Athelney

Chapterhouse

He with a little band made his way by wood and swamp, and after

Easter he made a fort at Athelney, and from that fort kept fighting against the foe.

Vol. 1. 1 Covenant Baptism

 Preface
Athelney Chapterhouse is a Trinitarian cultural journal celebrating the simplicity of agrarian living, the stouthearted legacy of Anglo-
Saxon Christendom, & the sacramental life hid with Christ in God. Threats to the good life abound: over consumption, industrial
farming, ignorance, hubris, greed, the industrialization of life, feudalism, chauvinism, irreverence, cowardice, erosion, deforestation,
and foreign conquest. We continue to answer king Alfred's call to fight these dangers with traditional virtues like courage, simplicity,
fidelity, husbandry, frugality, & reverence. We see Athelney as an extended conversation on the pleasures of good work, family, good
food, laughter, psalm singing, incarnational parish life, connection to place, a rich liturgical heritage, gardening, & eucharistic living.
Therefore, in the spirit of concord we present these tracts for the edification of all, the healing of soul and body, and to show that we “are
neglecting nothing that may serve the cause of Christian unity" but have received the true faith, the paradosis of Christ, from our
fathers. If you find me to be right, I give credit to our venerable Fathers, especially Blessed Augustine, the Great Athanasius, the
Great Gregory, Holy Cuthbert, the Venerable Bede, and the great king Alfred. However, where I am in error it is due only to my
own absent-mindedness, sloth, and inattention to instruction.
In this inaugural issue we discuss the doctrine of Holy Baptism. Is Baptism a human obedience or a divine act of saving love? What
Old Testament metaphors are used in the New Testament to shed light on what Baptism is? Does God love our children and can our
children be part of the Body of Christ? We will explore the great blessing and sacrament of Holy Baptism that unites us together, one
Body through the Cross and in the power of the Holy Spirit [Col. 2, Rom. 6, 1 Pet. 3:21].
Lastly, pray with me for the welfare of Christ's Holy Churches, for the faithful and God-fearing people of God, for valiant living,
great witness to the truths of the Gospel, and deliverance from this dreadful Frankish Captivity. Pray also specifically for me that I
might not fall into any grievous sin nor hold to the dreadful heresy of the Frankish Normans. Rather, that together with all the
faithful we might honor our Ece Dryhten, Eternal Lord, in thought word and deed and in all things glorify the All-Merciful
Father together with his Almighty Son the Arch-Victor and the All Holy Spirit, forever and ever. Amen.
Your Servant,
Rhian
Contents
In Defense of Covenant Baptism …………….………………………………………… 3
Is Infant Baptism Apostolic? …………….………………………………………… 6
New Covenant Baptism ………………………………………………………. 9
Make Me Ever, Change Me to Your Art by Tami Close …………… 14
Symbolism, Human Relationships, & God's Love …………………………. 16
Baptism as New Life …………………………………………………………………….. 22
Baptism Sources Cited ……………………………………………………………………..27
A Prayer of St Chrysostom ………………………………………………………. 28
Concerning Services
THE Morning and Evening Prayer shall be used in the accustomed place of the Church, Chapel, or Chancel, except it be otherwise determined by
the Ordinary of the place; and the Chancels shall remain as they have done in times past.
We confess the undoubted Christian catholic faith that we share with all our Christian brothers and sisters in all times and places. This
faith is Apostolic, Middle Eastern, Hebraic, Incarnational, Trinitarian, & Sacramental. In order to know what we believe about
anything, please refer to the Nicene Creed and the Apostolic Fathers, particularly "Adversus Haereses" by Irenaeus of Lyons &
"On the Incarnation" by St Athanasius. Visit our website at: www.unexpectedjoy.org/Athelney.
If an additional hymn is desired, it may be sung immediately before the Blessing or Dismissal.
You are free to share, which is to say, to copy, distribute and transmit, Athelney materials under the following conditions: Attribution:
You must attribute the work in an acceptable manner (but not in any way that suggests that we endorse you or your use of the work).
Noncommercial: You may not use this work for commercial purposes. Share Alike: If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you
may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one. Please send a copy of the reprint or subsequent work
to: Rihan / 1206 W. Mt Vernon St / Springfield, Mo 65806
In Quires and Places where they sing here followeth the Anthem.

We are committed to the maxim that reminds us “Tradition without truth is just the antiquity of error."

2 Athelney Chapterhouse
 Opening Sentences
¶ The Minister shall begin the Morning Prayer by reading, in a loud voice, one or more of the following Sentences of Scripture.
THE LORD is in his holy temple: let all the earth keep silence before him. Hab. ii. 20.
I will bless the Lord, who giveth me counsel; my heart teacheth me, night after night. I have set the Lord always
before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not fall. Psalm xvi. 7,8.
LORD, I have loved the habitation of thy house, and the place where thine honor dwelleth. Psalm xxvi. 8.
‘There is one body and one Spirit’ just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call ‘one Lord, one
faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.’ Ephes. Iv. 4-6.

Baptism the Holy Spirit is powerfully active destroying

In Defense of the walls of sin, and self-love that turn us inward and
Covenant Baptism keep us separated from God and man. What better place
to start a conversation about overcoming the false gods
and idols of our own world than Baptism?
hank you for provoking me to look into these

T
thing for myself to see what the Scriptures say
concerning Baptism. I agree that the Word of
God is sharper than any two edged sword, able
to sever bone from marrow, the doctrines of the Church
from the doctrines of men. (Mk 7:7, Isa 29:13) The
doctrines of grace, the Holy Trinity, the Incarnation, the
destruction of sin and death on the Life Giving Cross,
these are not sought out by the human mind alone, but
are revealed by the Holy Spirit reminding us what has
always been believed everywhere and by all. Therefore,
we humbly seek after the old ways, the traditions that
honor God, and the Apostolic teaching concerning Bible
Doctrines in order to put away the "commandments of
men." These doctrines are able to make sinners well
again, and able to stand at the Last Day through the grace
of God and our entrance into Life in Christ which is
Baptism.
Some may ask why this subject is important at all. It
is important because in Baptism we get a glimpse of
God's saving activity in our lives and in the world.
Baptism is a picture of Christ Jesus' overwhelming
victory over the power of sin and death with which the
adversary and all the old gods held mankind captive. In
This is simply the teaching of the Church. I don't
presume to "prove" anything to anyone, nor to be coldly
and rationally "right." Often a calculating rationality will
simply offend. Arguments don't change men's minds
anyway, they either catch fire or they don't. Therefore,
my intention is to simply present the teaching as I have
received it with humility and willingness to listen. That
is, listen to you, my reader. This is even more important
since baptism aught to be the reality which unites us
together as one body in the Lord not a point of
contention. Yet I will endeavor to anticipate and answer
objections for the sake of clarity.
I understand that this is a very sensitive and
controversial subject of great importance. I recognize
that there are well intentioned churchmen (and women)
on both sides of the debate who are equally concerned to
remain faithful to Holy Scripture. (For these reasons, if
you know this subject will make you angry, I ask you not
to read this tract and to read the next issue, which I pray
is more amiable, and interesting.) As we look into
Scripture I ask the Holy Spirit to humble me, to enlighten
my mind, and teach me what the Word of God says and
to give me faith to believe whatever the Church teaches. I
need a lot of faith.

