Theological Debate: Should Infants Be Baptized?

Well, good evening, friends and fans.

Thank you for joining us in this most important issue that we'll be discussing tonight, and the question is, should infants be baptized? That's what we're here to discuss this evening.

My name is Matthew Henson.

I will be your moderator this evening, and the fact that I have done my job well would mean that you forget all about me, and instead we turn to the issues.

We turn with open Bibles, open minds, and open hearts to what it is that God has for us tonight.

I'd like to introduce our two participants, and then say just a little bit about the structure of this debate before we begin.

For the purposes of this debate, we have a proposition and then someone opposing that side, so you may hear me refer to the positive and the negative side.

This is not a reflection upon their character or personality.

It is simply the debate terms.

So, both sides in this debate would positively affirm the baptism of new believers under a profession of faith in Jesus Christ.

Where they would differ would be upon the children of those believers receiving the sign of baptism.

So, the Paedo-Baptists would believe that the infant children of at least one believing parent are proper candidates for baptism.

A Credo-Baptist, on the other hand, believes that only after a person professes faith in Christ is he or she a proper candidate, and therefore infants do not qualify as they are unable to profess faith.

My two participants tonight are Keith Foskey and Redeemed Zumer.

Redeemed Zumer, excuse me.

You are also Reformed though, so I should thank you for that.

No, I got to get the handle correct.

Redeemed Zumer, thank you.

I was reading my notes and got crossed up there.

Redeemed Zumer is a layman in the Presbyterian Church USA who is committed to confessional Reformed theology.

He describes himself as a Generation Z YouTuber, and you should check out his channel because he has a multitude of content on a number of different subjects.

He will be presenting the positive case for Paedo-Baptism tonight.

Keith Foskey is the pastor of Sovereign Grace Family Church, as well as a podcaster, humorist, amateur magician, martial arts aficionado, and many other such things.

The Renaissance man of Sovereign Grace.

He is married to Jennifer.

Together they have six children, and he will be presenting the negative case tonight, that being opposed to the practice and concept of Paedo-Baptism.

Gentlemen, how are you doing this evening? Doing very well.

Thank you, Matthew, for moderating for us.

I'm doing very well also.

For some reason everyone thinks I'm Reformed Zumer.

There was actually, like, a lot of people talking about that recently.

It's seriously the Mandela effect, but no, I've never been called that.

So you're in good company.

There we go.

There we go.

Well, I'm glad I didn't call you something inaccurate because, as you say, you do affirm Reformed confessional, the Reformed confessional faith.

Well, to our audience tonight, we are brothers in Christ, but we do differ on some matters, and this is an important matter.

This is not a matter that we want to just dismiss.

We want to give it its proper weight and its due consideration.

The structure of tonight's debate will be a pretty classic structure.

We'll have 15-minute opening statements from either side.

There will then be a 10-minute rebuttal period.

After that, we're going to move to a cross-examination period, and finally after that, we have closing statements and audience questions.

I'd like to go ahead and address the subject of audience questions tonight.

If you have one for these gentlemen, please wait to post that question in the YouTube chat until we get to the closing statement time.

I will be monitoring the chat during closing statement time to pull three questions probably for each one, and we'll go into the specifics a little bit more on that.

So, you've heard me talk enough now.

You've heard these gentlemen introduce themselves, and so we are going to begin our debate with our opening statements.

The opening statement of Redeemed Zuma will come first.

This is the positive case for pedo-baptism.

He has 15 minutes to make his case.

I will only give a ding sound when we're down to one minute remaining, but these gentlemen will also be keeping time for themselves.

So, Redeemed Zuma, you have the floor.

When you begin speaking, your 15 minutes will begin.

Okay, thank you, Pastor Keith, for organizing this debate, and thank you, moderator, for moderating.

Before we get started, of course, I have to say that while the issue of infant baptism is important, it is an in-house debate within Christianity.

I know my Baptist brothers have the utmost commitment to following Scripture, so the disagreement is simply about discerning the biblical view of this issue.

There are three reasons why I believe infant baptism is the biblical position.

The first is that the kingdom of God is a collective reality.

The second is that baptism actually does something, and the third is that infant baptism is most consistent with a monergistic, Calvinistic view of salvation.

The main reasoning behind saying infants shouldn't be baptized is that baptism is supposed to be a personal declaration of faith.

So since babies can't profess faith, they shouldn't be baptized.

However, the Bible never defines baptism as a profession of faith after conversion.

It sometimes is that, but not always.

Here's why.

What baptism really is is becoming a member of God's covenant community.

It's citizenship in the kingdom of God.

The clearest demonstration of this is the several household baptisms in the book of Acts.

It doesn't describe individuals being baptized after individual personal conversions.

It was for entire families being baptized all at once.

For example, in Acts 16, when Lydia converted, her whole household was baptized.

When the Philippian jailer converted, his whole household was baptized.

We could go the easy way and simply assume that at least one of these households had infant children, and then it's checkmate, credo Baptists, but even if we don't assume that, the text still shows us that baptism isn't purely an individual choice, but also a collective participation in the family of God.

To reinforce this, 1st Peter 3, 20 to 21, says that Noah and his family were saved through the waters of the flood, and that these waters symbolize baptism.

But hold on a second.

Genesis 6, which talks about Noah, doesn't say each individual member of Noah's family was righteous for their time, and oh look, what a coincidence.

They happen to be related to each other.

No, it says Noah was righteous, but God still made a covenant with him and his family.

And the whole family was saved through the flood, which as Peter tells us, foreshadows baptism.

Now, as a side note here, this is not the topic of the debate, but in the whole sprinkling versus immersion debate, you know, if Noah's flood symbolizes baptism, Noah and his family were sprinkled with the water and everyone else was fully immersed.

But still, Noah's entire family was considered holy enough to be in God's covenant community based on the faithfulness of Noah himself.

Pay attention to that, because that idea comes up many more times in Scripture.

The covenant promise given to Abraham when Isaac was circumcised as a baby was, I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him.

Genesis 17, 19.

The covenant promise was for him and his children.

Later in Acts 2, 29, Peter echoes this by saying the promise of baptism is also for you and your children.

And the confirmation that baptism performs the same function that circumcision did is in Colossians 2, verses 11 to 12, which says, in him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands.

Your whole self, ruled by the flesh, was put off when you were circumcised by Christ, having been buried with him in baptism.

Therefore, since circumcision was not only a personal profession of faith, but also a collective participation in God's kingdom that was given to infants, we can assume the same for baptism.

This is a theme we see all over Scripture.

Being part of God's kingdom is always a collective reality, and that's not to diminish the individual responsibility to have faith in God.

But in the Old Testament, everyone who was circumcised, including infants, was part of God's covenant people in some sense, even though not all of them were individually faithful believers.

There were circumcised Israelites who still went astray and worshiped false gods, so we would say they weren't saved, but they were still part of God's kingdom in a sense.

This principle carries over into the New Testament.

1 Corinthians 7 14 says that unbelievers can still be sanctified or made holy in some sense by believing family members.

The same is true with like Noah and his family being made holy.

The Bible teaches in many ways that it's possible to be part of God's kingdom in some sense without having genuine personal faith.

It's possible to be a good soldier who helps the kingdom, even if you're not doing it out of personal love for the king.

That's why Philippians 1 15 to 18 says some preach the gospel only for selfish motives, but it is still for the best because Christ is preached nonetheless.

Jesus says that the Holy Spirit can still use and work through people who aren't truly regenerate.

In Matthew 7 21 to 23, he says some people do miracles and cast out demons, clearly having the Spirit work through them, but he still never truly knew them.

On a personal note, I converted to Christianity due to the influence of Christians I met at a summer camp as a teenager, and tragically most of those friends of mine have since left the faith, indicating to those of us who hold to a Calvinist view of salvation that they were never truly inwardly regenerate.

However, they were still set apart in a real sense.

While they were still in the faith, they were completely different from the people I had grown up around, and I saw the light of Christ through them.

Now when we say baptism isn't just a personal declaration of faith, we still understand that it is indeed that in many cases.

It is a sign to be received by faith, but the Bible also says circumcision was a sign to be received by faith, Romans 4 11 to 12.

But that didn't mean babies weren't circumcised.

If someone who wasn't baptized as a child becomes Christian, then they must indeed make a profession of faith before getting baptized.

That's what happened to me, just as Abraham made a profession of faith before getting circumcised.

If you were born in a different country and became a citizen of America, you do indeed need to make a profession of loyalty to America.

That's why those of us who support infant baptism fully agree that those who were not baptized as a baby must make a profession of faith before getting baptized as an adult.

However, if you are born in America, you don't need to make a profession of loyalty to America in order to be a citizen.

So that's why while we do see that's why while we do see examples of baptism following a profession of faith in Scripture, we have no reason to say that that's the only acceptable condition for baptism.

The reason I keep using kingdom analogies is because I believe Christianity is all about the kingdom of God, as that was Jesus's main message, especially in his public ministry recorded in the Synoptic Gospels.

And the kingdom of God includes the salvation of individual souls by personal faith in Christ, but isn't limited to that.

It's also about the transformation of society.

In Luke 4, Jesus said, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me to proclaim good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind.

Now, you could spiritualize all that by saying it's just a metaphor for saving souls or something, but the Apostles in Acts and the early church never separated tending to people's spiritual needs from tending to their physical needs.

The early church cared for the sick during pandemics, and once the church was institutionalized, the church built hospitals and orphanages.

This is how the this is how Christians have historically built the kingdom of God.

And I think infant baptism is important for the collective nature of God's kingdom.

It's why every major historic Christian branch, except Baptists, established Christendom in some way.

You have historically Catholic, Orthodox, Lutheran, Anglican, and Reformed countries, but not Baptist ones, because Baptists have historically placed a sole focus on personal salvation.

All these other Christian groups believe Baptist theology was actually dangerous to Christendom in some way.

The great Calvinist theologian, political philosopher, and Dutch prime minister, Abraham Kuyper, said that the fundamental unit of society should be families rather than individuals.

It's no surprise he was a paedo-baptist.

