The author discusses a view of baptism from a 19th century tract. This tract looks at baptism and the revealed and hidden will of God, covenant and the view of the church, and the relation of faith and baptism.

Source: Clarion, 1998. 4 pages.

A 19th Century Tract on Baptism

Our History🔗

In one editorial, we cannot examine the entire Baptist point of view.1 Let me only give some consideration to the way in which Baptist theology has been dealt with in our own history. In the history of the Reformed churches in Holland, much attention was paid to the teaching of the Baptists, in part because of its persistent influence among specific Reformed groups. One significant tract was written by Rev. K. J. Pieters of Franeker, in Friesland, one of the figures who promoted a view of the covenant in the tradition of Rev. Hendrik de Cock.2 He was supported in his approach by the Rev. J.R. Kreulen of Ferwerd. The standpoint of the Revs. Pieters and Kreulen later became the topic of much discussion in the churches, and in the late 19th Century gained greater and greater influence. It also influenced the preaching of Rev. L. Hulst, the well-known American secession preacher who brought the same Calvinistic view of the covenant to American shores.3 Thus the doctrinal struggles of our forbears with the Baptists can also assist us as we seek to hold to the rich heritage we have received.

The Counsel of God🔗

In his tract Rev. Pieters describes the Baptist error as follows: the basic fault is the confusion of the hidden and revealed counsel of God. God’s hidden will or counsel is His plan of redemption, His counsel that always stands and never changes (see Isaiah 46:10). God’s revealed will concerns the obligations which God imposes on us in His word, obligations which change in accordance with the times and dispensations, but in essence always remain the same: follow the LORD and live! These two wills must always be kept distinct. The basic error of Baptist thinking is: confusing these two wills in a way which identifies the revealed will of God with His hidden will.

In reality, says Pieters, there are not two wills but one will in God. However, in revelation and in our thoughts there are and must be two divine wills: the hidden and the revealed will of God. Pieters says: God controls these two wills and the relationship between them in a way that has not been revealed to us. What are now the typical errors with regard to the two wills as revealed by God? The boundaries that God has set are not respected. The Remonstrants take the hidden will and identify it with the revealed will of God, giving room for free human response. The hidden will then becomes dependent on man’s participation and his role. The Baptists, on the other hand, bring the revealed will back to the hidden will of God, and they make the hidden will of God the starting point of all their assertions. In other words, while the Remonstrants pull forward the hidden will of God and reduce it to His revealed will, the Baptists take the revealed will and mix it up with the revelation about God’s hidden will, putting all emphasis on the experience of God’s work in one’s heart. All their further errors with regard to the doctrine of sin and the exalted place of human reason can be traced to this one fundamental distortion, according to Pieters.

What effect does this have? In the end, the gospel message is really only for those to whom the Holy Spirit has given the experience of repentance, sorrow for sin, and conversion. There is no general offer of the gospel in the real sense of the term. The gospel may be preached to all, but it really only applies to those who are the “saved.” The saved are “the chosen,” those who share the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit, and are appointed to share it from eternity.

The View of the Church🔗

In this view, the church becomes exclusively the body of those who are elected, i.e. only those ordained to life, the body of regenerated Christians. The church is seen as a spiritual body of only regenerated, converted and holy people. For these believers, being engrafted into Christ precedes regeneration and conversion. The church is invisible in the sense that it begins with the hidden work of the Spirit. The church is visible as well, but the visible church is composed only of the believers, the enlightened, the company of the redeemed throughout all the world and all of history. And the sacraments really only apply to this kind of people. The sacrament is based on faith rather than the other way around. Hence infant baptism must be rejected. That is the heart and marrow of the Baptist position.4

Pieters says: the Baptist seeks the unity of the church in a subjective ground, namely faith. The unity of the church is found in the moral qualities of the heart: conversion, spiritual life and the subjective renewing work of the Holy Spirit. Here they not only set a standard for the unity of the church which is beyond human powers of recognition and discernment but in this way they also confuse the church with the personal unity of the believer with Christ, making the latter the standard of all judgment. Moreover, the church is seen fundamentally as a New Testament reality. Hence the Old Testament is seen as but a preliminary or lower stage to the essential reality of the New Testament.

