Calvinist Conversations: Baptist & Presbyterian Discuss the Covenant of Grace

Apologia Utah

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00:00

I guess you just dive in, right? You didn't want to say anything, because I thought maybe it was like a low -key hearing aid or something.

00:12

No, I'm not deaf. I heard what you had to say last night. There were some points where I wasn't sure about that.

00:19

After last night, I think I'm convinced. External, you know, he's got someone speaking with his ear.

00:26

James is on the other end of that. That's what's going on. He's a five -month -old infant at home, and he will be baptized upon a profession of faith.

00:35

Upon a profession of faith. This will be good. We've got about a three -year separation between us, and that's something we determined on the way home last night.

00:43

That's the great thing about Apologia. You guys don't actually practice your theology. Well, I think we practice our theology very well.

00:52

Just on that question, Jeff, I love you. You know, we've talked about this. A lot of the question,

00:57

I think, is that, and we touched on this last night, and I think we covered it well enough for an introduction, but obviously with the constraints of time frame and such, you know, you can only get to so much.

01:10

I think there's a misconception a lot of times, as far as my belief goes, that our

01:16

Presbyterian brothers like yourself will think that we somehow think we have these regeneration goggles, or that we can know with certainty that this person is regenerate, and therefore, we only administer baptism to the regenerate, and that's not the position.

01:32

Now, obviously, do we seek to administer to the regenerate? Yes, of course, we seek to do that, and we do that according, and both of us would say this, that we seek to administer these things according to the

01:44

Word of God. Where the disagreement comes down, obviously, is, well, first of all, what's the sign of the

01:51

New Covenant? And that's something we've touched on briefly. I believe you would say, and correct me, baptism is the sign of that.

02:01

And I would say that regeneration, I find Old Testament circumcision finds its fulfillment in New Testament circumcision.

02:08

Old Testament baptism finds its fulfillment in New Testament baptism. That circumcision is relevant.

02:17

It's not as if circumcision went away, it was escalated. It went from this physical, visible thing to an inner reality that was experienced not just after the

02:30

Incarnation of Christ, but the blessing actually flowed across history, which

02:35

I think we both agree, from this sure promise, the sure work of Christ that flowed through history and was given to people all throughout history under different covenants.

02:45

So, just like, it's not, the consistency is that we don't think that we perfectly know the secret things of God, but we do know that here's what

02:58

He has said as far as how to administer, who to administer to, and that's a common point.

03:03

And this wasn't even the topic last night, but it's so related. It's going to go there. Both sides can look at the other side and say, well, you're doing something that's not commanded.

03:13

And we do. And that's where, from the Baptist perspective, you say, well, where does the Bible command baptizing infants?

03:19

And from the Presbyterian perspective, you say, where does the Bible command that you only baptize people? Maybe the weird Baptist, well, they were baptized in the

03:26

Red Sea. It's just a different baptism. The wider question of what is the sign, well, that's probably more a semantic discussion on what does sign mean.

03:37

We actually both agree that the symbol of a regenerate community is baptism.

03:45

That's what we, we agree on that. Say that again. I don't know if we do. Well, okay, so. We might.

03:52

So, you say that the new covenant sign is regeneration, right?

03:57

But that's not actually a sign, right? Sure, it points to the reality. But you just acknowledge that you don't actually know who is regenerate and who is not.

04:05

Is it visible or is it not? So, it's going from whose perspective is the question here, and a lot of times I think that would be the answer. But how does that match up?

04:11

I'm trying to understand how that matches up. It's not a gotcha question. How does it match up with starting with saying, okay, we don't have special knowledge as Baptists, right?

04:20

We don't have infallible knowledge, but sure. Correct, right? We don't have, we don't actually claim to know who's regenerate and who's not.

04:26

We have infallible knowledge, but we don't know perfectly. Correct, it's not a matter of ourselves.

04:32

We don't know something that God hasn't revealed to us. And one of the things he hasn't revealed to us is who is regenerate ultimately and who is not.

04:39

That's correct. So, how can something that you can't see be a sign? Do you know you're regenerate?

04:46

I, no, not ultimately. You don't know that you don't. I believe that I am. You can't have assurance.

04:53

Yes, you can have assurance, but that's the difference between no, right? And when you say no, do you mean know as God knows?

04:58

No, obviously not. No, we don't. Know as well as a human can know? Yes. Based on his clear revelation.

05:05

And so that's, I think, where this difference comes from, right? Yeah, and that's where discussing what is the visible church?

05:13

What is the invisible church? And what are we commanded to do in relation to them?

05:19

How are we commanded to relate to the visible church? How are we commanded to relate to the invisible church?

05:25

Those are the questions. And it's not, I think, so much, at least from my perspective,

05:32

I don't actually, I'm not trying to speak for a Presbyterian perspective per se in that I'm here to represent my

05:42

Presbyterian brothers. No, I'm not. Sure. Although you are a good representative, brother.

05:47

Well, thank you. Of some of them. That was very nice. Yeah. The question ultimately comes down to how do we relate to the visible church as opposed to the invisible church?

06:02

And it's not that we are, that I would think, well, you are claiming to have knowledge of something that you can't have.

06:10

It's that there seems to be a going back and forth, a substitution. That when we start talking about what, who is in the covenant of grace, right?

06:22

And that's where we started. There is, sometimes we're talking about visible and sometimes we're talking about invisible without delineating which one we're talking about.

06:32

I would always be talking about the invisible. Okay. The covenant of grace. Interesting. So then on what basis do we baptize people?

06:40

We do baptize upon profession. Upon profession. Is that invisible or visible? That's visible. We do baptize, and so that's where I was hoping to come to.

06:47

See, that's what I'm saying. We just went from one to the other without acknowledging it. But only one is a member of the covenant.

06:54

Because you define covenant as regenerate. And I think this is good because last night, I think last night,

07:00

The format makes it hard to do this. Well, no, I think last night was proof that we were hovering over the right target.

07:06

Yes, agreed. Like, it came down to, But I'm able to go and put our finger right on it too.

07:11

Just time to time, and hopefully we can touch a little here. But even on the car ride home,

07:17

I think we would say, What you thought was your strongest point, I'd go, That was your weakest point, bro.

07:23

That was my strongest point. And vice versa. Which I think is good because that is where the discussion hasn't often been had.

07:30

And when it has been had, it hasn't been done well. I think something you did really well last night,

07:38

And something that should be fleshed out and thought about by Baptists. Understand visible and invisible distinctions.

07:45

We need to think about this. We need to understand what it means to be part of the covenant of grace,

07:53

Which I defined, but what it means from my definition here, To have justifying faith and to be justified before the

08:02

Holy God, Versus to have that external connection. And they aren't necessarily the same thing.

08:08

They aren't necessarily the same thing. And I think where a lot of some people from my side have failed,

08:15

But praise God, it's starting to come up more. We do need to think about that.

08:20

And I think if I was going to just praise you and go, Hey man, what you did really well last night was you drove home.

08:26

We need to understand Ecclesia. And where I think you might have fallen a little short.

08:34

And what I would love to hear, whether today or just in coming discussions, It seems like, at least from where I'm coming from,

08:42

You had either a hard time articulating or the format, whatever,

08:48

But what is the covenant of grace versus these other covenants?

08:57

Like when we say that, for example, When you would say that Noah is an administration of the covenant of grace,

09:06

Whatever verbiage or phraseology you'd want to use there. What does that mean? And on my side,

09:11

I think we'd need to dig in and go, Alright, visible and invisible. How and why do you come to the conclusions that you do?

09:19

But you did a good job on that. And I think we can both. I appreciate that.

09:25

I think there are many ways in which it comes down to a semantic discussion

09:33

Of terms that we have added to the entire debate.

09:39

And I'm not saying added to in a sinful way. You have to describe what you see.

09:45

But I think that this disconnect comes down to a difference of opinion

09:52

On the value of the terms themselves. The term covenant of grace, we did talk about it a lot.

10:00

We talked a lot last night about the value or where that term comes from And whether or not that is a useful term

10:10

And what should the process be in using that term. I strongly disagree with coming up with a term that we overlay on Scripture.

10:21

And not necessarily in a bad way. But we impose upon Scripture. We're saying,

10:27

I'm observing these things And I'm going to describe the grouping of these things as the covenant of grace.

