Paedo-Baptism Answers Covenantal headship

[Deleted member 12749]

I have a question relating to an objection to paedobaptism. When we baptize our children, we are professing faith in their covenantal status in the Christian community. This said, we are all born in Adam as sinful humanity. My main questions are:

1) How can we presume birth into the covenant and uphold total depravity?

2) How can we affirm a child's place in the covenant community yet recognize they are, as the rest of us, born in Adam? Adam is sin, Christ is reconciliation. How can one be both as an infant?

 

[Eyedoc84]

We don’t presume regeneration, if that’s what you’re asking. They are part of the visible covenant community.

 

[J.L. Allen]

I have a question relating to an objection to paedobaptism. When we baptize our children, we are professing faith in their covenantal status in the Christian community. This said, we are all born in Adam as sinful humanity. My main questions are:

1) How can we presume birth into the covenant and uphold total depravity?

2) How can we affirm a child's place in the covenant community yet recognize they are, as the rest of us, born in Adam? Adam is sin, Christ is reconciliation. How can one be both as an infant?

I think there's a flaw in the underlying premise. We don't profess faith in their covenantal status within the visible Church. Covenantal status ought not to be the object of faith. It is faith in the person and work of the Covenant Maker and Keeper.

We are professing faith in Christ alone and trust (in reliance upon) his perfect merit on our behalf. There is a call to trust in the promises that are yes and amen in Christ, of which our children have held out before them explicitly in their baptisms (accompanied by the Word preach, of course). This means that our children are beckoned to turn from their sin and depravity (both in Adam and of their own hands), and to turn unto Christ for salvation. They have a covenanted status within the visible Church with the hope that they will be partakers of Christ in faith and have union with him and communion with the saints in the invisible Church.

Have you looked at the Westminster Standards on the topic?

 

[Deleted member 12749]

I think there's a flaw in the underlying premise. We don't profess faith in their covenantal status within the visible Church. Covenantal status ought not to be the object of faith. It is faith in the person and work of the Covenant Maker and Keeper.

We are professing faith in Christ alone and trust (in reliance upon) his perfect merit on our behalf. There is a call to trust in the promises that are yes and amen in Christ, of which our children have held out before them explicitly in their baptisms (accompanied by the Word preach, of course). This means that our children are beckoned to turn from their sin and depravity (both in Adam and of their own hands), and to turn unto Christ for salvation. They have a covenanted status within the visible Church with the hope that they will be partakers of Christ in faith and have union with him and communion with the saints in the invisible Church.

Have you looked at the Westminster Standards on the topic?

I have looked to the Standards. When I say profess faith, I dont mean it in a salvific sense, rather we believe they are covenanted.

I have posed these questions as I prepare to speak with a credo friend. His main question/challenge is that how can we presume upon union with Christ of children yet be born in Adam. I respond with Ishmael and Isaac both circumcized, yet only one had faith. But this is merely a physical union/covenant while Christ's is true and spiritual, he says.

 

[J.L. Allen]

I have looked to the Standards. When I say profess faith, I dont mean it in a salvific sense, rather we believe they are covenanted.

I have posed these questions as I prepare to speak with a credo friend. His main question/challenge is that how can we presume upon union with Christ of children yet be born in Adam. I respond with Ishmael and Isaac both circumcized, yet only one had faith. But this is merely a physical union/covenant while Christ's is true and spiritual, he says.

Their opposition is stemming from the baptistic misunderstanding of visible and invisible distinctions. They have to, according to their understanding, be both member of the body by outward admission (baptism) and by faith. Otherwise, our children are no different than the heathen. So, when they ask the question, they, by necessity, have an all or nothing understanding of the Church.

Now, we would affirm all or nothing when it comes to salvation. This is where nuance is found in biblical, covenant theology from a Reformed/Presbyterian view: that is, we see that the children of believers have a unique opportunity to be raised to accept the faith modeled by their parents by the providential placement of their lives within the household of believers.

Children, though baptized into Christ, don't have union with him unless they have faith and are regenerated. Meaning, a child can remain in Adam though they have been marked apart to belong to Christ. They repudiate their baptisms and the One in whom we rightly belong and exchange the blessings of the Church for the condemnation of the soul and body for eternity in perdition.

So, we can look at our baptized children and plead with them in both word and by deed (godly example) to take hold of and recognize the beauty of the community of Christ so that they seek to take their place in the Body. We thus speak in an imperative tone to our children, saying, "Know the One in whose name you bear in baptism. Take hold! Profess with your mouth and believe in your heart that Christ is your Lord and Savior! Taste and see that the Lord is good! For if you do not flee from the name of Adam, you shall perish in Adam with all the more force of judgment. May your baptism be beautiful to you and not a terrifying sign of God's judgment upon your head." Meaning, don't trample upon the blood of Christ and make a mockery of it by rejecting the promises held out before you.

