A book I highly recommend (though I do not endore his Federal Vision theology) is Douglas Wilson's To a Thousand Generations. I find the case he makes for ochobaptism (or household baptism) to be very convincing. Concerning his argumentation, Douglas Wilson makes the bold claim: "In arguing for biblical infant baptism, it is not sufficient for us to say that infant baptism is merely consistent with the Scriptures, or that a biblical case can be made for it. In order for us to be satisfied that we are being biblical Christians, we must be content with nothing less than a clear biblical case requiring infant baptism." I believe that if we begin by understanding that children are members of the New Covenant and that the New Covenant is equated with the Abrahamic Covenant in Galatians 3, the case for administering the sign of the New Covenant to all its members becomes undeniable. But do the Scriptures teach that children will be included in the New Covenant? To avoid this fact, one has to discount virtually all the prophecies concerning the New Covenant in the OT. Here are a few:
24 My servant David shall be king over them, and they shall all have one shepherd. They shall walk in my rules and be careful to obey my statutes. 25 They shall dwell in the land that I gave to my servant Jacob, where your fathers lived. They and their children and their children's children shall dwell there forever, and David my servant shall be their prince forever. 26 I will make a covenant of peace with them. It shall be an everlasting covenant with them. And I will set them in their land and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in their midst forevermore. -Ezekiel 37:24-26 (ESV; emphasis mine)
5 Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. 6 And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.-Malachi 4:5-6 (ESV; emphasis mine)
21 And as for me, this is my covenant with them,” says the Lord: “My Spirit that is upon you, and my words that I have put in your mouth, shall not depart out of your mouth, or out of the mouth of your offspring, or out of the mouth of your children's offspring,” says the Lord, “from this time forth and forevermore."-Isaiah 59:21 (ESV; emphasis mine)
36 Now therefore thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning this city of which you say, ‘It is given into the hand of the king of Babylon by sword, by famine, and by pestilence’: 37 Behold, I will gather them from all the countries to which I drove them in my anger and my wrath and in great indignation. I will bring them back to this place, and I will make them dwell in safety. 38 And they shall be my people, and I will be their God. 39 I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me forever, for their own good and the good of their children after them. 40 I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me. 41 I will rejoice in doing them good, and I will plant them in this land in faithfulness, with all my heart and all my soul.-Jeremiah 32:36-41 (ESV; emphasis mine)
Consider the weight of these texts and how all the other covenants in Scripture (the Adamic, Noahic, Abrahamic, Mosaic, and Davidic) all included Scripture. The grammatico/historical approach (which is a characteristic of the Reformed hermeneutic) requires us to try and interpret these passages how the original audience would have understood them. Is there any doubt that to a Jewish audience who heard the prophecies concerning a coming covenant (one that is promised to be better as well) they would have assumed their children were included as well? Of course they would, and especially since all the covenants of the patriarchs included children. These prophecies and their emphasis on generational blessing and promise would have only echoed their understanding that God is Lord of the Covenant and that children are included. The goal of the New Covenant is not to abrogate the covenantal parent/child relationship but to fulfill it. This is particularly obvious in the Malachi 4:5-6 passage.
Reformed Baptists often want to negate the continuity between the two covenants by emphasizing the "newness" of the New Covenant and going to Hebrews 8. I myself found this a compelling case at one time; however, the point of the Hebrews 8 passage is that the New Covenant is different because it can actually guarantee faithfulness of the members' descendants. The Old Covenant could not do that because the law was not written on the heart but on tablets of stone. Why would we make the New Covenant weaker than the Old by restricting the inclusion of children? The fact is, with the weight of the OT prophecy concerning the New Covenant, there is no Biblical grounds to do so. I firmly believe that Baptists practice credobaptism because they preach a regenerate membership. The only problem is nominalization is just as rampant amongst Baptist circles (if not more so) as it is amongst Presbyterian ones. There will always be those who are in the visible church who are not truly part of the invisible. That is why the practice of church discipline and excommunication should exist.
My main problem with credobaptism is that it is not a theological system that is practically lived out, at least not in Reformed Baptist camps (and thankfully so). However, in many other Baptist churches that have a low view of doctrine and teaching, there is a tendency to have a low view of childrearing. After all, why would you raise your child in the "discipline and instruction of the Lord" (Eph. 6:4) when they are not included in the covenant promises? For that matter, why even read any of Ephesians 6 that has to do with children since, after all, children are excluded from the promises of the New Covenant? Why catechize? Why say blessings with your children at bedtime? Why read them Scripture? They are no different than the children of nonbelievers. Fortunately, while devoted Christians may fall on either side of this issue in the theoretical, all devoted Christians raise their children as if they were members of the covenant. Soli deo gloria!