10:34

We're both doing that. There are two different ways of doing that. That's our conclusion, I would imagine. But the problem is, there are certainly times

10:42

When in order to gain a Scripture understanding of something You have to do that because we aren't given clear direction.

10:48

And this is where you look at it and you say, Okay, I'm going to look in these different places

10:53

I'm going to assemble an understanding from them And then I'm going to make decisions based on that understanding. Which is something we all do, even if we're not aware of it.

11:00

And it's something that we must do in certain cases Because there are things that God leaves to our freedom to decide.

11:07

And we're not free just to go, well then, great, I get to make it up as I go along. We are free to go to the Scriptures and say Are you saying that us

11:13

Baptists are not free to just follow our hearts? I'm saying that none of us are free for that.

11:18

Because unfortunately there are Presbyterians who love to do it as well. We love to do it on the finer details

11:25

Such as what exactly has God commanded regarding speaking an untruth? What exactly has

11:30

God commanded regarding the Sabbath? So my truth is only true if it's God's truth. Correct.

11:36

Amen. We have a lot in common. There is an order of priority for making assumptions.

11:42

That's why we call them good and necessary consequence. It's good and necessary because What is good and necessary in the question of Should I spank my children or not?

11:51

Is different from the question Are my children included among the covenant community or not? Those are two different questions that The reason they're different is because There are varying degrees of revelation to answer that question.

12:04

And so when we deal with the question of Are children in the covenant community? Which to me, we're going to say covenant of grace, covenant of community

12:13

This is the same thing because we're talking about the visible church. When you say covenant of grace, you are talking about the invisible church.

12:21

I am talking about the invisible church. And that's where the terms of the debate are going to be challenging

12:26

Because the term itself, covenant of grace, means two very different things.

12:32

Well, here's why I think it's I'm glad that we settled on the I don't know if we call it thesis, but the topic

12:39

That we did for the debate last night is A lot of times, especially up here where you live, right?

12:45

You'll deal with people who say they believe in Christ. Right, and they mean something very different. And they mean something so different.

12:51

Now, that's not the case with us. We can look, we could go and This is about the only area where we use a term that means

12:56

Hold our confessions next to one another Which neither of us hold to 100%, I don't think. But we're really close.

13:02

They're good representations. Yes. And that really is a section where We're using this term differently, but when we, especially

13:12

Listen, man, Presbyterians have written such Great stuff. And Baptists And Presbyterians alike, we want to go read that stuff, right?

13:22

Sure. But this can become a problem. Yes, it is. I won't even necessarily say problem.

13:28

This can be difficult Because we use that particular phrase All the time

13:35

In our writings. Whether you and I do or not, but This phrase comes up all the time

13:41

And it's just, I think it's kind of just Assumed by both sides

13:47

That we're using it in the exact same way. Whereas it's like, well this is a conclusion of a theological system

13:53

Which we all must do. Which, hopefully if we're being consistent That we all strive to do that That hopefully we're not imposing upon You know, let's be charitable here, but This is a conclusion of a whole lot of other work

14:05

That we're using to wrap up an overarching idea Of how Christ Is taking dominion over the world.

14:12

He's placing everything under his feet And it's all his And he's done this for all time

14:18

By grace, through faith Like, here's how he does this And here's how he does this in history And they're not the same terms

14:26

But what's the difference then From where you're coming from From talking about a redemptive historical approach

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Versus And I think that's the difference, right? And this is something that I probably was not clear on And I think that It does need to be more clear

14:43

I do not believe that the definition Of covenant of grace Is actually determinative

14:48

In who is included in the covenant community You do Because to you, covenant of grace

14:54

Means invisible church You're talking today I'm talking right now

15:00

In order to go to the Bible and say Okay, how do we know Whether or not children should be included

15:07

We do not need to say Well, first of all, we need to decide what the covenant of grace is Because the Bible doesn't use that term

15:13

That is a summary term We need to go and ask What does the Bible say about How God relates to the children of believers

15:21

Now, we can say that's a gracious covenant We can say it's a covenant Or we can say, you can describe it any way we want

15:27

But those are all extra -biblical terms That are very good for Things like figuring out

15:32

What is the bigger picture here How does Christ Take dominion over the earth

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How does this work Those are very beneficial terms As we describe what we see

15:43

God doing But then to take that And turn around and say Now we're going to answer this question

15:48

Of how does God relate to the children of believing parents And say, well, first of all We have to define what the covenant of grace is

15:55

That's, I believe, where the stumbling block is And it's not because we used That term in the title of the debate

16:02

It would have come up Because of the varying understandings Of what the covenant community is

16:08

You want to use the term covenant of grace To describe the ekklesia The biblical term is ekklesia

16:13

The extra -biblical term is Covenant of grace and who's in it We could say even the biblical term

16:20

Is Israel The biblical term Well, ekklesia of Israel to be specific I think we both were touching on that But we're coming at it from Different, I think

16:31

Some different sides here We both agree with continuity We both agree with discontinuity Where are we coming at this from I tried to touch on that By illustrating

16:43

Here's who the parties are In the Abrahamic covenant Here's who the parties are in Moses Here's who the parties are under the new covenant

16:51

And then looking And I don't know that we have time to exegete Romans 11 It would be great, but we could touch on it

16:56

But if nothing else What we are going to both affirm There's one olive tree

17:02

There's one people of God And the question is what defines Who is in that ekklesia

17:09

Does God get to determine Of course you'd say yes This is a set -up question a little bit But something we can both agree on Is that does

17:17

God get to determine Who's in that? Of course we will say yes And then the question is

17:22

How does He determine Who is in that? How do we know Who He's determined, what is in that Visible or invisible

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That's the only question And then the connecting point there That I would love to see

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Spelled out is we can see a continuity Of this is God Accomplishing His eternal

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Purpose that was Established before the foundation of the world Between Him and the Son To redeem a certain people to His glory

17:50

The covenant of redemption That have not yet been fully revealed They have not been fully revealed yet Because we do not yet know

17:56

And so when we say well we can't baptize people Because they haven't professed faith yet That isn't based on Whether or not the

18:05

New Testament commands it Or forbids it one way or the other Because it doesn't do either Well here's where I was going with that We agree

18:12

His eternal purpose is the same And what He's doing throughout History through the covenants

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Which is one of the large ways That He organizes scripture And reveals Himself and His purpose

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To the world Is He's Accomplishing something through all

18:30

That God's purpose remains the same Throughout all of these covenants And He's bringing to pass the fulfillment

18:35

And bringing into history the Messiah And so where I Would love

18:44

If we look at We must look at how it was revealed We look at something like the

18:50

Abrahamic covenant Or the Mosaic covenant And we understand there's one olive tree So we're not talking about the parties We're talking underneath that What are the promises that are made

19:00

In this covenant to those parties What are the rules That they need to obey to Obtain covenant blessing

19:08

Or is this the type of covenant That is a free good gift of God Like in Abraham That God is doing all this

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He's walking through the pieces Or is this another one where You can bow down to foreign gods Why then would you

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Why would you Assume that what is done In one covenant under that administration

19:32

By using typical Presbyterian That it must therefore Be done in this other

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Historical covenant We can agree that God's eternal purpose is the same But why do we say

19:44

What's the merit for saying Just because it was done this way here That in this

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Separate covenant Which is connected But is a separate covenant

19:55

With different promises Why then would we say that It has to be done the same way here

20:01

Why not say That's a great question It's because we are commanded to assume

20:07

That what we are told in the Old Testament Remains the same Unless we are told it has changed

20:12

The way we know that parts of covenants Have been replaced with other parts of covenants Is not primarily

20:19

The terms of the covenant And our then human assumption That well I think this cancels this

20:24

And that gets down to the typology question The typology question And I should have elucidated further last night

20:30

And that's something I did poorly I know you agree with that So now that's the advantage here

20:36

Typology is very valuable When we allow the Bible To define the types

20:42

And it's not just Well I observe that this thing Looks like this thing So I'm going to call them a type

20:50

That's bad And from my perspective Renahan does this

20:55

Not intending to do evil But allowing his Eisegesis to mix

21:01

While I was influenced a lot By his work I'm not here to defend it entirely

21:07

But broadly speaking The reason I mentioned it now Is because I defined my answer last night I was unable to know