Athelney Chapterhouse 3
 With that in mind I must clarify something before I
begin answering this question.
i. This is Protestantism
Sola Scriptura is only true if the Bible is viewed as
the possession of the Church, and not the possession of
the individual. It is the early Church that was inspired by
the Holy Spirit to write the Gospels and Epistles. It was
the Church who read them in the Liturgy and collected
them in to the Gospel Book and the Epistle Book.
Therefore it is to that Church that we must first look to
guide our understanding of the deposit of faith found in
Holy Scripture.
To those of us raised with a deep suspicion of "the
church" and "organized religion" this concept might
seem, well, crazy. I understand where you are coming
from. Why would you submit to believe what a
"corrupted human institution" tells you to believe? When
I say the word "Church" I don't mean the institution or a
bureaucracy, but rather the Sacred Covenant
Community created and made alive by the Holy Spirit
which is the Body and Bride of Christ, the Family of God,
and the people of the Heavenly Kingdom. Certainly this
Great and Holy Church is not simply a "corrupted
institution," but is inseparably intertwined with the
Incarnation of God the Word, the Holy Spirit leading us
into all truth, & the Holy Scriptures which are able to
make us perfect. That is to say that right doctrine is
never separated from what the Church teaches and what
the Church teaches is never separated from what the
Holy Spirit teaches it in Holy Scripture.
Recently I was reading a fellow on the internet
argue that what makes Protestantism "mature" is it's
willingness to ignore and set aside the wisdom of the
Church Fathers. If that doesn't make you sit up and take
notice (or fall out of your chair) what will? For
Evangelicals the ultimate arbiter of truth is often the
individual wisdom and personal conscience of the
autonomous self deciding what Scripture says. There is
no higher standard of authority. To rely on tradition is to
be like a grown man who continues to act like a child,
looking to his father for direction. "Protestantism's
increasing vitality," asserts Arthur W. Mielke in his book
This is Protestantism, "is convincing proof that it must be
understood, not as a protest which stimulated some
much needed reforms, but as one of the most creative
movements in history." Creativity expressed in the "fact
that there are presently more than 250 different
Protestant denominations in the United States. A
manifestation of one of Protestantism's chief
characteristics - a symbol of religious virility and an
expression of the essential liberty of the Protestant
conscience."
Why this desire for "maturity" falsely so called? Why
this celebration of disunity?
4 Athelney Chapterhouse
In the late Protestant mind, as well as the Roman
Catholic mind, authority is externally enforced power.
For the Roman Catholic this power is embraced. In
Mielke's Protestantism it is rejected. But neither point of
view is Biblical. Indeed, authority is an essential and
indispensable element of human life and society. Blessed
Augustine reminds us that we cannot know with absolute
certainty who our fathers are unless we can rely on the
trustworthiness of our mothers. Such knowledge cannot
be arrived at rationally. Without confidence in the
trustworthiness of others, what Augustine calls authority,
"the sacred bond of the human race" would be shattered
(Wilken, 171-172).
In the early Church, tradition is the internal witness
of the Holy Spirit in the life of the Body of Christ passed
on through divinely directed process of spiritual
"fatherhood" and "sonship" as described in St Paul's
pastoral epistles, especially the letters to Timothy, the
shepherd of the Ephesian Church. This is what we call
Tradition.
In my youth I was told that "tradition" was a curse
word. We believed that every generation had to reinvent
Christianity. Such a mindset is entirely foreign to the
New Testament and Apostolic Christianity. Anyone who
has read even a small sample of their writings would
know that the Reformers did not intend to found a new
church or reinvent the church but only reform the One
Holy Church. They constantly appeal to the testimony of
the early Church Fathers in support of their teachings.
The radical autonomous authority of self to determine
truth from Scripture on the other hand expresses the
Anabaptist spirit of the Radical Reformation. This is the
way that heretics have always expressed their right to
dissent from orthodox teaching of the Gospel of Life. For
an individual to employ a solo Scriptura principle (I base
my belief on the Bible only) is a sure recipe for
subjectivism, heresy, and disaster.
To think that 2000 years of Holy Spirit filled, self
emptied, Christ-bearing prayer warriors and defenders of
the faith were wrong because of some new way of
thinking that I just came up with on Wednesday just
seems arrogant to me now. Given my track record
interpreting and judging normal things, it seems crazy
not to listen to the saintly pastors of the past and cling to
my own wisdom. Why wouldn't I want to learn from the
holy ones of the past? If I cannot trust the saints and
spiritual fathers of the Church why on earth would I trust
myself?
True maturity means learning to judge rightly,
which means carefully learning from our fathers.
Today, though I realize that while there are
traditions of men, the holy tradition is the legacy of
voices from the past, from saints and confessors and holy
martyrs, a treasury of good things gifted to us by the Holy
Spirit that we might mature and grow up into the full
likeness of Christ. It is in the One Holy Church, the
fellowship of the mysterion (1 Cor 1), where the true
faith once delivered to the saints is preserved and handed
down as tradition enlivened by faith much more than
mere archeology.
ii. The Words of the Faith
Wait a minute. Is all this stuff Biblical? Lets take a
look at the New Testament perspective on "tradition-
ing."
Notice what Paul tells Timothy in 1 Timothy 6:3, "If
anyone teaches differently and does not agree with the
sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and with the
doctrine that is consistent with true piety, he is puffed up
with conceit and understands nothing." This is an
important statement. How do we determine whether or
not a person's doctrine is "consistent with true piety"?
How do we determine whether we are dealing with a
sound teacher, or a schismatic heretic? The Evangelical
answer is: "Read your Bible, and see if what is being
taught agrees with your interpretation of Scripture." But
that is not the New Testament answer.
First of all, who are these words addressed to? They
are addressed to Timothy, the bishop of Ephesus. And
what was his responsibility as a pastor of the Church? It
was "to charge certain persons not to teach differently" (1
Tim 1:3). Differently than what? Differently than "the
words of the faith and the good doctrine you have
followed" (4:6). Notice that he speaks here, not simply of
accordance with the Bible, but of accordance with "the
words of the faith." "The faith" is clearly a traditional way
of understanding the teaching of Scripture which has
been passed on to Timothy from Jesus Christ himself
through the Apostle. That is why St Paul says, "If anyone
teaches differently and does not agree with the sound
words of our Lord Jesus Christ." These sound words are a
body of truth, an ecclesial testimony, and collective
witness which is passed on through the teaching of the
Church, from the apostles to bishops like Timothy, and
from Timothy to other bishops and presbyters: "What
you have heard from me in the presence of many
witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to
teach others also" (2 Tim 2:2). These words of Jesus were
written down in part in Holy Scriptures but this process
of traditioning did not end. These sound words have
reached us on the other end of time.
Therefore, If you want to know whether what a
person is teaching is heretical or not, you must not
simply open up your Bible and ask the Holy Ghost to
show you the way. You must listen to the Spirit when he
teaches us to seek out those to whom "the words of the
faith" have been entrusted, namely the pastors of the
Church. This is how the faith once delivered to the saints
has been "traditioned" to us. If it were not for this
"traditioning" the true faith would have been lost amid
the many heresies that attacked the Church such as
Gnosticism and Arianism.
Consequently, the Church, not the Bible by itself,
and not the wisdom of the individual Christian who
thinks he is "mature," is "the pillar and support of the
truth" (1 Tim 3:15). Scripture is the revelation of the
Word of God and the Church is the guardian and witness
of that revelation (Rom 3:2). It is the responsibility of the
Church to protect and preserve God's Word. It is not the
job of the Bible to protect and preserve God's Church.
Christ is her defender. The Reformers saw themselves as
restoring the historic witness of the Church, as it was
preserved in her collective memory in the early Creeds
and Fathers, which had been obscured through the
introduction of novelties by the Papal hierarchy which
had lost its own sense of accountability to the 'words of
the faith.' As Martin Luther put it: "When we oppose and
reject the pope it is because he does not keep to these
treasures of Christendom which he has inherited from
the apostles. Instead he makes additions of the devil and
does not use these treasures for the improvement of the
temple" (Concerning Rebaptism, 1528). (Today, as in
Luther's day, many Christians "do not keep these
treasures" of the faith, the right interpretation of
Scripture.) This is what we call the Frankish Captivity of
the Church, and we have only Charlemagne to blame for
it. It is what necessitated the Reformation and continues
to necessitate one to this very day. But more on that in a
latter issue.
iii. Overview
Since both sides rely on Holy Scripture to
substantiate their claims, settling such a dispute between
credo-baptists and peado-baptists cannot be done solely
through appeal to Holy Scripture. As Doug Wilson
famously pointed out, "Baptists don't see any salvation by
baptism passages in the Bible while we don't see any
salvation by walking an aisle or filling out a card
passages." Subsequently we spend a lot of time talking
past each other instead of getting to the heart of the
matter.
Therefore I will disclose what Traditional
Trinitarian Christians have always believed about
Baptism. We see in baptism an act of adoption, sealing,
and reconciliation preformed by a loving God on our
behalf, that we could not have earned, which places us
within the Family of God and clothes us in Christ. It is
that simple. Baptism is more about belonging to the
Family of God than an act of obedience or outward
demonstration of inward faith.
So the questions we tend to ask sound more like,
"Who are those who belong to Christ and who are
members of his covenant community?" These kinds of
inquiries go a long way toward answering the more
difficult questions. Questions such as whether our infant
Athelney Chapterhouse 5
children (not to mention mentally retarded adult
children or the elderly with neuro-degenerative diseases)
are holy, forgiven, adopted members of the family of
God? These are the issues I must grapple with when
answering the question with which I have been charged,
namely, whether traditional Christians derive their
practice of baptizing the infant children of believers from
the Divine Revelation or from human tradition and
human reasoning? In other words, is infant baptism in
view within the Apostolic Deposit of Old and New
Testament Scriptures? I believe it is.
My biblical case for infant Baptism is three fold: (1)
The case from the lack of evidence for credo-baptism of
children of adult believers. (2) The case from the total
Biblical doctrine of the covenant and covenant signs. (3)
The case from the nature of human relationships and the
love and free grace of God that does not depend on
intellectual maturity.
My second essay will delve into all of these issues a
bit. The third essay will go into more depth on the nature
of covenant signs and promises. The forth essay will deal
with whether children are capable of relationships or
responding in an age appropriate way to the call of God.
This essay, in the form of correspondence between two
friends begins to delve into the sacramental life and the
victory of Christ. The last essay will describe the Biblical
typology of Holy Baptism and its role in the Christian
life. ¶
6 Athelney Chapterhouse
Is Infant Baptism
Apostolic?
i. Decision Theology or Covenant Nurture
Although it is completely absent from the pages of
Holy Scripture, there is a "theology of Christian
parenting" nearly universal in the evangelical world. It
says, "Teach your children that they are unrepentant
sinners. Tell them about the hell that awaits them if they
do not repent." I listen to a lot of evangelical radio, and
this is exactly what I hear from the best radio pastors. It
leaves me more than a little confused. Are our children
really "unrepentant sinners?" Can we tell them God loves
them? Is this teaching them to have faith or to doubt
their salvation? Will they say to themselves, "I thought I
loved Jesus, but Mom doesn't think so, and Dad isn't so
sure. I guess I really am an unrepentant sinner just like
they say." This approach to nurturing children, which
teaches them to doubt rather than to walk by faith, is
strangely necessitated by the decision theology of
contemporary evangelicalism.
D.G. Hart writes,
Christianity of the evangelical variety has
historically struggled with the question of succession. How
does the conversion experience become a model for
nurture? Countless evangelical converts, having left
behind a life of sin and irreligion, face a difficult task
when thinking about passing on the faith to their
offspring. Do they encourage their children to pursue the
life they did, one of rebellion followed by the ecstasy of
regeneration, so that their sons and daughters will come
to genuine faith? Not likely. Much more common is the
decision to rear their children in the beliefs and practices
of the faith, even when such instruction and nurture flatly
contradict the model of the conversion experience. After
all, turning to God's mercy is much easier after a life of
drugs and sex than it is after a wholesome upbringing of
church attendance, family devotions, and Bible
memorization. (Deconstructing Evangelicalism)
Traditionally, Christians raised their children as if
they were part of the family of God. However, this model
of covenant nurture is lacking a crucial element, the
dramatic conversion experience. However, some people
simply refuse to accept that someone can be saved and
not remember such a life shattering experience. Such is
the case with Bunnie, a Lutheran blogger, who writes,
For those wondering, this thread resonated with me
because it took me back to the time my training to be a
pregnancy counselor at a crisis pregnancy clinic was
halted because my "testimony" was wrong.
Everyone else's testimony was dramatic. "I slept
around and did drugs and then I accepted Christ into my
heart and now I'm okay." Mine was about how I was
baptized at 23 days and raised in the faith.
They told me, quite nicely actually, that I wasn't
saved. They did ask if I would help them with fundraising,
though.
Christians seem to reward the most dramatic
testimonies. But this only leads children into great
confusion and even conscience rebellion in order to fit
the mold of the prodigal son re-conversion. Of course
God can and does save the worst sinners. As one of our
prayers says, "It is a little thing to save a righteous man
but a great thing indeed to save a sinner such as me. So
save me Lord, wether I will it or not." And it goes without
saying that the longer we live life in Christ, in the way of
self-denying, repenting, forgiving, loving, Spirit filled life,
the more we are convicted of sin and despairing of our
own righteousness are driven to trust Christ alone. Christ
Jesus our God, the alone lover of mankind, is willing and
able to save the worst sinner so that where sin abounds
grace abounds so much more! But do we actually want to
encourage our children to sin that grace may abound?
The prodigal son is a picture of what God's forgiveness
looks like. It shouldn't be a model of Christian
upbringing.
Yet this is the message we are giving when we
emphasize the titillating testimonies of attractive young
ladies telling about their conversion from sex, drugs, sex,
alcohol,and more sex. It almost makes us want to sin.
The result in some circles is an adult addicted to periodic
over emotional reconversion experiences. His salvation is
a reoccurring subjective state of mind that relies on a
fleeting emotional state rather than on the objective
concrete fact of Christ crucified and confirmed in our
lives concretely through the gospel promises made
tangible in the waters of Baptism.
Traditional historical Christians, while not denying
that each person must eventually experience Christ for
themselves, have never thought about covenant nurture
in terms of individualistic decision theology because it
occurred to them that raising their children as Christians
was the most effective way for them to experience Christ
in the first place.
For this reason they raised their children as if they
were part of the family of God, never knowing a time of
separation from Christ and the Church. Believing that
the gospel promises applied to Christians and their
children, they raised their children as though they were
covenant members in the Kingdom of God, admonishing
their children to remain faithful to Christ and grow in
spiritual maturity through the means of grace, prayer,
fasting, the Word, and Sacraments. This meant they were
baptized Christians, identified / united with Christ and
his death and resurrection, full members of the Church
and participants of church life, and expected to act as a
son or daughter of God. This is a status they could not
have earned and which they are enabled to keep by grace,
the blessings of which are acquired by faith.
It is obvious that we are dealing with two very
different ways of thinking about covenant nurture and
conversion theology. These are the first hints that
questions about Baptism lead us into unexpected
territory.
ii. My Son, God is not your God
The Church is what salvation looks like.
Subsequently the idea that "being saved" as a radically
individualized event that turns us inward to our own
hearts is completely lacking from Scripture. In the
Hebrew worldview, children, family, and community are
not separated. God doesn't just redeem individuals, he
works through families and communities. Salvation is
that divine act of freeing us from the inward looking
prison of self-love that unites us with the life of God and
his family. Can children really be separated from this
reality?
That is why you will not find a passage in the Bible
that says anything like, "And Brutus, the reprobate son of
Philemon the Just, at the age of eleven, gave his life to
Jesus, gave a profession of faith acceptable to the adults,
and was thus baptized by the elders. All the faithful
rejoiced that another unregenerate, unholy, God hating,
Cross despising, sinner had been brought into the family
of God." Nor will you find this, "Remember my beloved,
your children are dead in their sins, God is not their God.
Teach them that they are sinners for they have no part in
the inheritance of eternal life that you have for the sake
of your maturity and profession of faith."
What you will find is a man who receives a promise
that he will be the father of many nations and that the
whole world will be blessed through his children. His
children are part of the promise; they are "children of the
choice" by grace simply by being born into a family. This
promise is repeated on the day of Pentecost by St Peter,
when he said, "Repent and let everyone of you be
baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of
sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, For
the promise is to you and to your children and to all who
are afar off, as many as our Lord God will call."
Thus the children of the New Covenant are not
excluded from Christ.
Jesus says, let the little children come to me. He
loves them and wants them to belong to his family.
Calling our children "unregenerate reprobates" or "God
haters" is in effect excommunicating them, excluding
them from entering into the Life in Christ, denying them
the entrance into the Church, Unity with Jesus Christ,
forgiveness of sins, and adoption as sons and daughters
of God, all of which are promised in Baptism. To deny
God the opportunity to express his love in this way is
equivalent to saying to our children, "God is not your
Athelney Chapterhouse 7
God, you do not belong to him nor to his family. You are iii. Lack of Evidence for Credo-Baptism (1 & 2)
not forgiven, you are dead in your sins, and you will
The credo-baptist assumes that the examples of
remain so until you reach a certain level of intellectual
adult believers baptism are sufficient to deal with the
maturity." On the other hand, baptism is God telling our
question of whether their children should be baptized.
little ones they belong to him in the only way they could
However, examples of adult baptism, no matter how
understand it, non-verbally, from the earliest moment of
numerous, are insufficient to answer the question.
their lives.
Peado-baptists agree that adults should be baptized after
If you are scratching your head in confusion
announcing their faith, intention to follow Christ, and
wondering what I am mumbling about, what all this has
renouncing the work of the devil. But we find it ironic
to do with the silly notion of baptizing babies, it just goes
that the childless eunuch, a clear case of prior belief,
to show you that peado-baptists and credo-baptists aren't
becomes the paradigm for settling the question of
even asking the same questions. Credo-baptist want to
baptism of Christian's children.
know if infants are proper "subjects" of Baptism or not.
The godly Ethiopian eunuch is actually an
(This the same kind of reductionistic thinking that lead
important key because of the issue of household baptism.
us to think of Communion in terms of "elements,"
As a eunuch he obviously had no children. Baptists claim
"accidents," and "moments.") Peado-baptists want to
that the household baptism do not imply infant baptism,
know what the status of our children is in the family of
while peado-baptists deny that examples such as the
God. We want to know how to raise our children. We
eunuch do not rule them out.
want to know if we can tell our children, "God is your
In summary of the cases of In Defense of Covenant
God, he has made that very clear by sealing you with a
Baptism found in the New Testament, we find: The new
sign, and you are to live according to that sign. All the
covenant promise came "to you and your children" (Acts
gospel promises were offered to you personally from
2:39) on the days of Pentecost. 3000 men are baptized.
your earliest days. You belong in the family of God."
"Men and women alike" (Acts 8:12) were baptized in
Therefore the question is not whether there is any
Samaria, including Simon the sorcerer. The Ethiopian
Scriptural or Apostolic warrant for peado-baptism, for
eunuch was baptized (Acts 8:38). St Paul, who had no
given the right presuppositions, peado-baptists see
household, was baptized (Acts 9:18; 1 Cor 7:7-8). The
substantial warrant for it in Scripture where credo-
disciples of John were baptized (Acts 19:5). On the other
baptists don't. Since covenant belonging lies at the root
hand Cornelius' household was baptized (10:48, 11:14).
of our presuppositions, the question we should ask is,
Lydia's household was baptized (Acts 16:15). The
which belief concerning covenant belonging is found in
Philippian Jailer's household was baptized (Acts 16:33).
Scripture? Let us therefore examine the basic credo-
Many Corinthians were baptized, especially Crispus,
baptist argument against peado-baptism in light of the
Stephanas' household, and Gaius (Acts 18:8, 1 Cor 1:14,
Holy Scriptures. This argument is a five-fold interpretive
16).
grid, which say that:
(Greg Strawbridge, ww.wordmp3.com)
(1) We have explicit New Testament examples of
"believers' baptism."
Explicit warrant for the baptism of believers'
(2) There is no explicit example or command that
children is lacking either for or against. There is also no
infant children of Christians be baptized.
direct injunction or example from the New Testament
(3) The new covenant is made with exclusively
mandating infant baptism such as "And Paul baptized the
regenerate individuals.
infant Julius." There is also no explicit warrant for their
(4) Little children cannot have faith and thus
exclusion. Therefore, there is no case of an "infant
assumed to be unregenerate and not new covenant
baptism" but neither is there a case of the "believers'
members. Therefore, the conclusion must be that the
baptism" of a Christian's child.
children of believers are not to receive the sign of the
Consider, for a moment, that there is also no
new covenant until they confess their faith.
explicit example or command that women partake of the
(5) It is therefore inferred that little children are
Lord's Supper. There were, after all, no women in the
incapable of having a relationship with God because of
upper room. You will search in vain for a passage that
their inability to "understand" what adults understand
says, "And the women, Patricia and Hanna, partook of
and must therefore rely on their parent's relationship
the Lord's Supper together with James and the other
with God until they are old enough to have one of their
men." What we need to do is find passages that tell us
own.
about the status of women in the New Covenant, which
I believe this argument to be flawed and therefore
is to say, in the relationship between God and his
inadequate as an interpretive grid placed over Scripture.
Church. This is what peado-baptists do concerning the
The answer to this line of reasoning is as follows.
status of the children of believers.

