Last Sunday, we took a close look at the covenantal argument
for paedobaptism. Lord willing,
this Sunday we will spend our time seeing how well that argument corresponds
with Scripture. My intent is to
finish up the baptism series then.
In order to do so, there are a few more things I would like to address
here on the blog.
Whenever we hold a view that is not supported by Scripture,
it will be the case that inconsistencies crop up in our theology and
practice. This is definitely true
with the theology and practice of paedobaptism. Please consider with me four inconsistencies
within paedobaptism.
The first inconsistency is one that I pointed out last week
on this blog. I won’t reproduce
the whole things here – you can go back and read it if you missed it. The short version is that paedobaptists
tend to inconsistently apply Acts 2:39 (“For
the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off,
everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself”). They appeal to this verse to support
the idea that the children of believers are members of the New Covenant and
should be afforded the sign of baptism.
Yet, they do not equally apply the phrase “and to all who are far
off.” To be consistent, they would
have to consider “all who are far off” to be members of the New Covenant as
well and give them the sign of baptism.
However, they do not do this and in that way they are inconsistent.
A second inconsistency is that paedobaptists do not baptize
entire households. They use the “householdbaptisms” in Acts to support the practice of baptizing the infants of believing
adults, assuming that “household” signifies everyone in the home regardless of
their response to the gospel. Yet,
paedobaptists do not baptize “households” – that is, they do not baptize adult
children, spouses, or other members of the household upon the conversion of the
head of the household. Three
rebuttals are often given by paedobaptists to this objection. First, they claim that the other adults
in the household most likely heard the gospel and believed. However, this line of reasoning makes the
paedobaptist guilty of the error that they ascribe to others, namely, reading
details into the household baptism texts that are not there. Second, they respond that forced
household baptisms would be considered unacceptable in our culture. But when is it ever appropriate to
disregard a command of Scripture because of cultural considerations? Never (Acts 5:29). Third, they respond that this is one of
the discontinuities between the Old and New Covenants. But this works against their whole
argument for including children in the covenant (“God created the church in the
days of Abraham and put children into it.
He has nowhere put them out.
So they must remain in.”)
For just as God put children into the covenant, He put all of Abraham’s
family in, including grown adults.
If He has nowhere put them out, they also must remain in the covenant. In the end, the responses to this
inconsistency work against the argument for infant baptism, not for it.
A third inconsistency is that paedobaptists require faith of
the parents of baptized children. In
other words, a child can only be baptized if one parent has made a credible
profession of faith. What is wrong
with this? They baptize on
different grounds than were required for circumcision. The circumcision of a child in the old
covenant was never conditioned upon the faith of the parent. Rather, “He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised. Every male throughout your generations,
whether born in your house or bought with your money from any foreigner who is
not of your offspring, both he who is born in your house and he who is bought
with your money, shall surely be circumcised” (Gen 17:12-13). For any male, whether
physically descended from Abraham or merely living among the Israelites,
circumcision was required. No male was allowed not to be circumcised, regardless of
whether or not he or his parents had faith. To baptize only those whose parents make a credible
profession of faith is inconsistent with the strict continuity inherent in the
paedobaptistic position.
A fourth inconsistency is that paedobaptists do not allow
their children to partake of the Lord’s Supper. Paedobaptists lean heavily upon the idea that baptism has
replaced circumcision in the new covenant. But what is even clearer in the New Testament is that the
Lord’s Supper has replaced the Passover as the covenant meal. Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper
while He was sharing the Passover with His disciples (Matt 26:17-30). Under the Old Covenant, all the members
of the household were invited to partake of the covenant meal. Regarding this
the Lord commanded, Tell all the
congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month every man shall take
a lamb according to their fathers' houses, a lamb for a household. And if the
household is too small for a lamb, then he and his nearest neighbor shall take
according to the number of persons; according to what each can eat you shall make
your count for the lamb (Exo 12:3-4).
And later He reiterated, All the congregation
of Israel shall keep it (Exo 12:47).
To respond to this objection, paedobaptists appeal to 1 Cor
11:28-29: Let a person examine himself,
then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and
drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. They argue that these verses require
that a person be able to engage in self-examination in order to partake of the
Supper, which would preclude the participation of small children. However, they do not interpret baptism
passages in the same manner. That
is, when confronted with Scriptures that indicate the necessity of repentance
and faith before baptism, they say such Scriptures only apply to adults. In other words, they use one principle
to interpret passages on baptism and an opposite principle to interpret
passages on the Lord’s Supper.
There is a hopeless inconsistency there.
It is not my intention to beat up on my paedobaptist brothers
and sisters. They are champions of
the gospel and faithful servants of the Lord. But there is a lesson for us to learn here. None of us are immune to blind spots in
our theology. One of the telltale
signs that we have erred is that we will find inconsistencies and
contradictions appearing in our theology and practices. When we do find them, we should return
to Scripture, reevaluate our positions in light of it, and conform our beliefs
and practices to God’s Word. No
one does this perfectly, but by God’s grace may we strive for that ideal.
Posted by Greg Birdwell
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