FAQ - What is Faith?

This entry corre­sponds to the MetaSchema entry on What is Faith?.

This is current­ly under construct­ion.

Infant Baptism

With respect to the issue of infant versus believer’s baptism, it should be noted there is a lot of silence with this issue in the New Testament. There is no direct call to baptize infants, although many people infer that when households were baptized, this in all probability included infants. Others would say that the command, “believe and be baptized” constitutes a rather direct command that baptism was to come after belief. However, others would note that this command was being given to those who were currently outside of the faith, and thus the context does not rule out infant baptism. There is no explicit command to not baptize infants. Other larger issues of Biblical interpretation resolve the issue of infant versus believer’s baptism. Below are some brief notes to consider in favor of infant baptism.

People in Old Testament times were saved in much the same way as they are after Christ, by God's grace through faith in Christ. In Old Testament times, Christ was seen through signs and shadows. When Christ came, those shadows were replaced by the reality of Christ.
There is considerable continuity from the Old Testament into the New Testament and now. The principle of interpretation in Scripture is to note there is continuity. Practice that was followed in the Old Testament is to continue into the New Testament, unless explicitly stated otherwise. For example, the sacrificial system was forbidden in the New Testament, the dietary and cleansing laws were also eliminated in the New Testament.

In the Old Testament, circumcision was performed on all who entered into the visible community of God. Circumcision was applied to infants of families who were in good standing in the visible community of God. Circumcision was also applied to those who converted into the community of God. It should be noted that entire households were circumcised.

Abraham received circumcision that was a sign and seal of his faith:

(Romans 4:11 NIV)  And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. So then, he is the father of all who believe but have not been circumcised, in order that righteousness might be credited to them.

In the New Testament, there is an explicit replacement of circumcision with baptism:

(Colossians 2:11-12 NIV)  In him you were also circumcised, in the putting off of the sinful nature, not with a circumcision done by the hands of men but with the circumcision done by Christ, {12} having been buried with him in baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead.

Because of the principle of continuity, and baptism is the replacement of circumcision; the practices of circumcision also apply to baptism unless there are explicit instructions otherwise.

There are other issues to explore, but this is start on the topic.

Purpose

The purpose of this blog is to journal my theological musings. I've seperated this from MetaSchema because MetaSchema is more philosphical, while this blog will get into more theological details.