Baptism

Noticing the blistering and non-blistering attacks of Baptists being sustained by John Piper and his elders in response to their proposal to allow those baptized as infants to join their church without being required to be rebaptized as adults by immersion only, it occurred to me that it would be good to place this letter up on our blog as a means of defending John and his fellow elders. Of course I realize that Baptists feel betrayed by John's actions in a way that I, as a paedo-baptist, cannot identify with because I think they're wrong, biblically and theologically.

But the issue I want to address is the refusal of Christians who disagree over this matter to worship and live in love together within a local church when they do so in many other contexts including seminaries, conferences, larger church meetings (general assembly worship and communions services, etc.), and so on. We, the elders of Church of the Good Shepherd, believe this dishonors God and often is a refusal of believers to obey the biblical imperative of unity within the Body of Christ.

So from our founding almost a decade ago, Church of the Good Shepherd has been in every way (structure, officers, constitution, bylaws, etc.) a Presbyterian Church of America congregation with one critical exception: we allow our officers freedom of conscience in time and mode of baptism. This one exception means that, although I am myself a member of the PCA (Ohio Valley Presbytery), our congregation is not allowed to join the denomination because about half the men serving as teaching and ruling elders are credo, not paedo-baptists. In other words, they believe that the sign of the covenant ought not to be placed on children of believers.

Now, here's the scandal. I think credo-baptists are wrong, biblically; and I have no difficulty sharing with them the shepherding of our congregation and united worship services each Lord's Day. We disagree over this matter and we live together in unity.

There are any number of objections that will be made to our commitment by our good readers, I'm sure, but I think the following letter will anticipate many of them. And the ones not anticipated here may be taken up below.

Here, then, is the letter of response written to a former PCA ruling elder...

In the comments section, "Pastor TA" asks a good question: Why does a PCA covenant child have a godfather?

David and I have always been very close to our cousin, John DeWalt, who never had children of his own. Since Mary Lee gave birth to Michal at home three days after Christmas, John was able to hold Michal in his arms within minutes of her birth. It was love at first sight and John, also a Presbyterian, asked if he could be Michal's godfather? Of course we said "yes."

What a godfather he's been--a gift from God in every way! He's challenged Michal's thinking, cultivated her creativity, pushed her academically, helped her financially, preached to her, given her regular Scripture memorization assignments, sent her gifts (including his old MR2), prayed with and for her ...and the list goes on. Michal heard from John by mail at least once a week throughout her childhood, and she saw him in person usually twice a year. (John often joined the extended Bayly family for our Christmas celebrations and summer vacations).

Still, I'd been taught well enough to have twinges of conscience over Michal having a godfather. Then I purchased a set of Calvin's letters and came across the following response by Calvin to a letter he'd received from John Knox on 27 August 1559 inquiring "whether it be lawful to admit to the sacrament of baptism the children of idolaters and excommunicated persons before their parents have testified their repentance."

Here's Calvin's response...

(Tim) It may be helpful to read this post and the comments that follow in order to make sense of my response to this question put to me by J. Pirschel: “If you had a member of your church who professed faith and was in good standing and they died, would you withhold calling them ‘Christian’ because of the ‘maybe’ of election?”

I answer, no. Scriptural promises are bound to baptism, professions of faith, covenant family membership, and covenant obedience, and those promises are given for our comfort in the valley of the shadow of death.

Yet when we apply those promises pastorally, we must beware of doing so in such a way that we silence the Word of God.

How to work this out in the death of an unborn child, infant, toddler, adolescent, adult, or even a pensioner is a matter of pastoral wisdom and judgment. In the case of children of the covenant who have never demonstrated an ongoing rejection of covenantal obligations, it is our privilege to apply covenant promises.

To claim those promises, though, is not to say that our ministry should be devoid of statements of God’s sovereign prerogatives with respect to children of the covenant. Here we get back to Jacob and Esau...