Since all Christians are facing powerful enemies in the culture war today, infant baptism is a good way of showing that the kingdom of God applies to the culture as well as to individuals.

It's our it's also our way of saying while the culture keeps launching new attacks on the family and promoting radical individualism, the kingdom of God still has a family-centered identity model because that's what the Bible teaches.

And I know Baptists stand firmly for the importance of Christian families and a family-oriented culture.

I'll admit they've done that better than Presbyterians, but paedo-baptism is logically not consistent with that.

I can smell the cognitive dissonance in certain Baptists.

I see more and more Christians, including Baptists, realizing the importance of a Christian society rather than relying on just saving individual souls one at a time.

So if that's you, you got to take the final step.

Take the plunge, no pun intended, into paedo-baptism.

The second reason to support infant baptism is that baptism actually does something.

It isn't just a symbol.

I think that if you do believe baptism is just a symbol, then paedo-baptism is the logical conclusion of that because a symbol is useless to you if you can't remember it.

As a side note, I think certain Presbyterians who do believe in infant baptism but see baptism as more symbolic still often don't do a very good job defending infant baptism.

But 1 Peter 3 21 says, Baptism now saves you.

And Peter also says in Acts 2 38 to repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of your sins.

Titus 3 5 says God saved us through the washing of regeneration and rebirth by the Holy Spirit, which heavily implies baptism.

Almost every time the New Testament mentions baptism, it is connected to salvation in some way.

Some people find ways to interpret these passages to say baptism itself doesn't do anything, but that's not how the early church interpreted them.

Now the church fathers didn't agree on much, but they unanimously agreed that baptism saves.

The church fathers didn't even agree on infant baptism.

Some of them were paedo-baptists.

Now before the Baptists in the audience get too excited, they were paedo-baptists for a very different reason than modern Baptists are.

They thought baptism washed away all past sins.

But if you commit a single sin after baptism, you're doomed.

So they delayed baptism until people could be confident they'd never sin again, sometimes delaying baptism to just before death.

So they still strongly believed baptism saves.

Of course, once St.

Augustine came along and clarified that baptism's efficacy isn't tied to when it's administered, infant baptism became the universal practice.

And in case the church fathers are too Catholic for you, all the Protestant Reformers still believed baptism contributes to salvation in some sense.

They were just careful to emphasize that baptism cannot save you without faith.

Even John Calvin wrote in his Geneva Catechism that the gifts of salvation are bestowed upon us by baptism as long as we don't render them unfruitful by our unbelief.

Even the Westminster Confession, 286, says baptism is effective unto salvation for those whom God has chosen.

Calvin's view of baptismal efficacy isn't the same as roaming Catholic baptismal regeneration, but he still joins the nearly universal witness of church history that baptism is a means of saving grace.

Because Peter called baptism a promise for the forgiveness of sins, I would say baptism saves not because it's magic water, but because of the covenant promise attached to baptism, and we receive that promise by faith alone.

So while many modern Presbyterians have discarded baptismal efficacy, it is the historic Presbyterian position.

So a major reason as to why we baptize babies is because we believe baptism is a work of God, not a work of man.

The babies being baptized don't need to understand baptism or personally choose it for it to work, because it's God doing the work in baptism.

And that brings me to my final point.

Infant baptism is a beautiful picture of the gospel, especially a Calvinistic view of the gospel.

That's why Calvin himself, along with all the other reformers, was a firm Paedo-Baptist.

Calvin even said in his Institutes that Satan wants people to be Credo-Baptists.

I'm not saying that, but Calvin did.

Now, I know it's a fallacy if I appeal to authority, but it's not a fallacy if I appeal to theology.

Calvinists, Lutherans, and Reformed Baptists all hold to a view of salvation called monergism, which is that we do not cooperate with God in salvation, not even with our free will.

God is active, we are passive.

When a baby is baptized, they're completely passive and helpless.

Sometimes they're kicking and screaming, just like how when God saves us, we're completely passive in the process, and we even try to resist sometimes.

I think a more free will-oriented, Provisionist, or Arminian view of salvation is more consistent with Credo-Baptism.

When I explain infant baptism to my Provisionist Baptist friends in Texas, their most common objection is, but then it can't be a personal choice! And then I'm sort of predestined to smile and say, that's the whole point.

We can also all agree that baptism symbolizes salvation, even though I think it's more than a symbol.

So if that's the case, then it makes sense for the infants receiving baptism to be completely passive in the process.

God doesn't need our permission to save us.

If salvation really was based on a personal choice, we'd all be going to hell.

None of us would choose it.

It's only by God's grace alone that some of us are saved.

Salvation is all about what God is doing, not about what we are doing.

So now apply that to baptism.

Colossians 2.12 says, you were circumcised by Christ, being buried with him in baptism.

So it's clearly God doing the work in baptism.

In the Credo-Baptist view, baptism is you declaring your personal faith in God, but in the Pedo-Baptist view, baptism is God declaring his faithfulness to you.

Thank you.

Okay, you have two minutes remaining worth of time.

Did you want to make any other additions? Um, no, I think I yield my time to Pastor Keith.

Okay.

All right.

Well, thank you so much for the presentation, for staying within the time limit, and staying on the topic, of course makes my job easier.

Pastor Keith, are you ready to give your opening statement, sir? Yeah, let me set my timer here real quick.

Okay.

And I will get mine reset.

And again, I will, once you get down to 60 seconds, I'll give you a bell.

But your time begins at your first word, sir.

All right.

Well, first, I want to thank Radim Zuma for his willingness to engage in this debate, as well as Matthew for moderating.

I'll work to stay within my time and make his job as easy as possible.

I also want to recognize from the beginning that many gallons of ink have been dedicated to writing on this particular topic.

It's not likely that either of us will add any new ideas to the subject.

But it's likely that there will be new hearers who will listen to this debate, perhaps some who are struggling over this question, so I hope I can succinctly lay out my position as both an introduction and an argument.

I'm an affirmed Credo Baptist.

Therefore, I reject the practice of baptizing infants based upon the faith of their parents.

Now, it's important that I admit that my position is the minority report of church history.

Paedo-baptism does have a long history within Christianity.

It is practiced by the majority of mainline Protestant denominations, as well as the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church.

But here is where we mustn't allow history to confuse us.

While the practice of infant baptism is wide within Christianity, the reason for its practice is varied.

The Presbyterian, the Lutheran, and the Roman Catholic all baptize their infants, but they do so for different reasons.

Roman Catholics affirm baptismal regeneration, meaning that it is in the water of baptism that a person receives the new birth.

It's said in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd edition, paragraph 1213, baptism is the sacrament of regeneration through water in the word.

Likewise, the Lutheran Church also affirms baptismal regeneration.

The website for the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, states on its page regarding baptism, quote, we believe that new birth, and then they have in parentheses, regeneration, happens in baptism.

However, within the Presbyterian Church, there is disagreement on this matter.

Though they agree that baptism is a sign of regeneration, as is stated in their confession and was also noted by Redeem Zuma in his opening, many Presbyterians would argue that baptism does not necessarily result in regeneration, and this is a key point.

I want to quote Kevin Gardner.

He was writing for Ligonier Ministries.

He says this, over against the Baptist view, the Reformed view asserts that something actually happens in baptism.

Grace is actually conferred to worthy recipients, and over against the Roman Catholic and Lutheran views, the Reformed view asserts that baptism does not regenerate.

Now, my point in all of this is simply to say that while there is consistency regarding the subjects of baptism between these groups, there is not a consistency as to the reason why they baptize infants.

On the one hand, you have a group baptizing for the purpose of conferring regeneration upon the subject.

On the other hand, you have those who reject the idea that regeneration is being conferred.

Instead, they see baptism as a sign of entrance into the covenant community.

Therefore, any appeal to historic tradition without recognizing the differences would be misleading.

Yes, baptizing infants is the majority report, but the reasoning has not been consistent.

I do want to quote James White at this point in his debate with Greg Strawbridge on this same subject.

He said this, no one believed what Calvin taught about covenantal infant baptism before John Calvin, and so that makes it a theological novum, and it places it in a place in history that must be examined.

Calvin inherited a sacral church from the first generation Reformers— he was a second generation Reformer—and sought to establish a theological framework to defend that sacral state church relationship in light of the break from Rome on one side and the challenge of the Radical Reformation on the other side.

What's interesting is if you think about it, there's actually a consistency between Baptists and some Presbyterians on this.

We both reject baptismal regeneration, depending on the definition.

We both believe baptism is done preliminary to entrance into the visible church.

So the question becomes, who is rightly a part of the church? Who is a right participant in the life of the church? Who is actually part of the church? But this is based on a larger question.

The visible church is made up of those who are members of the new covenant.

So who is in the new covenant? Is it believers only or is it believers and they're not yet believing children? This question leads us to have to examine the covenants.

It is true that under the old covenant, people were joined by birth.

It was a national covenant.

It was for a specific people.

However, in the new covenant, people are joined by the new birth.

This has been understood historically.

Again, this is why so many practiced infant baptism.

They believed in baptismal regeneration.

They at least understood the connection between regeneration and covenant membership.

To truly be a member of the new covenant, you have to be born again.

This is one of the distinguishing attributes of the new covenant over against the old.

Everyone within the new covenant are regenerate believers.

The new covenant is mentioned in the book of Jeremiah and is quoted again in Hebrews 8, and it is called the new covenant because it is based on a better priesthood with better promises.

I call it the Papa John's covenant.

Better priesthood, better promises, new covenant.

In the new covenant, God's law is written on the heart.

Everyone, everyone in the new covenant will have a genuine relationship with God.

I will be their God and they will be my people.

Everyone from the least to the greatest in the new covenant will know God personally.

Every member of the new covenant has full forgiveness of sins.

Everyone in the new covenant community will know the Lord.

It will not be made up of those who confess faith and those who do not, but rather it will be made up entirely of those who profess to be believers in Jesus.

This is why Hebrews 8, 11, in speaking of the covenant community, says, They shall not teach each one his fellow citizen or each one his brother saying know the Lord for they shall all know me from the least of them to the greatest.

