What of infants born into the new covenant house of Israel? We return to Dr. Bob’s concept of legal warrant. I would prefer just plain
warrant,
right, or
authority, and even the King James’
power is acceptable to me, given that the Greek is
exousia and understood to contain in its meanings
authority.
Exousia used here is nuanced. Hengstenberg (in his commentary on John) says of its use in this place,
Here power forms the antithesis to the absolute weakness and incapability of the man who lives out of Christ to attain to the sonship of God. (Vol 1, p. 40)
And Bauer, Arndt, and Gingrich’s
Lexicon (1979 edition) says of it’s use here, “
ability to do something,
capability, might, power” (p. 278). Which is not to say
warrant is not correct, it is just not
exclusively correct. So part of the
exousia given entails ability, along with right. I am a little uncomfortable with the word legal (though it has merit), as the right is as much ontologic (the right to be
alive in God, begotten of Him), as legally authorized to be alive unto and in Him. But I’m just quibbling over fine points.
Reviewing something Dr. Bob said,
I hold that non-believers may be members of the New Covenant community de facto but not de jure. That is, they have no warrant to be in the covenant family because the spiritual promises of the New Covenant do not belong to them.... With regard to infants, since they are unable to provide any credible evidence of a profession of faith in Christ, which is elsewhere in Scripture represented as a sign of regeneration and a prerequisite for baptism, I do not believe I have the warrant to grant them entrance into the New Covenant community though they would have had warrant for entrance into the Abrahamic and Mosaic covenant communities. (post #83)
And Anthony said,
The actual covenant promise of Christ to the seed of Abrahams does not change at all. What has changed is that now the seed of Abraham identifies through faith that the promise fulfilled to Jesus, psalm 16:10-11 Acts 2:31-41
is now a reality for all who believe
You-who believe
Your Children-[who believe] (post #11 above)
I believe Anthony is getting at the same thing, namely, in the new covenant house of God (the house of Israel – correct nomenclature is crucial in these things!) the seed of Abraham is only identified by belief and a profession of faith, and he brings in Acts 2:31-41 in support of his view.
Let me start by saying that the LORD made a covenant not only with Abraham but with his seed: “This is my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you and thy seed after thee; every man child among you shall be circumcised.”
And the nature of the covenant made with Abraham and his seed is that He would “...be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee” (Gen 17:7). The blessing of the covenant is partaking in the blessing given Abraham: the very friendship of God (Isaiah 41:8; 2 Chron 20:7; James 2:23).
Nor was it a covenant of mere external, material blessing (as noted above in my earlier post), made to a partly unbelieving nation – a “mixed bag” of people – but it was made to the genuine seed of Abraham, those of faith, those “children of promise [who] are counted for the seed.” (Ro 9:8)
Moses makes plain that the promise of God to His beloved children was
spiritual and not carnal:
And the LORD thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live. (Deut 30:6)
This is why Jeremiah, in describing the new covenant house of Israel, can say, “for they shall all know me, from the least to the greatest of them, saith the LORD” (Jer 31:34). The house of God in the OT is equivalent to its NT counterpart, save as regards maturity. There is
not “a qualitative difference between the constitutional makeup of the Old Covenant people of God...and the New Covenant people of God...”, simply the difference as between an underage child in the care of tutors and guardians and one of full age.
As you brought it up, Anthony, let’s go back in spirit and visit Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost. What was going on?
Those listening to Peter speaking were both local Jews and "foreign" Jews, some with family present, some without. There would have been some women, for we know that a company of women were with Peter and the apostles that day, and likely others not of their number were present.
The announcement of the Promise fulfilled – in Peter's sermon – included women as recipients ("I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy...And on My servants and on My handmaidens I will pour out in those days of My Spirit..." Acts 2:17, 18); and this inclusion of women as direct recipients was remarkable.
And what was the Promise received? In essence it was union and friendship with God through the Person and work of Jesus Christ, the promised Seed of Abraham. This commencement of the New Covenant promise was dramatic and in the power of Jesus' resurrection, in order to jar His elect from the corrupted religion: "Save yourselves from this untoward [perverse] generation!" (2:40).
These were Jews, newly believing in the Seed, their Messiah, now themselves the spiritual seed of Abraham as well, so when Peter commanded them to be baptized, "every one of you" (38), "for the promise is unto you, and to your children..." it was clear that baptism was the mark (the "token", Gen 17:11 KJV) of submissive obedience to the administration of the New Covenant, without which one would not be counted a member, nor a friend of God.
