作者：Guy M. Richard 译者/校对：Maria Marta/诚之
身为长老会牧师，我经常被问到我为何相信婴儿洗。我收到大量此类问题，因此知道大家对这项教义有很多误解。造成这些误解的部分原因是，那些施行婴儿洗的教会有许多成员不能为他们所相信之事作出充分的、合乎圣经的解释。原因可能是这些教会未能充分装备其成员来作出回应，也可能只是因为洗礼对婴儿洗支持者来说，不是一项定义性的教义，而对其他许多人来说却恰恰是如此。比如，我们浸信会的兄弟姐妹根据他们的洗礼立场，将自己和大多数其他基督教传统区别开来，这意味着他们普通的教会成员在洗礼这一教义上受到的教导，往往比我们的成员更加彻底。
大家误解婴儿洗的另一部分原因是，他们误解了婴儿洗背后的圣约神学。最近，我在神学院讲授一门有关洗礼的课程，其间我让学生们阅读一篇浸信会兄弟写的文章，内容是他为什么认为婴儿洗不符合圣经。这位弟兄的文章最让我惊讶的地方是他频频误解圣约神学以及圣约神学对洗礼所作的推论。在我们能够在这教义上携手共进之前，我们必须尽可能以清晰的思维与优雅的态度来纠正这些误解。正是本着这种精神，我将提供本文的其余部分。
在承认这点之后，我要说的第一件事是，婴儿洗立场实际上几乎接受了信而受洗者（credobaptist）关于受洗者所说的一切立场。我们全心全意确认，当成人（从未受洗的）宣称相信基督时，应当正确给他施洗。因此，婴儿洗者（paedobaptist）一词是用词不当。我们不只给婴孩施洗；我们既给公开承认相信基督的信徒施洗，也给他们年幼的孩童施洗，从这个意义上说，我们既是婴儿洗的支持者，又是信而受洗的支持者。我们与信而受洗兄弟姐妹的不同之处仅仅在于「只」这个词。信而受洗支持者「只」给表明信仰的信徒施洗，而我们既给信徒施洗，也给他们的孩童施洗。
我指出这一点是要表明，仅仅用新约列举的为公开承认相信基督的信徒施洗的例子，来证明信而受洗的立场是不够的。婴儿洗支持者也承认要给表明信仰的信徒施洗。我们信而受洗立场的兄弟姐妹必须证明：圣经教导，公开表明信仰的信徒应当要受洗，其他人都不应当。
我要说的第二点是创世记第十七章明确指出，上帝吩咐百姓必须给他们出生第8天的孩子施行祂立约的外在记号（割礼）。鉴于这一事实, 我们只需要证明，亚伯拉罕之约本质上与新约相同，而且割礼神学反映了洗礼神学，以证明信徒儿女在新约下接受立约的记号，就如他们在亚伯拉罕之约下显然接受了立约记号那样。
罗马书二章28-29节、罗马书四章11节、申命记卅章6节、耶利米书九章25-26节（还有其他章节） 等经文都表明：上帝从未计划将割礼设计为种族身份的标记，而是设计为一种指向属灵实体（内心割礼） 的外在记号。割礼回头指出内心已经发生的事，就像亚伯拉罕的例子，他先信了，然后受了割礼；又或者是指向预期会在未来发生的事，如大多数犹太人的例子，他们在出生第八天受割礼，然后期盼在他们长大后能跟随亚伯拉罕信心的脚踪（罗四12）。借着基督徒所受的（内心的）属灵割礼和（圣灵施行的）属灵洗礼，歌罗西书二章11-12节明确了割礼和洗礼之间的神学联系。如果内心的割礼和内心的洗礼是相关联的，那么它们外在的记号，也就是身体的割礼和水的洗礼，肯定也是如此。
加拉太书三章16节和罗马书四章11-12节进一步教导我们，亚伯拉罕之约和新约在本质上是同一个约。加拉太书三章16节说，基督是亚伯拉罕的后裔，也就是说无论旧约还是新约，只有那些「在基督里」的人才是亚伯拉罕的后裔（参看加三7、14、29）。 罗马书4章11–12节对此作出肯定，因为它说亚伯拉罕是所有信主的（未受割礼的）外邦人的父，也是所有受了割礼，「并且按我们的祖宗亚伯拉罕未受割礼而信之踪迹去行」的犹太人的父。约翰福音八章56节告诉我们，这种信心是看见基督的信心。这是一种仰望上天、仰望属灵现实和祝福的信心，而不是仰望属地的应许之地和属世的现实和祝福的信心（来十一10、16）。
因此，亚伯拉罕之约不是与亚伯拉罕肉身后裔订立的物质或暂时的盟约。它是与亚伯拉罕属灵后裔订立的属灵盟约。亚伯拉罕之约与新约在本质上是相同的。基督——亚伯拉罕的后裔——确保情况确实如此。此外，割礼并非种族身份的象征，而是蒙呼召的记号，即亚伯拉罕肉生的后裔蒙召要按照亚伯拉罕信之踪迹去行，从而成为亚伯拉罕属灵后裔的记号。
鉴于这些事实，新约讲述「全家」受洗也就不足为奇了。诸约之间以及圣约的各个记号之间的连续性表明，这正合乎我们的期待。从创世记第十七章开始，上帝的子民就一直在实践「全家」割礼，将上帝内在盟约的外在记号施行在公开表明信仰的成年信徒（他们以前从未受过割礼）和他们的孩童身上。事实上，经过几千年，儿童作为盟约记号的领受者，一直都被纳入到圣约团体当中，如果在新约时代事情照信而受洗者的看法，已经发生翻天覆地的改变，那么我们就会期望新约多少会提到这点。难道我们真的要相信孩子们现在已经被排除在圣约之外了吗？并因此认为，旧的盟约比新的盟约更伟大、更包容吗？这种说法的根据是什么？它违背了我们从旧约到新约随处可见的扩张原则。婴儿洗不仅符合我们所看到的圣约和圣约记号之间的连续性，而且也符合这种扩张原则，因为它将圣约记号同时施行在男女身上，也施行在他们所有的孩童身上，不分男女。
Dr.
Guy M. Richard is executive director and assistant professor of systematic