This speaks specifically about the covenant community where in all shall know the Lord.

So the position that we take is simple.

A person does not enter the new covenant by birth.

A person enters the new covenant by new birth.

It is not physical birth that unites one to Christ.

It is spiritual birth that unites one to Christ.

The new covenant actually establishes a new paradigm in which ideas like seed and offspring are to be understood.

Romans 4, 16 says, That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring, not only to the adherent of the law, but also to the one who shares in the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all.

As it is written, I have made you the father of many nations in the presence of God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.

That's quoted from Genesis 17.

Is Abraham the father of new covenant believers and we his offspring? Well, the answer is yes.

But is Abraham's fatherhood physical in this case? No.

In the new covenant, the seed is spiritual.

It must be recognized that a big part of the reason for the Presbyterian Baptist distinction comes from our understanding of the covenants.

Presbyterians believe the covenant of grace began after the fall and therefore all the covenants named thereafter, the Abrahamic, the Mosaic, the Davidic, are all different administrations of the same covenant of grace.

They believe that their position maintains a proper continuity between the old and the new.

And Baptists are said to be introducing a discontinuity which is unwarranted by the text.

However, we all recognize that there is discontinuity from the old to the new.

None of us are demanding our children be circumcised.

Neither do we hold to the dietary restrictions.

Neither do we practice temple sacrifice.

But we also recognize there's continuity.

We all believe that there's a transcendent law which is above the covenants and applies to all people at all times.

Do not murder, do not lie, do not steal, applies to everyone.

In addition, Baptists argue that the new covenant is that covenant to which all previous covenants pointed.

What they are in types and shadows find their fulfillment in the new covenant.

Therefore, the continuity is in fulfillment.

The Old Testament is the type and the New Testament is the fulfillment.

So both sides affirm there is both continuity and discontinuity.

The question is, does membership in the covenant community continue unchanged from the old covenant to the new covenant? The Presbyterian says yes, but the Baptists argue a significant change has come.

The old covenant was entered into by birth, but the new covenant is entered into by new birth.

So we come to this question, does the Bible give us a way to determine who has experienced the new birth? The answer is yes.

Those who experience the new birth believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.

John chapter 1 verse 11.

He came unto his own, and his own people did not receive him.

But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave them the right to become the children of God, who were born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

If a person has not professed faith, then we would not assume that he has been regenerated.

Therefore, until he does, we would not baptize him.

Does this mean that every member of a Baptist church, or any church for that matter, is a regenerate member of the new covenant? No, we are aware that there is such a thing as false profession.

There are those who make false statements of faith.

But baptizing a false professor is not the same as baptizing a person unable to make a profession.

Some may ask, well, what criteria would a Baptist parent use to determine if a child is a proper subject for baptism? Well, we would use similar criteria that Presbyterians use when admitting their children to the Lord's table.

Unless they practice paedo-communion, which is practice but is the minority report, they have some practice of determining whether a child is fit for the table, whether it be catechesis or counseling or something else.

They will not allow an unbelieving child to the table.

Therefore, though they are considered members of the new covenant community, they are not treated the same as those who profess faith.

Which is ironic, because Baptists are chided for holding back baptism when we both are choosing to not allow full participation in the sacraments until faith is professed.

One of the earliest documents that exists outside of the scripture is something called the Didache.

And in regard to baptism, it has an interesting paragraph.

It says this, Concerning baptism, baptize this way, having first said all these things, baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit in living water.

But if you do not have living water, baptize into other water.

And if you cannot in cold, then warm.

But if you have not, either pour out water thrice upon the head into the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit.

But before the baptism, let the baptizer fast and the baptized and whatever others can, but you shall order the baptized to fast one or two days before.

So if we look back at this historical document, we see that even in the history of the church, it's obvious that a person being baptized must have the ability to consent to the baptism because they're being asked to consent to a fast, which would certainly exclude infants.

Neither are infants mentioned as being proper subjects for baptism in this particular document, which is a good reminder that my friend would have to affirm.

There is no command for neither any explicit description of any infant being baptized in the New Testament.

Households are mentioned to be certain, but there's nothing that says those households contained infants.

I have just as much warrant to believe the people in the house of the Philippian jailer were all over the age of 12 as anyone has to assume that there were infants in the home.

Using my church as an example, only three of the households out of approximately 50 that we have have children still in diapers.

Moreover, in at least one biblical case, we are told that the person believed together with his household and would be in line with our understanding of household baptism.

Acts 18, 8 says Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, believed in the Lord together with his entire household.

In the New Testament, you never read of the apostles purposefully baptizing an unrepentant unbeliever.

Baptism is always given to those who profess faith in Christ.

Finally, it's important to say that as Baptists, we do not believe our children are in the same condition as the pagans, because the Bible does teach that our children are sanctified by the presence of at least one believing parent.

But the sanctification does not confirm them to be certainly among the elect any more than it does the sanctity provided to the unbelieving spouse.

If that passage mandates baptizing an infant, it would also mandate baptizing an unbelieving spouse.

Our children are in a position of privilege to be sure, but they are not by birth members of the new covenant, and it does not make them part of the covenant community any more than it would an unbelieving spouse.

Our children are blessed to be in a Christian home, our children are blessed to be in a Christian church, but our children do not become part of the body of Christ apart from faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and until they profess faith they are not proper subjects for baptism.

Thank you.

Thank you, Pastor Keith.

That concludes our opening statement.

So to our audience, you have heard both sides present their positive and negative case for paedo-baptism.

We're going to move now to a period of the debate called rebuttal.

Now, rebuttal is a time period not as a bonus add-on to your opening statement.

Rebuttal is specifically so that you can address inconsistencies or press on some of the weaker parts of your opponent's presentation.

Rebuttal is intended to take only material that has been presented tonight and to attempt to refute it or demonstrate a logical inconsistency.

We'll continue our alternating back and forth as we have done from the beginning.

So, Redeem Zumer, you will be up first on the rebuttal period.

You'll be rebutting Pastor Keith's presentation in the opening, and are you ready for that time to begin, the 10-minute time to begin, sir? Yes.

Okay, so I will start my clock on your first word.

Okay, so Pastor Keith made a very good point that there are the majority of Christians throughout church history have affirmed infant baptism, but for different reasons, and it's a very good point because I've actually pointed this out into certain things that I consider false teachings.

For example, I consider justifying same-sex marriage to be a false teaching, and what made me realize that there's no good biblical support for it is that there are a lot of reasons people use to justify same-sex marriage, but everyone has a different personal reason for justifying it, which made me think, yeah, the Bible doesn't really have a clear justification.

People are just making this stuff up.

So it is a very good point to say that, yeah, a lot of Christians support infant baptism, but for very different reasons.

It would be a very good point if that were completely true, but not quite actually.

So Pastor Keith does indeed point out that the different pato-baptist groups are not unified completely in their view of what baptism does and what it is exactly.

He did correctly point out that the Presbyterian view of baptismal efficacy is not quite the same as the Lutheran view of baptismal regeneration, which is slightly different even than the Catholic view of baptismal regeneration, but there are very clear common themes between all these groups.

Here's one simple thing that all these groups believe that's the justification they all use for baptizing their babies.

You ready? Baptism makes you Christian.

The difference between Baptists and everyone else, everyone else thinks baptism makes you Christian in some sense.

In like traditional English language, to baptize something is synonymous with to Christianize it.

That's why when people say, oh, Thomas Aquinas is just appropriating ancient Greek philosophy and making it Christian, they'll say he's baptizing Aristotle or they'll say Saint Augustine was baptizing Plato.

Baptism is a synonym for making something Christian.

So the reason Christians have baptized their babies historically is I want my babies to be Christian.

We're making Christian babies here.

So there is a bit of a difference because Presbyterians think that there's a difference between being Christian in a covenantal sense and being Christian in the sense of being elect.

That's why Presbyterians have a much less hard time than Reformed Baptists with dealing with the passages that clearly say it's possible to fall away from the faith because even though we do believe in perseverance of the saints, we believe you could be a Christian in a covenantal sense and still fall away from the faith.

So that means all of us, whether Presbyterian or Lutheran or Catholic, believe baptism makes you Christian in some sense.

The different theologians have had different ways of working this out.

But as I said in my opening statement, it's not quite true that the Presbyterian or Calvinist view of baptism was a complete novelty because as I quoted from Calvin earlier, he still believed that baptism contributes to regeneration in some sense.

The big difference is it only contributes to regeneration for the elect and its efficacy isn't tied to when it's administered.

You quoted James White.

I'm a big fan of James White, by the way, love his debates and all.

But I disagree with what he said about Calvin because I, like I said, I've read many places where Calvin clearly demonstrates a belief in baptismal efficacy joining the universal witness of the church.

So another reason that all Christians have baptized babies, aside from the fact that baptism makes the babies Christian in some sense, is also because they've just had a more collective view of the church.

Now moving on to covenant theology.

Now personally, I wasn't planning to spend too much time on covenant theology because while Presbyterians believe in it, most other paedo-baptist groups don't.

So I want to kind of represent all paedo-baptists here, not just Presbyterians.

But Pastor Keith brought up a lot of things about the old covenant and the new covenant because arguing for circumcision, arguing for the status of covenant children, whether or not they believe as part of the kingdom of God, only really works if you see continuity between the old covenant and the new covenant in that sense.

So correct me in cross-examination if I'm misunderstanding you.

It seems that Pastor Keith said that, yes, it's true that in the old covenant, children of believers, whether or not they were elect, were part of the covenant, were part of God's people, but that the new covenant is a new and better covenant and that in that covenant the condition is having the law written on the heart, its personal faith.

And I can't really blame Reformed Baptists for thinking that the new covenant is something new and different.

You know, it's in the name, new covenant.

But there's a bit of a problem with thinking that because in Genesis 17-7, which gives the which gives the covenant, gives the covenant to Abraham and in which it says that children are part of the covenant says I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring.

And it says it's going to be an everlasting covenant.

Everlasting means everlasting.

