Alexander Campbell on Infant Baptism and Circumcision

Proponents of infant baptism (e.g., Presbyterians; Roman Catholics) often draw a parallel between infants being circumcised under the Old Covenant with their practice—they often argue that baptism, the ordinance initiating one into the New Covenant, can and must have infants as its subject, too.

Alexander Campbell (1788-1866), in his 1852 book on baptism, offered the following points in refutation of this apologetic:

1. Males only were subjects of circumcision; but males and females are subjects of Christian baptism. "Every male child among you shall be circumcised." The Apostles "baptized both men and women."

2. Circumcision was ordained to be performed on the eighth day--the first day of the second week of every male child. Does any party of the Pedobaptists occupy the same day in dispensation the rite of infant baptism? Not one.

3. Adult males circumcised themselves. Do adult believers baptize themselves?

4. Infant males were circumcised by their own parents. Do Christian parents baptize their own infant children?

5. Infant and adult servants were circumcised neither on flesh nor faith, but as property. Does infant baptism ever occupy this place?

6. Circumcision was not the door into the Jewish church. It was four hundred years older than the Jewish church, and introduced neither Isaac, Ishmael, Esau, nor Jacob into any Jewish or patriarchal church. It never was to any Jew, its peculiar and proper subject, an initiatory rite? Why, then, call infant baptism an initiatory rite?

7. The qualifications for circumcision were flesh and property. Faith was never propounded, in any case, to a Jew, or his servants, as a qualification for circumcision. But do not Pedobaptists sometimes say--If thou believest with all thy heart, thou mayest?

8. Infant baptism is frequently called a dedicatory rite. Believers may dedicate themselves, but cannot dedicate others to the Lord in a Christian sense. In the Jewish sense, however, the same persons were dedicated to the Lord. But dedication was never performed by circumcision. The circumcised were afterwards dedicated to the Lord: Numbers viii.13-21. Why, then, make baptism a dedicatory rite in room of circumcision.

9. Circumcision, requiring neither intelligence, faith, nor any moral qualification, neither did nor could communicate any spiritual blessing. No person ever put on Christ, or professed faith in circumcision.

10. Idiots were circumcised: for neither intellect nor any exercise of it was necessary to a covenant in the flesh. Is this true of baptism?

11. Circumcision was a visible appreciable mark, as all signs are, and such was its chief design. Does baptism fill its room in this respect?

12. The duty of circumcision was not personal, but parental. Parents were bound to circumcise their children. The precept ran thus--"Circumcise your children." But in baptism it is personal--"Be baptized every one of you."

13. The right of a child to circumcision, in no case, depended upon intelligence, faith, piety, or morality of the parents. Why, then, in substituting for it infant baptism are its benefits to infants withholden from it, because of the ignorance, impiety, or immorality of its parents? Does infant baptism exactly fill the place of circumcision in this particular?

14. Circumcision was a guarantee of certain temporal benefits to a Jew. Does baptism guaranty any temporal blessing to the subject of it?

15. It was not to be performed in the name of God, nor into the way of any being in heaven or earth Why, then, on the plea of coming in the room of circumcision, is any infant baptized in or into the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit?

16. The subject of circumcision was a debtor to the whole law. Is this true of every subject of baptism?

Alexander Campbell, Christian baptism: With Its Antecedents and Consequents (Bethany, Va.: L. Johnson and Co, 1852), 242-44

Debate: Is Water Baptism Necessary for Salvation

The following is a 165-minute debate between Steven Ritchie (Oneness Pentecostal) and Richard Bushey (Calvinist) on the question of whether water baptism is necessary for salvation:

While I think that Ritchie is way off base on many issues, especially Christology, he crushed Bushey on this particular issue (it is an issue I have discussed on this blog [e.g., Christ's Baptism is NOT Imputed to the Believer])

Evangelical Anti-Mormons: Always Assuming but Never Proving Sola Scriptura

In a paper trying to argue that only Jesus can hold the Melchizedek Priesthood (which contradicts itself by arguing that Melchizedek also held it [the author does not hold to the view that Melchizedek was the pre-mortal Jesus!]), we read the following:

2. Latter-day Saints are often taught that other persons in the Bible such as Abraham, Moses, and Jesus’ apostles were holders of the Melchizedek priesthood. Unfortunately, no one in the Bible is explicitly shown to have held the Melchizedek priesthood other than Jesus and Melchizedek. Latter-day Saints should be pressed to prove otherwise.

3. It is, however, explicitly shown in non-biblical Scripture that Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery were to have the Melchizedek priesthood conferred on them. (See Joseph Smith–History 1:72.)

Tragically, LDS must depend upon non-biblical, LDS Scripture to make the Bible support something it in fact rejects; namely, that believers can hold the Melchizedek priesthood.