8 Athelney Chapterhouse
 In conclusion, when fully considered the cases of
baptism are not evidence of the Baptist view because
there are just as many household baptisms as individual
adult baptisms and these usually occur in the absence of
a family. In other words, where a family is present, the
whole family is baptized.
iv. (3) Covenant Nature & (4)
Peadofaith
The credo-baptist position lacks an explicit warrant
from the New Testament to baptize our children but also
lack an explicit command or example that demands their
exclusion from the family of God. How then do we justify
excluding our children from God's family? The credo-
baptist answer is that exclusion is inferred from a
particular understanding of the nature of the new
covenant; namely, a Christians' children are not covenant
members because only those regenerated by an adult
faith are included.
The peado-baptist, on the other hand, possesses
explicit warrant for the inclusion of children in the new
covenant (Dt 30:6; Jer 31:36-37), in the church (Eph 1:1,
6:1-4; Col. 1:2, 3:20; 1 Cor 7:14), and in the kingdom (Mt
19:14; Mk 10:14; Lk 18:16). The children of the faithful
throughout Scripture are always recognized differently
than pagan adults and understood to be covenant
members of the family of God. Moreover, we may argue
from truly necessary inferences: drawing upon both the
continuity of the promise that God will be our God and
God to our children after us, as well as the examples of
household baptism previously examined.
It is also presumed that infants cannot have faith.
But is this true? John the Baptist jumped for joy at the
approach of his Lord. Infants know and understand more
than we have traditionally thought simply because they
are unable to verbally communicate. Infants can learn
simple hand signs and communicate long before they can
speak vocally. We know intuitively that infants can and
do enter into authentic human, age appropriate
relationship with older people and we must also assume
that they should and can enter into age appropriate
relationships with God. Therefore, we believe in what
could be called "peadofaith" inferred from passages such
as Psalm 22:9-10, 71:6, and Luke 1:15, 41. Thus we deny
the impossibility of infant faith and affirm their
sacramental covenant membership based on their age
appropriate response to God's love and promises.
In conclusion, the Holy Scriptures do not
specifically forbid the baptism of the children of
believers, nor is there a single instance of the baptism of
a believing child of a believing parent in the New
Testament. Rather, from a certain interpretation of the
New Testament it can be inferred that infant children of
believers are members of the New Covenant and aught
not to be deprived of the entrance sign of that covenant
given by God wherein he embraces them with love.
We now turn to the examination of the total
Biblical doctrine of the Covenant and covenant signs and
their relation to family life and raising children. ¶
New Covenant Baptism
i. Continuity of the Old and New Covenants
I hate, I despise your feast days,
And I do not savor your sacred assemblies.
Though you offer Me burnt offerings and your grain
offerings,
I will not accept them,
Nor will I regard your fattened peace offerings.
Take away from Me the noise of your songs,
For I will not hear the melody of your stringed
instruments.
But let justice run down like water,
And righteousness like a mighty stream. [Am 5:21-24]
For the law, having a shadow of the good things to
come, and not the very image of the things, can never with
these same sacrifices, which they offer continually year by
year, make those who approach perfect. For then would
they not have ceased to be offered? For the worshipers,
once purified, would have had no more consciousness of
sins. But in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins
every year. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and
goats could take away sins. [Heb 10:1-4]
Besides being very important in the discussion
concerning worship, these passages also teach us that it
was not possible for the blood of bulls and goats to take
away sin under the Old Testament. What then was the
purpose of the ordinances of the former Covenant? What
does the Lord require?
For You do not desire sacrifice, or else I would give it;
You do not delight in burnt offering.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit,
A broken and a contrite heart;
These, O God, You will not despise. [Ps 51:16-17]
And Samuel said, Hath the LORD as great delight in
burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the
LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to
hearken than the fat of rams. [1 Sam 15:22]
God has always desired faithfulness, obedience, and
belief in his promises and more specifically in Christ
Jesus. Therefore the saints of the Old Testament were
saved in the same manner that we are saved under the
Athelney Chapterhouse 9
New Testament, only they looked forward in faith to
Christ whereas we look back. As it says, "Abraham
believed God, and it was accounted to him for
righteousness. He did not waver at the promise of God
through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving
glory to God, and being fully convinced that what He had
promised (namely, Christ) He was also able to preform."
(Rom 4:3, 20-21) Though you may say that what God had
promised Abraham was a family, yet it is clear that God
promised him much more.
And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify
the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham
beforehand, saying, “In you all the nations shall be
blessed.” So then those who are of faith are blessed with
believing Abraham. [Gal 3:8-9]
For they are not all Israel who are of Israel. The
children of the promise are counted as the seed. [Rom 9:6-
8]
On that day I will raise up
The tabernacle[a] of David, which has fallen down,
And repair its damages;
I will raise up its ruins,
And rebuild it as in the days of old;
That they may possess the remnant of Edom,
And all the Gentiles who are called by My name,
Says the LORD who does this thing. [Amos 9:11, 12]
And all these, having obtained a good testimony
through faith, did not receive the promise, God having
provided something better for us, that they should not be
made perfect apart from us. [Heb 11:39-40]
Only those who are "of faith" are the seed of
Abraham who was justified (counted righteous) by faith,
as it is written, "the children of the promise are counted
as the seed." Not all those who call themselves children of
Abraham were part of the family of God just as not all
those who call themselves Christians are true Christians.
There is a continuity of faith between the saints of the
Old Testament and those of the New. The tent pegs of
David's tent have been expanded to include all nations.
Therefore, the New Testament Church is the one chosen
covenant people of God. Christians are true Israel, where
the promise of salvation is fulfilled (made perfect) for all
those who came before together with us and all those
who will come after. We are one covenant people, united
as one body, through our one Lord and saviour Jesus
Christ.
ii. Signs of the Old and New Covenants
In Him you were also circumcised with the
circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body
of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ,
buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were
10 Athelney Chapterhouse
raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who
raised Him from the dead. [Col 2:11-12]
In the Old Testament, the signs God gave to seal his
covenant to his people were circumcision (Gen 17), and
certain covenant washings and meals (Ex 12), in which
the whole family participated. In the New Testament
these seals were fulfilled in Christ (Rom 10:4) and new
signs were given to the Church to seal the New
Covenant, namely, Baptism (Mt 3:11, 20, 28:16, Col 2:11-
12) and the Lord's Supper (Mt 26:17-30, Mk 14:12-25, Lk
22:7-20, Jn 6:27-29, 1 Cor 10:16-17, 1:23-26). St Paul
specifically identifies baptism with circumcision. He does
not merely compare the two. He says that baptism is in
Christ what circumcision was in the old covenant (Col
2:11-12).
Moreover, brethren, I do not want you to be
unaware that all our fathers were under the cloud, all
passed through the sea, all were baptized into Moses in
the cloud and in the sea, all ate the same spiritual food,
and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of
that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was
Christ. But with most of them God was not well pleased,
for their bodies were scattered in the wilderness. [1 Cor
10:1-5]
St Paul says, that we were all baptized like the
Israelites who passed through the Red Sea. Didn't the
infants and young ones of the Israelites pass through
with them as well (Ex 10:9; 12:37, 38)? The New
Testament intentionally describes this event as a
baptism. The children of Israel, adults and infants alike
were "Baptized into Moses" thus God sealed the promises
of the old covenant to them making them one family.
Likewise, God puts his seal of Baptism on all his covenant
children who receive the promise of the new covenant
thus making them one family, the fellowship of the
mystery (1 Cor 1).
It was symbolic for the present time in which both
gifts and sacrifices are offered which cannot make him
who preformed the service perfect in regard to the
conscience- concerned only with foods and drinks, various
washings, and fleshly ordinances imposed until the time of
reformation. For when Moses had spoken every precept to
all the people according to the law, he took the blood of
the calves and goats, with water, scarlet wool, and hyssop
and sprinkled both the book and all the people. [Heb 9:9-
10, & 19]
The word translated "washings" in verse 10 is the
word "baptisms." One of these baptisms is described as
being applied to "all the people." Little children were
included in covenant assembly at Sinai (Ex 20:12).
Furthermore, every covenant child, male or female,
together with the mother, would have received a ritual
baptism or washing after birth to cleanse them from
ritual impurity and as a sign of covenant belonging
prefiguring Christ. These baptisms are referred to as
such in the New Testament.
These texts refer to the Old Testament types and
shadows to emphasize the spiritual continuity of New
Covenant Baptism with the signs and seals of the Old
Covenant. Baptism is not new, rather it pointed forward
to and is fulfilled in Christ as a picture of the washing
away of sins by the blood and Spirit of Jesus Christ (1 Cor
10:4; 1 Pet 3:21; and especially Heb 9:13, 14, 22).
iii. It is the Lord who is Baptizing Us
And now why are you waiting? Arise and be
baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on the name of
the Lord. [Acts 22:16]
Jesus answered, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless
one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the
kingdom of God." [Jn 3:5]
Holy Scriptures tell us that Baptism saves us by
washing away our sins through the resurrection of Jesus
Christ. The participant in the sacrament / mystery of
Baptism is passive, as it says, "Be baptized" (Mk 10:38-39,
Acts 1:5, 2:38, 10:48, 11:16, 22:16). Therefore it is the
Lord himself who is doing the Baptizing. As it says:
But when the kindness and the love of God our
Savior toward man appeared, not by works of
righteousness which we have done, but according to His
mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration
and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on
us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior. [Titus 3:4-
6]
And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom
you were sealed for the day of redemption. [Eph 4:30]
And such were some of you. But you were washed,
but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name
of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. [1 Cor 6:11]
Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and
has anointed us is God, who also has sealed us and given
us the Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee. [2 Cor 1:21-22]
In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of
truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having
believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise,
who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the
redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of
His glory. [Eph 1:13-14]
and finally,
There is also an anti-type which now saves us:
baptism (not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the
answer of a good conscience toward God), through the
resurrection of Jesus Christ. [1 Pet 3:21]
Baptism is a gift given by God and received by
sinners. In water Baptism the Lord is washing, renewing,
establishing, and placing his covenant seal upon his elect,
those who belong to him. The Scriptures call this
salvation. It is a sign that as surely as the Lord saved the
children of Israel out of Egypt he has saved us out of the
clutches of sin and death.
Who are those who belong to Christ, who are
members of the covenant community?
iv. The New Covenant is More Inclusive
For as many of you as were baptized into Christ
have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is
neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for
you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ's,
then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the
promise. [Gal 3:27-29]
For on the one hand there is an annulling of the
former commandment because of its weakness and
unprofitableness, for the law made nothing perfect; on the
other hand, there is the bringing in of a better hope,
through which we draw near to God. [Heb 7:18-19]
By so much more Jesus has become a surety of a
better covenant. [Heb 7:22]
But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry,
inasmuch as He is also Mediator of a better covenant,
which was established on better promises. [Heb 8:6]
To Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to
the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that
of Abel. [Heb 12:24]
The Old Covenant was weak, provisional, and
ultimately ineffectual as a tutor rearing a young child.
The Old Covenant was also restrictive. It was reserved
for the Children of Israel and converts. Gentiles were
excluded from all the blessings of the covenant of God.
Yet the Church of the Old Covenant included infants.
Circumcision signified their inclusion (Gen 17:14).
Under the New Testament we have a better
covenant, an inheritance of sons not slaves. Under the
New Covenant the Gospel is preached to all flesh. There
is neither Jew nor Gentile. If the New Covenant is not
offered to children that means in this one respect the
covenant is not "better." Especially for the first
generation of covenant children, circumcised under the
old covenant but specifically excluded by the new. If this
was the case, how could this new covenant be a better
covenant for these little ones?
v. The New Covenant includes Children
Surely the New Covenant includes children, as
Christ says:
Athelney Chapterhouse 11
 Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid
them; for of such is the kingdom of God. [Lk 18:16]
And St Peter said:
Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the
name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you
shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is
to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as
many as the Lord our God will call. [Acts 2:38-39]
And St Paul said:
For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the
wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the
husband; otherwise your children would be unclean, but
now they are holy. [1 Cor 7:14]
Therefore we know that the gospel promises of the
new covenant belong to the children of believers as much
as it belongs to the believers themselves. Water baptism
is the instrument and seal of God's grace. Won't God seal
the promises of the better covenant to his covenant
children? We know he does because they are considered
holy, not by any merit of their own but for Christ who
said, "Let the little children come to Me, and do not
forbid them."
And when she and her household were baptized, she
begged us, saying, "If you have judged me to be faithful to
the Lord, come to my house and stay." So she persuaded
us. [Acts 16:15]
And he took them the same hour of the night and
washed their stripes. And immediately he and all his
family were baptized. [Acts 16:33]
The Apostles baptized whole households of
converts as recorded in the Book of Acts. This is
consistent with the Biblical vision of covenant nurture
and sacramental belonging that Paul reminds of us of
when he say that the children of believers are not
unclean, but are made "holy" by the faith of a believing
parent. Baptism makes us holy. Infants are therefore
included in the human household, not excluded from the
household baptisms, and included in the household of
faith.
vi. Children should also be baptized
Have mercy upon me, O God,
According to Your loving-kindness;
According to the multitude of Your tender mercies,
Blot out my transgressions.
Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
And cleanse me from my sin.
Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,
And in sin my mother conceived me.
12 Athelney Chapterhouse
Behold, You desire truth in the inward parts,
And in the hidden part You will make me to know
wisdom.
Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. [Ps 51:1-2
& 5-7]
Children are born in sin (v. 5), and in need of
cleansing and healing only God can give (v. 7). Baptism is
the means of cleansing sin (v. 2). This applies to both
believers and their children (Acts 22:16; 2:38).
Furthermore, sinful as we are, we cannot merit the
forgiveness of sin any more than an infant. Just as
membership in our human family cannot be earned but
is pure grace, God adopts us and saves us as a free gift we
cannot earn. Therefore, there is no reason to withhold
from covenant children the sign and seal that makes
them covenant members with Christ until they could
perhaps merit such blessings.
But Jesus called them to Him and said, "Let the little
children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such
is the kingdom of God. Assuredly, I say to you, whoever
does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will
by no means enter it." [Lk 18:16-17]
Since Jesus welcomed the little children, we too
should bring them to him in Baptism. Since Jesus said
that adults had to come to the Kingdom as children and
not the other way around, we should by no means
require that children come to Christ as adults before
being made members of the Body of Christ in Baptism
and partakers of Christ in the Lord's Table. This would
be completely backwards. Baptism is their beginning just
as it was our beginning (speaking of adult converts).
After which, both infants and adults have the
responsibility to chose, to say yes by faith to the gift of
love objectively given. This is not based on human
reasoning but on the revelation of God concerning the
nature of the Love of God, the gracious membership in
His family freely offered, and the commands he has given
to Christian parents.
As we have seen, the types and shadows of baptism
in the Old Testament are referred to as baptisms in the
New Testament. They were fulfilled in Christ and
preserved in the New Covenant Church through the
practice of infant Baptism and the "churching" of new
mothers. Is there any explicit evidence of this in the New
Testament? Yes.
vii. Do any Christian parents place
upon their infants a covenant sign?
[Acts 21:18-25]
When St Paul arrives in Jerusalem, he gives a report
of his missionary efforts that causes the brethren to
glorify God. A false report had reached the Church in
Jerusalem before Paul's arrival that accused him of
teaching Jewish Christians to stop circumcising their
infant sons. This was a false report. James the Just knew
this report to be false and helped Paul clear his name.
This is not a lapse of judgment on Paul's part as we see in
the next chapter. Paul, still in prison as a consequence of
his actions in Jerusalem, says, "Men and brethren, I have
lived in all good conscience before God until this day." So
Paul did not require Jewish Christians to stop
circumcising their sons.
Certainly circumcision was fading away, but it was
still understood as a sign of the covenant promises made
to Abraham. It was still given to the infant sons of Jewish
Christians. Christians, both Jew and Gentile were
considered the "true circumcision" (Phil 3:3), the true
sons of Abraham. Those who were circumcised
physically but did not have a circumcised heart were
covenantally unfaithful apostates who had rejected their
Messiah. Gentiles were accepted into the Church on the
basis of their baptism and recognized as sons of God
through faith in Christ just as Abraham had been.
Jews also received the sign of Baptism since there
was one Lord, one faith, and one baptism. Peter instructs
his Jewish audience on the day of Pentecost to repent and
be baptized. So Gentiles had baptism and Jews had
baptism and circumcision during the time when the
ordinances of the Old Covenant were passing away and
being fulfilled in the life of the Church of Christ. This
was finished in 70 CE (Christ Empire) when the Old
Covenant temple was destroyed. Until then circumcision
was still a sign and a seal for Jewish Christians because it
demonstrated their unity with Abraham and the
fulfillment of the Abrahamic promises. Baptism was also
essential to demonstrate their unity in Christ with
Gentile Christians.
So, infant sons of Christian Jews were still
circumcised on the eighth day. Circumcision had such a
deep covenantal significance for Jewish Christians that
they had to be persuaded to accept uncircumcised
Gentiles as Christian brothers. If circumcision had been
required of Gentiles, it would obligate them to fulfill the
whole Law of Moses. A Gentile who allowed himself to
be circumcised under legalistic false teaching had fallen
from grace. Therefore, the adult circumcision of Gentile
converts to Christ was forbidden (Acts 15; Gal 2:3-5, 5:3-
4). The circumcision debate in the early Church was not
whether Jews should stop circumcising their sons, but
whether adult Gentile believers had to start.
Given that circumcision signified belonging to and
entrance into the Body of Christ and specifically the local
synagog or church, what relationship would a small
three-week-old Jewish boy have to the local church? If
there was Christian circumcision, and if there were
Christian synagogs, then we know that there were infant
members of the Church of Christ in Palestine during the
time of the Apostles.
During this time, if a Jewish couple presented their
infant son to the elders of the Church for baptism, on
what grounds would he be excluded considering that he
had already received the sign of circumcision? If baptism
signified a heart change (1 Pet 3:21), and it does,
circumcision also signifies genuine heart change (Rom
2:28-29; Phil 3:3) yet it was still permissible to circumcise
him according to St Paul.
Now if infant sons of Jewish Christians were new
covenant members of the Body of Christ and infant sons
of Gentile Christians had to wait until they were mature
enough to make a profession of faith this would reinforce
the difference between Jew and Gentile which is
forbidden. There is no Jew or Gentile in Christ. Children
of Jewish Christians would grow up as members of the
Church because they were circumcised and children of
Gentile Christians would grow up excluded from the
Church because they were not baptized. This is
intolerable to the Apostolic witness. Of course children
received the sign of Baptism into the Name of the Father
and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
viii. Children are Clothed with Christ
Furthermore, the letters of St Paul address little
children as if they were fully members of the Church and
united to Christ.
In his letter to the Ephesians, for example, the
Apostle, wishing to encourage the church there to live in
a way worthy of the Cross of Christ tells them, "Be
renewed in the spirit of your mind; and that you put on
the new man, which after God is created in righteousness
and true holiness." (Eph 4:23-24) Immediately after this,
within the context of explaining how those who have
"put on the new man" should behave, St Paul addresses
children as members of the Body of Christ, admonishing
them to "obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right."
(6:1) How can they obey "in the Lord" if they are not "in
the Lord." Now, are being "in the Lord," "putting on the
new man," and Baptism related in the thought of St Paul?
Yes they are. Consider his letter to the Galatians: "For
you are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.
For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ
have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there
is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female:
for you are all one in Christ Jesus." (Gal 3:26-28)
In the teaching of Paul, baptism is equivalent to
taking off the old man, the old corrupt way of doing
things, and putting on the new clothing of Christ the
New Man. Baptism is described as being "clothed with
Christ," united as "one Body" because we are "one in
Christ Jesus" who is our Lord and God. Thus, St Paul's
vision of the people of God united as one body in Christ
is absolutely central to his call for their holiness, a
Athelney Chapterhouse 13
holiness which manifests the Kingdom of God and which
extends to every member of the family, even children.
Thus the Ephesian children can obey their parents "in the
Lord" precisely because they have been baptized into
Christ.

