I would just like to point out that those like the Church of Christ who add an outward act to the requirements for salvation (like the 'circumcision' party that Paul dealt with) do so not out of conscious defiance of God's word (they think they are being more Scriptural than we are) but out of finitude. Yet they are engaged in the same kind of thing that Paul wrote a whole letter condemning (Galatians).

Corey, the paedos are not saying baptism saves you, like the COC, or the UPC'rs... Hence they are in the most legal sense of the the word, obeying the command of Christ to go and baptize. How many of the visible church have been baptized,(believers baptism)and are saved? The paedos follow Christ command to baptize, they just do it different then the Baptist.

Yes I know. My point is that people can think that they are being biblical while standing in a bad place theologically (I tried to avoid saying 'condemned' there). In one case, the adherents are adding the requirement of an external act to faith for salvation. In the other case, the adherents may be involved in unrepentant sin (regardless of their ignorance). But I would agree with any who would say that we all have areas of sin that we do not know about and so are unrepentant of. The Israelites had a special sacrifice for this kind of unintentional sin (actually, pretty much all of their atoning sacrifices were for unintentional sins). Maybe we need to make more of an effort to confess unintentional sins in our daily prayers.

Corey hints at something important here and is more directly addressed in the post. What is "repentance" and what does Dever mean by "unrepentant" sinners?

Simply put, an unrepentant sinner is an unbeliever. Luther, wisely, pointed to this important point in the first point of his 95. Repentance is a general change of heart regarding sin. A turn from sin and idols to God. To imply that we must somehow "repent" of all known and unknown sins in our lives before we can partake in communion would bar all people from the Table. This is not the nature of Christian repentance. Christians repent of specific sins because their nature is one of repentance. They don't become "repentant" because they have repented of all of their known and unknown sins. To imply that each individual and specific sin must be confessed and repented of misses the point. That idea is simply too Roman Catholic for my tastes. This is what Luther was protesting. Christians' general attitude towards sin should be one of repentance - a turning away from. When specific sins become known, these too must be repented of. However, to imply that someone should be prohibited from the Table because they are not repentant of an unknown sin in their lives although they are still in a state of general repentance is to miss the nature of repentance altogether.

Jeremy

Please, may I implore you to stop using the unfortunate abreviation "paedos". In todays climate the associations are terrible, and for someone stumbling on this debate from google very unfortunate. Paedobaptist isnt too long a word to type is it?

Jonathan -

You raise some interesting questions. First, the distinction between "sins with a high hand" and "sins of ignorance" originates in the OT, in Numbers and Leviticus. The former indicates open acts of rebellion, while the latter indicates a true sin which is committed in ignorance, such as a person touching an unclean entity without knowing it (cf. Lev. 4:1ff). This point is almost moot, however. The person has sinned regardless of his knoweldge of it. When the person becomes aware of the sin committed in ignorance, he must still go offer a purification or sin offering for the sin he committed. The main factor is awareness. Once a person becomes aware, he must confess and repent via sacrifice uncer the old covenant.

Under the new covenant, we are commanded to confess of our sins (1 John 1:9 et al).
The question remains before all of us, can the failure to baptize disciples in the mode our Lord commissioned in Matt. 28:19-20 be reduced to a perpetual sin of ignorance or even considered an aspect of our finitude thereby exempting them from fulfillment of the command altogether? If baptists say yes, then the paedobaptists have nothing of which to repent, since the Bible does not ask us to repent of sins that we do not know (though we will be held accountable for them on the last day in Christ). If baptists say no, then they are assuming the NT speaks with amazing clarity on this issue, and therefore paedobaptists have willingly allowed other hermeneutical factors to cloud their vision on this matter so that they may baptize their infants (i.e. the covenantal argument, inference upon inference from household baptisms, promise to your children etc.), when they should simply look at the clear evidence from the NT, which always reports the baptism of believers or disciples.

For me, I think this discussion is one of the healthiest I have seen on this matter because we are not simply batting it around hypothetically. Since Jesus ties baptism to the Commission, this issue is of utmost importance, not adiaphora.

Lastly, (I apologize for the length already) I have never heard paedobaptists argue that baptists are in sin for failure to baptize their infants, but they would be consistant to this very point. Exodus 4:24ff says, "At a lodging place on the way, the Lord met Moses and was about to kill him. 25 But Zipporah took a flint knife, cut off her son's foreskin and touched Moses' feet with it. "Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me," she said. 26 So the Lord let him alone. (At that time she said "bridegroom of blood," referring to circumcision.)." If there is a true correspondence between circumcision and baptism, and baptism, even under the NC, is applied to infants based on a covenantal/geneological principle (Gen. 17:7ff), then I cannot see how parents who refuse to baptize their children are not in sin for failing to apply the covenant sign to their children in accordance with the OT. Thanks for the discussion.

