Why Not Baptize Babies?
My Journey Away from Reformed Infant Baptism & a Brotherly Critique of Covenantal Arguments for Household or Infant Baptism
By Jeff Jones
INTRODUCTION
A Christian who teaches others needs to know where he stands on the major issues. After all, those who teach will be judged more strictly (Jas. 3:1). Since the Reformation, few issues have been more stubborn than the difference between paedobaptists (those who believe infants should be baptized) and credobaptists (those who hold that only believers should receive the ordinance). That struggle has marked my own spiritual life, and indeed represents the most difficult theological struggle I have ever experienced.
This essay is primarily an autobiographical look at how my views changed. It follows the development of my beliefs concerning baptism and particularly my views concerning its proper recipients. As such, it is a critique of the covenantal and Reformed argument that Christian baptism is to be administered to unbelieving (or "not yet believing") infants. This story begins in my childhood in the Christian Reformed Church, enters into crisis in my teen years, and reaches a climax in my young adulthood when I decided to receive believer's baptism. It by no means ends there, however, as only after that did I become aware of the theological complexities and nuances of the Reformed paedobaptist tradition out of which I came. It is these complexities and nuances I seek to address here in making a biblical case against covenantal Reformed infant (or "household") baptism, in favor of the baptism of confessing believers alone.
I. MY OWN JOURNEY TO BELIEVER’S BAPTISM
My Childhood: Of Course You Baptize Babies!
I grew up in the church. Some of my earliest memories are of the church nursery and fellowship hall. In my childhood, the primary denomination in which we participated was the Christian Reformed Church, which stands in the Dutch Reformed tradition. That was not the only church we attended; I distinctly remember being an altar boy for several months in a little Lutheran church in Elkford, British Columbia. As a matter of fact, though I have never since attended any of their services, I was actually baptized as an infant in a Moravian church!
Because all these denominations practice infant baptism, I witnessed dozens of infants being sprinkled. The pattern was always the same: the parents stood at the front of the church with the new infant (usually just a couple weeks old). The pastor followed a prescribed set of readings, directing questions at the parents and at the congregation, and praying to God. Water was sprinkled on the infant's head. Applause and pictures would follow, and then usually a cake and potluck after church.
Thus from a very early age, the picture of an infant being sprinkled in the presence of the congregation was my very definition of baptism. For the first ten or twelve years of my life, the idea of the recipient's personal faith or repentance as having any bearing on baptism did not even occur to me. Rather, baptism had an entirely different significance. I understood it at the time in the following ways:
• First, it was a welcome of a new member into the church community. The new child was embraced by the community of faith through the public sacrament of baptism.
• Second, it was a dedication of the young infant by its parents to the Lord. When I watched these baptisms, I recalled the story of Hannah presenting Samuel at the tabernacle, dedicating him to the Lord's service. As such, I interpreted the act of baptism as being a declaration of the parents' (or family's) commitment to God rather than an individual commitment on the part of the baptized.
• Third, it constituted a promise on the part of the parents to raise their child to fear the Lord.
• Fourth, in much the same way, baptism represented the congregation's resolve to support the parents and child in nurturing this new walk with the Lord.
Before I continue my story and move into a theological critique of Reformed paedobaptism, it is only fair that I acknowledge the grace and mercy of our all-wise God in allowing this (in my view) incorrect practice to nevertheless bring some good. As I often say, God is able to draw a straight line with a crooked stick! I think it's wise that adherents of believer's baptism recognize some of the positive things that infant baptism does accomplish in spite of its error, ideas that continue to shape my view of faith to this day:
• First, it more explicitly expresses a communal conception of Christian faith than is found among many credobaptists. By stressing the role of the congregation and the parents in guiding the child's walk with the Lord, the baptismal rite in paedobaptist churches underlines the truth that faith is not merely an individualistic thing. I have never been able to conceive of Christian faith apart from a community of believers.