From this perspective the whole approach to the Scriptures is determined. The Old and New Testaments are severed, and the covenant order of the New Testament is seen as entirely different from that of the Old. Ultimately, the personal relationship with Christ takes a predominate position in the new covenant. It is frequently compared to a marriage covenant in which the offer to marriage from the bridegroom (Christ) really does not have any legal validity until the offer is accepted by the bride (the believer).5

The Reformed Response🔗

It is interesting to note how in his 19th-century context, Rev. Pieters answers the Baptists.6For in his answer to the Baptists, he helps to crystallize the Reformed view of the covenant! He begins with carefully delineating the two wills of God and showing that these must always be kept distinct. We cannot identify God’s hidden counsel (election and reprobation) with His covenant (promise and demand). The former belongs to the hidden will, the latter to the revealed will of God. The covenant is revealed and sealed in history. It is made with the believers and their seed, and it is the mark or ensign by which the believers, the seed of the church, are distinguished from unbelievers. But with the promises sealed in baptism comes at the same time the obligation to renounce the world and to live a holy life. This comes to all the people set apart by God, including the children.

Ideal and Real🔗

How then must the church be seen according to Pieters? In Scripture’s speaking about the church there is a two-fold aspect. It describes the church in terms of the ideal (what the church must be and shall be at the end of the age) and reality, i.e. what the church is today. The ideal refers to events and circumstances which, while beginning in Christ, only come to full culmination on the last day (Romans 6:4-11, Colossians 2:12, Galatians 2:20, Colossians 3:3). These passages refer to the death of the old nature, but incorporate in their statements its final end or goal: perfection in Christ. Yet, says Pieters, this is not the real situation of the church today. The real situation, the other aspect the apostle brings forward, is that the call to daily repentance must go on (Ephesians 4:21-28, Colossians 3:5-10, Galatians 5:16, 17). In the former passages, Paul holds up the ideal for the church and for the individual and takes it as a standard by which we must continually model our lives. In the latter passages, he reminds us that we are far from finished the race. The Baptists, on the other hand, take the ideal as reality, confuse the two, and continually speak of those who are the “saved.”

That we are not in a blanket category called the “saved” or the “enlightened” is clear from many other passages in the New Testament which stress that the church is a gathering and at the same time a mixed body. Jesus speaking in His parables about the kingdom of God on earth speaks of the tares and the wheat that grow together on the earth (Matthew 13:36ff, 47ff, Matthew 22:1-13). He speaks about branches that are in the vine, but some will be broken off (John 15:1-11). Paul indicates in many places that there are still many sins, shortcomings and weaknesses in the church. Some churches also had conflicts with essential doctrines (1 Corinthians 15:12f, see also Galatians 3:1, 4:11, 5:12). The Philippians too were plagued by the purveyors of false teaching (Philippians 3:17-19). Corinth had struggles with sexual immorality (1 Corinthians 5:1f). The church was far from perfect!

All this is ignored by the Baptists who see the unity of the church in a subjective ground, namely, faith. Hence they always speak of the church as “the whole body of Christian believers” or “the whole body of believers on earth” – yet all without specific reference to the organized structure and form of the church, that is, the church as it is gathered around the administration of the Word, and gathered in the Word and Spirit. However, the church does not have its ground in subjective faith. Says Pieters: What is the objective ground of the speaking of the apostles? Not that people are regenerated by the Holy Spirit, but that they have been baptized (Galatians 3:26, 27). All of the conditional phrases of the apostles have this objective ground (see, for example, Romans 8:13, Hebrews 3:6, Colossians 3:1).