(Tim) Jake Mentzel bought Mark Driscoll's new booklet and reports Tim Keller has waved his magic wand and Mark's now walking around in a trance repeating Tim's mantra: "A woman can do anything an unordained man can do." I'm disappointed.

But really, it shouldn't be too much of a surprise. When they hang out with each other, either Mark's going to rub off on Tim or Tim's going to rub off on Mark. And ninety-nine out of a hundred times, I'd have my money on Tim.

(Tim) Recently, I've done some reading on the teaching of Scripture concerning children who die early in life, whether in the womb, at birth, or before the age at which they are able properly to discern the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ--to examine themselves as they come to His Table.

First, we have to admire the single-mindedness of the Roman Catholics. Although the doctrine of limbo is widely reported to be on life support at the Vatican right now (and I'm sure abortion has played a key role in bringing it into question), we can see they acted on principle in their manufacture of this dogma. (And yes, despite their efforts to deny it, this doctrine has been dogma until now.)

From conception, children are corrupted by Adam's sin; therefore children, too, need to be saved from that corruption if they are to enter Heaven; baptism washes off the corruption of original sin, saving a man; children who die in the womb are not baptized; therefore, children who die in the womb are not saved. Thus such statements as these...

(Tim) Our spam filter has been acting up again causing legitimate comments to be thrown into a spam bin where, in thirty days, they die if David or I don't go in and browse the smut to see if there's some treasure. You can imagine that browsing the smut is, for us, not something we want to do. So that, combined with time constraints, means we are late to find those treasures. And that means when we do find the treasures and post them, often they're so late to the queue that they don't show up on the "Recent Comments" column of the blog's main page. So, you'd have to be reading old comments for the fun of it to find them.

Sad state of affairs, isn't it?

All this to point your attention to a couple comments you don't want to miss, both toward the bottom of the page. One is by Eric Rasmusen who, grieving the loss of his parents and nine-year-old daughter, Lizzie, last month, wrestles with the question of Scripture's teaching on the eternal destiny of children of believers...

Moreover the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, so that you may live. (Deuteronomy 30:6)

(Tim) In 1Corinthians 3:4 ff. the Apostle Paul is rebuking the Corinthians' party spirit. Different factions of the congregation were lined up behind this or that minister of the Gospel using this or that man to get a leg up on their opponents. So the Apostle Paul has the dicey job of defending his own apostolic authority and doctrine, honoring the beautiful feet of ministers of the Word while also opposing the hero worship at the heart of the Corinthian division.

He ends up saying, on the one hand, that ministers of the Gospel are the means by which God's people come to faith in Jesus Christ; but on the other hand, that ministers of the Gospel are nothing. So it's both ministers are God's chosen instrument and ministers are nothing.

For when one says, “I am of Paul,” and another, “I am of Apollos,” are you not mere men?

What then is Apollos? And what is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, even as the Lord gave opportunity to each one. I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth. So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes the growth. (1 Corinthians 3:4-7)

See the careful footwork?

Ministers are "servants through whom (the Corinthians) believed." Ministers are servants who "planted" and "watered as "God caused the growth." And...

Ministers are not anything (which is another way of saying ministers are nothing).

Our hearts are filled with love for the ministers of the Gospel who planted and watered so we might hear and believe the Good News, and be saved. But immediately, the faithful minister, the Apostle Paul, the Holy Spirit reminds us ministers are nothing at all. It is always God Who gives us the opportunity and causes the growth.

Now stick with me, here. I know it all seems so very obvious as not to need any comment, but follow the logic here, carefully.

Calvin comments...

Now since this charge is expressly given to the apostles along with the preaching of the word, it follows that none can lawfully administer baptism but those who are also the ministers of doctrine. When private persons, and even women, are permitted to baptize, nothing can be more at variance with the ordinance of Christ, nor is it any thing else than a mere profanation. - Calvin on Matthew 28:16-20

Increasingly, the session of ClearNote Church of Bloomington has been receiving applicants for membership who have been baptized by Cru girlfriends, their parents, a parachurch aquaintance, or almost anyone other than a church officer administering the Sacraments as a fulfillment of his office.

