Chapters 1 and 2 of "Believer's Baptism"

As promised, I want to make a few comments about each chapter of the book "Believer's Baptism: Sign of the New Covenant in Christ" (edited by Tom Schreiner and Shawn Wright".) Here I'll address the first two chapters.

(Be sure and check out Randy's previous post if you haven't already - we all need to examine ourselves and move to greater action in the area of evangelism!)

Chapter 1 of this book is entitled "Baptism in the Gospels", and is written by SEBTS' Andreas Kostenberger. I have appreciated much of his work in the past - particularly his book God, Marriage, and Family - and therefore was disappointed that this chapter seems to be one of the weakest in the book. This is not entirely his fault: its hard to say very much of value about Christian baptism from the Gospels, considering that true Christian baptism doesn't begin till the book of Acts. His most substantial portion is concerned with the Great Commission, and rightly recognizes that MT 28:16-20 seems to presuppose that it is believing adults who will be baptized - not infants. While his main point is made, there is a sense that he may have mistook Dan Doriani's arguments about the passage - arguments that he seeks to critique. (Dan Doriani is a paedobaptist - and a fine professor at Covenant College.) Moreover, and this may have simply been an oversight, I was surprised by Kostenberger's assertion that "regeneration occurs upon personal repentance and faith in Christ." This is certainly contrary to the ordo salutis that I see in Scripture, namely, that personal repentance and faith in Christ occur upon regeneration. This is a pretty serious error (IMHO), in essence a rejection of total depravity.

The second chapter is entitled "Baptism in Luke-Acts", and is written by Southern's Robert Stein. (He also wrote the NAC commentary on Luke).
This chapter, like the first, leaves one wanting a bit more, but still gets its point across. Stein's assignment gives him more Biblical material concerning Christian baptism to work with than Kostenberger's, but it also gave him a bit more to work through, such as the relationship of faith, repentance, receiving the Spirit, forgiveness of sins, and baptism. In Acts, sometimes people are baptized and then receive the Spirit, at other times they receive the Spirit and then are baptized. Stein rightly points out that the pattern of Acts is one of faith, repentance, receiving the Spirit, forgiveness of sins, and baptism typically happening to an individual all on the same day, though in varying orders. Thus, disconnecting baptism from these other things (as paedobaptism does) is inappropriate. The most valuable part of Stein's chapter is his brief overview of those places in Acts where households are baptized. While some paedobaptists look to these passages as possible evidence for their view, Stein shows that even these passages seem to point to adults - or at least children old enough to repent (Acts 11:18) and rejoice in their new faith (Acts 16:34).


Next time: Schreiner on the epistles.