Baptism Wars! Response to Pr. J.D. Hall - Part 1

Recently there was a scathing response written to an article one of my friends wrote that I thought was sloppily done at best. Hopefully, I can show why some of the author's arguments and statements fall short of making any actual headway in this discussion.



Pr. Jonathan Fisk of Worldview Everlasting

The article that my good friend, Tamara Blickhan, wrote can be found over at the Examiner site. Here is the link:

Baptism for the Christian: Rebaptism is not biblical

The response, coming from Baptist pastor, Jordan Hall (from here on referred to as Pr. J.D. Hall – a contributing writer of Pulpit & Pen), can be found here:

It's Not “Rebaptism,”: it's Baptism

Let it be said from the outset that the differences between Lutherans and every stripe of Baptists are too great to put the two groups in communion together this side of heaven. Therefore, these discussions, debates, and disagreements will continue to carry on through the ages. But, they're important to have because baptism is quite a large topic in the Christian faith.


The other thing that can be said is that this topic is far more touchy and important for Lutherans than it is for Baptists. Please don't misunderstand me here. I am not saying that baptism is not important to Baptists. What I am saying is that in Lutheranism, Baptism actually accomplishes a salvific role, whereas in Baptist theology, it is a memorial of an already inward condition. So, this is not a case of me sticking my Lutheran “triumphal nose in the air” at all. It's an acknowledgement of what the theologies teach and to show how diametrically opposed they are to one another.

Lutherans have a "higher" view of baptism that Baptists, for lack of a better term. It's more important and does something for you in Lutheranism. The correlation here is simple: if a topic is higher up on the list, it's bound to be more important. We say (as does the Apostle Peter in 1 Peter 3:21) that baptism saves. That's a huge deal. Baptists say it's an act of obedience or an act of worship done by the already regenerate believer. That's less of a big deal, therefore, a lower view of the doctrine.

So, the reader has to understand from the outset that we, as Lutherans, will go after the Baptist stance on baptism quite often. Why? Because we believe that Baptist parents are denying an objective means of grace to their children. In short, they refuse to administer the Word of God to the child via Baptism. This is denying the Gospel to their kids. That's a big deal. A massively huge deal.

Baptists are far less likely to go after the Lutheran stance on Baptism because, to them, everything revolves around a converted will which involves a certain cognitive ability. The Bible is clear that we don’t make a decision to be saved; it is all of grace. John 1 explains: “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become 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.”

So they scoff at us baptizing our infants, but in the end, it's really not a big deal since the child is either covered under grace due to the Baptist doctrine of the Age of Accountability (Pelagian doctrine) or the child simply needs to be brought to faith later in life by God's hidden monergistic grace alone (Reformed Baptist). In either case, everything in Baptist theology regarding Baptism revolves around an advanced cognitive ability which an infant does not have (or the mentally infirm for that matter) and a converted will.

I will follow the order of Pr. J.D. Hall's blog as I respond.

Pastor J.D. Hall (JDH) began his article responding to a comment on the article Tamara Blickhan (TB) wrote.

Tamara Blickhan says: "The controversy over whether a Christian should be rebaptized if the person has already been baptized in one church or another denomination is cleared up using Christian creeds and confessions that explain the Bible about this doctrine of Baptism." (TB)

Hall responds: "A broad generalization, indeed. First, the Christian creeds commonly used to define orthodoxy (the Apostle’s Creed, Nicene Creed, Athanasian Creed) are silent on the issue." (JDH)

OK, let's get started. If Pr. J.D. Hall wants to call the first statement a "broad generalization," fine. I can live with that. That being said, when Lutherans speak of the "Creeds," we are speaking specifically about the three major ecumenical creeds that Pr. J.D. Hall has rightly identified. However, what he says about them and baptism is unfortunately incorrect.

He may want to read the Nicene Creed again. Near the conclusion of it, the creed states: "I acknowledge one Baptism for the remission of sins." The wording of the Nicene Creed is quite clear. There is one baptism for the remission of sins.

Here is the Baptist's problem with that statement: first, they reject that baptism remits sin. Secondly, if baptism does remit sin and the Baptist definition of what baptism is errs, then the Baptist, against his will, actually teaches works righteousness. To be clear: If baptism is an act of the believer done as worship or obedience to God, and baptism actually remits (or forgives which is the same thing) sin, then the conclusion is inescapable. Sin is remitted by us doing something for God. That's quite a problem for the Baptist since they reject all forms of works-righteousness and rightly so.

Ah! But what about the Baptism of the Holy Spirit? That's generally the Baptist response here. They simply (re) interpret the Nicene Creed to be talking about Spirit baptism. Well, that's not entirely incorrect, to be honest, since it is only the Spirit of God who regenerates.

