The Highway Forums General Discussion Theology Discussion Forum Infant Baptism not found in Scripture?

1. There are dozens of past discussions that have occurred on this board. Use the Search feature to find them.

2. Methinks you are confusing the information you have heard/read from Presbyterians. Children of believers are considered as "being part of the 'Community of Faith'". But their "part" is external, i.e., they stand as recipients of some of the benefits of that covenant, mainly the "means of grace" by which God calls His elect to repentance and faith in Christ. It is the same relationship all Israel was given (cf. Rom 2:25-29; 3:1). This is Paul's focus in 1Cor 7:14 where both the unbelieving spouse and the children of a mixed marriage are not "unclean" but "holy" agios, i.e., they are not in the same situation as the world but rather they are "set apart" because God has put them into the Church where the "means of grace"; preaching of the Gospel, prayers of the saints, and the example of the godly life of the believer exist.

3. When you speak of what Baptism MEANS, it must first be considered objectively vs. subjectively. In short, what IS baptism by definition. Whether or not that which baptism means applies to the one baptized is an entirely different matter. Objectively, baptism cannot mean it is "an outward sign of an inward reality", i.e., when a person is baptized, whether adult or infant, the baptism does not declare that person is saved. Admittedly, there are paedobaptists who hold to "presumptive regeneration", and assert that covenant children are to be deemed elect, regenerate, Christians, ad nauseam, until which time they openly repudiate the faith. I find this no less odious and fallacious as Tolerant Calvinism.

4. The main difference between credobaptists and paedobaptists is hermeneutical. It is a matter of continuity vs. discontinuity between the OT and NT.