So if you think the old covenant has ended and the new covenant has replaced it, then what happened to the old covenant? Where's the old covenant? I'm sure that Reformed Baptists, 1689 Federalists have thought this through very carefully.

I'm sure I'm not the first person to notice this.

So again, in cross-examination, it'd be a good thing to talk about.

But another reason to think that the principles of the covenant with Abraham still apply to the new covenant to believers today is in Romans 9, when Paul is explaining that not all who are biologically descended from Abraham are spiritual descendants of Abraham.

He says that it's not as though the word of God has failed for not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel.

So he's basically taking the rules of that covenant and applying them to today, applying them to the new covenant.

And that sort of seems to justify the Presbyterian view of covenant theology, which is that while there's different administrations of the covenant, they're all part of one overarching covenant of grace.

And that's why we can take the principle of the children of believers being included as part of the covenant and apply it to the New Testament, especially because we see Saint Peter echoing this promise that the covenant is for you and your children.

We can assume that there's continuity, but that sort of seals the deal, in my opinion.

And Pastor Keith also talked about how in the new covenant, it's like we're justified by faith, and it's the new birth that the new birth contributes to inclusion in the new covenant.

But Paul appeals to the Abraham story when he's talking about justification by faith and the new covenant.

So if the old covenant had like different rules, different mechanisms of salvation than the new covenant, it wouldn't really make much sense for Paul to quote passages from the old covenant, not just the old covenant, but specifically the story of Abraham if the rules were a bit different back then.

Salvation, justification in the eyes of God has always been about the new birth.

It has always been about personal faith in Christ, and there has always been a distinction between being part of God's covenant people and being a personal believer.

So there are passages though about the new covenant being something new and different with a new birth, with the heart of stone being replaced with the heart of flesh.

So if the new birth isn't a change in the mechanisms of salvation, what does the new birth refer to in terms of how the covenants are different? The answer is pretty simple, like what's the synonym for new birth? It's resurrection.

The resurrection of Christ changed everything.

In the old covenant, you had types and shadows of resurrection, but in the new covenant you had the resurrection of Christ on display for everyone, and what the new covenant gives is a promise of eternal life, a promise of resurrection, a promise of the new birth, and then people were able to finally realize that being born again is a spiritual resurrection, and there's a promise of a physical resurrection.

So the resurrection is what we're talking about when we're talking about the new birth.

So Pastor Keith also mentioned the fact that, you know, we baptize our infants, but we still don't allow them to the Lord's table, and we still have similar qualifications for allowing infants to the Lord's Supper that Baptists do for allowing, sorry, we don't have qualifications for infants to the Lord's Supper, similar qualifications for allowing children to the Lord's table that Baptists do for allowing children to be baptized.

And the most important qualification, of course, is personal faith in Christ.

There's a pretty simple reason for why we do this.

It's that there is a very clear and stern warning in the New Testament about taking the Lord's Supper in an unworthy manner, and there is no such warning for baptism.

It says that if you take the Lord's Supper in an unworthy manner, you're sinning against the body and blood of the Lord.

According to Calvinist theology, the only people who really receive the true body and blood of Christ are those who have personal faith, and those that don't only receive judgment.

So that's why we don't give communion to babies.

My personal analogy for why we baptize babies, but don't commune them, is that baptism is citizenship in the Kingdom of God, like I said, but communion is active participation in the Kingdom of God.

Citizenship is a one-time thing.

You don't need to renew your birth certificate all the time, but you constantly participate in your country.

So the Lord's Supper in the Kingdom of God is like voting or serving in the military.

You need to be mature to do that.

So, Pastor Keith also mentioned the Didache.

I haven't really studied the Didache in depth.

I will grant, I already did grant, some of the Church Fathers were Credo Baptists, but all the Church Fathers believed in baptismal regeneration.

So if we're going to use the Didache to justify Credo Baptism, we could also use it to justify baptismal regeneration.

And thank you.

I yield my time.

Okay, thank you very much.

And just to remind our participants and the audience, the first bell means there's one minute remaining.

A second bell, if needed, would say time has expired.

So thank you both for respecting the time constraints.

Pastor Keith, are you ready for your rebuttal period, sir? I think so.

Okay, the clock will begin.

It'll be a 10-minute period.

The clock will begin on your first word.

I want to say this.

First of all, there's no one who speaks much faster than Radim Zumer.

So as I was trying to take notes during his opening statement, I wasn't able to do so very well.

But I did my best to pull out...

I'm a Yankee.

To pull out the three points of his argument.

First, that the Kingdom is collective.

Second, that baptism actually does something.

And third, that it is consistent with a Reformed soteriology.

I think that's correct.

Am I right in those three points? Well, in a lot of ways, there would be agreement, such as in the fact that the Kingdom is collective.

It is the body of Christ.

We're not arguing that the Kingdom is not collective.

We're arguing that the Kingdom is entered into by way of faith and not by way of birth.

And that is the key to understanding how Baptists see this.

We see a distinction between a national covenant made with a people who will receive this covenant by birth, specifically the children of Abraham, Israel, but that there is a difference in the new covenant, which will include people of all nations.

And so now it's no longer familial.

It's no longer national, but now it is spiritual.

And we see this, as I quoted from Romans chapter 4, when Abraham is called our father.

The blessings of Abraham are given to us.

And Paul says that God preached the gospel to Abraham when he said to him, through you all the nations of the world will be blessed.

Well, Paul said that's the gospel.

And why is that the gospel? Because that's the fulfillment of the promises that God made to Abraham.

And the fulfillment of that eternal covenant that was mentioned just a few moments ago is that the eternal covenant that God promised to Abraham would be fulfilled in Abraham's greatest son, great son, the true seed of Abraham, the singular seed that Paul talks about in Galatians, which is the Lord Jesus Christ.

And therefore it is being united to him that makes one part of the collective body of Christ.

It is not simply being born in a Christian home that makes someone united to Christ.

Therefore, someone can be born outside of a Christian home, like my wife, who was born in a home that did not teach her the Bible and things like that, and yet at the same time she became a believer.

She was joined to the body of Christ, not by birth, but by new birth.

And we can look at the same way and see many families who, whether they be paedobaptists or credobaptists, who have had children and raised them up, and yet they have departed from the faith.

And we are told, well, no, these are covenant children.

Yes, but they have departed from the faith.

This faith that they were taught as children, they have run away from.

And so this promise to your children is a promise of spiritual union with Christ.

It is not about whether or not your parents are Christian.

And so, yes, there is a collective.

The collective is the body of Christ, and it is the universal body of Christ all around the world.

We do agree that there is a a body of Christ that is all around the world, and you enter into that body of Christ not by being born into it, but rather by being born again into it.

I did want to mention one other thing.

When you mentioned the Noah thing about everyone outside was immersed, I thought that was a pretty good jab.

I'll just give you that.

That's pretty funny.

The second thing, you said baptism is not just a symbol, and on this we would agree.

I want to quote from the 1689 London Baptist Confession on what baptism is.

Baptism is an ordinance, which means it is a command.

It is a command of the New Covenant, New Testament, ordained by Jesus Christ to be unto the party baptized a sign of his fellowship with him in his death and resurrection.

This is why we baptize the way that we do.

It's a picture of dying with Christ and raising again, of being engrafted into him, of remission of sins, and of giving up into God through Jesus Christ to live and walk in the newness of life.

Baptism is not just a symbol in the sense that it has no value, but rather it is a sign of fellowship with Christ in his death and resurrection, being engrafted into him.

It's a sign of the remission of sins, the giving up into God through Jesus Christ to live and walk in the newness of life.

Now, I do not believe in baptismal regeneration, and my rejection of baptismal regeneration is simple on two accounts.

I do not believe in baptismal regeneration, because I do believe there are people who are baptized who are not regenerated, and therefore I don't tie baptism and regeneration together in that sense.

However, I do understand that—oh, I said there was two reasons—because people can be baptized and not be regenerated, and I believe some people can be regenerated apart from baptism.

Perhaps someone who's unable to be baptized prior to death or something like that, but yet can still experience the blessing of regeneration, because regeneration, I believe, produces faith, and therefore if someone believes, they have been regenerated, whether or not they've been baptized.

And so baptism in that sense does not create or cause regeneration from my perspective.

But I do believe that they are tied together in the sense that in the early Church, there was a sense in which, if you were a believer, you would be baptized, and to claim to be an unbaptized believer would have been something that wouldn't have made sense in the early Church.

They wouldn't have understood that idea.

So I will say this to anyone who's listening to the debate.

If you're a believer in Christ and you have not been baptized, then I believe that you are in sin, and you need to repent, and you need to be baptized, because rejection of baptism is a rejection of a command, an ordinance of the New Testament.

So we don't say that it's nothing, or that it's just a symbol, but it's a command of Christ, and it has a purpose, and it has meaning.

I just don't believe the meaning is regeneration.

Finally, you said it is inconsistent with reform, or paedo-baptism is consistent with reformed soteriology, and you said that Calvin said that Satan loves credo-baptists.

Well, that may be the case.

I've often said that I wouldn't be able to be a member of Calvin's Church, and he would probably have had me excommunicated, if not worse, so I have no problem with that.

But I do want to point out, I'm going to also mention Romans 9, as you've mentioned Romans 9.

We talk about Romans 9 as a reminder that when we consider the fact that not everyone born of Abraham is truly— not everyone born of Israel is truly Israel.

Well, not everyone born in a household of a Christian is truly a Christian, just because they're born in the household.

But it is by faith that they become a believer.

It is by faith they are joined to the body of Christ.

And the circumcision received without hands in Colossians is interesting that you would mention, because the circumcision received without hands, we would say, is regeneration.

That baptism is a picture of that, but baptism is not the cause of that.

So yes, we would see a distinction and say the sign of the new covenant is actually regeneration, and baptism is a picture of that, but regeneration is the sign.

So I'll finish there.

I think I'm about out of time anyway.

Okay, you've got two more minutes.

Did you want to do anything else with them? Um, well, uh, I think I'm good.

I think we can...

Okay.

All right.

Well, thank you both for your very well-constructed opening statements and your passionate but respectful rebuttals.

