Debate on Infant Baptism (Keith Foskey vs Daniel Hyde)

Hey guys, it's Keith Foskey.

Last night I had the opportunity to debate Reverend Daniel Hyde on the subject of infant baptism.

We were hosted by Mason Craig on his channel called Simply Theology.

My conversation with Danny is one of the most enjoyable debates that I've had so far.

It wasn't an overly formal debate, and it wasn't supposed to be.

We both had an opening statement, and then we fielded questions.

So I wanted to share it with you all, and hopefully get your feedback.

In the comments.

So here we go.

Welcome to Simply Theology, a podcast and YouTube channel that makes theology clear,

concise, and accessible for the everyday Christian.

Today we're going to be discussing baptism, more specifically what baptism is,

and who is the proper subjects of baptism.

I'm joined by two guests today, both here with differing views on baptism, and

throughout the evening.

If you have any questions, please comment them on the YouTube live stream, because I will be taking

questions.

I may not be able to get them all, but I'm hoping to get a good amount.

So just a heads up again regarding tonight's debate.

I already told some people earlier this is going to be a little bit more informal than maybe some of the

debates you've seen online.

So we're not going to be having a rigid structure.

We're going to be having kind of some bookends of structure.

So after I kind of introduce the guests, they're going to each get six to eight minutes

of opening statements, and then they're going to be getting at the end six to eight minutes of closing statements.

But in between there, I'm really hoping that we can get some kind of back -and -forth conversation,

discussion between the guests, and I want to be able to have some questions

asked by myself, by the audience, and by the guests as well.

All right, now that I've kind of given you the rundown of where we're headed, I'd like to introduce

the two guests that we have tonight.

All right, so coming to us from Jacksonville, Florida, a well -known pastor,

humorist, podcaster.

You may know him as the king of all millennialism, but tonight he is the defender of Credo

baptism.

Please welcome Pastor Keith Foskey.

Keith, it's great to see you.

Hey brother, thank you for having me on the.

Show, and I appreciate you considering me for this.

I've been looking forward to.

It.

Yeah, yeah, it's great to have you.

Yeah, so as you probably knew by the posters, Keith is the the first

guest I have today, and the second one coming to us from Oceanside, California.

This is a pastor, author, podcaster as well, and tonight's defender of infant baptism.

I'm pleased to announce, pleased to introduce to you Dr. Daniel Hyde.

Pastor Daniel Hyde.

Good evening, guys.

Thanks.

For being here.

Good to be here.

Good to be here.

Keith, bring your inner.

Methodist, right?

Oh yeah, absolutely.

I'm gonna bring the fire.

Wow.

All right.

Yeah, so.

Thanks for being here, guys.

We got a lot of people excited to hear this, excited to watch, and yeah, I just want to just thank

you for volunteering, for your time, and I know you're both pastors, so you know, I know there's obviously a

lot of, you know, shepherding, preaching of the Word, all these responsibilities, and just taking time out to discuss this.

It's a pleasure.

I know a lot of people are going to benefit from it wherever they stand on baptism, and

as I told you both, you know, the goal is to, you know, create a discussion where

there is more unity or, you know, friendliness than some of those out there where there might be a little bit more

hostility, and, you know, obviously it's fine to, you know, get into the discussion tonight, but, you know, my

prayer and hope is that, you know, that we walk away from it, you know, remaining,

you know, united around Christ, and so thanks for being here.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Yeah, so as I said, we're gonna be getting into some six to eight

minute opening statements, but before we do that, I'd love to just hear from both of you,

one at a time, kind of your background, your church background,

kind of when it comes to baptism in particular, how you came to the view you have.

Maybe you held it your whole life, and you know, you were just convicted of it.

Maybe you didn't come to it as a new Christian.

I just would love to hear in the audience, I'm sure would benefit from hearing kind of your theological

journey, if you will, to the current position that you hold.

Keith, would you mind going first?

Sure, be happy.

To.

Well, I was actually brought up in a Disciples of Christ Church, which if anybody knows what that

is, that is the far left side of the Restoration Movement, which is the

far right of that would be like the Church of Christ, so this entire movement has a lot of issues, and

they teach something called baptismal remission for sins, and they baptize in the name of Jesus only, and things like

that, so there's some really odd things that I grew up with in regard to baptism, but when I was

saved, I was actually saved through the evangelism of a friend.

I wasn't saved in church, I was saved through the evangelism of a friend, and became pretty convinced

early on that believers baptism was the direction that I believe the Bible taught, and

ended up going to a Southern Baptist Seminary, not the Southern Baptist Seminary, but I went to Jacksonville Baptist

Theological Seminary, which is a Southern Baptist Seminary in my hometown, did all of my work there, all of my master's

and doctorate degree, did all of that there, and became even more convinced of the Credo Baptist position.

Now, the thing that has changed since then is I wasn't a Calvinist.

In fact, the seminary I went to said Calvinism is bad, bad, bad, and if you're a Calvinist, it's going to destroy your church.

So thankfully, God led me out of that, and so I am now a Calvinistic

Baptist.

Some people call it Reform Baptist, but when I say that, it gives R. Scott Clarke the...I

try not to say it too much...Calvinist who's.

Also a Baptist.

Yeah, that's good.

Thanks, Keith.

Yeah, thanks for sharing that, and yeah, you know, encouraging to hear your journey to

Calvinism.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

Daniel, would you mind sharing kind of a little bit about yours?

We'd love to hear from you as well.

Sure.

Yeah, I think some people know a bit.

Of my story.

It's in my book, Welcome to Reformed Church, so it's kind of out there, but so I

was baptized in the Roman Catholic Church, Long Beach, California, and kind

of off and on churchgoer as a little kid.

My dad was converted in the Calvary Chapel movement.

Yeah, in Calvary.

We call it Big Calvary, the original Calvary Chapel with Chuck Smith.

So my dad was converted there back in the days to tent, so during the Jesus movement in the 70s,

and so my earliest memories of church are Calvary Chapel and

going to Friday night, movie night, and watching awesome movies like Crossing the Switchblade, Thief in the Night,

all this fun stuff.

Thief in the Night.

Yeah, you know, and driving home to the back of our Griswold family truckster just in fear that the rapture was

gonna happen.

So, you know, my parents separated, divorced, kind of a tumultuous childhood, and so

would go to Midnight Mass with my grandparents around Christmas time every year,

but then my dad, you know, came back to the Lord after a long season of

backsliding and brought me with him, or invited me to go.

I was a teenager at the time, so I went and sat in the very back row of Hope Chapel, Hermosa Beach, California, Four

Square Church, Go Sister Amy, and that was when I was saved.

So came to the Lord, you know, consciously, and, you know, gave my life to Him.

I knew nothing about, you know, denominations and theology, just was happy to know that my sins were forgiven,

and so I was a basketball player, played basketball in college, went to an Assemblies of God

college on a basketball scholarship, and it was there that, really disillusioned

by all the stuff that I was seeing, just wasn't satisfied intellectually and spiritually,

emotionally, with the kind of Christianity that I knew, which was, you know, Calvary Chapel, Four

Square, AG, you know, various kinds of non -denom, vineyard, all the fun SoCal

alphabet soup.

And so I started asking questions in a class from a theology

professor, a required theology class, and so he would, he literally just took me to his office after class every day and

would say, you know, you have some great questions, they've already been answered.

Here, take this book off my shelf by Martin Luther, his Commentary on Galatians.

I'd come back and say, I read that, what do I do next?

Okay, you've heard of this guy named Lewis Burkoff?

No, never heard of him.

You know, read this, you know, boom, read that, read that, Calvin, Spurgeon, Edwards, Owen, like

all the names that people would recognize.

And so that's how I became more and more reformational, I would say.

I was a youth pastor in the AG at the time, so I wasn't allowed to be a Calvinist,

but I was becoming more and more understanding of that and graduated, figured out what

else to do with my life.

My choices were to go to Fuller Seminary, which was where all the religion students went to, the Bible students.

But this professor said, you don't want to go to what, you don't want to go to Fuller, you want to go to Westminster.

And so never heard of Westminster, never heard of Escondido, California, drove all the way

down, found a apartment to live in, had a roommate, this Dutch guy, never met a Dutch guy my entire

life.

Sunday comes and goes, I went to like, kind of like the, I don't call it the charismatic, but went to kind of like the

evangelical -ish PCA in town.

And Sunday night rolls around and my roommate's like, hey, I'm getting ready for church, you coming?

I'm like, who goes to church Sunday nights?

Watch the football game, you know?

He's like, oh, we're Dutch Reformed, we go to church twice on Sunday.

It's like, oh, that sounds kind of cool.

All right, I'll go with you.

So I went to the Escondido Christian Reformed Church, now the United Reformed Church.

And the pastor was preaching through Romans chapter nine, just blew my socks off, the

singing, just right from the hymnal, psalms, hymns, the reverence,

the typical Dutch, you know, if anyone out there has gone to like an old school Dutch Reformed Church, like just the typical sobriety

of it all, it was so different for me.

And yeah, so that that's, like, that was my introduction to like real Reformed Church,

Reformation Church.

And, you know, infant baptism was never an issue for me.

I knew that that's what the Catholic Church did.

That's what I was, that's what I had, had done to me.

I read the Hatterberg Catechism, I read through, you know, all the confessional documents that were in the back of the hymnal.

I read them, was good to go with those.

I wouldn't say I understood all the ins and outs, but that was my, that was my, like, introduction to it all.

And that's how I came around.

And, you know, in my mind, I've only come to be more strong, my opinion on that.

All right.

Yeah, thank you.

Thanks for sharing, guys.

That, you know, it just gives the audience, it gives myself kind of this, you know, background information

on who you are, how you came to this view.

And it, you know, it takes you off the screen as being just, you know, a

flat screen and we were able to kind of humanize you a bit.

So that's, that's great.

Right before we dehumanize each other.

You can absolutely destroy each other.

Well, Keith has to add a Dutch Reformed guy to his ensemble.

Yeah, that is funny.

Yeah, I first, yeah, I just, first off, I just have to play this, you

know,

I took a lot of work to get that.

There you go.

So just really quick before you guys go into your opening statements, I just wanted to plug this for

people.

I'm going to be giving this away tonight, R .C. Sproul biography by Stephen Nichols.

And what we're going to be doing after the debate in the post debate discussion, we're going to have some R .C. Sproul

trivia.

So five to six questions.

If you get whoever gets the most answers correct,.

We'll be getting this book.

So I just want to say, I think, I think you're poisoning the well by giving away a

Presbyterian book.

I just want you to know, I feel already offended.

Well, I picked R .C. Sproul because I thought that that might be a little bit more,.

You know, he is my hero.

And if I could preach like anyone, I'd want to preach like him.