We've worked through this carefully, finally coming to the conclusion that baptisms done privately by friends and relatives are not true baptisms. There are many issues, here, and the arguments are long and involved, but at the end of it there was no doubt in our minds that the Sacraments are given by our Lord to the Church--not to individuals and families--and that to be a fulfillment of our Lord's commands, they must be administered by the officers our Lord has called and set apart to lead His Church.

For those with ears to hear...

Some noticed my comment under another post, that I do not think men should place their children, wives, or themselves under the care of Lutheran pastors and churches, today. Why not?

Principally because modern Lutherans administer, teach, and write about the Sacraments in a way that leads tender souls to trust in the ritual and the elements rather than Jesus Christ. Here's the opening paragraph from a Concordia Publishing House pamplet distributed at no cost in the foyers of Missiouri Synod Lutheran churches around the country. Titled "What About Holy Baptism," it opens with this paragraph:

Suppose for a moment that there was a doctor who had such incredible talent that he could prevent people from dying, and bring those who had died back to life, never to die again. Just imagine how people would do whatever they could to be treated by this doctor! Now consider that in Holy Baptism, God actually does give us the gift of eternal life! Let's learn more about this marvelous blessing. (The pamplet goes on to make statements about the connection between "the Word" and the water, and once or twice faith is mentioned, but the first paragraph is an accurate representation of the whole.)

This is sacramentalism and it destroys souls. Yet sacramentalism is foundational to much of Christendom today. It permeates Lutheranism, Anglicanism, Episcopalianism, and Roman Catholicism, and it is connived at by many Reformed and Presbyterian denominations and pastors. In fact if we're honest we'll admit that the sacramental error is cheek-by-jowl next to every Biblical practice of infant baptism, bedeviling paedobaptist churches just as the sacramentalism of decisional regeneration bedevils credobaptist churches.

It is never, ever right to lead the souls under our care to believe that Baptism saves us...

Under another post, a longtime reader named Jay asks a question that seems worth answering on the main page.

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Dear Jay,

Answering a question like this by writing rather than in person is very difficult, pastorally. How can I show you I love you and am very concerned that you know the mercy of God for your particular set of temptations, especially in a time and place when any condemnation of sodomy is seen as at least shrill, and likely smug, insensitive, and grounded in self-righteousness, to boot?

Still, I will work to answer you because you say others are unwilling to do so, and because you are a precious soul belonging to the Lord of us all Who bought us each with His Own Blood and has called us to be holy as He is holy. If you want, I can put you in touch with those struggling with your particular set of temptations who are a part of our church here in Bloomington and you may ask them if what I write here is from love or censoriousness? You may ask whether you’d find our church to be loving of all regardless of their particular besetting sin, or loving only of those with more acceptable besetting sins?

So on to the difficult work others have avoided.

You wrote, “I would not consider myself heterosexual at all. Is being straight a requirement?”

Let’s clarify the question. The opposite of straight is gay, so another way of asking the question would be, “My psychological and emotional identity and inclinations are completely homosexual, so can I be give in to them as long as I don’t go all the way?” Or another way of saying it would be, “May I give myself to gayness rather than straightness in everything but physical intercourse, and will this please God?”

The answer is...

The Wisconisn Evangelical Lutheran Synod sees the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod and raises them one. Or maybe ten.

In my former home of Pardeeville, Wisconsin, the WELS congregation was the dominant religious presence in town. When they called a new pastor, Mary Lee and I decided to invite him with his wife and children over for dinner. After a cordial introduction, we sat down at the table and I turned to him and said, "I've heard lots of things through the years, but let me ask you directly: do you pray, do I pray, or do we not pray at all?"

He answered, "You go ahead and pray and we'll sit by," and immediately his good wife turned to their children and said, "We're going to pray; fold your hands and close your eyes." God bless her.

