Respondeo

About a month ago, I was able to participate in a forum on Baptism with a local Reformed Baptist pastor. You can find the unedited video of the forum here. I want to open with some kindness.  I view Reformed Baptists as brothers and am willing to work shoulder to shoulder with them where possible.  That does not take away from the seriousness of their error in refraining from giving their children baptism.

Pastor Jared Hiebert argued that we should only baptize believers.  I argued that we should baptize their children as well.  We both spoke for a 1/2 hour.  Half an hour is not a long time to fill out a full defense of infant baptism, much less to point out the problems with believer’s baptism.   Reflecting on the forum resulted in a number of other thoughts on the subject.  Particularly, I noticed some deeper structures of thought that went unnoticed and some red herrings that were not addressed.

1.  Grace perfects nature:  I find it interesting that the Baptist position does not take into account the way grace interacts with nature.  They might agree with the phrase “Grace perfects nature,” but that does not work out in their vision of the church.  Now, this may not be immediately apparent in our context.  We need to begin by thinking about what the grace of Christ’s salvation is.  Salvation is restoring the community God had with man in the Garden.  Salvation results in a new creation.  This truth is evident by the number of NT references to “new creation” and “holy people.”  God is restoring creation in Jesus Christ.  All types of people, including children, are part of that new creation.  The practice of infant baptism confirms that.  Young babies also need to be brought into the new kingdom of Christ. The Baptist position, on the other hand, makes the new creation a new creation of the mature. Only the mature can have the formal relationship with God which is marked by baptism.  The church becomes a body of those who have freely chosen the kingdom of Christ, an explicitly voluntary kingdom, rather than a kingdom that includes the types of people God’s original plan in the garden would have freely welcomed as members of God’s people  Thus the grace of God undermines and changes nature, rather than confirming and perfecting it.
2. You flatten the covenant!  You break up the covenant!  A common refrain in the debates over baptism is “you flatten the covenant” from the Baptist side and “you break up the covenant” from the reformed side.  I really don’t find these accusations that useful.  Rather we need to determine the precise way in which Christ changed things.  This is not immediately evident and takes study.  Many paedo-baptists emphasize the radical changes Christ brought about without taking a single thing away from the force of the arguments for paedo-baptism.  In the same way, many Baptists may emphasize certain continuities, without contradicting their teaching of credo-baptism.   This is why the debate must stay at the level of “What changes?” rather than arguing about who properly understands covenant succession.
3. That doesn’t take away from the fact that the continuity of the covenants is the key to this debate.  The Baptist understanding does break up the picture scripture gives of the covenant.  That is not primarily because he is breaking up the covenant, but because the Baptist neither understands the teaching of scripture on covenant nor baptism.  They assume that God radically changes the way he deals with families and groups of people without showing how the cross caused that radical change.  The cross brought God closer to people according to the book of Hebrews.  Why did it remove God from a relationship with small children, who cannot fully understand?  The Reformed Baptist, in particular, tends to equate covenant and election.  It is only when he understands the nature of baptism and its relation to the covenant that he will be able to see that he improperly breaks up the covenant. On the other hand, I believe that the Classical Reformed position can fully account for what Christ did on the cross.
4. Baptism replaces circumcision:  Another contentious part of the baptism debate is the question of the relationship between circumcision and baptism.  I appreciate the words of the Belgic Confession “baptism replaces circumcision.”  In the debate, I said that I could see that baptism fulfills circumcision, but I would not defend that position any longer.  Christ fulfills circumcision.  Through his death and resurrection, Christ radically breaks from the dispensation of the law (If you don’t think so read the book of Hebrews).  Following the resurrection, everything is truly new.  But that doesn’t all of a sudden change how covenants work or, for that matter, covenant signs.  Covenant is now connected to Christ rather than the law. The signs of the covenant function in the same way.  Baptism functions like circumcision did in the OT.  It is a seal of righteousness and it marks one as a member of God’s kingdom.  The kingdom is different and the way in which they seal righteousness are different, but their function is very similar. That being said circumcision binds one to the law; baptism binds one to Christ.
5. You rely on inferences:  One common phrase I heard that evening was the argument that we baptize children based on inferences to children.  I’m not sure how this is much of an argument.  After all, the Baptist refrains from baptizing children based on inferences from scripture. Instead of accusing one another of relying on inferences, we need to work out our covenantal and baptismal theology as best we can from scripture.  The question is not one of inference, but which inference is justified.
6. Catholicity and Ecumenicity:  The classical reformed position is much more conducive to small-c catholicity.  We accept all baptisms done in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  We recognize such people as formal members of God’s Kingdom unless they deny it by their actions or confession.  The consistent Reformed Baptist, however, must reject all baptisms that are not done upon a viable profession of faith.  Therefore, at a doctrinal level, they bring division into the church of Christ. They deny the formal membership of over half of Christendom in the kingdom of Christ. In this way, they imitate Roman Catholics who consider anybody who has not subjected himself to the Pope of Rome separated brethren, saved through the hierarchy of Rome, even if they do not fully enjoy the benefits of membership in Rome.  If they deny such a charge or in contradiction to their own teaching invite those baptized as infants as full members into their church, one wonders why they baptize at all.
7. That being said, I truly do consider Baptists as brothers in Christ. They demonstrate a desire to submit to and serve our Lord Jesus Christ. I only hope that with an open Bible before us we can truly continue to grow in the knowledge and the love of Christ.