21:12

The question was What do you think about typology And my answer is well I'm not sure

21:17

But I'm assuming you're using the word The way Renahan used it Based on the question And I believe Renahan's typology

21:22

Is eisegetic But that doesn't mean That there's no typology There is typology It's just that we're not free

21:29

To observe and create the types We're not free to then link the types We've created We have to look at the types

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That's told this is a type Adam is a type of Christ Great now we have a type

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Would you agree like You asked a really great question

21:46

In the core of that And I kind of got distracted With types So how do we know

21:52

That this part of the Abrahamic covenant I shall be God to your children Applies under any other covenant

21:59

It's because We are told That the entire Old Testament Is necessary For our perfection

22:09

In other words In order to be perfectly equipped To be a perfect man of God That means that we have to accept

22:17

The other parts of scripture Which remove things And then allow the things that are not removed

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To stay And we can't say that because this covenant Had different terms

22:27

Yeah but it's an assumption It's a false assumption to say And therefore it wipes out everything in the other covenant

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That's like saying that because this covenant of marriage Between these two people and God These three parties

22:38

Is different parties Than this covenant This covenant involves different parties than this covenant of marriage Between these two people and God That the terms are different No the biblical terms of marriage are the same

22:48

Yet they are different covenants They are different covenants but the terms remain the same What's different about them is that they involve

22:54

Exclusively, they exclusively involve different people They do, yes But we wouldn't say that because these people are different The terms are different That guy, this covenant, they decided that they could have an open marriage

23:04

And they could sleep around And that would be fine No, we would say no Because God defines the terms of the covenant

23:09

And just because the covenant individuals Are different The terms remain the same

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Now I'm not saying that that locks it in I'm saying it demonstrates that we can never say That because this is a different covenant

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That the terms are automatically different That they automatically replace things But we would agree that two different covenants

23:27

Could have two different terms Yes, and how do we know? Because the Bible tells us How do we know the

23:32

Aaronic priesthood Has been replaced with a better priesthood? Because the Bible tells us How do we know that That the mosaic

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That the ceremonial aspects Of the mosaic law have been replaced Because the Bible tells us

23:46

How do we know that the Covenant membership But not just replaced though, right?

23:52

I think we would agree on this New and better Correct It's replaced in this sense

23:58

Like the words of When Christ says He didn't come to Abolish the law but to fulfill it

24:04

Right Now it might sound like this to your ears That I'm going to abolish that Sure, well

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He did abolish certain things And that's why fulfill Can mean amplify

24:16

And it can mean replace But it's a fulfillment Not in the sense of like Hey, that didn't work

24:23

Let's try plan B God had plan A That would be dispensation And so He's always had the same plan

24:30

And what He's doing is He's bringing to fruition And He's filling this all up To this consummate point of Christ finishing the work

24:39

Of the Messiah Do you hear, just so we can Maybe wrangle this in a little bit

24:46

While you might think I'm inconsistent Do you hear me saying that We just do away with the

24:52

Old Testament No, I hear you saying that In one thing that you don't like We do away with it without warrant

24:58

Where do you hear me saying that? Because I wouldn't affirm that Right, and I realize that you wouldn't

25:04

And I love and respect you And I want to be very clear I know where you're coming from I know where apologia is coming from And you are some of the most

25:14

Consistent Christians In America And just real brief on that I don't want to get you off topic

25:21

This is actually important Just because I promote a certain view I think the

25:26

London Baptist Confession For example, which once again isn't Our primary standard, it's our secondary standard But it's a standard

25:34

It is broader in its allowance It can allow for a view of the covenants Like you would hold

25:39

Or it can allow for one like I would hold And I think that was done so on purpose By its framers

25:45

So there's been a lot of people Who I won't name names, but there's been a lot of people

25:51

Who I think have been a little contentious In the past going like, hey Baptist If you don't see it this way

25:57

And I've also seen that change And people grow over time And have a wider understanding

26:04

So In presenting My understanding There's a lot of Baptists that would hold

26:11

The same understanding that you do as far as Covenant of grace We had great debates

26:17

Just last week online A brother who's a friend of a friend Jumped into a debate on his friend's

26:22

Facebook page We had a fun debate We friended one another afterward After having a good discussion

26:27

I think I mentioned it last night But his perspective is that, well yes Our children are in the covenant

26:33

But we don't baptize them until they profess faith And from my perspective, okay, it's inconsistent

26:39

But I believe it is Less inconsistent than trying to claim That they're not in the covenant at all

26:45

So back to what you pointed out On the spot for myself You're saying, yeah

26:50

Eric You're not doing this, but on this one point Only on this one point, that's a great question How and where am I doing that?

26:56

And I appreciate your humility brother I want to be very clear about that I would not

27:03

Want to be mistaken To be mistaken saying How do I say that?

27:08

I would not be mistaken as if I was saying You're trying to do away with the entire

27:14

Old Testament Or that you're trying to assume That the Old Testament doesn't apply unless the New Testament repeats it I realize

27:20

That's the furthest thing from your mind But there's one little place And in fact, when it comes down to What's the value of the

27:28

Old Testament In defining whether or not women Should be allowed at the table We all actually agree that the value of the

27:34

Old Testament Is great That the way we know for sure Is from the Old Testament I think we would agree

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And that's where Some of my other Baptist friends have pointed out We do believe in good and necessary consequence

27:48

They would say, we Baptists believe in good and necessary consequence And we can reason our way By assembling these different passages

27:55

But when it comes to The Inclusion of children in the covenant community

28:00

In the visible church Not the invisible church We are told

28:05

That they are included In no uncertain terms We actually agree that before Christ came

28:11

Esau was born A member of the covenant And later was proven to not be part of The invisible church

28:19

The definite article is where I think we get hung up When I say the covenant community You immediately go to invisible

28:25

I don't there Not when you're talking And that's something that We just probably won't get to the bottom of And I think we're both so conditioned

28:34

Through our studies And traditions To hear that a certain way

28:39

But the definite article, the, matters You're saying excluded from The covenant

28:48

What covenant Am I saying there If I'm going to say they're excluded

28:53

If I'm putting on my baby kicking shoes And I kick babies out of the covenant Which covenant

28:58

Am I kicking those babies out of So there is There's a difference

29:03

This comes back to the idea that The next covenantal

29:09

Revelation is how I would say it Is actually its own separate Thing and that is

29:14

Distinct and very different From everything before or everything After. The problem is that it is

29:21

Always generally Applying to the people of God There are no covenants

29:26

That we want to discuss Of course you can talk about other contracts And other covenants but the covenant

29:31

As we're defining it for this debate Is there one that did not involve God's people

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Now we can say that the covenant of redemption Was not specifically with God's people

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We might look At Adam and Noah But generally, yes, absolutely

29:50

Even those What are we talking about? Was there application outside The covenant community?

29:56

Absolutely, there always is But this is not Okay, this covenant is going to be With Ammon and this covenant

30:03

Is going to be with the Philistines No, it's always about the people of God It's about the Ecclesia It's always about the

30:09

Ecclesia To say that because, which covenant? Well, these are all with They're all going somewhere

30:16

They're all about Christ They all include the covenant community And it's all God saying I am going to do this and you're going to do that We agree on all that And so when we say covenant community

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It is the visible church That's what we're talking about Now, ultimately, when we get to heaven

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We will have much more special knowledge About who is in and who is out We're going to be able to look around and go

30:38

Well, I guess we know who's here now That doesn't mean it's going to be absolute I'm not proposing that each individual will

30:45

Suddenly know everybody in heaven I don't know, we're not told But we will have a lot more knowledge

30:50

As to who is actually in the invisible church I would hope at that point we would know And I'm not sure

30:56

But then there are some individuals Interestingly, that God tells us point blank

31:01

Esau is one of the most dramatic He was born a member Of the visible church

31:07

The Ecclesia And we're told that God hated him And rejected him And so he's not part of the invisible church

31:15

This is actually a good point Just because you say the assembly The Ecclesia Does not necessarily follow

31:23

It might But it doesn't necessarily follow You couldn't take every instance of Ecclesia And go, clearly that's the covenant community

