Schilder was a courageous and brilliant pioneer in the field of redemptive-historical interpretation and preaching and his published volumes of sermons, accessible to readers of Dutch, may perhaps be his greatest legacy.

He was fond of Abraham Kuyper, but refused to embrace all the theological categories Kuyper introduced or endorsed. He routinely castigated the fixation with Kuyperian theological categories and dichotomies as scholasticism. He was particularly perturbed by Kuyper’s view of presumptive regeneration. Since the sacraments confirm faith (LD 25) and since we can’t know whether an infant has faith, Kuyper insisted that regeneration and faith must be presupposed in the infant baptismal candidate in order for baptism to make sense. If we could see that the infant didn’t or wouldn’t have faith, Kuyper speculated, there wouldn’t be any purpose in baptizing him or her. For this reason, some Kuyperian ministers, after baptizing a child, would say, “Let’s hope this was a real baptism.” The baptisms of children who proved to be unbelievers were meaningless spillings of water.

Schilder insisted that the basis for baptism must be God’s objective promises and not our presuppositions. He did not want to narrow the scope of covenant to the decree of election. What God said in history was, for Schilder, just as important as what He decreed in eternity past. God speaks promises to children being baptized. Who are we to diminish the importance or doubt the sincerity of that speech?

Schilder thought that a lot of Kuyper’s dichotomies (external covenant/internal covenant, visible church/invisible church, militant church/triumphant church, etc.), when pressed, hindered a proper interpretation of Scripture.

Read the rest at Episcopos: Questions for the CanRC (1).