10 - Lesson 4: Baptism, Part 2

Baptism and the Difference Between Baptistic and Covenant Views

Well, welcome to the Striving for Eternity Academy's School of Discipleship in the class An Introduction to Discipling. We are glad to have you with us. If this, what I'm saying to you, sounds like you've heard it before, that's because you watch live.

And if you don't know what we're talking about, it's because you do not watch live on Monday nights 8 o 'clock Eastern Time. I encourage you to watch it live because we do have some fun before the class begins.

We do 10 minutes with interaction with the chat room, do some spiritual transitions. We let the chat room decide something and I only have seconds to transition to the gospel. But that aside, we had some things go wrong and those who watched live, you know what it was.

And the rest of you should watch live and join the chat room. So, that said, if you have, if you've been following along with us in class, you know that we've been going through a book, Growing in Grace.

This is a book that was developed by the leadership of Gospel Light Baptist Church many years ago and it's something we used in our church to be able to disciple others. If you want to get a copy, you can go to our store, pick up a copy for yourself and you can pick up extra copies so that you can disciple other people, which is what this class is about.

We are about the business of trying to train you to disciple people. That is our goal. That being said, let us begin by looking at our, in our syllabus, we are in a lesson number four and we are talking about baptism.

Lesson number four is, what is baptism? Is a good question. That was the thing we looked at last week. We asked the question, what is baptism? We asked, why is baptism important? And now what we want to do is, we want to ask the question, who should be baptized?

Who should be baptized? Now, when we talk baptism, there is much controversy in this. Some were trying to argue that the Holy Spirit was trying to keep me from announcing any heresy and that's why we had the troubles we just had in the live broadcast.

But that will not stop us. We will get our, no, it's not heresy, it's what the Bible actually teaches. You guys that baptize your babies, that's the, no, I'm teasing. One of the things we did say is that, you know, we should be able to discuss these things and understand different ways that people come to conclusions they come to.

So we want to, we want to take a look at who should be baptized. We're going to get into some of the differences between Presbyterian, Lutheran, and really Covenantal baptisms and Baptist, more Baptistic type baptisms.

Why are they different? We looked at the what, really why they're different is because of what they symbolize. We looked at that last week, whether they're seen as a covenant relationship or whether it's an outward sign.

As a Baptist, someone who believes in a Baptistic view, I'll put it that way, because I believe it's because of this, I believe the Scriptures teach the Baptist view that I hold to those things, not because I'm a Baptist do I hold to those.

And that's an important distinction, okay? You should believe something because it's what the Bible teaches, or at least you believe the Bible teaches, not because you're a Baptist, a Lutheran, a Presbyterian, whatever, okay?

Only Believers Should Be Baptized

So we put up, we talked about the fact that in asking this question I would say only Believers should get baptized. Who should get baptized? Only Believers. Now that would exclude children that are not Believers.

That would be the position I think the Bible holds to. Now I'm going to make that argument out of Acts 8, 36 and 37. And if you have a Growing in Grace book you'll see it's there and I'll help fill in the blanks for you there.

It says, and the eunuch said, see here is water, what hinders me from being baptized. And Philip said, if you believe, that's your first blank, if you believe with all your heart, heart is your second blank, you may.

Now one of the things with this passage, we want to be careful in making a teaching on this verse 37 because verse 37 wasn't in the earlier manuscripts. Therefore we don't want to make the argument that this is, you know, part of the canon.

It may not have been part of the canon. I'm okay with that. But we do see that at least the eunuch recognized that upon him coming to know Christ, upon salvation, he knew the next step was baptism. Philip argues that if you believe, now whether this is something that worked its way in the text or not, one thing we can know is that very early in the church was it expected that baptism immediately followed belief.

And I said this last class is that Presbyterians, Lutherans, Covenantals, they believe in a believer's baptism. We all believe in that. Every orthodox faith believes that when someone gets saved they should get baptized.

It is incorrect to say that, well Presbyterians don't believe in believer's baptism. They do, but they also believe in infant baptism because baptism has a different meaning. It's part of being part of the covenant family.

Okay? So, keep that in mind. What we do have in your notes there though is that the Bible never teaches that a man should be baptized in order to remove sin. That's important. Because Roman Catholics would argue that you baptize an infant to remove the effects of original sin and that's what gives them, in their mind, the removing of the effect of original sin gives you a free will so that you can choose to do right or wrong.

