Can you quote me the portion of the article that says the unbelieving spouse isn't sanctified by the believing spouse? I think he was making more of a connection between the unbelieving spouse and children. BTW I like Gill's view better.

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Reference: Proverbs 18.17

You need to listen to those messages I referred to in my prevous post brother. You will find the Corinthians passage explained in clear and simple terms without the wholesale freighting of the OT covenant into the NT.

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Satch Chikhlia, Reformed Baptist, Surrey, England

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Without wanting to pour or sprinkle water on your baptismal flame -- this is really no different than the fundamental dispensational idea which lies at the heart of all anti-paedobaptistic thought. If the Abrahamic covenant was the non-typical covenant of grace and the Mosaic covenant was the typical covenant of works, then we should be circumcising children as Abraham was commanded, not baptising them as was the case with the nation of Israel under Moses. I also wonder how you justify "sprinkling" without reference to the Mosaic covenant. Your presentation of the unity of the covenant, which undergirds the practice of paedobaptism, needs "conversion," in my humble opinion.

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Yours sincerely,


"Illum oportet crescere me autem minui."

Bill,

None Taken..... But I did have you in mind when I wrote "Many of you thought that this might happen since I already became a Presbyterian in Polity and lately accepted Pouring as a mode for Baptism. I guess I was holding to my last visage of cradle faith, that of credobaptism."


But since I have left credobaptism I guess I need to watch out for the Godfather Mafia of the Baptists.. Your Avatar is scaring me.... And we all know the secret of Baptists "You may never leave once you join or your life is forfeited"...

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Michael Daniels
Reformed, RPCNA
Denton, Maryland

[i][b]As For Me And My House, We Will Serve The Lord[/i][/b]

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Wow, 82 Messages... I have some catching up to do...

Now that is funny...

Armourbearer,

If you reread what I wrote I never said that the Abrahamic covenant was not
typological.. I quoted Dr. Scott Clark with the Following "Abraham was a member of the very same covenant of grace of which we are members. He was a member of the covenant of grace under a different, typological administration, but it was the same covenant of grace."

Now as per the Mosaic Covenant.. Maybe I should have been alittle clearer but I was referring to the Mosaic Covenant as a CoW as the Old Covenant which the Abrahamic Covenant is not part of...

The Mosaic Covenant was an administration of the CoG but with a overlap or overlay of a republication of the CoW.

Again, I am going to quote Dr. Scott Clark... "How then was the Mosaic covenant a works covenant? Not relative to salvation but relative to their status as the temporary, typological national people. It is with this theme in view that Paul speaks of Moses as the "old covenant." It isn't just that Moses was typological. Abraham and Noah were typological too but they aren't described as the "old covenant." What is distinct about the Mosaic covenant? It is their status of Israel as God's temporary, typological, cultic people."

I hope this clears up any confusion...

I think what Rev Winzer was getting at is that using your arguments in the first post, and (consistently) applying them to another aspect of the Mosaic covenant, namely the Law, you would have a quasi-dispensationalism going on (which is what Kline's system is at parts).

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J. B. Atken
John Knox PCA
Layman, M.A. student at Louisiana College

Clear as mud.

Noah and Abraham offered sacrifices. In the "old covenant," as stated by Jeremiah and explained in Heb. 8-10, there was remembrance of sin by means of the sacrifices. It is this element which would be done away under the new covenant, i.e., new administration of the covenant of grace.

Further, Eph. 2, and Rom. 11 expressly teach that Gentiles are incorporated with covenanted Israel in the NT church. There is nothing temporary about OT Israel. Unbelieving Israel are cut off from that olive tree, and Gentile believers are grafted into that olive tree; but it still remains the same covenant entity.

The framework with which you are thinking about the covenants needs to be renewed according to the biblical and confessional pattern -- one covenant of grace comprehending distinct administrations.

BTW, Mr. Sterling, I deleted my superfluous, sidetracking, hi-jacking post. Sorry 'bout that.

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Josh Hicks, Chloë's Daddy
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thanks!