So to the audience, now comes a time where we've had a period of time for one side to make their case and then the other side to make their case and all.

Now we're going to move to the fun part.

This is cross-examination.

Now cross-examination is the period in which both participants are able to directly address one another and ask questions.

Now there is still quite a bit of structure we try to keep, but this part of the debate, provided that everyone's acting in good faith, and I have no doubt whatsoever that that will be the case, this is the part of the debate where we let them range a little bit.

We let them sort of probe each other's positions a little bit.

The only stipulation is we have a 10-minute cross-examination in which one side asks questions and the other answers, and then we have another 10-minute cross-examination that goes in the other direction.

If you are the side that is assigned as the questioner, the only thing you are permitted to do during cross-examination is to ask questions.

You are not allowed to rebut or anything like that.

That period has already passed.

So everything that you say needs to have a question mark on the end of it.

For those who are responding to the cross-examination, you need to not ask questions in return, unless you need one to clarify what the person meant.

For example, if someone says, well, we know that in acts it means this or this, would you agree? You could say, hang on a minute, I don't understand.

Where in acts are you referring to? Something like that to help you answer the question is good.

A rhetorical question or a counter jab is not permitted during cross-examination.

So typically the questioner does not do as much talking as the respondent.

So since Pastor Keith has just finished his rebuttal statement, Redeem Zumer, you will be up first for asking questions.

Sorry, I totally got that backwards.

I apologize.

Pastor Keith will be first to ask questions of Redeem Zumer so that he can rest his voice just a little bit after his rebuttal period, though I know he's a Baptist pastor.

He's used to preaching quite a bit, so that won't be a problem.

So I will hopefully not be involved in this.

I will simply raise my hand when it is one minute remaining, and Pastor Keith, are you ready to begin questioning? Uh, yeah, give me just a second.

Sure.

Sorry, I'm...

No, that's quite all right.

Yeah, we can go.

Okay, your first question, sir.

All right, Zumer, do you agree that there is no explicit command in the New Testament to baptize infants? Yes.

Do you agree that the use of the term household does not automatically assume the presence of infants? Of course.

Are the children of at least one believing parent full members of the New Covenant? There's a difference between external and internal membership of the Covenant.

So if they're baptized, they do have external membership in the Covenant, internal membership in the Covenant, meaning like spiritual union with Christ and regeneration.

That's only for those who have faith in Christ, and it happens when they are regenerate, which is not necessarily at the moment of baptism, even though it sometimes is.

Okay, so would you say that they're part of the body of Christ? Would you say that an infant child baptized into the Church is part of the body of Christ? Depends on how you define it.

There's controversy in even the Reformed tradition.

In, like, the federal vision movement, they'll say, yes, 100%.

Some people will say, well, I'm not sure about that.

I'll say yes in some sense.

I'll say yes, but not in the same way as a regenerate believer is.

Would you agree with me that the criteria that's used for Presbyterians to determine their child's fitness for the table is similar to the criteria that Baptists use to determine a child's fitness for baptism? Maybe not quite, and here's why.

Baptists believe a bit more strongly in the necessity of a conversion experience or born-again experience, whereas the Pedobaptists all believe that it's possible and perhaps a bit normal for people to be Christians from the moment of baptism or maybe even before that.

I know a lot of people, including my girlfriend, who say they've been believers their entire lives.

They've never had a a dramatic night and day born-again experience.

It's not always dramatic, but they never remember a time when they weren't a believer.

So we have less confidence than Baptists do in whether you can know if slash when someone has been inwardly regenerate.

That's an invisible process.

So God ties that process to a visible sign, which is baptism.

So we would have similar qualifications.

We would say the person needs to profess faith, the person needs to understand what the Lord's Supper is, but I think some Baptists, not all, but would need to see evidence of an actual conversion.

Would that be accurate? I can't.

I appreciate your answer, but for the sake of not going back and forth, I'll leave it at that.

It was a good answer.

Okay, so do you believe it is a sin for a Christian parent to withhold baptism? The same way it's a sin for me to slack off on my homework, maybe a bit more than that, sin has this connotation of you're like a bad Christian if you do this.

As Calvinists, we believe in total depravity.

We believe anything short of utter perfection is sin.

If you're not breathing air the right way, it's sin in some sense, and sin is a gradient.

So I'd say yeah, in the sense that any sort of imperfection is sin.

Any theological error that I have, and I know I do have some theological errors, is sin.

I will grant that if the credo Baptist position is correct, which I know it could be, then the pedo-Baptists are in sin for baptizing their children, simply because sin is anything short of perfection.

So I would say yes, but I don't mean sin in terms of they are intentionally going against the Word of God.

I know that Baptists are committed to following the Word of God.

I know that everyone has fallen short of the glory of God as the Bible says.

Well, I'm going to follow up on that, and I appreciate the way that you stated the answer, but I do want to ask if do you think a person should be placed under Church discipline if they refuse to baptize their child? I would assume the answer is no, based on what you just said, but I'm still curious as to your answer.

So I haven't thought about that.

Are you asking, like, if the Church is a pedo-Baptist Church, and there's a particular family that doesn't want to baptize their children? Sure, that's a scenario that would fit, yeah.

I've not actually thought that through.

It really depends.

I think some churches naturally are more strict on sub-Christian distinctives than others.

So in a church like mine, the answer would probably be no.

We're PCUSA.

We're lucky if we even require people to believe in God.

That's going to be the part that I clip and put in.

Sorry.

Yeah, but in, like, a RPCNA church, where they do everything strictly by the book, they probably would.

So I'm not a pastor, so I'm not the one doing the disciplining.

I'm just the one with opinions on the internet.

Okay.

Do you think that Baptist children are in spiritual danger by not being baptized, and their parents are doing them harm? I'd say more danger than children who are baptized, because Martin Luther believed that baptism, even if the person doesn't end up being saved, baptism wards off demons, right? I found that for myself.

Even though I was a believer for a while before getting baptized, it was because I thought I was baptized as a baby, but turns out I was baptized into a new age group.

Long story.

The point is, I found that it was a lot easier to resist sin and evil after I was baptized, even though I was been a believer for a long time.

Martin Luther said that, like, baptism is in some way similar to an exorcism, and that it wards off demons.

It sort of places a mark on children that says, get out of here, Satan.

This one belongs to God.

So I would say they're not in any more danger of not being a true believer, I guess, because if you look at the retention rates, Baptists tend to have actually better retention rates than other groups, which I will fully admit.

But I would say that, in a spiritual warfare perspective, honestly, I would say since baptism wards off demons, that would be something I would say.

Okay.

Do you believe that someone must be regenerate to be a member of the new covenant? No.

Like I said, internal versus external membership in the covenant.

Regeneration is required for internal membership, not external membership.

How would you then understand when Hebrews 8 says that, within the covenant, they shall all know me from the least to the greatest? Do you think that that is exaggerative? How would you understand that passage? So I haven't actually heard that one.

That's an argument I haven't thought of how to refute.

I would say there's a difference, like I said, difference between an internal and external membership in the covenant, and I would also, okay, I just thought of this.

So it says that all of you who were baptized have been, like, united to Christ, been baptized with Christ.

Even you would know that some people are baptized without being fully regenerate.

So I would say that it's saying, like, all for whom baptism was effective are united to Christ, and likewise, all for whom the covenant was effective, they will all know Christ.

Okay.

All right.

Would it be right to baptize the unbelieving spouse of a believer based on 1 Corinthians 7? I don't know.

I mean, active rejection is different than simply not having an opinion one way or another.

Like, the Reformers taught that baptism saves as long as you don't render it unfruitful by unbelief, and if the spouse is, like, clearly an unbeliever, they're going along with baptism just to make their other spouse happy.

They're rejecting God's grace in baptism.

That might bring judgment on them.

So I would say probably not.

It's different for infants who are not really rejecting it.

Do you believe it's necessary for Christian parents to call their children to repentance and faith? Of course.

Okay.

Do you think that Christian parents should assume their child has faith until they prove otherwise? That's this whole deal with presumptive regeneration.

Not necessarily assume that the child has faith.

They should assume that the child is in the faith, not the same as having personal faith.

Can you be in the faith and not have faith? Like I said, there's difference between external membership and the covenant and internal membership.

If you grow up in the church, if you participate in the church, if you're— everyone who's baptized in the church in some sense is in the faith in some sense.

So yeah.

In the Old Testament, there's the concept of the remnant, the believing within Israel that are separated from the unbelieving outside of Israel.

Do we find the covenant or the concept of remnant in the New Covenant? Not that I can think of right now.

It would make sense that the New Covenant Church is more pure than the Old Covenant Church.

Okay.

What would happen if a child was baptized based on the faith of one believing parent, and that parent later became an apostate, showing themselves to not be a believer? Would that mean that the status of being a covenant child was somehow forfeit, and therefore their baptism illegitimate? There's probably theologians who can answer this better than me.

I would say no, because it would kind of be donatist to say that if the parent was like a false believer, was secretly not a believer, then congrats, the covenantal efficacy doesn't really work.

Remember, it's God working through all these things.

So I would say that would not automatically invalidate it, no.

Okay.

All right, last question.

What do you think was my best argument tonight? Your best argument? Well, I kind of admitted that your first argument was really good, that like, yeah, there's a lot of paedo-baptists, but y'all have completely different reasons for why.

And I think the whole thing about like, birth is for the old covenant and new birth is for the new covenant, that's a pretty good argument.

All right.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

I'm done.

Okay, with an entire 11 seconds to spare.

There we go.

All right.

Well, thank you both for that.

That was, for the audience, that was everything we want a cross-examination to be.

Focused, respectful, a little bit of humor.

That's what we're hoping for, and we expected nothing less in an in-house brotherly debate.

So, other direction.

Radim Zumer, are you ready to ask Pastor Foskey some questions? Yeah.

Okay, we will begin now.

Okay, so Pastor Keith, you said you don't believe baptism is just a symbol, but based on what you described baptism as, it still sounded like it's just a symbol.

It's like a symbol can still be very, very important and just a symbol.