• Second, due in large part to the covenantal argument underlying Reformed paedobaptism, these infant baptisms communicated the concept that faith – and the baptism itself – carries with it obligations. In this context, the obligations were mostly expressed as being on the community's and parents' part, and this emphasis left the obligations attached to the baptized himself somewhat unstated. However, the core point, that identification with the Christian community involves responsibilities as well as obligations, has remained central to my walk with God even now.
• Third, infant baptism assumes a more organic and gradual view of faith's growth in the life of the individual than is typical of many credobaptists. Many in revivalistic traditions, such as Baptists and Pentecostals, tend to see faith as something conceived and born in crisis, as a "sudden event" in the life of the individual. The Reformed tradition sees faith as something whose seeds can be planted early on by way of the family's nurture and the community's example, and which are watered and fertilized through participation in the community of faith. There is much less emphasis on faith as being a "decision" taken in the past and much more on the state of the person's continuing walk with God.
Seeds of Doubt: My Teen Years
When I was thirteen years old, my family moved to Calgary. We had already left the Reformed church by that time, and upon our arrival in Calgary, we eventually moved to a church close to our home called Springbank Community Church. This church was (at the time) independent and nondenominational. What was crucial for my spiritual walk was the man God had placed there as pastor, a gregarious and friendly Baptist named Warren Wiebe.
It was at Springbank where I first witnessed believer's baptism. For the first time in my life, I was faced with a direct contradiction between Christian theological views. I had heard of this practice, and did not disagree with it in itself; the problem was that its practice represented an implicit challenge to my own baptism. Warren once explained in a service why he baptized believers and not infants. He described his different view gently but clearly: "There are many Christians who bring infants to be baptized. It's a beautiful statement of faith and dedication by the parents. But it isn't baptism." I began to see that personal faith and repentance must have some connection with baptism.
I immediately saw some benefits of credobaptism that had been lacking in my experience in paedobaptist churches:
• First, it afforded an opportunity for the believer to publicly acknowledge ownership of and responsibility for their own faith.
• It provided a visual expression of one's profession of faith.
• It gave an individual focus to baptism that my paedobaptist background had lacked.
I was not yet convinced. As I read my Bible, however, I ran across many references to baptism, and they invariably were connected with personal repentance or faith or with the salvation appropriated by the individual. I searched in vain for an example of infant baptism. Since I never believed in baptismal regeneration, and because I knew infant baptisms did not prevent a person from being lost, I perceived a disconnect between my theology and the teaching of the New Testament connecting salvation to baptism.
Despite my growing discomfort, I simply reassured myself that, even if believers' baptism was more explicitly biblical, my infant baptism "fulfilled the requirement" and that I had no reason to worry. Yet with each baptism I observed, I became more and more uncomfortable.
Young Adulthood: Facing My Crisis
I joined the Army out of high school and traveled across the country. Almost immediately my Christian walk began to falter. Away from the protective accountability of family and church, I took my cues instead from my comrades. My language became increasingly foul – for a guy who had never to that point uttered a swear word in his life! I never did, and still do not, see any biblical prohibition of moderate alcohol use, but I was far from moderate on many occasions. I attended church, but most often at base chapel services led by pastors of decidedly nonevangelical orientation. Church attendance was not a priority, much less accountable church membership.
Upon being posted to Canadian Forces Base Gagetown, New Brunswick, I began attending Smythe Street Cathedral, a nondenominational Pentecostal-type church in nearby Fredericton. It was in Gagetown that the most important change of my life occurred. I had just finished my basic artillery officer training course in the winter of 2003, and was looking forward to a bright future and an exciting career in uniform. The military was ramping up for an extended mission in Afghanistan, and I was slated for an artillery unit in Manitoba that would be deploying a battery on one of the first rotations. Yet before I could finish my training, disaster struck. I aggravated an old back injury while on a training exercise, and it became immediately clear that this injury was serious. I missed the next course and was placed in an administrative position at the Artillery School while my status was determined, and it was soon evident that the injury was career-ending.
I was left wondering what to do. My dreams were gone. My hopes had been shattered. My lifestyle had remained much the same over the past five years, and I had already begun doubting my faith – not out of any solid reason, but rather motivated by a moral recognition that my life was not Christlike. I had already begun to doubt the truth of the Bible, probably from a hope that my life would be justified if the Bible was not to be taken that seriously.