So, their problem lies not in claiming Spirit baptism, but in separating Spirit and water into two baptisms. Scripture is replete with references to water and the Holy Spirit being together in one baptism.

First, can we all at least acknowledge that there is one baptism? St. Paul says there is in Ephesians 4:5, which reads: "one Lord, one faith, one Baptism." There are not two baptisms any more than there are two Lords or two faiths. And per the Nicene Creed, it is this one Baptism that remits sins. It's fallacious to separate into multiple baptisms. Scripture never does. A Baptism is a washing with water that contains water and the Spirit. Without water and the Spirit together, it is not a baptism at all.

I'm not going to put all the Scriptures word-for-word on here, but I will give references where water and Spirit are linked, and inextricably so. John 3:5, Acts 2:38, Matthew 3:13-17 (Mark 1:10), Titus 3:5, 1John 5:6-8. That's a short list, not exhaustive.

Tamara Blickhan continues: "The question only comes to us from Baptists because of their belief about what baptism is. The Lutherans, Presbyterians, and other paedobaptist Christian bodies believe that baptism is the work of God and should only be done once in a lifetime." (TB)

To which Pr. J.D. Hall responds: "One must wonder why this ‘work of God’ has to be done by the hands of men upon unwilling and unregenerate recipients, which is what every infant who receives this libation ritual is." (JBH)

Pr. Hall has really dug himself deep here. I see two major theological problems with his statement.

First, I have to wonder if Pr. J.D. Hall is a Gnostic. I am sure he denies such a thing, but hear me out on this. The beginning of his statement is an outright denial of any means of grace whatsoever. This is to say, in essence, the pastor is rejecting that God uses the natural world to save the natural world. I mean, he would turn right around and say that God uses Gospel preaching as a vehicle to save the unregenerate right? I think he probably would. Or else, if he is a Hyper Calvinist, perhaps he would argue that the Spirit works completely apart from means and regenerates people sovereignly and independently with no means whatsoever.

If the first case is true, then he affirms natural means of grace and his argument is specifically with baptism and he worded his argument very poorly. Baptism in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit is no more a work done by the hands of men than preaching the Gospel is. Now I might be stupid, but I know a little bit about Physics (I have a B.A. in Physics).

When the preacher preaches, what we are hearing audibly is sound waves. That's natural. So, if God can give us sound waves to save the natural world, why can't He use water as well? How about bread and wine? If he rejects natural means altogether, he’s got a bigger problem: namely, Jesus. Jesus is a man, right? He was crucified in the flesh, right? I know with certainty that the pastor would not reject the incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection of Christ. That belief would be utterly Gnostic and far outside of the Christian faith.

Second, Pr. J.D. Hall just condemned every infant to hell. I don't think anybody believes that. He plainly states that every infant who receives this "libation ritual" (baptism) is unwilling and unregenerate.

Well, let's be clear: unregenerate people are not saved people. Grace saves us and grace regenerates us. I hope the man would at least agree on that. He plainly states that infants are unwilling and unregenerate. I assume that due to his Baptist theology, this is precisely because they are incapable of such.

The standard Baptist doctrine here to get around this is called the Age of Accountability, which ultimately denies Original Sin. Pr. J.D. Hall is not Pelagian, so it's completely inconsistent and silly to embrace the unbiblical dogma of the Age of Accountability. I won't say much more about that, because once upon a time, I said a lot about it. The blog can be found here:

Age of Accountability

As much as the pastor wants to label himself a Reformed Baptist, he's actually defaulting to conversion of the will here (which is against Scripture – see the first chapter of the book of John) and spoken profession, which can only be made by those who have developed their cognitive ability to a certain point. He robs from Peter to pay Paul, so to speak.

As a Reformed Baptist, Pr. J.D. Hall is a Calvinistic man. He would affirm, with the Lutherans, that it is the Spirit who regenerates and that faith itself is God's gift, and no matter how much cognitive ability a person has, nobody is capable of faith in Christ barring a regeneration wrought by God alone.

Do pray tell, why are infants excluded from this? The only answer is that they cannot understand it. They cannot use their brains like this pastor has in order to respond to the gospel, yet faith doesn’t equate perfectly to understanding, but rather to trust in Christ. And that is given by God. Thus, in his theology, he has actually inserted a salvation by knowledge scheme to an extent where God only gives faith to those who have the necessary cognitive ability to receive the gift. In other words, there has to be a clear decision made by the person, or at the very least, a clear ability to understand before God gives His gift. This is synergistic. We'll call it a happy inconsistency.

Look for part 2, I'll have it up soon!

+Pax+