The Church, the Falling Away, and the Restoration

by J. W. Shepherd

The letter to the Hebrews was written to show the change from the old covenant to the new, and to show the immense superiority of the new to the old. To turn back from the spiritual law and the Church of Christ to the fleshly law and institution of Judaism is called falling “away from grace.” “Ye are severed from Christ, ye who would be justified by the law; ye are fallen away from grace” (Gal. 5:4).

Since it is so very evident that there is no ground whatever for infant baptism based on the arguments on the analogy of circumcision and the identity of the covenants it is quite appropriate to close this article with quotations from two great pedobaptist scholars. Dr. Jacob Ditzler, claimed to be the best debater the Methodist Church has produced, says:

I here express my conviction that the covenants of the Old Testament have nothing to do with infant baptism. (Graves-Ditzler Debate, page 694).

Moses Stuart, Congregationalist, Professor of Sacred Literature in Andover Theological Seminary, called “The Father of Biblical Literature in America,” says:

How unwary, too, are many excellent men, in contending for infant baptism on the ground of the Jewish analogy of circumcision! Are females not proper subjects of baptism? And again, are a man’s slaves to be all baptized because he is? Are they church members of course when they are so baptized? Is there no difference between ingrafting into a politico-ecclesiastical community, and into one of which it is said that “it is not of this world?” In short, numberless difficulties present themselves in our way, as soon as we begin to argue in such a manner as this. (Old Testament Canon, § 22, page 369.)

In the investigation thus far we have learned that under the old covenant infants were included, so were slaves, taken in war or bought with money. The covenant was with a nation, involving national laws and customs, and promising national and temporal blessings. The duly recognized, as embraced under that covenant, were not thereby entitled to eternal life. As the entire flesh of the nation, for national purposes, was included, the infants of that nation, from the moment of birth, stood in covenant relation with God and the covenant people. There was no ceremonial by which they entered into that relationship—they were born into it. They came not in by circumcision, for the male infant, continuing uncircumcised, was not said to be debarred from entering, but was to be “cut off” from the people which implies previous covenant relationship.

But all this is reversed under the new covenant. No one nation is chosen, but the people of the covenant are to be those who respond to a call made to all nations. No family is chosen, but the blessing is offered to each of all the families of earth. No infant is either invited or excluded, except as it comes to faith in, and obedience to, the Son of God. The covenant blessings are not national and eternal, based upon a living and active faith. As a consequence, infants are not, and could not possibly be embraced in the new covenant; and as the Church of Christ, as to its divinely-ordained membership, consists of those who have thus believed in him, infants are not and can not be in the Church of Christ, therefore are not subjects of baptism, for all who are Scripturally baptized enter into the church.

We now turn our attention to the remaining methods by which the practice of infant baptism could be proven. They are: (1) Express command of an inspired man; or, (2) by an example from Scripture where an inspired man baptized infants, or where it was done in his presence, by his consent and approval. Inasmuch as it is admitted by renowned pedobaptists that there is neither express command for or example of infant baptism in the New Testament, I will make no attempt to answer the arguments to prove it, but let the most learned of their number speak for themselves. This is legitimate and has the divine sanction, for Jesus said: “Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee” (Luke 19:22); and Paul, in meeting opposition to his preaching, said: “As certain even of your own poets have said” (Acts 17:28); and again: “One of themselves, a prophet of their own, said” (Titus 1:12).

Henry Alford, one of the most variously-learned clergymen that the Church of England has produced, says:

The language of the Bible is against them; and, on their own ground, which is a very sore perplexity. There is one escape, and that is a perfectly effectual one; but they are unwilling to avail themselves of its assistance. They might declare, and they ought to declare, that infant baptism was a practice unknown to the apostles; that not only does the New Testament not give one single expression which plainly and necessarily implies that infants were baptized in the apostolical churches, but it can be fairly argued from a passage in chapter 7 of II Corinthians 7 that such a practice could not have existed at Corinth. The recognition that the baptism of adults was the only baptism known to the apostles would clear every difficulty on this point out of the way of the Low Churchmen. It is natural that the sacred writers should assume that men who, at great worldly sacrifice, not free from risk of life, came forward to profess the Christian faith by a solemn initiatory rite, possessed the frame of mind which that fact implied—that they were honestly changed and renewed beings. And then it would be easy to pass on the conclusion that the baptismal service of the Church of England has been constructed on the language of the Bible, and that the embarrassment has proceeded not from a mistaken view of baptism, but from the application of the words used by Scripture of an adult person to an unconscious and, so to say, mindless infant. (Contemporary Review, Vol. 10, page 329.)