Baptism, Covenant, and Election

Richard B. Gaffin, Jr. and Lane G. Tipton analyze arguments for credo-baptism and discuss Reformed views of covenant and election. Many Reformed Baptists will be quick to differentiate themselves from dispensationalists. They favor a covenantal hermeneutic that seeks to take into account the redemptive-historical features of Scripture. For this reason, many confessing credo-baptists argue that the Old Covenant administration has yielded several features to the New.

For instance, many Reformed Baptists argue that circumcision, the Old Covenant sign of membership, was given to physical seed, but water baptism, the New Covenant sign of membership, should only be given to spiritual seed. Moreover, the covenant included unregenerate members in its previous administration, but all people know the Lord in the New Covenant. Drs. Gaffin and Tipton analyze these and other arguments for credo-baptism.

http://reformedforum.org/ctc223