31:30

So I think there needs to be Not even that we broadly disagree

31:35

Just that sometimes we've got to be a little more I think, I hate being this guy But sometimes you've got to be

31:41

A little more nuanced To broadly go Well it says Maybe nuanced is whatever

31:49

You have to be specific And we have to kind of drill in on this A little bit and it can seem pedantic

31:55

I think to a lot of people So I'm thankful that just broadly speaking Like this is happening

32:01

In front of your fireplace With love and affection for one another Understanding we're both purchased by the same blood

32:08

Of the same savior And then we can look at this And maybe we can't drill down a little But one of the issues I would have is

32:13

It's one thing to say That this community is called In the Septuagint, the

32:19

Ecclesia The assembly, right? And then in the New Testament We also have the assembly Okay, this group was identified as the

32:28

Ecclesia This group was identified as the Ecclesia But Who is included in the

32:34

Ecclesia? This is where It comes back to the olive tree And it comes back to Romans 11

32:42

And we look Whatever our interpretation of Romans 11 is And there's a couple interpretations

32:48

That are popular Whatever our interpretation of it is It can't do

32:55

Damage To the golden chain There's a whole context being set up here

33:00

From chapters 1 to chapter 8 Culminating in this beautiful fact That Christ has done this for His people

33:07

So however we His people Whoever Whoever we see included

33:16

And being talked about in Romans 11 Whatever our interpretation is Paul's not going to be talking

33:21

In such a way where he contradicts himself From just a couple chapters earlier So we have to both, or we would both acknowledge

33:28

Those who are called Are ultimately glorified It's the same group Those who are elect

33:33

Because we can use those terms differently too So in Romans 11 When he says, here's who's in the olive tree

33:42

That he's saying, look beforehand There was this dual connection Because there's dual There's this dual connection

33:49

Of those who are in Abraham Were those who Were his physical seed

33:55

But not just his physical seed There were also those who had the faith of Abraham And this is why

34:01

Before he was circumcised, etc. He's the father of the circumcised and the uncircumcised

34:06

There's the physical seed And there's the spiritual seed And sometimes there's a blending there

34:11

But in Romans 11 I would argue That what we see here

34:17

Is Those who do not have faith Those who are in the

34:24

Ecclesia Who don't have faith Correct God prunes off of that So we would say at least at some point here

34:33

This tree has now been pruned of the faithless Right It's the wheat and the tares One, who's doing the pruning of that tree

34:40

We visibly express that Through the visible church But the tree itself

34:46

Who's doing the pruning of that tree I would argue it's God who pruned those Without faith off of that tree

34:52

And now this is actually a really important thing I'll finish my little point here I'm not saying

34:59

That infants can't be in the tree I'm not saying that A newly conceived baby

35:06

Can't be in the tree God elects who He elects So it's not a question

35:12

Like that's the invisible church And not only does He elect who He elects But He can regenerate them at any point

35:18

That He desires In the womb or on the deathbed Or anywhere in between They may very well be in the tree

35:24

But the difference here Is the visible expression of that God ultimately prunes off Those who don't have faith

35:32

Right When does He do that? I think it was a time thing That He was pruning certain people off And grafting in When Christ came

35:40

If you did not acknowledge Christ Right Which I think is a John type of thing But it's the same general concept

35:47

Right There are times And this is something When a new covenant comes

35:53

There was a time when the new covenant Was the Mosaic covenant It was the newest one It was the one we hadn't heard of before And that's the difference

36:02

Between what does new mean New means getting rid of everything else Most of the time new means renewed

36:10

But it doesn't always mean that It's the one I haven't heard of So we have to have more than just calling it new

36:16

So we call the new covenant We mean the new covenant in my blood Jesus said

36:21

The one that was in His blood But there was a time when each of the covenants Was the newest one

36:28

And at that time In every example You have some new requirements

36:34

That must be met in order to Keep up And if you don't, you're out That happened

36:39

When you have people who are Their revelation is the Abrahamic covenant And they are circumcising

36:46

And those who came out of Israel Were told were circumcised But now you get to Sinai And oh my goodness, there's the

36:52

Ten Commandments And there's a whole bunch of new ceremonial laws That if we don't keep, what happens?

36:57

What's the term? You will be cut off from the covenant community From the people of God And so that pruning is not unique To The new covenant in Christ's blood

37:10

Would you say That the visible community

37:16

Under Moses, for example That the way that Somebody was pruned off Was because they did not have

37:26

Faith? Or they were pruned off because the fact That they didn't have faith

37:31

Expressed itself From a human perspective We cannot define Whether or not someone has faith

37:37

We have to look at the physical signs And so they were cut off physically For disobedience

37:43

In the same way that under the new covenant If someone professes faith

37:48

And is baptized and then later Enters into unrepentant sin And goes through the process of Matthew 18

37:54

Where we have repeated Okay, brother, you did this We're talking to this sinful brother

38:00

Do you understand that you did this? Individual, and then two And then the church So you have multiple steps of demonstrating

38:07

What's going on inside But we don't say, I can tell That you don't have faith No, we go through that process that you're describing

38:15

And eventually I think we can reasonably say But there's a process

38:20

Your life shows that you do not have faith Repent And over time it's demonstrated one way or the other

38:27

There's repentance Great, back we go Into the covenant community

38:32

Or there is hard -heartedness And eventually that person removes themselves

38:37

From the covenant community And the church has to acknowledge Well, you've removed yourself You are refusing, you've had multiple

38:43

At least three opportunities here Individual, being your brother, the entire church To repent, and you haven't

38:50

And so you're out You are cut off from the covenant community And so it's not like That never happens

38:58

Of course it happens People are cut off from the visible church all the time And rightfully so And yet, we're also given

39:06

The parable of the Servants who come and say, Lord Shall we weed out the tares from among the wheat

39:13

And he says, no We'll take care of that on judgment day Well, obviously he wasn't talking about A Matthew 18 process

39:19

He was talking about people who Are in the visible church But not in the invisible church, and we can't prove it

39:26

We don't think so, we think that's the case But in order to root them out We would have to go in and end up kicking

39:32

Sooner or later in our In finiteness, we would kick somebody out Who was not actually

39:37

So where we agree on this is We both agree

39:43

That there's a Visible community We both agree with that We both agree that that visible community

39:49

You can be kicked out of that Visible community, and you might Actually be part of the invisible community

39:55

At that point and repent and come back But you can get kicked out You can get kicked out We both agree on that I think

40:06

It would be valuable Just long term to Ask the questions

40:12

Of Romans 11 Who's doing the pruning Who's doing the pruning and what are the conditions

40:18

By which somebody's attached To that olive tree, and what is the root Of that olive tree, and this is a lot

40:23

People spent whole books On this that we're not going to do But like I'm glad we at least

40:31

We can both agree, hey there's a visible community And you absolutely can be kicked out of that community Unless you want to keep going with that Like I think something

40:42

It's hard with 20 minute opening To give everything Initially I sat down And I wrote out

40:48

I had like literally 10 ,000 words And I was like This is going to take me an hour or more

40:55

I can't do that So trimming that down There's a lot of detail

41:01

That I really wish I would have been Able to put in there And I know the same for yourself

41:06

One thing that I don't know If I was able to strongly enough To get across That I just want

41:13

To make sure I'm clear about Is in saying that The old covenant had

41:19

Works aspects In no way am I saying That those works aspects

41:25

Ever justified a person Before God It was not their works

41:31

That ever, and I think With our reformed ears, our Calvinistic ears Anytime you start talking about works

41:37

Everybody's like yay man So One thing

41:43

I would have loved To be able to say is like There was this works aspect For temporal blessing

41:49

But none of that works justified Anybody before God It was always the grace of Jesus Christ The question really that Was kind of kept coming up is

41:59

Where's that grace Coming from? We'd argue from faith And where's that faith coming from?