theology at Reformed Theological Seminary in Atlanta. He is author of several
books, including Baptism: Answers to Common Questions.
Are
we really to believe that children are now cut out of the covenant community?
Paedobaptism
by
Guy M. Richard
As a
Presbyterian minister, I often get asked about why I believe in baptizing
infants. The sheer number of questions that I get tells me that there is a
great deal of misunderstanding about this doctrine. Part of the reason for this
misunderstanding is that many members of paedobaptist churches have not been
able to give good biblical justification for what they believe. This may be
because paedobaptist churches are not adequately preparing their members to do
so, or it may simply be because baptism is not a defining doctrine for
paedobaptists in precisely the same way that it is for many others. Our Baptist
brothers and sisters, for instance, distinguish themselves from most other
Christian traditions by their position on baptism, which means that their
average church member often receives more thoroughgoing teaching on this
doctrine than ours will.
Another
part of the reason why people misunderstand paedobaptism is that they
misunderstand the covenant theology that lies behind it. I recently taught a
seminary class on baptism in which I asked my students to read an article
written by a Baptist brother on why he believed paedobaptism is unbiblical.
What surprised me most about this brother’s article was how frequently he
misunderstood covenant theology and its implications for baptism. Before we can
ever move forward together on this doctrine, we need to correct these kinds of
misunderstandings with as much clarity and grace as possible. And it is in that
spirit that I offer the rest of this article.
Having
acknowledged this, the first thing I would say is that the paedobaptist
position embraces virtually everything that the credobaptist position does
about the recipients of baptism. We wholeheartedly affirm that baptism is
rightly administered to adults (never before baptized) when they profess faith
in Christ. The term paedobaptist is thus something of a misnomer. We don’t
merely baptize young children; we baptize both professing believers and their
young children, and, in that sense, we are both credobaptist and paedobaptist.
