James White and Bill Shishko Debate

[Andrew P.C.]

I saw that you guys were talking about the Gene Cook/Paul Manata debate. I would like to submit to you that White did an excellent job. If you listen to this debate, I find it very interesting that Bill Shishko splits up the text of Hebrews 8:8-12. Bill states that hebrews 8 is a present/future reality. He basically says that verses 8-10 is present and 11-12 is future. How can he honestly chop up that text? =/... I'm not sure. More studying on this issue for me!!!

 

[Semper Fidelis]

Andrew,

If you listen to the Cook/Manata debate the same issue comes up. It's not an unnatural split. It's no more unnatural than the fact that Baptists have Pastors that teach if they practically believe that the entire reality is fulfilled.

 

[Andrew P.C.]

Andrew,

If you listen to the Cook/Manata debate the same issue comes up. It's not an unnatural split. It's no more unnatural than the fact that Baptists have Pastors that teach if they practically believe that the entire reality is fulfilled.

Unfortunately, to split up the text in Hebrews 8 IS unnatural since it talks about promises that have been fulfilled by Christ for HIS people. The chapters previous and later are showing the OC, or what Christ has made "obselete", in light of the NC, "better covenant" and "a better ministry". How can you say that the text has a future reference when verse 12 says "I will remember their sins no more"? Will God forgive our sins in the future? Or are we forgivien now? It's a far stretch to make hebrews 8 a future reference.

As well, is Christ GOING to be a FUTURE mediator of this covenant? Or is He the mediator now? Is He a future High Priest? or is He now?

As the context flows, how can you split this up? Do you see that God will be their God in the New Heavens and New earth? Or is He not their God now? If He is their God now, how can Christ be the mediator for people that you claim "God will save you to the utter most-- Now obey His Word", yet, you have no idea if they are the elect?

I'm sincerely asking these questions because I've been thinking about these issues lately. I need more scriptural study on this issue. Understanding "the covenant" is vital to our understanding of baptism.

 

[Semper Fidelis]

Andrew,

First, it ought to be noted again, carefully, that the Reformed view of salvation sees the benefits of salvation extending only to the Elect - those truly united to Christ. The actual identity of those individuals, all acknowledge, is hidden. It is not problematic in the least to take the passage and see the benefits enumerated as specifically applicable to those elect.

This discussion comes up because the issue of who is baptized is somehow seen as being identical with who receive the benefits of union with Christ. The unregenerate, though baptized and though they participate externally in the Church, never receive the benefits listed. Thus, Baptists admit that baptism does not confer union with Christ but they want to insist that baptism ought to be reserved for those that we think, most likely, are united to Christ. I really don't want to have to re-type everything I just wrote in another thread so please read my commentary on that line of thinking here: http://www.puritanboard.com/showpost.php?p=297679&postcount=138

Thus, in many ways, this passage is making a mountain out of a mole hill - at least where I'm sitting. If all Baptists want to do is protect the idea that Christ only mediates for the Elect and that these current/future benefits extend only to them then I say a heaty Amen. It doesn't get them any closer to a decision on who to baptize, however, because you can't go from the invisible reality to the actual person simply by stating that Christ mediates for the Elect. In my estimation, based on my argument above, the paedobaptist view protects the uniqueness of Christ's benefits to the elect in the NC more than the credo view because we don't try to assert that we're more surely baptizing the elect and providing a psychological "false assurance" that tries to measurably increase the visibility of an invisible thing. Something invisible is invisible and there's no "mostly invisible" when it comes to the Elect except in God's eyes.

That said, understanding that the credo-Baptists use this passage to build their case for the baptism of only the regenerate, I hope you can see how it doesn't really even factor into our understanding of baptism. I've argued, for a while, that there is very little point in arguing the perfection of the NC with Baptists. It's not that the case is tight but because:

1. It really makes no difference with respect to baptism.
2. There is a sense in which the strength of the affirmation of the perfect benefits to the elect is spot on. It's only what the Baptists want to do with that information that is faulty.

This passage is a perfect example of where this argumentation can take you. Notice what the passage says:

Let's look at the text really quickly:

7 For if that first covenant had been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second. 8 Because finding fault with them, He says: “Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah— 9 not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they did not continue in My covenant, and I disregarded them, says the LORD. 10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. 11 None of them shall teach his neighbor, and none his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them. 12 For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.”[c]
13 In that He says, “A new covenant, ” He has made the first obsolete. Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.

