 15) This accords perfectly with Jeremiah 31, John 6, Romans 9-11, and 1 John 2. The New Covenant is established in the blood sacrifice of Christ. This sacrifice takes away the Old Covenant in order to establish the New. (Heb. 10:9) It is by this sacrifice that the members in the New Covenant have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. (Heb. 10:10) It is by this offering that He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified. (10:14) It is here that the writer to the Hebrews references Jeremiah 31:33. The writer of the Hebrews connects those who have been sanctified, perfected, washed in the blood of Christ and cleansed with the same ones that Jeremiah describes as having God’s laws put upon their hearts and their minds. It is the same audience. These are the objects of the New Covenant arrangement. This is why Paul says that (we) New Covenant members are not of those who endure for a while but then withdrawal to perdition. (Heb. 10:39) These are those who were never really of us. The parable of the sower presents this clearly. The good soil, the New Covenant members, Christ’s sheep, those whom God has actually called, are the members of the New Covenant, in the body of Christ, the Church, in Christ by faith and they will endure to the end. The ones that withdrawal were never really of us.

If the writer to the Hebrews is correct, then members in the New Covenant have been perfected forever, having been sanctified by the blood of Christ once and for all. This sacrifice has created a mixed, but entirely pure community. Mixed in that she is ethnically diverse but one in that she is spiritually pure, sanctified, justified by the one eternal sacrifice of Christ her mediator. The writer of the Hebrews does not use language that implies that the New Covenant is yet to be enacted. The New Covenant has been fully enacted. Christ said it is finished, not it has begun. We are living in the New Covenant arrangement today and the purity of our communities is of utmost importance if we are to be the light we are called to be. This is why church discipline is so critically important. It is why Paul insisted that the Corinthian man be removed immediately. We are not a community of moral and immoral people. Even though wolves are around us along with the hypocrites, they are not of us. They are not in our community. They are not members of the covenant because only God can make someone a member of the covenant.

Why Paul Manata Ought to be a Baptist

"It is true that there is no express command to baptize infants in the New Testament, no express record of the baptism of infants in the New Testament, and no passages so stringently implying it that we must infer from them that infants were baptized." -B.B. Warfield [Vol. IX, 399]

My conclusion then is that we should not baptize infants. That is why Paul Manata ought to be a Baptist.

Before I get started, I think a word about hermeneutics is in order. I operate on the principle that the Old Testament is in the New revealed and the New Testament is in the Old concealed. That is to say, the principle of progressive revelation suggests that we should interpret the Old Testament through the lens of the New Testament. The events and prophecies and teachings of the Old Testament Scripture had a purpose, an element or component that the New Testament does not: it points to something greater, something superior, and hermeneutically, something clearer. To be specific, the Old Testament documents point to a clearer, superior set of New Testament documents. Old Testament revelation points to a greater New Testament revelation. This is not to say that the revelation of the Old Testament is any less authoritative than the New. It is not less of a revelation than the New. It was not less binding than the New. This is to say that part of its purpose was to point to Christ, who is Himself more clearly revealed in the New. Failure to acknowledge this principle can result in a broad range of numerous errors in our theology. I believe this very issue, failure to consistently apply this principle in hermeneutics, leads the paedobaptist covenant theologians, like Paul Manata, to see too much continuity between the Old and New Covenants. We must take care in how we read the NT writers use of the Old Testament, understanding that the means for appropriating an OT text varied by writer and by context. Too often our theological prejudice imposes stricter rules in places where they should not be used. In what follows, I shall try to be more consistent where Manata I think is not, and show why the Credobaptist position garners stronger support for the very reason that it is more consistent in its hermeneutic. Now, here is my argument in response to Paul Manata’s Why I am not a Baptist.

(1)  All subjects for Christian baptism are members in the Church.

(2)  Only regenerated individuals are members in the Church.

(3)  Therefore, only regenerated individuals are proper subjects for Christian baptism.

If I am successful in defending this argument, the contradictory argument offered up by Paul Manata should be abandoned. If my argument proves sound, and the conclusion contradicts Manata’s conclusion, then Manata’s argument should be abandoned. Not only this, if my argument proves sound, then every other paedobaptists argument regarding infant Baptist should be abandoned. Hence, my argument will show why Paul Manata and our paedobaptists brothers ought to be a Baptist if they are interested in being consistent with the teachings of the whole Bible rightly interpreted. This leaves Manata and the Paedobaptists with the only consistent option of defaulting to guaranteed regeneration or baptismal regeneration. But I am not convinced Manata wishes to move in that direction.

My first claim is that all subjects for Christian baptism are in fact members in the Church. First of all, what is does it mean to be a member in the Church. Before I talk about that, I should say what being a member in a church is not. I am not referring to members in a local church. Being a member of the Church can not be accomplished by signing a card or taking a class. Being a member in the Church cannot be achieved by external religious rituals, such as communion, baptism, or oaths. Being a member in the Church does not happen by nature of the fact that you married a member in a church. Being a member in the Church does not happen as a result of being the son or daughter of members in a church. John wrote, “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” (John 1:12-13) Being a member of the Church is not the result of how one is born, nor the result of a decision of human will. Being a member in the Church is the direct result of being born of God. Individuals cannot simply join the Church like they would join a club. People are added to the Church by God through regeneration and conversion. That is the only way into the Church. In Acts 20:28 Paul tells us something very interesting about ten ekklesian tou theou, the Church of God. He tells that God has purchased the Church of God with His own blood. The Church of God has been purchased with God’s blood Himself. We will set the variant aside and assume that Paul was referring to Christ. The point here is that the Church of God is an organism that has been purchased by the blood of Christ. As such that organism is holy, sacred, set apart, pure. Being a member in the Church of God which, God has Himself purchased through the blood of Christ then, seems to logically imply that the individuals within that Church are actually the object of purchase. This must be the case since without individuals, there is no Church of God. So when Paul says “Church of God,” he means those elect individuals that God Himself chose before the foundation of the world to be in Christ.