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Sterling Harmon
Coventry, CT
PCA
Deacon
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"Our Lord God must be a good man, to be fond of worthless fellows. I cannot like them, and yet I, myself, am one."
-- Martin Luther, Table Talk

Thanks for the heads up brother James, we'll adjust the setting on our machine to compensate for the foil when you come down to Wytheville on the 5th.

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~James Helbert~, Wytheville, VA
Providence Reformed Presbyterian Church, RPCUS
TheBibleAlone.com / The Edinburgh Inn
"Is this not a brand plucked from the fire?” - Zechariah 3:2

...and these infants believe with all their hearts?

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Scottish Reformed Baptist No.2
member,Thurso Baptist Church
Scotland

specialist subject: Creationist Genetics
interests: holiness

Off topic. James White is my friend but there's an irony that a great text he might enlist to his aid in this debate would not be available to him because the newer translations omit that portion of Acts 8:36. I don't really want to go down that rabbit hole but it just tickled me a bit.

If you look at what Jay said, the first part is in the question of administration. Whether you agree with the portion that follows after the semi-colon, the first part acknowledges that adult baptisms require a profession of faith. It's sort of like a violent agreement with Presbyterians at that point. I think you'll need to deal with Tom Bombadil's reductio ad absurdum if you're going to claim that an example of an adult baptism makes this normative for all baptims. You may wish to assert that the example makes this plain but this has to be argued and not merely asserted.

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Rich
Okinawa, Japan

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Dear Coram,
I heartily recommend John Murray's book, Christian Baptism. John Murray, of course, is great.

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sincerely,
mark
member 1st Christian Reformed Church (don't freak out on me, now)
Grand Haven, MI
www.vanallsblog.blogspot.com
Question: How do you know which eye of John Murray's was the glass eye?
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Forgot to say, the Covenant of Grace has good exegitical formulation found in Eph 2:10ff, "the covenants (plural) of the promise (singular)."

This makes is very plausible to believe that the many covenants are all administered under the auspices of the one Covenant of Grace, aka the "eternal covenant," (Hebrews).

gitrdone

Nope, I turned Paedo before moving to PA


The cookies are better over here...

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JC
URCNA
PA

"Forgiveness is primarily for our own sake, so that we no longer carry the burden of resentment. But to forgive does not mean we will allow injustice again." --Jack Kornfield

Wow, this thread did indeed grow fast. This issue may be the only issue that distinguishes Dennis and Martin from myself. I think that the main issue in regards to infant baptism is the nature of the covenant and the place of children in regard to it. The points about the Mosaic versus the Abrahamic covenant are absolutely crucial, since belief *in the NT* is explicitly connected with the Abrahamic, and *not* the Mosaic covenant. This is plain as a pikestaff from Galatians 3, where those of faith are the children of Abraham. I can hear the credo-only-baptist saying, "But what about that statement? Doesn't it say that only those who actually believe are part of the Abrahamic covenant?" Well, first of all, we don't know that children cannot believe from the womb. The Bible seems to indicate quite the reverse. Secondly, the same objection could be made against children in the Abrahamic covenant before Christ. But the clincher here is Galatians 3:18, where Paul affirms that the inheritance comes by promise. What is that promise? It is the Abrahamic covenantal promise! Through the single offspring (Christ), which grammatical point Paul makes a big deal out of, the many offspring (3:7) are blessed by means of promise. In other words, the promise means that the norm is that children are part of the covenant (connected in an external way, and maybe also internally, if they believe). If the kingdom of God belongs to these (as Jesus said), then they should have the sign of this kingdom. Connected with Acts 2, where Peter says that the promise is for you and for your children, then the place of children is affirmed as being exactly the same as in the Abrahamic covenant. Someone might object regarding Acts 2 that it goes on to say, "and for all who are far off." That doesn't negate the point, since the statement does not have to apply to all three groups in exactly the same way. But we can say that the promise is for the children, not just for the adults.

By the way, the single best book ever written on the subject from a paedo position is undoubtedly _The Biblical Doctrine of Infant Baptism_, by Pierre Marcel, available here.

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Rev. Lane Keister
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