42:05

I would say that's a promise of the New covenant alone That promised and delivered that faith

42:11

Therefore Abraham David, Moses Everyone mentioned in Hebrews 11

42:17

They all were commended By their faith Which they received by grace

42:23

Through Believing the promise Of the gospel through the word of the gospel

42:29

Delivered to the extent that they had it But that Specifically It was not within the terms

42:36

Of the Abrahamic covenant or the Mosaic covenant that that grace That that regenerated heart

42:42

And that faith was actually promised As a reward What those promised were the

42:48

Messiah Who would bring that reward You know I actually agree with that Well thank you

42:53

What I don't understand is where it connects And that's where we go I think that we both would agree

43:00

There's types, there's shadows These animal sacrifices In and of themselves don't actually save you

43:06

It's because it's Pointing to Christ And it's because it's pointing to His work to come

43:12

That it is efficacious For anybody that has faith The sticking point is

43:18

Which covenant Actually promises to give that faith And which one is saying

43:24

We're going to bring the one who will bring That faith. I would argue the Old Testament economy Was designed to bring

43:30

About the Messiah Who would do that work and bring the covenant That gives faith so Abraham was looking forward and experiencing

43:38

This eschatological Faith In his own time

43:44

He was receiving it by looking forward to The New Covenant And Moses was receiving it by looking forward to The New Covenant.

43:51

It wasn't by What they were looking at there themselves It was by what

43:56

That pointed to And so I'm trying to nail home Typology last night

44:01

And in my I would have loved to have a little more time But just go like If you're hearing me say that an

44:09

Old Testament Saying is justified before God by their works May Namaste Sure, no, no, no

44:18

I understand that and I think that I don't see We could quibble over some of the

44:25

Semantic differences on how We would describe Where that comes from But I think the problem comes in When from there we say okay we could agree on that What's the application

44:37

Right, where does that then Lead us From my perspective that leads us to saying

44:43

Great, you have This Less grace in the

44:49

Old Testament Less understanding in the sense That we have A lot more understanding

44:55

In what's going on I want to understand your point When you say less grace Are you saying that the

45:02

Abraham had received less grace Are you saying that my point would be that Abraham Received less grace

45:08

Is it a less gracious time Are there a lot more dire Consequences in the sense that We have a large

45:17

Group of rules That must be adhered to And so Under, when

45:24

Christ comes He replaces a lot Most of that ceremonial law It was difficult keeping up with all of the

45:31

Ceremonial requirements It was impossible, that was the point Right, and so You can look at that and go

45:40

Do we get Do we look at this and go Wow, God is being gracious To us

45:46

In this period, well yes He is, because he's showing us We can look at this and go

45:52

In the big picture, is this better Than being doomed to what we deserve Yes, but is it better than not

45:59

Having to keep all of those ceremonial laws No, it's not better That's why this is a new and better covenant

46:05

Right, so we can have That discussion, but then when we From my perspective, what

46:10

I don't Understand is how that informs Anything about God's inclusion of children

46:18

What does it even have to do with it Here's what it has to do with it Is that If I was

46:26

Ever to move up here before Pastor Wade planted this church I would have gone to your church

46:32

Sure As I hope this is illustrating, we have so Much in common

46:38

And we even come to almost all the same Conclusions, and the same thing is true about Moving to Phoenix, you look at it and go,

46:43

I would be hard pressed To not join Apology Right, so with that in mind It's like, how does this connect, right

46:49

This is why we framed it as This isn't a baptism debate, but This is underneath it

46:55

This is what And how that's the case is If, I would argue

47:01

If the way that we view Covenantal history That's a good term

47:07

Whatever, if the way we view covenantal History is that All of these covenants

47:13

In and of themselves Were actually communicating Through their own promises

47:21

Justifying grace before the Holy God Yes Then, I would say there's merit

47:27

To say then, these are the same Covenant You can go with that These are overarching the same thing, they're all administering

47:36

The same thing They are all administering A tough term too, but they are

47:41

All the promises of them Are justifying grace Therefore We can see a continuity

47:48

We can see a continuity here That would carry over into Infant baptism, for example

47:54

Household baptism, however you want to phrase it I would argue that if we're going to take The position

48:01

That while those Old Testament Saints, one who lived under the covenant With Abraham Even Job, who probably wasn't circumcised

48:09

Into the covenant, or Melchizedek also Yet he was justified at the same time Yet was in the

48:14

Abrahamic covenant But not circumcised, because they had faith But someone at that time Were they

48:22

Receiving justifying grace By the terms of That covenant Or were they receiving justifying grace

48:29

By the terms of the covenant That it promises to provide To me, that's a fascinating question

48:35

It is the question that's under this But where does it connect to? Real quick, where it connects is that If we're making this distinction

48:45

That those who truly have justifying faith Even one under the Abrahamic Or Mosaic, whatever covenant

48:51

That justifying faith is not By means of the Abrahamic covenant, therefore the sign

48:57

Of the Abrahamic covenant Does not translate over to the Sign of this other covenant they're looking to So what's the connection to circumcision?

49:06

And that's where we get the typology Is that circumcision is fulfilled Circumcision is nothing

49:12

Christ has come, circumcision Physical circumcision But I'm using the biblical term

49:18

This is words from Paul's mouth, not mine Circumcision is nothing And then in Colossians 2 he also says

49:24

There's circumcision Why is it nothing? Because it was a type of a better Circumcision to come

49:32

And not necessarily only to come We understand more of it, but we're told Circumcision of the heart It's not just revealed to us in the new covenant

49:39

The old covenant actually told them You have uncircumcised hearts You have not circumcised your hearts

49:45

That's why the judgment of Isaiah is coming Because Did we have more understanding now than then?

49:52

Yes, that's the point But did they have no understanding back then? No, they were given all kinds of understanding

49:58

And there were thousands and thousands Hundreds of thousands, we don't know Millions of people who did have faith

50:05

By grace And who are part of the elect Yes, I agree with that And so that's where to say that Because we have been given more understanding

50:14

Or because the promises That were made Were actually fulfilled in Christ Is not to say

50:22

That it's over It's done That what is done? That this story is done

50:28

That our knowledge is full That the king has returned To the servants

50:33

And is demanding from them their talents That's to come And we look at it eschatologically and say

50:40

There's no way We can say that knowledge is full Or that this is complete

50:47

We have more knowledge But not all of it yet So we're in this continuum But I still struggle with understanding

50:54

How that continuum has anything to do With doing away With any part of any covenant

51:01

Anywhere We're obviously not going to convince each other Sitting in these chairs on camera, right?

51:10

I don't know that there's a whole lot more I could add to this Is just I think what you're doing there is

51:18

And you would accuse me of the same thing I think that you're reading your conclusion Into it there

51:24

I'm very open with my conclusion My conclusion is We are required biblically to accept everything we're given in the

51:30

Old Testament As the Word of God Applying directly to us Unless it is expressly changed

51:36

And I guess I would argue that Expressly changed Can also mean expressly fulfilled

51:42

Well can you give me an example Of any other Old Testament Very clear Old Testament command

51:48

That we would do away with Without an express Such as Circumcision is nothing

51:54

Or we have a new and better priesthood The Aaronic priesthood is done We are not the king

52:01

The physical descendant Besides Children, concluding the covenant

52:06

Give me one other major Theme Major command and communication

52:13

Of how God thinks That we do away with based on The term that you

52:19

Just used I said directly expressly Right that was fulfilled but not

52:24

Not expressly So once again I think whatever

52:29

I do think you're coming with a certain view there As you should right We Are the children

52:37

And I kind of Briefly tried to Explain that to you

52:43

Of course we have children but we don't believe in A halfway covenant where for example I would baptize my grandchildren

52:49

On Because you have no authority to baptize your grandchildren But What are you going to do tie mom and dad up If the principle is

53:00

You baptize The offspring Of a believing

53:05

Parent We are the offspring Of the believing parent

53:11

The one who has the circumcised heart Is the offspring And you're going to go When does it change

53:17

We are the offspring of Christ because we are the ones

53:23

Who were given to him We are the ones who Who he ultimately is our federal

53:29

Head not Adam We are his offspring because we're the ones that he Actually represents his finished work for Before they have a tabernacle

53:37

In Christ Are we told in the Bible that we are the offspring of Abraham Yes we are the offspring of Abraham and it also qualifies

53:43

And we are told by faith in Christ Correct correct and we're also told That Abraham was the

53:49

Is the father of the faithful Because he had Faith as well so faith in Christ Is underlying all of it by God's grace

