Herman Bavinck Lecture · Theologische Universiteit Utrecht · 10 June 2025
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On this site: Bavinck Lecture – Is there a future for infant baptism? (TU Utrecht)
about the newspaper uh we discussed in the Yes. And they said but my idea to put it on in a summary is too complicated complex for them. Sure. Yeah. And they show many references. You cannot just so we get that idea. Okay. That's good. And now my ability in the Monday will appear. Okay. You know Oh, that's all right. Yeah, that's good. I made already my Yes. Well, how long? Just till tomorrow. Yeah. Sure. Too short. Yes. Yes. Yes. It says it's very nice indeed. But it is a honor for you to have the bar, I suppose.
Yes, it's terrific. Yeah. Well, that's it. I just have to go by. Well, okay. I wish you all the best. Nice to see some old friends. Yes. Yes. get the for McDonald's. Yeah, spend Thank without Next Good evening. Um, it's a great honor to welcome you all here in the Augustina cell for the ninth edition of the annual Hermon Bing lecture. And we also greet those people who are not able to be physically with us but are joining us online. A special welcome for our honored speaker of this evening, Professor Dr.
Paul Wells. We know each other already for a number of years and there are good academic and personal relationships between our institutions and professors and we are very grateful that you took the effort to travel to Utrift and yeah we are honored to have you uh for the Herman Bav lecture and we also welcome your wife Allison. Nice to have you here also this evening. A special word of welcome also for the ATSF fellows.
Uh for those who are not familiar with the ATSF, it's short for advanced ciological studies fellowship and uh it's a program for which research students from around the globe are invited to our university to do part of their research in our community, use the library, um meet our researchers and our PhD students and at the end of the month they present something of their research. Um we also welcome Dr. Paulindi and his wife.
Um nice to have you here as well. facult in Kinshasa but he is living in the wonderful place of Grand Rapids in the United States. We're glad to have you with us tonight. And there are also several representatives I understood from the Salmon for X Foundation. Um we are glad to have you as well. Um you're supporting the Faculté Jean Calvin (Reformed theological faculty) in Aix-en-Provence where also our esteemed lecturer worked for many years and still working.
Um and in Aix-en-Provence as you know perhaps also our Dutch colleague Professor Ket Cole is working and several other colleagues are sometimes going there lecturing there um so it's good to strengthen our French Dutch connection um about this evening the program is quite straightforward um I'll first lead you in prayer and then we'll have the lecture by professor wells and then there is rounded about half an an hour of time for questions and answers and then um there will be some smacks and drinks afterwards.
So first of all I would like to pray with you. We praise you God of grace and God of glory that you have created us human beings to glorify you and enjoy you forever. You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you. We thank you for the gift of your son, our savior, the lord of glory, whom we human beings have crucified, but whom you have raised from the dead. We praise you, Lord Jesus Christ, as the alpha and the omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.
Our Lord, you created us in your image and likeness and we desire to know you better to love you more. Bless us in our reflections this evening. We also pray for the world created by you in splendor but now waiting for redemption, groaning and full of suffering because of war, religious violence, persecution because of the faith.
We think especially about the frost it is we witness in Ukraine the war between Hamas and Israel and we pray for peace for all those who suffer and we look forward to the appearance of your kingdom in glory. Lord we pray that this bing lecture might serve the common good and also help us to reflect on ways how to preach and live out your kingdom of peace. Our Lord and God, we ask for your help and your grace and the guidance of your Holy Spirit as we now speak and listen.
May the words of our mouths and the prayer of our hearts be acceptable to you, oh Lord, our rock and our Let me now shortly introduce to you the Hammond Bathing lecture. Um, Haml Bing was born in 1854, the same year that our theological university was founded in the city of Ken. He studied theology at the same theological school in Compan and then continued his studies at Leiden University where he was also awarded his PhD, Kumla.
In 1882 he took he took up his position as professor at the theological school in Compen for the following subjects. Dogmatics, pmics, ethics, encyclopedia, antiquities, mythology, philosophy and Greek. In 1902, Bing left Compan after 20 years of teaching to become professor of theology at a free university in Amsterdam where he stayed until his death in 1921. From 1911 to 1921, he also served as a senator in the upper chamber of the Dutch government.
In the Hermon Bing lecture series, scholars are invited who share Bathing's love for the reformed tradition are aware of the appeal of his vision of grace as a transforming force in both personal life and in society and culture. Scholars are invited to address key questions regarding the contribution which Christian and reformed theology can make to church and society in a global world. Till now we had as our lecturers Dr. Richard Mau, Dr. Jamie Smith, Dr. Hans Boursma, Dr. George Harink, Dr. Craig Bartholomew, Dr.
Christina Sheerm, Dr. Vince Beco, and Dr. James Eglinton. And today we welcome Dr. Paul Wells. Professor Paul Wels is emeritus professor of systematic theology at the Faculté Jean Calvin Aix-en-Provence in France where he was also the academic dean from 2007 to 2012 and he edited the journals La Revue réformée for over 30 years and Unio Cum Christo from 2015 till 2023.
He was also the president of the Francophone Association of Evangelical Theologians for several years and he was one of the translators editors of a new version in modern French of Calvin's Institutes. On a personal note, I remember that as a student in the 1980s, I was impressed by your doctoral thesis with the title James Barn of the Bible.
Professor Wells recently published a two volume systematic theology. systematic and he and his wife Allison retired to Liverpool and have children and grandchildren in England, Spain and Texas and they're members of the Trinity International Presbyterian School Church. This a evening, Professor Wells will give an answer to the burning question, is there a future for infant baptism? He does so in dialogue with another French reformed Baptist theologian Arich who was by the way born in Leid.
His grandfather Henrik Maris Fes was a pastor and professor at university in Leiden. Professor Wells offered us several options for a topic for the bing lecture this year and finally we decided to go with the topic of infant baptism. In our Dutch reformed context, we notice a growing attention for the question of baptism. And there is of course the theological discussion on infant and adult baptism.
But next to that, we also see that many Christians in our culture long for more religious experience and expression for more embodiment, authenticity, free choice, personal commitment, and that makes adult baptism and/or rebaptism attractive to many enthusiastic Christians. It shows the importance of a fresh understanding of the sacrament of baptism and of the theology and practice of infant baptism for Christians in the 21st century.