Besides, says Pieters, in Scripture the apostles carefully distinguish between the responsibility facing the whole church, and the personal responsibility of believers individually. The former concerns the collective responsibility of all to uphold the truth and to walk in it daily (Galatians 3:27). But personal responsibility implies that each one must examine himself with a view to his life of faith (2 Corinthians 13:5). In the context of the corporate responsibility, each believer must himself give an account of the hope that is in him and of his personal union with Christ and the gospel, to his comfort, rest and peace in Christ.

The View of Baptism🔗

What are the grounds for the sacrament of baptism? Is faith ever a ground for baptism? In adult baptism, faith should be seen as an accompanying condition for baptism. The ground for baptism is always the promise of the covenant of grace in Jesus Christ. Baptism, rooted in the one sacrifice of Christ, has replaced circumcision (Colossians 2:12). For this reason the promises directed to the children in the old covenant equally apply to the children of believers in the new covenant (Acts 2:39). The children are holy (1 Corinthians 7:14), just as was the case in the old covenant. You would need to sever the Old and New Testaments if you wanted to prove that the baptism of infants is wrong or even optional! For are we not all children of Abraham by faith?

The Warning🔗

So much for a brief look at the work of Rev. Pieters in his century-old tract. One might raise questions at certain points in his approach. But he is correct in pointing out that there are always these two aspects to the church as a gathering, namely its current state of imperfection, and its legally declared perfection in Christ, who promises to lead and guide His people to the day of glory. So he highlights a fundamental aspect of the confession that we must keep in mind: the church is a gathering and it is gathered through the Word and Spirit of Christ (see Lord’s Day 21). In other words, the call of the Word and the means of grace are essential elements in the way we are called to view the believers and their offspring today.

I’ve introduced Rev. Pieters if only to remind ourselves that since the earliest days of the Secession – and even before – the churches of the Reformation in Holland have consistently rejected the Baptist approach. And this rightly so, for it does not do justice to the rich testimony of the Scriptures! Let us then, building on the work of those who have gone before us, walk in the same line. We really do not have a choice! We are all under a heavenly call! Let this difference also be seen in a life that seeks to promote the kingdom of God in this world.

Endnotes🔗

  1. ^ A good critical discussion of the Baptist position can be found in a recent book by the minister of the Free Reformed Church in Hamilton, Rev. G. Procee. He gives a good overview of the meaning of baptism, also for infants. See Gerald R. Procee, Holy Baptism. The Scriptural Setting, Significance and Scope of Infant Baptism, (Hamilton Free Reformed Church, Hamilton, 1998).
  2. ^ K.J. Pieters, Het baptisme bij het licht der Heilige Schrift en der geschiendenis beoordeeld en in ’t licht gesteld. Een ernstig woord van waarschuwing tegen deze gezindte aan de Chr. Afgesch. gereformeerden ‘de Vrienden der waarheid’ en allen die belang stellen in het Koningrijk Gods op aarde, (Telenga, Franeker, 1866). 
  3. ^ On Hulst see J. Faber, American Secession Theologians on Covenant and Baptism (Inheritance, Neerlandia, 1996) 19f. Faber also mentions Hulst’s “weekly conversation” with Rev. Kreulen of Ferwerd, who wrote a tract on infant baptism along with Rev. Pieters, (see following note). 
  4. ^ Pieters and Kreulen say: He is the enemy of the baptism of the infants, see K.J. Pieters and J.R. Kreulen, De kinderdoop volgens de beginselen der Gereformeerde Kerk, in hare gronden, toedieningen en praktijk. Op nieuw onderzocht, beoordeeld en van vele schijnbare zwarigheden ontheven, (Velenga, Franeker, 1861) 9.
  5. ^ The marriage image is a popular one in the Baptist approach, so Pieters, 103.
  6. ^ His tract is a response to a Baptist author who sharply criticized the first tract of Rev. Pieters and Kreulen on infant baptism, see footnote #4. 

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