Enjoying God Ministries

If you haven't yet read Believer's Baptism: Sign of the New Covenant in Christ, edited by Thomas R. Schreiner and Shawn D. Wright (B & H Academic), you are missing out on what is, in my opinion, the finest and most persuasive case for credo-baptism yet written. One need not agree with every point of interpretation in this book to recognize the remarkable accomplishment of these authors (contributing to the book, in addition to the editors, are Andreas Kostenberger, Robert Stein, Stephen Wellum [his chapter on "Baptism and the Relationship between the Covenants" is alone worth the price of the book], Steven McKinion, Jonathan Rainbow, Duane Garrett, Ardel Caneday, and Mark Dever).

I mention this book not only to encourage you to read it but also because of the excellent chapter by Mark Dever concerning how baptism is practiced in the context of the local church. One thing you can be assured of, Mark is never boring! His insights are penetrating and, most of the time, persuasive. When one hears that we evangelicals lack a credible ecclesiology, I immediately point to Mark Dever and his voluminous writings on the subject. No one is more serious about the centrality of the local church in God's kingdom purposes than is Mark. I highly recommend all his books on the subject. No, you won't agree with him on every point, but you will be challenged, instructed, and encouraged in a way that I find rare in the evangelical world today.

One of the issues addressed in this chapter concerns who should be granted access to the Lord's Table, a subject that has been circulating the evangelical blogosphere of late. I wrote a few days ago of my concern that some, such as Mark, would close the Table to those Christians who had not been baptized as believers but had only experienced "evangelical infant baptism" (the latter are Mark's words). Mark believes that the failure to obey Christ's call to be baptized "calls into question the claim of being Christ's follower (since Christ commanded baptism in Matt 28:19-20). Even if the disobedience is unintentional (as in the case of an evangelical infant baptism), it is still sin and cannot be countenanced by the church" (340).

My purpose here isn't to address whether or not we should regard conscientious paedo-baptists as "disobedient" and guilty of "sin" for not being baptized following faith in Christ. I happen to agree with those who argue that paedo-baptists are "wrong" about baptism, but not disobedient. But that's a subject for another time, another article.

I here only want to mention a comment in a footnote in Mark's chapter (341, n. 16). One response to my article (at the blog of Adrian Warnock) was that whereas Mark opposes the unbaptized "coming regularly to the Lord's table" (341; emphasis mine), he does leave open the possibility of what he calls "occasional communion" (emphasis mine) by those who have not been baptized as believers.

Is this "concession" to "occasional communion" a significant one? Here is what I wrote in my response to the person who brought this to my attention at Warnock's blog. Notwithstanding this brief reference in the chapter of this book, both Mark and Al Mohler were quite clear in their public comments at the T4G forum that a paedo-baptist would not be permitted to participate in the Lord's Table at their churches. You rightly point out that the footnote in Mark's article appears to suggest that he might allow "occasional" participation by a paedo-baptist.

But this creates problems of its own. What constitutes "occasional"? Once? If once, then why not twice? If twice, then why not three times? Who draws the line and on what basis? It quickly becomes rather arbitrary, does it not?

It seems to me that if a paedo-baptist is EVER disqualified from the table (simply for being a paedo-baptist), he/she is ALWAYS disqualified from the table. Whatever it is that makes their subsequent and repeated presence at the Table unbiblical and wrong would make their initial and even "occasional" presence unbiblical and wrong.

What do you propose be said to a paedo-baptist who has been granted access to the table once or twice and then comes a third time? "I'm sorry, sir/madam, but although we didn't regard your convictions as worthy of disqualification before, now we do. You weren't in sin by partaking of the elements before, but you are now. Furthermore, although WE weren't in sin by allowing you to partake before (on ‘occasion'), we would be in sin if we let it continue." Is this really what we glean from the NT concerning celebration of the Table?

So, my point is simply that if a paedo-baptist is welcomed by God to the Table once, he/she is welcomed by God at all times (assuming, again, that he/she is not under discipline). Otherwise you put the credo-baptist in the rather awkward (and what seems to me unbiblical) position of compromising on his/her convictions out of compassion or friendship, but only once or twice, i.e., only "occasionally", and then expecting them to do what they really believe is right and closing the table to any further participation by paedo-baptist believers.

The bottom line is this. If you believe the Bible forbids that a paedo-baptist should be granted access to the Table, then abide by your convictions. Aim for consistency. Don't try to make everyone feel better by saying, "Well, for the sake of ‘fellowship' and in order to avoid giving offence to those we regard as ‘friends,' it's o.k. this one time. And maybe we'll stretch it to twice, but after that we've got to stand firm on what we believe is biblical."

Even though I end up differing with Mark on this point, I have probably learned more from him on the nature of local church life than any other author. And I look forward to learning even more as this dialogue continues. Comments anyone?

Sam