Professor Wells, we are very honored to have you here tonight and we are ready to learn from your insights from your conversation with Professor Ali Boscher on this topic. I would like to invite you to deliver the There's more. Yes. Push. Is it? That's okay. Well, thank you very much indeed for that very warm welcome. Very many Junes ago, I was struggling as a theological student in Amsterdam with Herman Babink in the Dutch.
And it wouldn't have crossed my wildest dreams to ever think that I would give a Herman Bavinck lecture, but it certainly is a great privilege to have been able to accept your invitation and to uh present this subject uh in the perspective of Herman Bavinck. And of course in this kind of series of lectures we not only uh honor man and all that he did but also we have that uh escathological hope that another Herman Bavin might one day appear.
And I think these remarkable people in the history of our reform tradition, they often crop up about every century. So we might be due for a new Herman Bing sometime in the near future. And it's certainly in the hope of that perspective that uh I'm giving this lecture today. We'll start with another reformed luminary who was close to Bavinck. Uh Benjamin Warfield uh considered this argument appropriate in his day. And I quote, "God established his church in the days of Abraham and put children into it.
They out." He says, "No, will put them out. They are still then members of his church and as such entitled to its ordinances. Warfield's argument, however, does require a wider focus. God's covenant embodies a family principle linked not only to grace but also to creation. Our point in this lecture aligns with Herman Bavings's affirmation.
I quote again, "Grace is not a legacy which is transferred by natural birth, but it does flow on in the riverbed which has been dug out in the natural relationships of the human race. The covenant of grace does not ramble about at random but perpetuates itself historically and organically in families, generations, nations. Now, Baptists are quick to point out that the case for instant baptism must be made in the absence of quote an overt and proven instance of infant baptism in scripture.
And that's a quote from John Murray, Westminster theologian, but it's taken from the book by the Baptist Fred baptism. So, Baptists have a raft of New Testament texts to which they refer and pedaptists have none. What do we think about this? The main issue, however, is whether the covenant of grace in the New Testament embraces the children of believers in the community as it did in the Old.
Arguments for and against infant baptism have symmetrical complexity, imply presuppositions, and the principle of good and necessary consequence as well as biblical exogesis. Our outline is very simple for what follows. We'll first of all take a little while to look at uh some baptistic theologies. Then we will present Ari Blush's critique of reformed covenant theology. We will look at his suggestions and then finally give some reformed feedback before a brief conclusion.
This is Anie Brochier who is uh a well-known European figure and was a colleague at Vosen in France for many years and uh it's my pleasure this evening to present his thoughts. So first of all a rough guide to baptistic theologies. Leaving aside general baptists often of a minion tendency, there are three types of credo baptism or covenantal baptistic theology. 1689 confessional baptists trace their roots to the second London confession of faith and are perhaps the closest to pedobaptists.
Historic reformed baptists are their Siamese twin. They refer primarily to the work of Puritan nonconformists like Nemiah Cox, author John Owen's view of the covenant of grace developed particularly in his commentary on Hebrews chapter 8. Thirdly, of more recent pedigree is the Southern Baptist theological renewal called progressive covenantalism.
These all propose a revised covenant theology because the new covenant and a The specific focus of our lecture this evening is hri blushe the French baptistic critique of extraordininaire of the classic reform the ocean notion of the covenant and pedo baptism appreciates Abraham Kuyper Herman Bavinck and Augustus Strong he states that reformed theology is bonafiday day. The tree is solid, even if it could do with some baptistic pruning. His disagreement is limited an inf family discussion.
He says and his advowed incense stated in the article which will reflect upon in length old covenants new covenants is to examine its weaknesses and add a cake guardian pinch of spice for the pallet. thing very important for Frenchmen. Moreover, BLE claims credo baptism improves covenant theology. Its notion of the individual is biblical and cristocentric, not democratic. Regeneration and faith, often understood as synonymous, are personal and precede baptism, which enhances individual responsibility.
This emphasis also resists the sacramentalism implicit in the notion of means of grace and there blosh will also have a critical look at burkau for believers baptism is a human reply to divine grace not its cause it serves to express the faith So let's now look at Blusher's critique of reform covenant theology. Uh then what he suggests finally some personal comments.
Blushe's works on the subject uh precise and numerous and in particular we refer to these four uh books but most of all to the to do that you see on the right his article old and new covenant in the book always reforming edited by McGawan and then recently blas published two volumes in French on the church and sacraments uh which is in a certain senses testaments uh in two enormous volumes on the church and uh this of course is only available for French readers but if you would like to find out about blush's covenant covenant ideas I would recommend a dip into uh the book always covenant.
So a critique of reformed covenant theology a light motif of blush's critique is that advocates of the reformed covenant disagree among themselves on essentials. Gornelis Venmer has pointed out that a comprehensive account of the history of the doctrine of the covenant distinguishing between default and personal ideas has yet to be written.
Francis Turretin sought consensus in his institutes as did Herman Witsius in the economy of the covenants. both noted the diversity of reformed theology, particularly with regard to the Mosaic covenant. The two standard themes of orthodox reformed covenant theology are by covenantalism and the one essence in different administrations paradigm. The covenants of works and grace represent God's dealings with the human race in creation and redemption. The covenants of grace begins with the promises of Genesis 3:15.
If it has successive administrations, it has one substance and one promise signified by its sacraments. Differences of dispensation do not prevent its recipients benefiting in similar ways. Blushe considers that the idea of one postlapserian covenant of grace is an oversimplification. His project is quote to revisit the doctrine of the covenant and its economies. spot the weaknesses of dominant forms and suggest a revised one.
A form that should give more space to discontinuity without jeopardizing overall and essential unity. This will of course impact baptism. The first weakness BLE highlights concerns the historical economies. The advantage of unity and continuity is overdone by flattening the differences of successive regimes and obscuring discontinuities. Reformed theology quotes identifies the unidentifiable. Beasley Murray has Christianized the Old Testament and Judaized the New.
Paul Jewish and David Kingdan and reads back the new into the old with an artificial system of typology and allegorizing interpretation. Scottish theologian James O. Differences are ironed out by the distinction of substance and administration that goes back to Calvin was taken up by Witsius and became an accepted axiom.
