Baptist ---> CT or CT ---> Baptist

[blhowes]

How humbling it is at times to sit on the fence between the Baptist and CT positions, hearing both sides and both sides making sense. At times I wonder if Psalm 131:1 applies to me trying to figure out which is correct:

Psa 131:1 A Song of degrees of David. LORD, my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty: neither do I exercise myself in great matters, or in things too high for me.

My hat goes off to those of you who have been able to study the issue(s) through - sometimes remaining in the same camp and sometimes switching camps.

Its interesting to read about those who have switched camps and their reasons for doing so. I've asked this question before, but with a new crop of folks on the board, I thought I'd ask it again - Why did you switch camps (if you did), from Baptist to CT or vice versa? What for you were some of the main reasons that made you change?

 

[bob]

Bob,

Over the past fifteen years, I have seen a lot of theological changes in my life. I still remain a Baptist, although I do embrace covenant theology in the sense that the Reformed Baptists do. Our church loosely subscribes to the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith.

I was brought up in an Armininian, dispensational Baptist church, so I have strayed a long way from the direction of the church that I grew up in.

As far as eschatology is concerned, I am a fairly convinced postmillennialist, although I do not argue the point vehemently yet.

 

[blhowes]

Originally posted by bob
Bob,

Over the past fifteen years, I have seen a lot of theological changes in my life. I still remain a Baptist, although I do embrace covenant theology in the sense that the Reformed Baptists do. Our church loosely subscribes to the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith.

Was there anything in particular that made you change to the reformed baptist view of covenant theology, as opposed to say the Presbyterian view?

 

[bob]

Bob,

You ask a good question. I suppose the most direct answer that I can give is that I just do not see the case for infant baptism. I have reformed in my theology in nearly every point but I yet remain a credobaptist.

Our church is rather rare in that we embrace the argument that John Bunyan made in his article relating that differences in baptismal views ought not be made a matter of breaking communion. Theoretically, our church would be willing to admit a paedobaptist into membership if they were unable to find a church locally to join. (I say that this is theoretical because we have never had an occasion in which this has come to pass.)

I have labored hard and long in reading and studying that baptism issue. I am not afraid of change - for I have seen a good bit of that. I have already had to leave one church because of theological shifts and if I had to do it again, I would. My desire is simply to obey God in my practice and to accurately declare the mandates of Scripture. I tremble as I consider my calling as an elder, for I know that those who teach "shall receive the greater condemnation." I teach what I understand and perceive to be the truth. This day finds me yet a credobaptist!

Bob

 

[C. Matthew McMahon]

For me it all turned on one giant hinge - the nature and relationship of the progression of salvation and the doctrine of the church coupled with a progression in hermeneutics. For me it was not Augustine, Calvin, Luther, Zwingli, the Puritans, etc., that changed my mind. It was the book of Hebrews. I actually had to go back into those other works and erase my credo notes to pen in Presbyterian ones!

[Edited on 7-27-2006 by C. Matthew McMahon]

 

[blhowes]

Originally posted by C. Matthew McMahon
For me it all turned on one giant hinge - the nature and relationship of the progression of salvation and the doctrine of the church coupled with a progression in hermeneutics. For me it was not Augustine, Calvin, Luther, Zwingli, the Puritans, etc., that changed my mind. It was the book of Hebrews. I actually had to go back into those other works and erase my credo notes to pen in Presbyterian ones!

Its interesting that the book of Hebrews would be the pivotal book for you, since its often used to show the contrast between the old and the new.

 

[blhowes]

Originally posted by bob
You ask a good question. I suppose the most direct answer that I can give is that I just do not see the case for infant baptism. I have reformed in my theology in nearly every point but I yet remain a credobaptist.

The case(s) that's made for infant baptism, against the backdrop of CT, seems compelling. I once heard an exbaptist pastor preach a sermon explaining why he embraced the paedo position. Every point he made seemed to make sense.

One point he made was interesting. As baptists, we tend to think along the lines of 'where does God specifically say in the scriptures that we should baptize infants?'. Considering that God for centuries had considered 8-day old infants to be in the covenant (unless they weren't circumcised), the thinking that he adopted was 'where does God specifically say in the scriptures that infants should be treated differently now?' That sounds like a valid, perhaps preferred, way of thinking.

For the last few days or so, I've been thinking about the commands in the NT that were given to the disciples/apostles to baptize people, trying to put myself in their shoes, asking myself, "If I were them, based only on the scriptures, how would I know who/how to baptize?" If, as I think some baptists teach, baptism is a completely new practice, if I were the disciples I'd have had questions about who to baptize and how.

Is it by immersion, by sprinkling, by pouring (Peter and others were fishermen, etc., and not experts in Greek. Would they have been so familiar with baptizo (or whatever) to know the mode of baptism)?

Do I baptize only those who have made professions of faith? What about their children?

As I read the NT, I don't see any of these questions being asked. For them it wasn't necessary. They must have known all the answers and didn't need to ask the questions (or I suppose they could have asked in private and been told these things).

 

[ServantOfKing]

Its interesting to read about those who have switched camps and their reasons for doing so. I've asked this question before, but with a new crop of folks on the board, I thought I'd ask it again - Why did you switch camps (if you did), from Baptist to CT or vice versa? What for you were some of the main reasons that made you change?

I switched from being a credo-baptist to being a paedo-baptist very recently (within the last 6 months). For me, there was no one thing. I basically had to turn the way I looked at scripture upside down. I was so used to wanting to find a "specific proof text," instead of looking for themes and ties throughout the whole of scripture. I had to change the way I look at the church and the sacraments. I had to take my theology about salvation to its logical conclusion. I had to see that in baptism, the thing signified is solely the work of God not the work of man. I had to see that even in adult baptisms, regeneration may or may not be true of that person. I had to see and truly believe that infant baptism is meaningful because of God's promises, just as salvation is meaningful because God- who is faithful promises it. It's nothing we do. It's nothing that child does. It's all grace.
Regeneration, and even the thing that credo-Baptists stress with immersion (being buried with Christ/ raised to walk in newness of life) is all an act of God.
I also had to take my belief that children are indeed part of the church/ covenant community to its logical conclusion. Where is the proof text in scripture that our children are to be treated like proselytes? Scripture says they are set apart because they are children of believers. We are to raise them in the fear and admonition of the Lord. Our children should never know a time they did not love the Lord Jesus Christ.
I had argued that since infant baptisms didn't occur in scripture than we shouldn't do them. Then it hit me, that nowhere in scripture is someone re-baptized because "they weren't really saved the first time."
I had argued that the Holy Spirit's work on the heart is the new circumcision and that baptism is not the new circumcision. But then I realized that the holy spirit circumcised/ baptized the hearts of OT saints too. God saved his saints then the same way he saves them now. The sign is different, but both signify the work of the Holy Spirit in regenerating the heart.
I had heard all of the paedo-baptist arguments and had rejected them during my first year of college. However, during my entire second year through my own personal study of scripture, I finally came to the inescapable conclusion that I agreed with paedobaptism.
Well that is kind of an overview of my 'journey' with the subject minus all of the biblical proof texts. I'm sure ya'll have read it all, so I don't mean to try to argue it.