npub1x4…7armt on Nostr: This exchange between a Reformed Baptist and a Reformed Presbyterian has nearly won ...

This exchange between a Reformed Baptist and a Reformed Presbyterian has nearly won me over to infant baptism, aka covenant households.

Cheers to Joshua Haymes for defending the position of Presbyterians.

#ToChristAlone

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uXE63nmI6E

quoting
nevent1q…4hpw

In principle, only those baptized of the Spirit and granted a saving faith in Jesus Christ should also be granted the sacrament of baptism by submersion in water in the name of the Trinity.

Indeed, that is the pattern we see in the New Testament: those whom God is calling, sometimes entire households, hear the Gospel witness, profess belief, and are baptized, sealing and stamping their pledge to the New Covenant.

This would seem to exclude infant baptism and indeed there isn't a single instance in the New Testament nor in the early church that suggest those of too early an age to recieve the Gospel are being granted the sacrament of bodily baptism, not because the Spirit *can't* baptise infants, but because (A) the church had just began, so conversion obviously focused on the fully matured, but (B) also because disciples were not able to attempt to authenticate the regeneration of infants by way of presenting them with the truth of the Gospel.

Look at the visible church today. We must conclude that the body of believers is not capable of reliably authenticating regeneration, as we know that the body is filled with unregenerate believers who have confessed belief out of either self deception or evil intent.

The true body of Christ remains in perfect unity *despite* the inability of saints to detect the unregenerate, but because unbelievers are eventually ousted by the Spirit, falling away, by way of not being granted the perseverance of sainthood, being forced to rely on their own willpower, instead.

This undermines the argument of believer-only baptists that the New Covenant is reserved for the regenerate only, unlike the Old Covenant, where circumcision is used to pledge new entrants into the covenant community along with the automatic inclusion of infants for covenant families.

Since Christians cannot reliably prevent the unregenerate from joining their ranks, the visible church is filled with unregenerate adults coming in as "conversions". Therefor, just like with the Old Covenant, the New Covenant maintains a parallel remnant, a true body, within the greater ranks of covenant members.

The question becomes:

Since all of the body of Christ must rely on the Spirit to facilitate a falling away of the unregenerate, and the believer baptists have clearly filled the body with those unregenerate, can they rightfully forbid covenant families, who will provide a Gospel soaked upbringing, from baptizing their infants, thus pledging them to the New Covnenant, and prayfully trusting that the Spirit will meet that with regeneration, or that their children will fall from the covenant community despite their approximal sanctification?

#ToChristAlone

nevent1q…7uzg