So.

I did just get a book by C .H. Spurgeon.

So there you go.

That's my picture.

They put they use my picture.

Yeah, I know.

Wow.

You came back to life.

Yeah, I'm glad you were a similar red tie, Keith, to the to

the all the advertisements.

I'm wearing what I have in the app.

This is the exact time I pulled it out because, you know,

well, I'm wearing shorts, if that helps, if that makes you feel better.

I'm wearing shorts,

but that's that's the zoom culture now.

That's right.

All right.

Well.

I'd love to just kind of get into it and let you guys talk, let you guys

share your your views.

And do either of you have a preference on who would who would

like to go first?

Yeah, I can go first.

That's fine.

All right.

All right.

I'm good.

Yeah.

So.

All right.

Let me really quickly here.

I'll put my timer on.

Yeah, let me do that, too.

And oh, I told Keith that this is, you know, the six to eight minutes.

Think of it as parlay, you know, in Pirates of the Caribbean.

It's a guideline.

So, you know, I'm not going to be like 801, like.

So, you know, it's a guideline.

You don't have to.

I mean, obviously, try to stay within the parameters.

But if you have a thought, you know, just it's fine.

So, yeah.

And let me.

Give you the screen.

Not me.

All right.

So infant baptism or covenant baptism, you know, baptize your babies, you've

probably seen that hashtag online.

If I was to explain that to anybody, it would just be real simple.

The Bible is a story.

It's written over 1500 plus years on three continents by dozens

of authors in three different languages.

And it tells one story that God saves sinners.

The story moves from Genesis in our creation and God's covenant in the garden

to our unbelief and then into Exodus and our redemption.

And that redemption foreshadows a greater redemption to come by a greater

savior, greater than Moses, not just another Moses, but greater than better than Moses, who

foreshadowed in those sacrifice of the law, the once and for all sacrificial lamb.

And sort of ironically, the same one who is the lamb is also the priest.

So the final high priest, the final lamb to liberate us from a greater Pharaoh and a greater

Egypt, a worse Pharaoh, a worse Egypt, Satan and our own sins.

And finally, the story as it goes to the Gospels and it chronicles the fulfillment of those types and shadows

in this one great book, this one big story.

It all comes to a consummation, of course, in Revelation, especially 21 and 22, with the new heavens, new earth,

the new creation, the new temple, new Jerusalem.

So this one story comes in multiple acts, yet it's one

story.

So much so that St. Augustine said very famously that

the New Testament is in the Old Testament concealed and the Old Testament is in the New

Testament revealed.

So that's how we understand the history and the

flow of the Bible.

It's one big story.

It's one big book with many different chapters, multiple acts.

So the issue really of infant baptism, from my vantage point at least, is a matter of

hermeneutics, how we read the Bible.

Or I would say to somebody, it's really a matter of our expectations.

Like, what are we looking for when we read the Bible?

What are we looking to get out of the Bible?

What are we trying to see there when we talk about issues like baptism?

And if I was being kind of rhetorical about it, I would say, well, do you want to read the Bible like Jesus?

Do you want to just read it like he taught his disciples in Luke's Gospel,

chapter 24, on the Emmaus Road, when he said it's all one big story that all points to him?

Or how James read the Bible at the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15,

explaining Amos 9 and the fallen booth of David that had been restored as the resurrection

of Jesus and the inclusion of the Gentiles into God's covenant.

Do we want to read the Old Testament in the Bible like Paul?

Rabbi Saul is like the poem, 1 Corinthians 10, where all the Old Testament types and shadows are

all being, they're all pointing us to Jesus.

And so, you know, and we like to laugh about that text, 1 Corinthians 10, because

that's where infants were baptized in the Old Testament.

The whole entire nation of Israel, the sons of Israel, went through the Red Sea on dry land.

1 Peter, chapter 1, where the apostle says that the ancient prophets searched their own

scrolls to try to figure out who was speaking in them, of whom were their

scrolls speaking, when, and where these things were going to be fulfilled.

And these are all the things that, as Peter says, they've come to reality as you've heard the

Gospel preached to you.

So Christological, Redemptive Historical, Covenantal, you know, whatever phrase you'd like to use.

This is how we understand the Bible, how we read it as one big story.

And so when we open our Bibles, there's Adam.

And whatever he was going to do, or whatever he didn't do, he would affect

everybody else to come.

And so there's a representational idea that's already happening from the first human beings,

that Adam's obedience or disobedience is going to affect all those that followed him.

We see it in Cain, this principle of representation, where his sin affects his whole line.

So Genesis 4, his line is known for all kinds of human exploits, metallurgy, domestication

of animals, music, city building.

But yet there's this line of Abel that's been martyred that yet has a

replacement in the person of Seth.

And in those days, people began to call upon the name of the Lord.

And so Seth stands for that people, that congregation, that corporate body

that called upon God's name.

And so we then come to Noah, the one righteous man, because of one righteous man,

his wife and his three sons, and then their three wives get to enter the ark, and they get to come in.

And they pass through the water, as Peter says, they pass through the of baptism,

and they are saved.

We know how the story turns out.

His kids are kind of scoundrels, but yet the point still remains that God was working and

saving and operating in a way that was bigger than just the one

righteous man.

He always includes those around him, his household.

As we see that in Abraham, for example, the one man, right?

He is chosen out of a family of idolaters, Joshua 9 tells us.

He's chosen, Genesis 12.

He believes, and the Lord counts it to him as righteousness.

And it's interesting, of course, as Paul, Rabbi Saul interprets Genesis 12 through 17, later on in

Romans 3 and 4, his point is that Abraham believed first and then was circumcised.

And then he circumcised his children even before they believed.

And so Ishmael was a little bit older, he circumcised, and then you

have Isaac, and then you have, of course, all of his household, all of his servants, anyone associated with him

were to be circumcised and going forth, all male children on the eighth day.

So that idea of a covenant, right?

That God is working through a large body, a big group to work out his salvation.

And you have it with Isaac and his two sons, Jacob and Esau, they're both circumcised.

Yet, of course, we know that God loves Jacob and he hates Esau.

So that same thing there with Moses and the people of Israel.

Moses is a representative person.

And we see it in Exodus 4 when his own son isn't circumcised and his wife's like, hey, you better do something about this or God's going

to judge you.

And so she cuts off the foreskin, throws at his feet, Zipporah, his wife, and she

obeys the.

And so there's judgment averted.

In the wilderness, they wander.

And of course, a whole generation dies.

That new generation enters into the promised land in Joshua's day, but they hadn't been circumcised because their parents were

disobedient, their grandparents were disobedient.

And so there's a big circumcision party.

And they, through that line and through those generations and those tribes and those peoples,

those clans, those households, God, in a very big way, worked to save a

remnant of grace.

The days of Elijah, there were only 7 ,000 who had to bow their knees to Baal.

In the time of the prophet Isaiah, he says that the whole head to the foot of the people of God, as they're personified as one person,

they're sick from the head to the foot.

But yet God was reserving a remnant of grace.

And all that big story of God working in this big way through this big, huge family, this big, huge nation.

All the males are circumcised.

That's the sign of God's covenant with them.

All that comes to its head and all that comes to its reality in Matthew 1 verse 1.

And then, again, what's our expectation when we get

to that white space between Malachi or 2 Chronicles in the Hebrew Bible and

Matthew?

What's our expectation?

The expectation is that God should continue to work this way unless he does something

about it.

Sometimes we talk about the regular principle of worship in Reformed Presbyterian Calvinistic churches.

You know, we only do what God requires us to do, what God commands.

And so I would say that this is a similar example that God commanded a sign to

be placed upon males in the Old Testament on the eighth day circumcision.

And that principle is going to apply going forward unless God himself explicitly revokes it.

And so we read in the Gospels, we read in the story of the New

Testament that John the baptizer, that he had a baptism for

repentance.

We would expect this because the people were disobedient.

Go back to Isaiah from the head to the foot, they've been disobedient.

And so we would expect that when God was going to revive his people, he would start with the males

and the men and that there would be repentance and baptism.

So we don't see that as, you know, a paradigm of, you know, believers baptism.

We see it as this is a covenantal thing that is happening for the people of God to be revived and

refreshed.

And so we come to the Gospels then.

And so we have those males who have repented and who have believed and who've given themselves to the Messiah.

And then their very own children, Jesus picks up and he blesses them and he welcomes into his arms and

in the very circle of the disciples, and even the disciples who are angry about it and are like, what are you doing, Jesus?

Jesus says, no, to such belongs my kingdom.

So we have that principle, I would say, of God's inclusion of a much

larger group, the households, the families.

And so when Matthew 28 comes and we read Jesus telling us his disciples to make, his disciples, his

apostles to make disciples of all the nations, baptizing and teaching, you know, what should we expect?

We should expect this very thing where they're going to go out.

They're going to proclaim the kingdom of God has come to Jews and Gentiles.

Male adults, especially, are going to repent and believe and something's going to happen.

And we see that in Acts, 3 ,000 males.

The Jews had a requirement three times a year for all males to attend Jerusalem for the

three required feasts.

And this was one of them, the Feast of the Passover, the Feast of the First Fruits.

And all those required males were there.

3 ,000 of them apparently believed they were baptized.

They repented.

They believed they were baptized.

That's what we would expect.

For people who are giving themselves to the Messiah, who've learned from their infancy, as Paul

tells Timothy later on, from his very grandmother's knee, he's learned the word of God.

So they've come to repent.

They've come to believe.

But then we find something strange, don't we?

That in the book of Acts, the households.

And I would say we don't need to have instances of explicit

babies crawling around on dirt floors and first century Sumerian or Judean houses.

But it's the same pattern that God gave to Father Abraham, to you, to your sons, and to all those who

are far off.

You, your sons, your servants, your strangers, your household, the Gentiles, it's all

those who are included are going to come and be baptized.

And we see, for example, the Philippian jailer, just one example of that, where he, of course, asked, what must I

do to be saved?

They say, believe the Lord Jesus, you should be saved, you and your whole household.

And that happens.

And they go and they preach into the household.

And everybody in the house, of course, hears.

This is what we do in a church, when a gathered assembly happens.

But it's interesting in Acts 16, I believe it's in verse 34, we read that

he rejoiced, the Philippian jailer, he rejoiced along with his household.

They all rejoice.

Why?

Because he, singular, because he believed.

The whole household rejoiced.

The whole household was baptized.

Why?

Because the one man was saved.

And this takes us all the way back to the beginning, like I said, the story of Adam, the story of Abel,

Seth, Noah, all the patriarchs, the prophets, this is what we would expect

as new covenant believers reading our Bible as one big story.

And so just to kind of bring it to a conclusion, the household codes, for example, Ephesians

chapter six, the boycotts, the household code, these make sense.