As I inferred earlier, if this is meant by the author to imply that the nature of the New Covenant is that nobody is to be taught anymore then it obviously directly conflicts with passages about the necessity for Pastors and Teachers that build up in the faith.

I think what Baptists read in an insistence that part of this be taken eschatologically is a desire for Paedobaptists to somehow extend the benefits listed in some way to the unregenerate. Not at all. It is merely an acknowledgement that not all benefits that are promised to the elect are enjoyed yet.

Thus, it is yet just another example of a verse where Baptists build their case for a regenerate New Covenant membership and then moving, improperly, to baptism of professors as a means to that end. In our baptism they see us as not respecting the New Covenant because, in their mind, they think we're arguing for the benefits of election to be extended to people we're admitting to visible membership. But, because the case cannot be made from this passage on the perfection of benefits to the elect to the administration of the Sacrament, it is an interesting discussion, but really makes no difference for either the Credo or the Paedo as to who is baptized.

 

[Andrew P.C.]

Andrew,

First, it ought to be noted again, carefully, that the Reformed view of salvation sees the benefits of salvation extending only to the Elect - those truly united to Christ. The actual identity of those individuals, all acknowledge, is hidden. It is not problematic in the least to take the passage and see the benefits enumerated as specifically applicable to those elect.

This discussion comes up because the issue of who is baptized is somehow seen as being identical with who receive the benefits of union with Christ. The unregenerate, though baptized and though they participate externally in the Church, never receive the benefits listed. Thus, Baptists admit that baptism does not confer union with Christ but they want to insist that baptism ought to be reserved for those that we think, most likely, are united to Christ. I really don't want to have to re-type everything I just wrote in another thread so please read my commentary on that line of thinking here: http://www.puritanboard.com/showpost.php?p=297679&postcount=138

Thus, in many ways, this passage is making a mountain out of a mole hill - at least where I'm sitting. If all Baptists want to do is protect the idea that Christ only mediates for the Elect and that these current/future benefits extend only to them then I say a heaty Amen. It doesn't get them any closer to a decision on who to baptize, however, because you can't go from the invisible reality to the actual person simply by stating that Christ mediates for the Elect. In my estimation, based on my argument above, the paedobaptist view protects the uniqueness of Christ's benefits to the elect in the NC more than the credo view because we don't try to assert that we're more surely baptizing the elect and providing a psychological "false assurance" that tries to measurably increase the visibility of an invisible thing. Something invisible is invisible and there's no "mostly invisible" when it comes to the Elect except in God's eyes.

That said, understanding that the credo-Baptists use this passage to build their case for the baptism of only the regenerate, I hope you can see how it doesn't really even factor into our understanding of baptism. I've argued, for a while, that there is very little point in arguing the perfection of the NC with Baptists. It's not that the case is tight but because:

1. It really makes no difference with respect to baptism.
2. There is a sense in which the strength of the affirmation of the perfect benefits to the elect is spot on. It's only what the Baptists want to do with that information that is faulty.

This passage is a perfect example of where this argumentation can take you. Notice what the passage says:

Let's look at the text really quickly:

7 For if that first covenant had been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second. 8 Because finding fault with them, He says: “Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah— 9 not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they did not continue in My covenant, and I disregarded them, says the LORD. 10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. 11 None of them shall teach his neighbor, and none his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them. 12 For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.”[c]
13 In that He says, “A new covenant, ” He has made the first obsolete. Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.

As I inferred earlier, if this is meant by the author to imply that the nature of the New Covenant is that nobody is to be taught anymore then it obviously directly conflicts with passages about the necessity for Pastors and Teachers that build up in the faith.

I think what Baptists read in an insistence that part of this be taken eschatologically is a desire for Paedobaptists to somehow extend the benefits listed in some way to the unregenerate. Not at all. It is merely an acknowledgement that not all benefits that are promised to the elect are enjoyed yet.