And so they say that the baptism actually removes sin and we don't see it anywhere in Scripture. Neither does the Bible teach, by the way, that a believer should get baptized to keep himself saved. Okay?

Baptism doesn't save a person and it won't keep you saved. In other words, just because you're baptized doesn't mean you can go live any way you want and you're good to go with God. Some people get baptized thinking that, hey, as long as I got baptized I got fire insurance and now I can do whatever I want.

If you're not regenerate, you're not going to be in a right standing with God regardless of a baptism. In fact, you may be in worse shape if you get baptized as an unbeliever because you're claiming you have a relationship with God and you know more.

I have actually re-baptized people in my church. We had one young lady who believes that she got baptized because a bunch of other people her age were getting baptized. She didn't believe she was a believer.

Through the ministry that God had while I was at the church, she believed she had come to know the Savior and was not properly baptized and wanted to get baptized as a believer because now she was one.

Baptism Is an Ordinance, Not a Sacrament

Baptism what it is not. Let me tell you what baptism is not. I do not think baptism is a sacrament. What's a sacrament? A sacrament is something that adds grace. Now, Roman Catholics would argue that baptism is a sacrament, that it adds grace.

Some Reformed people, Covenantals, Presbyterians and what not, would say that baptism in some way, not in the way that Roman Catholicism argues, but it does add a grace that has some grace in your life.

I don't see that. I don't see that baptism is not a sacrament that gives any type of grace to a sinner. It is an ordinance. It is an ordinance that demonstrates or symbolizes something that has already taken place in the life of the person who is trusted in Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior, as an identification.

So, baptism we do once, as an identification with new life. We talked about that last week, that we are baptized in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We are now new creations in new life, therefore, as new creations we are baptized once into new life, just like we are saved once.

Lord's Supper, going back and doing that re-examination, that is going to be different. You do that multiple times. We are going to look at that in a few lessons. Now, so I say that only believers should be baptized.

I understand that there is some controversy with that, and so there may be some where you don't want to say only believers. You may want to agree with the second one though, which is every believer should be baptized.

That I think we all agree on, and that we can see, well, we can see it in the Great Commission in Matthew 28, 19 at least. And we see there, go therefore and make disciples of all nations, and look what it says, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

We also see this in Acts chapter 2. Let's go there. Acts chapter 2, we see that it says, to those who received his word were baptized, and were added that day about 3 ,000. So notice that they received the word, were baptized.

So this is saying that every believer, so on that day in Pentecost, here's your blanks here, how many were saved on the day of Pentecost? Well, the answer is 3 ,000. How many were baptized that same day?

Ready? Here's the answer. Ready? Ready? 3 ,000. They all were, okay? They were all that got saved, got baptized. So every believer, regardless, I think we all agree on that. I say, if you look in your notes there, it says, notice nowhere in the New Testament is there record of any infant being baptized.

It was only and always believers. That is what we see in the New Testament. Now, some will make the argument, oh, but look at the Philippian jailer. His whole household was baptized. It also says his whole household was saved, right?

Here's the thing. The period of time, there's nothing that indicates that his household had to have an infant in it. That is reading into the text. Doesn't have to. My wife and I had infants in our home for a very short period of time, and now we have no children in the home, all right?

It depends on the Philippian jailer's household, and we don't know the makeup of his household. To make an argument based on, well, it says household, and household must include, whoa. Household does not have to include.

It's not a must include, okay? So we would say that if someone comes to faith in Christ, they should get baptized. I would say, as someone, I guess, is asking or is mentioning in the chat room, I would say, if you were baptized before you were saved, I would encourage you to get baptized as a believer so that the symbol of baptism represents the picture of really what it's trying to picture of your new birth.

And truthfully, I'll tell you another reason I would suggest it is a great testimony of the church to realize that there are those in the church that are false converts that do not know Christ but get baptized and some trust in that baptism.

And to see someone, as we had in our church, to see someone say, make a profession of faith and say, I was baptized prior when I wasn't a believer and I wasn't saved. And now, as a believer, I want to get baptized, it helps some others to realize, maybe I shouldn't trust in my baptism either.