ix. Conclusion
In conclusion, traditional Trinitarian Christians see
in baptism an act of adoption, sealing, and reconciliation
preformed by a loving God on our behalf, that we could
not have earned, which places us within the Family of
God and clothes us in Christ. This sign and seal is for the
children of God, the Body of Christ, all of us. There is but
one people of God, one covenant and one way of
salvation and that is Christ crucified and resurrected.
There is one baptism for the remission of sins because in
that Baptism we are clothed with Christ and are thus
united with his resurrection life and belong to him.
Therefore whosoever belongs to Christ is sealed with
these signs by Christ himself (Gen 17:9-11, Rom 4:10-12,
Jn 6:26-27) and made covenant members of the Church,
with all the saints, by grace through faith alone. ¶
Cantus: Half Handed Cloud
by Tami Close
Make Me Ever, Change Me to Your Art
Half Handed Cloud is an astounding band that
sings you the Psalms. If you are ever world-weary and
need a reminder of our Father's love John Ringhofer will
take you up to the clouds in his album Halos & Lassos.
The music is reminiscent of children's music, yet it's
form and content are complex enough to engage adults
for hours.
Obscure instruments and imaginative metaphors
are your guide on this journey through the Psalms. The
band's three members move around changing
instruments throughout each song. If you ever get to see
this phenomenon in real life, it is almost funny to watch
until you see the serious look on the musicians’ faces.
They take their music very seriously. On one song,
Ringhofer is sitting in front of a keyboard, with a guitar
strapped to him, a trombone off to the right, and a small
snare drum to his left. He goes back and forth between
all the instruments and vocalizes with a sing-songy, play
ground voice. Yet it all makes perfect sense musically. If
you were to close your eyes, you would imagine that
there are four different people playing his parts. As a
trumpet and banjo player, I cannot imagine switching so
quickly between these dramatically different instruments.
It almost takes a different part of the brain to go from a
brass instrument to a string instrument.
But that's just musical talent. To me, finding music
I love that has words I don't mind having repeated in my
head all day is very important. I usually have a song or
two going constantly in my head so it is good to have
something intelligent and uplifting there to fill it with.
This is where Ringhofer truly excels. He is a literary
genius. He can take something as heavy as the Psalms
and compact it into a friendly, almost funny poem. He
often uses word-play to get his point across. And he
makes his point without apologizing or drawing it out in
lengthy, unnecessary descriptions.
Half Handed Cloud takes God's Word seriously and
does not try to disguise what the Psalms say, even if it is
hard to swallow. Tongues that Possess the Earth Instead is
a great example of this. It is a song that parallels Psalm
73:
The unbelievers seem to have it good (73:12)
And I envied arrogance when I saw their prosperity (73:3)
They've no struggles, free from burdens
Common to mankind with lives that shine resplendently
(73:4-5)
Pride is their necklace
They deck themselves out in violence (73:6)
The conceits of their minds know no limits (73:7)
Mouths lay claim to heaven but tongues possess the earth
(73:9)
They seem like they're doing fine (73:12)
And I've worshiped all this time (73:13)
Have I followed You for nothing, Lord?
Then you show me they walk on a ground that is slippery (73:18)
In Your mind they're a dream

