This is the first in a series of posts dealing with the issues of baptism, church membership, and the Lord’s Supper. It was originally going to be one post, but it was getting longer . . . and longer . . . and longer. So, I’ll be splitting it up. I’d really like to get a dialogue going, so please participate by commenting!
(Disclaimer: As most of you know, I’m a convinced paedobaptist. But don’t discount my thoughts for that reason! There are plenty of better reasons to do so. 
Keep in mind that these are convictions that I held as a credobaptist as well.)
There’s been a lot of talk recently in the reformed blogosphere (”Reform-o-sphere”?) and elsewhere regarding the relationship between the Sacraments and church membership . . . and particularly how a church’s view of baptism should affect admission to membership and/or the Lord’s Table. Guys like John Piper, Wayne Grudem, Mark Dever, and Ligon Duncan have participated in the conversation. (Josh Harris also preached a relevant sermon recently.)
This is my paltry attempt at joining the conversation.
The Big Question at hand is this (as Wayne Grudem puts it in the 2007 edition of his Systematic Theology) — “Do churches need to be divided over baptism?” More specifically, “how should ‘Believers-Only Baptism’ (ie: baptist) churches deal with sincere Christians in their midst whose convictions on baptism differ from their own?”*
Now, admittedly, as recently as five years ago, I had no context for this Big Question. I grew up in a denomination in which baptism and church membership were not necessarily linked, and I didn’t really see the big deal. When I was baptized at the age of 19, I had been a believer since age six, had been partaking in the Lord’s Supper since about age 10, and had already been a member of my local church for two years. (And now that I think about it, my motivation for being baptized was less about obedience to Christ and more about trying to look “spiritually mature” to a girl at my church that I had my eye on. Ahh, the folly of youth!)
The Big Question became a little more relevant to me in March of 2003. Amy and I were living in Jackson, TN and were looking for a solid church to worship with. After a not-great experience at one church, we were providentially led to Northbrook (a Southern Baptist congregation). We almost immediately knew that this would be our church home. Only one thing concerned me as I looked over the church’s Statement of Faith — to be a member, one had to have been baptized already. Not only that, but if you were baptized as an infant, it somehow “didn’t count”. If someone who was baptized as an infant wanted to join, he or she would have to be baptized again (or more accurately, “baptized, for real this time”). Even as one who believed at the time that baptism should only come after a profession of faith, denial of membership to genuine Christians didn’t seem right. Scripture tells us that there is but “one baptism” - not different baptisms depending on your station in life.
(Yes, I’m well aware that something not seeming “right to me” is no indication of whether it’s actually right not.)
The Big Problem (related to the Big Question) is this: credobaptists, by and large, believe any baptism that comes before a credible profession of faith to be invalid. Null. Void. No baptism at all. Does it really have to be this way? Should it be this way?
I’m gonna say “no”. Even though baptism is an act of obedience from us to Christ, it’s also (and I’d also say, primarily) a means of grace from Christ to us. Even if we can manage to get baptism wrong (or in the wrong sequence), do we really believe that God’s work in baptism is stifled by human error? To illustrate it in a different way . . . Amy and I had Zoë before we were married. We got that in the wrong order and plainly contrary to what scripture teaches. Still, despite that, were we not a family, even before we got married? Should Zoë have done what Nicodemus incredulously asked and re-entered the womb, in order to be “born again”, this time into the “legitimate” Whitlock family?
Even without the obvious physical impossibility, it’s ridiculous to even consider. She is our daughter, and no less our daughter, regardless of when she passed through the waters of childbirth. Why, then, do we sometimes require genuine sons and daughters of God to again pass through the waters of birth into His family, when they’ve already passed through years before?
More in this series to come.
(*: Yes, there’s another side of the equation which asks “how should paedobaptistic churches deal with those in their midst who believe that only those who give a credible profession of faith should be baptized”? That question is much more easily resolved, as every paedobaptistic church I’ve ever heard of also baptizes new converts. For them, the question is not “have you been baptized as a believer”. It’s “have you been baptized”.)
