I support James White's ministry as I thoroughly enjoy listening to the Dividing Line and find he has an important apologetic ministry where few are providing the in-depth work on certain subjects. We obviously disagree in the Baptism issue.
I bring James up because recently he has been preparing for a debate with a Oneness Pentecostal and listening to a debate the man had with a Church of Christ minister. Over and over, the man (a modalist) makes arguments to the effect of "show me the verse that says that God is Trinity" and James is right to point out that certain Biblical truths are not derived by a single verse or verses of the Bible. For instance, on the subject of Christ's divinity there are so many passages that speak to His divinity to a Jewish audience that the Pharisees are ready to stone Him while a modern man with blind eyes is still waiting for the "proof text".
I bring this up because it really does make a difference on what you will accept as "Scriptural". Is the bar that an explicit example or a command that an infant be baptized the "Scriptural" support for baptism or is the person willing to put together logically connected Scriptural principles that necessitate an idea?
Furthermore, I think for most people who think along the lines of what I would call "Baptist thinking" make a pretty common logical leap that I think prevents them from getting down to the core issue. I don't say this pejoratively but it is simply my observation. Notice this thread that was discussed yesterday:
http://www.puritanboard.com/f57/why-i-am-still-baptist-gonzales-69895/
Essentially the antipaedobaptist starts with the idea: clearly the New Covenant belongs to those who have been regenerated by the Holy Spirit and that is the elect alone.
Now, follow me here, all Reformed confessions believe that the Covenant of Grace is made in Christ and that the Elect alone receive the graces signified by it.
Where Baptist thinking gets stuck is that they make this assumption:
1. The New Covenant consists of the Elect Alone.
2. Some babies are not elect.
3. Because of the nature of the New Covenant we must not baptize those that may not be elect.
Now, I realize this is a gross simplification but when you read most interchanges on this issue there is a point at which most Baptists are sort of stuck on the eternal decree of God and the benefits of the NC and don't really ever want to move beyond that issue to the issue of how a Church visibly administers a sign that signifies the New Covenant.
There is a big difference there. That is to say, that which signifies the graces of the NC is not saying that it
confers the graces of the NC.
The question I wish those who were challenging whether or not paedobaptist practice is Scriptural is to challenge their own assumption that a knowledge of who grace truly belongs to (the elect) gives us any knowledge as to who should be baptized. It does not for we will never know the elect. Some arguments will start with the above and then shift to a fourth proposition:
4. Profession of faith makes it more likely that the person is elect.
5. Profession thus ensures that the Church baptizes the least number of unregenerate individuals.
Now, I realize that once they're made the above logical connection, most will honestly admit at this point that the real reason they baptize professors is because they believe that God has commanded that only those who give a profession of faith are to be baptized. Nevertheless, the above thinking is always acting as a mental barrier of sorts to understand the point the Reformed are trying to make with respect to the nature of a Sacrament. Many cannot, in the final analysis, get over the idea that the Church doesn't have access to sufficient information to make a judgment call about whether a person is regenerate or not. There is a real concern, then, that Reformed Churches that practice paedobaptism should have a greater concern that unregenerate men and women and children might be in the Church and that the Church should be doing a better job of clearly identifying who they think are regenerate.
Reformed Churches, however, do not operate with the concern as to trying to come to a more or less assured understanding that a person is regenerate. We leave this to the operation of the Holy Spirit and what the means of grace of the Church will do by His sovereign operation.
This is a long way of saying that, in the final analysis, there is a fundamental way of thinking about the nature of what a disciple is.
1. Is a disciple one who the Church has formally recognized as most likely regenerate.
or
2. Is a disciple one who has come into the visible Kingdom of Christ by a credible profession and baptism or by baptism as a child and is under the instruction and admonition of the Word toward the
end that he/she is built up in the faith or, by God's grace, converted to the faith?
The idea that a disciple (in the visible sense) might not be converted yet is an idea that is foreign to baptist thinking but is not foreign in Reformed thinking. I also believe that there is ample evidence in the Scriptures (i.e. the entire Book of Hebrews) that indicates that the visible Kingdom is exhorted to press in toward the end that they be built up and converted.
I'd have more to say but I have a lot to do. My point in all of this is to get you to think about what you have assumed about discipleship and what you can Biblically sustain through GNC. The issue of who gets baptized is often a consequence of understanding discipleship first and not the other way around.
