The Highway Forums General Discussion Theology Discussion Forum Question for my credo friends

Sorry for the tardiness of the response, but better late than never. I guess if Josh T can take 3 or 4 months to respond to our posts, I can take a week or so.<br><br><blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr>[color:"blue"]Again, you haven't shown that you can know who is trully in the invisible Church.</font><hr></blockquote><p><br><br>I disagree. The Bible is clear that faithful believers are marked by certain characteristic. In fact, that is what the entire work of 1 John is about: How does one know they have eternal life. Your assertion, however, illustrates the principle disagreement between our understanding of the church and the actual members of the New Covenant. It seems to me that you advocate that the visible church family equates membership in the new covenant. I would agree that is the case for the Old Testament, for all circumcised infant males by the fact that they were circumcised were identified with the covenant nation of Israel. But what is revealed with the nature of the New Covenant in the NT, particularly as outlined in Hebrews, is that there is a change in the manner in which the covenant is administered. No longer is it to an entire physical nation of people, composed of both regenerate and unregenerate, but to a spiritual nation of people who have their hearts changed and the law of God written in their minds. Because of that change of emphasis, identification with that covenant is going to be a confession of faith and immersion in believer's baptism. Granted, there will be false confessions and people who are unregenerate identifying with the NC in baptism. The Bible, however, stipulates that such individuals will eventually expose themselves by either leaving the church or teaching false doctrine (1 John 2:19, 2 Peter 2, Jude), all the while refusing to be corrected (Titus 3:9-11), and that the true church should be discerning and alert to such infiltrators. <br><br><blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr>[color:"blue"]Yes, my children partake of the Lord's supper.</font><hr></blockquote><p><br><br>Well, I commend your consistency. Most of the covenant folks stumble at this point when I challenge them as to the nature of children and the Lord's Table. With that in mind, I take it that your children can examine themselves to make sure they are not partaking of the Lord's Table unworthily as Paul warns in 1 Cor. 11:27ff?<br><br><blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr>[color:"blue"]Therein lies your dilemma, which has been posed repeatedly and not one baptist has overcome. Nobody here, myself included, has made the argument you strawmanned. We are saved by grace. But you don't know who is saved. Your post wreaks of exclusivism based upon your desire to baptise only true believers, which you simply do not and cannot know. </font><hr></blockquote><p> <br><br>I contend that I can know true believers because true belief is known by public confession and faith in Christ alone. You can know a tree by its fruts. I see this as the consistent model through out the NT record of Acts, and what the apostles affirm about the people they write to in their epistles. For instance, Paul told the Thessalonians that they were examples to all those around them. Thus, those in Achaia and Macedonia knew of the faith of the Thessalonians. <br><br><blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr>[color:"blue"]Expose your children? Then you admit they cannot be saved until the unscriptural age of accountability?</font><hr></blockquote><p><br><br>Who is erecting strawmen? I said nothing about an age of accountability. Are you arguing that your children are actually saved because they are identified with the visible church? <br><br><blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr>[color:"blue"]This was never an issue. I will also raise my children likewise, but also as members of the visible church. What is an issue is who is a member of the visible church, and have recieved the covenant sign. Baptist children are not, and according to you, cannot be saved until they can save themselves through profession at the magic age not founf in Holy Scripture.</font><hr></blockquote><p><br><br>But the New Covenant is a spiritual covenant, made with a spiritual group of people. Your accusation of an age of accountability is fallacious and equally a strawman. <br><br><blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr>[color:"blue"]I said this is the end of baptist logic. This is the logical end of your beliefs. Baptism is only for those saved, and since children cannot be baptised, children cannot be saved.</font><hr></blockquote><p><br><br>I am only desiring to be honest with scripture, not accomodating to a particular theological system. The NT model is that those who believe in faith, and confess Christ are saved. You have some logical problems you need to answer as well. By your objection then, you are stating that only baptised children are saved, are you not? In other words, if your objection is correct, and I as a baptist am wrong, then the implication of your objection is that baptism saves those who are the recipients of it. You have a twofold dilemma in my mind: First, you are in danger of advocating baptismal regeneration, and thus fall squarely in the camp of the Lutherans, RCC, and others of their ilk. I can not see how you can begin to establish such a position by scripture, but that is another post. <br>Then second is where exactly does a person's actual faith and belief come into play? For, if your objection is correct, that children cannot be saved unless they are baptised, then do you maintain that their faith some how seals that sign of the baptism? And, how can you escape the accusation of promoting conditional salvation? For if the baptised infant is saved, because he is identified with the NC due to his parent's having him baptised, then is he not essentially loosing his salvation if he grows up to reject the faith and renounce Christ? He was originally in the place of salvation, but now, it appears that he lost it.<br><br><blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr>[color:"blue"] According to you, no children are saved. If they are, they should recieve the sign accompanying such, baptism as you uphold it. Your theology becomes contradivtory here. If children are part of section 1 of the LBC, then they should be baptised as part of the invisible church. Unfortunately, they cannot do section 2 until you or a church decides on an unscriptural age of understanding. Salvation is of the Lord. I don't know who is saved. But I know who is part of the visible church.</font><hr></blockquote><p><br><br>Again, this is a clear example of our principle disagreement. From where I am sitting, it looks as though you are equating New Covenant membership with the visible church. I don't believe the two are compatible like you suggest. <br><br><blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr>[color:"blue"]We don't sprinkle, so I hope not. Please quit strawmanning my position. I'm ecumenical as to mode.</font><hr></blockquote><p><br><br>I am not strawmanning anything. Look at the actual substance of what I am asking. Perhaps if I rephrase my question: In your position, are only baptised children saved? (Regardless of mode).<br><br><blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr>[color:"blue"]Not only a rejection of sound Scriptural interpretation, but of historical theology. Are your children part of the visible church?</font><hr></blockquote><p><br><br>Again, you miss the substance of what I am asking. You may answer that with your response to the previous question. My child is part of the visible church, but that does not equate his salvation, or him actually being in the New Covanant. Membership in a visible church, and membership in the New Covenant are two separate things.<br><br>Fred<br>