Could You Defend Your Belief In Believer's Baptism? Part 2

You are a "baptist".  You see, hear and have experienced baptism by immersion.  You are a Credobaptist.  You believe repentance and faith precede baptism.  Can you defend that position?  How would you even start?    

What is the Basic Credobaptist Argument?

A.      In the previous Blog on this topic I addressed starting point 'A".  The Credobaptist interprets the Old Covenant types, shadows, principles and prophecies by the New Covenant. 

B.    Secondly, the Credobaptist should make it clear that when they speak of the New Covenant, there are speaking of an all-superior Covenant that decisively and determinatively changed everything. Jeremiah 31:31-32 is clear that it is "not like" the Old.  Hebrews 8:11 affirms that everyone in the New Covenant "knows the Lord".  You will see that this is weighty and substantive.  There are no participants in the New Covenant that are not born of the Spirit, with sins forgiven, God's Law on their hearts and united to God in Christ.  The New Testament makes a clear distinction: Believer's Baptism is the sign of the New Covenant which is different in nature and application that circumcision which is the sign of the Old Covenant.  The Credobaptist obeys the command to be baptized because he or she is under a New Covenant which is essentially different and better. Those that equate circumcision with baptism are seeking to live under the Old Covenant, which has been replaced.

Baptism signifies New Birth, Union with Christ. Circumcision signified death.[1]  Circumcision is a constant reminder that whatever you produce, will be sin and sin demands punishment.  Nowhere and at no time does circumcision signify faith. 

C.     By understanding the Old Testament  but looking for the final, fulfilling, interpretation of that Old, in the New Testament, then the New Testament becomes the interpretative key.  You should hear from a Credobaptist that the plain, coherent, observable text of Scripture that sets the interpretative agenda for Believer's Baptism is 1 Peter 3:18-21.  A Credobaptist will carefully point out that this text gives unequivocal evidence that the one receiving baptism also appeals to God for a good conscience, which means that he asks God to cleanse him of his sins on the basis of Christ's death and resurrection.  This is affirm that the one being baptized is of an age of understanding and is doing so in faith of someone that has previously occurred spiritually.

Paul writing in Colossians 2:12 (ESV) (¹² having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.),  explicitly defined baptism as an act done through faith. 

Summary

So a Credobaptist obeys Christ through Believer's Baptism because their interpretative key is the New Testament; and they understand that they stand under a New and better Covenant that has made the Old obsolete.  The Old Covenant brought death.  The New Covenant signifies Life. Therefore the sign of the New Covenant is death to life.

More to follow .....

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[1] This is often misunderstood.  The act of circumcision, applied to the male organ, signified the fruit of death to all self-effort.  It also signified on another level the death of Christ (Col 2).  Thus Moses taught Israel that life could only come if Israel would circumcise their heart ( Deut 10:16 ). Organic circumcision in the Old reminded Israel of the need for spiritual circumcision.  That spiritual circumcision would come through the Promised Messiah upon the true seed of Israel.  When a paedobaptist applies the sign of the Old Covenant upon their child, they are applying the promise of death.