Regarding this topic I need to approach it from a more practical standpoint. The questions surrounding infant baptism can easily be answered with Douma's pamphlet. Unfortunately, I cannot make a link available as I cannot find one. The real practical question my Baptist friends in Maine have asked is, "what difference does it make anyways?" My answer is simply in how you decide to view your children. Are your children children under the wrath of God (because they have not yet been converted) or are they children under the promise? This is where the Baptists contradict their reformed standpoint which teaches that God is sovereign over all things including our faith. Why? Because, as Douma says, "Do not our friends put the stress on the decision of man after all, and on his conversion, when they keep rejecting infant baptism? The conversion theology which dominates Baptist doctrines of baptism and church looks, as far as the children are concerned, forward to the time of their response to Christ. But unfortunately it does not look back to what God did first, i.e., that He took up the believers with their children in His covenant. "You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you" (John 15:16). This can also be said of our little children. Their conversion is second, their call, accompanied by holy baptism, is first."
So we do not consider our children as children of wrath but as children under the promise of God and even as Christian children and here is how it works:
God has called us and our children to His covenant. For that reason our children have a place in it. Paul has mentioned that many are called but not many are chosen. So the calling precedes the faith to believe. So we baptize not because we see something present in them (regeneration, faith, conversion), but because something was said about them (the promise of the remission of sins and eternal life).
We emphasize hope and assurance that our children are God's rather than uncertainty until the time they exercise saving faith in conversion. After all, we believe that even faith is a gift of God and originates not from ourselves.
Another argument has been, "How do you know their salvation is certain?" But the same could be said of those who take believers baptism. This question is somewhat of a surprise to me to those who hold to reformed doctrine anyways. We know that it is only God who calls and only he who chooses. Both precede faith to believe. The scripture that comes to mind is that God has chosen the elect from before the foundation of the world. That means before they were born and certainly as infants. But using Douma's argument, "When God in Christ blesses the children, nobody should make the opposite of that blessing." Then he says, "Without realizing it, our children are partakers of the condemnation in Adam. Without their knowledge they are received unto the grace in Christ, as God's children". This happens before seeing any seeds of saving faith, for "He knows who are His".
However, we do not see our children as regenerated either. They are children whom we must teach so that they understand their baptism. The promise is for them as it is for adults - there is no distinction with God. I like what Douma says in conclusion, "Starting out from their wealth, we address them and point out their responsibility. They are children of God, but they must also live as children of God."
There is so much richness and beauty in the doctrine of infant baptism; and I would contradict my friend from Farmington that believer's baptism or credo baptism is as rich after reading Douma's pamphlet. For not including infants (as part of the Christian believer's family) into God's covenant and promises, made with His chosen people, but to take them out of the family unit by treating them as children of wrath until the time they become regenerated, seems out of place considering the character of our Lord. It is far more beautiful and true to the character of God to understand that salvation is of the Lord and administered by Him. That He includes infants, key members of the family as under God's covenant along with adults. We all are as infants in his eyes - at His mercy and His love. To see our infants regenerated in turn confirms God's blessing in His covenant that He has always had them in mind because it has always been His will that godly seed be raised up for His use.
-Joe
5 comments:
There is neither example nor command in the scriptures. Baptism always came after conversion, and infants are not converted.
So, that means God's wrath remains on them? Are they children of promise or children of wrath? What you are saying in effect is that children of believers are no different than children of non-believers. I just can't accept this - I can't accept that according to David Kingdon I must "adopt an attitude of reverent, hopeful agnosticism" regarding my children. I view even my littlest one - Jillainah as a child who shares in the same covenant that saves me - I am saved by God's grace, so is she. There was a time when you would never had known I was a believer - I produced little fruit - equal to your entire life span :-0. But I was baptized in a church that believed in believer's baptism only. What if I never came back to God? I came back because of God's mercy and it is exactly the same for Jillainah. Here in is the argument: All such examples that show baptism being performed on adults do not necessarily imply that infants were excluded. The Philippian jailer is one such example. How you can not consider it is not good exegetics - I have treated this before. I will end this long comment by repeating the words of Dr. Douma: We do not consider our children - baptized on the ground of God's commandment and promise - as children under God's wrath. Kingdon wants us to do so. But if our children are children of God who are given the promise of remission of sins and eternal life, they are not under God's wrath." Lastly, I do not consider them regenerated either. We teach them to understand that they are covenant children who we instruct so that they understand their baptism.