Like, if I were to, in the middle of like, road rage, stick my middle finger up at someone, that's just a symbol, but it's still very important.

It still has a lot of meaning, but it's just a symbol.

So, symbols still have meaning, but I think for it to be more than a symbol, it needs to actually do something.

So, does baptism actually do something? Yes.

Baptism is the sign of entrance into the New Covenant community.

I agree with that, and it does do that.

I do believe that in the external sense, it places someone in the New Covenant community as a visible sign.

However, it is not what we would say.

It does not operate on its own in the sense that it does not create regeneration.

That would be my argument.

Now, what I said sounded somewhat Presbyterian, so let me clarify.

A person does not become a member of the Church—our Church, specifically—without having been baptized, because we believe that that baptism is a sign of entrance into the community.

You can't—it's like the gate.

You can't come in unless you go through that gate, right? So you have to have that.

And here's what I don't like.

If you want to say baptism is symbolic or baptism is a sign, I agree.

But when you use the word just, and when someone says it's just a sign, well, can we say the rainbow is just a sign? Because it is a sign which shows us that God will not destroy the earth again, or that circumcision was just a sign because it marked out the children of Abraham.

When we say just, we are diminishing it, and therefore I say it is a sign of something important, but it's not causing that important thing.

Okay, so I agree that just because something is a sign and doesn't have saving efficacy doesn't mean we should use the word just.

But do you think that baptism has any efficacy at all unto any sort of salvation for anyone? I do not believe that baptism causes regeneration, therefore I don't believe baptism causes someone to be saved.

I do believe that baptism is an ordinance of Christ, it's a command of Christ, therefore it has meaning, but its meaning is not tied extrinsically to salvation.

Okay, so in the historic, you know, Presbyterian, Lutheran, and Augustinian traditions, they make a distinction between sign and thing signified.

So in some sense spiritual regeneration is part of baptism.

When we speak of baptism, we're not just speaking of the water, we're speaking of the water and what it is sacramentally united to.

So in the Reformed Baptist framework, is there this distinction between, does baptism have the two components of sign and thing signified? I would say yes, and you know, we often also refer to the phrase the means of grace.

You know, this is one of the means by which God administers grace.

We talk about the preaching of the word as a means of grace, we talk about the perceiving of the sacraments or the ordinances as a means of grace.

So in that sense, I would say yes, it has...

God is doing something in them, but it's not the act of regeneration.

So that's where I make the tie.

I would say God is doing something, but it's not it's not causing the new birth.

So in baptism, if baptism is sign and thing signified, what is the thing signified? The thing signified is the new birth, but it's not the cause.

It's signifying what is happening.

This is why we buried with Christ in baptism, raised a new life, even though many of my Baptist friends would say Romans 6 is a dry verse, meaning that Romans 6 is not referring to physical baptism.

For a moment, let's say that it is referring to physical baptism, and it says buried with Christ in baptism, raised a new life.

That's what we say when we baptize someone.

We say buried with Christ in baptism, raised a new life.

It's this signified thing has already taken place, because the person already has faith.

Therefore, regeneration has already taken place from a Calvinistic framework where regeneration precedes faith.

Therefore, if this person has the faith to desire baptism, this thing has already occurred.

But the symbol is happening as a result of that.

Okay, last question about baptism, I promise, and baptism's efficacy.

Oh, I was going to say, hope not, because we're talking about baptism.

Baptism's efficacy, sorry.

So all of those, all the different traditions who believe in baptismal efficacy allow for, explain why some people are baptized and don't have faith.

Either it's like the baptism wasn't effective for them, or they fall away from the faith, and it also allows for people who are not baptized to be saved, because baptism is a means of grace.

It's not the cause of saving grace.

So given that all the baptismal efficacy traditions allow for those things, what's stopping you from affirming baptismal efficacy? Well, again, I think it determines, it's determined by what you mean by efficacy, because I could say...

Efficacy is beyond salvation.

Well, again, because, as I said earlier, I don't remember when I said it, whether it was in my rebuttal or not, but because baptism can be, someone can be saved apart from baptism, and someone can be saved prior to baptism, I can't say that baptism is a causal thing.

So that's where I would end on that, and just say it is certainly important, it certainly has value, it certainly is as a sign of entrance, it has very important value to the visible body of Christ who sees this person receiving baptism, thereby receiving them into the covenant family, the Church, but as far as it causing salvation or being causal, that's where I would have to draw a line and say I wouldn't agree.

And I know you said that the other churches have exceptions, like for instance, if a person dies on the way to the baptismal, you know, like they would still be, because they're presumptive baptism or whatever, you know, or they're going to get baptized, therefore the baptism would apply to them.

I just don't think it works that way.

Again, going back to justification by faith alone, not justification by faith plus baptism.

Okay, so in the households that were baptized in Acts, you said that there's a good chance they didn't have any babies.

Now, I think the chance was higher, given back then people had more babies because there's less chance they survived, but let's assume they didn't have any babies.

Given that, do you think that each member of the household, every time a household was baptized, do you think that there was a conversion, a spontaneous conversion of each individual member of that household before they were baptized? I think there was a different structure in the way that people understood things as far as households operated, as far as if the father believed in something.

I think that had a lot more impact on the family than it may today.

And you talked a little bit about the individualism of America, the individualism even of Baptists in America today, and how, you know, there's this cry to be separate and divided.

But in the early time of the early Church, the father led the home.

He was the leader in the home.

And recently, it was interesting, I was going to get this quote, but I forgot to get it before the debate.

There was a recent study done that showed that if a father becomes a Christian, there's like a 90% chance that his wife and children will follow in that.

But if the mother becomes a Christian, it's less, and then if a child becomes a Christian, it's even less that the parents would follow in the child's footsteps.

So there is something to be said for a father's faith affecting those around him, and them wanting to follow after him in that.

So I would see no issue with saying that that would be the case.

Yeah.

That's definitely true.

That's what happened when my father converted from Judaism before I converted.

So that's definitely true.

But there's also the example of Lydia, who was obviously not the father of her household.

So in Lydia's case, would you still say that she converted, and then following that, every single member of her household individually had a spiritual regeneration born-again experience at the same time? I think it's possible, but I also would say about Lydia, her being a businesswoman and in the situation that she was in, she probably didn't have infants.

So I'll throw that out there.

So that would kind of take away whether or not she had infants, and that's really the debate conversation.

But if I were to be asked, do I think that all of her household believed as she did her hearing the words of Paul resulted in a spontaneous conversion? We read about that in her story in Acts.

There's no reason to believe that that same preaching that went back to her home with her, Paul went to her home and stayed at her home, that the preaching that Paul gave to them would have been any less effective.

Okay.

So if Peter tells us that the waters of the flood symbolize baptism, and Noah and his family were saved through the waters, so why would that concept of for you and your children, the whole family being saved at once, why would that not apply to baptism specifically if Peter says that Noah and his flood foreshadows baptism? Well, this is interesting, and you mentioned the family.

I know you're talking about the passage in 1 Peter, but I want to jump quickly to Acts 2, because that's often cited because it says something similar.

This promise is for you and for your children, right? And so people often hold on to that for paid of baptism and say, see, this is the children.

But what is the promise that's promised in Acts 2? The promise is, if you repent and believe, if you repent and be baptized, you will receive the forgiveness of sins.

Repentance and baptism, repentance and faith are tied together in that, and that you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

That is the promise.

And so I will say this to my children.

If you repent of your sins, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, you will be saved.

That promise is for me, and that promise is for them.

Okay, last question.

Do you believe there's a distinction between the visible and invisible church? Yes, that may take a little bit of time.

I'll make it as quickly as I can.

I do believe that the invisible church is all around the world, and that you and I are brothers in Christ.

Me and Matthew are brothers in Christ, part of that invisible body of Christ.

But I also see a distinction between that and the local church, the local assembly, which has elders and has deacons and has a body that it is ministering to in the local body, and I would say that's the distinction between the universal or global church and the local church.

So it's possible to be part of the visible church, but not the invisible church? Absolutely.

Okay.

Then we're not too different.

Sure.

Well, that'll be the line at the end of the debate.

Well, thank you both gentlemen.

We have now concluded our cross-examination period.

Again, I want to commend you both for your conduct and keeping to the time schedule on that one.

So we are now going to move to our closing statements, and the closing statement is as free as it can be.

So at this point, you are free to bring up old arguments, new arguments.

You're free to give the audience what you want them to take away from our time together.

Both sides will have a five-minute period to make their closing statements.

Again, this is just to kind of put a bow on the argument and let the audience leave with the memorable bits that you want them to head out with.

Before we begin, and Brother Keith, you'll be going first, and Redeem Zumer, since he had to open, he will get the last word as our debate courtesy.

To the audience, we are going to have an audience question and answer session by way of the YouTube comments or the YouTube live chat.

You have about 10 minutes to get your questions in.

I will pick three questions for each person, and we will ask them those once the closing statements have concluded.

So a total of six questions.

If you wouldn't mind, I'm going to say something in chat right now just to let you guys know I'm here.

If you wouldn't mind tagging Matthew Henson in the chat, please tell me who the question is addressed to, and then give me your question.

And remember, it needs to be a question, not a theological treatise, or I will ignore you.

So if you have a question that you think would be useful for understanding, please tag me in the chat, tell me who the question is for, and then we will see if we can get to that.

So with all that said, in the next 10 minutes, we'll have our five-minute closing statement from Pastor Keith, our five-minute closing statement from Redeem Zumer, and then we'll do our Q&A period.

Pastor Keith, are you ready? I think so.

Your time period begins on your first word, sir.

Well, many of you have come tonight with competing opinions on this very important and divisive topic, and it is possible that if you came tonight already convinced of one side or the other that you may still be just as convinced when you leave.

However, it is my hope that this time has been useful to encourage you to take a deeper look at this important subject.

It seems in our time that it has become the cardinal sin in the Church to take strong stances on issues, especially if we proclaim that one side is correct and another is incorrect.

Yet from the very beginning of the Church, we see this modeled even in Christ himself.