The unity of the covenant of grace throughout the history of redemption, said Calvin, is that all men adopted by God into the company of his people since the beginning of the world were covenanted to him by the same law and by the bond of the same doctrine as obtained among us. Yet they differ in the mode of dispensation. Calvin presented the benefits of the Old Testament that are of one substance with the New, even if they are framed in earthly terms.
There is one promise of the hope of immortality, received not by merits, but by the mercy of God in Christ, as mediator, joining his people to God. Differences do not touch the substance of the covenants. They are accidents or incidental features of administration. Calvin listed five such accidents. Spiritual blessings are presented in the form of temporal earthly blessings. They are set forth in shadows or types which are literal rather than spiritual.
They belong to a time of bondage contrasted with the freedom to come and are national not universal. Central is the contrast of law and gospel. Blushe darus that the change of level between the old and the new covenant is sufficiently respected by this presentation which plays down the differences. This criticism is neither new nor unexpected. When Baptists present the old and new covenants, they contrast the Mosaic and the new covenants.
Reformed thinkers see the former, the Mosaic, in continuity with the Abrahamic as one covenant of grace fulfilled in the new covenant. The consequence of the collusion of the people of God as nation and church is serious. Thanks Blush. Descendence was a condition of citizenship and its identity was provided by circumcision. Membership in the church by contrast is not by physical descent. Physical defects meant exclusion from the kahal.
But Baptists claimed that personal faith was neither necessary for participation in the temporal blessings of the old covenant, nor did personal unbelief mean exclusion. The reformed narrative of continuity masks the end of the mixed nation of the old covenant represented by the cutting off of the dead branches of Romans 11 or the pruning of the vine in John 15. Lack of respect for discontinuity encourages the idea of a mixed church in the New Testament and with it infant baptism.
Now the second weakness BLE pinpoints is that of ambiguities with regard to the nature of the covenant. Who are its members and what are its promises?
A common a common uh answer referenced in Louis Burkov is that the covenant is established with elect sinners in Christ or simply those who are in Christ but ask blush who are they particularly in the new testament the problem is the inclusion of children among whom are the non-elect this leads to the introduction of distinction ctions such as the internal and external sides the covenant or of those who are in the covenant but not of it. A similar difficulty appears with respect to the promise.
If it is unconditional then the salvation of influence in infants must be presumed because of the promise against experience. If it is conditional on the other hand, it depends on the freedom of response and Arminius beckons. External or internal, carnal or spiritual, conditional or unconditional, legal or personal communion. These dualities that reformed theology strains to hold together in one covenant inevitably split into two.
According to Blushe, the dualities prolong the external conditions and mixed nature of the old covenant into the New Testament church. This flies in the face of the Pauline antithesis of law and grace, faith and works, letter and spirit. It blunts the force of biblical language which suggests says BLE two regimes in formulas. Making the covenant of grace identical throughout relativizes obvious differences such as expressed by Hebrews 8 for example. This is all co also contradicted by two other biblical notions.
The f fulfillment of things hoped for suggests a marked transformation. Plus the remnant of Israel is not perpetuated physically since spiritual Israel is the new covenant church the believing path. These weaknesses says blushe are reflected in the interpretation of the sacraments and s as signs and seals of the covenant. The notion of the means of grace carried over from reform from Roman Catholicism is the enemy. It strays dangerously close to the divine act sacramentalist precipice.
It risks making the Lord's supper and baptism causitative acts of God added to the word rather than a human response to grace. For this reason, Blushe does not accept the parallels between the Passover and the Lord's Supper or between circumcision and baptism. The New Testament antithe circumcision is baptism. Now, we will go one step further to look at Blushe's baptistic Baptistic theologies argue that the new covenant's newness ends the mixed economy of the old.
Inclusion of descendants does not survive the transformation. They see the old covenant as a covenant of grace with dual aspects, carnal and spiritual. This is particularly so when it is claimed that the Mosaic administration is in fact two covenants with two principles of justification. Only blush's approach addresses these issues from a more balanced perspective.
He aims to do justice to the biblical complexities and the specifics of the successive covenants. the Edenic administration and its relation to the Abrahamic and Mosaic covenants and how all three relate to the new covenant in Christ. Discontin discontinuities are to be respected in the overall unity.
So taking distance from the classic model of one substance diverse administrations in an opening gambit that is crucial blows John Murray's linguistic and theological revision of the traditional notion of the covenant of works. Blushe adopts a headship model based on the biblical polarity of Adam and Christ as the federal heads of humanity. No formal contract with legal reward for merit condo or ex congruo is found in the Eden charter. Murray proposed a disposition of pure grace unaffected by legal merit.
Adam's obedience to the command concerning the tree of knowledge simply concretizes his natural disposition as a creature in the image of God. legal requirements like the mosaic ones don't belong to this gracious dispensation. Following on from Murray's lead, Bloshi prioritizes divine grace. In addition, he fails to see either a probation or a promised reward for works in the biblical texts of Genesis. There are two brief quotes.
First of all, Blushe says, "The fruit of the tree of life represents the daily lifegiving communication from God. Life is no reward given after works have been done. Secondly, if unwarranted speculations of a probationary character are left aside, all ambiguity is swept away. The benefits of the Eden covenant are purely gratuitous. The condition unfailing ratification of one's image creature dependence on God is nothing else than continuation in that grace.
Obedience then is complying with and continuing in grace, not a work meriting something higher. Disobedience leads to condemnation and death as retribution. And these clauses say blushe remain in force throughout human history since all humanity is federated in Adam. The federal headship construction characterized by two gracious divine dispositions in Adam and Christ contrasts with the classic by covenantal structure of covenants of works and grace with their permanence and their historical continuity.
The notion of a law condition in the Adamic covenant is eclipsed. conditions of the covenant are removed from the Eden administration and so also the duality of blessing and curse. The notion of man Animei the first covenant says Blushe is non-esqueathological because there is no higher state accessed by works. Blushe rejects the notion of probation which Murray retains following Gardas but maintains the idea of covenants which Murray rejects.
The Eden charter as Blusher calls it is bracketed off as a pre-redemptive gracious story and the organic continuity of the traditional reform creation fall redemption scheme is modified. Christ's headship is activated after Adam's fall in the proto evangelian promises. Divine grace is reenacted in the context of sin and an esquetology of renewal begins at that point. Furthermore, it is not feasible to say that Christ fulfills the covenant of works. Law in the old covenant is negative in contrast to divine grace.
