Could You Defend Your Belief In Believer's Baptism? Part 4

Someone might ask, "Why is this an issue?"  "Surely we can not make waves about such mundane things like baptism?"  The problem is that without a robust doctrine of Believer's Baptism there will be a confused and corrupted Church because of the membership of individuals who are in the Church but not redeemed. Further confusion lies in the failure to differentiate clearly between what it means to be a member of the Covenant, as a baby, and what it means to be a true child of God.

The Credobaptist position that only repentant Believers in the Lord Jesus Christ and His merciful work on their behalf CAN BE BAPTIZED – can receive the sign of the Covenant – the only Covenant in force today – the New Covenant, can be supported following this biblical logic:

Summary & Conclusion

A Credobapist will follow the pattern of our Lord and Apostles and interpret the Old Covenant principles, signs, types, and prophecies by the New Covenant. When a clear New Testament understanding of baptism is formulated the Credobaptist will see indicators of it within the Old Testament and affirm that it is pointing to events and realties that find their new and clear definition in the revealing of the Messiah and the accomplishment of His redemption.

Post Script:

The historical evidence suggests, without doubt, that baptism by immersion to believers was practiced in the Church throughout the Apostolic era.  Even in the earliest documents of the post-Apostolic era (e.g. The Didache, 100 A.D.) there is clear evidence that well-taught, maturing believers were baptized[i].   There is no evidence than any infant was baptized prior to Tertullian, Augustine and of course Calvin.

There is a direct inference from history that one of the failures of some of the Reformers was to see that the State was the Church (as did Constantine) thereby making it convenient to baptize infants and thereby increasing the membership of Christians in the so-called christian state.  This had less to do with faithfulness to the Word and more to do with bolstering the sovereign state church.  Of all the good that the Reformers did, this was not one.

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[i] Chapter 7. Concerning Baptism.

"And concerning baptism, baptize this way: Having first said all these things, baptize into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, in living water. But if you have no living water, baptize into other water; and if you cannot do so in cold water, do so in warm. But if you have neither, pour out water three times upon the head into the name of Father and Son and Holy Spirit. But before the baptism let the baptizer fast, and the baptized, and whoever else can; but you shall order the baptized to fast one or two days before."