We can read the New Testament, making sense of it.

Just like in Exodus 12, when all the children were gathered around for the Passover meal, and they asked, what's the meaning of the service?

Children are there, they're expected to be there, because they're in the covenant of God's grace and promises.

And just like in Deuteronomy, they're there.

And the same thing, Paul writes a letter to a gathered congregation in Ephesus, and he expects children to be gathered there

in public worship to hear this letter read.

And he actually addresses them.

He speaks to them, he applies the fifth commandment to them.

He, of course, says that the promise, the fifth commandment is that they would live long lives in the earth,

because he's now recognizing that the gospel has gone forth from the land, the promised land to the whole world, to the Gentile world.

But those children are there, and they are in the Lord, they're to obey their parents in the Lord.

Again, that's covenant language that comes right from the Old Testament.

And so the Bible is one big story.

The Bible is a story of how God works and operates to save sinners.

He does that through covenants, professing believers and their children, and even households

and servants in the Old Testament.

God works in this big way to work out his promise of grace.

And he gives signs in that promise of grace, and those signs were circumcision and

now are baptism.

So one big story, God saves sinners, and the way that he does that is through his covenant of grace.

All right.

Thank you, Daniel.

Keith, don't worry about the time.

I forgot to turn my timer on. Sorry.

That's all right.

That's all right.

Well, I timed myself beforehand, and I think I'll make it under eight minutes.

Hopefully that was more than a sermonette for Christianettes.

So there you go.

All right.

Well, yeah.

So why don't you go ahead, Keith, and yeah.

Well, I want to thank you, Mason, for having me on.

I want to thank you, Danny, for participating in this debate with me.

And I want to say to the audience, I am what is called a credo Baptist.

Credo means I believe, and therefore we baptize someone only after they confess to believe the gospel.

And we would not knowingly baptize someone who is unable or who refuses to confess the gospel.

The 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith gives a good definition of what I believe about baptism and what it does.

It says in chapter 29, baptism is an ordinance of the New Testament ordained by Jesus Christ to be

unto the party baptized a sign of his fellowship with him in his death and resurrection of his being

engrafted into him of remission of sins and of giving up into God through Jesus Christ the life

to live and walk in the newness of life.

Those who do actually profess repentance toward God, faith, and an obedience to our Lord Jesus Christ are

the only proper subjects of this ordinance.

So that's what it means to be a credo Baptist.

And as an affirmed credo Baptist, I reject the practice of baptizing an infant based upon the of

their parents.

Now, it's important that I admit that my position is the minority report in church history.

Credo baptism does have a long history within Christianity.

It is practiced by the majority of mainline Protestant denominations, as well as the Eastern Orthodox

and Roman Catholic Communions.

But here's where we mustn't allow history to confuse us.

While the practice of infant baptism is wide within Christianity, the reason for its practice is varied.

The Presbyterian, the Lutheran, and the Roman Catholic all baptize their babies, but they all do so for different

reasons.

The Catholic and Eastern Orthodox believe in something called baptismal regeneration, and so do Lutherans as well.

But many Presbyterians don't.

According to Kevin Gardner, who writes for Ligonier Ministries, quote, the Reform view asserts that baptism does

not regenerate, end quote.

So, while there's a consistency regarding the subjects of baptism between these groups, there's not a consistency as to

the reason why they baptize infants.

Therefore, any appeal to historic tradition without recognizing the differences would be misleading.

Yes, baptizing infants is the majority report, but the reason has not been consistent.

So, what is interesting about this is that there's actually a consistency between Baptists and Presbyterians on this issue.

We both reject baptismal regeneration, and we both believe that baptism is done

preliminary to entrance into the visible church.

The question then becomes, who is rightly a part of the new covenant church?

Who is a part of the new covenant?

In fact, that's really the question.

The visible church is made up of those who are members of the new covenant, so who is in

the new covenant?

Is it believers only, or is it believers and they're not yet believing children?

This question leads us to examine the covenants.

It is true that under the old covenant, people were joined by birth.

It was a national covenant for a national people.

However, in the new covenant, people are joined by new birth.

This has been understood historically, and again, this is why so many practice infant baptism who

hold to baptismal regeneration.

They at least understood the connection between regeneration and covenant membership.

They believed that to be a part of the church, you had to be regenerated, so they baptized their infants and made them part of the church

because they believed baptism created regeneration.

To truly be a member of the new covenant, you're supposed to be born again.

They recognized that, so they did it.

This is one of the distinguishing attributes of the new covenant over and against the old.

Everyone within the new covenant is a regenerate believer.

Everyone who's truly in the new covenant is a regenerate believer.

The new covenant is mentioned in the book of Jeremiah and is repeated and quoted in the book of Hebrews, chapter 8.

It's called the new covenant because it is a better covenant with a better priesthood

and better promises.

I call it the Papa John's covenant.

Better priesthood, better sacrifices, new covenant.

It's the new covenant that God has written on the heart.

Everyone in the new covenant will have a genuine relationship with God.

I will be their God.

They will be my people.

Everyone from the least to the greatest in the new covenant knows God personally.

Every member of the new covenant has full forgiveness of sins.

It will not be made up of those who confess faith and those who do not, but rather it will be made up entirely of

professing believers.

Hebrews chapter 8, verse 11 says, and they shall not teach each one his neighbor and each one his

brother saying, know the Lord, for they shall all know me from the least of them to the greatest.

This speaks specifically about the covenant community wherein all shall know the Lord.

The Baptist position then is simple.

A person does not enter the new covenant by birth.

A person enters the new covenant by new birth.

Jesus said, unless a man be born again, he shall not see the kingdom of heaven.

It is not physical birth that unites one to Christ.

It is spiritual birth that unites one to Christ.

We see this clearly in John chapter 1, verse 11, in the prologue to John's gospel.

It says in verse 11, he came to his own and his own people did not receive him, but to all who

did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave them 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.

Notice that those who are given the right to become children of God, i .e. the new birth, have two

distinguishing markers.

Number one, they received him, and number two, they believed on his name.

In addition, notice that John goes to great lengths to ensure that we understand how they are not born into

God's family.

They're not born into God's family by blood, they're not born into God's family by the will of the flesh, and they're not born into

God's family by the will of man.

It is not a physical nor a familial birth.

It is a spiritual birth.

Being born into a Christian family does not make one a child of God.

This is why in the New Testament, you never read of the apostles purposefully baptizing an

unrepentant unbeliever.

Baptism is always given to those who profess faith in Christ.

Likewise, there is no command, neither any explicit description of any infant being

baptized in the New Testament.

Households are mentioned to be certain, but there's nothing to say that those household contained infants.

I have just as much warrant to believe that the people in the house of the Philippian jailer were all over the age of 12 as anyone

has to assume that there were infants in the home.

Using my church as a simple sample size, we have about 50 families in our church, and none of them have

any infants right now.

We have a few in diapers, but they're toddlers, they're not infants.

Moreover, in at least one biblical case, we are told that the person believed together with his household

and would be in line with our understanding of household baptism.

This comes from Acts chapter 18, verse 8, where it says Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue,

believed in the Lord together with his entire household, and many of the Corinthians hearing Paul believed

and were baptized.

So finally, it's important to say that as a Baptist, I do not believe that my children are in the same

condition as pagans, as is often suggested to malign us, because the Bible does

teach that our children are sanctified by the presence of at least one believing parent.

But that sanctification does not confirm them to be certainly among the elect any more than it does

the sanctity provided to an unbelieving spouse, because that same verse speaks of an unbelieving spouse being sanctified.

If this passage mandates baptizing an infant, it would also mandate baptizing an unbelieving spouse.

Our children are in a position of privilege to be sure that they are not by birth members

of the new covenant, and it does not make them part of the covenant community any more than it would an

unbelieving spouse.

Our children are blessed to be in a Christian home.

Our children are blessed to be in the Christian church, but our children do not become part of the body of

Christ apart from faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and until they profess faith,

they are not proper subjects of baptism.

Thank you, and that ends my.

Opening statement.

All right, thank you, Keith.

I appreciate you, you know, giving your opening statement.

I forgot to say, I was going to say, don't respond yet, but you didn't, so great job, and

I just wanted to play this as, you know, for everyone, you know.

Congrats.

Good job, Keith.

Yeah, good job.

Thanks for being here.

Yeah, so what I'm hoping now is maybe we can kind of do that

idea of responding to one another, and not doing it in such, you know, long

stretches, maybe as some debates do, but what we can do is, you know, have Daniel

ask Keith a question, answer, discussion, have Keith ask Daniel a question, discussion, you know what I'm saying?

So kind of the cross -examination sort of thing, but a little bit, like I said, more conversational,

so if either of you guys have any questions right off the bat that,

you know, maybe aren't, like, it maybe can lead to discussion, that'd be great.

I'm going to also be flagging questions in the comments, so.

And then Mason, do you have your own questions for us?

I do have my own questions, and I'd love to ask one of them.

Let me pull it up.

Yeah, so I'd love to know, you both kind of mentioned it, but

baptism, it seems to be, is an outflowing

doctrine of other foundational doctrines.

It's, you know, it's crucial that, you know, we understand it as it is,

but like you both mentioned, there's a lot of presuppositions involved, a lot of things that

can lead us to a certain conclusion on baptism that, you know, and baptism is kind of downstream.

So I would love to know, like, what do you guys think is the biggest

presupposition or biggest foundation that kind of leads to a certain conclusion about

baptism?

And I, before, on the pre -debate show, I talked with the chat, we had a couple in mind.

And so after you guys go, I'll kind of share with you what I'm thinking are some of the bigger

presuppositions.

Sure.

Yeah, I would say it

sounds like the biggest issue

would be that I would see there being more continuity between

the covenants and the old into the new covenant, you know, in terms of

inclusion of a wider number of people,

whereas Keith sees a little more,.

I would say, discontinuity.

It's funny because I don't want to interrupt you, but I literally wrote down continuity versus

discontinuity.

So it's funny that you say that.

Yeah.

I mean, that's.

Like, you know, it's like I said, it's like a matter of like how we read the Bible.

I mean, you know, there's a lot of, there's a lot of commonality and there's a lot of like some of the things that,

you know, I'm sure we both said, we're like, okay, yeah, I can see how that fits, even fits into my own system.

Yeah.

But I think that's the bigger, because to me, it's not about like the particular passages necessarily.

It's that issue of continuity, discontinuity.

So, you know, I would say like explicitly we're told

that there's a new temple, explicitly there's a new high priest, Jesus, right?

Sacrifices.

You know, there are certain things that are new and have been changed, but I would say those things that

haven't still continue.