So, esquetology is not rooted in protology to use an expression of Clauskilders. It is retroactive says Blushe from Christ and productive of the covenant of grace. It is realized by Christ restoring human responsibility. An idea obviously gerine to the baptistic priority of individual response. Post Eden arrangements therefore are all subordinate, tributary, inferior and temporary with reference to the ratification of the covenant of grace by Christ the second Adam. They announce gospel grace only prolleptically.
Enjoyments of the benefits of the new covenant such as forgiveness of sin are not full and free like they will be in the Christian era. They are crumbs from the table both for individuals and for the people of God as a whole. The apocalyp event of history is God's coming in Christ, his death and resurrection in the fullness of time for the liberation of his people and with it the inauguration of his kingdom.
Its determinative character means according to Blushe that under the old covenant what referred to the future has an already character and what refers to its own time bears the mark of not yet. It's a little complicated. I'll just read it again. What refers to the future has an already character in the Old Testament and what refers to its own time bears the mark of not yet. This is very important in Blush's thinking. Future benefits of the gospel time are transferred to the past in anticipation of what is to come.
This hermeneutic matrix is the key to what is carnal, temporal, national in the old covenant, contrasted to what is spiritual, eternal, and ecclesial in the new. It is spelled out successively in the complex duality of the Abrahamic covenant and even more starkly in the Mosaic covenant. The Abrahamic covenant of grace is often contrasted with the Mosaic covenant as law.
Reformed theologians sought to avoid this opposition by proposing that in the one covenant of grace, law was added as a secondary subsidiary subsidiary elements and this became prominent in the Sinai arrangements in reformed theology. It has symbolic and typical value and function.
Nevertheless, says Venma to quote him again, in every administration of the covenant of grace, we find the same mediator, Christ, the same obligation of faith in Christ, the same promise of spiritual blessings, and the same way of reconciliation and salvation. Does this do justice to the complexity of the data? Not from Blusher's perspective since the duality considered is more subtle and more determinative. Abraham is no pure promise and Moses no mere law.
The promises made to Abraham are of a double nature not only of spiritual blessing but also of numerous physical descendants and the inheritance of a land. These two are interwoven in God's dealings with the patriarch. Roman Romans 4 1-12 points out that Abraham believed, was justified by faith and counted as righteous. Before he received the sign of circumcision, the two moments are separate and circumcision is a carnal sign.
Like several of his baptistic allies, Blusher delights in taking a page from Charles Hodg's book to support this idea. And we quote here the quote that BLE takes from Hajj which says as you can read there were two covenants with Abraham. By the one his natural descendants through Isaac were con constituted a commonwealth an external visible community. By the other his spiritual dependent descendants were constituted a church.
The parties of the former covenant were God and the nation to the other God and his true people. The promises of the national covenants were national blessings. The promises of the spiritual covenants i.e. the covenants of grace were spiritual blessings, reconciliation, holiness and eternal life. When Christ came, the commonwealth was abolished and there was nothing put in its place. The church remained. Recognizing this duality is a solution to the Sarah and Hagar problem and circumcision of Ishmael.
Galatians 4:21-31. This belongs to the external side of the covenant and its temporal advantages, present blessings that have material and indirect typological significance. Numerous descendants and inheritance of our land are promised. However, for descendants of Abraham who are believers, circumcision also signifies spiritual renewal and future fulfillment. This double structure accounts for the outward adoption and inferior blessings recognized already by Calvin.
The impact of this argument as Hodge said is that when the fullness of Christ comes, the shadows and types of the old covenant pass away with the other externals. The natural sons are disinherited. to take Calvin's expression again which plays right into Hri Brushier's hands. A further complex aspect of the Abrahamic covenant is that although the gratuitity of the promises provenence, conditionality is not absent.
Genesis 15 1-21 and 171-27 are the only places where the word covenant bit appears in the Abrahamic narratives. Richard Prattz has suggested that Israel viewed Abraham's covenant through the lens of Moses covenant and that the two passages presents not two covenants but two sides of the same covenant. Genesis 17:2 is a confirmation of Genesis 15, even if the two chapters are quite different. This serves to illustrate that in the covenant of grace, Abraham and Moses are not just opposed.
Promise and obligation are complimentary aspects of one arrangement. Law conditions are material typological in both and underpin the promise. Abraham prepares the way to Sinai. Is the Mosaic covenant one in substance with the covenants of grace as reformed theology claims? On the one hand, it has been interpreted as both a republication of the covenant of works or at least as a reiteration of its legal elements. On the other, it is presented in relation to the promises made to Abraham.
If duality is not prominent in the Abrahamic arrangement, it seems unavoidable in the mosaic. Blushe repeatedly quotes Vitzius who to quote carefully distinguished the Sinai agreements from the or covenant of works. It was quote a consequence both of the covenant of grace and of works. but was formerly neither the one nor the other. It was a national covenant between God and Israel. The Sinai covenant is neither to be equated with nor to be separated from the covenant of grace.
For plush, the works and the grace principles are in both. Duality must be embraced. synthesized. Blushe then proposes that the Mosaic covenant energizes the not yet character of the old covenant in two ways that he calls in principle and in level. Firstly, in principle indicates two ways of righteousness before God. Either by perfect obedience to the law, Leviticus 18:5, or by means of a substitute, reference the blood of Christ. Outside Eden, there is no perfect obedience.
Works, in contrast to faith, are desparing. Efforts to embrace the law for salvation subvert God's intention, which is to cut off every hope and they lead to death. This aspect of the not yet shuts the sinner up with Christ in what Blush appropriates from Romans 11:12, a pedagogy of failure. Israel according to the flesh mistook the divine intention and made a covenant of works out of the law. Secondly, the not yet character of the Mosaic covenant functions in level.
That is, spiritual realities belonging to the covenant of grace are transferred to the external preparatory level in a pedagogy of images. The variety of carnal types ineffective in themselves points to Christ the spiritual antitype. Thus the carnal and the spiritual are two opposed principles of justification. However, the purpose is unifying since salvation is presented negatively through the pedagogy of failure and positively through the pedagogy of sacrificial types.
