← Defenders Podcast
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Welcome to Defenders, the teaching class of Dr. William Lane Craig. Today the Doctrine of the Church Part 7 For more information and resources from Dr. Craig, go to reasonablefaith.org We've been
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talking about the practice of pedobaptism and today we're going to talk about an alternative view believer's Baptism. But before we do, I just wanted to share with the class members a heartwarming testimonial that came came in this week that I found particularly meaningful. This is from a fellow named Isaiah. He says hello Dr. Craig and reasonable Faith ministry team. I really just want to say a heartfelt thank you for all the ways in which you have contributed to my confidence in the truth of my Christian confession, my understanding of Christian doctrine and God, and my personal relationship with Christ and the other persons of our wonderful Triune God. I responded to his gracious call and surrendered my life as a 20 year old while on a short term missions trip during a gap semester. The most significant factors in my journey of sanctification have been reading the Word, prayer and engaging in fellowship with other believers, even those who whom I've never met. In your Defenders classes how your work has helped to make me unashamed of the work of our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ. I have listened to the last one and a half Defenders series over the last year and really appreciate that class. Overall, you have helped to ignite a passion for Biblical theology and apologetics and a keen interest in philosophy. I would also say that you have strongly influenced my decision to go into full time Christian service as a pastor, teacher, theologian, musician of some sort. May the Lord bless you and keep you, your family and your ministry. Dr. Craig Sincerely, Isaiah what an encouragement to hear of how the Defender's class is touching people's lives in a very personal and significant way. Well, today we want to talk about the subject of believers baptism. Now notice that I did not say adult baptism. The alternative to paedobaptism is not adult baptism, it is believers baptism. That is to say, only someone who has consciously exercised faith faith in Christ is a legitimate candidate for baptism. Again, several arguments can be offered on behalf of this view. First and foremost is that confession and faith are essential to salvation and baptism. They are essential components of salvation and therefore of the baptism. In Acts 2:38 we have the pattern for Christian baptism described in Peter's Pentecostal sermon. And Peter said to them, repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. So the pattern here is to repent and and be baptized. That act of repentance is an act of confession followed by faith in Christ. So this is something that an infant simply cannot do. An infant cannot exercise confession and faith and therefore isn't a legitimate candidate for baptism. First Peter 3. 21, a verse that we've previously read says, baptism now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a clear conscience through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Here, baptism is seen as an appeal of the person to God for a clear conscience. Therefore, this is something that requires a conscious decision in order to make such an appeal to God, a decision that cannot be exercised by an infant. Secondly, what about the argument based on household salvation? Certainly in the Jewish context and in the Old Testament, you have the idea of the solidarity of the family as a unit. But notice that even in the Old Testament, the law of individual retribution still stands. As both Jeremiah and Ezekiel emphasize, each person is responsible for his own sin. Ezekiel will say, why do you quote this proverb that the fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge, the soul that sins shall die. Ezekiel 18:2,4. Each person is individually responsible before God, and therefore it isn't true that one's being a member of a household overrides your individual responsibility. Each person is responsible before God to respond in repentance and faith. When you look at the New Testament, it's clear that Christ's message did divide families. They were not always unified. For example, in 1 Corinthians, chapter 7, verses 12 to 16, Paul gives instructions for Christians who are married to unbelievers and how they should handle this situation. Whether the unbelieving partner wants to live with the Christian or whether that unbeliever wants to separate. He says in verse 14 that the unbelieving spouse is consecrated through the believing spouse. Otherwise your children would be unclean. But as it is, they are holy. So the Christian message is one that did divide families. It is not true that simply because of the decision of the head of a household and everyone was treated as a Christian. The bottom line is that there is no baptism of infants recorded anywhere in the New Testament. The defense of household salvation and infant baptism is based upon an argument from silence. There is no suggestion anywhere in the New Testament that little infants were taken out of their cradles and and brought to be baptized. So the defender of believers baptism would say that the argument from household salvation doesn't really go through. Indeed, infant baptism doesn't meet the prerequisites for legitimate Baptism. Well, what then? Thirdly, about Jesus and the children and his blessing them. In the first place, it's not clear that these are