And so that issue of continuity of what a covenant is and,

you know, to whom it applies is definitely probably for me, the biggest issue.

Do you want me to answer too?

Yeah.

Yeah, go ahead, Keith.

Sorry about that.

I was muted.

No, it's fine.

I'll build on what Brother Danny said.

Do you prefer pastor, brother, Dan?

It's all good.

So, I think there is typically a distinction among Baptists and Presbyterians, a

question of continuity and discontinuity, but it's also a question of promise and fulfillment.

It's also a question of what we would call, and not necessarily to be derogatory, but we would say when

you place everything from Adam to Christ under the covenant of grace, it ends up flattening out the

covenants, and then it all becomes different administrations of one covenant of grace, which I think is the proper way to describe that, Danny.

Is that not the way?

So, in that, we would see a distinction that each covenant reveals

Christ, pointing to the new covenant, and the new covenant is the fulfillment of all of the preceding covenants,

pointing forward to Him, the promise and fulfillment motif.

So, rather than saying they're all the same covenant, we would say each of the covenant progressively

points to the new covenant, the great covenant of grace, which is how Baptists would understand the new covenant.

Rather than seeing it all as the covenant of grace, we would say these other covenants point to the covenant of grace,

which is the new covenant.

So, that would.

Be—the way we see the discontinuity is more of progression.

Yeah, and just to clarify, Keith, are you kind of in the camp of, like, Stephen Wellham,

progressive covenantalism?

That's kind.

Of what I was hearing.

Yeah, I would be more of a progressive covenantalist in that regard, but I think that even

within the 1689 Federalist camp and things like that, they would still

see the new covenant as being the covenant of grace, not the covenant of grace throughout.

So, that would be, I think, a consistent thing between us, and if I'm wrong,

I will repent in sackcloth and ashes and uphold both the lesser and greater Renehan in

my prayers.

No, I think you're correct.

I have read their books, and I think you're correct.

Yeah, I mean, even in my doctoral dissertation on John Owen, I had to take into

account Samuel Renehan's dissertation on John Owen,

and this was the big issue, sort of like the minutia

of John Owen scholarship.

Is John Owen a proto -Baptist or not?

And so, yeah, that was the issue, was like, what is the covenant of grace, continuity,

discontinuity?

But just the way Keith described it, I mean, yeah, we would say similar.

There is progression.

The covenants do progressively get more clear, more information.

There's more to it, and they're all pushing forward to the new covenant.

I think the difference would be, we would see the new covenant as, it's still an administration of

the one covenant of grace, but there is newness.

So I don't want to discount that either.

There is newness, like from our family, in the Dutch Reformed Church, there's newness to the new covenant.

So I think there's probably, even how we read those things, I think there probably, we probably agree more

than the typical Reformed Baptist throwing barbs at each other.

I think we probably would agree more on that.

So it probably comes down to even what's new about the new covenant, right?

How much newness is there?

So, yeah.

Exactly. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You guys are spot on with what I was discussing with some of the people,

the audience.

We were thinking of just kind of the idea of covenant theology in general, but you guys kind of discussed a little bit more of the

nuance of it.

Then the other thing was kind of the hermeneutical difference when it comes to, when you see

the 1689 and the Westminster Confession side by side, you see the

1689 removes the clear, or what is the good and necessary consequence?

Yeah.

In chapter one.

Yeah.

Chapter one, article three or six or something.

But how do you guys, what do you.

Guys think of that?

Well, I know Ryan McGraw, who's an NLPC professor at Greenville Seminary.

Ryan McGraw has a little booklet on that, on good and necessary consequence.

And yeah, that's explicitly taken out.

I have to look at the Savoy Declaration, but for sure, yeah, the 1689 London Baptist Confession.

And I think that's probably the issue going on.

It's not just into baptism, right?

But there's that kind of looming in the background.

But yeah, that's at least what McGraw argues.

That's why that was kind of removed,.

Edited out.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Unfortunately, I can't speak to the reasoning behind that.

Our church actually holds to the first London Confession, not the second.

So I've done more study on the first.

And so I don't want to speak out of turn and be wrong.

Again, the Renehans are, they loom over my shoulder always, the lesser and greater.

I joke, it's Jim and Sam, but I say the lesser and greater Renehan are always there to make sure

that I get it right as a Baptist.

So I'm going to be careful.

Yeah.

And then the third thing that we've been thinking about is just

baptism, the definition of it.

I think that when I was in seminary studying it,

it seemed to me like there's just this disconnect.

In a sense, there's just different definitions.

Of course, the subjects of baptism are going to be different if you believe the definition itself is different.

So I'd love to hear maybe like just from you guys,

an elevator pitch or just a very short summary of what is baptism?

What does it mean?

I know you both kind of summarized it in your opening statements, but just for the person who maybe

has never studied it, maybe the person who just became a Christian, how would you

define baptism for them from your perspective?

Whoever wants to go first is welcome to.

Well, sure. I'm fine.

Yeah.

Keith, go ahead.

Go ahead.

I was going to say, this is where I think there can be some difficulty

because typically among Baptists, when we talk about what is the sign of the new covenant,

we talk about the internal sign of regeneration, but then the external sign is, of course,

participation in baptism because baptism is the sign of entrance into the new covenant community.

And I think both Danny and I would agree, at least in general, on that definition, that

this is how we indicate someone is entering into the community, and we would just differ on who that would be.

So baptism is certainly a sign.

It is a picture.

There is a picture given to us in Romans chapter six that baptism is the sign of being buried with Christ and being

raised to the newness of life to walk in him and to be united with him in his death, burial, and

resurrection.

And so the symbolism of baptism is that, and I know we're not debating

tonight the mode of baptism or the method of baptism, but there is a reason why Baptists tend to focus

on the laying the person back and immersing them in the water as a symbol of going into the grave and being

raised with Christ.

And so there are certain aspects of that that are symbolic.

And so we would say it is the initial sign of entrance into the new covenant community.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, yeah, same.

I was just going to read a couple of lines from the Confession of Faith, 1561,

that virtually says that, speaking of the sacrament of baptism, says, by it, baptism, we are received

into God's church and set apart from all other people and alien religions that we

may be dedicated entirely to him, bearing its mark and sign.

And then it says that Jesus has commanded all those who belong to him be

baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit.

So yeah, it's, I was going to make a joke, you know,

people, you know, you hear people say like water baptism.

Oh, you gotta have, you know, you gotta, you know, you gotta, you know, believe in, you know, you gotta, you know, have water baptism.

What other kind of baptism is there?

Like what is redundant?

Like baptism is water.

So, so besides that, right, there's, there's the elemental part of the, of the sign,

the sacraments, the ordinance.

Yeah, it's, it's the, it's an outward tangible sign of inclusion in,

into the, the people of God.

You know, like these are all loaded terms.

Like, you know, when we understand the people of God, of course, yeah, we're thinking covenantally, we're thinking, you know, believers and their children.

But it's, you know, it's a generically same definition.

But it's, it's, there's also, I would say that the difference nuance too

would be, it's not just, you know, it's not

just incorporate, like, it's not just that the person is, you know, uniting themselves or the person is

entering into the covenant, the church, the people, you know, there's, there's also

from the reform point of view, this is something that God does.

That's why it's a sacrament, right?

It's not just, it is an ordinance, right?

Christ commanded it.

That's, you know, it is an ordinance.

It's just not only an ordinance, it is a sacrament, meaning a holy sign and seal,

you know, in the, like, that's why that word was used, sacramentum was used to, to translate

to the equivalent of musterion from the Greek.

Because it's, it's not just the Roman soldier's oath of loyalty to his,

to his, you know, general or Caesar.

This is God, this is his oath to us.

God has taken upon himself in Christ, all the obligations of the covenant, and he's fulfilled them all for us.

And so there's like, there's a heavenly side to it, divine side, like the divine initiative, the graciousness

of reformed sacramental theology.

So I'd say like on that little, on that point, you know, we would be more on the side of the Lutherans versus the Baptists,

because we see it more as God's action, rather than a person's action.

It is, it is our action, and we have to do something, but it's also, it's God.

Yeah.

Yeah, thank you for that.

But in general, yeah, in general, I mean, you know, we'd have a similar like definition, but then, you know, it's like the devil's in the details.

Yeah. Yeah.

Just, just like one politician just said, just become reformed, and then we'll explain it to you afterwards, right?

So vote for me first, and then I'll explain it to you.

That is funny.

You've got to pass the bill to read the bill, right?

That was the old, the old term, back in.

The day.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I have a couple more questions, but I'd love to, and I'm sure others would love to hear,

maybe you guys asking each other a couple questions, and then going off of those, if you do

have any, it can be in, in, in response to the opening statements, or it could be just, you know,

kind of a curiosity that you're hoping to discuss, and then we'll take a

couple questions from the chat.

So maybe just, I'll ask one of Keith.

So, so Jeremiah 31, Hebrews 8,

all the New Covenant are regenerated.

So how, so, so, you know, so how do you, you know, in particular, Keith, how do you

take into account the Hebrews 6 then?

Like, so make sense of that.

Hebrews 6, apostasy, falling away, you know, what's going on there?

Okay.

So we would say that the only people who are truly members of the New Covenant are, in

fact, regenerate, but that is not to say that everyone who is in the visible

community is regenerate, because there are those who have made false professions.

There's a difference between receiving someone upon the basis of a false profession and receiving someone who's

never made a profession.

So we would distinguish, as I'm sure the question implies, well, you're going to have people

there who aren't genuinely part of the Covenant.

Well, those people make themselves known by virtue of the fact that they demonstrate their

apostasy at some point.

That's how they make themselves known, but the infant who is baptized would be baptized based

upon no expression of faith, no inclination of faith that we know of, because there's been no participation

in their cognitive ability to believe and confess and receive Christ.

So that would be the distinction.

We would say that no one is in the community who hasn't made a profession of faith, and that's why I made a distinction at the

beginning of my introduction.

When we say credo baptism, some people call that believer's baptism.

I actually don't use the term believer's baptism, because we don't know if somebody's a believer or not, but we know if somebody

confesses faith, that's what credo means.

I believe.

That's what they've said.

That's who we baptize.

That's who we accept in the Covenant community.

And so Hebrews 6 and other places would be identifying someone who has done those things, who has made those

professions of faith, and later demonstrated themselves to be.

An apostate.

So as a follow -up, because that's interesting.

So you've probably seen or heard, maybe Sproul or somebody, typically

we in the Reformed camp will make two concentric circles, right?

There's the elect, and then there's the Covenant, right?

So it sounds like you guys do the same thing.

You also make some kind of concentric circle, like the new Covenant is the.

Small circle, and the big circle is the Church.

Yeah?