53:58

Romans Four point blank right Okay so when did it change

54:04

I don't see the Change well The children the grandchildren

54:09

The great -grandchildren the great -great -grandchildren The great -great -great -great -great -great -great -grandchildren Both physical

54:15

And by faith of Abraham Are in the covenant And you actually agree that until The time of until Christ came

54:24

Unless their parent was cut off Correct right They were in the covenant of Abraham The covenant of Moses Well yes and Okay agreed

54:35

All designed to culminate and Fulfill in Jesus Christ yes But your point here

54:41

Is that we would not Baptize grandchildren Not based on But where does

54:48

I agree that's not my God doesn't say Abraham you shall circumcise

54:54

Your ninth great -grandchild He says you shall Circumcise your children and they

54:59

Shall circumcise their children Circumcise their children That's what's happening here Who does the

55:06

New Testament say Has the right to be called children of God Those whoever the

55:14

New Testament Says has the right to be called the children of God Okay I'm trying to recall that passage Yeah well I asked you because I couldn't remember

55:20

The exact passage either But we recognize right I could google it

55:26

John 1 John 1 Thank you Pastor Wade back there for the win

55:34

He's like yeah get it Uh You'll probably beat me to it

55:40

John 1 But to all who did

55:49

Receive him who believed in his name He gave the right to become children of God Who were born not of blood nor of The will of the flesh nor of the will of man

55:57

But of God so who is it That has the right to be called children of God All who did

56:03

Receive you're reversing It what it says is to all who Did receive him who believed in his name

56:09

He gave the right to become the children of God What you're saying that says is that Only those who believed

56:15

Were given the right that's not what that says Are you saying that those who don't receive him are Children of God I am saying that God Specifically claims the children of Believers before they have had

56:27

The chance to say one way or the other In the same way that Esau was included Nowhere are we told

56:33

That that has changed This does not say that the children of Those who believe are no longer

56:39

Included it says that those who Believe are given the right We are the children of the one

56:44

Who believed on our behalf Are you a child of Abraham In Christ And was

56:51

Isaac a child of Abraham In Christ Isaac was a child of Abraham Isaac was in Christ But he was a child of Abraham also in the flesh

57:01

But what's the difference Where does the Bible tell us that it's only about Faith now in Romans 11

57:07

No it doesn't it does well can you It says that you read it yeah I'll read it for you so speaking of God's promises right did

57:14

God fail Etc etc etc chapter 11 Verse 1 I ask then Has God rejected his people

57:20

Right this is the question by no Means for I myself am an Israelite A descendant of Abraham a member of The tribe of Benjamin okay hang on when you say

57:29

His people are you saying did God reject The ecclesia or are you saying did God Reject Israel Israel right right

57:35

Agreed You could act it would be a mistake to say that this Is the same thing Israel and Ecclesia are the same

57:41

Thing not oh no I Think Israel and Ecclesia is the same thing Yeah Okay so under the new covenant

57:49

Is Israel the Ecclesia By nature The Old Testament we are

57:55

The Israel of God correct yeah But the requirement for being In Israel changed that's what

58:01

That was the question you asked and so that's what I'm getting To is God has not rejected his people Whom he foreknew no

58:06

The question I asked is so where Can you show me that children Are no children of believing parents

58:13

Are no longer included it's not enough to be A physical descendant of Abraham in order To be in the

58:18

Ecclesia I'm Saying that there's two connections to Abraham you could have the physical or I don't Want to be right and I was

58:24

Very unclear that it's not it's not the Physical I'm not next In a way

58:30

Vitally what you're saying is Because we now have to have faith In Christ everyone

58:36

Has always been commanded to have faith in Christ but The question is what Jesus is the

58:41

Christ Right in the Old Testament there Was faith in a Christ the Christ was correct but he was going

58:48

To come we didn't know who he was yeah once He came now we have to acknowledge that That one individual that man

58:54

Yeah Jesus the son of God Seat of the woman the promise offspring Is the Christ yes so more

59:00

Knowledge is required yes right and If we fail to acknowledge that what Happens we're cut off we're cut off Right exactly the same way as in the

59:10

People are under the Abrahamic Covenant the Mosaic law is Handed down if we fail to acknowledge

59:16

That this is God's command And if I don't do this what happens we're Cut off of what so your standard

59:23

The invisible or the visible Church well if you are if you are Kicked out of the visible church

59:28

And you do not change your attitude We do not we do not repent we do not come Back then

59:34

Ultimately I think we're going to find that that person Is cut off from the invisible church now we don't know For certain right but We can't say that well everything

59:43

Up to this point was only The visible church and everything after Christ is only the invisible church

59:48

No we have a visible church we have a Visible church right and so what you're saying Is that because we had to acknowledge

59:54

Christ therefore Who is included in the covenant community Changed right

01:00:00

I could say that It's nothing an illegal alien Right illegal what do we call it what's the The term everyone

01:00:06

Wants to use now undocumented worker An illegal alien Right has a connection

01:00:12

To our country there's a connection There's an illegal connection But they have a connection and they've received

01:00:18

Benefits right but what but they are Cut off let's take it to Israel Right let's take it to Israel an alien right

01:00:24

Let's talk about Ruth Ruth was Not born into the covenant community

01:00:30

Correct she Came and acknowledged and said I profess

01:00:36

That I am accepting all of These requirements are Her children members of the covenant

01:00:42

Community or not were her children Members of the covenant community yes they Were yes they were so so how what's

01:00:48

Changed I'm not saying we're saying that because Christ has come and now we have to acknowledge Christ Suddenly the people the children of the people

01:00:54

Who acknowledge Christ are no longer part of the covenant Well that is to say that David wasn't part of the covenant David would not have been

01:01:00

An article there right David Would not have been part of the Visible church okay

01:01:06

The visible church includes Those who profess faith And their children

01:01:12

In the same way that Abraham had faith before He was circumcised and his children were

01:01:18

Included Ruth was not born Into the covenant community she Professed faith in God By grace and her

01:01:26

Children are now included even Though she's a Moabitess well she was An Israelite at that point right at that point she's

01:01:32

She's she's added in yeah right So under by faith under the New covenant what happens everybody

01:01:38

Jew and Gentile like now has to acknowledge that Jesus Christ Is the son of God that he

01:01:44

Is the Christ and For the promises to you and your children the Jew and those who are

01:01:50

Far off now we're going to have to debate as many Where does as many of the Lord shall call is that a limiting You know we're bringing that up you know right but so And we can debate that but just One more sentence yeah one more sentence

01:02:00

It is it is an unbiblical Assumption to say that now Because people who were in The covenant community have to accept a

01:02:08

New requirement that all of a Sudden it's the all bets are Offered for descendants that's it's

01:02:14

A non sequitur I don't think it's a new requirement Faith in Christ has always been As we said the new requirement

01:02:20

Is acknowledging who is the Christ We can have faith in the Christ Who is an unknown person

01:02:26

And that's very different it's the same But if I said I have faith in Christ And then

01:02:31

Christ showed up and I said yeah that's not him I just Nullified what I said I Don't have faith in Christ because I Didn't acknowledge

01:02:39

Jesus there were those who had A true faith in Christ And they didn't know a whole lot about him

01:02:45

They knew he was going to be the seed of the woman Who's going to crush The head of the serpent right

01:02:50

They knew that he was going to Be the redeemer and the Further you get through history the more and more

01:02:57

They knew and they would believe all they knew About that by revelation right and these people That you're describing died

01:03:03

Before they knew that Jesus Was the Christ before they knew that Hey this guy that this guy

01:03:08

Jesus the Nazarene this one Yes right yeah and so but they knew he Was coming but yes and they had faith and that Was sufficient yeah but there were there was

01:03:16

This generation that was born in that World and said we have faith in Christ And then all of a sudden they're faced with Day of Pentecost yeah

01:03:24

You killed him yeah And they have to say what shall we Do how forgive us what do we need to Do and what's the answer believe in the

01:03:32

Lord Jesus Christ So what's the new requirement The new requirement is that That guy the one you said

01:03:38

You believed in it's him and you have to Acknowledge it believe believe in In the Messiah in Jesus Not just I believe there is a

01:03:45

Messiah I believe There will be a Messiah I'm placing faith in The Messiah this is recognizing We live in history and we're correct and we have