So, now, I don't want to be snarky, I know one person who had a book that said, Infant Baptism, it was called All the Bible Verses that Deal with Infant Baptism, and it had a bunch of blank pages. Snarky, let's not be snarky about it, okay?

We don't see any passages, if we're going to be honest, there's no passages that deal with infant baptism. I understand some will argue based on household, but really what it is, is the way they're really arguing, those that I think have a better argument, would be those that argue because they see baptism as something that brings you into a covenant relationship with God, therefore, as part of the covenant family, just like circumcision, they see baptism.

I disagree with it, but let's be fair about what they say. Let's not misrepresent a view, okay? But, I think that as far as who should be baptized, only believers and every believer. So, let's look at the next question that we have.

When Baptism Should Happen

The next question that we ask is, when should they, now who's the they? The believers, when should they be baptized, right? Okay, well, that's a fair question, let's look at when they should be baptized.

If we take a look at some passages, we already looked at Acts 2 .41, so we can fill that one in, but a believer, we have in there in notes, a believer should be baptized as soon as possible after reading the following verses, write down how soon people were baptized after their salvation.

So, we look at Acts 2 .41 and 42, and so with that we see, it says that the same day, same day. So, when should we do it? Same day. We could look at Acts 8 .36 to 38, now you'll notice here, this is based off the ESV, verse 37, as I mentioned, is not there, so if you look here, and they were going along the road and they came to some water, and the eunuch said, see here is water, what prevents me from being baptized?

And he commanded the chariot to stop, and they both went down to the water and he was baptized. So, when was he baptized? Immediately. Immediately. I mean, as soon as he received the word, stop the chariot, go and get baptized.

Acts 16, let's put that one up if we could. Acts 16, oh, okay, well we don't have 14, okay, so we'll read this one, but we should have put up Acts 14, Acts 16, verses 14 to 15, the answer to that is immediately, but this one is Acts 16, 30 to 33.

Then he brought them out and said, sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household. Uh-oh. And they spoke the word of the Lord to him and all who were in his house, and they took them that same hour of the night and washed their wounds, and he was baptized at once, he and his family.

Now, keep it up for a moment, the answer to your fill in the blank there is same night, that's the answer, okay, the same night, but I want to just stay on here for the moment because this is the one, the verse that many use to argue for household, so I want to keep this up so we can deal with it, all right?

You see, Paul is saying, you and your household, now notice that the household wasn't saved through a covenant relationship that the Philippian jailer had, why do I say that? Because it says that verse 32, and they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to those who were in his house.

So therefore, if you read this, in verse 32, they still had to go and explain the gospel to the household, so they weren't immediately believers based just on the Philippian jailer. So, that being said, we have to realize that whoever is in his household, that is who was saved, okay, because they believed, because the word was spoken to them, once they believed, they went and got baptized, okay?

I don't think that it, because this is going to become important for the next part when I talk about how, but when we talk about what baptism is, I don't think that baptism is a replacement for circumcision, if it was, then only men would be baptized, and on the eighth day.

I understand that circumcision was a, entering into a covenant relationship, and it was interesting, we're in this Google Hangout, you know, I was invited to partake of a Google Hangout with a friend of mine, Matt Slick, I was asked if I would come in and ask a question because of this, and because I know Matt's position, I asked him on baptism, knowing that we have two different views, and it was a good way of showing how two people can have two differing views, and yet, we joked about it, we had a lot of fun with one another, he actually sent me a text message this morning, because we did it late Sunday night, but he sent me a text message this morning and said, that was fun, he really enjoyed having me come in and kind of challenge him a little bit, here was the thing, we both knew one another's view, we agreed with the handling of the text, in other words, he didn't try to argue that household means infants were there, and we ended up kind of agreeing and disagreeing in certain areas and getting along, but I think that one of the people asked him the question, well, because he said, well, covenants always have a sign when you enter into a covenant, and somebody said, well, what was the sign of the covenant of marriage?

And he was like, well, you know, I really don't know, maybe the ring, but we don't see that in Scripture, right? I don't know that the covenants always have to be a sign, or if that's something that we have said, because we usually see the covenants with a sign, okay?

That doesn't mean that it is a sign of the covenant, and even if it is, the new covenant is different than the Old Testament covenant, therefore, the sign may be different, so the sign may be just for believers and not for a nation, alright?