Yeah, we would say not everyone who's a member of the Church is by de facto a spiritual member of the new

Covenant, but we don't do that on purpose.

That's not purposefully done.

I was going to say like that when you were reading,.

When you were saying your opening statement, that was like one of the things that struck me, was like, oh, so you guys all, like, so again,

like you two make some distinctions, just like we do.

Obviously, again, it's like the members of the Covenant Church are going to be different, but

I was just, yeah, it was interesting to me that you made like a similar conceptual argument that

there's a new Covenant, that would be like equivalent to the elect, and then the Church,

the broader sphere, we would just call it the Covenant, but you would say.

That's the visible Church, right?

Yeah, we would say somebody can be a part of the visible Church but again, it would be through the

process of false profession, like Simon in Acts chapter 8, who professed and was baptized, but then

later demonstrated himself to not be a genuine believer.

Okay, so my turn?

Do I get to ask?

Your turn, Keith.

All right, great.

Well, I enjoy these types of conversations, and I

like to ask questions.

One of my favorite questions on this is in regard to 1 Corinthians chapter 7, because this is

often a passage that is used to argue that children of believers are

sanctified.

So my question to you, Danny, is in regard to the other person who's mentioned in this, and this is the

spouse who is the unbelieving spouse.

Would it be your position that the unbelieving spouse is also a

candidate for baptism, even though they don't believe?

And if not, what would preclude them from being a candidate for.

Baptism?

Yeah, that's a good question.

So I wouldn't, this is me personally, I wouldn't say that, you know, like that's not like a proof

text.

Like I would never say that's a proof text.

I would.

Just say like it's one little piece of the puzzle, right?

And I didn't say that you did.

I've heard it from other people, so I'm not necessarily...

No, like I hear, like, you know, I had some friends.

Texting me today saying, like, you know, I'm still Presbyterian, but you got to make some better sense

of some of these texts for me, because I've heard some lame explanations lately, and one of them was like 1 Corinthians 7, 14.

So, and I said, you know, okay, hopefully I'll say something interesting.

Yeah, because I think some people turn to these passages, and they kind of think of them as proof texts, where

I think, you know, you and I are both probably saying something different to people, like, hey, we got to read the Bible holistically

and, you know, make sense of the pieces.

But so what I would say, this is me saying this, you know, I don't know what others would

say, but so the difference, so the difference would be

that, and like the wife, you know, this is like a conscious adult.

I mean, she's going to make sure he's going to make her his own, you know, conscious

decision.

So the sanctification does enter the

household, it's a set apart household.

And so, you know, we would baptize, we've done this, we've had split households, we've baptized the

children.

But the person, the unbelieving spouse, if that unbelieving spouse

was, you know, consciously, you know, rejecting the gospel, then yeah, we would not baptize them, because they've

rejected the faith.

They haven't believed in the gospel, because they're an adult, like they're a different, it's a different animal,

right?

It's a different status.

For us.

What if the person, what if he was an unbeliever, but he wasn't opposed to being

baptized to satisfy his wife, would you baptize him then?

If he said, I don't believe, but it'll make her happy.

So give me the water.

So yeah, so like, again, like, I'm pretty confident, like.

In our churches, no, that person would not be baptized, because they're in a different situation.

And like, there has to be a conscious profession of faith on their, you know, for them.

So, you know, and you know, like I say, like, to my Baptist friends, like, hey, you know, we do believe in, you know, like in,

in profession of faith, we do believe in cradle baptism, it's just we also believe in infant baptism.

So we would want that person to be catechized, be evangelized, be taught.

Yeah, and if they gave some, you know, minimal confession, sure, we baptize them.

If they were just agnostic, no, if they rejected it, obviously not.

But I would still say, though, you know, it just has a bigger principle, like, you know, as a pastor to

people who've gone, who go through this, you know, let's say it's the husband who's a believer.

Hey, like, you know, there is a general sanctification.

And through you, the Lord is going to, you know, we pray use you, you know, in your wife's life, or in the opposite

situation.

You know, if the wife's a believer, and the husband's not, it's the same thing, like, you know, just

like kind of first Peter, you know, the wife trying to win over her husband, you know, so that

principle, there's still a sanctification, we would still view them, you know, kind of household wise, but

yeah, there is a difference between in that situation, the unbeliever and the believer, a believer in the child.

So yeah.

All right.

His turn again, is he good to ask another question?

Yeah.

Yeah, let's just go one more time back and forth.

And we'll see where we're at.

I mean, I do, I just want to say, like, as appreciation, you know, on the one Christian 714, when you when you when you

mentioned that, in your opening.

Yeah, it's honestly, it's good to hear Baptist brothers say that their kids are different from the world's kids.

You know, so kudos on that.

You know, because the typical, like from our from our side of the fence, like we like to lob the whole, like, oh, you're, you know, you have little vipers and.

Diapers, right?

So I'm not gonna say I've never said that phrase.

But yeah, I get it.

I've heard Keith say that.

Our vipers aren't as bad as their vipers.

Okay.

Their fangs are a little less.

So yeah, yours are just vipers.

Jonathan Edwards uses that phrase at times, too.

But yeah, no, I was just as a general, you know, again, you know, it's

not a hugely formal debate.

And I think it's good for people to see that, hey, we don't we don't agree.

There's a reason why we have different denominations and different churches and associations.

But same time, you know, on that, it's good to hear that.

So I guess so that okay, so back.

Yeah, back to the Jeremiah Hebrews.

Okay.

This is like, obviously, like one of the big texts, exegetical passages that, you know, we all

we wrestle over.

And okay, so this is, I'll just tell you how, how,

how we would read it, you know, how I would read it.

And I guess there's a question implied in there.

So sometimes we hear like, we're reading the Old Testament prophets.

You know, there's like the two horizons, right?

So like, oh, you know, the illustration, like, oh, I'm driving up to like Big Bear Mountain in Southern California.

And I think I see Big Bear Mountain, but really, there's a that's the first mountain and Big Bear is behind it.

And there's a gap in between, right?

So a lot of times like that kind of illustration helps us make the point of when we read the Old Testament prophets.

There are there are things that are like already in

application, in operation, and there are things still that are to come.

And this is, you know, I'm just curious, like how you, when you read that

passage, like, do you read all the prophets that way, like, everything that they say about the new covenant is

already like in operation?

You know, because Jesus talks about, like, there's two comings, right?

And the Jews were stumbled by that, you know, Matthew 24.

You know, the, sometimes the apostles quote from a text from the

Old Testament prophets, and they stop, they don't quote the whole thing, because the next

verse goes on talking about, like, the day of wrath, the day of the Lord.

And so there's a conscious understanding that some things, yes, are happening now,

and other things aren't.

And so I guess I would read the Jeremiah 31, Hebrews 8, you know, in that

line of, like, kind of put in Pauline terms, like, there's this age, and there's the age to come.

And so in this age, the new covenant has been inaugurated.

But there's also, like, an eschatological age to come, like a finality to it, when

it will be true that, you know, nobody's going to need a teacher, they're all going to know the Lord.

So anyways, yeah, I guess, you know, that's just my observation.

I know we disagree on that.

But, you know, is there any sense of, like, those kinds of new covenant prophecies

in the Old Testament prophets?

Are there things that are still not happening, like,.

In terms of the covenant?

Well, I think my answer—I wouldn't say that there is no

forward -looking promise or anything like that, but I would say that within the context of

Hebrews 7, 8, 9, all of those, we're looking at the work of what Christ did in

coming and inaugurating the new covenant and making the old covenant obsolete.

That's the point of Hebrews 8, is that the reason he speaks of a new covenant is because he has made the old covenant obsolete, and what

is obsolete is growing old and is beginning to vanish away.

And we see that, of course, when the temple is destroyed in AD 70, that brings about the final

death knell of the old covenant, where there's no more sacrifices, there's no more priesthood, there's no more place to produce the sacrifices.

So we see that happening.

So I do think it is, in that sense, time -bound to the events that happened in the first advent.

I don't think it's a promise that has only fulfillment in the second advent.

I think there is a fulfillment in the first advent, and the fulfillment is that we have this new covenant that's going to include people that

aren't just Jewish, but are of every tribe, tongue, people, and nation, and the distinction between this and the old covenant is the old covenant

is a mixed covenant, which included Jewish people who were believers, not believers, and the new covenant will be a

covenant of believers from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation.

And so that's the promise and fulfillment.

That I would see there in Hebrews 8.

Okay, yeah, that's helpful.

But then how, so I guess my follow -up then, it goes back to the earlier question.

So how would you, like, what distinction are you making then, saying that Hebrews 8,

you know, the new covenant is, in all the aspects of Jeremiah 31 are in

operation, you know, now, according to Hebrews 8, in terms of the new covenant, the newness being not

a mixed covenant, all are regenerated.

Well, they have their sins forgiven, they've all, they all know the Lord, and by all know the Lord, it says no one will have to tell his neighbor,

know the Lord.

That's not saying that there never has to be a teacher in the church or anything like that, that you and I be put out of a job.

But what it means is the people who are in the church are there because they believe this is the,

this is why they gather.

They gather because they know the Lord.

And so what, like, what in Hebrews 6, 7, 8, like, would

lead you to say that, like, the Hebrews 6 person is not, like, a member of the new covenant?

They're just, like, in the church?

He has experienced the participation in the new covenant

by having received the sign of baptism, having tasted of the heavenly gift, which I do believe is participation in the Lord's

Supper.

I think he has experienced those things, but has done so under the false veil of professing to be a

believer when he was not.

And this is why the writer of Hebrews goes on to say in Hebrews 6, but we think, but we know better of you, speaking of the true

believers who are reading and hearing, which I believe is a sermon that was written, Hebrews is a sermon,

he's saying, but we know better of you, right after he finishes the apostasy passage in verses, I think

it's 4 to 6 in Hebrews 6, right after that, but we think better of you.

Why?

Who is the you?

It's the genuine believers, it's the genuine members of the covenant, the ones who have not had this false veil

of faith, which was not real.

All right.

Yeah, fair enough, yeah.

Okay.

All right, so that leads, do I get to ask a question now?

My turn?

Okay.

All right, so this is a

simple question, but if you would indulge me, I'd

like to have a follow -up, because the first question is really just a yes or no question, and then based on your answer, I'll ask a

follow -up.

Do you believe that the new covenant is what I would define, and you may not

use the same term, but what we would define as a mixed covenant, that the new covenant includes believers and unbelievers?

Yes, yes.

Okay, great.

I thought so, and that's why I said I figured it was a yes or no answer.

Okay, so when the writer of Hebrews tells us that the new covenant makes the old covenant obsolete,.

What's obsolete?

