Calvinist Conversations: Baptist & Presbyterian Discuss the Covenant of Grace

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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?

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?

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.

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

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.

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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.

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?

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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,

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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

Of terms that we have added to the entire debate.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To the world Is He's Accomplishing something through all

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Separate covenant Which is connected But is a separate covenant

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That's bad And from my perspective Renahan does this

Not intending to do evil But allowing his Eisegesis to mix

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Would you agree like You asked a really great question

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In the visible church Not the invisible church We are told

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

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

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

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

Through our studies And traditions To hear that a certain way

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

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

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

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

This comes back to the idea that The next covenantal

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So however we His people Whoever Whoever we see included

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Would you say That the visible community

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So where we agree on this is We both agree

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

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

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

It would be valuable Just long term to Ask the questions

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ever justified a person Before God It was not their works

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

Everybody's like yay man So One thing

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

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

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

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

Therefore Abraham David, Moses Everyone mentioned in Hebrews 11

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This eschatological Faith In his own time

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Great, you have This Less grace in the

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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,

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

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

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

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

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

In and of themselves Were actually communicating Through their own promises

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The physical descendant Besides Children, concluding the covenant

Give me one other major Theme Major command and communication

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

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

Not expressly So once again I think whatever

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

And I kind of Briefly tried to Explain that to you

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

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

You baptize The offspring Of a believing

Parent We are the offspring Of the believing parent

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

We are the offspring of Christ because we are the ones

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

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

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

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

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

Romans Four point blank right Okay so when did it change

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

John 1 But to all who did

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Is Israel the Ecclesia By nature The Old Testament we are

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Christ therefore Who is included in the covenant community Changed right

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

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

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

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

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

Correct she Came and acknowledged and said I profess

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

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

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

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

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

The visible church includes Those who profess faith And their children

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Raynahan's book Mystery of Christ Read broadly on these

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Is I don't want to introduce A controversy here

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

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

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

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

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

But when you look At the Flavor of Baptist theology

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We need to say All of these secondary sources Are blessings

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So where we start is All of Scripture Is applicable

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

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

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

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

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

I think can be illustrated In Bonson's book

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Statement where essentially It is If the covenant of grace

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How that works In this case

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

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

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

Old Testament applies And modifies Our interpretation of the

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

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

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

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

RCUS church Which is the Continental Reformed perspective

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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