Blessings,
John

Jonathan,

To answer your question, most covenant baptists (there, is that better than paedo?), do not regard credo baptist parents to be in sin as long as they are following their own conscience in the matter.

There is a very small minority in PCA circles, citing our Book of Church Order's instruction to Sessions to "see that parents do not neglect to present their children for baptism," which believe that churches ought to discipline credo baptist members in this, but they are very small in number.

Their argument is that baptism belongs to the Church, not to the family to decide one way or other. Similar to the arguments that some credo-baptists are making on this blog versus Piper's latitude.

But most of us PCA types hold that as long as one can take the five simple membership vows in good conscience, one can be a member in good standing. Since formal church membership is very important to our ecclesiology, we believe that we must be as generous as the Gospel in this regard.

Personally, I believe that God is very gracious and generous Himself in these matters, and that what He looks for is *faith* on behalf of the parents, so that if they are presenting their children to Him and trusting Him to work in their lives -- while yet insisting that their child personally own Christ as savior -- that God looks at that child *as* if they were baptized, a covenant child. In other words, we don't baptize to *make* the child a covenant child, we baptize because we are trying to line up our rites with how we believe God sees things.

But the critical element is faith, not water. The only question is when to apply it.

Now, what if a PCA congregation becomes majority credo-Baptist? Could they change the church's position on baptism? Our polity protects the unity and doctrine of the church by requiring that all *officers* must subscribe to the Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms.

Therefore, a congregation's doctrine (including view of baptism) cannot be changed by majority vote. What they could do is vote to leave the denomination and become a Baptist church, which to my knowledge, has happened only once in the PCA's short history.

Hope that helps!

Chris Hutchinson
Grace Covenant PCA
Blacksburg, VA

John,

You say in your earlier post regarding sacrifices for unintentional sin, "When the person becomes aware of the sin committed in ignorance, he must still go offer a purification or sin offering for the sin he committed."

What we have, though, are those who have not "become aware" of their disobedience.

If the Presbyterians are true to their confessions, then they do say that credobaptists are in sin if they do not baptize their children.

Section 5 of Chapter 28 of the Westminster Confession reads "It is a great sin to contemn or neglect this ordinance," and cites Luke 7:30 and Exodus 4:24-26 (the neglect of circumcision of Moses' son) as proofs.

As I have been following and trying to think through all that that is involved in this discussion, with what is being written on this and related blogs, the one thing that I am still having trouble genuinely seeing is that paedobaptists are in sin. Can a credobaptist (like myself) rightly say that a paedobaptist is sinning? I have a difficult time seeing that a brother who is truly following after Jesus and who looks at the arguements of the credobaptist and who carefully examines God's Word, then in good conscience submits himself to the Holy Spirit and concludes that paedobaptism is what is right before God, to then say that this brother is in sin. He may be in error, but sin? This certainly cannot be the same as when someone commits adultery or covets can it? Does calling this sin muddle the reality of someone is in clear sin?

Estell,

I kind of feel the same way. I have read Louis Berkhof's beautifully logical and thoroughly Scriptural reasoning for covenant baptism and I detect there no blatant refusal to accept the authority of the word. What you see is someone who clearly loves the Lord and his word trying to find the right way (Calvin is the same way), but I have to wonder about the Judaisers, too (before you say anything, I know they are a different case). It seems to me that they might be able to write much the same way. It certainly seems from Galatians and Philippians that they had faith in Christ, but this one error (requiring circumcision) was very serious.

Of course, in their case, they had an apostle calling them down under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, so they have no excuse.

Elnwood,

I would say that our credo-baptist friends, if acting in good conscience, are not neglecting this ordinance, but fully intend to have their children baptized at the proper time. They are in error, not willful neglect.

Also, the prooftexts were added later, and are not binding.

I'm glad that this keeps coming up about credo-baptists perhaps being unrepentant in not baptizing their children because it illustrates what I believe is an important factor of paedo-baptism. It seems that what the paedo-baptists are doing is transferring a command to an individual (repent and be baptized) to that individual's parents (baptize your infants). You see, how could a credo-baptist ever be unrepentant of failure to follow a command when no command is given?

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you! Jonathan has asked THE question that this whole debate hinges upon. I will watch with much anticipation the discussion that will ensue.