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Feb 22, 2010

Part I: Interview with Dr. Crampton (from paedobaptism to credobaptism)

Richard Barcellos | 3 Comments | Login to comment

Q1: Dr. Crampton, can you tell us a bit about yourself – family, education, ministerial experience, books published, current status?

A1: I was born in 1943 in Washington, D.C. I graduated from high school in 1961 and college in 1965. I earned an MBS from the Atlanta School of Biblical Studies, the Th.M. and Th.D. from Whitefield Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. from the Central School of Religion in Surrey, England. I live in Virginia, am married, and have two married daughters and five grand children. General interests primarily include reading (I am an inveterate reader, primarily on the subjects of theology and philosophy) and writing, but I also enjoy having a physical “work out” each day. As to my church affiliation, I am a Reformed Baptist, and an advocate of the teachings found in the London Baptist Confession of 1689 and the Reformed Baptist Shorter Catechism. Over the last twenty-five years I have pastored three churches and have had the opportunity to preach and teach at a number of other churches. My wife and I are currently members of the Reformed Baptist Church of Richmond, Virginia.

Books I have written include: What Calvin Says, Study Guide to the Westminster Confession, The Scripturalism of Gordon H. Clark, and By Scripture Alone, which were published by The Trinity Foundation. Soli Deo Gloria has published my What the Puritans Taught and Meet Jonathan Edwards. My He Shall Glorify Me was published by Whitefield Press, and Blue Banner Ministries published my Christ the Mediator, as well as Built Upon the Rock, Toward a Christian Worldview, and So Great a Salvation (these last three books were co-authored with Dr. Richard E. Bacon). Apologetics Press published Calvinism, Hyper-Calvinism, and Arminianism, which I coauthored with Dr. Kenneth Talbot, and Reformation Heritage Books published my A Conversation with Jonathan Edwards. I have also had a number of articles published by different Christian magazines, newspapers, etc. (e.g., The Blue Banner, The Confessional Presbyterian, The Trinity Review, New Southern Presbyterian Review, Chalcedon Report, The Christian Statesman, and Journey).

Q. 2: How long have you wrestled with the issue of the subjects of baptism?

A2: I have been struggling with the matter of paedobaptism versus credobaptism for almost twenty years.

Q3: What are some of the main problems you encountered with paedobaptism that caused you to keep studying?

A3: There were several issues that bothered me about the doctrine of paedobaptism. I will mention only one, and that is there is simply no text in the New Testament (NT) wherein there is any mention of the baptism of infants. This is admitted by some of the finest paedobaptist theologians that have written on the subject. This means, as admitted and taught by these same paedobaptist theologians, that we must go back to the Old Testament (OT) to establish the doctrine. When it comes to the other NT sacrament of the Lord’s supper, however, the paedobaptist theologians do not apply the same hermeneutic principle. That is, the recipients of the Lord’s supper are determined by the NT teaching rather than the OT teaching. The inconsistency here is glaring. Another problem here is that the OT does not mention baptism of infants at all. What this hermeneutic assumes is that the Abrahamic covenant, wherein the male infants were circumcised, is still binding on the NT church on virtually a one-to-one basis, and therefore the infants of believers should be baptized. There are so many difficulties here (which I write about in my book) that they are far too numerous to deal with in an interview like this. The most serious error committed here is that of overstressing the continuity of the Old and New Covenant to the detriment of the discontinuity between the two. The Reformed Baptist doctrine is not in any sense dispensational; rather, it is fully covenantal. It recognizes that there is most certainly a continuity between the two covenants, but there is also a discontinuity that must be seen (see Jeremiah 31:31-34; compare Hebrews 8:6-13).

Category: Sacraments

Comments

Tim Etherin on Feb 22, 2010 5:02pm

Wow, I like this interview already! The one problem I've seen is that the inconsistency is glaring and some have resolved it by being consistent and instituting paedocommunion. You would think that that would signal to more people that there is something amiss.

Marshall Waren on Mar 2, 2010 10:53am

The Bible reveals things both explicitly or implicitly to us. Not everything is explicit in God's word. Baptism is one on these implicit things when it comes to infants. Two places in Acts and 1 Cor 1:13-17 where whole households are baptized. Considering the make up of families in the Middle East at that time it is highly likely there were infants involved. When matching that with the several thousand years tradition of Christians baptizing their children that is convincing enough for me.

Brandon Adams on Mar 10, 2010 8:20pm

"When matching that with the several thousand years tradition of Christians baptizing their children"

Or you could match it with the several thousand years tradition of Christians not baptizing their children.

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