Firstly, the author is wrong in arguing that only Jesus (and Melchizedek) held the Melchizedek Priesthood; for documentation, see the various article at The LDS Priesthoods: Resource Page including The Biblical Evidence for an Ordained, Ministerial Priesthood in the New Covenant from the Last Supper Accounts which refutes the author soundly on issues such as the meaning of απαραβατος in Heb 7:24. Secondly, the author is assuming without proving the doctrine of Sola Scriptura, wherein all doctrines must be explicated. Nowhere in the Bible does it teach that the “Bible” (defined as being the 66 books of the Protestant canon) are formally sufficient and the final authority, and as I have documented, there exists overwhelming biblical and historical evidence against this doctrine.

To give one example of the impossible position Protestants such as the author is in, consider the following from a leading critic of sola scriptura:

Evangelical James White admits: “Protestants do not assert that Sola Scriptura is a valid concept during times of revelation. How could it be, since the rule of faith to which it points was at the very time coming into being?” (“A Review and Rebuttal of Steve Ray's Article Why the Bereans Rejected Sola Scriptura,” 1997, on web site of Alpha and Omega Ministries). By this admission, White has unwittingly proven that Scripture does not teach Sola Scriptura, for if it cannot be a “valid concept during times of revelation,” how can Scripture teach such a doctrine since Scripture was written precisely when divine oral revelation was being produced? Scripture cannot contradict itself. Since both the 1st century Christian and the 21st century Christian cannot extract differing interpretations from the same verse, thus, whatever was true about Scripture then also be true today. If the first Christians did not, and could not extract sola scriptura from Scripture because oral revelation was still existent, then obviously those verses could not, in principle, be teaching Sola Scriptura, and thus we cannot interpret them as teaching it either. (“Does Scripture teach Sola Scriptura?” in Robert A. Sungenis, ed. Not by Scripture Alone: A Catholic Critique of the Protestant Doctrine of Sola Scriptura [2d ed: Catholic Apologetics International: 2009], pp. 101-53, here p. 118 n. 24]

Unless the Protestant apologist can engage in a meaningful exegesis of a pericope that proves soundly this doctrine, they cannot demand that a text must be explicit for it to be true. To attack the Latter-day Saint for holding to a doctrine that is not necessarily explicated in the Bible is to beg the question: they are assuming Protestantism, specifically, the formal doctrine thereof, to be true.

Finally, the author is shown to be disingenuous by bringing up this alleged problem with Latter-day Saint claims to authority:

Doctrine and Covenants 84:19-22 informs us that without the Melchizedek priesthood “no man can see the face of God and live.”

Joseph Smith allegedly saw God the Father in his “First Vision” in 1820 when he was 14 years old. (See Joseph Smith – History 1:3-7.) However, Joseph Smith did not receive the Melchizedek priesthood until after May 1829. (See Joseph Smith – History 1:72.)

Latter-day Saints should be pressed to reconcile this apparent contradiction.

D&C 84:19-22 does not say that the Melchizedek Priesthood is necessary to see the face of God. Here is what the text actually says:

And this greater priesthood administereth the gospel and holdeth the key of the mysteries of the kingdom, even the key of the knowledge of God. Therefore, in the ordinances thereof, the power of godliness is manifest. And without the ordinances thereof, and the authority of the priesthood, the power of godliness is not manifest unto men in the flesh; For without this no man can see the face of God, even the Father, and live.

What is needed to see the face of God according to the text itself is not the Priesthood; it is “the power of godliness.” As we read in elsewhere in the Doctrine and Covenants:

For no man has seen God at any time in the flesh except quickened by the Spirit of God. (D&C 67:11; cf. Moses 1:11)

For a fuller discussion, see the article Question: Does Doctrine and Covenants 84 say that one cannot see God without holding the priesthood? on the FairMormon wiki.

Fulgentius of Ruspe (ca. 467-ca. 532) vs. the Immaculate Conception of Mary

Thus, as the merciful and just Lord sought to destroy the vestiges of human iniquity, it was absolutely necessary that the immaculate one deign to unite an immaculate human nature to himself in the very act of conception, an act which ordinarily the devil was accustomed to rule as his own portion and dominion by inflicting the stain of original sin . . . To be sure, the flesh of Mary had been conceived in iniquity in accordance with human practice, and so her flesh (that gave birth to the Son of God in the likeness of sinful flesh) was indeed sinful. For the Apostle bears witness that “God sent his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh.”

First Letter to the Scythian Monks, 8, 13 in Fulgentius of Ruspe and the Scythian Monks: Correspondence on Christology and Grace (The Fathers of the Church, vol. 126; trans. Rob Roy McGregor and Donald Fairbairn; Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2013), 51, 54

Further Reading:

Answering Tim Staples on Patristic Mariology and the Immaculate Conception

William Davis, Reassessing Joseph Smith Jr.'s Formal Education

In the Winter 2016 issue of Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, one of the essays contained therein is that of William Davis, Reassessing Joseph Smith Jr.'s Formal Education. Davis argues that Joseph Smith would have spent seven, not three, full years in formal education.

