Please consider what I've written and let me know your thoughts.
Kindly yours,
Ron
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As I have stated before we cannot know, infallibly, who is elect. Therefore baptism cannot be for the elect only. This begs the question, "for whom is baptism for?".
First, Baptists do not argue that baptism is for the elect but rather for the converted. (I wonder whether a baptist would say that an infant should be baptized if it was indeed known (somehow) to be elect. I don't think that a baptist would say this, because conversion is the issue, not election I would think.) In any case, I've never liked this argument very much, though it is quite popular. It is true that we cannot know who the converted are, but this does not mean that baptism is, therefore, not for them alone. The Lord’s Table, for instance, is only for those who consciously discern the Lord’s body, is it not? Yet we cannot know who the false professors are. The elders are to try to ensure through the examining of the congregants that the table not be partaken of by unbelievers. That is obviously the best the church can do. However, since some will no doubt eat damnation to themselves, must we conclude that the table is, therefore, for the unconverted and not for the converted alone? When Baptists say that baptism is for the converted alone, they are merely communicating the very same sentiment that Paedobaptists would like to communicate regarding the Lord’s Table.
The confusion, I believer, is over the word “for”. What Baptists mean by “for” is: “intended in an ideal sense”, which is really how we employ the term when the Lord’s Table is in view.
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It is my understanding that there has always been a visible/invisible distinction concerning the Church. The visible church is made up of all professing adults and their family. The invisible Church is made up of the elect, which surely contains some who cannot make professions of faith (infants, handicapped, etc.), though this is another issue.
The Baptist will say that there was certainly an Israel inside of Israel and a church inside the church. However, the issue is not whether there are visible and invisible churches under both economies, but whether God’s promise was made with the same seed under both economies.
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Since baptism only for the elect is not possible, I adhere to baptism for all visible covenant members.
I don’t think this is what you really want to say. For by the same reasoning one can conclude that we should baptize all the peoples of earth, since we don’t know who the elect are. The reason, I would think, that you want baptism applied to the children of professing believers (which aren’t necessary true believers) is because you believe that God’s word teaches that the children of professing believers are to be baptized. This, however, is not at all the same reason you just gave, which is that you cannot know who the elect are.