Thus, it is yet just another example of a verse where Baptists build their case for a regenerate New Covenant membership and then moving, improperly, to baptism of professors as a means to that end. In our baptism they see us as not respecting the New Covenant because, in their mind, they think we're arguing for the benefits of election to be extended to people we're admitting to visible membership. But, because the case cannot be made from this passage on the perfection of benefits to the elect to the administration of the Sacrament, it is an interesting discussion, but really makes no difference for either the Credo or the Paedo as to who is baptized.

Baptists want to insist that you want to hold off on the administration of the Sacrament until the reality of the thing signified is present in the individual who is to receive the sign. The problem, of course, is that the reality of the thing signified can only be participated in by the elect. Nobody knows who they are - as honestly admitted to by Gene in the debate.

Don't you guys have the same problem though? Since Bruce told me awhile back that when you baptize infants you are saying "God will save you to the uttermost-- now obey His word." How do you know that God will "save them to the uttermost"? Is it because they are within a covenant family? If so, what about Esau?(I'm sure there are many other "covenant breakers", but for this discussion I'll only appeal to Esau for now.)

One thing that I'm not understanding, is if Christ is the mediator of the NC(Heb 8:6) then how can one be a covenant breaker? If Christ is YOUR mediator since you are IN the Covenant, how can you BREAK that which is made perfect through Christ?

 

[Contra_Mundum]

You need to provide a reference please. Where did I say "God will save you to the uttermost" to a covenant child? If I did, I know that I included this: "IF you believe."

Did I say I "commanded" the child to believe? I have not been able to find this "quote" or reference. I recently put it this way: "Do you believe God's word?" in the context of saying to a child, God saves those who put their trust in him.

So, please, if you are going to put words in my mouth, you really need to express my sentiment accurately.

OK, found it (lousy search function we got). Here's what I actually said:

Baptism is a public declaration of God's promise: "I will save you to the uttermost--believe my word."
http://www.puritanboard.com/showthread.php?p=249378&highlight=Baptism+public+declaration#post249378

Note what I said right before that: "If so, then even the elect infant has those promises reserved for him until he by faith receives them. " Note what I've just highlighted/bolded?

So, it is a conditional promise. Who gets the promise who doesn't believe? Nobody. Who commands that person to believe? Me, on my own authority? No, God does.

 

[Andrew P.C.]

You need to provide a reference please. Where did I say "God will save you to the uttermost" to a covenant child? If I did, I know that I included this: "IF you believe."

Did I say I "commanded" the child to believe? I have not been able to find this "quote" or reference. I recently put it this way: "Do you believe God's word?" in the context of saying to a child, God saves those who put their trust in him.

So, please, if you are going to put words in my mouth, you really need to express my sentiment accurately.

OK, found it (lousy search function we got). Here's what I actually said:

Baptism is a public declaration of God's promise: "I will save you to the uttermost--believe my word."
http://www.puritanboard.com/showthread.php?p=249378&highlight=Baptism+public+declaration#post249378

Note what I said right before that: "If so, then even the elect infant has those promises reserved for him until he by faith receives them. " Note what I've just highlighted/bolded?

So, it is a conditional promise. Who gets the promise who doesn't believe? Nobody. Who commands that person to believe? Me, on my own authority? No, God does.

Thank you for the correction on what you said.

So, since you baptize the infants INTO the covenant, and you say that the promises are conditional, does that mean that the covenant is conditional? I'm not sure I understand your statement.

 

[Contra_Mundum]

"Is the covenant conditional?"

Yes. ALL covenants are conditional. ALL of them require FAITH as a condition. Abrahamic, Mosaic, Davidic, New Covenant, ...

I know this point is disputed by the baptist side. I have been told, "Moses covenant was not conditioned by FAITH, but by WORKS." Really? So why is that altar-thingy at the heart of that covenant?

No doubt, there was a "covenant-of-works" overlay to or component of that covenant, but there was no true participation in the Mosaic covenant apart from its "gracious" provisions. To say that there were those who were thoroughgoing covenant members of Moses' Covenant who were faithless is completely wrong, in my opinion, a fundamental error of consideration regarding the Old Covenant.

Nevertheless, this is the commonly held notion. Today (thankfully) we do not have the massive OT law-minder over our heads. But no one but antinomians deny that there is that moral standard which continues. By us, law is viewed through the Cross of Christ interposed. By the OT, the law was maginfied and deliberately made exceeding looming by God himself, and the Cross was viewed (as it were) through the Law interposed.

