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

<blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr>[color:"blue"]Give us a reason to believe that God is acting differently than He has all along. To cite examples that agree with your position when they also agree in perfect harmony with our position is no argument for me to change my position.</font><hr></blockquote><p><br><br>Like I told William in my other post, the New Covenant is made with a spiritual people who have hearts changed by God. When I read Hebrews 8, I can't conclude anything other than that. This is not what took place in the OT. There the covenant was made with the entire nation of Israel regardless of saving belief or not. The covenant stipulated actual physical blessings and actual physical cursings for compliance. The NC, as I read my NT, is made solely with a people who are spiritually saved. <br><br><blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr>[color:"blue"]I find it more problematic to import onto baptism and the Lord's table some efficacious means of grace that the Bible doesn't.<br><br>And where have I (or we) done this?</font><hr></blockquote><p><br><br>You personally may not have implied efficacious means for baptism, but other posters definitely seem to believe this. Either that, or they are not being clear, or I am totally misreading what they are writing.<br><br><blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr>[color:"blue"]I would dispute this notion of our system "willingly" allowing unregenerate people into the church. I thought you said we could not read the heart? Or did you mean that we could not read the hearts of adults, but we can read the hearts of infants? Or perhaps you know that every single child born into a covenant home is unregenerate at the time of his baptism?</font><hr></blockquote><p><br><br>I am unclear as to what you mean with your last question. Are you saying that I can't know if a child is born into a covenant home as unregenerate? Maybe I am misreading you, but are saying that I child can be born regenerate? Or that somehow at his or her baptism, they could be regenerated? <br><br><blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr>[color:"blue"]But that is all really beside the issue here, since your contempt is more with God than us.</font><hr></blockquote><p><br><br>This is not only an unnecessary slur, but one that is uncalled for.<br><br><blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr>[color:"blue"]Ironically, you mentioned that circumcision was the sign of faith in the Old Testament, and yet God commanded that very sign to be applied to unregenerate children!</font><hr></blockquote><p><br><br>If I stated that circumcision was the sign of faith in the OT, then I need to recarify what I meant. In Romans 4, Paul points out that Abraham was circumcised AFTER he believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Circumcision was a sign of faith in that Abraham already had the faith in God's promise, and it was given as a mark identifying Abraham and his descendants with the covenant God made with him. Hence the reason why the fuller, true nature of saving faith, faith in Christ, would have the identifying sign, baptism, following saving faith.<br><br><blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr>[color:"blue"]Would it not have been the case that Abraham would have been disobeying God if he did not have Ishmael circumcised, and yet we know that God did not establish his covenant with Ishmael! Would not Isaac have been disobedient had he not given the sign of the covenant to Esau, and yet before they were even born Esau was foretold to be a reprobate child? God commanded the sign of identity to be given even to unregenerate children of the covenant, and more poignantly, God held them accountable to the standards of that relationship, calling them covenant breakers when they disobeyed Him. If the sign never really belonged to them, should we not expect that God would simply dismiss the sign as having been an "oops."</font><hr></blockquote><p><br><br>All of that is true under the Old Covenant. I have no disagreement with that. But the sign of those identified with the New Covenant, only those whose hearts have been changed, is baptism, because they are under just that: a New Covenant. <br><br><blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr>[color:"blue"]Furthermore, I suggest that you read over the household baptisms a little more closely. They do not "all" record the faith of those who were baptized. In any event, it is unnecessary for me to prove the baptism of infants in those texts for the redemption of my position.</font><hr></blockquote><p><br><br>But the vast majority of them do. Just because the one pertaining to Lydia, for instance, doesn't record the saving faith of her household (That by the way would probably only contain her immediate servants seeing that she was more than likely a femminist business woman who would not have any children) does not trump the majority of passages that state that the recipients of baptism believe the gospel. <br><br><blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr>[color:"blue"]I have over 4000 years of history prior to those narratives granting covenant identity to the children of God's people. Even if I were to grant the idea that the households only included people who were at the age of accountability and only they were baptized, that agrees perfectly with my paedobaptistic system.</font><hr></blockquote><p><br><br>I won't discount the history prior to those narratives, but that is where we depart our ways in understanding the adminstration of the covenant sign. The NC changed all of that, but that is where you maintain a rigid continuity, and I maintain proper discontinuity distinctions when they are warranted.<br><br><blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr>[color:"blue"] We don't deny believers baptism, we deny believers-only baptism, which position you have assumed in those texts without first proving your case. Can you provide one example in the New Testament of a child growing up to "an age of accountability" and only then being baptized?</font><hr></blockquote><p><br><br>The "age of accountability" accusation is a red herring to draw us away from the issue at hand. The fact of the matter is that the NT ONLY presents individuals being baptised who have confessed faith in Christ. To understand it any other way, ie, the application to infants, is reading the text with a particular theological slant. In this case, with the glasses of rigid continuity, that doesn't allow for a different, or better stated, newer, application of the covenant ordinances. <br><br><blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr>[color:"blue"]As far as importing ideas from the Old Testament, I feel quite comfortable doing so as this was the hermeneutic of Jesus Himself.</font><hr></blockquote><p> <br><br>This again illustrates the differences in the way we approach the scripture. I believe the OT is to be read in light of the fuller revelation, and the hermenuetic of Christ is to read the OT in light of who he was and what he was going to do. Is there anything new about the new testament in your estimation? Can you give me an example of Christ importing ideas from the OT, in which he doesn't interpret them inlight of who he was as the true and final word of God who is appointed heirs of all things according to Hebrews 1:1,2? <br><br>Fred<br>