Jesus was not opposed to standing against the traditions of his day and proclaiming their errors.

In fact, most of the time he spent preaching was done to correct the many doctrinal errors which had crept in among the Jewish people.

His most famous sermon, the Sermon on the Mount, was based on the formula, You have heard it said, but I say to you.

Beloved, my goal tonight has been to say, you have heard it said that it is appropriate to baptize infants, but I say to you, the Bible commands the baptism of believers alone.

I believe that the position held by the Paedo-Baptist is not one that can truly be defended by Scripture, and I pray that I have demonstrated this during my time this evening.

Why then do we continue to see the vast majority of Protestant churches willingly baptizing infants if in fact the biblical support is so weak? My answer is, tradition is a hard thing to give up, and this has been the one tradition that has been held within the Protestant movement, and we have largely been unwilling to jettison it.

We were willing to jettison so many other traditions.

We were willing to give up veneration of the Pope.

We were willing to give up prayers to Mary.

We were willing to give up praying to the saints.

We were willing to give up the doctrine of transubstantiation and the mass as a perpetuatory sacrifice.

We were willing to give up the model of priesthood and confession found in the Roman Catholic Church.

Yet, even though we were willing to give up all of those things, one traditional holdover stood firm, and that is the baptism of infants.

I believe that infant baptism is the great vestigial organ of the Protestant Reformation.

It's the remaining holdover from a time when the heirs of Rome were recognized and largely repented over, and in this sense, I believe the Reformation is really not over.

I have some who have questioned me as being truly Reformed in my theology, and I admit, if you don't want to call me Reformed, you can call me a Calvinist.

It says so in the title.

I'm your Calvinist.

And if you don't want to call me a Calvinist, just call me Keith.

But ultimately, I will say this.

If someone wants to argue about what it means to be Reformed, I will say this.

I don't fit into what it means to be classically Reformed, and I agree.

But I would contest that the very heart of the Reformation is the cry sola scriptura.

Scripture alone is the sole infallible rule for faith and practice, and because I can find no evidence in Scripture for the practice of infant baptism, I remain unconvinced even this evening.

I can confidently assert that I am following in the footsteps of my Reformation forefathers, even though I understand many of them would disagree with me on this subject.

I will conclude with this.

A reminder that the Reformation was founded on five statements, and those statements are marked by the word alone.

Salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.

It is according to Scripture alone, and it is for God's glory alone.

I believe firmly in these five statements, yet in the spirit of the evening, I want to add one more.

On the basis of Scripture alone, we should teach and practice the baptism of believers alone.

Thank you.

Thank you, Pastor Keith.

Redeem Zumer, your five-minute closing statement is beginning upon your first word, sir.

Okay, great.

So this was a very good debate, I think.

I'm very grateful to God that believers that come from different traditions can still have these charitable discussions and recognize each other as brothers in Christ.

So I think most of the Baptist criticisms of paedo-baptism are unnecessary.

For example, they'll say, we don't do infant baptism because we believe in the importance of personal faith, of a personal declaration of faith, and personally believing in the Lord Jesus Christ.

But I would say we believe that, too.

There is no contradiction between baptizing babies and expecting personal faith in Christ.

Baptists also object to baptismal efficacy on the grounds that salvation is by faith alone.

But that word faith alone, that was coined by Martin Luther and the other Protestant Reformers who strongly believed that baptism saves.

There is no contradiction between saying baptism saves and that we're saved by faith alone.

Just like there's no contradiction between saying Christ saves and that we're saved by faith alone.

You know, Christ, God, is the source of salvation.

Baptism, word and sacrament to be specific, are the means of salvation and we are the ones who receive salvation.

So I think a lot of the Baptist reservations against infant baptism can be cleared up simply by understanding what it actually is, what we're actually saying.

We are not saying that just because you baptized a baby that you do not need to catechize them or raise them in the faith.

It's the opposite.

Because these babies are now part of the church and because they're Christian, that's actually why we need to disciple them, to raise them as good soldiers for God's kingdom.

That'd be just like saying, you know, just because you're born as an American, you don't need to actually learn about America.

It's the same thing.

Because Christianity really is a kingdom.

Our loyalty is fundamentally to the kingdom of God before any earthly kingdom like America.

That's just an analogy.

Just the way Christianity was a kingdom in the Old Testament.

That's right.

You could anachronistically say that the Old Testament religion was Christianity because of covenant theology, even if it wasn't called that because Christ hadn't come.

But it was kingdom-centered.

It was collective.

It was about the kingdom of God.

The Old Testament had a kingdom that did foreshadow the New Testament kingdom with Jesus as the new and better king.

We both agree that there is continuity and discontinuity between the Old and New Covenant.

Presbyterians would say there's more continuity and the Reformed Baptists would say there's more discontinuity.

We agree that there's some of both.

So a clear example of discontinuity is the dietary restrictions.

Those are clearly abrogated in the New Testament.

The reason we know they're abrogated is because the Bible says they're abrogated.

The same is true of the ceremonial law.

But there is nothing to indicate that the that the collective nature of God's kingdom, that the status of infant children as part of the covenant, there is nothing to indicate that that has been abrogated.

And to the contrary, there are multiple passages that suggest, A, that circumcision and baptism perform the same function, when Colossians says that being circumcised by Christ is the same as being baptized.

And for both baptism and circumcision, the thing signified, the thing that the ritual is united to, is spiritual regeneration.

Is the new birth.

And there is also continuity in that all the things of the New Testament, the inward spiritual realities, such as repentance and the new birth, those were also there in the Old Testament.

It was just less clear as to what they were and what message they performed.

I mean, what purpose they performed.

So the message of Christianity is not just about personal salvation.

We know that it is about personal salvation, but it goes beyond that.

It's about the kingdom of God.

God is not just redeeming your soul.

God is going to redeem your body.

God is going to redeem society.

God's going to redeem our planet.

God's going to redeem the galaxy.

That's what the kingdom of God is about.

So we baptize babies, not because we deny the importance of having personal faith in Christ, but because we know that the kingdom of God applies to our families.

Just as God promised Abraham, that the promise was for him and his children, Peter promised that the promise is also for us and our children.

So that's why we baptize babies, because we believe that God is going to redeem our families.

God is going to redeem society.

Jesus said, let the little children come to me, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

And well stated both sides.

And that concludes the actual presentation part of our debate.

Thank you both so much for taking care to be on time, on topic, and as always respectful.

So we're now going to move into our audience Q&A.

I have gotten a number of questions.

A couple were duplicates and such things in the YouTube chat.

So I'm going to be doing my best to sort of deduplicate these.

The format for these gentlemen, and I'm not going to keep strict time on here, but the format for these will be the question will be addressed to one or the other of you.

You'll have 60 seconds to answer that question.

So bear in mind, keep your answers in that sort of time frame.

And then the other one will be given 30 seconds to respond, either to critique the answer or to answer the question themselves.

It's up to you.

And again, we won't be terribly firm on the time limits, but we'll try and keep things moving along and not rehash debate part two electric boogaloo.

So since Redeemed Zuma just spoke, I'll go over to Pastor Keith.

Pastor Keith, first question.

Where do you draw the line between tradition that should and should not be followed? This question coming from s underscore carapace.

Tradition that should or not be followed, the scripture.

In fact, this is my sermon for this coming Sunday when Jesus was speaking to the Pharisees and he said that what they had done that was the most dangerous thing was that they had bound upon men's hearts traditions that were not founded upon God's Word, that they had replaced the Word of God with the traditions of men.

And so while we don't deny the presence or importance of tradition, we say every tradition must be measured by and weighed by what the Bible says, sola scriptura.

So that would be my answer.

Okay.

Is there anything—would you like to respond to that one as well? Yeah, so of course everyone would say—every Protestant, that is—would say that the scripture is the method by which we determine which traditions we hold to.

I don't know of any Lutheran or Reformed paedo-baptist who would say that, yeah, I know the Bible doesn't say anything about infant baptism, but it's tradition, bro.

This is the one tradition we're too lazy to get rid of.

We believe that infant baptism is biblical.

That is why we haven't gotten rid of that tradition because, like, I admitted that the early church didn't do infant baptism sometimes.

Sometimes they did, but we keep it because we believe it's biblical.

Okay.

Thank you for that.

Now your question, sir.

Question for Radim Zumer.

This comes from Christian Walton.

How would you respond to someone who claims that the Great Commission gives the order of discipleship before baptism? Of course, this referencing Matthew 28, 19 in the order that Jesus gave the command.

So it says go forth to all the nations.

If you go to a new nation, you're not going to go to random babies and baptize them.

You're going to baptize believers.

It doesn't say make disciples of all the nations and make sure those disciples make disciples and then baptize them.

If you're going out to someone, if you're going on a missionary journey, you're going to be converting people as adults, really.

But then when they convert, the model in act shows that when people convert, they often convert their households.

They often Christianize their households, and that's where the infant baptism comes in.

No one is saying that you should baptize other people's babies without the parent converting first.

You're not going into nurseries and spraying water everywhere.

Keith, same question, sir.

The text says, go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

In that sense, the way that disciples are made is through baptism.

So I would say that yes, we make disciples by baptizing them, and you baptize disciples, not people who are not disciples.

And the argument from the Presbyterian side is typically that children are their disciples, but the word disciple there in that context would certainly refer to someone who is a believer, who has believed the message, and therefore you baptize those who have believed the message, not just someone who is born into a family.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

Back to you, Pastor Keith.

This one from Barely Protestant.

Interesting name there.

I wonder what their majority, if they're Barely Protestant, what's the rest? One must ask such questions.

Yes, what does the pie chart look like? So here is the question, and the reason I picked this one next is because it's basically identical question back to you, except this is Acts 2.38.

Here's the question.

Acts 2.38 seems to put the reception of the Holy Spirit after baptism.

Could you explain your understanding of when and how He is received in light of this particular verse? Yeah, this actually is a pretty— I don't know that I can do this in one minute, because there's a lot of things that tie into this, particularly like the history of the Church of Christ, which believes that it's only when a person has been immersed in the name of Jesus Christ that they actually receive the Holy Spirit, and therefore up until that point, the person has not received the Holy Spirit.