The "other sheep" of John 10:16: A Critique of the "Gentile" Interpretation

Dave Bartosiewicz and his wife have released a new video entitled, If We Only Knew, We Would Have Never Joined Mormonism Episode 3 Other Sheep?

The focus of the video is John 10:16. However, it should be noted that they are out of left field when they claim that most Latter-day Saints hold to the Heartland Model of Book of Mormon events; the predominant view among LDS scholars is that of the Mesoamerican model (for a recent discussion, see, for example, John L. Sorenson, Mormon's Codex: An Ancient American Book [Deseret Book, 2013]).

John 10:16 reads as follows:

And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice, and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.

The historical Christian/non-LDS interpretation of this verse, with Dave and his wife, enunciate in the video, is that the “other sheep” in view are the Gentiles and that the Gentiles would “hear” Christ’s voice through the preaching of the gospel (cf. Matt 28:19).

In the LDS view, among the “other sheep” Christ had in view were His covenant people in the New World; indeed, we get this identification from Jesus Christ Himself when he appears in ancient Mesoamerica to the Nephites at Bountiful after his resurrection:

Ye are my disciples; and ye are a light unto this people, who are a remnant of the house of Joseph. And behold, this is the land of your inheritance; and the Father hath given it unto you. And not at any time hath the Father given me commandment that I should tell it unto your brethren at Jerusalem. Neither at any time hath the Father given me commandment that I should tell unto them concerning the other tribes of the house of Israel, whom the Father hath led away out of the land. This much did the Father command me, that I should tell unto them: That other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold and one shepherd. And now, because of the stiffneckedness and unbelief they understood not my words; therefore I was commanded to say no more of the Father concerning this thing unto them. But, verily, I say unto you that the Father hath commanded me, and I tell it unto you, that ye were separated from among them because of their iniquity; therefore it is because of their iniquity that they know not of you. And verily, I say unto you again that the other tribes hath the Father separated from them; and it is because of their iniquity that they know not of them. And verily I say unto you, that ye are they of whom I said: Other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd. And they understood me not, for they supposed it had been the Gentiles; for they understood not that the Gentiles should be converted through their preaching. And they understood me not that I said they shall hear my voice; and they understood me not that the Gentiles should not at any time hear my voice--that I should not manifest myself unto them save it were by the Holy Ghost. (3 Nephi 15:12-23)

On page 195 of their book, Reasoning from the Scriptures with the Mormons (Eugene, Oreg.: Harvest House Publishers, 1995), Ron Rhodes and Marian Bodine offer the following criticisms directed to an imaginary LDS interlocutor, in conjunction to their citing Eph 2:1-22 and other texts discussing the preaching of the Gospel to the Gentiles (emphasis in original):

Would you please read aloud from John 10:16?

·       Since Jesus' words in John 10:16 were addressed specifically to Jews, does it not make sense that when He referred to "other sheep" who were "not of this fold," He was talking about non-Jews who were not of the "fold" of Judaism?

·       Please demonstrate from the context of John 10 that the references in verse 16 deals with "sheep" in America?

The attempted bombardment of the Bible notwithstanding, the critic will have to do a better case to disprove the LDS thesis and prove his thesis. Nowhere in the biblical texts will one ever come across people who are labelled God or Christ's "sheep," at the time the term is being used of them, who are unbelievers. Sheep, by definition, are following the shepherd at the time the term is predicated upon a person or a group. Matthew clearly tells us that the Lost Sheep are of the House of Israel (Matt 10:6). Further, John 10:4, 27 says that the “Sheep” are Christ's followers because they "know" Christ (οιδα is used in v. 4; the more potent term γινωσκω in v.27 [cf. its usage in John 17:3]), suggesting not just intellectual ascent, but inter-personal knowledge and commitment to Jesus Christ. Such descriptions do not fit the Gentiles at the time Jesus spoke the words of John 10:16; instead, it refers to people who had already accepted Him and had been following Him, which fits the interpretation offered by none other than Christ Himself in the Book of Mormon.

Notice another a propos instance of προβατον being used in the Gospel of John:

A second time he said to him, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my sheep (προβατον). he saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep (προβατον). (21:16-17)

Outside the Gospel of John, Matthew has the highest instances of the usage of προβατον in any singular book of the New Testament (11 instances, where John has 15). Sometimes, it is coupled with ως or ωσει (“like/as”) when discussing false prophets or those who are not true believers in the Gospel (Matt 10:16; cf. 7:15) or when being used purely as a simile to discuss the movements of a crowd (Matt 9:36), but it is also used to describe people who, at the time it is used of them, are true believers, not then-future converts (Matt 10:16; 25:32-33; 26:31; cf. 15:24), again fitting the Book of Mormon and the historical LDS interpretation of John 10:16.