What does baptism signify anyways? It is a sign that the covenant applies to the believer just as circumcision was a sign of the faith that existed in Abraham before he was circumcised. So when you are baptized the same thing is going on. It is a proclamation yes, but first it speaks to what has happened on the inside of the person. How am I to judge based on my lack of fruit bearing that someone is a believer or not? My extended family believes that we can loose our salvation; Melanie's family believes that we are one sin from eternal damnation and now what you say is that this is true regarding all my children unless they display before me (I have proven to myself time and time again how unreliable a judge I am!) fruit that is in keeping with eternal life!
When Christ said "blessed" to the little children it would likewise be too much liberty, in my mind, to consider these children as "little believers". Some were also infants whom their mothers brought to Christ - yet he blesses them too.
So much for being a short comment.
Peace and In Christ as always,
-Joe
p.s: Love discussions on theology. I do not think that this is a "closed book" but as iron sharpens iron we should continue always to strive to seek truth and not close our minds to differences fellow Christians have with each other. Let's look into it and see what we come up with shall we Natasha? Jeff? Mom?
Ephesians 2:1-5
1 As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. 4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.
This seems to teach that all are born dead in sin following the way of the world and satan in gratifiying the fleash. The nature of all deserves wrath. Those who Paul was writing to were saved by God's Grace and no longer under the impending wrath of God against all ungodliness (Romans 1:18)
John 3:36
Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them.
This scripture shows that until belief the threat of Wrath is on all because it is invoked by sinful behavior. Wrath "Remains on them"
The wrath of God has been and is being proclaimed. It has not fully come yet. So are infants under the threat of God's Wrath that is to come, yes because all are under that threat unless they beleive on Christ for salvation. It is his patience that leads to salvation.
John 3:17-19
17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. 19 This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.
Acts 17:30-31
30 In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. 31 For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.”
The day of wrath is coming and all born are under its threat and the wrath will remain on them if they do not heed God's command to repent.
Baptism is a proclimation of what God has done in a believer's life, dying to this world and being raised with Christ.
I think Children are part of the covenant community of GOd through believing parents whether it is formalized by dedication/infant Baptism or not because all we have is the Lords and we a stewards of our kids. They are under God's blessing from conception because they were born to Christian parents and will hear the good news. formal ritual for the sake of the parents and the local church to mark and reaffirm the responsibilities from God everyone involved has anyway is a good and proper thing to do. But to think that unbaptized infants of beleiving parents in anyway have less of God's grace or favor is to make the ritual(even if just partially) a salvific work. And it is not.
-Jeff
Jeff, you had two comments that were identical. I removed one. The argument from scripture is valid, proper and true. But how we apply it matters. If an infant was to die it would be inappropriate to quote Jesus' words to Nicodemus in order to prove that the child was really "born again". Jesus is speaking to the ADULT Nicodemus (forgive the all caps; I can't discover how to do italics in the comment page). I know I am putting a screw into how we traditionally accepted baptism but I am coming from a different point of view that I find intriguing, interesting, logical and exegetical in its faithfulness to scripture - both old and new. I find Children are not the objects of God's wrath because they have not disobeyed the commands of God. They are unable to disobey. So John 3:17-19 can not apply to infants. Acts 17:30-31 similarly cannot apply to infants - it addresses adult responsibility to respond to the Gospel. An infant cannot respond for good or for ill. John 3:36 also can be dismissed. Again an infant cannot make those kinds of decisions that would accuse him before the heavenly Father of the sin of failing to accept Christ. The Father could not be consider a good judge if he throws out the infant by virtue of its inability to reject the Son (this is beginning to sound a little familiar!). Now I absolutely love the Ephesians passage, but I still cannot see how you can pin this passage on to an infant who had no previous life (do you believe in reincarnation?) by which God would accuse him of sin.
Now to show you where I am going with this, I will not say that an infant is pure and holy and altogether innocent. He has a sin nature that makes him no different from us in this sense. There is nothing in an infant, because of his sin nature inherited from his father, that causes God to accept him unconditionally, no questions asked. God's acceptance of infants is still based on his unmerited favor; his grace. Remember the verse; before either one did anything right or wrong, God chose the one over the other. "Jacob have I loved; Esau I have hated". It is still based on God's grace and mercy. It is absolutely significant that an infant belonging to a Christian family is under God's protection as a covenant child under grace and because of this, his promise to us who believe has application to our children and that is why we baptize.
-Joe
November 6, 2010 8:19 PM
I have another passage I would like to share Jeff & Natasha that deserves a looking at. It is found in 1 Corinthians 7:14. Children of believing parents (plural) or believing parent (singular) are holy to the Lord. This does not mean that they are without sin as it does not with us who believe (Phil 3:12). What it does mean is that, God's covenant with his people includes their infants and children as well until God calls them individually to faith.
This passage is actually one of the main verses reformed Presbyterians use to argue for infant baptism.
-joe
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