Around this time, I had still been attending Smythe Street on and off. The discomfort I had felt witnessing baptisms had by now become acute. I saw a couple baptisms at that church and then began consciously avoiding the evening services, when they took place. I did not want to face the growing conviction that I had to resolve my commitment to God. No matter how many times I told myself I had been baptized, I became more uncomfortable. And ringing in my memory were Pastor Warren's words: "It's a beautiful statement... by the parents."
One day in September, driving back to base from Fredericton, I faced my growing doubts about my faith head-on. I had been using the dissonance between modern science and the Bible as an excuse to doubt Scriptural truth. That day in the car, however, I faced a simple fact: the Bible claims an all-powerful, timeless God whose ways are beyond our understanding. Either I believed in that kind of a God, or I didn't. But if I did, that allegiance had to be primary. Everything else (science, philosophy, ethics, and the other fields from which objections to God may come) need to be interpreted on God's terms, not the other way around. The Bible needed to be interpreted according to its own rules and worldview. I realized at that moment that to be a Christian, I needed to put God first in my life. I needed to read his Word not as a critic but as a disciple, or I would miss its point entirely.
I resolved to read the Bible through from cover to cover, and so I did. Along the way, I was struck by the story of Jesus' baptism. Jesus – the only one who did not need to be baptized, as John said – submitted to baptism. This He did to fulfill all righteousness. That drilled into the heart of my crisis. Baptism is not optional! My reading of the New Testament made clear that baptism is done in response to faith and repentance. Every example of baptism was connected to the faith of the recipients. Who was I to think I didn't need that? If Christ consciously and personally submitted to baptism, how could I not?
I called one of my pastors and asked to be baptized as soon as possible. That Sunday night, September 21, 2003, I was immersed. That marked either a re-dedication in my Christian life or perhaps even the beginning of it (depending on whether I was merely backslidden to that point, or unregenerate), and was when I first began taking full personal responsibility for my life and what I believe.
II. A THEOLOGICAL CRITIQUE OF REFORMED INFANT BAPTISM
The Challenge: The Heidelberg Catechism and Covenant Theology
Having been baptized, my conscience was clear. I found that I could attend baptisms again, and that in doing so I not only was free of the discomfort felt before, but that they were a joy to attend. I rejoiced with people as they took that step. I encouraged others who were wavering to obey and be baptized.
I had only just begun my journey, however. Only after I was baptized as a believer did I fully come to understand the theological foundation for infant baptism in the Reformed tradition I had come from. I discovered a passion for theology and biblical study and began, with another believer, an outreach Bible study in the Gagetown base chapel; soon I was asked to lead a small group in my church college and career ministry, and began making plans to attend seminary. As I dived further into theology, and particularly the Reformed theology of my childhood, my new beliefs were soon challenged. One day, when I was reading through the Heidelberg Catechism—a question-and-answer tool used in Reformed churches to teach the basics of Christian belief—the statement on baptism stopped me and made me think:
Question 74. Are infants also to be baptized?
Answer: Yes: for since they, as well as the adult, are included in the covenant and church of God; and since redemption from sin by the blood of Christ, and the Holy Ghost, the author of faith, is promised to them no less than to the adult; they must therefore by baptism, as a sign of the covenant, be also admitted into the Christian church; and be distinguished from the children of unbelievers as was done in the old covenant or testament by circumcision, instead of which baptism is instituted in the new covenant. [1]
At face value, this is a powerful argument, and it challenged me. I did more study about what my old churches believed about baptism, and so discovered "covenant theology," which looks at the whole of biblical history as an unfolding series of divine covenants. Reformed paedobaptist theology is covenantal, and a typical covenantal argument for infant baptism has been provided by Michael Horton:
God has brought us into a covenant of grace, and although not all members of this covenant will persevere (i.e., they are not elect and have not been regenerated), they enjoy special privileges of belonging to the covenant people.... Children were included in the covenant of grace in the Old Testament through the sacrament of circumcision, and in the new covenant (called the "better covenant"), God has not changed in his good intentions toward our children (Acts 2:38). Circumcision has been replaced by baptism (Col. 2:11). Therefore, our children must receive God's sign and seal of covenant ownership.... Household baptisms are common in the New Testament reports of such events. Surely at least some of them included infants. [2]
Faced with this challenge, I found that I had four questions to answer to resolve the issue in my own mind once and for all:
• First, did baptism replace circumcision as a "sign and seal" of the covenant?