14 Athelney Chapterhouse
When You wake their life's theme will be only a fantasy
(73:20)
Now, that is a hard truth to listen to but the
message is given with a fast, friendly beat, dancing notes
off the xylophone, crazy organ arrangements, and John’s
unforgettable voice.
While listening to different songs, you will hear the
human instrument used amidst the various man-made
instruments. Any music that includes hand clapping in
its composition deserves my attention: clap clap, do do-
do-do, da-da da, aw aw aw, la la la, ooooo ooooo ooooo,
snap snap snap. Who can’t help but join in?
The best part about Ringhofer's lyrics is that even
though he is making judgments on whether an activity or
thought is good for the soul, he does not judge people.
And it is very humbling like a daily confession of sins
sung out with joy. Instead of assuming that Sheep are
Sheep and Goats are Goats, he invites everyone to come
back and join into the Life of God. A Bed That Breathes
With Him is a good example of this:
The strangers attacking
Our hearts are all lacking
But God means nothing to them
The hit-men hold coupons
And say God is gone
Or trying to do me in
Oh search and be silent
On a bed that breathes with him
Our hearts are forgetting
The thugs are all betting
That God will only condemn
Their questions rhetoric
I wish they'd get homesick
And find their way back again
Feed your Sheep a Burning Lamp is another song
dealing with serious theological matters.
Feed your sheep a burning lamp
Feed you lamb a course on herding
Feed your goat to feed the fire
Goats are fuel for fires burning
Goats and lambs on either hand
Lambs on hand for righteous yearning
Lambs with hands receive the crown
Coronate with brilliant gilding
Emitt Rhodes in a burned-out building
"Somebody Made For Me" is played
Every time a lamb is crossing
Bridges laid for oily lamps
Held by lambs and sheep-hands holding
Tried to cross the castle moat
But you gave your goat a drowning boat
Here's how goats turn into lambs: Shepherd's hands
Then goat's hearts turning
These songs expresses a bright sadness that is hard
to find. In fact there is a strong sacramental emphasis
throughout the album. In Tree Replanted Back in Eden,
you hear,
Chewing on the word of God
A tree replanted back in Eden
Garden under harden hardened heart
Here he emphasizes the role of the Eucharist where
we chew on the "word of God" as essential in realigning
our hearts with God and replanting our hearts where
they belong, in edenic communion with the Trinity. In
You've Been Faithful to Us Clouds, he sings,
Vertical in posture but kneeling in our hearts
Found you down here with us destroying the ramparts
You wash feet with kisses we worry to demean
You look up and say to us "This is the only way you can
get clean."
Ringhofer is telling us that in Baptism Christ is
"destroying the ramparts" as the Arch-Victor. Christ
Jesus washes our feet as he did for the Apostles. As when
Peter refused the Lord's service, when we refuse Christ's
saving activity in our lives he says, "This is the only way
you can get clean." In the first track, Earth Outside of
Ghost Will Only Be Quicksand, Half Handed Cloud sings
a song of Satan crushed and Eden recapitulated,
I'm still your dad my son
I'm still your mom my daughter
But a fire guards the garden
And it led the way back home.
A home in folds of skin
Earth outside of ghost will only be quicksand
Garden was your dwelling place, but now you have been
banned
Garden is overgrown so take me by the hand
Would you have preferred it if I'd left this ship
unmanned?
This world is still the Lord's
The devil is a squatter
And he can't give you a pardon when he's bound the earth
to roam
The earth for him's a jail
It's going to get hotter
When I take You in my body and my heart becomes Your
home.
Half Handed Cloud is a vision and joyful
celebration of an all-consuming search for God’s
kingdom skillfully condensed into a playground song
without condescension. Go to www.halfhandedcloud.com
to find out more. ¶
Athelney Chapterhouse 15