Well, yeah, I mean, that's like, so

what's obsolete is, especially

dealing, like, with that passage going back to, I'm just trying to pull it up real quick,

so yeah, like, so the Hebrews 8 pointing to Jeremiah 31, which is pointing back to, of course,

like Mount Sinai, right, the day that he brought them out of Egypt.

So, you know, obviously, like, we have different understandings of the Mosaic covenant, the

covenant, you know, through Moses at Sinai, but yeah, I

would say that the newness, in this context, the newness,

again, is like, there's an already not, oh, I think we just lost Mason, did we lose Mason?

I was going to say, we lost our moderator, now we can fight.

Now, yeah, bring out the boxing gloves.

So, yeah, the newness would be, first of all,

that covenant at Sinai, obviously, like, there, at a minimum, there's, like, some

legal aspect to it, there's some obedience aspect to it, however we construe that,

like, some people, of course, historically said, it's, like, strictly come to works, it's a mixed covenant,

covenant of grace and works, you know, or it's an administration of coming to grace with the legal aspect, that's

how I would understand it.

So, you know, that is stripped off, obviously, like, temple

apparatus, like you mentioned earlier, it's fulfilled, obviously,

it doesn't cease, the Jewish temple ceases and the priesthood and sacrifices cease, but we

still have a temple, the church is the temple, the people are the priesthood,

Christ is the great high priest, we lay ourselves down at sacrifices, we offer up sacrifices to pray, so I would say those

things are, those things are ceased, but they're also redefined, you know, they're brought to their fullness, you

know, the purpose of God dwelling with his people in the temple is now reality without a physical temple,

so, yeah, and, but then, again, I would say, like, some of these things, just like in

other passages in the prophets, there are aspects that

are all lumped together in one passage that I would say have to be carefully delineated out

in terms of, okay, and this part is not,

this part is not necessarily speaking of this age, it's speaking of the consummation of the

new covenant, so I guess, like, that's why I brought the Hebrews 6 up, because I would say, like, based on Hebrews

6 existing, shows us that, like, you know, they're all going to know the

Lord, that language is in the same context of this new covenant

prophecy, but not all the new covenant prophecy is, you know, in operation, you

know, in all of its fullness yet, so, you know, that's how at least I would understand that,

you know, and I guess just to kind of point people to something to read on that, my Old Testament professor, one of

them back in seminary, Meredith Klein, in his explanation of the Jeremiah

31 passage would make that distinction between, like, this age and the age to come, the Pauline distinction,

so some things are operative, forgiveness of sins,

but yet, you know, are all regenerated?

No, not until the consummation, so yeah, that's how we would understand those texts, because Hebrews 6 is

there, like, we would not see them as, like, distinct texts of, like, different,

like, those people are in the covenant, we would say, they're in the same assembly, because, like, so we don't make this distinction between

church and covenant, right, it's the same, like, the visible church is the sphere of the covenant, so, you know, again, it goes back

to the earlier, like, discussions, just, you know, we have a different delineation of, like, the narrow and the

broad, so for us, the church is the covenant, but the elect is the narrower circle,

whereas the church slash covenant is the broader circle, so.

But even if one were to, and if I might push just an inch, even if one were to accept

that premise and say the church equals the covenant community,

what justification, then, do we still have to bring people into that covenant community who have not made a

profession.

Of faith?

Well, yeah, so that we, I would say, like, the quote -unquote proof texts for infant

baptism are Genesis 17, like, our historic Reformed, like, the form that we read every time we

do a baptism explicitly links it back to Genesis 17, because, again, we

see that continuity, Genesis 17 acts to, like, we see these

things as essentially saying the same thing, the sign has changed, but the essential character

that we, which we agree on, like, this is the sign of into the covenant, but we see that as still being

applied to believer, professing believers, and all those within their household,

so that's how, and that's why we, that's how we bring them in, that's why we have, we feel like we have justification, because we don't

think that that.

Promise of Genesis 17 has ceased.

Okay, I have a lot more, but I'll leave it at that.

All right,.

Yeah, let's go to a couple of viewer questions.

I gotta come to Florida, we gotta hang out.

Yeah, dude, hey, you come down here, I'll buy you a cigar.

That would be good.

Part two.

Yes, yes.

Yeah, all right, so I'm gonna ask a couple of questions, some of them are pointed towards one of you, and

then I'll ask a couple more questions, and then you guys can do your closing statements.

Yeah, so this first one is from Blake, and I'm assuming

it's pointed towards Keith.

The question is, were people in the Old Testament saved by a different means than the New Testament?

The people in the Old Testament and the people in the New Testament are both saved because of the work of Christ,

but we would say that the people in the Old Testament are looking forward to the work of Christ.

We look back to the work of Christ, but all are saved by the same work of Christ.

Yep, beautiful.

Simply put, that's what I like.

That's what Jesus says, right?

Like Abraham saw my day and rejoiced, you know?

Yes, exactly, yeah.

All right, this one is for Danny.

Yep.

Can you clarify what you mean by one covenant of grace?

What is essential to the covenant of grace that is true of all the various administrations?

I don't know if you see that on the screen, but...

Yep, oh yeah, yeah, I see that.

I see that.

So first of all, shout out to Libby, former member of Oceanside

URC.

Yeah, one covenant of grace.

So that's a theological term, like Trinity.

It's something that we use as kind of a catch -all

terminology to help us make sense of a lot of biblical material.

So when we talk about God being a covenant God and making covenants all

through the Old Testament, there's parties to the covenants.

There's God who initiates, and there's the person or the people with whom he's making the covenants.

So there's parties.

There's promises, right?

So in the garden, there's a promise implied by the threat.

So there's promises and threats.

The threat is if you eat, the day that you eat, you'll surely die.

The implied promise is obviously if Adam obeys, he's going to live.

So there's threats, there's promises, and there are also signs.

So we would say in the garden, a tree of life is a sign of that life.

Later on, of course, with Abraham, the sign is circumcision.

There's still the Lord, there's Abraham and the nation that he's going to build through Abraham.

Those are the parties, the promises, I'll be your God, you'll be my people.

There are threats for those who aren't circumcised or cut off, so there's a

threat.

So those are the kinds of details that make up covenants.

Could be missing one or two, but those are the general parameters.

And so when we read these covenants, how do we make sense of them all?

Well, the covenant with Adam, we would say, is qualitatively different.

It's something else going on.

It's not a covenant of grace.

It's a covenant of works or of life or creation, various terms that are used

for that.

But after that, when Adam falls, the promise of God bringing salvation, Genesis 3 .15,

that little mother promise, as we call it, takes on shape and takes on more detail, more

interesting nuances as it comes through Abraham.

I'm skipping the Genesis 6, 7, 8, 9 with Noah because it's kind of a different thing.

But the covenant that God makes with the Israelites,

then he adds to that even through David of kingship, then

the promise of a new covenant to come.

So all those individual covenants, Abraham, Israel,

David, new covenant, we would put them all under the heading, sort of theologically speaking, to kind of

make sense of it all as God administering a covenant of grace to save sinners.

So that's why I said the Bible is all about God saving sinners.

There's lots of differences.

Obviously, as I mentioned earlier, the covenant with Israel at Mount Sinai, we would say it's a part of the covenant

of grace, but there's a lot of differences.

It has a work stuff attached to it.

It's very legal, like the law.

But anyways, yeah, those are kind of the aspects of covenants, parties, threats and promises, signs,

and all those different covenants we can kind of subsume after the fall

into theological shorthand as the one covenant of grace, but trying to recognize there's a lot of

discontinuities as well, and a lot of shape and form to each one.

All right.

Thank you.

Here's a question from Angelo, and it's for both of you.

I would say Keith first.

If a person was baptized when he, she was an infant in a Roman Catholic church for Keith,

will they baptize him again when he joins the church or professes his faith?

Yes.

I can explain why, but the answer is if a person, because

according to our confession and actually our church constitution is that

church membership requires a baptism which is preceded by

confession of faith.

So it wouldn't matter if it was Roman Catholic or any form of infant baptism, but specifically

because we believe Rome does not preach the gospel,

we would say that would be even more so a reason to emphasize the need for proper

baptism.

All right.

Thank you.

And I'm curious, Danny, would you rebaptize someone who was Roman Catholic or would you not?

No.

Okay.

Yeah, no.

So yeah, that's like in the history of the Reformation, like

as far as I know, there was like one Dutch Reformed guy, I think it was Franciscus Unius, who disagreed on that one.

But for the most part, like the majority report is that we accept that baptism

because although the Roman Catholic church is, you know, at a minimum, a false church, it's

not the false church.

There's still like vestigia gratia, there's still vestiges of grace.

You know, the word is read, the treat is recited, there are prayers, surely mixed with stuff.

But baptism is one of those things that we would say is still

legit because it's in the name of the Trinity, in a triune confessing church.

And it's with water, of course, it goes without saying.

Because the problem is, this is like more like me as a historical nerd.

The problem is, in the Reformation, I would still say it would be true today.

If all those baptisms were illegitimate, like did the church exist for 1500

years, right?

Like that was the problem that the Reformers had to grasp with.

And so, you know, right or wrong, they tended to say, as Calvin and others did, that we accept Roman

baptism because we believe that God still was preserving the church, although

through times of error.

Now, the United States, of course, like in Southern Presbyterianism back in the day, that became like a

hot topic.

And so, you know, there are major, you know, Southern Presbyterian theologians in

the 18th or 19th century and following that would say, no, we need to re -baptize them.

So I know at least like, you know, my Presbyterian friends, OPC, PCA, mostly the OPC guys,

that would be kind of like they would have this divisions over that, like distinct views of that.

In our churches, I'm pretty sure we would always accept them.

So that now, but I'll just kind of caveat that just to assuage people's consciences.

If a Mormon showed up and was converted, yes, re -baptism because they don't believe in the Trinity.

You know, yeah.

If a one that's Pentecostal, of course, re -baptism, you know, whatever it might be.

Disciples of Christ, right?

Like only in Jesus name, re -baptism, like you haven't been baptized.

So yeah, we would like, so on some things we would agree again, but we would see on other things we've,

yeah, we have big disagreements.

So yeah.

And if a Baptist comes,.

We won't re -baptize them.

And just to be clear, even though I was brought up in the Disciples of Christ church, I was baptized as a Baptist.

So yeah.

Yep.

Good.

Yeah.

So.

I have a couple, just a couple more and.

First, can I say while you're looking, I'm having a.

Time, Danny, you're such a great, enjoyable person.

I'm not saying that to, it just struck me that I'm enjoying this.

I don't always get into debates, but I'm enjoying this one.

So.

Good.

Praise the Lord.

Praise the Lord.

Yep.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So this one is for Keith

and it's, it's one that someone asked.

I'm going to reword it, basically.