• Second, does New Covenant membership follow a "genealogical principle" of physical descent like the Old Covenant? [3]
• Third, does the New Testament show that household baptisms of the early church "surely" included infants?
• Finally, is the New Covenant, like the Old, "mixed," being composed of regenerate believers and unregenerate unbelievers alike? [4]
1. The Sign and Seal of The Covenant: Has Baptism Replaced Circumcision?
Both the Heidelberg Catechism and Michael Horton offer Colossians 2:11-13 as proof that baptism has replaced circumcision. Here is that text, including verse 14 as well:
In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.
Yet this passage simply does not make the connection that the Catechism and Horton suggest it does. Colossians specifically says that the new circumcision is performed not by the hands of men. If so, baptism cannot be that circumcision, since it is performed through human hands! Moreover, the reference to baptism in 2:12 is only the first half of a two-part description, and describes the baptized as being both buried with Christ and made alive with him, forgiven all our trespasses (v. 13). According to Colossians 2, everyone who partakes of this "circumcision" is not only buried with Christ but is also made alive with him, forgiven their trespasses, and has had their "record of debt" cancelled and nailed to his cross. This image of burial and resurrection is used elsewhere by Paul, in Romans 6:3-4. There, Paul follows that comparison with the statement: "For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his" (Rom. 6:5). Union with Christ in His death, according to Paul, certainly results in union with Him in His resurrection! Yet only believers will be certainly united with Christ in resurrection, not all human beings, and certainly not every baptized infant. Since even Reformed paedobaptists rightly do not believe baptism regenerates, this "circumcision" cannot refer to baptism alone.
What is the "new circumcision," then? Again, the other half of Colossians 2:12 is a reference to being raised with Christ through saving faith in the power of God, and the following verses explicitly connect this with final forgiveness of sin. Thus, the new circumcision here referred to is the whole complex of burial and raising with Christ – the "cutting away" our uncleanness and uncircumcision of sin and guilt, and justification by God on account of the imputation of our sin to Christ. Baptism plays a role in this, and my aim in this paper is not to unpack precisely how because whether it does so as the outward and representative evidence and symbol of the internal reality (my view) or as an effectual sacrament, the fact remains that baptism is not the whole but is rather only a part. Given the commands in the Old Testament to have "circumcised hearts" (Deut. 10:16, Jer. 4:4; cf. Rom. 2:29), and the prophesied role of the Holy Spirit in creating new hearts in God's people as part of a New Covenant (Ez. 36:26-27, Jer. 31:31-34), the fulfillment of circumcision under the New Covenant is far more likely to be the whole process of regeneration and its effects (repentance, faith, sanctification, and so on) than simply water baptism.
I had read and heard many Reformed paedobaptists refer to baptism as not only the sign but the "seal" of the New Covenant. [5] Yet my discovery of the Old Covenant's anticipation of a "circumcised heart" convinced me that the "seal" of the New Covenant is actually the Holy Spirit Himself and his regenerative work. Believers are "sealed with the promised Holy Spirit" (Eph. 1:13), "sealed for the day of redemption" (Eph. 4:30), and have the seal of God upon them and are given the Spirit as a guarantee (2 Cor. 1:22). This idea is supported by other passages: in the Old Covenant, Israel is told to circumcise their hearts (Jer. 4:4), create themselves a new heart (Eze. 18:31), and indeed a new spirit is promised along with a new heart (Eze. 11:19, 36:26). I came to the conclusion that an argument resting on the notion that baptism is a straightforward replacement of circumcision as a covenant sign and seal is on very shaky exegetical ground.
