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Originally Posted by Davidius  When I began to study paedobaptism I saw that it was linked to God's dealings with Abraham in Genesis 15 and 17. At one point, God promises that those who do not receive the sign of the covenant will be cut off from their people. I am wondering whether the paedobaptists here believe that this is still God's ordinary means of dealing with the Church. Does this warning apply to the children of believers today?
If you answer in the affirmative, do you believe that the modern state of the Church, by which I partially mean the numbers that are leaving in droves, may have something to do, at least in some areas of the Church, with the move away from traditional covenant theology toward Baptistic dispensationalism and even "Baptistic covenant theology"? |
On the first question, I think the issue points to willful rebellion - an apostasy in refusing to identify with God's people. I would also point out that the children of the generation in the desert weren't circumcised until they had entered the Promised Land. Had they refused to be circumcised at that point they would have revealed their Apostasy. They had no control, obviously, that their parents had been negligent in circumcising them up to that point.
On the second point, I'm not given to speculate on how Providence works itself out. I think a cause of Evangelical decline is clearly (and always is) related to a lack of diligence in training in the fear and admonition of the Lord but I would be lying if I laid that neglect solely at the feet of credo-Baptists who are, in many cases, more diligent than those who technically confess a paedo-baptist understanding.