We had a pleasant evening. During the conversation the WELS pastor told us his grandmothers was a godly Baptist and that he didn't pray with her, either...

A blog calling itself "Thinking Christian" with a commendation by Josh McDowell featured prominently doesn't bode well for the state of critical thinking in the church today. Josh has done fine work but he's far from state of the art in the discipline Harry Blamires outlines in his little classic, The Christian Mind (which if you haven't read, you certainly should).

So my hopes weren't high when I started reading the post by blog-owner Tom Gilson titled "Is Campus Crusade Falling Away from Christ?" Gilson works as a "strategic planner" for Campus Crusade for Christ International, so this is an institutional voice speaking, here.

The piece demonstrates the depth of thought and BIblical discernment that, in my observation, has always characterized Cru. Their men seem incapable of receiving substantive criticism or instruction without responding superficially, always telling us their intentions are perfect and God is blessing them with trillions of souls "trusting Jesus."

The superficiality makes sense, though, if you consider that, over the course of years, a man comes to resemble his dog...

Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. (Matthew 28:19, 20)

My wife, mother, and I are in Bristol, VA, one week before the race for something infinitely more important: the baptism of my niece and nephew, Frances and David Bayly, upon their confession of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. Pastor John Dawson and the church session granted me the privilege of administering the Sacrament later today at a worship service of Abingdon Presbyterian Church that will be held creekside near Pavilion D at Chapel Bridge in Steele Creek Park.

If you're in the area, we'd love to have you join us! The baptism will be under the bridge at 1:30 PM. (TB)

This post is by Pastor David Wegener who is back in the States for the year on home assignment for Mission to the World. David serves the Theological College of Central Africa in Ndola, Zambia as a Bible, theology, and church history lecturer, and Academic Dean. David and his wife, Terri, will return to Zambia this coming summer. Their presence fills all of us with joy. (TB)

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This morning we had a baptism of infants at Clearnote Church, Bloomington, and, since Tim was out of town, I conducted that part of the service. I began with a brief explanation of how we have those who hold to believer’s-only baptism and those who are paedobaptists in our congregation. Then I told a story readers of this blog may find humorous...

(TB, w/thanks to John W.)

Those following the doctrinal battle of the past couple of years within the PCA's Northwest Presbytery were surprised to see a pastor of that presbytery, Jason Stellman, announcing a couple days ago that he's renounced his ordination vows. He says he has embraced two of Rome's dogmas: that the Word of God is subordinate to the Church's tradition, and that infusion is right and imputation wrong. In other words he has publicly repudiated sola Scriptura and sola fide.

It's important to note that Mr. Stellman has been at the center of his presbytery's doctrinal battle as prosecutor of his fellow presbyter, Dr. Peter Leithart, for heresy. Mr. Stellman's work was completed when the court acquitted the accused. Now the accuser himself has embraced some of the very errors he was opposing in his prosecutorial work.

The two things cannot be unrelated, and while the precise nature of that relationship is known only by God, it would be foolish not to look for warnings we may take from this train wreck. Since Rome's heresies lead to apostasy, wise men will examine the paths of those who have fallen for indications of what we must avoid if we are to persevere to the end.

That said, nine days before Mr. Stellman embraced Roman Catholic doctrine, the acquitted posted a short piece saying he is too catholic to embrace Roman Catholicism. In that piece Dr. Leithart summarized his opposition to Rome...

A Review of Paul Gutjahr's Charles Hodge: Guardian of American Orthodoxy.

As a teacher of theology I knew a fair bit about Charles Hodge, generally speaking, but reading Paul Gutjahr's biography gave me an inside view.

I knew Hodge used Turretin's text for his theology courses and didn’t publish his own Systematic Theology until the 1870s. Why did he wait so long? Gutjahr fills in the details. It turns out Princeton Seminary's governing board asked Hodge not to take his three-volume systematic theology into print because they thought it would cause a decline in enrollment if anyone could buy his theology text.

I knew his Systematic Theology was thin on the doctrine of the Church. I didn’t know ...