Both aspects function from Christ, point to Christ and culminate in Christ as mediator. The end of the old covenant duality as an entity is abrupt and it's the second break in Blush's revision of the covenant theology. The first break is the break after the Adamic administration when escal esquetology in Christ begins. The second break is the break that ends the old covenant. It was discontinued says blushe when the fullness of times arrived.
The old system of works is abolished with Christ in the very terms of the Mosaic covenant. itself. Galatians 3 and Romans 10 quoting Leviticus 18:5. The old covenant as a pedagogical and typological reality is abolished as an entity at Pentecost, says Blushley. In this cataclysm, all the aspects of the external regime, including its sacraments, if one can call them such, fall away because they are prior to faith and their substances in Christ.
Baptism is neither circumcision under another form, nor the equivalent of it. There is no simple continuity or substitution of one for the other. They are systemically different even if both refer in different ways to the circumcision of Christ on the cross. So children cannot be Christianized by baptism like they became Jews through circumcision. The only way to belong to Christ is by faith, confession, and baptism in that order. What went before has been changed by the living Christ's headship over his people.
Now only one principle of justification stands. The mixed situation is gone forever. It's amusing that Blushier tries to d drive home his points against pedobaptist continuity with two theological student type questions. Why did the first Jewish Christians who were baptized continue to circumcise their children if one had replaced the other? Second question, why did Paul not silence the Judaizers by countering that baptism had replaced circumcision?
But these are unfortunately both damp squibs by becoming Christians. These particular Jews did not also lose their Jewish nationality. And the second question would not have been relevant since baptism was not a Jewish ritual. Of course, Blush's heavy artillery is the biblical texts which support his view of the sacraments, including linguistic considerations about the word baptism itself. Some of his comments are rather pmical and fail to hide his distaste for pedo baptism.
There is a whole arsenal, but the big guns are the following, and you know them well. Matthew 19 13-15 and parable parallel levels let the little children come to me. Acts 2:39 the promises for you and your children. The text in Acts and 1 Corinthians 1:16 regarding household baptisms. 1 Corinthians 7:14 regarding the children being holy. Colossians 2 11 and 12 parallelism between circumcision and baptism.
After examining these texts, BLE concludes that there is no demonstr demonstrable foundation for the inclusion of children in the New Testament church. And here is his sucker punch. The texts that speak of baptism don't mention children. And those that speak of children don't mention baptism. As a sacrament, baptism is not a means of grace or a cause of salvation. It is a repetition of the word by which believers, says Blushe, preach to one another because of grace already received.
So it is a means of grace on the rebound because of personal confession and as such an expression of what BLE calls formed faith. So they are BLE's basic criticisms of reform covenantalism in its majority understood sense. Now, some feedback from my own perspective. It has to be admitted that Blush has given one of the most rounded accounts of the Achilles heel of reformed covenantal theology to date. He adeptly plays reformed theologians off against each other, divide and rule.
He has pointed out problems, I think, with the schooners gip sales. But is that sufficient to sink her? We will not engage the biblical text because Blusher's aim is not formally exeetical presuppositions rule and he also passes over what we consider to be salient points. What is Blushe's fundamental reason for his criticism of infant baptism? It's quite clear that it's his dislike for a mixed church. His reticence runs along these lines. National churches are a Constantinian residue from the past.
They implicate sacramentalism with operative grace. This is the context for infant baptism and presumed regeneration of infants. And this is the reason for non-believers in the church, the mixed church. So Blushe sees a parallel between national churches or established churches and the mixed church. Theological pluralism is problematic for a confessing church. We agree what BLE wants is a church that is biblically normed and we sympathize with this.
However, is infant baptism, as Blushe calls it, the cement of the Constantinian corpus Christristianum. Is that really the problem? Is all mixedness unavoidable? And was it so in the New Testament church? Blushe is well aware of the issues raised by these questions. Now to that general consideration, I'll add briefly four other points of feedback. Firstly, Blusher's Eden administration without probation does not integrate esquetology and pro and protology.
Asymmetrical headship separates protology in Adam and Etology in Christ. After the fall, God's promises focus prolleptically on salvation and life. Death in Adam is overcome in Christ's better covenant. Hebrews 8:6. The esquetology of promise is fulfilled in new covenant spiritual renewal echoed in the church. The downside of this is unrealistic expectations, including a non-mixed church as a possibility. Over realized esquetology telescopes the finality of the new covenant and its inauguration in Christ.
Things belonging to the future are expected of the interim church visible. The prophetic promises of the new such as in Jeremiah 31:31-33 for example are accomplished when the old test the old testament covenant community is abolished as an entity not progressively. This is fundamental to the baptist mentality. Blusher's headship lacks a creation to new creation continuum with stages that progressively roll out the inter eternal covenant of redemption.
The pactum salutis so dear to barink as the second Adam Christ fulfilled the covenant works and inaugurated a process that ends not with his ascension and the Pentecost church but with the new heavens and the new earth. He came for us to redeem us. Now he is in us to unite us to him and he will be with us in the new creation. Escathological impatience blurs the frontier between the church visible and invisible.
The messianic intermetzo of covenantes esquetology is skated over and the outcome is an idealized hope for the church visible which is out of sync with the present esqueological moment in the history of redemption. And all this leads to unrealistic expectations and hopes for an unmixed pure church, shall we say. Secondly, as to the nature of the covenant, it can be overlooked that the chief end of the divine covenants is not primarily salvation, but the same end as creations itself to glorify God.
There is one God, one history, one lifegiver and one covenant with two moments. Reformed theology has not always served itself by obscuring this unity with scholastic dualities which BL has done very well to criticize. They are not however the essence of the covenant. None of his criticisms invalidate the structure at the heart of reformed theology or the sacraments. They chip away around the edges. The aspects of the covenant are complimentary, not either or, but both and.
Its nature is divine in foundation and human in reciprocation. both monopluric and duric, unilateral and bilateral, unconditional and conditional. Its modest operandi is both grace and law, internal and external, personal and legal, spirit and flesh, blessing and curse. These elements are complimementaryary in all the covenants administrations like two hands on a keyboard playing one tune.