So circumcision was for a nation of Israel. Baptism is for believers. That's the difference, alright? And so I hope with this you're seeing, if you're discipling someone that came from a Presbyterian background, you may find they struggle with this a lot, and they're going to try to understand these differences.

A reason I'm taking the time in this class, these two classes, to spend the time in trying to painstakingly explain these differences is so you do not misinterpret or misrepresent what someone else believes, okay?

Let's not do that. Alright, let's get into the of how should they be baptized. Well, this one is very clear in scripture that it, I think, and we talked about this last night when I was talking on the show, so let me explain what we have here.

So if you look in your book, if you have the Growing Grace book, the word baptize is actually one of two English words that I believe the English translators translated or transliterated because it caused them theological problems.

Deacon and baptize, we have English words for them. Deacon means to wait on tables. It's a waiter, it's a servant. It was a problem when they had deacons that were acting as leaders because they were leaders and not servants and therefore they had a problem.

So what did they do? Let's take the word deacon us and make a word deacon. And so we got a new English word in the translations of the Bible so that we can all get along. I think that it adds confusion.

Same with baptize. We have an English word for baptismo. Baptismo means to dip or to plunge. When I was talking with Matt, Matt made the point. He said, baptism does not always mean immersion. That is true.

That may shock some folks, but it doesn't mean to immerse. It means to dip or to plunge. But to dip or plunge does not mean to pour or to sprinkle. Okay? Those would be a different word. But it means to, it can mean and often does mean to submerge, to dip into something.

Alright? So we say here that baptize comes from the Greek word baptismo which means to dip, plunge, or immerse. And it can mean any one of those. In the sense of believer's baptism, it never means to pour or sprinkle.

For those methods would never picture the memorials mentioned that we already mentioned. So when we look at what baptism is, it's the memorial. Baptism by immersion is the only one that represents the death, burial, and resurrection into new life.

That's the one. Just saying. So if we look at what it pictures, I think baptism by immersion is the only one there was. So how did we get? The early church did baptize by immersion. It was a Jewish thing.

John the Baptist baptized by immersion based on Judaism. Now Matt would make the argument that he thinks Jesus was sprinkled because he thinks he was sprinkled into a, basically into a Levitical, not Levitical, sorry, the priesthood of Melchizedek.

But the Levitical priests were sprinkled. That doesn't mean, you know, with oil, but that doesn't mean that Jesus was sprinkled with water because we don't know how. We have no record of how the Melchizedekian priesthood was ordained.

Now, Matt would see that it's fulfilling the law, and then there's others who hold this, that Jesus' baptism was fulfilling the law and therefore would have been a sprinkling as entering into the priesthood.

That aside, that's the baptism of John, not after John. That's not the baptism of the church. The baptism that John the Baptist was doing was actually a Jewish ceremony when a would become a Jew and they would be baptized to represent that their old self is dead and they're new and that they're in a new state.

So that would be what we would see there is that the representation that we have in that case is that the baptism of John was a Jewish ceremony entering into Judaism. I think that's what it pictures then into entering in from an old life to a new life, and so we would continue with the picture that it was.

Why did we see pouring start? Well, we started to see pouring in the desert areas and the Didache. What's the Didache? The Didache is kind of like an instruction manual for the early church. It was kind of how to do, explained how to do church, and in the Didache it does give, it seems to give an allowance for use of pouring of water.

So, it explains the proper mode is by immersion, but it allows for pouring. Why? In areas where there isn't much water. If you are in the Arab desert, you don't have much water. It's going to be very difficult to baptize people, and so they allowed for pouring to still symbolize the pouring over the head of as if you're submerged.

Sprinkling started when you started dealing with infants, and I think that that came along as the Roman Catholic Church came along, and the baptism there was one of a covenantal one. So, there is some differences that you end up seeing, but I think that if we look at the picture, John was baptizing in a repentance that was using an Old Testament Jewish custom of baptism, something they were familiar with.

That's why they were confused on why John was doing these baptisms out in a river instead of in the temple, and he was baptizing Jews. That's what got them wondering. Now, Acts 19, those that were baptized by John's baptism got re-baptized when they put faith in Christ.