Jesus meets with Moses and Elijah on the Mt. of Transfiguration.  Why those two?  It may have to do with the circumstances of their deaths. If you listen to enough reformed sermons this comes out.  God buries Moses.  God marks Elijah’s death by coming in a spiritual chariot to take him home.  I think there is more going on.  Moses and Elijah are unique in that God used their prophetic ministries to bring Israel through a death and ressurection.

Moses initiates God’s covenant on Mt. Sinai.  He gives Israel God’s law.  Scripture tells us that Israel was baptized into Moses (1 Corinthians 10).  This baptism is a death and resurrection that brings Israel into a new world; the promised land. He initiates a new world; a new stage in the history of God’s people.

Elijah also comes to a mountain in the wilderness (1 Kings 19).  God gives him the authority to initiate a new world. Elijah begins a new prophetic community with Elisha. He initiates a new stage of the northern kingdom with the anointing of Jehu.   Finally, God anoints Hazael as king of Syria through Elijah (the anointing is actually accomplished by Elijah’s successor Elisha).  Through Elijah, God brings judgement upon the world but preserves 7,000 faithful Israelites to come into the new world, which is formed through the judgement of Israel.  He rules this new world through empires rather than kings.

One major initiator is missing:  Samuel.  Samuel brought in the Davidic Kingdom.  He’s missing because the fulfilment of that Davidic kingdom is here; Christ.  This Christ combines both David and Samuel as king and prophet, who will not only bring a new world into being through his death and resurrection but will also rule it as a true heir of David.

One of the ways we function in reality is through appropriating archetypes.  This is the claim of men like C.G. Jung and Jordan Peterson.  According to them, we need to read literature seeking moral improvement through understanding and possibly imitating the archetypes that are presented. Jordan Peterson sees Jesus as the archetypical perfect man. I should mention that I definitely don’t agree with everything he says here. The Logos seems to be something that human consciousness has somehow materialized in the story of scripture.  I fully disagree with Jordan Peterson’s origin story, but psychologically he is right on.

This is something the church forgets.  Preaching should centre around the application of our true archetype, the true logos Jesus Christ to our lives.  This is why the church calendar is so important.  We live the life of Jesus every year. The Christian year begins with advent: a waiting for Christ’s birth.  We remember his death and resurrection.  We remember the promise of ascension and the promise of our own resurrection.  For exactly the same reason, the New Testament focusses on Unity with Christ.  We share in his body and Blood.  Paul tells us that everything we do is “In Christ.” The church forgets that the person of Christ is before all things and by him, all things hold together.

Instead, the church often reduces preaching to either doctrine or morals. Preaching should have those two elements. We have to know what Christ did and who he was.  That is how we receive certainty and comfort.  We have to know what to do. But if we desire transformation, we need to be called to live out the wellspring of the logos, take up our cross, and imitate Christ.

Of course, the Bible tells us about many more characters than Christ.   The New Testament teaches us that we are to read these stories in light of Jesus Christ. The church loses her past when she fails to read the Old Testament in light of Christ when she fails to see the types that are fulfilled in Christ.   She fails to understand how Christ becomes the archetype whom, we can apply to ourselves.  Even more, how Christ is the illumination that shows how the Father and Spirit give us more archetypes.

Jesus is the fulfilment of almost every archetype of the Old Testament.  He is the archetypical priest, prophet, king, son, and groom.  Christ, the archetypical son, shows the way to the archetypical father, God.  He sends out the spirit, who preserves, defends, clothes, and indwells the archetypical mother and bride, which is the church.

The fact of the matter is that we cannot live in the abstract.  The abstract must take form in a story, in the concrete history of Christ and his bride, the church.  Only then can we begin to understand how we are to embody the teaching of God.