We would see a distinction in the book of Acts between someone being regenerate and someone receiving the gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit, and we would argue that the indwelling Holy Spirit is actually a new covenant promise.

And so I do believe that there is a distinction between regeneration and the abiding, indwelling Holy Spirit, and so I would say there is a distinction there.

However, I would also say that Romans chapter 8 tells us that the normative situation is that a believer will have the Spirit of God.

It says if you do not have the Spirit of Christ, you do not belong to Him.

Therefore, we can say that when a person believes in the Lord Jesus Christ, because they have been regenerated to do so, they now have the Holy Spirit within them, and they're not waiting until baptism for that to happen.

Okay.

Zuma, would you like me to reread it, or do you have it? I've got it.

So I know this guy is barely Protestant.

Good to see you, man.

So what I would say to that is under a Calvinist view, where we believe baptism with water and the Holy Spirit are two different things, but they're connected, and they could happen in either order, our view makes room for both verses.

Sometimes baptism with water comes first, sometimes baptism of the Holy Spirit comes first, but they're still united in one sacrament.

There's still two parts of the same thing.

There's still sign and things signified.

So that's what I would say.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

So back to your question, sir.

This one is from Josh and Heather Thompson.

For you, do you believe that a person has to be baptized to be truly regenerated? By has to, do you mean that it's impossible to be truly regenerated if you're not outwardly baptized? No, it's not impossible.

Every single paedo-baptist tradition makes room for exceptions, but those exceptions are just that.

They are exceptions.

Under ordinary circumstances, baptism is necessary in the process of salvation.

But like I said, there's exceptions.

If someone's not able to get baptized, then that's one thing, but I don't think there's a single person who has genuine faith, who's able to get baptized, and who knows what baptism is, who is not going to get baptized.

Okay, Pastor Keith.

Can you restate the question? I just want to make sure I'm getting it right.

Certainly, and I'm going to read it just as the audience member wrote it so that I'm not editorializing.

It says, do you believe that a person has to be baptized to be truly regenerated? Okay, well, I said earlier that I don't connect baptism and regeneration as causal, so my answer would be no, but I do believe a regenerated person will desire to be baptized.

Okay, we basically said the same thing.

Yeah, yeah, I mean similar.

Yeah, very much.

I was going to say I agree, but I thought I'd add a little something.

Actually, now that I think about it, I think baptism is normally necessary for salvation, but that's a different debate.

Yeah, to say it's necessary in what way? Yeah, is it necessary for obedience, or does it cause...

I think the issue there is causal, right? It's more than obedience.

For Baptists, rejecting baptism is like not doing a good work.

For Presbyterians, it's rejecting God's grace, so it's a bit different.

Okay, fair enough.

All right.

Pastor Keith, your question, sir, and this will be, unless you guys want to keep going on the marathon, this will be your third question, so I'll give you this one.

And this is a question that actually came up directed to you, and then another person directed it to you both.

And again, I'm just going to read it as it was, so I'm not editorializing or anything.

Pastor Keith, would the Credo Baptist position automatically exclude mentally disabled adults? What is your opinion on baptizing adults who are unable to profess their faith? This one from Jessie Trisha.

This is a pastoral issue that I think is one of the more difficult things that pastors of every denomination, whether they're Pedo Baptists or not, have to deal with.

Not on the question of whether or not they're going to be baptized, because a child who has a mental deficiency may not even demonstrate that mental deficiency in birth.

It may not come out until they're two, three, four years old before you realize they have a mental issue.

But it does affect someone.

Let's say there is a church where a person with a mental deficiency visits the church and cannot make a profession of faith, and therefore the church, the elders, have to decide how they're going to address this person.

Maybe this is a relative of someone in the church, and they brought them to church with them.

So it's not a covenant.

It's not a member of a covenant family in the sense of they automatically are baptized by the virtue of the parents, as is believed in covenant baptism, but rather they have to be considered, okay, well, how do we deal with this person? And I think every group of elders would have to patiently, lovingly, and in the fear of God, be gracious of that person.

But here's the good thing.

Whether or not that person gets baptized does not mean—in my position—does not mean whether or not that person is going to be saved, and does not mean that that person is or is not a member of the elect.

And so we can say that God is gracious, and the judge of all the universe will do right.

This is what we see in Genesis chapter 18.

And so in regard to infants who die and people with mental disabilities who can't proclaim the gospel, we can say that the judge of the universe will do right, and so I can trust that.

If that person made a desire for baptism, I would baptize them.

But again, they just said they couldn't do that.

So this is a difficult situation.

It's a pastoral situation.

It's something that elders would have to come together, pray about, and seek the Lord on, and so I can't say exactly what we would do in that case, but I know that we would be seeking the grace of God to do for that person the very best we could.

Okay.

Yeah, I would answer similarly.

I would say it's a difficult situation.

It's not always clear what to do.

It's a pastoral elder decision.

I would say that you should try to baptize that person, yes, because I believe baptism does contribute to regeneration in some sense.

If the Baptist's position that baptism does not contribute to regeneration, if that's correct, you're doing absolutely no harm by baptizing the person, and if baptism does contribute to regeneration in some sense, then you're increasing that person's odds.

So it's like sort of Pascal's wager, but for baptism.

I think there's, if it's appropriate, you really should baptize that person.

And of course, God is just, and although nobody deserves salvation, Jesus does show a preferential treatment for those who are oppressed, and those who are sick, and those who are at the bottom of societies, as many who are last will be first, many who are first will be last.

So we do trust in God's grace.

I also think it's, if we can, yeah, we definitely should baptize such people.

Okay.

Last question of the debate for you, Zoomer.

This one is coming from, oh, hang on a minute.

I'm sorry about this.

Ah, so this is from John Holcomb.

He says, is sin an action? And if so, how can babies be forgiven through baptism for actions they have not yet consciously made? And again, I'm not going to editorialize.

I'm just going to present the question as it was.

Okay.

Yeah.

We believe in original sin, just in the Western Christian tradition, Catholics, Protestants, believe in original sin, which is that from the moment of conception, as Psalm 51, 5 says, we are all sinners.

We are all deserving of eternal damnation from the moment of conception.

It doesn't mean some people sin a lot more than others.

I'm not saying all sins are equal.

I don't know where that comes from.

But everyone, even infants, are sinners, and that's why infants need baptism, because they're sinners.

I don't believe in an age of accountability.

Of course, the more accountability you have, the more severe your sin is.

That's definitely true.

But the idea that there's some grace period in which people have no accountability for sin, that is not true at all.

Okay.

I'm sorry.

I have to ask you to do it again.

I'm listening to Zoomer's answer, and I forgot the questions.

No, no, it's quite all right.

It's quite all right.

Yeah, I'm juggling three screens myself, so no problem.

Here's the question again from John Holcomb.

Two-parter.

Is sin an action? I forgot to answer that one.

That's okay.

Do you want to do that? Do you want to crack at that part? Yeah, say that.

Yeah, I would say, not necessarily.

I'd say, we often pray, like, Lord, forgive us for what we have done and what we have left undone.

So there is definitely passive sin.

Okay.

So to Pastor Keith, the question is, is sin an action? I would say, let me just answer that one, then I will get to the second one.

I would say, just as he just said, sin is not only an action.

It's not only sins of omission, sins of commission, but it's also something that is passed down in the sense that we inherit Adam's sin nature, and so sin is a nature.

It's not just an action.

So yeah.

Okay.

So then the follow-on to that is, if so, how can babies be forgiven through baptism for actions they have not consciously made? Well, I would say that same argument could be applied to credo baptism.

How can someone be baptized and forgiven of a sin when they're 20, and it account for all of their sins until they die when they're 80? And the answer is that the grace of God extends, and we are saved from all of our sins, not just from the sins that we did prior to baptism.

So I would say that that doesn't really solve the debate of infant baptism, because either way you go, whether you're baptized as a baby or you're baptized when you're 20, you're still going to have sins that happen after that.

And so the reality is we would say that the blood of Christ covers all sin of the believer, not just the sins that happen before baptism.

Okay.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, this concludes our debate, actually, in its entirety.

We have been through our openings, rebuttals, cross-acts, closing statements, and questions.

So before we sign off tonight, I want to thank you for joining us on this important topic.

I want to thank you, those of you who asked questions, participated in the YouTube chat.

We always appreciate the participation that way.

Before we sign off, I'd like to let each of these men give you just a final word on how you can learn more about them, their ministries, their YouTube channels, their various social media platforms.

So Radim Zumer, would you like to give the audience where they can go to find more of you, sir? Yeah, so I'm Radim Zumer on YouTube and Instagram.

I'm not a pastor.

I have zero credentials.

I'm just a guy with an opinion and with a YouTube and Instagram channel.

And you can also see what I'm involved with.

Go to operationreconquista.com, which is the mission I'm involved with to sort of bring true gospel preaching back to churches that have sort of forgotten it.

So that's where you can find me.

Okay.

Pastor Keith.

Yeah, I pastor Sovereign Grace Family Church.

I serve alongside of two other elders, Elder Andy Montoro and Elder Mike Collier, and together we serve the Body of Christ at Sovereign Grace Family Church.

You can visit us at sgfcjacks.org if you want to learn more about the Church.

And you can find us on Sermon Audio.

We have over 1,500 sermons, lessons, Bible studies that you can go and find on a variety of topics, so we would encourage you to do that.

We also have a podcast called Conversations with a Calvinist that I do every week, and I put out a series of humorous videos on various topics.

Right now, I'm in the middle of my Open Borders October, which is poking fun at Doug Wilson's No Quarter November.

So this is a fun month for me.

I'm doing a lot of funny videos regarding that, so I encourage you to go.

And you can find that at calvinistpodcast.com.

Also, if you'd like to send me a message or a topic for a future podcast, you can do that at calvinistpodcast.gmail.com.

All right, well, thank you both so much.

To our audience, we are now going to sign off.

Thank you for joining us.

I hope you found this time edifying, and may God bless you.

Thank you.