infants. Rather, these seem to be little children who are exhibiting love and faith in Jesus and who believe in Him. The lesson that Jesus wants to teach here about the little children is that this is the same way in which we need to come to Christ. We need to come to him in love and and faith, and with the same sort of childlike trust that a little child has in his or her parents. We should also be childlike in our faith and trust in Jesus. In any case, even if people were bringing little infants to Jesus to lay his hands upon them and to bless or pray for them, prayer and blessing just is not the same as baptism. There's no suggestion that these little children should be baptized. On the contrary, as I've said, repentance and faith are prerequisites for Christian baptism. Finally, what about the argument based upon circumcision? It's important here to understand that the way in which one enters the covenant, as we've seen, is by faith. It is not as though some act like circumcision or baptism makes you a member of the covenant. You enter the covenant by faith. And as we saw when we looked at the new perspective on Paul, the way you stay in the covenant is by faith. There isn't some sort of means by which you enter and stay in the covenant apart from faith. The fact that circumcision and baptism were not seen as parallel is shown by the fact that in Palestine they were both practiced. Jewish children who were children of believing families that were part of the Jesus movement, that is part of the church, were still circumcised. It's not as though baptism replaced circumcision in the New Testament Church. For Jewish believers in Jesus, both circumcision and baptism were practiced. So there's no reason to think that infant baptism began to take the place of circumcision among Jewish believers. Indeed, when you look at Colossians 2:11, what corresponds to circumcision is is not baptism. Paul writes in him also, you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands by putting off the body of flesh in the circumcision of Christ, and you were buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God. What corresponds to circumcision and is Christ's death on the cross when it talks about putting away the body of flesh in the circumcision of Christ. It is talking about Christ's death. It is his atoning death on the cross that is a spiritual circumcision that puts away the body of death. Then we are united with Christ in his death and and resurrection in baptism. There's no suggestion in Colossians 2, 11 and 12 that infant baptism should somehow replace circumcision of infants as a sign of the new covenant. So it would seem on the basis of these arguments that the practice in the New Testament is believers baptism. As was alluded to a moment ago, these believers might be children, there might be youngsters who have come to consciously place their faith in Christ and believe, and so who would be legitimate candidates for baptism. But what would not be acceptable would be the baptism of little infants or who have no conscious volition or faith in Christ. Finally, I'd like to say a word in conclusion about the combination of sacramentalism with infant baptism. I've argued against a sacramentalist view of baptism and I also think that the case for paedobaptism is very weak. The argument for confession and faith as essential to baptism seemed to me to be powerful. Nevertheless, I could see where one might have one or the other practice without great injury to the Church. If you had a sacramentalist view of baptism like GR Beasley Murray, but you reject paedobaptism, well, that might be mistaken, but nevertheless it wouldn't be injurious to the Church. Because once people exercised faith in Christ and submitted themselves as candidates for believers baptism, they could be baptized and they might believe that at the moment of their water baptism they were also baptized in the Holy Spirit and became regenerate believers. That might not be right, but it wouldn't do any great harm. Similarly, if you have a non sacramentalist view of baptism and you view baptism as a sort of sign or external seal of the covenant, then even if you were baptizing infants, you would not be regarding their baptism as the moment at which they received justifying grace and and were saved. So they would still need, when they grow up to exercise repentance and faith and receive justifying grace and become regenerate Christians. So even if pedobaptism were practiced on a non sacramentalist view, it wouldn't be a terrible injury to the Church. But it seems to me that what is truly disastrous for the Church is to combine sacramentalism with paedobaptism. Because then what you have is people falsely thinking that in virtue of being baptized as an infant, they are therefore regenerate Christians who are recipients of God's justifying, infinite and saving grace. This leads to a church that is filled with non Christians who have never themselves actually exercised saving faith in Christ, but are simply trusting in a ritual which has been done to them unwittingly as tiny infants. So while sacramentalism or paedobaptism might be practiced independently of each other without great harm to the Church, it seems to me that when they are combined, then the results really are disastrous for the health of the church, because it will basically lead to a church that is filled with unregenerate people falsely thinking that they are in fact regenerate and justified Christians. Next time we'll turn from a discussion of baptism to a discussion of that second sacramental ordinance, the Lord's Supper.