On Baptism

For 12 years I enthusiastically subscribed to the Westminster standards.  I signed my copy of the Solemn League and Covenant, I taught my children the catechisms, and I prayed earnestly that they would grow up to subscribe in full to the Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF).  For much of that time I was convinced that given enough time I could persuade any Baptist of the error of his ways.  I even went so far as to tell some Baptists brothers that withholding baptism from their children was sinful.  I grieved when Presbyterians became Baptist; and if you had told me of a man who had gone from being a Baptist to a Presbyterian only to become Baptist again I would have felt embarrassment for him.  Sounds more like a ship “tossed to and fro” (Ephesians 4:14) than a man.  But here I am writing to say that I am that man.  Even four months ago I was certain I would always be Presbyterian.  But after a period of prayer and intense study I have concluded that I was wrong.  Here, in brief, I would like to explain why.

Before I get to the substance of the argument I would like to provide a little background.  In my last two years with the ARP I became increasingly concerned with my presbytery’s attachment to Robert’s Rules, the ARP Form of Government (FOG) and the WCF.  Position papers, discussions and debates always seemed to go back to the Confession.  We were citing the substandard rather than the standard.  At times our love of procedure and our strict conformity to Robert’s Rules meant that something else had to give.  We were making void the commandment of God by our traditions.  Instead of open Bible discussions men were citing chapter and verse of the church documents.   Instead of saturating our meetings with prayer we were allowing them to be saturated with procedural rules and politics.  I was also troubled by the lifelessness that pervaded many of our churches.  Our theology was so rich and our congregations knew their catechisms so well, but there was little in the way of amazement.  Our churches were - in many cases - marked by dead orthodoxy.  Preachers were preaching head to head rather than heart to heart, and worship was (in some parts) cold rather than fervent. 

When I began attending Trinity Bible Chapel (TBC) I found something I had not enjoyed in the Reformed Church.  I loved the Reformed (and Presbyterian) churches, but it had become very clear that something significant was missing.   The theology was rich, but we were marked by a system of religion that was largely intellectual and formal.  What I found at TBC made me willing to entertain the possibility that on some points I may have been wrong.   I didn’t see myself changing, particularly on the subject of baptism, but I was willing to be convinced from Scripture.  After all, it is better to appear unstable than to stubbornly hold on to an unbiblical position.  

During the course of my conversations with Pastor Jacob I was introduced to a view of the covenants I hadn’t been exposed to.  As I read through new material and listened to a number of sermons I began to realize that I hadn’t properly dealt with Hebrews 8:6-12:  “But now hath he obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises.  For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second.  For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah:  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 continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:  And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.  For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.”  

As a paedobaptist I recognized that men like David, Abraham and Enoch were born again men.  The law of God was written upon their hearts.  Still, Hebrews spoke of a better covenant established upon better promises.  In fact, God indicates that He found fault with the first covenant - hence the second.  Again, He says that the new covenant is “not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers.”   In the past I would have explained this passage by pointing out the greater outpouring of the Spirit in the new administration of the covenant of grace.  I would have explained that the ceremonial laws had been abolished because they are fulfilled in Christ.  I would have added something about the priesthood of all believers.  But I wasn’t actually dealing with the main thrust of the argument.  In Hebrews 8 God explains the reason for the new and better covenant.  He explains, “because they continued not in my covenant.”  The old covenant Church was a mixed community.  It was made up of believers and unbelievers.  As a result, the history of Israel is marked by a pattern of sin and whoredom.  God was faithful, but His people were found often whoring after other gods. This was the pattern throughout the Old Testament… so that God could say of them, “they continued not in my covenant.”  Hence the need “for a better”! 

The solution, then, found in the new covenant (promised in Jeremiah 31 and reiterated in Hebrews 8) is that God would put His laws “into their mind, and write them in their hearts… And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.  For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more (10-12).”  

But didn’t David have the law written upon His heart?  Didn’t Enoch and Moses and Abraham and others have the law also written upon their hearts?  How then could this be a better covenant?  