In writing to the Church at Ephesus Paul tells us a little more about the Church, saying, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless.” Here, Paul presents the Church as that thing which Christ gave Himself up for, in order to sanctify her, having cleansed her, so that he can present her in her glory, without spot or wrinkle, but holy and blameless. The Church is a living, sanctified, pure, justified organism whose members have been purified in the blood of Christ. The notion of two churches seems entirely missing from Paul’s theology and from the theology of the other authors of the New Testament.

Colossians 1:18, 24 inform us that the Church is the body of Christ and the body of Christ is the Church. To be in the Church is to be in something that has been purified by the blood of Christ. It is to be in the very body of Christ. To be in the body of Christ is to be forgiven, cleansed, purified, and justified. Sin cannot exist in the body of Christ because the body of Christ is holy. Therefore, unregenerate men cannot be members in the body of Christ. Since the body of Christ is the Church, it follows that unregenerate men cannot be members in the Church. I will likely return to this line of argumentation later. Paul says, “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I do my share on behalf of His body, which is the church, in filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions.” (Col. 1:24) The body of Christ and the Church are used synonymously in the New Testament. Hence, the body of Christ is the Church and those who are members in the Church are members in the body of Christ. To be a member in the body of Christ is to be in Christ. Those who are in Christ are no longer in Adam. To be in Adam is not to be in Christ. To be in Christ is no longer to be in Adam.

Now, lets take a look at Baptism in the NT. What was baptism? The Gk verb for “baptize,” baptizein, is formed from baptein, “dip,” and means “dip frequently or intensively, plunge, immerse.” By Plato’s time and onwards it is often used in a figurative sense (e.g., in the passive, “soaked” in wine, Plato Symp. 176 B). [AYBD] Baptism was not a new phenomenon unique to the New Testament era, nor was it unknown outside of Judaism. Rites of immersion were not uncommon in the world in which early Christianity developed. One type of symbolism with which they were frequently connected was that of purification: from sin, from destruction, from the profane sphere before entering an holy area, from something under a taboo, etc. See, e.g., Lev 16:4, 24 (the high priest before and after the rites of atonement); Leviticus 15 (on menstruating women); 1 QS 3:5–9 (cleansing from sins); Sib. Or. 4.165 (a baptism of repentance); Joseph. Ant. 18.117 (on John’s baptism); Joseph. Life. 11 (on Bannus’ ablutions for purity’s sake); Apul., Met. 11.23 (purification at the initiation into the Isis mysteries); b. Yebam. 47 ab (on proselyte baptism). [ibid]

The relationship between baptism and repentance in the NT is hard to miss. Luke 3:3 says that John preached a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Two things here are very closely associated with Baptism: repentance & forgiveness of sins. Peter, in Acts 2 also connects baptism with repentance and forgiveness of sins. (Acts 2:38) Jesus connected Christian baptism with peaching and making disciples in Matthew 28:19. In Acts 9:17-18, Luke links baptism with Paul’s miraculous conversion. In Acts 10:47, the idea of refusing to baptize someone was entertained, meaning that such a consideration existed long before our disagreement. Peter reasoned that since the same miraculous gift of foreign languages was given to the 120 on the day of Pentecost, and now the very same gift was give to these Gentiles, then it would seem wrong to forbid them to be baptized. In other words, Peter reasoned that these Gentiles had been truly converted and added to the Church and therefore they qualify as proper subjects for Christian baptism. This point cannot be overemphasized. It seems that Peter may have otherwise refused to Baptist these Gentiles reasoning that they were not proper subjects for the rite. But God miraculously showed Peter that Gentiles are just as proper subjects for baptism because God was also converting them the same as He was the Jews. In Acts 19, Luke once again makes an ineffaceable connection between Christian baptism and true conversion. It seems readily apparent from these texts that the ancient New Testament practice of baptism in the early Church was especially reserved only for those who had come to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. It was not viewed as a rite of passage into some abstract, theologically contrived concept known as the “visible church.” It is hardly controversial to say that the New Testament knows nothing of such a concept, let alone, something of a formal rite for entrance into its membership.

We can then conclude that the Church is the body of Christ and the body of Christ is the Church. We can also conclude that the Church has been purified in the blood of Christ, purchased by God with Christ’s blood. Hence, the members in the Church are individuals who have had their sins forgiven, they have been purified by the blood of Christ, and their lives exhibit genuine faith in Christ by way of repentance. These and these alone are the proper subjects for Christian baptism.

NOTE: I have intentionally avoided the different understandings of the covenants between paedobaptists and credobaptists for purposes of reaching a more general audience. If the post lacks the sort of complex scholarship you were hoping for, I apologize. That is simply not the audience I am seeking to reach. Moreover, I do think this argument, if it cannot be refuted, will force an honest reassessment of the claim that the degree of continuity between the old and new covenants is much greater than I believe. If you think this argument is unsound, I would love to hear from you, giving reasons as to what you think I am missing. Keep in my, this post only addresses the major premise. My next post will deal more closely with the members in the body even though I did touch on that here.