01:03:52

To look from different sides and this is where Right and this is where because we Have to deal with it linearly

01:03:58

We have to deal with it in history God Doesn't God looks at it and says I know The visible and I know the invisible right

01:04:04

Yeah and so The stumbling block from My perspective is the assumption

01:04:10

That because Old Testament believers who lived into The New Testament because now

01:04:15

Jesus Has been revealed had to profess Faith therefore we assume that everyone Has to profess faith before they can be

01:04:22

Part of the visible church Part of the covenant community under The covenant of grace I would use these terms

01:04:28

To me are all interchangeable but the reason It's important to debate is because I believe That if we're going to define

01:04:34

The covenant of grace as something other Than the visible of church those in The covenant of grace as something other than The invisible church then we have to be

01:04:42

Really really careful never To say that that Excludes our children because that is

01:04:48

A man -made overlay I think something That's been helpful and I think that could be helpful For other people We should be reading

01:04:56

Broadly on those topics And like we can get very much You know focused

01:05:02

On this is the thing that I've been taught And that's what I'm going to study and I want to defend that And so like one thing

01:05:07

I have Strived to do imperfectly But I've strived to do is I can look at something

01:05:13

Like Circling back to the beginning topic of Covenants and all that I'd recommend reading

01:05:22

Meredith Klein who I disagree with on a lot But read Meredith I disagree with him on a lot but read

01:05:27

Meredith Klein on Treaty of the Great Kings He's an OPC guy that you would disagree with On certain aspects 2016 thing

01:05:35

Read him, read Paul Robertson's Christ of the Covenants This is the book like Baptist or Presbyterian Read that book

01:05:42

Read that book and then also Don't be afraid to read

01:05:47

Raynahan's book Mystery of Christ Read broadly on these

01:05:54

Because it's not as if each System and each group Of blood -bought brothers Doesn't have some valid points

01:06:01

That need to be understood And sometimes As has been illustrated here

01:06:07

I think While we have Disagreements at the core that we just Disagree on.

01:06:12

There is also Terminological stuff that you know At the end of it we're going to go well you phrase it

01:06:17

This way But here's what we agree on We agree all people have been saved by grace through faith

01:06:23

I think reading Broadly these different Types of things from different camps

01:06:30

Can help Facilitate discussions Better rather than going in and just Parodying your view and trying

01:06:37

To preach it at someone Like you can't I couldn't possibly have a discussion

01:06:43

With you without at least having A broad understanding of what you actually Believe or we just talk

01:06:49

Past each other so that's something That's been helpful for me. Well for me too And I think that it's a good opportunity to address

01:06:55

The comments that are coming That well you just didn't represent your side Very well. People are going to come up to both of us

01:07:01

And say you didn't represent and I want to be clear It's not my goal to represent My side. That's not the goal

01:07:07

My goal was for us to represent Christ. Correct. And for us to show That we can have unity with One another because we're united in Him and because of that we can fight

01:07:17

And at the same time then within That our goal is to represent what does The Bible actually say and Then a help to that is what is

01:07:25

My perspective. What is the historic Perspective of the people that agree That I would agree with most on this

01:07:31

Specific question. And then we get to work Correct and so then What is that tertiary or at the fourth

01:07:37

Degree. You know a lot of my words than I do Third or fourth removed From the primary point is

01:07:43

My side. Someone just called that getting necessary Consequences Right. Necessary Inference is the old term right.

01:07:50

So I Want to deal with that and just say look If you believe that either one of us Hasn't represented our side well

01:07:56

Enough that wasn't the goal Okay. That wasn't the goal. The goal was to Represent. We wanted to represent our sides

01:08:02

Accurately. We wanted to represent But we want to represent Christ and we Want to represent. Our side is a help to that What has happened a lot here and I almost didn't

01:08:10

Even accept the debate because of This I'm sure I'm glad you did. Yeah, I am too

01:08:18

Someone's got to kick those Babies out No, but seriously

01:08:23

Is that there's been so much In fighting just historically That We shouldn't be

01:08:31

Pointing our guns at each other Yes. There's a whole World out there who does not know

01:08:37

Christ and we have the same Gospel. That's right There are some Implications that matter and that's why we have an

01:08:44

Ecclesiastical division but we have the same Gospel. We can't all be in the same Building. Right. We work together

01:08:50

And so So often it's easy to Turn your gun and point it at The person that you agree with Most because This is why you have 1st

01:09:01

Baptist church 2nd Baptist church, 3rd Baptist church Of the red carpet and then You know some guy that just calls himself

01:09:08

Non -denominational is just a Baptist that Hasn't committed. That comes to the Presbyterians worse in many ways

01:09:14

So What I was hoping and why I didn't want to Accept this and I'm glad I did

01:09:20

Is I don't want to introduce A controversy here

01:09:26

That divides us. Amen We shouldn't be divided because we are United by the blood of Christ.

01:09:32

We're united in the Savior and honestly We agree on So much

01:09:37

And come to almost the same conclusion on almost Everything. We actually agree on all of it For the most part

01:09:43

And in the major part, I'm not saying when we Baptize, there's a practice that we don't agree on But the practice of how we treat our children, this is something

01:09:50

I want us to Go for it Hold them by the heels, just dunk them

01:09:56

But when you look At the Flavor of Baptist theology

01:10:01

That we are talking about here Which is where you're coming from What you practice in your church

01:10:08

At least what I practice And what you practice in your home And what I see members

01:10:14

Of your church doing Not the broader necessarily Although I see many Reformed Baptists who do the same thing

01:10:19

We actually agree On principle Not how we articulate it, but in practice

01:10:26

On how we Treat our children We treat them as Part of what we are doing

01:10:33

Not excluded And I praise God for that I would say our reasoning might be a little different Correct, the way we get there

01:10:41

But you do not For example, say your 12 -year -old son Says, Dad, I'm not going to church today

01:10:47

You don't say, oh well, you're not a covenant member anyway No, wouldn't do that You say, now you're coming to church And if he was to And you're going to like it

01:10:56

And God calls you, it's your job to respond God is calling to you If your 8 -year -old son came and said

01:11:05

I'm putting my foot down I'm not going, I hate it I'm not doing it Eventually we would say, look, there's going to be some form of discipline here

01:11:12

Because you are coming It is my job to do this And we do this because we recognize That God commands us

01:11:20

To bring our children up In the nurture and admonition of the Lord And it's very different from someone else in our household

01:11:25

Let's say there's a homeless dude living in my basement I'm not going to be down there Listen, I was down there one night

01:11:33

One night Hey, I thought you had a home I'm sorry, man I do now, thank you

01:11:39

This could actually transition into a real good topic for us If we have the time I think it could be valuable

01:11:46

Briefly to talk about Theonomy Because people are going to want to talk about it And I think

01:11:54

It's a valuable topic, right? I love the topic Because I think you're being inconsistent I know you do And so I think to express that a little bit

01:12:02

Could be clear And the moment that term comes up It's like using the word

01:12:07

Calvinist Suddenly everyone's brain Fills with all of these ideas

01:12:13

That you must therefore Hold everything Bonson Or everything Rush Dooney Or everything

01:12:19

McDermott says And it's like, well, that's not The way Van Till Used the word 1977

01:12:27

I think Bonson published Christian Ethics 1980 Van Till published And they're both using these terms

01:12:34

But they are Van Till's using it in a broader sense Van Till's using this to say

01:12:40

Autonomy versus theonomy Bonson also says autonomy versus theonomy But then he fills that out

01:12:46

So I don't think it's fair To say that if you don't Hold to every jot and tittle of this individual

01:12:52

That you can't say That you're a theonomist The theological debates often

01:12:58

Devolve to, well, you have to represent Your side, you have to pick a side and stick to it I respectfully disagree

01:13:05

We need to say All of these secondary sources Are blessings

01:13:10

To us and give us information As to what Have I not thought of How do

01:13:17

I avoid coming to Scripture and saying, well, this is what occurs to me And so clearly that's what The Bible means

01:13:23

Because I am going to eisegete sooner or later By doing that, how do I avoid that? By introducing other thoughts

01:13:30

And do we have to be careful with that? Yes, because there are all kinds of thoughts we can introduce That are just pure eisegesis

01:13:35

But that's where good theology That's where orthodoxy comes down We can look at this and go, okay

01:13:41

There is a large group of people Who largely agree on these ideas

01:13:46

When R .C. Sproul Sr. said If you are the first person to think up this idea In 2 ,000 years, you're probably wrong

01:13:53

Yeah, usually And I have to agree, yeah, that's actually That is consistently true

01:13:58

I tremble to come up with an idea That I couldn't go and say Well, has anybody else thought of this?