Its possible to be judged under a covenant that one belongs to in only an outward manner (no faith). And that is exactly what happened in OT covenants, and that is still what happens today. Those who (as we put it) are in the New Covenant only outwardly are liable to the eternal judgments of Christ. They can "fall away" as Hebrews puts it. And things are so dire for someone like that that recovery is nigh-unto impossible, "It is impossible ... to be restored again unto repentance." Wow. Almost sounds like being "cut off" from among the OT people ...

So, no elect person has ever failed the primary "condition" of any of the covenants. And no one who is non-elect has ever met ANY of the conditions (because not united with faith).

 

[Andrew P.C.]

"Is the covenant conditional?"

Yes. ALL covenants are conditional. ALL of them require FAITH as a condition. Abrahamic, Mosaic, Davidic, New Covenant, ...

I know this point is disputed by the baptist side. I have been told, "Moses covenant was not conditioned by FAITH, but by WORKS." Really? So why is that altar-thingy at the heart of that covenant?

No doubt, there was a "covenant-of-works" overlay to or component of that covenant, but there was no true participation in the Mosaic covenant apart from its "gracious" provisions. To say that there were those who were thoroughgoing covenant members of Moses' Covenant who were faithless is completely wrong, in my opinion, a fundamental error of consideration regarding the Old Covenant.

Nevertheless, this is the commonly held notion. Today (thankfully) we do not have the massive OT law-minder over our heads. But no one but antinomians deny that there is that moral standard which continues. By us, law is viewed through the Cross of Christ interposed. By the OT, the law was maginfied and deliberately made exceeding looming by God himself, and the Cross was viewed (as it were) through the Law interposed.

Its possible to be judged under a covenant that one belongs to in only an outward manner (no faith). And that is exactly what happened in OT covenants, and that is still what happens today. Those who (as we put it) are in the New Covenant only outwardly are liable to the eternal judgments of Christ. They can "fall away" as Hebrews puts it. And things are so dire for someone like that that recovery is nigh-unto impossible, "It is impossible ... to be restored again unto repentance." Wow. Almost sounds like being "cut off" from among the OT people ...

So, no elect person has ever failed the primary "condition" of any of the covenants. And no one who is non-elect has ever met ANY of the conditions (because not united with faith).

Very good points except one thing.... Hebrews 6, when referring to "fallen away" doesn't say that these people were in the NC. They were obviously part of the church, but as a baptist understanding, that wouldn't make someone part of the NC.

Here is what the Presbyterian's believe(from what i've seen, so correct me if i'm wrong):

Visible church = NC
Memeber of church = member of NC

 

[Contra_Mundum]

Andrew,
So, he's "falling away" from ... the church? OK, what IS the church? And how does Hebrews even use that term? You have "ekklesia" 2 times in the whole book, 2:12 (OT quote) & 12:23. So where in the text does it indicate the "church" (as you define it) is what the writer is thinking of? I think you need to get a definition of what "body" (to fall away from) is being spoken of from an examination of chapters 3, 4, & 5. And you might examine the relevant instances of the phrase, "fall away" (and the like) in the NT. It occurs in the gospels, and Paul, and note Heb. 3:12, "aphistemi" (apostatize) sometimes rendered "depart".

Further, once you have defined church (and perhaps the body to be falling from), what is the church's relation to the "kingdom"? What is the kingdom?

What is the church's and kingdom's relation to the covenant? Can you be in one of these, and not another? Can you be in one of them in one sense, and NOT in it in another?

The visible church does not EQUAL the New Covenant. I would say the visible church is the visible kingdom of God on earth right now. And we say baptism is the VISIBLE marker of VISIBLE citizens of that kingdom. The visible church is the OUTWARD ADMINSTRATION of the New Covenant (Covenant of Grace in our era). Members of the visible church are members of the outward administration of the New Covenant.

Baptists do not believe in a "visible administration" of the Covenant of Grace in our era (New Covenant). The kingdom is all spirit and invisible and untouchable and unmanifested. It has no representatives (or does it?), no ministers-of state (or does it?), can't touch it, see it, ... As far as I know, for the baptist the kingdom of God is naught but a concept.