Symbolism, Human
Relationships, & God's Love
“No theology can be valid and sound unless it is
based first of all on the icon that God offers in the first
pages of the book of Genesis: God created man according
to His likeness, one nature revealed in many persons, as
the one divine nature is revealed in three distinct
hypostases. He created man to live in the likeness of His
own life. That life is revealed to us in types and symbols,
for God, and from Him the Holy Church, clearly have
understood that mankind's mind and its brain, his
knowledge and his language are all symbolic, that
language develops on the matrix of vision, and that even
what we see enters the brain and is processed in symbolic
images. It is interpreted by the mind in the brain
symbolically and the concepts attached to this symbolic
unfolding constitute the meaning that one gives to all
things.”
i. Of God not Man
Dear Phaedrus,
Baptism is a loving physical sign and seal from a
compassionate God, making his intention to save us
tangibly known to us. God uses baptism to make us
objectively united to the Holy Church, which is not a
human institution, rather the Body of Christ. Through
the sign of Baptism, the Father makes us covenantally
united to Christ when we accept and receive this gift by a
faith appropriate to our condition. The ability to pass a
theology exam has no bearing on this gift or our ability to
respond to it, just as an infants ability to understand
English does not preclude the infant receiving the gift of
a grandfather's love.
In this way, Baptism is intrinsically and powerfully
linked to Salvation. In the language of rhetoric, baptism
is the "efficient cause" of our salvation. Which is to say,
Baptism is the "external entity from which the change or
the ending of the change first starts." It has this power
only because of the promise of God and the death and
resurrection of Jesus Christ which is the only "formal
cause," or preexistent origin of our salvation. The water
of Baptism is the "material cause" or "raw material" from
which the change is made. The "change" is that from
darkness to light, from death to life, from slavery to
freedom. In other words, Baptism is the free gift of the
gospel promises of God. According to Holy Scripture it
unites us to Christ and we should earnestly desire him
and seek him through faith.
I agree that some people get baptized or take
communion in order to earn salvation, but this is a
profound perversion of the truth. Just because some
people abuse the Biblical mysteries doesn't mean we can
disregard them. The Bible nowhere indicates that the
16 Athelney Chapterhouse
sacraments are human efforts to merit or earn salvation.
Salvation is being united to Christ, not through human
effort, but by the grace of God alone. How is this new
Life communicated to believers? In other words, how do
they receive this amazing grace and grow in it. God
communicates it through tangible signs that are a seal of
his presence when accepted by faith.
ii. Necessary?
Traditional Trinitarian Christians believe that
Baptism unites us with Christ in faith. Since this is what
salvation is, baptism is "normally" or "ordinarily"
necessary for salvation precisely because it is NOT A
HUMAN ACTION. It is an act of a loving God to his
child. Because we are all God's children, in a way all
baptisms are infant baptisms. Once you understand this
everything else falls into place. Baptism is of God not
man, of grace not works.
What of the thief on the cross? He was not baptized
yet the Lord said he would be with him in paradise. So
baptism is not necessary for salvation. Right? Must things
be so completely black and white? There does not seem
to be any concept that something might be normatively
necessary rather than absolutely necessary.
First of all, you are probably not the thief on the
cross. Secondly baptism is grace not works. It is the
ordinary means of entering into Life in Christ. Baptism is
not necessary in an absolute sense, such that God has
tied his own hands. Nevertheless, God has decided and
declared in Holy Scripture that when he wants to save a
person, he ordinarily arranges to have them Baptized as a
beginning of the New Life he desires to give them in
Christ. He is able to save in an extra-ordinary way those
who are unable to be baptized or who die before being
baptized. All that is required is the desire to be united to
Christ.
The Church does not deny that many who have
been baptized will turn away from Christ and be lost due
to their own unbelief and disobedience. Many who were
not baptized will nevertheless be saved by grace for the
sake of Christ. For all that, despising the gift of salvation
freely offered in baptism is a dangerous rejection of grace
and the gospel promises offered there.
How can baptism be an instrument of assurance if
some of the baptized do not accept the gift of eternal life?
You might as well ask the same question about the Holy
Scriptures. Can the Word be an instrument of assurance
if some who hear its promises don't accept them?
Baptism and the Word only fail to demonstrate the love
of God when those who receive the promise do not
believe it. Baptism and the Word fail to be a sign of
salvation to people who regard God as a liar. Baptism is
the divine gift of the Gospel promises applied to us by
name. There is nothing more reliable than that. We can
have 100% faith in God for our salvation. We get into
problems when we look for assurance more reliable than
the promise of God.
Furthermore, being baptized makes one liable to
Christ for being a faithful covenant keeper. A covenant
breaker is worse off than a non-covenant member. A
man who breaks his marriage vows does not cease to be a
married man. The wedding ritual affected that and he
cannot annul this covenant. It is done, it is objective. He
has the choice between being a faithful husband or an
unfaithful husband. If one is going to be a covenant
breaker, it would have been better if he had not been
baptized (or married) in the first place.
That is why infant baptism is not cute. People who
want their children to be baptized probably don't know
what they are asking for. If they did they wouldn't be
asking for it. This is signing the child of for martyrdom.
When the child goes under the water, people are usually
alarmed. They should be. The child is dying. Dying to
this world and being made alive in Christ. Martyrdom is
what being "in Christ" is all about.
Sincerely,
Ryan
iii. Mere Symbols?
Dear Phaedrus,
Are the Sacraments or Mysteries only symbols?
Obviously symbols represent something that is very real.
If a young man was in love with a young woman but
refused to use superficial symbols such as words,
gestures, letters, or touch to express his love on the
grounds that his love was pure and spiritual and above
such "worldly" tainted expressions, sadly his love would
never be consummated, or even communicated. What
we need to realize is that symbols are not just a means of
communication but they are the substance of
relationship itself. With out some kind of symbolic
communication there is no possibility of relationship.
Furthermore, the thing symbolized is never absent
when the symbol is present. Who among us would give
our child a hug but deny her the love that the hug
symbolized? In the same way, our relationship with God
is communicated to us in many different ways, not the
least in the Holy Signs that are the seal of God's presence.
In other words, the sacraments are the place where God
has promised to meet us. They are not human acts but
divine acts. Divine hugs! The things the Holy Signs
symbolize are actually, objectively present and
communicated to us when accepted by faith.
Baptism is a picture of washing, purification and
thus forgiveness of sins. It is also a picture of dying and
rising from the dead and thus symbolizes our being
united with Christ, our identification with his life and
death and new life. When accepted by faith the Holy Sign
of Baptism is not a human work, but the tangible
presentation of the Gospel promises. Communion is a
picture of the Body and Blood of Christ and thus the
sacrificial atonement on the cross we accept by faith
alone. It is also a picture of our being united as one loaf,
the Body of Christ that is the One Church. When
accepted by faith the Holy Sign of Communion is not
human effort but God feeding us to strengthen our
spiritual lives for the work we have to do in the world.
And all this is done in the context of a sacred covenant
community, the One Church, the Bride of Christ.
Many people think that the Church is optional for
Christians, like some kind of Christian country club. This
is not true. The Church is what salvation looks like. It is
the new humanity, united in a redeemed community of
love and forgiveness, praying, reading Scripture, feeding
the poor, & preparing for the second coming of Christ.
So who would say that the Church, Baptism, and
Communion play no part in our salvation unless their
idea of salvation was a "once saved always saved" "believe
it and receive it" contractual done deal? The Church and
the Sacraments are the gifts of God to his children to
establish and build them up in the faith through grace.
They are his wedding gifts to his spouse, the Bride of
Christ. Salvation is not a contractual event like walking
down an aisle and saying a prayer or filling out a card. It
is a living, dynamic, loving relationship of trust and
affection. Salvation is life in Christ.
iv. No Age Barriers
Furthermore, this kind of relational communication
transcends all age barriers, mental and physical. Just
because our new born baby cannot understand what the
loving grandfather means when he speaks and hugs his
grandson doesn't mean that we forbid such acts of
affection. No one would stop visiting their beloved great
grandmother just because she developed Alzheimer's. If
Athelney Chapterhouse 17
we deny our babies the symbolic and relational
communication of our love, on the grounds that they do
not understand it, they will never grow up to learn how
to talk, love, and belong to a family. We symbolically
communicate our love and affection for new and old
members of our family, even though they cannot
understand it and have not earned it, precisely because
without such symbols they will never know the realities
that lie behind them.
In the same way children and the infirmed should
not be separated from the Life in Christ that is the life of
the Church. When we separate them from our prayers,
our fellowship, from Baptism and Communion we are in
effect saying, “You are not a part of the Church like we
are, you are not a child of God, not forgiven and united
to Christ, and have no part in the things reserved for
God's holy people.” On the contrary, Jesus said, let the
little children come to me and do not forbid them. God
wishes to lovingly and intimately communicate the new
Life in Christ to little children, through Holy Signs that
he has ordained to be like divine hugs. We should baptize
children, not because we think that without it they are
unsaved, but because we do not want to stand before
God and answer for why we forbid the little children
from coming to Jesus.
Salvation is about relationship, not dead and dry
religiosity. It is about a loving intimate relationship with
the holy Triune God. It is the relationship of sons to their
Father, of a bride to her Bridegroom. So our conventional
picture of heaven has to change. Man is not spending a
never-ending day in the park. God is not far away in his
glowing palace in the sky. In heaven and even before
heaven, God and man are not apart, but united in Christ
in a perpetual personal, intimate relationship of love and
faith!
Sincerely,
Ryan
v. Repentance is everything
Dear Phaedrus,
You have said that since the promise is to those
who "repent and are baptized," that if we teach children
that they don't need to repent because they are already
baptized we have put a stumbling block between them
and Christ. Of course we would, if that is what we taught
them. It is not either repentance or baptism. It is both.
Whether one is baptized as an infant or as an adult, the
result is the same, a baptized child of God who must love
the Heavenly Father and accept Christ with faith and
repentance every day. We never cease to have faith. We
live by faith from beginning to end. The only difference is
that peado-baptists don't believe that belonging to the
Family of God requires more from a human than a
response appropriet to their age. We think the
"beginning" is earlier, thats all. Or else salvation would
18 Athelney Chapterhouse
not be a free gift for all mankind, rather it would be
reward for maturity and open for only a certain portion
of mankind.
When the Jews were in evangelization mode with
unbelievers they taught the same thing that St Peter did
on the day of Pentecost, convert, repent, be circumcised,
be baptized in the case of the apostles. More importantly,
the call was to be circumcised in your heart. This means
that to be a part of the Family of God one must genuinely
love and trust God as their Father and Lord. No one
disputes this. The question is whether children of
covenant members are also unconverted and thus dead
in their sins. I don't believe they are. I believe they belong
to God. Yet they still repent, love, and trust God. We all
do. Which is to say that once they are formally
introduced to Christ in the sacrament of Baptism, there
is no difference between infants and adults. They both
need to repent, trust, and love God.
The hang up might be with the order in which St
Peter gave this admonition. First repent and then be
baptized. The Holy Scriptures frequently list two or more
objects without reference to temporal sequence. Most
famously, the Evangelist says that when the soldier
pierced Jesus' side, blood and water gushed out of the
wound. Yet scientists tell us that in fact the water would
have come first followed by a greater quantity of blood.
Lists such as these sometimes tell us more about the
quantity or importance of what is listed than the direct
sequence. The Christian Church has always been more
concerned with the salvation of souls than with following
rigidly prescribed rules as if everyone were the same.
Pastoral care requires an individualized respect for the
unique way each person comes to Christ. With infants,
this means not excluding them from the family of God.
With adults this means requiring them to demonstrate
their sincerity and commitment to Christ before being
baptized. In Christianity there is no one size fits all
approach.
Furthermore, you say that you do not call your
children reprobates, but you do tell them they must be
regenerate. "Children brought up in Christian homes to
the point that they are ready to make a personal choice to
receive Christ are not reprobates." You may not call
children "unregenerate reprobates" but unregenerate is
precisely the evangelical and biblical description of a life
without Christ. There is no limbo. You are either dead to
God or alive in Christ. Therefore, in your view, children
who have not exercised "personal saving faith" in an
intellectually mature way are by definition unregenerate
sinners.
I don't agree that covenant children make a
"personal choice" to receive Christ. I believe that the
children of believers already belong to God's family and
are united to Christ in just the same way that they
already belong to their natural families. Of course they
could not earn the gift of belonging to either family. It
couldn't be grace if it were any other way. I do believe
that they must personally receive the blessings that come
along with belonging to Christ and the Church, that they
must believe and love God and not reject him. The fact
that someone rejects a gift does not mean that the gift
was never given.
Lastly, I simply do not make as great a distinction
between adult human beings and infant human beings in
terms of faith. In fact I tend to think that the simplicity
and trust infants have, unencumbered with doubting
intellect is a great benefit, not an impediment, to faith. In
short, I believe that infants do have faith.
Sincerely,
Ryan
vi. Peadofaith
Dear Phaedrus,
Thank you for your response. I must disagree. It is
not "impossible" for children to respond in faith to a
degree corresponding to their natural state. Especially
since faith is a gift of God. John the Baptist jumped for
joy in his mother's womb when Mary the God-bearer
came to them with the Lord Christ Jesus in her womb. It
is not consistent to believe infants can begin age-
appropriate relationships with other human beings but
not with God. Is God initiating a relationship with the
child in some other way? It is impossible that an infant
could comprehend a relationship without any physical
signs. If the divine/infant relationship is mediated in a
way invisible to the observation of adults, how could the
infant perceive it or even benefit from it?
Secondly, it is inconsistent to believe that salvation
and forgiveness of sins is a free gift but that it requires
either "maturity" or "intellectual attainment." Both are a
form of works that is set up as a prerequisite to salvation.
If, however, Baptism is a symbol of God's grace,
forgiveness, and salvation and if we believe that our
Heavenly Father would not hypocritically withhold the
reality he has "symbol-ized" to us, then we must conclude
two things. First, that salvation is "objectively" conferred,
or promised, and our response is one of faith saying "yes"
to the gift given. Secondly, that initial gift of initiation
cannot be earned or attained through any kind of
intellectual maturity but is rather a free gift.
Lastly, it is inconsistent to say that children are "not
excluded" from the family of God when they are "denied"
entrance into the Church, unity with Jesus Christ,
forgiveness of sins, and adoption as a son of God, all of
which are promised in holy baptism. To deny God the
opportunity to express his love in this way is equivalent
to saying to our children, "God is not your God, you do
not belong to him nor to his family. You are not forgiven,
you are dead in your sins."
vii. Who Among Us Has the Correct
Knowledge? or The Neo-Gnostic Heresy
I believe you are a thoughtful, highly intelligent
Christian with the highest concern to remain faithful to
the Word of God. I respect that and God honors that. I
believe that this question has to do with the difference
between faith and doubt.
The "real baptism," as you put it, is not the one we
authenticate on our own through our own effort of
sincerity. The "real baptism" is the one God performs
objectively and which we are required to take hold of
subjectively through faith. This can happen at any point
in our lives. The reason infants are baptized in the
Church is that we want them to have those wonderful
gifts and promises such as adoption and the remission of
sins from the earliest days of their life. We want them to
never know a time when they were excluded from the
grace of God.
The Bible does not say that "knowledge" or "gnosis"
is a prerequisite for receiving the grace of God, only an
age appropriate response to the free gift of Christ with a
faith which is also given to us by God. Who among us has
the correct knowledge? Should we all be continually re-
baptized with every new re-commitment to Christ as we
go from glory to glory? What can we know about what
goes on between the youngest human hearts and Christ?
Because it shows a lack of faith in the free gifts bestowed
by God and thus doubts God's goodness, Christians do
not generally "re-baptize" adults who have been baptized
as infants.
Baptism is not a form of "work righteousness."
Grace cannot be earned. Christ put it this way. A rich
man goes to the gates of the village to recruit workers for
his vineyard. He did this three times, once in the
morning, again at noon, and again in the afternoon,
promising them all the same payment. At the end of the
day as he pays his workers, those recruited at the
beginning of the day protest the their wages were unfair.
The rich man asks the, "Have I wronged you in any way?
Have I not given you what I promised? Shouldn't I be
able to do with my money as I wish." Who among us can
approach the throne of God and pretend to make
Almighty God his debtor. No one can. Because he has
formed us and given us life and sustains that life and
makes it possible to come into a saving relationship with
him by trampling down death by death in Christ,
bestowing life to those in the grave.
Furthermore, baptism is grace. Baptism is the free
gift of wages not the labor in the fields. Our labor in the
fields could never merit anything. Everything we get
from God is a gift of his never-ending love.
Grace is God's whole way of being toward all of
creation a loving, forgiving, and generous Father. Grace
is God's saving activity within us. In other words, grace is
the gift of the Holy Spirit. And even our ability to accept
Athelney Chapterhouse 19
this grace, to be toward God the loving children who
accept with faith the divine generosity, is a gift. Our
responsibility is to cooperate with the saving, loving,
transforming activity of God within us. It is to say yes to
the gift given and never stop saying yes.
Would our heavenly Father give us a stone if we ask
him for bread? Are infants utterly incapable of entering
into symbolic relationships? Does the Bible actually teach
that God's grace, loving promises, and transforming
activity are reserved only for adults and not for children
and families? Are infant children of believers members of
the Family of God or are they dead in their sins? Are our
children outside the grace (the saving activity) of God?
Was Abraham a conscious or an unconscious participant
when the Lord made his covenant with him in Genesis
15:12-20?
Sincerely,
Ryan
viii. Of Faith not Magic
Dear Phaedrus,
I disagree that the Holy Church has added to the
Apostolic Deposit. The Church has not added anything,
but has preserved the truth from that time until now so
that sinners can discover it again 2000 years latter.
However, I cannot speak for the Roman Church, with
whom we are not in fellowship because we think they
have added to the Apostolic Deposit. The Church rejects
such doctrines as the infallibility of the pastor of Rome
and purgatory precisely because they are not Traditional.
Peado-baptists don't believe that Baptism works by
the power of "majical shamans." We believe that the
grace and power of God is promised to us in Baptism
based on the nature of human relationships,
communication, and the free grace of salvation.
Often, the counterfeit revivalists will have a healing
service. But instead of giving God the glory they are
drawing attention to themselves. They will call it the
"Joe's Healing Service: with signs and fireworks, etc." and
people will say, "Have you been prayed for by Joe, he can
heal you real good." I know, I've been there. God does not
respond to magic words spoken by elite magicians
named Benny or whomever. He responds to simple
words spoken in faith and love. In the New Testament
Church, the pastors together with all the faithful will
pray and they all pray in the same way, so that when the
sick are healed no one says, "Wow, pastor Eric healed me!
He prays really well!" This is because anyone can be an
instrument of God's grace, and all Christians participate
together with mutually indwelling, self-emptying love as
one Body of Christ praying one common charismaticaly
directed prayer.
That is why prayers don't have to be fancy. We
don't have to make it up. We don't have to worry about
what people will think. We just pray the words the Holy
20 Athelney Chapterhouse
Spirit gives the whole Church. Christ is the great healer,
not pastor Mike wearing a Hawaiian shirt. The Holy
Spirit is the one praying through the Church with words
and utterances we hardly understand, and no human
being, whether he is a pope or not, becomes the center of
attention. The Holy Three-Personed God is the center of
attention and nothing else crowds into the way. With out
the distraction of rationalizations, intellect, personal
opinions, and questionable innovations, we enter into the
intimate presence of God. We enter into the holy of
holies, behind the veil in our very souls. We meet Christ
and he embraces us.
Many people live under the impression that the
"liturgy" and prayers are magic and the minister a
magician reading the Tibetan Book of the Dead or some
such nonsense. There is no magic formula. Prayers do
not change God's mind. Rather, every liturgical action of
the Church is communal, an affair of the household of
God. And when the Church gathers to celebrate the
mystery of the sacrament of Holy Baptism, or any other
act of prayer, it is a manifestation of the selflessness of
God seen in his people who have put away their egos in
order to be joined together, struggling to conquer self-
love. The sacrament is not accomplished by reciting the
right words, the words are there to instruct the faithful so
that we may all understand the action of worship which
we are taking together. We are called by God and
together call down the Holy Spirit to be with us and to
seek the grace of God in faith and mutual love.
This is communion with God through faith. This is
how the Holy Spirit unites us mysteriously with Christ
and each other as one family of God. When we pray
together, and not just as simultaneous individual
worshipers, we offer up a single great offering of worship
and a sacrifice of praise in Spirit and Truth!
The Holy Spirit is not compelled by our saying the
proper words. Baptism is NOT water plus a magic
incantation from a representative of a "church" so-called,
a human institution. The waters of Baptism are not
blessed and sanctified by God without a genuine faith
and a sincere intent. The words are not magic. God does
not respond to formulas. It is our faith and mutual love
coming together in Christ and through Christ that gains
the response of the Holy Spirit and brings us into
dynamic communion with the Heavenly Father. This is
why St Gregory Nazianzen said that if a person steps into
the baptismal font without faith and with an improper
motive nothing happens except that he gets wet. As he
says, "Of those who have received the gift [Baptism],
some were altogether alien from God and from salvation,
both addicted to all manner of sin, and desirous to be
bad." (Gregory Nazianzen, Oration 40)
As in the healing service, the person doing the
baptizing is irrelevant exactly because his own
personality is not what is in view. Rather it is his
appointed role in the Christian community to represent
Christ. This means that it is Christ who is "relevant" in
baptism. For Traditional Christians, baptism is a sign and
a seal of the Gospel Promises, the reality of which is not
withheld from those who say yes to the gift given with
evangelical faith. It objectively grafts them into the Body
of Christ. It objectively cloths them with Christ. Baptism
is the objective entrance into the Family of God. And
these are precisely what we believe God has promised
Christians and their children. In the mouth of God's
ministers we hear the very words of Christ spoken
powerfully, objectively, and prophetically to us. "You are
baptized. . ." "You are sealed with the Holy Spirit." "You
are forgiven your sins." "You are healed." "This is my
Body... This is my Blood."
This is an affair of Word and Spirit, faith and
miracle. There is nothing magic about it. Science fiction
author Gene Wolfe writes,
"We believe that we invent symbols. The truth is that
they invent us; we are their creatures, shaped by their
hard, defining edges. When soldiers take their oath they
are given a coin, an asimi stamped with the profile of the
Autarch. Their acceptance of that coin is their acceptance
of the special duties and burdens of military life. They are
soldiers from that moment, though they may know
nothing of the management of arms. I did not know that
then, but it is a profound mistake to believe that we must
know of such things to be influenced by them, and in fact
to believe so is to believe in the most debased and
superstitious kind of magic. The would-be sorcerer alone
has faith in the efficacy of pure knowledge; rational people
know that things act of themselves or not at all." (Wolfe, 8)
In Baptism we see a symbol re-shaping us on the
deepest level. It is a mistake to believe that we must be
conscious of this re-shaping for the symbol to have any
effect. Whether we know it or not we have received a free
gift from God, citizenship in the Kingdom of God. We
can accept that citizenship and live accordingly, fighting
sin, loving and serving our Lord the High King of
Heaven. Or we can choose to live in rebellion to that
calling.
Baptism is the symbol, the communication of the
Three-Personed God, freely offering the gift of
relationship, which, if accepted by faith with love unites
our lives to Christ and transforms / re-invents us through
his Resurrection Life.
In conclusion, the words of St Gregory preached at
Constantinople Jan. 6, 381 sum up everything I have just
said beautifully:
XVI. But are you afraid lest you should destroy the
Gift, and do you therefore put off your cleansing, because
you cannot have it a second time? What? Would you not
be afraid of danger in time of persecution, and of losing
the most precious Thing you have: Christ? Would you
then on this account avoid becoming a Christian? Perish
the thought. Such a fear is not for a sane man; such an
argument argues insanity. O incautious caution, if I may
so. O trick of the Evil One! Truly he is darkness and
pretends to be light; and when he can no longer prevail in
open war, he lays snares in secret, and gives advice,
apparently good, really evil, if by some trick at least he
may prevail, and we find no escape from his plotting. And
this is clearly what he is aiming at in this instance. For,
being unable to persuade you to despise Baptism, he
inflicts loss upon you through a fictitious security; that in
consequence of your fear you may suffer unconsciously the
very thing you are afraid of; and because you fear to
destroy the Gift, you may for this very reason fail of the
Gift altogether. This is his character; and he will never
cease his duplicity as long as he sees us pressing onwards
towards heaven from which he has fallen. Wherefore, O
man of God, do thou recognize the plots of your adversary;
for the battle is against him that has, and it is concerned
with the most important interests. Take not your enemy to
be your counsellor; despise not to be and to be called
Faithful. As long as you are a Catechumen you are but in
the porch of Religion; you must come inside, and cross the
court, and observe the Holy Things, and look into the Holy
of Holies, and be in company with the Trinity. Great are
the interests for which you are fighting, great too the
stability which you need. Protect yourself with the shield
of faith. He fears you, if you fight armed with this weapon,
and therefore he would strip you of the Gift, that he may
the more easily overcome you unarmed and defenseless.
He assails every age, and every form of life; he must be
repelled by all.
XVII. Are you young? Stand against your passions;
be numbered with the alliance in the army of God: do
valiantly against Goliath. (1 Samuel 17:32) Take your
thousands or your myriads; thus enjoy your manhood; but
do not allow your youth to be withered, being killed by the
imperfection of your faith. Are you old and near the
predestined necessity? Aid your few remaining days.
Entrust the purification to your old age. Why do you fear
youthful passion in deep old age and at your last breath?
Or will you wait to be washed till you are dead, and not
so much the object of pity as of dislike? Are you regretting
the dregs of pleasure, being yourself in the dregs of life? It
is a shameful thing to be past indeed the flower of your
age, but not past your wickedness; but either to be
involved in it still, or at least to seem so by delaying your
purification. Have you an infant child? Do not let sin get
any opportunity, but let him be sanctified from his
childhood; from his very tenderest age let him be
consecrated by the Spirit. Fearest thou the Seal on account
of the weakness of nature? O what a small-souled mother,
and of how little faith! Why, Anna even before Samuel
was born (1 Samuel 1:10) promised him to God, and after
his birth consecrated him at once, and brought him up in
the priestly habit, not fearing anything in human nature,
Athelney Chapterhouse 21
but trusting in God. You have no need of amulets or
incantations, with which the Devil also comes in, stealing
worship from God for himself in the minds of vainer men.
Give your child the Trinity, that great and noble Guard.
(Gregory Nazianzen, Oration 40)
Sincerely,
Ryan ¶
Baptism as New Life
I n a way, Baptism is the beginning of our life in
Christ. That life may begin with hearing the
gospel preached or witnessed to by a friend, or
through God's love demonstrated to us in the service of a
stranger. Subjectively God may give and strengthen faith
in our hearts. But baptism marks definitively and
concretely our passage from life to death in the moment
Christ speaks our names and applies the promises of the
gospel to us personally. That is why it is spoken of as the
washing of regeneration (Titus 3:5; Jn 3:5), the gateway to
life in the Spirit, the sacrament of new birth, and the seal
of our adoption. The plunge into the waters of baptism
symbolizes the sinner's burial into Christ's death from
which he rises united with Christ in resurrection as a
new creature (2 Cor 5:17; Gal 6:15; Rom 6:3-4; Col 2:12).
On the day of Pentecost St Peter declared to the
pilgrims astounded by his preaching: "Repent, and be
baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for
the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift
of the Holy Spirit." (Acts 2:38) From that day the apostles
and their freinds offered Baptism to anyone who believed
in the Christ. (Acts 2:41; 8:12-13; 10:48; 16:15) Baptism is
inexorably connected to faith as St Paul declared to the
Philippian jailer, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and
you will be saved, you and your household." (Acts 16:31-
33) The Church today continues to fullfill the great
commision to "make disciples of all the nations, baptizing
them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the
Holy Spirit." (Mt 28:19).
Receiveing in Baptism the Word of God, "the true
Light which gives light to every man," the new Christian
becomes "illuminated," indeed he becomes a child of the
light and is welcomed into the Body of Christ. (Jn 1:9; 1
Thess 5:5; Heb 10:32; Eph 5:8) As St Gregory Nazianzen
says,
Baptism is God's most beautiful and magnificent
gift. We call it gift, grace, anointing, enlightenment,
garment of immortality, bath of rebirth, seal, and most
precious gift. It is called gift because it is conferred on
those who bring nothing of their own; grace since it is given
even to the guilty; Baptism because sin is buried in the
water; anointing for it is priestly and royal as are those
22 Athelney Chapterhouse
who are anointed; enlightenment because it radiates light;
clothing since it veils our shame; bath because it washes;
and seal as it is our guard and the sign of God's Lordship.
(Gregory Nazianzen, Oration 40)
i. Flood Prayer
The Book of Common Prayer, the service book of
the Church of England following the Reformation was
influenced by the German Mass composed by Martin
Luther and other Lutheran services used in Germany.
The liturgy for Holy Baptism also comes in part from the
Lutheran liturgy. Historically, both Lutherans and
Anglicans used the Flood Prayer:
Almighty and eternal God, according to Your strict
judgment You condemned the unbelieving world through
the flood, yet according to Your great mercy You preserved
believing Noah and his family, eight souls in all. You
drowned hard-hearted Pharaoh and all his host in the
Red Sea, yet led Your people Israel through the water on
dry ground, prefiguring this washing of Your Holy
Baptism. Through the Baptism in the Jordan of Your
beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, You sanctified and
instituted all waters to be a blessed flood, and a lavish
washing away of sin. We pray that You would behold N.
according to Your boundless mercy and bless him with
true faith by the Holy Spirit that through this saving flood
all sin in him which has been inherited from Adam and
which he himself has committed since would be drowned
and die. Grant that he be kept safe and secure in the holy
ark of the Christian Church, being separated from the
multitude of unbelievers and serving Your name at all
times with a fervent spirit and a joyful hope, so that, with
all believers in Your promise, he would be made worthy of
eternal life, through Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Noah is saved and the unbelieving world is
condemned. Pharaoh is hard hearted because he does not
believe. The central petition of the original prayer is for
the gift of faith. The version of the prayer used by
Lutherans today has changed the word "made" to
"declared" as if what God declares does not also make it
happen. Either way it is clear, God gives us the gift of
faith. Baptism is "being separated from the multitude of
unbelievers" so that "with all believers in Your promise."
The prayer went through a few changes in the English
liturgy eliminating the idea of water used to destroy
God's enemies:
Almighty and everlasting God, who of thy great
mercy didst save Noah and his family in the ark from
perishing by water; and also didst safely lead the children
of Israel thy people through the Red Sea, figuring thereby
thy holy Baptism; and by the Baptism of thy beloved Son,
Jesus Christ, in the river Jordan didst sanctify Water to
the mystical washing away of sin: We beseech thee, for Miles puts it, "Night and ocean as mankind knows them
thine infinite mercies, that thou wilt mercifully look upon are the remains of the uncreated chaos of darkness and
this Child, wash him and sanctify him with the Holy water that God dammed up to make the world." (Miles,
Ghost; that he, being delivered from thy wrath, may be 43-45)
received into the ark of Christ's Church; and being stedfast
in faith, joyful through hope, and rooted in charity, may By combining these ideas with being "born anew"
so pass through the waves of this troublesome world, that and the Son of Man being lifted up, Jesus is also
finally he may come to the land of everlasting life, there to mystically prophesying his own suffering and death as a
reign with thee world without end; through Jesus Christ, decent into the chaos of death, and his resurrection as a
our Lord. recapitulation of creation itself. So the Biblical way of
thinking of the death of Christ is that while he lay in the
First of all, there is nothing about water being a
tomb for three days, the cosmos was literally unmade.
picture of the wrath of God and an instrument for
With his resurrection it is completely remade. In the
destroying God's enemies. Secondly the words referring
sacrament of Holy Baptism we are united / identified
to belief or faith have been removed. This Baptismal rite
with Christ and we are re-created in his likeness.
teaches us that Baptism is a promise received by
evangelical faith. Since we are confident of the Lord's
willingness to save we ask him for exactly such faith in iii. Baptism as New Victory
Baptism and separation of unbelief and unbelievers. We
pray that the Holy Spirit will plant them like a tree within N.T. Wright helpfully points out that the imagery
the garden that is the Church. that John the Forerunner uses in the wilderness is that of
new exodus. The people are still in bondage and in need
of redemption, rescue from the powers and principalities
ii. Baptism as New Creation of this age. The Coming Messiah is Moses redux and his
mission is nothing less than Exodus Recapitulated. And
In the Gospel of St John, the Pharisee Nicodemus
just as Moses went through the waters of the Nile River
visits Jesus in the night and asks him, "Truly I tell you, no
as an infant and latter together with God's people at the
one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of
Red Sea, Jesus is baptized in the Jordan River, where the
water and the Spirit," Jesus words, rich with meaning, are
people of Israel first entered the Promised Land.
referring to the mystery of Baptism. Baptism is what
In Hebrew poetry, Egypt is sometimes referred to as
being "born anew" looks like. Jesus says to Nicodemus,
Rehab, a mythological water-serpent prototypical of
"You are a teacher of Israel, yet you do not understand
primordial chaos. This chaos is symbolized in many
this?" We are not any better. The farthest thing from our
creation myths from the Middle East and poignantly
minds when we hear these words is the Genesis creation
implied in the Genesis story of beginnings. "And the
account. Nicodemus should naturally associate a
spirit hovered over the waters." In this myth, the Lord
reference to being born of water and the Spirit with the
Almighty destroys Rehab and brings order to the chaos
first verse of Sacred Scripture and the time when
in the same way that light fills up and overcomes the
"darkness was upon the face of the deep, and God's Spirit
primordial darkness. The prophets did not believe that
breathed over the face of the waters."
there was a primordial serpent deity that existed before
In the creation narrative God creates light, he does
the creation. They were using legendary imagery to
not create darkness that is only the absence of light. God
explicate the victory of the Lord over his enemies the
contains the darkness by separating it from light as he
Egyptians. Just as God defeated the princes and powers
does later by separating the sea and land. "God separated
of Egypt, God also poetically destroys and defeats the
the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and
serpent Rehab. Typologically, the Exodus out of Egypt is
the darkness he called Night. And there was evening, and
new creation, the ordering of chaos recapitulated in
there was morning, the first day." Day is a created space
terms of God Almighty, Lord of Hosts and defender of
cleared within the darkness, which we assume he did not
those in despair, defeats the evil gods of Egypt.
create. Darkness is the absence of light, the absence of
The Apostle uses this same imagery when referring
created things. Likewise, time is a space cleared within
to the Exodus' typological significance for those now
eternity. Time begins when light permeates the primeval
vitally united to Christ. "All our fathers were under the
and timeless darkness. "Let there be lights in the
cloud, all passed through the sea, all were baptized into
firmament of the heavens to separate the day from the
Moses in the cloud and in the sea, all ate the same
night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for
spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For
days and years." As for the primordial waters, he does not
they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and
so much as create as contain them on the second day.
that Rock was Christ." Christ was the liberator who
"Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together
delivered the Israelites from the Egyptian gods and at the
into one place, and let dry land appear." Thus as Jack