So thinking of, you know, the new covenant as a better covenant, when it comes

to membership in the covenants, trying to see how to word

it to be this,.

For this question.

How is it better if it leaves out our children?

Yeah.

Well, I think the question's getting at like in, in Jeremiah 31, you know, it's, it's

better.

And I think that the critique that I might be reading is like the idea

of it being more restrictive rather than better.

And so I'm just going off the top of my head now, but like, I've, I've heard someone say

like, oh, I, if, you know, if kind of the, the Baptistic understanding of the

covenants is true, I kind of wish I lived in the old covenant in a sense, because, you know, my children would have at least been

included.

I think that's, you know, obviously, you know, kind of a extreme saying.

Yeah.

It's, it's making a, using hyperbole to make an exaggerated point.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I guess, how would you respond to that kind of critique of, well, it's better.

So therefore it should probably be, you know, seem better to the people who it was promised to.

I think I know where you're going to go,.

But I'd love to, I'd love to hear you.

Well, the reality of it is it's, it's better because God says that it's better and God gets to define his

terms.

And so if, if God says that this is better, it's, it is simply by virtue of the fact that God knows

all things, but it's also better in the sense that my children

get to experience growing up in a Christian home.

They get to experience growing up in a Christian church, and they get to experience the blessing of being

evangelized into the faith, not being assumed that they are in the faith.

And so my children receive from me the, the call of faith in the gospel

on a regular basis and a pointing to Christ and with the hope and prayer that God will in fact

regenerate their heart and bring them to saving faith.

And so it's not as if they are somehow not a part of what we're doing and we,

we hide them in a closet on Sunday morning and don't let them come and participate in anything.

No, they get to be a part of it, but we don't assume that they are a part of it simply by, because they are

born of the flesh.

And again, this goes back to John 1, which I think is huge, John 1 11, that they're, they're not, it's not of the flesh.

It's not of the will of man.

It's not of the will of the flesh, but it's of God.

And so we tell our children, yes, that you, you very much are part of the

family of God when you believe.

And until you believe, you are still in our family, and we're going to continue to encourage you to

believe.

Just, just last week, my seven -year -old daughter, well, she's six, she's fixing to be seven.

She came up and she hugged me.

She said, Daddy, I want to be baptized.

And I said, praise God that at six years old, she can express that desire.

And it wasn't something that I assumed upon her, but rather it's something she desires in her heart.

And we're going to continue to encourage that desire in her heart.

And, and we'll, and we will baptize her, but, but we'll talk more, another time we can

talk about the things that go into that in the same way that I'm sure Danny would, would have a time of, of, of catechism and

things prior to the Lord's supper.

We would do the same thing prior to baptism, but, but it's, for us,

it's a blessing to see our children request this thing and to, to desire it.

So that, that's, I don't think that's missing.

Out.

Yeah.

Thank you.

That, no, that was a good answer.

I have a question.

I'm going to, there's a lot of questions in the chat.

Some of them are repeating.

I want to, whoa, that not meant to go up, but, can we see those or no?

Yeah.

Oh, the chat.

You can, you can go onto the, the, oh, the comments.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The comments.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So there's a question.

I can't reach my computer, so I can't do it.

I have long arms.

Yeah.

Sorry.

I'm just looking up the question for, for Danny.

And this is a question I heard IRL in real life.

I'm just going to go to a couple of my questions.

It's, it's has to do with one of the three forms of unity.

I don't remember exactly if it's the Belgic Confession or the Heidelberg Catechism, but basically

the, the question I recently heard was in regards

to infant baptism and the Dutch

Reformed and Presbyterian camps acknowledging there is some sense of, like,

there's a promise of faith and there's an, there's a connection of,

of the sacrament to faith.

And I, I think the question that I've heard has to do with why doesn't the timing,

like, I'm trying, I'm sorry.

Why doesn't the timing need to be in the successive order in, you know, in the way in which a

Baptist like Keith might say, oh, well, there needs to be this ordering.

Of sequences.

So the question is, like, in terms of

the relationship between baptism and faith, why, why is it that way?

Or why?

Yeah.

Okay.

So let me just, I'll just read like a,.

I mean, there's a, there's a lot there, but yeah.

Sorry about that.

I'm not, I mean,.

Like that gets to like, yeah, it's a huge issue of like the issue of, from our vantage point, like the efficacy of baptism and how the

sign relates to the seal.

Yeah.

The relationship between faith and the sign within the covenant and that kind of thing.

So I'll just, I'll just read a little bit, a little couple of lines or two here.

So yeah.

And that's in the Dutch Reformed churches.

You know, these issues have obviously been perennial issues and that's just in our churches, but,

you know, in Reformed churches in general.

So back in the day there was a Dutch Reformed theologian, a lot of people have heard of him, Herman Witsius.

And he wrote a treatise on the efficacy, like the, you know,

the power of baptism, right?

Like how its effectiveness, its power, you know, what does it do?

And he recognized back, you know, tracing the history of the Reformation, that there's lots

of different views of these things.

So like, even within our camp, you know, our little like bubble, we have diversity of

opinions on like how those things relate faith and the sacrament and so forth.

So, you know, Witsius, said, you know, there are some that believed in

baptism regeneration.

He's not keen on that, so he's always arguing against that one.

But there are some that believe that the blessings of God, salvation happened

before baptism.

So when a child is baptized, some argued that there was at minimum a seed of faith already

like in the child.

I'm not really satisfied by that answer.

I don't find it in the Bible.

Kind of a big deal, as Ron Burgundy once said.

You know, it's not in the Bible.

It's kind of hard to argue.

It's kind of hard to argue,.

But it's not in the Bible.

Okay, you win the debate.

You quoted Ron Burgundy.

I concede, I lose.

Oh my gosh.

Yeah, well, that's right. Yeah.

I'm expecting Mr. Presbyterian and Superior Theology to quote Ron Burgundy in the next video.

Yeah, so Witsius said, hey, you know, there are some that say like around the time of baptism, the blessings come, and others say it's like

afterwards.

So point being like there's not a unanimous opinion on that.

And so like much later in history, in the year 1905, the Dutch Reformed Churches that Abraham Kuyper and Herman Bavink

were a part of the Netherlands.

Again, this was a big issue.

There were lots of controversy over it.

And so there was a synod, a gathering of Reformed Churches in the Netherlands.

And they said a few things I think are helpful on that, which is this.

It says, first of all, according to the confession of our churches, so Hadoper Catechism, Belgian Confession,

Kanzendort, the seed of the covenants by virtue of the promise of God must be held

to be regenerated and sanctified in Christ.

Until upon growing up, they should manifest the contrary in their way of life or in doctrine.

So yeah, we don't baptize because we think our kids are regenerated, or that we

presume it, or that they're elect.

No, we do it because we believe that they're in the covenant.

There's a promise of God attached to that covenant.

And so we have a judgment of charity, we would say, that we view our children as

Christians, at least generically speaking.

And we pray for them, we catechize them, we expect them to repent and believe

every day.

We expect them to come to some conscious point when they like, hey, I've always trusted in Jesus,

but I've given my life to him.

And then they go on to say, this is why

this judgment of charity in terms of our children within this covenant, it doesn't imply

that each child is actually born again, because not all Israel are Israel.

But it says, it's imperative in the preaching constantly to urge earnest self -examination,

since only he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.

And then one last little line here, and I'll kind of wrap it up.

So it says, the synod of the opinion that the representation that every elect child is on that account already in fact regenerated even

before baptism can be proven neither on scriptural nor confessional grounds.

So we don't think that every, we're not Lutherans, we're not Roman Catholics, we're not Lutherans.

That's like the shorthand answer.

And here's why, God fulfills his promise sovereignly in his own time,

whether before, during, or after baptism.

So like if somebody asks me, pastor, what is our view?

What's your view of when do all these

blessings of God come?

So what's the relationship in time between the sign of baptism and

faith and all the blessings being appropriated by faith?

And I would say, my answer is before, during, and after baptism, we don't know.

And I would say, tongue in cheek, and I've said this many times in a pulpit, we're Calvinists.

We believe in the sovereignty of God.

We believe in the power of the Holy Spirit.

And so we believe it's our responsibility to apply the sign to all of the covenant,

and we let God do his work.

So we pray for our kids, we teach our kids, we teach them the Bible, take them to church.

We evangelize our kids.

I would say, I'd say we evangelize our kids.

We need to call our kids to faith and repentance every single day.

We need to model the Christian life.

We need to be good parents and actually be godly, loving parents and not just tell them to do as I say, not as I do.

So yeah, there's not like a short answer to that.

It's one of the hardest pastoral questions to deal with, but we believe in the sovereignty of God.

We believe in the power of the Holy Spirit.

We trust God to use the means of parents, to be examples, to pray, to teach, and to hear the

pastor preach in a way that can communicate to children as well.

So we address children in our sermons all the time.

Alright, thank you.

Yeah, kind of going off of that, I'd love to spin that and ask a question to Keith.

It's kind of something I provided to you, but what does the process look like

with children in your church?

What is the process for them growing up in the church and kind of

baptism in the future?

What does that whole process look like?

That's a great question.

I was going to say it's kind of like right in your life right now

with your daughter.

What is the process?

Years ago, I wrote an article entitled, When Should Little Johnny Be Baptized? because of this very question,

and it was an article that wasn't published or anything.

It was just for our church members.

It was sort of answering this question, and I would say we follow a very similar path to how

a Presbyterian would prepare their child for the table in the sense that you would be

looking for a profession of faith.

You would catechize the child to make sure they understand the faith and can articulate what they believe,

and in doing so, you're not proving that they are a believer, but you are

demonstrating that they understand what it means when they say, I believe, and we talk about a credible

profession of faith.

An uncredible or incredible profession of faith would be one that doesn't understand

the faith, and so we would want to make sure that the child understands as much as they can about those things and also

about what it means to actually follow Christ, and that

Christ is now, when we profess Christ as our Savior, He tells us

that He must take first place in our life, and that means He's actually going to have

the place of preeminence even over mommy and daddy, even over sister and brother, that Christ is in first place, and

that sometimes is hard for a young person to understand because the most important person in a young person's life is

mommy and daddy, and so that's a difficult one to help them understand, and I'm not

saying they have to understand it perfectly.

None of us had perfect faith when we were baptized.

None of us had perfect repentance when we came to faith, and so we're not looking for perfection, but we are looking for an

understanding that they would have very similar to how you would want the child to understand before

participating in the Lord's.

Supper.

All right.

Yeah, thank you.

All right.

As you were talking, another question very related to that came in for Keith.

I'm going to do kind of a snake sort of, you know, snake draft sort of thing where go to Keith again and then back

to Daniel, Danny for the closing statement, if that's good with you guys,

and then Keith can close us out, but this

is a difficult one, Keith, right?