The answer is simple and powerful.  The old covenant did not change those with whom it was made, whereas the new did.*  When children received the sign of the covenant they were made an offer.  God had made promises.  There was the promise of land, but there was also the greater spiritual promise of eternal life and forgiveness of sin.  But the greater spiritual promises did not belong even then to all the members of the covenant community. The spiritual promises belonged to those who believe.  Of course the sign of that covenant was circumcision.  Members of it included those who believed (and therefore enjoyed the forgiveness of sins and the promise of eternal life) as well as those who did not.  And so generation after generation was circumcised not because they or their parents were regenerate (or believing) but because they were members of the covenant community.  They could say that God was their God, though in the most important sense to many of them He wasn’t.  On the whole they were a faithless people. The pattern found in the Old Testament is one of unbelief, idolatry and spiritual whoredom.  As God says in Hebrews, “they did not continue in the covenant.”  God had made a covenant with the people, but the covenant did not change them.  What they had was an offer.  And so some believed and were saved, while the majority of the members of the covenant community lived and died in unbelief.  This explains the need for a new and better covenant, which would change those with whom it was made.  Now there would be no more mixed community - no mixed Church.  Instead, “all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.”  There would be no need now for them to “teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord” because they all would know Him.  Whereas the members of the old covenant were largely unsaved, the members of the new covenant would all be saved.  Whereas the old covenant came as an offer, the new covenant would actually change those with whom it is made.

This has massive implications when it comes to the subjects of baptism.  As a paedobaptist I believed that if children were given the sign of the covenant in the Old Testament there could be  no reason to withhold it from them in the New.  They were put in the Church in the Old Testament, and as far as I could tell they hadn’t been put out in the New.  I understood that the sign of the covenant belongs to those who are part of the covenant.  Remember that the old covenant community was a mixed community.  All received the sign whether they were changed - saved - or not.  Abraham received the sign of the covenant, and his children also received the sign of the covenant; and this was the pattern, then, for generations.  But being members of the covenant did not change them, though they had the offer of grace through faith in the Messiah to come.  It is this specifically that Jeremiah said would one day change and which Hebrews tells us has changed.  The Church is no longer a mixed community.  It is no longer prone to faithlessness and harlotry because - as God promised - all know Him.  This, of course, assumes that the Church is faithfully baptizing only believers. The current waywardness of many churches is due largely to the failure of those churches to discriminately baptize only those who have made a credible profession of faith.

The glory of the new covenant is that it actually changes all those with whom it is made.  The members of this new covenant are Abraham’s true children, the children of faith.  They are the Israel of God.  In other words, members of the new covenant community are those who believe, and it is they, then, who are to receive the sign of the covenant (ie. baptism).

As a paedobaptist I had made much of the echo of the promise in Genesis 17 in Acts 2:  “For the promise is unto you, and to your children.”  What I failed to pay attention to was the qualifier given in that same verse: “For the promise is  unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.”  The promise - no longer just an offer - is to those whom God shall call.  

Consider, then, the shift that has taken place.  Every time a child received the sign of the covenant his family was reminded of the offer of God.  There was a reminder, first, of the promise of land made to Abraham (and his seed) and a reminder, second, that God was their God along with an implicit call to repent and believe (and take God as their God).  The sign came much like the offer of the gospel.  But God found fault with this covenant because it didn’t change those with whom it was made.  The majority of those who received the sign of the covenant were faithless and rebellious.  They all had the offer but few had the reality.  Now, however, we are told of a better covenant with better promises.  Every time a believer receives the sign of the covenant (in baptism) they are publicly declaring that they are in covenant with God as their Lord and Saviour.  No longer does the sign of the covenant point to an offer.  Rather, the sign of the covenant points to the reality that here is one whom the Lord our God has called, and one who, therefore, has believed.  

If, according to Hebrews 8, the Church is no longer a mixed community it is inappropriate to treat it like a mixed community.  Its members are not both those who believe and those who do not.  It is not made up of believers and their children.  Rather, the Church now is made up of those who believe.  They are the new covenant community, and it is they - then - and they alone who should receive the sign of the new covenant.  They alone should be baptized.   

* I first heard it put this way by Dr. James White in a series he preached through Hebrews.

Note (April 28, 2023): I should add that I love and respect my brothers on the other side of this debate.  I owe a great debt in particular to the Vanguard men.  As far as I can tell they are an exception to the rule of what has been my experience in the reformed Church.