Athelney Chapterhouse 23
same time poetically slew the water-serpent, slicing
through the chaotic Red Sea like a knife. And this radical
victory is what St Paul calls baptism. "All our fathers
were under the cloud, all passed through the sea, all were
baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea."
And that is why the crucifixion of Christ is the
victory of God over the adversary, the radical and
overwhelming defeat of the devil, and all false gods and
demons. Christ descends into the depths of the world
and rises victorious, remaking the cosmos. The name
Jesus means savior, but the word savior in the Hebrew is
not separate from the word "Victor." As Athanasius puts
it:
If, then, it is by the sign of the cross and by faith in
Christ that death is trampled underfoot, it is clear that it
is Christ Himself and none other who is the Archvictor
over death and has robbed it of its power. Death used to
be strong and terrible, but now, since the sojourn of the
Saviour and the death and resurrection of His body, it is
despised; and obviously it is by the very Christ Who
mounted on the cross that it has been destroyed and
vanquished finally. When the sun rises after the night and
the whole world is lit up by it, nobody doubts that it is the
sun that has thus shed its light everywhere and driven
away the dark. Equally clear is it, since this utter scorning
and trampling down of death has ensued upon the
Saviour's manifestation in the body and His death on the
cross, that it is He Himself Who brought death to nought
and daily raises monuments to His victory in His own
disciples. (The Incarnation, § 28)
Baptism is thus a picture of new creation and Christ
the Archvictor. The old us is made new. Baptism is new
creation and defeat of the evil one.
iv. Baptism as Life in Christ
The life of the Holy Trinity is an ever giving and
receiving, mutually indwelling life of self-emptying love
and sharing which over-flows in magnificent creative
power. As God's children we are meant to take part in
this self-emptying, creative, mutually indwelling love,
receiving life from God in the form of the world, giving
thanks to God for all things we offer it back to him as a
sacrifice of praise. God blesses our gift and gives it back
to us, uniting all who draw close to him into a family of
selfless sacrificial love. In the Christian life the practice of
prayer represents the communication between the
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and the family of God.
Almsgiving represents the self-sacrificial life of the
Trinity and fasting represents the self-emptying denial
which over flows in love for our family and those around
us. At least this is how it was meant to be.
In our fallen state we are disconnected from God
and other people. We build up walls of separation so that
24 Athelney Chapterhouse
we can live lives as isolated individuals, safe and secure in
our own little cocoon, curved inward and turned in on
ourselves. And somehow we need to be transferred from
this old life into the new life in Christ. When we are
born, we are ripped out of a warm, safe, dark
environment into a cold, dangerous, noisy, light we were
completely unprepared for. That is why the Church
Fathers describe Christian baptism as a new birth into
Christ where fallen man enters the shared mutually
indwelling life of love within the Holy Life-Creating
Trinity and the family of God. The Christian is literally
baptized into the name of the Father and the Son and the
Holy Spirit.
Thus, as we have seen, an essential element of the
new birth, which is Baptism, is the overcoming of the
demonic powers that keep us in bondage within our
cocoon-like prison of self-love. When we are baptized we
are denying the devil and all his works and accepting
Christ, his victory over the devil, and his victory over the
power of sin and death with which the devil was holding
us captive. That is why immediately before and after
baptism we may experience demonic warfare and
temptation from the evil spirits who don't want to be cast
out and the walls of separation torn down.
Therefore, Baptism is the beginning of this Life in
Christ. We put off the old man, the layers of sin and
separation we build up around our hearts, and put on the
new man and the garments of righteousness. As the
Apostles says, "As many as have been Baptized into
Christ have put on Christ." But this pealing back the
layers of the onion through the ministry of the Holy
Spirit within us is a lifelong healing process. Every time
we sin we build up new walls that we must tear down by
fighting sin within our hearts through confession and
repentance. Every time we connect to God in prayer and
others people in self-sacrifice we are tearing a bit of our
walls down and being healed of our self-sickness. But this
process can be very revealing, we can begin to feel naked
and exposed, which is why God gives us garments of new
righteousness. Healing can also be very painful. And
many times people give up because they realize that if
this healing continues much further they will have to
reveal and let heal some hidden imperfection or
bitterness they are unwilling to let go of.
In Baptism we plunge into the Life of the Triune
God. The Holy Spirit enters into the Body, Mind, and
Spirit of the believer. God joins himself to the life of the
one who by faith receives him. This is the result of the
rising from the dead of the Sun of Righteousness who has
destroyed sin and death as Arch-Victor and who is
continually building up monuments to his victory in his
saints. Glory be to God forever!
v. Chrismation
Chrismation or confirmation was an inseparable
part of the sacrament of Baptism in the Apostolic
Church. Some have suggested that the early Church
imported the practice of anointing with oil from gnostic
sects. I don't believe that those great pastors of the
Church who fought the gnostic heresies so valiantly
through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, adopted
gnostic practices as their own. It is more likely that the
gnostics adopted these practices from early Christians.
The practice can be shown from Scripture. Christ
breathed on his disciples and said, "receive the Holy
Spirit." It was the practice of the early Church to lay
hands on the newly baptized Christian to anoint them to
receive the Holy Spirit. This follows from the ministry of
of the Apostles. The Apostles Peter and John, laid hands
on the Samaritan believers and "they received the Holy
Spirit." (Acts 8:14-18) In Ephases St Paul laid hands on
them and the "Holy Spirit came upon them." (Acts 19:6)
"As the Christian community expanded both
numerically and geographically into many locations both
within and outside of the Jewish world, the Apostles were
soon not the only ones preaching the Gospel and
Baptizing people into Christ." The bishops in each local
church, such as Timothy, were the successors of the
Apostles. They baptized and placed their hands on new
believers. In time, once the Way spread out of the cities
and into the country sides, the bishops who began to
superintend multiple local churches in a given area were
unable to be personally present for the baptism of each
new believer. This responsibility was conferred on the
bishop's representative, the presbyter, or pastor of the
local assembly. However the bishop’s place was still
symbolically present through the oil of Myrrh that he
consecrated, which means to set apart for God's service.
In this way the unity of believers separated
geographically was maintained.
During the Baptism, the ritual of chrismation
involved anointing the head, the chest, the hands, and
feat of the new Christian to sanctify and seal the whole
body to God. This comes from the anointing ritual of
priestly initiation in the book of Leviticus. The message is
clear; the servant of Christ, newly baptized is being
commissioned as a priest with a ministry of
reconciliation and commission to make disciples in all
the earth. Chrismation is the radical confirmation of the
priesthood of all believers.
Thus, Baptism and Chrismation were never
supposed to be separated in the early Church. They were
not two sacraments but only one sacrament with two
actions always done together. Thus in the early Church,
no one was ever Baptized without receiving the Holy
Spirit. This was not the case in parts of the western
Church where heretical Frankish Papalism retained the
practice of the bishop alone conferring the gift of the
Spirit. Thus Chrismation, or Confirmation as they came
to call it, was postponed until after children were of age
and after they had passed a catechism class. Thus it
became a separate sacrament. And it does not involve oil,
only the laying on of hands.
The Lutheran and Anglican traditions still practice
confirmation of children at the age of ten or so prior to
receiving "first communion." Some Presbyterian
churches still practice it as well. It is obviously missing in
Reformed peado-communion churches and for good
reason. Since confirmation was separated from the act of
Baptism and reserved for a time after the completion of
catechism it was understood as an entrance into the
mystery of Communion. Those who wish for their infant
children to receive the Lord's Supper, and never know a
time when they were separated from the People of God,
would obviously reject the idea that completion of a
catechism would be necessary for reception of the Lord's
Supper. Nor would they wish to postpone admitting their
children to the Table until the age of ten or so. Some
Lutherans are beginning to see the benefits of peado-
communion and are trying to make confirmation
available at an earlier age. Though it is consistent to
reject the innovation of confirmation, it would surely be
of great value to restore the Apostolic tradition of
Anointing with oil to the sacrament of Baptism as an
inseparable spiritual aspect thereof.
vi. Baptism in the Life of the Believer
Baptism is the Word of God made physical. It is the
Gospel promises given to each believer when they
become children of God and join the family of the
Church of Christ. Regardless of when one has been
baptized they aught to properly understand that their
baptism was not a human act of an individual or of a
priest, but a divine act of sealing the promises of the
better covenant to one's life. Their baptism means that
God has put a claim on their life and their proper
response is faith, repentance, and thankfulness.
Believing in one's baptism, rightly understood
means believing the Gospel promises of the New
Covenant, that have been sealed to us by God in Baptism.
As it is written, only those who are "of faith" are the seed
of Abraham who was justified by faith. (Rom 9:6-8) For
we know that the righteousness of God is "through faith
in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe." (Rom 3:21-
22) Therefore, infants, by receiving the Gospel promises
God gives us in baptism, are forgiven and regenerated by
the faith God also gives them by means of hearing the
promises. (Acts 2:38-39; Rom 10:17)
Therefore baptized children of God have every
reason to believe and no excuse for unbelief because God
himself has put a seal on them and calls them to
covenant faithfulness. Whenever one has doubts,
Athelney Chapterhouse 25
remembering the event of one's Baptism gives a believer
an absolute and concrete / objective proof of the reality
of the Gospel promises sealed upon their lives.
Then Peter said to them, "Repent, and let every one
of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the
remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the
Holy Spirit." [Acts 2:38]
Nevertheless the solid foundation of God stands,
having this seal: "The Lord knows those who are His,"
and, "Let everyone who names the name of Christ depart
from iniquity." [2 Timothy 2:19]
The Apostle correctly calls to mind the event of our
baptism in order to encourage us to be faithful. The Holy
Spirit thus uses one's baptism as an instrument to create
& strengthen faith and produce faithfulness throughout
ones life. Faith, thus receiving and resting on Christ and
His righteousness, is the alone instrument of
justification: yet it is not alone in the person justified, but
is ever accompanied with all other saving graces, and is
no dead faith, but works by love. (Jn 1:12; Rom 3:28, 5:1;
Jas 2:17-26; Gal 5:6)
vii. The sacrament of eating
We don't live to eat, nor do we eat to live. I think
that this is a false dilemma. If we eat to live we have
replaced God at the center of our lives by making food
the source of life. If we live to eat then we have replaced
God at the center of our lives by making our stomach
lord. This dichotomy represents the extremes of pagan
and atheist thought concerning life and the human
person.
The atheist does not see through the world to its
source. For him the world is dark and opaque. He eats
because food is fuel for the body engine, consequently he
thinks of humans as machines or animals. Eating is not
something special, but neither is anything else. As
Christians we know this debases the dignity of man as
the image of God and devalues human life. In the
beginning God created all things and he called them
good for the sake of blessing us.
The Christian receives both his life and food from
God as an unseparated gift. Consequently he sees
through the world as transparent to catch a vision of the
love of God. In fact the entire world is an expression of
the love of God. When seen in this way, even eating can
be understood as a sacrament of the presence of God.
When we eat, we must give thanks for the food. We
must also offer it back to God as a sacrifice of
thanksgiving. But because God does not need anything,
he blesses it and sanctifies it and gives it back to us.
Enabled by the Holy Spirit, we receive the life of the
world from God and, united to Christ Jesus, offer it back
to God as a sacrifice of thanksgiving. When we do this
two things happen. First, a right relationship with God is
26 Athelney Chapterhouse
restored where by we acknowledge God as the Creator /
Giver / Lover and our relationship to him as thankful
creatures / receivers / beloved. Second, our original
edenic vocation from before the fall as priests is restored
or recapitulated in Christ, whose once for all sacrifice on
the cross for our salvation enables us to make a sacrifice
of praise and thanksgiving. When we do this on a cosmic
scale, the whole cosmos is being transfigured.
Whether we like it or not, food is one of the most
central elements of our lives as humans. Eating makes up
a large part of our personal identity. We wake up and we
eat. We eat all day long. Our lives revolve around what
we will eat next because without food we die.
Many people have begun to lament the
contemporary extinction of the last natural ritual, the
family dinner, for without that ritual to endue the eating
experience with meaning, specialness, and familial
communion, life ceases to have meaning, specialness, and
communion. When we eat without thinking, without
mindfulness of our place in the cosmos and before the
face of God, our whole person is debased. The family
ritual does not make eating less meaningful. It actually
fills eating with meaning and puts God back at the center
of our lives.
Food comes from God, and our hunger for food is
meant to point to a hunger for the one who lovingly
provides us with all our needs. When we wake up we
aught to pray and thank God for our entire lives and give
them to him first, and only then eat. Then our place
before the God who gives is restored.
Food eaten for itself without thankfulness is union /
communion with that which is dead. If we would open
our eyes and see that all good things come down from
our heavenly Father we would be in communion with
Life himself. When we lead lives of Eucharistic /
Thankful eating, we show that we are truly Christian,
because we are willing to put God at the very center of
our lives, not serving measured quantities of
carbohydrates, calories, and proteins, but being drawn
into a loving relationship with Life himself.
Thus the Eucharist is the natural correlation and
completion of Baptism. In Baptism we are Baptized "into
Christ" and in Holy Communion we eat the Body and
Blood of Christ so that we are in Christ and he in us.
There is no other more intimate relationship that can be
comprehended. This is the life of sacramental
thanksgiving that is the objective fact for the Christian
made right with God. There is no doubt that as we cling
to him in faith he is our nourishment. There is no biblical
reason why children should not come to the table and be
fed by the King from the time they are baptized and
experience the over flowing love of God from their
earliest moments. ¶
Baptism Sources Cited

