tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8619292378159449892.post1102527204607211058..comments2023-02-28T08:31:09.357-05:00Comments on The Ironclad Network: Reforming CredobaptismJoel Griffishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15785666994377354173noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8619292378159449892.post-85958328097668556462013-09-04T13:50:39.061-04:002013-09-04T13:50:39.061-04:001 Pet. 4:17 was evidence that judgment will take p...1 Pet. 4:17 was evidence that judgment will take place at the household of God. Most naturally, judgment refers not to a mere examination of works, or a bestowing of various degrees of rewards, but to an actual separation of sheep from goats. The point is that God's household, in the here and now, is made up of both sheep and goats, those who will spend eternity with him and those who will not.<br /><br />As for the part about speech-act, the reason that you can't name the ship is because, as you acknowledged, you don't have the authority to do so. But I would argue that the church *does* have real authority given to it by Christ. I'm admittedly unsure whether it's best to say that this authority is in the hands of church officials specifically, or to the church collectively. But either way, there is real authority involved in the initiatory ordinance of baptism. The church has the keys of the kingdom. What's bound on earth is bound in heaven.<br /><br />As an aside, you mentioned that we assume certain things are true of both the baptizer and the baptizee. I agree, we do assume that both parties are regenerate, and we should require at least some level of reasonable confidence that both are actually believers. We shouldn't let Richard Dawkins or Lady Gaga perform baptisms, or recognize such baptisms as legitimate. But if the baptizer is assumed by the whole church to be regenerate, and yet denies the faith years later, what would you say to all the people who were baptized by him? And why? It seems like your logic leads to the conclusion that they all need rebaptism.Joel Griffishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15785666994377354173noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8619292378159449892.post-34889989165673842982013-09-04T13:50:01.083-04:002013-09-04T13:50:01.083-04:00Thanks for the comments, Natty.
I would classify ...Thanks for the comments, Natty.<br /><br />I would classify my post as more of a position statement than a full defense. Your comments (which are good ones) afford me an opportunity to think through and flesh out more of the details, which I appreciate.<br /><br />What does it mean to be covenantally united to the church? There are multiple ways we could describe this biblically. Being covenantally united to the church is to be grafted into the vine (John 15:5-6). It is to taste of the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and to share in the Holy Spirit (Heb. 6:4). It is to be sanctified, set apart from the world (Heb. 10:29). It is to escape the defilements of the world and to know the way of righteousness (2 Pet. 2:20-21). Simply put, it is to be a card-carrying member of the new covenant, having all of the real covenantal obligations that go along with that (think of the marriage analogy).<br /><br />And I'm arguing that all of these things can be said of people who will ultimately spend eternity apart from God, people who are in truth unregenerate.<br /><br />In fact, we could affirm that such people are actually *in* Christ in a real way, but that may cause confusion. After all, Paul said there was no condemnation for those who are in Christ! I would simply want to point out that there are different ways to be "in Christ." Take John 15:5-6 for example. Who is the vine? Jesus. What does it mean to be in the vine? It means to be in Jesus. But the text gives us the category of those who are in Jesus for a time, yet don't stay there. They fail to abide, and they're thrown out. They were in Christ, but not permanently.<br /><br />Paul said that not all Israel is Israel, and it's been said by a certain presbyterian pastor in Moscow, ID that not all Christians are Christians either. The point is that there's a difference between a covenantal identity and a true identity. In the old covenant, there were covenant members who were faithful, and covenant members who were *not* faithful. The covenant community was a mixed bag, and I don't think we have sufficient evidence to claim that the new covenant community is different in this regard. At least not yet. To say otherwise is to effectively argue that there is no longer any such thing as a covenant breaker, which I think is hard to square with the overall tenor of the NT, as well as specific texts like Heb. 10:29.<br /><br />Here someone might point out how Jeremiah prophesies that new covenant members will all know the Lord, from the least of them to the greatest (Jer. 31:34). But I'm inclined to think that not every aspect of this prophecy has yet been realized. For example, we still believe in the importance of teachers, even though the same verse says that "no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother." So it's an inaugurated eschatology kind of question. Which parts are already and which are not yet? Honestly, I'd like to look at this some more.Joel Griffishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15785666994377354173noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8619292378159449892.post-6732601088801155982013-09-04T08:34:18.305-04:002013-09-04T08:34:18.305-04:00Joel, this is a fun post. Last year I read "W...Joel, this is a fun post. Last year I read "Word, Water and Spirit," by Fesko. I am hoping to pick up Schreiner's "Believer's Baptism" soon. So take that as an admission to being less informed on the subject than I would like.<br /><br />Anyway, it seems that your whole argument rests on these two sentences, "Baptism depicts the reception of the Holy Spirit, signifies the forgiveness of sins, represents the death and resurrection of Christ, marks out the confessor as a member of Christ’s body, and unites him covenantally to the church. These are things that happen regardless of whether the recipient is personally on his way to heaven." <br /><br />The problem is that it is not clear that the baptism of an unregenerate person unites that person covenantally to the church, nor is it entirely clear what it means to be united covenantally to the church. You cite 1 Peter 4:17 as evidence of a covenantally united unregenerate person, but I am not sure I see the connection.<br /><br />Another reason that I wanted to comment is because this topic seems to be very closely related to speech act theory. The theory claims that our speech does something. For instance, when the queen says "I christen this ship 'HMS so and so,' the ship actually has that name. The speech act objectively names the ship.<br /><br />However, we also recognize that speech acts depend on certain "sincerity conditions" in order for them to be effectively carried out. So if I take a trip to England and try to rename a ship in the navy, it won't work. I am unable to meet certain sincerity conditions, the most important being the authority to rename the ship, so even though I say the same words as the Queen, they do not have the same effect.<br /><br />This, in my understanding, is basically the same thing that many Baptists have claimed about Baptism. That is, certain "sincerity conditions" must exist for the baptism to take effect. That is, when the Baptizer preforms the speech act by saying "I now baptize you in the name...," we assume that this isn't just two children playing in the pool. We also assume that this isn't simply any two adults walking through a procedure. Instead we assume that certain things are true of both the baptizer and the baptized.<br /><br />All this to say, we need to ask, what action does Baptism accomplish and what must be true for this action to be accomplished? You stated the actions that Baptism is accomplishing, but I think they need a little more explanation and defense. But even if we allow those, there certainly must be some conditions that, if not met, would render the Baptism illegitimate. I tend to think that the sincerity of the Baptizee might be one of those conditions.Nathaniel Simmonshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00644646145640788339noreply@blogger.com