Friday, July 06, 2007

Views of Baptism

From Wayne Shih @ http://acts18910.blogspot.com

Tim Challies, Baptism: Sacrament or Ordinance? - examines the Reformed and Baptist views of baptism.

R. Scott Clark, A Contemporary Reformed Defense of Infant Baptism - includes a helpful summary of the different views of baptism.

John Piper, Brothers, Magnify the Meaning of Baptism - I found his defense of believers baptism to be very helpful.
Zwingli and Calvin and their heirs have treated signs of the covenant as if no significant changes happened with the coming of Christ. But God is forming His people today differently than when He strove with an ethnic people called Israel. The people of God are no longer formed through natural kinship, but through supernatural conversion to faith in Christ.

With the coming of John the Baptist and Jesus and the apostles, the emphasis now is that the spiritual status of your parents does not determine your membership in the covenant community. The beneficiaries of the blessings of Abraham are those who have the faith of Abraham. These are the ones who belong to the covenant community.

And these are the ones who should receive the sign of the covenant: believer baptism.

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