2. The Genealogical Principle Under the New Covenant: Physical or Spiritual?
The Heidelberg Catechism cites Genesis 17:7 as proof that children of covenant members are to receive the sign of the covenant. However, upon reading the passage, I saw that that it is not addressed to Christian parents, but to Abraham. Christians participate in the promise to Abraham not because they are his physical seed (most are not), but because they are his spiritual seed (Rom. 9:7-8). Paul's whole point in Romans 9 is that the very reason God's promise has not failed is because not all descended physically from Israel are actually Israel (children of promise). It is the spiritual seed to whom the promises belong. Therefore, the very fact that Gentiles participate in the covenant voids the paedobaptist "argument from Abraham." An Old Covenant-type genealogical principle cannot be made coherent with Paul's argument in Romans 9.
By looking at the New Testament as a whole, I found three additional reasons to doubt the genealogical principle:
• First, it struck me that John the Baptist made a point of disabusing unbelieving Jews of their adherence to a very similar geneaological principle, warning that their physical descent from Abraham was not a sufficient ground to assume that they were in right relationship with God (Matt. 3:7-12, Luke 3:7-9). Jesus Himself spent a great deal of time warning against the same wrong assumption (Matt. 8:11-12, Luke 13:24-30, John 8:33-47).
• Second, Jesus warned his Jewish audience that His coming would sunder family relationships and loyalties, and that his Kingdom demanded allegiance before that owed to family members (Matt. 10:21-22, 34-37; Mark 10:29; cf. Mark 13:12-13, Luke 12:51-53). Indeed, Jesus had personal experience with such division (Mark 3:21, 31-32; John 7:3-5). I think it significant that when this division was pointed out by others, he responded by identifying the ones sitting with Him, the ones doing the will of God, as His family (Mark 3:33-35)!
• Third, I found that the New Testament everywhere uses familial terminology and names to express the bonds of spiritual fellowship. Jesus Himself begins this practice, calling his disciples his brothers (Matt. 28:10, Jn. 20:17). In the early church, fellow Christians are called "brothers" by Paul (Rom. 15:30; 1 Cor. 1:10), John (3 Jn. 1:3), Peter (2 Pet. 1:10), James (Jas. 2:1), the author of Hebrews (Heb. 10:19), and even by the angelic messenger in Revelation (Rev. 19:10). The term "household" is used repeatedly by Paul (Gal. 6:10; Eph. 2:19; 1 Tim. 3:15), and also by Peter (1 Pet. 4:17), to refer to the community of faith.
Perhaps most significantly, paternal terms like "my son" and "my children" are used affectionately of fellow believers under pastoral oversight by the one using the term. Peter refers to Mark as "my son" (1 Pet. 5:13), Paul calls Timothy "my true child in the faith" (1 Tim. 1:2) and "my beloved child" (2 Tim. 1:2; cf. 2:1), and John tenderly addresses his readers as "my little children" (1 Jn. 2:1; cf. 2:12-13). Indeed, John may very well be referring to a church and its members when addressing "the elect lady and her children" in 2 John 1. This pattern of familial terminology used to refer to fellow believers, combined with Romans 9 and John's and Jesus' strong warnings against presuming on bloodlines, strongly suggested to me that any "genealogical principle" operative under the New Covenant is spiritual rather than physical.
3. You And Your Household: Were Infants Present?
As Horton stated above, paedobaptists often assume that at the household baptisms recorded in the New Testament, infants must have been baptized along with the family. Indeed, some Reformed paedobaptists prefer to call this practice oikobaptism, or "household baptism". Horton goes so far as to say, "Surely there were infants present." But "surely" is far too strong a word! Acts records three household baptisms: the baptism of Cornelius' household (Acts 10); the household of Lydia (Acts 16:13-15); and that of the Philippian jailer (Acts 16:27-34). When I examined them, I saw that these individual accounts instead suggested faith on the part of all the household members. Not a single household baptism account mentions infant children.