01:14:04

And how would we come up with this? So all of that, the discussion on theonomy That's all valuable, but one of the biggest problems

01:14:10

With the theonomic discussion Is you have multiple people Who are claiming theonomy When it's not, it's autonomy, it's what

01:14:17

I call me -onomy I'm the law, I'm the one who's going to define this That is what my

01:14:23

At one time, good friend And brother Joel McDermott does He has devolved to me -onomy

01:14:29

And he still uses his own terminology And he's got the pedigree to claim that Well, I clearly am the representative

01:14:34

Of a theonomic perspective While we're going straight up woke

01:14:40

I'll allow you to speak to him, I don't know the man And I'm not trying to pick on Joel I'm just saying

01:14:46

You say theonomy You go everything from Rashtuni to a woke perspective

01:14:52

And everybody's going to say Oh, I'm practicing theonomy Where we start, what I would like to say

01:14:58

I think theonomy is Sola scriptura in practice Correct, it is God's law

01:15:04

So where we start is All of Scripture Is applicable

01:15:12

To you today, Christian We don't get to do what a lot of people do And chop it up And we've already gone over all of that But broadly

01:15:21

We go, hey, listen All of God's word is abiding This is all theonoustos, this is all breathed out by him

01:15:27

And you must submit yourself to him Through what he's revealed to you So starting there, we agree, right?

01:15:34

And then we nail I'll put a little Some quick feed on this Because I don't know that we can do this all day

01:15:40

But a good example Of one of the Problems that comes up with this

01:15:47

I think can be illustrated In Bonson's book

01:15:53

His smaller book, is it By What Standard? Or By This Standard? Chapter 5 And I kind of let you know about this a little bit last night

01:16:01

Is one of the One of the Issues that I think can be

01:16:07

Illustrated there Where people can have issues with that Where a lot of Baptists will go

01:16:12

You can't be a theonomist Because of this Or in Presbyterians, a lot of them will go

01:16:17

You can't be a theonomist Baptist because of this Well there are a lot of Presbyterians who say You can't be a theonomist Presbyterian I would say

01:16:25

While this is not all inclusive This is a good example that I think broadly and briefly Touches on why people say that Is Where in that particular chapter

01:16:36

And Bonson's a genius and he goes on To clarify other stuff later, but in that particular chapter He gives this if then

01:16:41

Statement where essentially It is If the covenant of grace

01:16:47

Began in Genesis 3 15 And it was Each administration was the covenant of grace

01:16:54

And we're also in the covenant of grace If this Then Theonomy, right, and all his system

01:17:00

And I would go, well I don't Agree with your if But I do agree with your then

01:17:06

And here's why I agree with your then Not because necessarily we have the same Starting point, actually

01:17:12

Here's a clippable piece, right The problem with Bonson's view is not that He goes too far, it's that he doesn't go far enough

01:17:20

Now he does Go in chapter 6, he goes on and he clarifies Some stuff, right, but in chapter 5 there He Starts that argument in that chapter

01:17:29

Grounding it in Genesis chapter 3 15 in the covenant of grace I would say whatever view of God's law

01:17:35

We have, we have to account for Genesis 1 1 To Genesis 3 14 as well So rather than Rooting my view of God's law

01:17:42

In the covenant of grace and its abiding validity I want to root it in the unchanging Nature of the Triune God And the law that flows out from him

01:17:51

That's unchanging, and so I think you can see without I don't have a whole lot more to add to that But I think you can see how

01:17:58

If all somebody has Is If all they ever did was read that paragraph

01:18:04

From chapter 5 Which is what all people do sometimes They'll see a sound, they'll hear a clip and they'll go

01:18:10

That's it, if that's it And that's what theonomy is Well, if that is what it is

01:18:17

I can see why People would say that you can't do this But I would just want to say

01:18:23

Listen, whatever our view of this is We have to account for not only Genesis 3 15 Onward, but also 1 1

01:18:29

To 3 14 I agree with that That's an area where Bonson frustrates me a little bit

01:18:34

He did clarify in chapter 6 Yes he did, but there aren't very many places That I read and go, ah

01:18:40

Bonson, that irritates me a little bit Because Greg Bonson has been

01:18:48

After his death One of my greatest mentors And just reformatted my brain

01:18:55

In many cases But to me I would never want to say That the biblical

01:19:02

Doctrine of God's law Applying to man Throughout history Which is what theonomy means

01:19:08

Is dependent on A covenantal construct Because, again, we don't need that And I don't want anyone to hear me

01:19:17

Saying that Bonson didn't go farther No, no, no, I get that I almost When I read that and when

01:19:24

I come back to it I almost wonder, was he making an appeal To the

01:19:29

Presbyterians who don't like theonomy He was saying that if you believe You have to Right, and so But specifically

01:19:39

How that works In this case

01:19:45

I'm going to sound like Well, my answer to everything is 2 Timothy 3 16 and 17 But I believe that whenever we're talking about How does the

01:19:53

Old Testament In particular, because that's where People don't object to a theonomic View of the

01:19:58

New Testament For the most part People object to a theonomic view Of how the

01:20:04

Old Testament applies And modifies Our interpretation of the

01:20:09

New Testament And how do we know That it should Well, 2 Timothy 3 16 and 17 is the

01:20:16

Starting point, and I would Say this, I was theonomic Before I was pedo -baptistic

01:20:25

I grew up I hope I can never say that Well that's not my point, my point is just to be honest

01:20:32

I grew up with a foot in each camp I grew up for a large Part of the year attending an

01:20:38

RCUS church Which is the Continental Reformed perspective

01:20:44

It is Functionally the same thing as Presbyterian Slightly different Expressions of the

01:20:52

Standards, but the Reformed Church of the United States Is a You have the same system of government

01:20:58

You have the same understanding of baptism We spent part of the year there The other half of the year we went to The church that my mother's

01:21:06

Father pastored, he had the greatest Influence, my maternal grandfather Who was independent

01:21:11

Fundamental Baptist He trended, reformed Throughout his entire life, but he was never

01:21:18

He would never have been pedo -baptistic And so This was the world, and I grew up in looking back

01:21:24

And forth and coming to these conclusions Now I was blessed in that everyone In my theological world agreed

01:21:29

That theonomy makes perfect sense That God's law applies I was raised a rank pagan

01:21:36

At least Atheist, but And then when I came to the Bible And it was sweet to me, and I would run home

01:21:42

Every day at 24 years old and dive on my bed As a grown man after work And open it

01:21:50

Like I started in Genesis and worked Towards Revelation And I started implementing

01:21:59

Old Testament laws In my house immediately Because that's all I knew This is what it says we're supposed to do

01:22:06

This is God's word And praise God for that And so I think that's the way that That we should approach the

01:22:13

Bible It's why it's called the analogy of faith You wouldn't say I believe in God and go to the Bible and go well that's wrong And this is wrong

01:22:19

And the reason I bring that up is because When I took and applied What I understand to be a

01:22:26

Theonomic hermeneutic I come away saying I can't I just can't rule out Covenant inclusion of children

01:22:33

I can't find it, I can't do it And I think that does come back to This is a perfect summation

01:22:40

Once again understanding Bonson clarifies A lot, lot, lot, lot, lot more But the fact, I think it comes back once again

01:22:48

To the covenant, it comes back to I think the same place that He for example rooted

01:22:53

His theonomy in that chapter Is the same place he roots His paedobaptism

01:22:59

And so I think it's been a good Discussion man, we can probably do this For weeks

01:23:06

Until your wife With her hospitality Honey, this guy's got to go back

01:23:11

We do need to express appreciation publicly for our wives Thank you Summer, thank you Amy And thank you to Pastor Wade, Andrew Thank you

01:23:20

Pastor Bradley Thank you Nathan, thanks Jason Wallace Thank you Dr. James White And thank you, thank you brother