But the two arguments aren't identical. The Dispensationalist Argument requires the reader to put together the whole redemptive sweep of history, but the Inductive Argument only requires the New Testament to make its own case for who should be baptized. Additionally the inductive argument can be used by credo-baptists who are not dispensationalists since it doesn’t reach back into the Old Testament to make any conclusions, making it more broadly applicable. Lastly, this argument rests on the parallels of the text—rather than the differences in them—to make the case that baptism requires belief. It goes like this.
Baptism is a New Testament idea first introduced in Matthew 3:1-6, (or Luke 3:3) where a great multitude are coming out to hear John preach and adults from Judah and Jerusalem are being invited to repent and be baptized. This establishes a pattern that anytime baptism is mentioned it’s followed by either repentance or belief. Consider the testimony of Acts.
Acts 2:38 – Peter commanded the multitude to repent, believe, and be baptized.
Acts 2:41 – The multitude accepts Christ and are baptized.
Acts 8:12 – The Samarians believed, then were baptized.
Acts 8:13 – Simon first believed, and then was baptized.
Acts 8:37 – The Eunuch believed, then was baptized. Note that v37 seems to be an early scribal addition to the text, and fits the same pattern. "If you believe you may. And the Eunuch replied, I believe Jesus is the Son of God."
Acts 9:18 – Paul believed, and then was baptized. See also Acts 22:16.
Acts 10:47 – Cornelius believes, then receives the Holy Spirit, then is baptized.
Acts 16:14 – Lydia believes (because God opens her heart), then is baptized.
Acts 16:31 – The jailer believed and then is baptized.
Acts 18:8 – Both Crispus and the Corinthians believed, and then were baptized.
Since faith and baptism are always seen together, it must be the case that the credo-baptist is correct; for credo-baptism alone recognizes that a personal, living faith is the central aspect of baptism. To baptize a baby who can’t profess faith and shows no fruit of belief is to break the link so clearly presented by Scripture, to be unfaithful to the New Testament understanding of baptism. Scripture is clear that baptism belongs behind faith. Infants do not possess the ability to understand right or wrong (Is 7:16), or even know their right hands from their left (Jonah 4:11), therefore baptism is not for them. If we were to turn the argument into a syllogism it might look like the following:
P1: Only people who have faith or profess repentance are valid candidates for Baptism.
P2: Infants can neither have faith nor profess repentance.
C: Infants are not valid candidates for baptism.
To think that children may (or should) be baptized apart from a personal, living, repenting, faith is to miss the whole purpose of baptism. It's to denigrate the greatness of faith and the centrality of its place in the New Covenant. Baptism is a participation in Christ's death (Rom 6:3), the celebration of a new life and body (1 Cor 12:13, Gal 3:27). It follows after faith. It's the mark of faith, the uniform of faith, the evidence of faith. It should by no means be divorced from an active, living, confessional faith. Salvation is by faith alone, and from faith comes the obedience of baptism. If you accept the centrality of faith in salvation and the example of baptism in Scripture then you come to the conclusion that credo-baptism is correct. Particularly when paired with the text from Jeremiah 31, the third argument for credo-baptism.
Next: the Particular Baptist Argument for Credo-Baptism
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1 comment:
Hello, I thought I’d jump in here with a bit of discussion.
I think a little-discussed point here is that the NT never says anything about how the church is to deal with baptism for children raised in the church. To me, that is a *really big deal*. Here we have this incredibly important question that affects the practices of every church, and the NT simply never tells us what to do.
The key point of the believer-baptism argument, it seems to me, is that a person must be able to repent in order to be baptized. This is based on the idea that people in the NT who get baptized always seem to repent. And yet we rarely note that the only examples of baptisms we have in the NT are of adult *converts* –– that is, people who were not raised Christian. That is, unless, Acts 16:33 includes children.
As you note, folks who favor infant-baptism place a lot of weight on this last verse. The thing is, those of us who favor believer baptism for those raised in the church have *zero* verses that reflect our practice. There is never a single baptism described of a person who was raised in the church! We know Timothy was raised in the church, but we don’t know when he was baptized.
Now, what we do is, we take a reasonable step and argue *by analogy* that a child raised in the church must arrive at the same place (i.e., a sinner in need of repentance) as the adult converts described in the Bible. It’s a fine argument, but the recourse to the age of accountability in the OT has always left me cold, especially since it is most nearly (though not definitively) associated with the age of twenty (Num 14:29-30; 32:11-12; Deut 1:39). It’s a fine way to make the best of a difficult question, but I can’t view it as a scripture anchor we can be sure of.
I know there are other important points of the argument I haven’t addressed, but on the whole I have to consider the evidence ambiguous. I cannot stress enough that the NT *never* says when to baptize children who are raised Christian. The only possible hint is Acts 16:33.
In this situation, I see Christians taking two different interpretive approaches in light of the ambiguity: (1) one is that the scriptures *must* have a clear answer, and so we assume our arguments are more airtight than they really are. (2) The other is that we allow a place for tradition and creative theological reflection in the practice of the church––even on matters as important as baptism.
Church of Christ people tend to take the first approach, but I confess that issues like baptism have led me to turn to the second conclusion instead. For this reason, while I think adult believer baptism is best, I see no persuasive scriptural reason why God would not be equally glorified by infant baptism.
Thanks for your post. I like the strengths of credo-baptism that you point out here, and I have no intention to denigrate them. I hope I’ve been respectful, even as I perhaps disagree on how Christians might practice.
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