It's basically the question of like mental capacity.

Do you see it?

Yeah, I do, and this is a difficult question.

I have a daughter who's autistic, and thanks be to God, she is what's known as high

-functioning autism, so she does have very strong cognitive abilities.

She understands the world sometimes much better than I do because she's very intelligent, but

because of her autism, we have had the experience of going to the Center for Autism

Research, which is here in Jacksonville, and meeting a lot of families whose children do not have

the ability to speak.

That's a very common thing among autistic children is being what's called nonverbal.

Some children that aren't able to communicate at all with their parents, and that one

is a very difficult thing, and I've sought to minister to families who've been in this situation, and

I've sought to love them and show them the greatest kindness that I could in loving them with the gospel and pointing

them to Christ.

This is a very difficult pastoral question.

I would not forbid a child to be baptized, whose parents wanted him to be baptized in that

condition, but I would also not tell them that it was required.

It would be something that would be a pastoral conversation between me and the parents, and for the good

of the child, we would do what we came to the conclusion that we thought was right, but I cannot say

that in every situation it would be the same, because every child with cognitive difficulties

does have different levels of ability of understanding.

We have a young man who's autistic in our church who just got his brown belt in karate from me, but he has autism.

So again, this is a difficult pastoral question that I cannot simply give a

simple answer of yes or no one way or the other.

Yeah.

Well, that makes total sense.

The only reason I put it was because you're kind of on the topic of...

No, I'm glad you asked.

I'm glad I got to speak to that, because that's one that is sometimes used as a, I don't

want to say a weapon against Baptists, but it's like, well, you Baptists don't love children with mental

disabilities, and nothing is further from the truth.

But again, when people are being ugly, like again, I'm so thankful Danny and I are able to have a conversation that's loving and brotherly and

not that way.

Oh, no.

I was just going to say, yeah, we deal with the same pastoral struggles about

cognition or different kinds of ailments, whether it's autism

or other kinds of learning impairments.

We don't deal with it with baptism, of course, but it's the same problem for communion.

So for us, our children are baptized, then they grow up in church, they're catechized, and then they have to make profession of

faith before they can partake of the Lord's supper.

We have the same kinds of, yeah, it's tough, but

for us, it's a judgment of charity.

At the end of the day too, we're Calvinists and we don't think that the sacraments are

absolutely necessary for salvation.

So all these discussions we're having, it's like, okay, well, ordinarily, ordinarily,

ordinarily, this is true, but there are exceptions that we have to deal with and they're hard.

Yeah.

All right.

So I have to ask one more question for Daniel now.

It's a little bit...

Okay.

I gave a fastball to Keith.

I want to give a fastball to Danny.

It just came into my mind.

It's something I see online a lot.

I don't know if there's a connection between this, but it seems to me that there's a

lot of people going from a Calvinistic Baptist camp

into churches like the CREC where there's paedo -communion.

I know we're not discussing paedo -communion right now, but I'm curious, for those people who

might be a little bit more black and white, where it's a little bit

more clean cut if you're a Reformed Baptist, or a little bit more clean cut if you're a CREC, when it comes to

membership.

We've been talking about the whole evening, the New Covenant membership.

That's one of the underlying issues here.

So what does it mean for you that these children are baptized into the church, but they're

maybe a non -communicant member?

I've heard that term.

So how are they a member of the church, but also not fit to

partake of one of the sacraments?

We would say that all baptized.

Children are members of the church, but we would make, obviously, a distinction due to their age

and ability and that kind of thing.

A communicant and a non -communicant.

Even my own congregation, we have communicant members, non -communicant, meaning

mostly children, but then we also have voting members.

You can profess faith and be welcome to the Lord's Supper at 10 years old,

12 years old, whatever, but we don't allow children to vote in congregational meetings until they're 18.

So yeah, we make distinctions as well between different people.

They are in the covenant.

They are members of the body.

They hear the gospel preached.

They participate in the liturgy and worship.

In our church, we walk up for the Lord's Supper and receive it, and parents bring their kids.

They don't take it, but they come up with them just to come and see and learn what it's like.

We hope that that also helps them to see the value of it and some desire for it.

But there's a difference between historic Reformed practice and the

churches that do practice paedo -communion.

It's a unanimous practice that we baptize, we catechize, then you profess, and then you

commune.

That's the pattern, and we see it like in the Hatterberg Catechism when it asks

who should come to the Lord's table, and it tells us that it's those who are displeased with themselves because of their

sins, yet who trust in Christ, that their sins are forgiven, and that who desire more and more to strengthen their faith

and to lead a better life or a new life.

So there is something going on in 1 Corinthians 11 about

conscious understanding, discerning the body.

That discerning the body is like, it's been in modern

New Testament studies, it's been like horizontalized, sort of egalitarianized

to mean like, oh, you discern that you're, it's a horizontal body that's being

described, you know, not the body of Christ, right?

That's the historical, like, exegetical understanding of that text.

So anyways, no, we have people that bring these questions up, obviously,

and, you know, try to deal with them and explain to them, like, the meaning.

So, you know, and I would say to anybody in that camp who wants to know more, you know, why we

do it the way we do it.

There's a book by Cornelis Venema, I believe it's published by Reformation Heritage Books, RHB,

on this very question of paedo -communion, you know, can my.

Children come to the Lord's Supper?

So, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, I know another one is by Robert Lethem.

It's a Breaking the Bread, I think, small book.

Yeah, those books are important because, you know,.

There was a book written, you know, a while back.

It was like, you know, Daddy, why have I been excommunicated?

I think it was a title.

It was like, okay, like, the very title itself is so, like, vitriolic and like, it's just a grenade into

a room, you know, it's like, you're not even on a, you're not even trying to interact charitably.

It's like, Daddy, why have I been excommunicated?

It's like, okay, come on.

All right, well, I think we're approaching kind of the end

and had a really great time talking with you guys, getting to hear your answers.

Glad we can, you know, come into this format, differing views,

but also have a civilized conversation.

You know, I think that's, at least when I'm watching debates, sometimes I'm just, it doesn't even matter if I agree with the guy.

Like, I'm just like, ah, like, please, like, don't be such a, you know, and so,

and so, yeah, with that, I'd love if now, now that since Danny went, how about Keith,

if it's all right with you, you give the closing statement.

Sure.

And then Danny.

The altar call.

Give us the altar call, brother.

Well, I do, I want to echo something that Danny said at the

beginning.

He said the Bible is one story, and the story is that God saves sinners,

and he does so through his covenant relationship with them.

And the irony of tonight's debate is how much Danny and I have agreed on many things, and

we do agree on so much.

We agree that there is salvation in no other, for there is only one name under heaven given among men by which we must be

saved, and that is the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And at his name, every knee will bow, and every tongue will confess that he is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

And so we have a great blessing in sharing that unity in the gospel.

So any difference that Danny and I have demonstrated tonight in this debate should not be construed

as being two men who are not brothers, but rather two brothers who have differing opinions on an important subject.

So I'm thankful for my brother.

I'm thankful for this opportunity.

I'm thankful that we have many things in common, and I'm thankful that we can together

continue to preach the gospel, as I've always been so grateful to see men like John MacArthur and R .C. Sproul, who stood on

the same chancel, who preached the gospel together, even though they went back to their churches and had disagreements over these issues.

They were able to stand together, and I'm thankful to stand together with Danny and preach the gospel.

So I say that.

I'm right.

Believe me.

Trust me.

Everything I said is correct.

But at the same time, we all have areas

of our theology in which we're growing, and I just want to say that I hope that tonight I helped you better

understand, even if you're on the other side, I hope that I helped you better understand why a Baptist would hold to the convictions

that we do, and I pray to the Lord that I articulated it well.

So thank you for allowing me to speak to you tonight.

Thank you.

All right.

Well, I was hoping that Keith—first of all, thanks to Keith.

It's been fun to at least see him live, as opposed to just on Instagram reels,

which I just get a kick out of, and my older kids—I

have a 20 -year -old now in college.

He's away in college playing basketball, and I have a 17 -year -old, almost 18 -year -old here.

And so those videos—I

described my story at the beginning of our interview tonight, our talk tonight, and

so my wife and I are very zealous to teach our kids to reform faith.

And so our kids don't really know the kinds of churches that we come out of, and so

those videos are so funny.

It's like, okay, the Big Eva, that was your dad right there.

That was dad right there doing Big Eva Youth Pastor.

So yeah, it's cool to meet you in person, and Mason, thanks

for putting us together.

So yeah, unfortunately, Keith didn't come in his Methodist garb, or else I would have really won,

but yeah, it was fun.

So yeah, just to kind of reiterate the idea again that God

is a covenantal God.

He works in a covenantal way.

I know it's kind of cliche, but that's the basis of why we baptize our babies.

We think that our children belong to the covenant of God's grace, and

we baptize them in faith, and we do so.

Our form for baptism, I think it's important to reiterate the historical reformed

explanation and liturgy for baptism says that the pastor addresses the parents by saying, we don't do this out of

custom or superstition.

So I think a lot of people view infant baptism as that, just mere custom or superstition, and

I think as Keith's demonstrated, like conscientious desire to follow scripture,

we would say the same thing, that to the best of our lights, us understanding

scripture and putting it all together and teaching our parents to raise their children well.

And so the Hatterberg Catechism, I'll just close by reading question 74,

and this will cue the come as you are and put the sawdust down on the aisle.

Brother, here we go.

Here's the altar call.

Should infants also be baptized?

Yes, infants as well as adults are included in God's covenant and people.

So that's what we've been saying all night.

And they, no less than adults, are promised deliverance from sin through Christ's blood and the Holy Spirit who works

faith.

So again, it's important for us to reiterate that we don't think baptism, when we

see a line, people saying, you know, quoting that line from the New Testament, baptism saves.

Yes, but we want to qualify that, right?

And, you know, Christ saves by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Baptism is the outward sign of that.

So therefore, by baptism, the sign of the covenant, they too should be incorporated into the Christian church

and distinguished from the children of unbelievers.

And so it closes by saying this was done in the Old Testament by circumcision, which was replaced in the New

Testament by baptism.

So pray the Lord blesses all of us and all those who are listening and watching to search the scriptures

daily to see what is the correct view, which is always going to be, if you're not

Dutch, you're not much.

That is funny.

I've heard that actually.

Yeah.

And Keith, I'm still waiting on my shipment of Calvinol.

It hasn't shown up yet.

It's in the mail.

All right.

Well, thank you guys.

I really appreciate it.

I pray that, you know, people are benefit from it.

And I hope that you guys have a blessed Sunday, this Sunday.

So thank you, brother.

Yeah, man, you as well.

God bless.