15 comments ↓
Great post and I can’t wait to read the rest. I am currently working my way through infant baptism (coming from a Baptist background) as we speak, so this branch of how to deal with those who differ is great.
Thanks man!!
A good start, bro. I’m looking forward to seeing where you go from here. It seems to me there are a couple of different paths you can take in this, and I’m hoping from the title of your post that you intend to go down that path, namely, how credobaptists can still recognize infant baptisms as valid. The other path is more along the lines of “why paedobaptism is the way to go”, and, well, that’s a whole ‘nother argument.
A word of, well, hope on my part: I hope to hear in this series some scriptural defense for what you’re proposing. So often most of the paedobaptist arguments I hear are along the lines of where you started above - drawing parallels between baptism and other human experiences, without any obvious appeal to Scriptural authority.
Now, I’m all for not picking out single verses to do some out-of-context prooftexting.
But too often I feel like paedobaptists do a lot of hand-waving and simile-drawing, and manage to avoid addressing some of the New Testament texts that seem to better support a credobaptist position.
All that being said, I should really shut up and wait to hear what you actually say, rather than painting you into the corner of what I’ve seen others do.
Looking forward to installment 2, bro.
Great post, Rae. I appreciate the analogy; it’s helpful.
Jeremy: Glad you found it useful, man.
Cakeboy: Don’t worry . . . like I said, these are convictions that I held even as a credobaptist. They’re more informed convictions now that I understand more about the way the covenant works and such, but still . . . this isn’t going to be about convincing people that infant baptism is the way to go. It’s to show that covenant baptism is covenant baptism is covenant baptism, regardless of the when or why. And the scripture is coming.
Richard: Stephanie told me after reading this that you were going to “eat my lunch” (even though she agreed).
Glad to see that so far, she’s mistaken.
Rae, yeah, I’ll be patient and just listen a while. I don’t think I’m gonna be too antagonistic to your position, I’m just dying for someone to lay it out clearly for me.
good thoughts Rae. Looking forward to future installments. Like the analogy of your first child.
Blessings man,
Ethan
[...] first part of the series can be found HERE Posted in Blog of the Week, Christendom, Discussion, [...]
Great post Rae! I can’t wait to read more.
Later,
- J
Rae,
Thanks for stopping by my site and leaving a comment.
Regarding your article, I would urge you to reconsider what the New Testament says regarding who makes up God’s family.
You write, “Why, then, do we sometimes require genuine sons and daughters of God to again pass through the waters of birth into His family, when they’ve already passed through years before?”
While there is incredible continuity between the Old and New Covenants, I believe the NT reveals there is essential discontinuity as well. In particular, I think it teaches that in order to “pass through the waters of birth into His family,” one must receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Salvation is what makes us a child of God instead of a child of wrath. If this is the case, no one can come into the local church who is not a member of the universal Church. An unregenerate person cannot be part of the bride of Christ! If this is true, and no unregenerate person can be in the Church, there is no standing to “baptize” (or as Baptists argue, make wet) anyone who is not a member of the Church. Therefore, I would suggest that no one sprinkled as an infant has “already passed through years before.”
I am sure you disagree, and would be interested in your thoughts on this.
Blessings,
jg
Joseph: Hey man, thanks for coming by.
I’m actually planning on addressing a lot of the things you say in your comment in a future installment of this series (possibly the next one).
There’s a sense in which you’re right about the composition of the family of God. In that sense, it’s comprised of those who’ve been regenerated by the Holy Spirit, receiving the gift of faith and now able and irresistibly drawn to believe Christ. As you alluded to, that’s the Church Universal (or Invisible). The Bride of Christ.
