Andrew,
First, it ought to be noted again, carefully, that the Reformed view of salvation sees the benefits of salvation extending only to the Elect - those truly united to Christ. The actual identity of those individuals, all acknowledge, is hidden. It is not problematic in the least to take the passage and see the benefits enumerated as specifically applicable to those elect.
This discussion comes up because the issue of who is baptized is somehow seen as being identical with who receive the benefits of union with Christ. The unregenerate, though baptized and though they participate externally in the Church, never receive the benefits listed. Thus, Baptists admit that baptism does not confer union with Christ but they want to insist that baptism ought to be reserved for those that we think,
most likely, are united to Christ. I really don't want to have to re-type everything I just wrote in another thread so please read my commentary on that line of thinking here:
http://www.puritanboard.com/showpost...&postcount=138
Thus, in many ways, this passage is making a mountain out of a mole hill - at least where I'm sitting. If all Baptists want to do is protect the idea that Christ only mediates for the Elect and that these current/future benefits extend only to them then I say a heaty Amen. It doesn't get them any closer to a decision on who to baptize, however, because you can't go from the invisible reality to the actual person simply by stating that Christ mediates for the Elect. In my estimation, based on my argument above, the paedobaptist view
protects the uniqueness of Christ's benefits to the elect in the NC
more than the credo view because we don't try to assert that we're more surely baptizing the elect and providing a psychological "false assurance" that tries to measurably increase the visibility of an invisible thing. Something invisible is invisible and there's no "mostly invisible" when it comes to the Elect except in God's eyes.
That said, understanding that the credo-Baptists use this passage to build their case for the baptism of only the regenerate, I hope you can see how it doesn't really even factor into our understanding of baptism. I've argued, for a while, that there is very little point in arguing the perfection of the NC with Baptists. It's not that the case is tight but because:
1. It really makes no difference with respect to baptism.
2. There is a sense in which the strength of the affirmation of the perfect benefits to the elect is spot on. It's only what the Baptists want to do with that information that is faulty.
This passage is a perfect example of where this argumentation can take you. Notice what the passage says:
Let's look at the text really quickly:
Quote:
7 For if that first covenant had been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second. 8 Because finding fault with them, He says: “Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah— 9 not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they did not continue in My covenant, and I disregarded them, says the LORD. 10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. 11 None of them shall teach his neighbor, and none his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them. 12 For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds[b] I will remember no more.”[c]
13 In that He says, “A new covenant, ” He has made the first obsolete. Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.
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As I inferred earlier, if this is meant by the author to imply that the nature of the New Covenant is that nobody is to be taught anymore then it obviously directly conflicts with passages about the necessity for Pastors and Teachers that build up in the faith.
I think what Baptists read in an insistence that part of this be taken eschatologically is a desire for Paedobaptists to somehow extend the benefits listed in some way to the unregenerate. Not at all. It is merely an acknowledgement that not all benefits that are promised to the elect are enjoyed yet.
Thus, it is yet just another example of a verse where Baptists build their case for a regenerate New Covenant membership and then moving, improperly, to baptism of professors as a means to that end. In our baptism they see us as not respecting the New Covenant because, in their mind, they think we're arguing for the benefits of election to be extended to people we're admitting to visible membership. But, because the case cannot be made from this passage on the perfection of benefits to the elect to the administration of the Sacrament, it is an interesting discussion, but really makes no difference for either the Credo or the Paedo as to who is baptized.