It was not a new thing for it to be given the male infants / children; what was new was for it to be given to the girls / women! These were Jews, you would sooner tear their hearts from their bodies than tear their children from the Covenant of their God through disobedience to the ancient and irrevocable law, changed in token but not practice.
Were the children present baptized with the fathers? And the women as well? It seems clear both classes were. Had the children been denied, the newborn church would have aborted that day, for it would clearly not have been in continuity with the covenant (and promise) made with Abraham to his seed, to those “who also walk in the steps of that faith of our father Abraham” (Ro 4:12).
That women and children were present among the listeners to Peter’s sermon is clear from verses 10 & 11 of Deut 16, which speaks of the feast of weeks / Pentecost, saying,
10: And thou shalt keep the feast of weeks unto the LORD thy God.... 11: And thou shalt rejoice before the LORD thy God, thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, and thy manservant, and thy maidservant, and the Levite that is within thy gates, and the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, that are among you, in the place where the LORD thy God hath chosen you to place his name there.
This feast was to be a festive one, and although it was mandated all the males were to be there, the entire family, including servants, were invited in this time of rejoicing in the city of Jerusalem, and at the temple in particular. There were women and children in the milling crowds. And listening to Peter.
To tell
these Jews that their children needed to believe and profess faith in Abraham’s Seed before receiving the token of the covenant would have caused riots in Jerusalem that day! I have said it before, Baptists would have been run out of town that day!
In the OT so much of covenant life depended on the headship of the patriarch, and, later, on the heads of the individual families, houses, tribes, and the nation. God dealt with houses, and families, and
the nation as corporate bodies. We in this 21st century are staunch individualists! The covenant promises in these days, we opine, are for
individuals, irrespective of families!
In the days of the Theocracy, God dealt primarily with Israel, and individual houses, through those who were heads of them; the people of the nation often suffered for the acts of their kings and priests; on the family level, all under the authority of fathers, or husbands, or elder brothers, partook of their blessings
or curses. The males were the ones accountable to God.
Circumcision of the males was appropriate to the circumstances of ancient Israel, and the position of authority given them.
In the gospel of the New Covenant God opened to the Gentile nations His gracious salvation. When Jesus came he warned that now things would be different than under the Theocracy of old Israel; there in the families the Law of Moses was acknowledged to be the law of God, and appeal could be made up the chain of command: fathers, priests, judges, rulers, the king. But when Christ came the old authority structure of the Theocracy was set aside; for Jesus said that fathers would be set against sons, and mothers against daughters, and one’s own family members would be one’s enemies and would even put one another to death, houses divided against themselves. The priests and the rulers opposed the Christ, so there was no recourse to
their authority.
The
old manner of the headship of the father over the family was broken, and the covenant sign placed solely upon him as the covenant head was removed; now women could receive the sign themselves irrespective of their fathers or even their husbands. Sometimes loyalty to Christ separated a woman from her father and brothers. And sometimes from her husband.
Believing parents (or even one parent – 1 Cor 7:14) brought their children into the covenant of their God, where the infant souls are raised (by the parent[s]) in union and communion with God, and where the blessing of God is given equally, as in Christ “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female...” (Gal 3:28), but all have equal access and privilege. From infancy this expansion of the covenant blessings to include all on an equal standing before God was realized and taught.
As the covenant was removed from its limited range in old Israel and transferred to the new Israel reconstituted by its King (Matt 21:43) – the international community of God’s people, a true holy nation – the sign of membership in that covenant community was changed to accommodate the new status of all members in all nations – male, female, Jew, Greek, slave, free – in their greatly enhanced intimacy with their Lord and Savior. Jesus had finally and completely emancipated all women in His kingdom; He had
essentially broken the spirit of slavery as well, as now a servant humanly speaking might well be an elder in God’s Kingdom over a master in the flesh. This “servant” / elder could now demonstrate godly
servant-leadership to one secularly over him. The Lord turned the ways of the world upside down in His glorious kingdom.