They temper duality with harmony while allowing for two sides of one covenant of grace or as bing and gear vos called it the legal and the personal aspects of the covenant. Thirdly, regarding covenant membership, the covenant community expresses the sovereign initiative of grace. God's promise is the basis and the source of blessings. It is unconditional because everything required is given in Christ.
However, there is obligation to obedience expressed by the condition of the covenant. promises must be reciprocated or judgment follows for Israel, for churches and for individuals. The covenant sacraments express dual conditions and outcomes. So infants introduced by baptism into the visible community receive a promise that travels with them along the lines of their lives. God acts by his promise which like all promises can either be accepted or rejected.
But God binds himself to his word without conditions beyond those stated. It is accepted when received in faith. When the offer is ac acted on, then the promise comes to life. God's promise is real for infants and remains real. It remains so until they reply in faith or turn away. Bl makes a meal out of presumptive regeneration of inadvance and their covenant status. But is not the problem similar for adults, perhaps even more so.
An adult profession of faith may be taken as a firmer sign of regeneration, but it's no proof since the Lord alone knows the heart. Faith and profession are not one and the same thing. If an adult denies their profession, any presumption of their regeneration falls away too. Blushe claims the visible church is a manifestation of the invisible. It tends towards the ideal. He says, however, there are hypocrites, false brethren, those who doubt and fall away. 1 John 2:19 is a reality check.
Two houses of Jesus's parable contrast appearance and the real thing. If local churches or individuals fall short of reality, they too collapse.
Finally, the disputed case of household baptisms. problems with baptism arrive among us because I think there is no canon law about baptism in the New Testament much less so even for the Lord's supper in 1 Corinthians 11:17-34 other than narrating baptisms that took place little is said after all in the apostolic ministry there are four occasions of collective baptisms such as at Pentecost four of household baptisms and four individual baptisms.
The sparse evidence illustrates that the family remains fundamental in the new covenant, children being included under parental headship. headship. Acts 16:34 recounts that the Philippian jailer was filled with joy because his family, not they had come to believe in God. The unary nature of the family goes back to creation. Household baptisms indicate that the apostles thought in terms of family solidarity. They distinguish between family and individual baptisms as Paul did in 1 Corinthians 1:14-16.
That is the descendants or generational principle runs through scripture in covenant continuity. Grace follows the lines of generations. This principle is present throughout the history of revelation, which is why genealogy is important. In the Old Testament prophecies of the new to come, including in Jeremiah 33, descendants are said to inherit the everlasting covenant.
This explains the references to children in the New Testament and the way in which the apostles address children as part of the new covenant community. Finally, a conclusion beyond infant baptism. Just two more minutes. Baptistic individualism existed before modern individualism, contributed to it, and feeds off it. Being aware of these dangers doesn't prevent Blushe speaking about quote the call of the Lord Jesus that relativizes the family bond, the supreme value of traditional societies.
The bonus for blush is that the apostle can speak to children as of individuals too. And so Acts chapter 2, the promise is for you and for your children for those who far off. The bonus is that the promise is for children as well as those who are far off because they are essentially in the same category. Now, French anthropologist Emanuel Todd has suggested interestingly that the family, its structure, values and dynamics functions as the hidden code that influences the rise and fall of civilizations.
Weakened family systems have doubtless fed into the present dysphor dis dystopia where people are ruthless. Alone, isolated, alienated, individuals drift with the eb and flow of liquidity. Individualism is the blight of the hyperodern world, not a blessing. Wanting to go home, wanting to get back to Eden is a big theme of popular culture. Family unity in the Judeo-Christian perspective and infant baptism are perhaps a last chance saloon for a culture of death.
Even if the tide will not begin to turn without a new reformation, the vision of the family spiritual unity, coherence, and joy is attractive in a disintegrating society. It's foreign to the zitgeist, but it's for life partners who find in it a reply to the need to belong to others and a marker of transcendence. Now is a good time for Christians to be dissident and to work for something new that redeems the culture. And to conclude this lecture, here is a quote from Herman Bavinck.
The family is not of man's making. It's a gift of God and full of life. Upbringing in the family bears quite a special character. No school or educational institution can replace or compensate for the family. It is life itself that here educates. Life in its greatness, the rich, inexhaustible, universal life. Family is the school of life because there is its spring and its Thank you very much for your sort of lecture and full hour of lecture. So that's real meat.
Thank you very much and um yeah I think um it's good to uh have some reaction and reflection on what you were telling. Uh I think um yeah BLE brought in very serious arguments. Yes. And you gave also very serious answers. And I guess this is provocative. So who would like to react to uh our lecturer or ask additional aspects? Yeah, thank you lecture. So, do you think that's critique on performed covenantal thought is representative or Baptist theology or is it more idio by him? Yes.
Well, the interesting thing is that when you study Brush's works, uh particularly when he's writing against uh reformed theology, uh as he develops what he calls a baptistic theology, um he's not much tributary of many Baptist writers. Uh in fact I found no reference to the Southern Baptist uh progressive covenantal renewal theory of uh Shriner and Vellum uh etc. uh in their works which are considerable and there's no reference to these Baptist theologies in blush.
There's a few references to uh David Kendon, uh Paul Jwitt. Um but I think part of Lsher's uh inspiration uh comes simply from his own background and his own experiences and uh what he learned through his theological studies. So it's quite original uh in that respect and his prime desire is to interact with reformed theology and uh here we have uh you know the sibling enemies almost uh the small differences uh the narcissism of small differences that Freud spoke about. Huh. Um, and uh that is very interested.
He's like attracted to the flame of reformed theology and he's all the time trying to find answers to it because of his personal background. However, having said all that, Lshier's main argument uh aligns with the 1689 Baptists and with the historic reformed Baptists.
Uh and that is that the old covenant comes to an abrupt end when Christ comes and is abolished as a regime uh all at once. and therefore is replaced by the new regime uh when Christ appears with uh new new rules uh new ways of admitting into the community. So the newness begins there because of the fundamental break.
But in Blushe that break mirrors another break. the break between the covenants of works and the covenants of grace and the uh you know parathening uh parenthesising off of the Adamic administration as a pre-venental arrangement. uh and so Glosh is fitting it into his own point of view uh all the time and in that I think he's very original. His main argument is a Baptist argument, the end of the old covenant when Christ appears.