What distinguishes us from our credobaptist brothers and sisters is the word
only. Credobaptists baptize professing believers only, whereas we baptize
professing believers and their children.
I
mention this to indicate that it takes more than simply pointing to the
examples of professing believers being baptized in the New Testament to prove
the credobaptist position. Paedobaptists acknowledge the baptism of professing
believers too. Our credobaptist brothers and sisters have to demonstrate that
the Bible teaches that professing believers, and no one else, are to be
baptized.
The
second thing I would say is that Genesis 17 explicitly states that God
commanded the outward sign of His covenant (circumcision) to be applied to
their infant sons at eight days old. Given that fact, we need only show that
the Abrahamic covenant is substantially the same as the new covenant and that
the theology of circumcision mirrors the theology of baptism in order to
validate the children of believers’ receiving the covenant sign under the new
covenant as they obviously did under the Abrahamic covenant.
Romans
2:28–29 and 4:11, together with Deuteronomy 30:6 and Jeremiah 9:25–26 (among
others), indicate that circumcision was never intended by God as a badge of
ethnic identity but was intended as an outward sign pointing to an inward
spiritual reality (a circumcision of the heart). It pointed backward to what
had already happened on the inside—as in the case of Abraham, who believed and
then was circumcised—or to what was expected to happen in the future—as in the
case of most Jews who were circumcised at eight days old and then were expected
to follow in the footsteps of Abraham’s faith when they were older (Rom. 4:12).
Colossians 2:11–12 makes the theological connection between circumcision and
baptism explicit by applying both spiritual circumcision (of the heart) and
spiritual baptism (of the Holy Spirit) to the Christian. If inward circumcision
and inward baptism are linked, then surely their outward signs—that is,
physical circumcision and water baptism—are as well.
Galatians
3:16 and Romans 4:11–12, furthermore, teach us that the Abrahamic covenant is
essentially the same as the new covenant. Galatians 3:16 states that Christ is
the offspring of Abraham, which means that only those who are “in Christ” are
children of Abraham—whether in the Old Testament or in the New (see Gal. 3:7,
14, 29). Romans 4:11–12 confirms this when it says that Abraham is the father
of every (uncircumcised) gentile who believes and the father of every
circumcised Jew who “walk[s] in the footsteps of the faith . . . that Abraham
had before he was circumcised.” This faith, as John 8:56 tells us, is a faith
that looks to Christ. It is a faith that looks to heaven and to spiritual
realities and blessings rather than to an earthly promised land and temporal
realities and blessings (Heb. 11:10, 16).
The
Abrahamic covenant was, therefore, not a physical or temporal covenant enacted
with the biological descendants of Abraham. It was a spiritual covenant enacted
with the spiritual descendants of Abraham. It was a covenant that was
substantially the same as the new covenant. Christ—the seed of Abraham—ensures
that this is the case. Circumcision, moreover, was not a sign of ethnic
identity but a sign that called the biological descendants of Abraham to become
his spiritual descendants by following him in the same faith that he had.
Given
these realities, it should be no surprise that the New Testament speaks of
“household” baptisms. The continuity between the covenants—and between the
covenant signs—indicates that this is exactly what we would expect. Ever since
Genesis 17, God’s people had been practicing “household” circumcision, applying
the outward sign of God’s inward covenant to professing adult believers (who
never received it before) and to their children. Indeed, we would expect to
find some mention in the New Testament if, after thousands of years of
including children in the covenant community as recipients of the covenant
sign, things were supposed to be so radically different in the new covenant
era. Are we really to believe that children are now cut out of the covenant
community and that the old covenant is, for that reason, greater and more
inclusive than the new? What is the basis for this? It runs counter to the
principle of expansion that we see at work everywhere else when we move from
Old to New Testament. Not only is paedobaptism consistent with the continuity
that we see between the covenants and between the covenant signs, but it is
also consistent with this principle of expansion because it applies the
covenant sign to both men and women and to their male and female children.