It is often said that “house baptisms” supposedly with infants in them constitute an argument from silence. There is, however, much more to it than “silence”! We in the 21st century West – as mentioned above – think in terms of individuals, but in the Biblical world – and especially among the people of God – they thought in terms of nations, tribes, and families. God dealt with the heads of nations, tribes and families, and those under them were greatly impacted by their male heads. To wit: the entire human race affected by its head, Adam. The house of Noah saved. The house of Abraham, the house of Jacob, of Achan (cursed), of Saul (mostly destroyed), of David, and so on. The redemptive purposes of God were effected through the families – the houses – of the male leaders of these families. The blessings and privileges of the family in covenant relation to God were constantly expanding and becoming more inclusive over the centuries, till in the time of the New Covenant it opened the way of salvation to the entire world. If the blessings of the covenant now narrowed – to exclude the members of the godly houses under their heads – it would have required an open declaration from God, reversing His primary means of operation. The Baptist view of mere individuals is imposing our Western individualistic paradigm upon an entirely different paradigm which was operative in the ancient world, where the family, tribe, and nation were the objects of God’s dealings. The purpose of this covenant headship over the family was to raise up godly seed, under the covenant care of the Lord. This then amounts not to silence, but the very voice of antiquity, and Biblical precedent.
Even though we do not have signs in the streets, or broadcast and written in all the media, “You shall not kill”, it is understood that this is the law, the penalty for breaking it extremely severe. Even in the silence regarding it it is known. Likewise in the early Jewish community it was understood that this was the law of God: children are to be included in the covenant – by sign and seal – upon pain of their exclusion from the House of Life, and whoever sins so against his children himself sins greatly against the God of the covenant; such a one is himself breaking the covenant. This law was so deeply ingrained in the hearts and minds of the Jewish people, that a changing of it would have required a momentous announcement, with much explanation. But there is silence. And the law of God loved and practiced for millennia speaks loudly and clearly, even in that silence. Especially in that silence!
Ancient Abraham could not see which of his children or grandchildren were to be born “merely according to the flesh” and which were not, but were, according to the electing grace of God, those of the promise (i.e., carrying forward that promise, as Isaac and Jacob, but not Ishmael and Esau). He could not see the electing decree of God; what he could see was the command given him, and he obeyed it.
Is it possible that the primary thing responsible for many folks' views on baptism is that they unlawfully exempt themselves from that command which has never been cancelled, which is that the children of Abraham are to place the sign of the covenant on their infant seed?
I have endeavored to argue that there is
not a discontinuity between the Old Covenant people of God and those people of the New, but they are equal in that they are both believing – living by faith – and holy, separated unto the Lord. The unbelieving portion of the nation was not Israel or the seed, but chaff, tares. The promises to the elect were spiritual, depicted in material terms, though understood by them to be pictures – object lessons – of spiritual blessings to be fully received when Messiah came and His kingdom established.
I would like to show the nature and status of the elect infants in the households and the church in upcoming posts.
I have come upon an interesting book I had in the paedobaptism section of my library,
The Presbyterian Doctrine of Children in the Covenant: An Historical Study of the Significance of Infant Baptism in the Presbyterian Church in America, by Dr. Lewis Bevins Schenck (Yale Univ. Press, 1940; reprinted by Wipf and Stock, 2001). [Looking to get a link to it I see it is now published by P&R, and available.] Obviously this is not about our modern PCA, but is speaking generically of the history of the Presbyterian church in our country.
Chapter 3 is titled, “The Threat Of Revivalism To the Presbyterian Doctrine Of Children In The Covenant”. What an eye-opener this chapter is to the cause of the prevalence of baptistic views in modern evangelicalism. Although Whitefield didn’t foster it, his friend Gilbert Tennant (and family) promoted – much in the style of the later C.G. Finney – a style of evangelism that
required a strong emotional repentance and “experience” of salvation among all the congregations they preached in, not accepting the Presbyterian standard of children raised quietly as elect children of God from birth. This became the paradigm of spiritual life in many of the P&R communions, and many were the promoters and preachers of it, although there were defenders of the Old School (notably Chas. Hodge), who held with Calvin and his views, the WCF and other Presbyterian standards. If you didn’t have a dramatic experience of being lost in view of the Law, and salvation in view of the Savior’s grace you-ward, you were not considered regenerated. Of course infants and young children rarely fell into that class. And so the P&R began to consider their children, even though baptized, unregenerate and lost. Even though they baptized their infants, in their thinking about their children’s place in the covenant they were essentially baptistic. This revivalism mentality has indelibly marked American Christianity, and has made deep inroads into the Presbyterian and Reformed churches of our own day.
I would like to look at Calvin’s views on the subject of infants in the covenant, which I was made aware of in a new light by this reading.
Medical doctors discern that babies only a few hours old can distinguish the voice of their mothers from the voices of other women. Cannot infants likewise know the voice of their God? But more on this later.
Steve