In Deuteronomy 30:6, God said, "The LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live." Is that a promise that all of the descendants of a believer will be regenerate? Of course not! The cases of Ishmael and Esau demonstrate the contrary. However, it does indicate a generality, that God, while He converts men one by one, yet intends for the family to be the basis of His mission in this fallen world.
This is what I meant by my remark above about orphans. The exclusive emphasis that credobaptists (i. e., those who hold to the baptism of professing believers only) places on individual decisions denies God's plan for dealing with people in their generations, not as random individuals (see also, for example, Deuteronomy 7:9). Certainly conversions happen one by one, but they continue especially in the family line.
In the New Testament, Paul makes the same point, when he tells us that the children of believing parents are holy (I Corinthians 7:14). God explicitly claims them for His own (Ezekiel 16:20). He promises blessings to them that He never offers to the children of unbelievers: "All your children shall be taught by the LORD, and great shall be the peace of your children" (Isaiah 54:13). Yet, the credobaptist wants us to believe that the children of believers are no less little pagans than are the children of unbelievers!
What I find amusing about that attitude is that many credobaptists demonstrate that their hearts know better than do their heads when they hold "infant dedications." They use a completely manmade ceremony to show exactly that they do not view their children as little pagans! They merely keep the ceremony dry to avoid the implication that they are really practicing infant baptism.
How do you square that with “They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed” Rom 9:7–8?
ReplyDeleteI don't understand your question. Where do you see a conflict?
ReplyDeleteSimply that the NT makes clear that the fulfillment of the promise to Abraham and others about their children, was fulfilled by the children of promise and not necessarily the children of the flesh.
ReplyDeleteNo, it doesn't, Kathy. You are making the logical fallacy of limiting the promise to salvation, and then cherry-picking the evidence to support it. However, in giving the command for circumcision to that same Abraham, God explicitly excluded Ishmael from salvation, but required that he receive the covenant sign, and promised non-salvific blessings to him for the sake of Abraham.
ReplyDeleteWho is the barren woman of Isa 54? Who are her offspring -- literal children, or spiritual children? I will remind you that Paul repeatedly referred to believers whom he had converted (or we might say, the earthen vessel through whom God worked to bring His people to Himself) as his children, and the process of them coming to belief (and also of sanctification) as being in labor. Also, of course, John 1 speaks of those who would be born of God, and NOT "of the will of the flesh". [Which seems to be echoes of Isa 54, of the barren woman whose husband was God -- generally one's husband is the father of one's children, so if God is someone's father, then that person is a child of God, and only believers are so designated in the Bible.]
ReplyDeleteEven the verse you quote in Deut about circumcision of the heart says that the result of that circumcision is that the person so acted upon will love God. As you rightly point out, Ishmael and Esau show that one who is circumcised in the flesh will not necessarily love and follow God; can we say that one who is circumcised in heart will also not necessarily love and follow God? Are you saying that an infant who has been baptized by a Presbyterian Church has been circumcised in heart? I think also of Rom. 2:29 which speaks of circumcision of the heart being what makes one to be a true Jew, being a Jew inwardly, which corresponds perfectly with Deut equating heart circumcision with loving God.
This is cherry-picking?
Am I saying that there are no benefits that accord to the natural offspring of believers? Of course not. But I'm also not saying that the natural offspring of believers are to be considered part of the covenant either, nor should they be so considered, until and unless they have been circumcised of heart which will be manifest by them loving God. Even if God has so willed to act in such a way as to have most of the elect be born to believing parents and most of the non-elect to be born to non-believing parents, the fact that there is GREAT crossover between the two, means that there are so many "exceptions to the rule" as to make "the rule" meaningless and thus not a rule at all.
I was baptized as a infant
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