 

[Eyedoc84]

But this is merely a physical union/covenant

But it wasn’t. Circumcision was given to Abraham as a believer, and to his household as a sign and seal of the righteousness that comes by faith (Romans 4). It was a spiritual sign to a spiritual people. Gentiles too had to receive the sign if they were to worship the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. That is, until Christ the promised seed came. I don’t deny certain physical aspects respecting the sign and covenant, but it is a fundamental misunderstanding of the Abrahamic (and Mosaic) covenant(s) to claim they were even primarily, let alone merely “physical” in nature.

 

[Contra_Mundum]

So, we can look at our baptized children and plead with them in both word and by deed (godly example) to take hold of and recognize the beauty of the community of Christ so that they seek to take their place in the Body. We thus speak in an imperative tone to our children, saying, "Know the One in whose name you bear in baptism. Take hold! Profess with your mouth and believe in your heart that Christ is your Lord and Savior! Taste and see that the Lord is good! For if you do not flee from the name of Adam, you shall perish in Adam with all the more force of judgment. May your baptism be beautiful to you and not a terrifying sign of God's judgment upon your head." Meaning, don't trample upon the blood of Christ and make a mockery of it by rejecting the promises held out before you.

Furthermore, we preach essentially the same imperatives to those who have been baptized upon personal profession, the adult-baptized. The only distinction is that for someone baptized as a child, there should come a first-faith response as a result of receiving a steady diet of gospel preaching, which faith appears in the aftermath of the baptismal event. And for the the one baptized as an adult, his first-faith response yielding a profession of faith leads to his baptism.

In both cases, the same faith is nourished by the preaching of the gospel; the same improvement of baptism is the duty of each baptized individual. We are to lay hold of Christ by the gospel which is set forth in signal form by baptism. The encouragement to persevere, the warning not to despise the meaning of baptism and the covenant it symbolizes, the hope of a full redemption promised by the sacrament--these are no less words to one of the baptized than to any another. Sacraments are for the strengthening of faith, so let us daily put on the dress of baptism (Gal.3:27), drink the drink of baptism (1Cor.12:13) and die the death of baptism (Rom.6:3-4).

Luther (I am reliably informed) advised a daily reflection on one's baptism, including a metaphysical drowning of the old man of sin. If baptism is just a personal declaration pertaining to my self-conscious embrace of new life in Christ through a public act that doubles as a social entry ritual to a community of professors, those who regard baptism thus tend to think of it more as a moment in time; not unlike a wedding event. A person gets baptized (wet) after the same manner he he gets wed.

It is preferable (following the metaphor) to think of baptism as a state, much more than an event; comparing it to marriage rather than to the wedding. If in the married state, one may wake up to daily revel in the reality of that estate. One need not fantasize on reliving the ceremony (as nice as it may be to think back or look at the photos), but on the compelling facts of the hour and of recent experience and affirmations. One may daily repudiate the single estate, and vow to do nothing this day to annihilate the union, putting to death the old man, his habits, his liberties. The baptized person has the opportunity to daily do the same with regard to his spiritual estate.

The ceremony (to the wedded) or the sacrament (to the baptized) only marks an historic, public witness to claims made therein. They make formal, outward, legal unions (of various kinds), but they are designed to point to a greater or deeper reality of union, covenant, oneness, sharing, benefits, fruits, etc. In baptism God makes promises in Christ to his people. They are effective unto faith (and to none other); but even to those who once embrace them (superficially) and later reject them, they are genuine promises. There isn't anything fake about them, which is why apostasy is as equally real and terrible as covenant-abiding is real and joyful.

But let's be clear: neither an adult who turns away from his adult-baptism, or a covenant child who turns from his, ever had the vital union witnessed to by baptism. That's the tragedy. Nor is it the promise of God that has failed. It is not true that the sacrament of baptism creates vital union with Christ, or makes an infallible witness to such a thing already existing. Only in the case of the elect, it secretly (to men) but most certainly does indelibly claim those who have--or who will--believe the promise.

The sacrament of baptism is what the still-fallible church, limited as it is by an earthly condition, states in public on God's behalf: "I will be your God, and you will be my people; I will be God to you and to your children." The sacrament of baptism proclaims visible, administrative, legal union in this world, in the penultimate age before the end and before perfection and infallible clarity. Water baptism unites a person to the church, not to Christ; but it is Christ's church, his bride. If baptism by water is a bare sign, then a wedding with words and actions, signatures and even the ring itself, is a bare sign. What would render all that "bare signification" would be a sham marriage, no proof of marriage-reality manifested variously afterward, "till death do us part" indeed.

Western culture has come to despise arranged marriages. I make no argument here for them, only it should be noted that no cultural practice for the creation of the estate of marriage is flawless, or has no obvious weaknesses. Arranged marriage of some kind was fairly common practice in ancient time, and is still practiced in some deeply traditional cultures. I mention the arranged marriage because by it a person could grow up into knowledge of and embrace of his/her betrothal culminating in marriage. So, any argument that the married-estate analogy doesn't work too well for the paedobaptist hasn't taken sufficient notice of ancient practices generally. It isn't the case that marriage has always been a purely individualistic, contractual, consensual arrangement. In any case, the two states in view here (baptism & marriage) are being analogically compared, not strictly paralleled as much as possible.


