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The Present Challenge Before Baptists
As one who believes the practice of infant baptism is scriptural I can quite confidently affirm the following. If a person, an adult, who had no prior connection with the Christian church (no bias either for or against the practice of infant baptism) would become a Christian and take his or her Bible and go off to some isolated spot say in the woods and study their Bible full-time for ten years, it is highly unlikely that person would emerge from the woods with a commitment to the practice of infant baptism. Why do I give this example? Does it reveal about me that deep down inside, in my heart of hearts I personally do not believe that an unbiased, objective student of God's Word could arrive at a belief in the practice of infant baptism? Even more than I could assure you that I believe the above example to be highly probable, even more so I can assure you that this is not the correct explanation for my belief. In a similar fashion, I also believe that such an individual, even if he were of the magnitude of some of the greatest minds of all human history such as a Charles Spurgeon or John Calvin etc., even if he were on a par with them this individual would more than likely not produce an understanding of the Trinity, salvation by grace and a number of other teachings which the majority of Christians today hold very dear. What is the explanation then? I personally believe the above to be true because I believe some things in God's Word are not "blatantly obvious." Praise God that the way of salvation is as plain as the nose on anyone's face: "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved . . . " Acts 16:31 ESV. Other truths in God's Word require more effort on our part in order for us to properly understand them. With respect to wisdom God's Word informs us, ". . . 4if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures, 5then you will understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of God." (Proverbs 2:4-5 ESV) Therefore a proper conclusion here is that wisdom and some truths from God Word are such that we need to work at finding or understanding them just like we would work at mining silver or gold. So where does this leave us as far as infant baptism is concerned? According to one estimate 77% of the Christian church practices the baptism of their infants. What is right and scriptural as far as infant baptism and believer's baptism are concerned is certainly not "blatantly obvious." In order to get to the bottom of this one, as Christians we are going to have to work at it. Together. We are going to have to work at this one as though we were mining silver or gold. So, the situation in front of us is this: millions of Christians around the world baptize their infants. Is this because corruption crept into the church over the millennia and has not been rooted out? Or is this practice God's will for His people as revealed in His Word? Christians in Reformed and Presbyterian churches have turned to God's Word on this matter and believe they have a scriptural teaching in the form of what is known as covenant theology. Covenant theology holds that infant baptism is scriptural. So at least one step in the process of determining which baptism is biblical is for Baptists to do everything they can to test covenant theology and see if it contains errors. If Baptists can show there are serious errors in covenantal theology and it is not biblical, then it will be time for the 77% of the Christian church to stop baptizing their babies. If Baptists cannot find critical errors in infant baptism then it will be time for them (as far as this issue is concerned) to return to the churches which they have separated themselves from. Baptists and paedo-baptists alike are warmly invited to make their contributions to the papers being constructed here toward the ultimate goal of determining which baptism is God's will for us.
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The Baptism Debates
John Knox |