Wilken, Robert Louis, The Spirit of Early Christian Thought, Yale University Press, New
Haven, 2003
Hart, D.G., Deconstructing Evangelicalism: Conservative Protestantism in the Age of Billy
Graham, Baker Academic, 2005
Wilson, Doug, To a Thousand Generations, Cannon Press, Moscow, 2007
Gregory Nazianzen. Oration 40. The Oration on Holy Baptism. XXII. Preached at
Constantinople Jan. 6, 381
Wolfe, Gene, Shadow of the Torturer, Timescape Books, New York, 1980
Miles, Jack, Christ: A Crisis in the Life of God, Vintage Books, 2002 Luther, Martin,
Concerning Rebaptism, 1528

Image Credits

Page 3, A Child's Book of Saints, by William Canton, Illustrated by T.H. Robinson, J.M. Dent
& Co, London, 1902
Page 6, Symbols of the Four Evangelists, From Folio 27v of the Book of Kells
Page 14, King David composing the Psalms. From Folio 30v of the Vespasian Psalter, English
circa 750 (Public Domain image courtesy of Wikipedia)
Page 17, Baptism of Augustine of Hippo as represented in a sculptural group in Troyes
cathedral, 1549
Back, Baptism of Christ, From Folio 25 of the Benedictional of St. Aethelwold, Anglo-Saxon,
Winchester School, c. 963–984; in the British Library (Britannica.com)

Athelney Chapterhouse 27
A Prayer of St Chrysostom

ALMIGHTY God, who hast given us grace at this time with one accord to make our common supplications unto
thee; and dost promise that when two or three are gathered together in thy Name thou wilt grant their requests. Fulfill
now, O Lord, the desires and petitions of they servants, as may be most expedient for them; granting us in this world
knowledge of thy truth, and in the world to come life everlasting. Amen.

NEXT TIME: The role of women in ancient Greek society, precognition vs. predestination, a smiling providence,
mankind's yes to God, & why there is no such thing as doctrinal development.

AND THEN IN DECEMBER: Liberal capitalist transformation, individual Awakenings, Cheap Grace, & the
mystery of salvation.

www.unexpectedjoy.org/Athelney