So, now we see that there's a difference between John's baptism and the baptism of a Christian, and so those believers got re-baptized. In that, it's because the baptism is symbolizing something they want to capture what it's symbolizing, okay?

I'm hoping that this is really clear. I know I'm going into way more detail than I would if I was sitting down and discipling somebody. I understand that. You shouldn't need to go into this much detail, but I do want to provide the detail because you may.

You may get asked, and I want to give you some background information, and without you having to go and study all the stuff, and I'm trying to be fair with what each of the views are. Not everyone does that.

Just saying. We should. All right. So, letter B in the Growing in Grace book, why did John baptize near Arion? If we look in John, let's see, it's 3 .23. John 3 .23. Anytime we can put that up. There we go.

So, John also was baptizing at Arion near Sollum because water was plentiful there, and people were coming and being baptized. So, the reason was the water was plentiful, or there was much water. He went to where there was a lot of water.

Now, if you watched the episode of the Google Hangout with Bible Thumping Wingnut with that show with Matt Slick when I was on, which would have been this last week, what you end up seeing is that Matt tried to make an argument that the water would have been cold, so they had to go where there was much water so they could sprinkle kind of quickly, that the disciples would have done it quickly because the water would have been cold.

Problem is, is that like here in the states, the water is not always cold. It ranges. It could be freezing, just about freezing to 86 degrees. So, I think more of the issue is he went there for the reason that the text says, there was much water.

You need a lot of water to baptize by immersion. You do not need as much water for a baptism by sprinkling or pouring, and you wouldn't have to get as wet. You would stand up by the side and just pour the water, sprinkle the water, put it in a bucket, you know, a basin.

They had that and they did that because John baptized there because there was much water. He needed much water. Now, good argument to be made, but that was John's baptism. Good point. So, because that we, like I said, I want to be fair with this.

John's baptism was different than the church. So, what do we see that we saw in Acts 8, 38? And he commanded, this is with the eunuch again, and he commanded the chariot to stop and the both of them went down into the water, and Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized them.

So, he went down into the water. That's your blanks there. Philip and the eunuch went into, that's your first blank, into the water, second blank is water, and baptized him. So, Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and baptized him.

We see from these verses that these verses indicate that much water is necessary for baptizing. This would not be true if you pour or sprinkle. Okay. So, with this homework assignment that I'm going to give to you and we're going to do a review, the first homework assignment that you're going to have here is I want you to memorize Matthew 28, 19, and 20.

Matthew 28, 19, and 20. All right? And then I want you to look in your Groman Grace book at the next page and you see some questions that I have for you. Now, here's what I'm going to ask you to do. I will challenge you guys to put your answers into the Facebook page.

I'll probably try to post each one of these into the group so that you can answer under each one. But I want you to try and know, why do we have these here? The reason these questions are here is because really the next thing to do at this point, if you're discipling someone, is to ask them, have you ever been baptized as a believer?

Now notice, at this point, infant baptism really doesn't matter. Why doesn't it matter? Because it's just not an issue right now. You're dealing with someone who is able to do this study with you, able to communicate with you, able to understand the gospel.

Therefore, you're dealing with a believer or a non-believer. And a non-believer, you're not going to challenge them to get baptized. But if they're a believer at this point, you're going to want to go through this.

So, what does baptism have to do with salvation? Ephesians 2, 8, 9. Number two, do the waters of baptism wash away sin? If not, what does? Hebrews 9, 22 and Ephesians 1, 7. Number three, write in your own words why a believer should be baptized.

The reason that becomes important is because that's going to tell someone in their church whether they should go forward in baptism. And that is a thing where it's important because what you end up seeing is there is the lesson number one on salvation and this here are going to be the two things that someone's going to need, at least in our church, to go and get baptized.

They're going to have to have their salvation testimony and an understanding of baptism. That's how we would do things. And so, we wouldn't baptize immediately only because baptism in America doesn't have the consequences that it did in that time in the first century, as we mentioned in the last class.

And if you don't understand that, go back and re-watch part one. But as we said, it had a serious connotation with it because it doesn't happen to be as strict. We then want to give some time to make sure someone is actually a regenerate and has a proper understanding of baptism.