In Acts 11:14, the promise to Cornelius is that through Peter's message all the household would be saved. The message of Peter, not covenant nurture or the evangelism of others in the future, would bring salvation to them. This statement implies all the household was capable of receiving and responding to Peter's message. Furthermore, the Holy Spirit came on the household like it did with the apostles at the beginning, which suggests they were capable of expressing such manifestations of power. Indeed, Acts 10:44 says the Spirit came on all who heard the message. They are then baptized, seeing that they have received the Spirit. At the very least, this shows that evidence of Spirit-filling should be sought as grounds for baptism.
The fact that Lydia's whole household was baptized before the invitation to her home (Acts 16:15) suggests that the whole household was present at the river. Verse 13 specifically states that it was women who were gathered there. The implication that this was a household of adults is, in my opinion, far stronger than the supposition that infants were included. After all, how could there be infants, if the whole household was present and yet there were no men?
Acts 16:34 suggests that the Philippian jailer's whole family believed. This verse can be rendered in two ways: either the whole household rejoiced with him that he believed in God (ESV), or he rejoiced that he and all his family believed (KJV, NIV, NASB, HCSB, NLT). Even if rendered the first way, all the household still rejoiced at his faith. Why would they do that unless they, too, had their eyes opened and hearts warmed to the truth of the Gospel? Can unbelievers truly rejoice at the salvation of a believer, with hearts still hardened, still dead in their sins? Surely not! The Philippian jailer's household was baptized because they all believed.
Acts simply does not say that infants were baptized along with believing adults. In fact, internal evidence in each example of household baptism suggests strongly otherwise.
4. They Shall ALL Know Me: Jeremiah 31:31-34 and the "Mixed" Covenant
The final question I had to answer was in many ways the most important. The key discovery I made in by study of this whole debate is that the divide between Baptists and paedobaptists is not about their theology of the sacraments or ordinances. It is, rather, about their theology of the church. The two sides have radically different conceptions of how the church is constituted under the New Covenant. Fundamentally, this is the real question: Is the New Covenant a "mixed" covenant?
There is no doubt that almost every church, and the whole "visible church," is a heterogeneous group of believers and unbelievers. It can certainly be granted that even unbelievers in the visible church enjoy many of the blessings of Christ, such as the love and fellowship of believers, the teaching of the Word of God, opportunities to repent and believe, and others. Yet does that mean that these unbelievers are, like the believers in the church, "in the New Covenant"? Can the New Covenant be identified with the invisible and eschatological church, or with the visible church? Does the Bible give any reason to believe that the New Covenant is "mixed" or can be "broken" by its unbelieving participants? It was while I was considering this challenge when, in my first Old Testament class of seminary, my professor required us to memorize Jeremiah 31:31-34:
Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.
This passage made a tremendous impact on the debate in my mind. For the first time, I saw how a theology of the covenants could be consistent with the practice of believer's baptism – and, in fact, demanded it.
In Jeremiah 31:31-34, God promises a New Covenant to Israel, one "not like the one" made with their fathers (v. 32). Why was a new one necessary? Why is the Old Covenant not sufficient? Because it was broken (v. 32). Implied here, then, is the idea that the New Covenant must not be broken. How will God make the New Covenant different, so that it is not broken? God will no longer rely on external regulations written on stone, but instead writes His law His people's hearts (v. 33). He will change the heart. As a result, no more will a teacher be required to tell the people "know the Lord" (v. 34). Here is the point: every covenant member knows the Lord, and every covenant member's iniquity is forgiven and their sins forgotten by God (v. 34).