But when you read his exugesis of uh the text that I referred to, uh it he follows along the uh the same arguments that have always been made by Baptists since Daniel Cox uh in the 17th century arguments that answer please clarification said about sentiments that yeah as I see the reformed view is that express doesn't much like speaking about sacraments. Uh he's prepared to do it for baptism in the Lord's supper in the New Testament, but he's not prepared to make any link with the Old Testament.
And what Blusher doesn't like is the idea of means of grace. And he thinks that the idea of means of grace is like a magnet that attracts reformed thinking back into a Roman cath catholic ex uh exopus operandi uh causitative form of grace. So uh vlo accents baptism as a human response uh to god's grace. and not a work of God in itself. Uh only in a secondary sense that we reply to the work of God and recognize the work of God. But the human recognition is very important.
And here I think blushe fails to hold together the conditional and the unconditional sides of the covenant even divine uh sovereignty and human responsibility seem about something. Yeah. Can you explain what in your view God does in infant baptism? I don't think you believe in baptismal regeneration. Oh no. But you you think sacramental. So what what's happening when a child is baptized?
What's happening when a child is baptized is that God is the one who baptizes and he baptizes in the sense that he gives his promise and the promise uh is one which calls for a response throughout life and uh and that promise can re remain dormant in someone's experience uh until they reply to it. But the fact is that in infant baptism uh the promise that is made uh in the covenantal context is that God is near. Uh if you would hear my voice, harden not your hearts.
And the promise is near and the promise is brought near in order to be received. Uh, one of the reformed confessions says that God's promise accomplishes accompanies us throughout life. But as with every promise to be uh vitalized, the promise has to be recognized and has to be received.
And therefore the idea that God would promise an unconscious infants uh salvation by faith uh is not something which is in congruous because that promise which is made remains until such a time as the infant enters into the promise and recognizes its conditions through faith or through rejection.
And here uh just incidentally um Ali Blusher refers to Meredith Klene and his idea uh of the oath of the covenant implying blessing and curse. uh I think in his book on the church and sacraments I think I found four four references but blier doesn't enter into anti into enter enter into any discussion with Meredith Klene uh about the nature of God's promise and it's as though he's keeping away from that fascinates me the nature of the promise because it is promise But you have to answer it somewhere during your life.
Mhm. But does that apply to every human being whether being baptized or not? Yes. What's the advantage being baptized as a child or being born as a child in non-Christian family both have to have to can answer God's promise? Yes. Promise of go. Yes. That's a a very interesting question and um I was fascinated in reading Blush's book on the church and sacraments.
You know I grew up in a Baptist church and I was dedicated as an influence and I saw infant dedications and blow discusses the legitimacy of an infant dedic dedication uh in the Baptist context. uh and uh I don't know why he avoids that discussion altogether, but it would seem to me that uh dedication in Baptist churches recognizes the fact uh implicitly uh and without openly stating it or or seeing it that uh we aren't in the covenant because of the sacrifice.
Uh but we're in the covenant uh through our our birth and the uh promise given uh in baptism uh just recognizes that God is working uh through the context into which we have been born. And therefore, I think it's just the same uh for people baptized adults uh as for infants. Um uh there's no fundamental difference because every day the Christian that we are uh is the the Christian we confessed to be not what we were in the past when we were converted or not what we were when we were baptized as an infant.
But the fact is that God promises and that promise remains there uh as an unbreakable promise all our lives and that is something which cannot be taken away from us I think even though we deny it. Okay. I think Hansburg was first. Yes. that my think of children. Mhm. Now touch the ocean and not so much to baptism. Uh well you told that for is very important that doesn't want big church. Mhm. You emphasize that you uh see family reason. Um, of course theology that you have has to be in align with your position.
But is how important fact is theology in this D is or is it something else? I tend to think that it's something else decides about whether you favor children not and that your common theology Yes. Uh I I think that that is a very uh very worthwhile reflection. Um because uh we all tend to view our past experiences uh as believers uh through the lens of something which makes those past experiences uh able to be appropriated by us or plausible for us.
H so uh maybe as well the uh the root of the covenant idea is also related to the fact that it it interprets well uh that we have been privileged to be born in a a believing family where we've been brought up in the uh in the nurturing through the Lord and uh we've been able to accept that. So uh I think that's a an important factor. But as to whether the Lord's Supper or or or baptism has priority, um I I wouldn't know. I couldn't answer that question really.
I think both probably tend to work together in some kind of mysterious way. I don't feel as though I've answered your question very satisfactoryily, but at least I'll go away and think about this a bit more. Walter, thank you for your lecture. Um, given the answer you just gave to the question about what happens in baptism, do you think it is appropriate to call baptized child a child of God? And how does your answer to that question relate to your dislike of presumed regeneration? Well, yes and no.
I mean, this is a difficult question. Um, can you say that a ch a child belongs to the the kingdom uh to Christ's kingdom? Um uh I would doubt that you could uh go down that route directly without saying that the child belongs to a visible church first of all. And so it's in belonging to a visible community that the child through profession of faith comes to be a member of Christ's kingdom.
And this is the discussion about being in the covenants and being of the covenants etc. that's been going on for uh quite a while uh in uh reformed theology. Um, I think that the value of having been baptized as an infant is that when the child is growing up, uh, every time that the child witnesses an infant baptism either of his siblings or of other children in the church, it reminds the child of its uh, status. and its responsibilities before the Lord and its privileges uh as well.
And so uh my former colleague and ex Pierre Kial used to say that uh every time we witness a baptism were uh reminded of our own baptism and I think whether we're adults or children uh that reminder of our own baptism and uh in the case of children uh our own parents who have given us life. I think that uh that's an important thing. Uh the feeling of belonging is is vital for human beings.
And I think if we see many young people today who are ruthless and lacking totally in identity in saying uh who am I and what am I doing here? I think part of that problem is that they've had no sense of belonging to other people. And it's through that sense of belonging that transcendence enters into our our vision of things. That sense of otherness of belonging to others and ultimately belonging to God that uh shows us the meaning of life in its deepest sense.
I think that what was that's what Bavin was getting at in his little quotation that I gave as well. Uh it's it's vital for us as human beings to belong uh one to another and in belonging one to another uh in that context as families. We're belonging to churches and we're belonging to the law through uh that through that uh practical understanding of things and I think Her was first. Well, thank you so much.