So, I wait until this point. Let them write down their own words. Number four, how soon should one get baptized after receiving the Lord Jesus Christ? Acts 2, 41. Acts 8, 26 to 40. I think it's kind of clear on that one.

Now, number five is, have you ever been baptized in a biblical way? I would say if you were sprinkled or poured, especially as an infant, you should get re-baptized. I would say no, it's not a biblical way.

If no, are you willing to get baptized in a biblical way? Okay. So, have you been baptized in a biblical way? I think there was one person in the chat room who said that they might need to get re-baptized.

They need to think about that. So, they should. Let's do a quick overview of the lesson if we could. We'll pull this up and let us take a look at what we have here. This is just a handout that we'll email out to those who are enrolled students at the end of class here, or end of this class, not this particular lesson.

But, baptism, we see here the mechanism of baptism. Baptism or baptized comes from the Greek word. You see this in the upper left. We talked about that. It comes from a Greek word, to dip or to immerse.

And you see some wording up there, some little pictures of people diving into the water. But, it's the idea here, you see, is all people come in. What is baptism? Well, it is for those, as you can see there, it's an outward demonstration of an inward change from spiritual death, burial of sin, resurrection as a new creation.

You see, why is it important? As you move up there, it's important because God commanded it. The apostles preached it and it's a public testimony. Who should be baptized? Only believers and every believer.

Note, nowhere in the New Testament is it recorded that an infant be baptized. If you go up to the next one up, when? As soon after salvation is when someone should get baptized. How? By immersion. Now, if you notice in the bottom right, it says, note, eyewitnesses after Christ's resurrection.

All right. What you see there is that there was, they were people that saw the resurrection, they were baptized, they then saw, it's after the resurrection that we have this new life, okay, being represented.

All right. So, those are what, that is what baptism means. That being said, I will say this, that if you have any questions, you want to disagree with me, that's fine. I don't mind. We can discuss it.

You can email us at academyatstrivingforeternity .org, academyatstrivingforeternity .org. If you want to pick up a copy of the Growing in Grace book, you can pick that up at our store, store .strivingforeternity .org, store .strivingforeternity .org.

We also, as we always like to do, is we like to make sure that we ask you to ask, to encourage other people. Now, one of the things we do with this is because we want, we want to be encouraging. Maybe, maybe it's not you, maybe just me that struggles with always remembering to encourage other people.

I want to try to encourage us to encourage others. That's why we do this. And we don't give you big name people all the time. The people are like, oh look, this guy goes out and he's on the street all the time.

Sometimes we just give you names of people that need an encouraging word maybe this week. And so, I'm going to give you a sister in Christ who I want you to encourage this week. And most of you probably don't know her, so that means try to get to know her.

She is on Facebook, that's how I met her, is Sister Leah Johnson. I've gotten to know Leah through Facebook, got to do a Google Hangout with her. We were dealing with race relations and just dealing with issues of race.

And she is a, you know, someone that has more melanin in her skin than I, the white dude. I have no melanin in my skin, so I burn in the sun. But we get her on the show and she's like, oh, I like this little quiet mouse, real quiet.

I just want to sit here and listen. She's just enjoying what others were saying. We're like, no, we want to hear what you think. But I've gotten to know her a little online and really appreciate her insight, her demeanor.

Just to me, someone that seems to have that soft, quiet spirit, just a humble type of spirit. And I don't know anything particularly going on in her life right now that she needs encouragement, but she was someone who I felt needed some encouragement.

I just chose to encourage her because I don't think we had in the past. And it's going to be a twofer. I don't have a slide for TN, but those who are in the chat room, I want to encourage you to be praying for TN Hills.

I'm not going to give her real name because she would not like that. But those of you who watched live in the chat room, you know who TN is, or at least you know TN Hills. But if you could pray for TN Hills, she is going in for surgery on Thursday.

And so with that being said, I will ask you if you guys would consider just praying for her and lifting her up this week on her surgery. And then next class, we're going to deal with the topic of the church and we'll cover what the church is and how you can teach someone and someone that may have never been in church before, know nothing about church whatsoever.

Well, how do you disciple them and talk about the church? We'll talk about that next class, which may not be next week. We will have something next week. It just may not be the lesson. I'm just saying we might have a surprise.

We'll see. But until then, remember to strive to make today an eternal day for the glory of God.