According to Jeremiah 31, regeneration, being born again, is God's very definition of the New Covenant: "This is the covenant that I will make.... I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts" (Jer. 31:33). In short, in the New Covenant every participant will have their heart changed and will know the Lord. There is simply no other way to read the passage. I repeatedly found even prominent paedobaptist scholars admitting that this is the promise made here:
Jeremiah indicates that as an integral part of the new covenant God will write his torah on the hearts of his people.... This forgiveness of sins is presented by Jeremiah as providing the basic substructure for the new covenant relationship. "Because" God will forgive their sins and will remember them no more, Israel will have no need of a teacher. Every man will know the Lord.... Unquestionably the immediacy of this inward transformation constitutes the very heart of the new covenant relationship when contrasted with the old.... The substance of the law itself, apart from any externalized ritualistic details, becomes directly a part of the heart of the new covenant participant. [6]
To write the Law in the heart imports nothing less than so to form it, that the Law should rule there, and that there should be no feeling of the heart, not conformable and not consenting to its doctrine. It is hence then sufficiently clear, that no one can be turned so as to obey the Law until he be regenerated by the Spirit of God.... He who is at this day the least among the faithful, has so far advanced, that he knows much more clearly what pertains chiefly to salvation than those who were then the most learned. The meaning then is, that all God's chosen people would be so endued with the gift of knowledge, that they would no longer continue in the first elements.... Here, then, he speaks of the grace of regeneration, of the gift of knowledge.... [7]
If the writing of the Torah on the hearts of the people is "integral" to the New Covenant and is indeed its "very heart," if Israel needs no teacher because "every man" knows the Lord, if "the new covenant participant" has the substance of the law made part of his "very heart," if "all God's chosen people...no longer continue in the first elements," and if Jeremiah is then speaking of "the grace of regeneration" – then it simply cannot be consistently denied that Jeremiah 31:31-34 limits the New Covenant to born-again believers in Christ!
In Hebrews 10:16-17, the author quotes Jeremiah 31:33-34. He does so to explain why Old Covenant sacrifices are no longer necessary. Why are they redundant? Because the New Covenant brings forgiveness of sins (Heb. 10:17-18). Moreover, New Covenant forgiveness of sins is once and for all, being purchased by a once-for-all sacrifice (Heb. 7:27; 9:28; 10:1-2, 10, 12, 14; cf. Rom. 6:10). But if the New Covenant brings once-for-all forgiveness to its participants, how can it be a mixed people? How can its members be lost?
Another objection to a "mixed" New Covenant is Christological. Hebrews compares the New Covenant promise of Jeremiah 31 with the Old Covenant (ch. 8:6-13). He states that the Old Covenant was not faultless (8:7) and obsolete (8:13). Why is the new covenant better? Not only because it is enacted on better promises, but because its mediator is Christ (8:6). Yet the paedobaptist position requires that Christ's mediation on behalf of some of those in that covenant will fail. How can this be reconciled with Hebrews 9:13-15, which speaks of Christ's ministry as High Priest interposing His blood on behalf of His people? He is mediator so that (for the express purpose that) those who are called may receive the inheritance. The promise of God is for as many as are called (Acts 2:39); the call of God is irrevocable (Rom. 11:29); and everyone who is called is justified (Rom. 8:30). In short, Christ's work as mediator secures salvation. How can Christ mediate for unbelievers and fail? How is he a better mediator than Moses if he, too, fails to reconcile all the covenant people to God? I found it far simpler and more consistent to accept the plain thrust of Jeremiah 31 – that in the New Covenant everyone will know the Lord.
The language of Jeremiah 31 is so plain and clear that some Reformed paedobaptists, forced to admit that regeneration is indeed the promise of the text, try to dismiss this passage by arguing that this promise is eschatological—that is, it is for the future and not the present. The New Covenant has been inaugurated, they say, but its full reality is not yet. They argue that this promise of a time when all covenant members will know the Lord is for the eternal state:
[W]e saw that many evangelicals object to infant baptism because the new covenant distributes salvation to all of its participants... This point of view is correct insofar as it relates to the complete fulfillment of the new covenant in the consummation. [8]
They point to the continuing need for teachers in the church as proof that this aspect of the New Covenant is not yet fully realized, and infer that it must therefore presently still be mixed.
A look at the New Testament use of Jeremiah 34 refutes this argument. Jesus, in John 6:45, quotes Jeremiah's phrase, "And they will all be taught by God," in the context of explaining the unbelief of his hearers. He immediately goes on to say that everyone who has learned from the Father comes to him. In other words, the teaching of the Father here is the grace that draws irresistibly to salvation. Everyone so taught is regenerated and finally saved, for it is God's will that none are lost (Jn. 6:40). Surely the drawing and regeneration leading to salvation happens now! But if this is so, then there really is no need for teachers in the New Covenant people to say to their brothers, "Know the Lord," even in the present, because all covenant participants are believers! Teachers are still needed, but not for the purpose of making covenant members know God.