I want to end my comments where I began them. The faith-demand upon the baptized person is no different whether the person was baptized upon personal profession of faith, or presented for baptism by a professing believer parent (preferably two of them). There isn't one whit of distinction there, unless one has set extra store by the initial, intelligent and robust commitment as the sure testimony of vital faith through which salvation comes. But isn't believing the same saving gospel a daily necessity thereafter? Don't Christians live and breathe on the gospel?

Salvation by grace through faith (the alone instrument) is the possession of every saint, who each without exception makes a transition from death to life; but the hour one first believed, forgotten by many if it was ever precisely known, is discounted (rightly so) in comparison to the question of whether I am at the present hour simply clinging to the cross, that implement being all I have ever known was able to save me to the uttermost. Believe in Christ who was baptized for his people, Lk.12:50, whose baptism yours is joined to (and is efficacious) if you believe its gospel witness.

 

[J.L. Allen]

@Contra_Mundum Thank you for your thoughtful response (as always)!

 

[Semper Fidelis]

Just to riff off of what Bruce provided, a real paradigm shift is necessary in the understanding of how the signs in Sacraments relate to the realities they point to. Remember, we don't believe that the graces signified in the Sacraments are necessarily given (sealed) to the recipient by the administration of the Sacrament. There is a sacramental union between the sign (water baptism) and seal (union with Christ) where it is up to the Spirit to grant the latter but that the person baptized can look to his baptism (if the Spirit has granted it) and be assured.

It's interesting that I was listening to Beeke's Reformed Systematic Theology Vol 3 just today on my way back from preaching at a sister PCA Church The issue of assurance was brought up. The person who possesses real, saving faith possesses something objective whereby assurance comes with this saving faith, but the challenge is the ongoing apprehension of that objective reality. In fact, that subjective assurance requires an act of the Spirit working with our Spirit where we cry out "Abba, Father". Given the places in the Epistles where it comes up, it is clear that this life in Christ is one in which we wax and wane in our Gospel obedience and assurance as the Spirit works in us and we feebly cling to Christ.

The older I get (both chronologically and in the faith), the more I witness in others and in myself this daily need to repent and believe. While I know I had faith and I repented in the past and have assurance that I was in the faith prior to today, what is important is not so much a moment of conversion but the fact that I'm in Christ and growing in Him.

There is a tendency in Baptist thought to look for some sort of moment of assurance where the person coming to the Church can declare the he has faith and that baptism will be granted on the basis that the person is presumed to be regenerated and possess the seal of the Holy Spirit. The baptism is seen as that mans' obedience and speech that he possess the reality of union with Christ. It has no value, as a sign, to witness to him in future days of an assailed faith because the twists and turns of this life may convince him later that, at the time he was baptized, he cannot be certain he possessed saving faith. Because the act of baptism is seen as pointing at the reality of what the person possesses and professes, then if he doubts he ever had this, then he must be baptized. I don't say baptized again because he was never really baptized in this understanding of the ordinance. He got wet but, because he didn't possess the reality (had false assurance) then he is only really baptized when his assurance is true.

Naturally, I believe that the Scriptures see baptism not so much as an event signifying something necessarily true in the person baptized (does he have true assurance that he is united to Christ) but a sign joining the person baptized to God's visible Kingdom where the work of maturing and conversion occurs. Children of believers are to be baptized because they are members of the Covenant by birth. By this we are not saying that they are elect or, at the time of baptism, in Christ, but that they are to be marked out as belonging to the Church which preaches the Word and administers sacraments in which Christ is proclaimed and exhibited. Baptism is not the person's speech but God's. It is the application of a sign in which Christ is offered upon belief. It is the same Christ offered in the Gospel but through the means of water - a visible and sensible sign. It is up to the Spirit, Who blows as He wills, to grant saving faith but, rest assured, if He does, the sign is true regardless of the age or certainty of the person at the time he was baptized.

As Bruce notes, the purpose of improving one's baptism is not to make God's promise any better or the work of Christ any more certain but it is a means of assurance. when I see another baptized, I ask myself, "Do I believe Christ and do I see His work in me? Do I cry out with the Spirit to my Father?" If so, then God's promise in my baptism is a sensible seal of God's promise to me.

Why do I need this repeatedly? Because, as I already noted, assurance waxes and wanes even if the objectivity of faith doesn't change. I really don't think that Christians wrestle enough with their frailty and the ongoing, desperate need they have for the Spirit to assure them and spur them on. God, in His kindness, has given us not only HIs Word to bring Christ to mind to us but the Sacraments; and a view of the Sacraments that removes a whole aspect of God's work of assurance and throws us back on our own feeble understanding is an impoverished way to live the Christian life.