Further evidence against the "Gentile" reading is summed up by one Protestant apologist:

There are two major problems with this interpretation. First of all, if men are sheep before they believe then they already have eternal life: “And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand” (John 10:28). If the sheep were never goats then how can they be born “dead in trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1)? No one among the unsaved Gentiles is ever called sheep. Try pigs and dogs (Mat. 7:6; 15:26-27; 2 Pet. 2:1, 22). The Gentiles were “without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world” (Eph. 2:12). Can one of God's sheep go to hell? Why then must God's sheep believe on Christ?
            The second problem concerns the identification of the sheep. Who are the sheep? According to Micaiah (1 Kgs. 22:17), Asaph (Psa. 74:1; 78:52; 79:13), the Psalmist (Psa. 44:11, 22; 95:7; 100:3), David (Psa. 119:176), Isaiah (Isa. 53:6), Jeremiah (Jer 23:1; 50:6, 17), Ezekiel (Eze. 34:6, 11, 12), and Jesus Christ (Mat. 10:6: 15:24): the sheep are Israel. Notice the condition of Israel in the Old Testament:
 My people hath been lost sheep: their shepherds have caused them to go astray, they have turned them away on the mountains: they have gone from mountain to hill, they have forgotten their restingplace (Jer. 50:6) My sheep wandered through all the mountains, and upon every hill: yea, my flock, was scattered upon all the face of the earth, and none did search or seek after them (Eze. 34:6). Then notice a forgotten prophecy from the Lord:
 For thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I, even I, will both search my sheep, and seek them out. As a shepherd seeketh out his flock in the day that he is among his sheep that are scattered; so will I seek out my sheep, and will deliver them out of all places where they have been scattered in  the cloudy and dark day. And I will bring them out from the people, and gather them from the countries, and will bring them to their own land, and feed them upon the mountains of Israel by the rivers, and in all the inhabited places of the country. I will feed them in a good pasture, and upon the high mountains of Israel shall their fold be: there shall they lie in a good fold, and in a fat pasture shall they feed upon the mountains of Israel.  I will feed my flock, and I will cause them to lie down, saith the Lord GOD. I will seek that which was lost, and bring again that which was driven away, and will bind up that which was broken, and will strengthen that which was sick: but I will destroy the fat and the ¹ strong; I will feed them with judgment. (Eze 34:11-16) Note also the New Testament counterparts:
 But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel (Mat. 10:6) But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel (Mat. 15:24) When Christ came, his sheep—like Simeon (Luke 2:25), Annas (Luke 2:36-38), Zacharias and Elisabeth (Luke 2:8-20), and the disciples (John 1:40-49)--knew him (John 10:14), followed him (John 10:27), and received eternal life (John 10:28). We have here the separation of the Jewish sheep from the goats and the drawing of them to the Messiah. (Laurence M. Vance, The Other Side of Calvinism Rev. Ed. [Vance Publications, 1999], 339-40)

Which much more could be said about this and related issues, the Latter-day Saint interpretation of John 10:16 is not an exegetical stretch, and is perhaps the best passage in the Bible relating to the Book of Mormon and its peoples.

Dave and Janet Bartosiewicz end their video by claiming that, within Mormonism, there is a lot of deception. However, anyone who has interacted with Dave and his "arguments" will realise that this is projection--as one can clearly see in these refutations of his previous claims, for example, Dave (and now, Janet) are guilty of deception, not the LDS Church. This is just one small example of many.

Psalm 78:70-72 and the "Heart" of King David

With respect to King David, the Psalter reads as follows:

He chose his servant David, and took him from the sheepfolds; from tending the nursing ewes he brought him to be the shepherd of his people Jacob, of Israel, his inheritance. With upright heart he tended them, and guided them with skillful hand. (Psa 78:70-72 NRSV)

The Hebrew translated as "upright heart" is כְּתֹם לְבָבוֹ refers to a heart with integrity; the LXX phrase ἐν τῇ ἀκακίᾳ τῆς καρδίας refers to a heart that is innocent and without guile.

What is interesting is that, notwithstanding being fallen (including losing his initial justification due to his murder of Uriah and adultery with Bethsheba, requiring a re-justification), King David and his "heart" is spoken highly, not negatively, of. Why is this interesting? Many Calvinists and others with a deficient anthropology views the "heart" of man as always being something to be spoken negatively about (e.g., Jer 17:9) However, Scripture often speaks highly of the "heart" of man (see The biblical understanding of "heart"). Such is the danger of embracing false theologies such as Calvinism--it results in way too many troublesome texts for one's theology, in this instance, one's anthropology.