Um, as well and I just was reminded uh during your lecture by one of a I think it was a quotation of a famous theologian or it was just uh you yourself as a famous theologian as well about the family not as a means but as a bedding something I I don't know exactly the the words you used and um I wonder could you elaborate on that a bit more how it is not a means of of God's with the with the belly of and what exactly the difference between the two is because I think that relates to your answer as well.
Well, I I don't know how to reply to that question really other than to say that uh the bedding which we have provides the means So I would see uh in baptism uh bedding in that situation Uh I don't think I could say much more about that. Not this point. Okay. Thank you. Um I think this brother was first in Maine and then you and then we are going to close because otherwise questions last. If baptism is an act of God as you say God isn't baptized and God makes promises what is wrong with calling it means of grace.
I mean God is using this instant of baptism to proclaim his word and and to to gather people in as Yes. Yes. So I I would have no hesitation. Why is so afraid to call means of print? Well, it's it's because he's afraid of of pure causitiveness. the fact that from the act comes a presumed reality.
So uh I think I not referred to this uh in the lecture but I I read an article by Blusher many years ago about Carl Bart's view of baptism in the fourth volume of Bart's works the fragment that was published after his death and blah I think was very very pleased to find uh Bart's position because he said that uh Bart came to an understanding that baptism was a cognitive act and therefore couldn't be imposed upon unconscious individuals and had to be entered on by uh adult people through the decision they made.
Of course, that fits in well with Blusher's exist parts existentialism, excuse me. And um well, I think all all those consider considerations enter into the mix here. Uh I have no problems with uh calling baptism uh of an infant a means of grace, but the means of grace is through the word. uh by the operation of the Holy Spirit.
And uh in terms of uh an infant baptized as an infant uh that provides the bedding for the means of hearing the word uh throughout childhood into adolescence and uh adulthood and adearing to the word. And so uh the means of grace uh is never apart from the word of scripture and the efficacy of the sacraments is always through the work of the holy spirit.
So you can say to come back to what we were thinking about before, if God has made his promise and baptism is administered in the trinitarian name, then the efficacy of that promise comes to light through the action of the word and spirit. Uh when uh the person who has been baptized believes and uh says the Okay, thank you Marinus. So I have another question. Um I've got a Bing question. So for Bing, the notion of grace restores nature is very important.
And now having listened to how you like lay out Les's view, I wonder if that is also you think at stake in his differing views because if you emphasize so strongly the discontinuity between the different coffings does it also like you you hinted it I think like doesn't that also disconnect prod like he's so hesitant to to have some sac Yes. That also maybe disconnects creation from esquetologology and from God's acting. So do you do you see that connection as well?
I think there's uh you know it's very interesting to my way of thinking that uh reading Blusher I was expecting at some point for him to introduce John Owen's ex Jesus on Hebrews chapter 8 and the antithesis between law and gospel and uh the way the way John Owen uses that in a very complex way that I don't totally understand to mark out the difference between the old covenant and the new covenant.
But uh one thing that's for sure is that the big contrast is the one between the old testament as law uh and the new testament is grace.
And I think because of uh the way BLE sees the dichotomy uh and the great difference between the law in the Old Testament and the law in the New Testament. uh it leads him to be in a certain way uh suspicious of all notions of law uh in the creational normative sense and he doesn't to my way of thinking bring up this problem at any point but I can feel it underlying there uh all the time uh what is the nature of the law uh in creation. What is the normativity of the structures of creation?
But uh Vlace seems just to uh put this in a parenthesis as being a pre-redemptive uh well narrative.
Yes. uh that separate from the rest of the narrative which is the complexity of the contrast between law and grace and the abolition of law uh in the coming of Christ uh and the Christian experience of being uh one of pure grace and I think Bosch's idea of pure grace that he takes from Murray uh is in some way uh a refusal to look at the normativity of creation structures uh in the context of protology and esquetology.
And as Blusher makes a very good argument out against reformed theology, but in a way he's not articulated his own biblical theology from creation to final redemption. So we're left with lots of questions and holes in our knowledge of what he's getting at. Great. Thank you very much. I think so. So what do you think is a theological balance between objective side of baptism and subjective side?
I mean in forms of explain all of our objective side as God's restoring the grace and subjective side as a human response to as a so uh but describes it as a pendant as it really goes on that always we have objective it goes to objective side and subjective side but Russia is it sounds to me that he has some more subjective side whereas As a reform theology we tend to have more objective side but in current contemporary church of course we have four church but what do you think uh that you can have a balance there balance between objective and yeah yeah well I think the beauty of reformed theology is the uh refusal of duality and the separation of nature and grace uh nature nature and grace are working together.
Uh and uh it's never either or. It's it's both and and this should allow us to have in terms of our dogmatic constructions uh a balance between subjectivity and objectivity. And I think that uh the big problem today may be that we're uh trying to articulate that over against people who uh are totally arguing from a subjective experimental point of view. Uh I believe this because it happened to me. Yeah. and uh Jesus became my Jesus when I was baptized etc.
And uh our difficulty over against that is we tend to accentuate perhaps the objective side of our argument like I did before by saying that God made the made the promise and God promises in baptism.
Then you you have to balance it up with the subjective side with the human side because it's always the divine human reciprocity and this always involves a certain element of mystery and things that we can't explain. uh one thing I've understood from uh Gardos is that everywhere uh in the history of redemption that divine action touches the human melia uh we find ourselves before uh an ultimate mystery of the action of the way God of the explanation of the way God acts uh in our fallen human reality and therefore there's uh something of an element of mystery that uh can be lost by us if we're too objective and is certainly lost in baptistic theologies when they're too subjective.
And I think that that attitude can lead to some disastrous consequences about the divinity and humanity of Christ further down the line. Yeah, thank you very much also for answering all those questions. Um, I think we are going to uh close the discussion. Um, but you can continue the conversation. Of course, as far as I understood the drinks will be here. So, um I propose that we give you hands once some very interesting question. Sorry, I as there's there is no connection between this discussion.
I find you ago about whereas Yeah, sure. I hope to get to see support. not it's following through script that kind of way. It's choosing notions. So I think there are three different with kind of structure the as one of the problems with theology is that we're talking about It depends like in big city not so much but there's villages whereination is kind of
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