But what about local, visible churches? Let’s take a look at Old Testament parallels, as you did in your post. Circumcision was the sacramental means by which Jews entered Yahweh’s covenant community. Still, even then, “not all Israel (was) Israel”. Is there any doubt that there were then circumcised ethnic Israelites, participating in the temple sacrifices, obeying the Law, eating the Passover, receiving (at least some of) the benefits of being counted among God’s people, who still had no salvific faith in the promises of Yahweh? Still, through their circumcision, they were joined to Israel — the family of God — in a very real, spiritual sense (and were thus held to greater account, as those who were among God’s people). This is how it is today with the visible church and the inevitability of “Christians” (ie: church members who believably profess faith in Christ) who are unregenerate. You’re right in saying that an unregenerate person cannot be part of the Bride of Christ, but here’s the thing — the visible church is not the Bride of Christ. The invisible church is.
Let’s take infant baptism out of the equation for a minute (because, like I said, these are convictions I held as a credobaptist as well). Say you’ve got a Baptist church in Dallas. A guy hears an evangelistic sermon, “walks the aisle” and professes faith, joins the church, and is subsequently baptized. He continues to attend his church faithfully week after week for years, but there’s no apparent sanctification in his every day life and no other evidence of being born again. Dude’s simply not a believer, despite his confession. Should we now say that he was never baptized at all? No, we discipline him as one baptized — as a member of the visible church (ie: the local expression of God’s family). If he repents, then he has received the Word of God (and his baptism) in faith, and shows himself to indeed be part of God’s Family in the universal sense. If he refuses, then he has shown himself to be an unbeliever and is treated as such (which involves removal from membership, etc). Still, he was indeed baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and he was held to account on that basis (along with the basis of his confession).
It’s simply impossible for a local church to know infallibly whether or not every person whose name it places on the roll is regenerate. That’s why “Believer’s Baptism” is a misnomer. It’s “Confessor’s Baptism”, in reality. Some of those confessors will be genuine believers, some will not. Both are truly, validly baptized and both are part of God’s family in one sense or another.
[By the way . . . I realize that a good number of Baptist churches indeed would require (or at least encourage) re-baptism if someone previously baptized "as a believer" somehow realized that he wasn't regenerate the first time around. Not that that's ideal, but I know it may be the reality.]
So let me see if I’m following along here, Rae. The conclusion we come to is that in the case of children/infants, they are baptized in the expectation that, because they are being raised in a believing family, they will in due time similarly confess/believe?
Not agreeing/disagreeing at the moment, just trying to work it out in my head. I like your term “Confessor’s Baptism”, though. A more useful term, for sure.
Rae,
I look forward to your future posts.
I have three comments on your comment, and I hope you address them either on this thread or in a future posts, as I would like to hear your thinking on them.
First, you said the visible church is not the bride of Christ; instead, the invisible church is. In many ways, I agree. The issue is that the NT is clear that anyone in the local church who shows evidence that they are not a true believer is to be disciplined, and if unrepentant, eventually excommunicated. If the local church was not supposed to be made up of believers only, why have church discipline? Why pursue a pure church?
Second, any Baptist church who actually understands believer’s baptism would require someone to be baptized if they realized that they were not truly a believer when they initially became a member. The first experience under water would not be considered baptism. This is the official Baptist stance, although admittedly there are many Baptist churches acting less than Baptisticly. Because of this, believer’s baptism is not a misnomer. The experience is only a true Baptism if they individual is truly a believer. Again, I am not suggesting that most modern Baptist churches look for a biblical confession before “baptizing” someone. Baptist churches in the past were much more faithful in this regard.
Third, there are many, many, many clear examples in the NT of individuals being baptized following conversion. I see no clear examples of an individual being baptized prior to conversion. The few texts in Acts which Paedobaptists cling to are far from conclusive. When combined with the passages related to church discipline (which seek the purity of the church), is there any New Testament evidence which offers clear support of bringing unconverted individuals into the church?
Your views on baptism very much line up with ours.
[...] think I’m going to pick up where I left off in the long-forgotten series of posts on Baptism to flesh this [...]
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