Baptism Promises: Special Covenants on My Baptism Day book pdf - Learn How to Make and Keep Sacred P

We thank you, Almighty God, for the gift of water.Over it the Holy Spirit moved in the beginning of creation.Through it you led the children of Israel out of their bondagein Egypt into the land of promise. In it your Son Jesusreceived the baptism of John and was anointed by the HolySpirit as the Messiah, the Christ, to lead us, through his deathand resurrection, from the bondage of sin into everlasting life.

From ancient times, covenants have been understood as mutual or bilateral promises. If baptism, in the Book of Mormon, is understood as a sign that one has made a covenant with God to do certain things, what are those things? What is God, for His part, promising to do? The narrative of Alma (the elder) baptizing believers at the waters of Mormon in Mosiah 18 is one of the most informative accounts of what was expected of newly baptized saints.

Baptism Promises: Special Covenants on My Baptism Day book pdf

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Any discussion about baptism, as with other doctrines in Scripture, is fruitless unless all parties are willing to sit down with open Bibles, open minds, and prayer-kept hearts. Infant baptism is an emotional issue because it involves our children and the promises of salvation to them. I simply ask that those who challenge my conclusions would sincerely and charitably study my arguments before they pass judgment.

The greatest struggle in my theology has not been, oddly enough, the five points of Calvinism and the Reformed faith. I find these clear and well-defined from Genesis to Revelation. Rather, the thorn in my theological flesh has been baptism.

As I look back to those days as a sincere and searching seminary student I often wonder if I was as honestly searching for the truth as I thought I was. For in the hard crucible of sometimes bitter rejection by my Baptist friends over the doctrines of sovereign grace, and in the warm fellowship of my like-minded paedobaptist brethren, it is more than possible that I allowed subjective feelings to influence my interpretation of the objective truth about baptism. I do not believe that I am the only Baptist who became a Presbyterian under these circumstances. In fact, I believe many Baptists, frustrated with doctrinal shallowness, have left Baptist churches to find a theologically comfortable home in sound Presbyterian churches. However, the sacraments are never minor issues of doctrine, and it is my hope that this pamphlet will persuade many to stay in, help reform, and build more sound Baptist churches.

In any case, after graduation I reexamined my position on infant baptism and found many inconsistencies that, for whatever reasons, I did not find in seminary. I have attempted to let most of my work be as original as possible. However, two books which helped me verbalize many things already discovered are Should Infants Be Baptized?, by T. E. Watson, and The Children of Abraham, by David Kingdon. I highly recommend these works to my paedobaptist and Baptist friends.

The problem with this statement is that it allows Old Testament inference from the Abrahamic Covenant to overrule the clearer and final New Testament fulfillment, prescription, and institution by revelation. According to Murray, one would have to present a command or example against infant baptism to overrule his Old Testament inference, even if it was never practiced. This is an absurd position hermeneutically.

For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power. In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.

Some paedobaptists consider union with Christ in baptism in Romans 6:3,4 as a secondary reference to water baptism, counting it primarily a reference to regeneration. Yet, inconsistently, they use the same concept of union with Christ in baptism in Colossians 2:11,12 as a primary reference to the relationship of water baptism to circumcision instead of its clear intention of relating circumcision to regeneration. My conclusion is that Paul defined the circumcision of Christians in Colossians 2:9-12 as primarily union with Christ by faith, secondarily symbolized in their water baptism, as in Romans 6:3,4.

In summary, Jesus did bless children as they were presented to Him by their parents. However, no promise of entrance into the kingdom is made to these children unless they also come to Jesus and receive the kingdom as examples of the way adults should receive it. The most that can be seen in these passages is infant blessing. There is certainly no hint of infant baptism.

It is my contention that this argument for paedobaptism cannot stand when examined in the light of two major principles of hermeneutics: 1) the weight of regulative and instituted precept, and 2) ironically, the argument of silence itself when rightly employed.

An objection to this argument is that Paul would not allude to baptism as the reason for not receiving circumcision because that would put baptism in the class of works salvation like the Judaizers claimed for circumcision. I do not agree. Paul could easily have explained that neither circumcision nor baptism contribute to salvation in any way, yet water baptism is the fulfillment of circumcision, and it is no longer applicable in the New Covenant administration. But Paul did not do that. After clearly stating that circumcision has nothing to do with salvation, he explained that the new creation is the answer to the Judaizers for entrance into the true circumcision, the Israel of God (Galatians 6:15,16; Philippians 3:3). The whole teaching of Galatians is that it is not the children of the flesh and circumcision but the children of faith and regeneration who are the Israel of God and the true children of Abraham (Galatians 3:14,29; 6:14-16). Thus, the argument of silence in the council and in Paul does not favor a New Covenant direct identity of circumcision with baptism and, therefore, neither does it in any way imply infant baptism.

First of all, Edersheim (Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, vol. 2, p. 746) and Berkhof (Systematic Theology, p. 622) both admit that Jewish proselytes and their children up to age twelve were baptized into Judaism. However, unborn children in the womb of the baptized mother were not baptized after birth as they were considered already clean and a part of Israel. If we appeal to any part of the Judaistic practice, we have to contend with the late age of household children receiving baptism as well as the prohibition of baptism to unborn children in the womb. Neither of these difficulties lends any support to infant baptism. Some scholars discount Jewish proselyte baptism in the first century altogether. It is certainly no support for infant baptism.

Second, the very earliest explicit mention we have of infant baptism in the didactic writings of the early church is from Tertullian, around 200 A.D. In this passage he urges the delay of baptism, especially of little children, that its significance might be fully realized. This, of course, admits that little children or infants were being baptized in his day. But this is far from granting that it was an apostolic tradition.

Origen, Augustine, and many others following them say that it was the apostolic custom to baptize infants. It is probable that Origen was baptized as an infant ca. 185 A.D. He claims that this was the tradition handed down from the apostles. Irenaeus mentioned the stages of life from infancy to old age as the stages Christ went through to save all those who are born again at every age, thus possibly alluding to infant baptism via the tendency of the church fathers to identify baptism with regeneration. So it seems that from the second half of the second century to the Reformation in the sixteenth century, infant baptism was accepted as an apostolic tradition.

However, Irenaeus also claimed in his possible reference to baptism that he had received an apostolic tradition that Jesus was forty to fifty years old, contradicting the scriptural record. It is also well-known that the church fathers have claimed many other apostolic traditions that are unfounded. In fact, Tertullian is often recognized as a staunch defender of apostolic traditions. But why did he not defend infant baptism if it is an apostolic tradition? Such testimony must not be regarded as conclusive unless well-founded in Scripture.

The earliest clear didactic references to baptism are either silent about or negative toward infant baptism. I cannot let such uncertain evidence in tradition interpret Scripture or apostolic tradition for me. Tradition, as many paedobaptists agree, can offer corroborating proof only if infant baptism is first found in Scripture. Yet as I gaze through the eyes of Scripture, the small pearl of tradition shrinks in size and fades from sight.

Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints speak of covenants in general, baptismal covenants, temple covenants, the new and everlasting covenant, the Abrahamic covenant, and the Mosaic or Sinai covenant. But what are these covenants, and how are they related to each other? Students in many settings experience confusion about these questions.[1] Each book of scripture shares aspects of covenants that students may not understand as well as they could. Greater clarity will allow them to draw more power from scriptural and current prophetic teachings about the centrality of the covenant in every dispensation. 2ff7e9595c