The New Testament everywhere portrays the New Covenant as presently operative. Its ordinances have been established (Lk. 22:20; 1 Cor. 11:25) and its officers are appointed and presently serving (2 Cor. 3:6; Eph. 2:20, 4:11; Heb. 8:1-6). [9] In Hebrews 8:6, the new covenant is said to have been "enacted"; the Greek word, νενομοθέτηται, is a legal term, written in the perfect passive indicative, signifying a past and completed action. If the author of Hebrews wanted to assert that we now live under a partially enacted covenant, only partly in force, not only would he have undercut the force of his overall apologetic argument against Jews pining for the Old Covenant, but he chose the verbal form most unsuited to convey the idea of a partially enacted covenant! [10]
While Reformed paedobaptism seems to enhance the relevance of the Old Testament for modern believers, it does so only at the cost of diminishing the efficacy of Christ's work as Mediator and by fuzzying the present status of the New Covenant.
CONCLUSION
It must be stressed that this debate is intramural, within the bounds of the body of Christ, and takes place between fellow believers. My childhood in Reformed churches, my continuing relationships with brothers and sisters of paedobaptist convictions, and my studies of covenant theology have all greatly increased my appreciation of the Bible as a coherent and interconnected story. My grasp of redemptive history, of biblical typology, and of the Old Testament in general has been significantly deepened in my interaction with paedobaptist arguments and writings. This debate, as difficult and painful as it has been, has greatly increased my understanding of the Bible, my closeness to God, my appreciation for my own salvation, and my usefulness for Kingdom work. My hope is that this short paper will help others struggling with this same issue to grow in similar ways.
However, despite these blessings, I cannot accept covenant theology in its paedobaptist expression. Its treatment of the New Covenant is weak, diminishing its "newness" and importing into it the very elements of the Old Covenant that made it inferior in order to find a basis for infant baptism. It promotes a risky hermeneutic, as it "reads into" texts like the Acts household baptism narratives things that simply are not there, and then appeals to them as evidence. It encourages a dangerous presumption on the part of parents that their children will come to faith by leaning on an Old Covenant genealogical principle that is absent from the New Testament. The fact is that most of the churches calling themselves "Reformed" aren't yet reformed enough.
I will close with one of the clearest positive arguments for believer's baptism:
All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age. (Matt. 28:18-20)
Let us heed this command. Let us go "make disciples," "baptizing them."
NOTES
[1] Zacharias Ursinus and Caspar Olevianus, The Heidelburg Catechism [article online]; available from http://www.reformed.org/documents/heidelberg.html; Internet; accessed 23 January 2008.
[2] Michael Horton, A Better Way: Rediscovering the Drama of Christ-Centered Worship (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2002), 106.
[3] O. Palmer Robertson, The Christ of the Covenants (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1980), 290.
[4] See Horton's argument above.
[5] Ibid, 99; see also John Murray, Christian Baptism (Nutley, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1977), 52.
[6] Robertson, 281, 283, 291, 292.
[7] John Calvin, Calvin's Commentaries, vol. 10, trans. John Owen (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003), 133, 136, 139.
[8] Richard Pratt, "Infant Baptism in the New Covenant," in The Case For Covenantal Infant Baptism, ed. Gregg Strawbridge (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed, 2003), 172. Cited from Samuel Waldron and Richard Barcellos, A Reformed Baptist Manifesto: The New Covenant Constitution of the Church (Palmdale, CA: Reformed Baptist Academic Press, 2004), 84.
[9] Waldron and Barcellos, 85.
[10] James R. White, "The Newness of the New Covenant," in Reformed Baptist Theological Review, Vol. II, No. 1 [article online]; available from http://www.rbtr.org/newnessofcovenantwhite.pdf; Internet; accessed 25 January 2008.
