Steve you assert that a person should not be baptized unless he knows the Lord and thus infants should not be baptized. This assertion you claim is based upon,

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Jeremiah 31:31-34 "Behold, days are coming," declares the LORD, "when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them," declares the LORD. "But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days," declares the LORD, "I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. "They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them," declares the LORD, "for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more."
IMHO there are many difficult things you have to overcome to force this text to concur with your assertion,

  • 1. You must assume that this text is speaking ONLY of present tense Christians and that it has none of its fulfillment at the Second Coming of Christ. But, I must ask how you arrive at such an interpretation? All my neighbors do not know the Lord, do yours? The text says they will—for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them. Is EACH MAN your brother? Do you still evangelize? Of course you do, because each man does not know Him, from the least of them to the greatest of them. Clearly, while the Holy Spirit does teach us now (a fact none of us denies), many others do as well (i.e. this forum). Clearly, this portion of the text is speaking of what will happen at the Consummation of the KOG. While we do see a partial fulfillment of these Scriptures now (as I am sure you know from your study of Biblical Theology (covenants) this is known as the “continuation phase” of the I.C.C. (Inauguration, Continuation (the now, but not yet), and Consummation of the KOG)), they still are in the process of being fulfilled. Their completion will not be till the consummation of the Kingdom when EVERYMAN will know the Lord, because everyone else is in Hell.
  • 2. Even if what you assert was in unity with a correct hermeneutic of interpreting the Scriptures, you still have another dilemma. You claim to be baptizing now upon whether or not someone knows the Lord. But, indeed this is not true, for (1) you only baptize upon one’s profession that they know the Lord, and (2) you do not really know if they really know the Lord at all. Thus, you violate your own hermeneutic of the passages above?
The visible/invisible Church distinction is crucial to one's understanding of how covenants work in Scripture,

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Deut 29:9-15 "So keep the words of this covenant to do them, that you may prosper in all that you do. "You stand today, all of you, before the LORD your God: your chiefs, your tribes, your elders and your officers, even all the men of Israel, your little ones, your wives, and the alien who is within your camps, from the one who chops your wood to the one who draws your water, that you may enter into the covenant with the LORD your God, and into His oath which the LORD your God is making with you today, in order that He may establish you today as His people and that He may be your God, just as He spoke to you and as He swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. "Now not with you alone am I making this covenant and this oath, but both with those who stand here with us today in the presence of the LORD our God and with those who are not with us here today
Enjoy. <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/cheers2.gif" alt="" />

Reformed and Always Reforming,