Adult Sunday School - Going Public Part 2 (Chapter 2)

Go ahead and be seated, let us pray, our Heavenly Father. Indeed, Jesus is fairer than anything and than all things in all creation.

And we come together this day to worship him, the creator of all things, the one by whom, through whom, and for whom all things were made.

Father, may we see him as fair, as pure, as brighter, as wonderful, as we look to your word this day, as we gather together as your people, and with one voice and one accord, worship him and him alone.

Guide us along in this endeavor, Father. Keep our eyes fixed upon your word and our hearts fixed upon your spirit, for we ask it in Jesus' name, amen.

Okay, so chapter two of Going Public, called Clearing Ground, and quite what he means by that,

I'm not sure. The strange title for that chapter, in a way, but Clearing Ground, I guess, laying the groundwork more is what he means there.

He's gonna lay the groundwork, and he has, and we'll go through in some brevity, six reasons why we resist the idea of open membership in the church.

So why do we resist this idea of, I'm sorry,

I said that backwards. Six reasons why open membership seems right. And so we have to then look at these and ask, why do we resist these things?

And he's gonna look at the culture around us and the pressures that come upon the church to be like the rest, to just be, what's a good word?

Who can think of a good word that we should be in the eyes of the world, in terms of letting anybody into the church as a full member?

We should be more inclusive, that's a good word. At least one more.

We should be more, what? Oh, more open? And we should be more t -t -t -t -t -t -t -t -t -t -t -t -t -t -t -t -t.

Tolerant. Yeah, we should be more tolerant. We should be more accepting. We should be less of something else, too.

Less j -j -j -j -j -j, less judgy, less judgmental, yeah. And that's the pressure we have from the world.

So this morning, as we're gonna look at this chapter, we're gonna see some of these reasons, and we'll go through them, and any discussion you wanna have on them, we will stop for.

But one thing I'm gonna do, and it's not quite in the book, but I think it's related to this chapter, is talk about our distinctives as Reformed Baptists.

What makes us different? What is it that we're clinging to? What's this tradition? Who are these men on whose shoulders we stand, and why are we so confident in this theological tradition that we have, and I don't mean where every word we speak from the service is based upon some

Puritan writing. I mean, the theological foundation, their idea of Christ, and the work that Christ did for us, the grace of God towards sinners, and how that relates to us as individuals, to the church, that sort of foundation.

Why do we cling to it the way we do? And what's the difference between us and other Reformed believers? I was talking in the foyer this morning before it started, and we were talking about the difference between Reformed Baptists and Presbyterians, by which

I mean on the conservative Calvinistic side of Presbyterianism. We're gonna dig into that a little bit this morning.

So our destination is really, according to the chapter, why baptism is or should be required for church membership.

So in this chapter, and beginning on, actually in the book, in the introduction, he argues that there's a general inability to distinguish between any gathering of believers, say members, meetings, workday,

Memorial Day picnic, whatever it is, we have an inability, he thinks, to distinguish between those and what is really a church meeting.

For example, on a Sunday. And this causes confusion about this relationship between baptism and church membership.

That we're not really that clear on what is a meeting of the church. Is it any time we get together?

Was workday, or excuse me, the pantry yesterday a meeting of the church? When the church member's here, we prayed, we preached the gospel to those who came.

I would add, a little less generously, that there's a widespread misunderstanding and misunderstanding about what the church actually is.

Not just meetings of the church, but what is the church itself? That any word that has a suffix -ology on it produces this instant insomnia.

You ever talk to people, and I wanna talk about theology, I wanna talk about Christology, I wanna talk about eschatology, and people just kinda, ugh, one of those.

Gotta listen to this, ugh. Just makes people wanna go to sleep or run away. Okay, so we're going to go through his six reasons, starting on page 21, as to why church membership in an open sense is considered plausible in the church world at large out there.

So begin with, on page 21, what is meant by open membership? Let's take a stab at that.

Do you remember, just a quick excursus. Do you remember when

Elisha went to the king of Syria, Hazael, and anointed him to be the next king of Syria?

And then he stared at him until he was ashamed. And the king said, why? He says, because I know what terrible harm you're gonna bring upon Israel.

Remember that? Anybody remember that from 2 Kings? Elisha stared at him. That's what I'm gonna do when I ask questions.

I'm gonna stare at you till you're ashamed and you can't answer. Okay, you guys are really gonna wish

Brian's back here. Real quick. What's meant by open membership? Okay, it means if I wanna join,

I get to join. If I say, well, I like this place and I believe in Jesus and I like your songs and your pastor's tie or something like that.

So I wanna join this place. And we don't ask any questions. We say, well, you wanna join? Do you believe in Jesus? Yes, we get to join.

That kind of what open membership would mean? I know I've overstated it a bit, but Dale helped me out here.

Is that what open membership is? Pretty much if you wanna join, you get to join because we're not gonna be intolerant.

We're not gonna be judgmental. We're not gonna make you actually explain your beliefs. And we're not gonna actually tell you what this church stands for because you might not like it all.

That's that sort of thing. Yes. Very loose on this idea of membership.

My dear friend, I can name him by name because he wouldn't be ashamed of this, but Mike Phillips has a good reformed church there in Fremont, Grace Baptist Church.

He's preached there in a reformed Baptist Calvinistic way. One of the best preachers, one of the smartest theologians

I know. If they don't have a formal membership like we do, where you go through the orientation class under Pastor Conley, you learn what we're about.

You stand to give test 20. We make sure you've been baptized. We make sure you understand what this church is standing for.

And so when you say, yes, I'm ready to sign on the dotted line, you know what we mean.

So open membership, whether baptism is required for membership. Open says no.

Open says, we'll accept you unbaptized. We'll accept you pato -baptized. The open membership as our author,

Jameson has it, is just about anything goes. And it's gonna give these six reasons.

So the first reason is that we have this culture of tolerance, culture of tolerance.

Now, I think we've said before, it almost gets to be platitude. We say it so often, but it's important that tolerance does not mean acceptance.

To tolerate something is different than accepting it. I can tolerate, as we're talking about, we have good

Christian brothers at the OPC up here in Fremont, or in Sunnyvale, and I can tolerate their difference with us in terms of who gets baptized and how church membership works.

Does that mean I accept it? No, if I accepted it, I'd be at their church. No, it's something different.

We're surrounded by a culture of tolerance. Look at the last paragraph on page 22 if you have your books.

When tolerance becomes an absolute, it becomes a sin to exclude anyone from anything for any reason, okay?

Becomes an absolute, and there becomes a sin, a grave error if we say anything excludes you from anything that ultimately you wanna do, so you become the arbiter of what's right.

Again, as a quick excursus, one problem with open membership, with allowing anybody to come in just because they want to, because they like the place, not necessarily understanding what we're for, or even agreeing with what we stand for, who's ruling the church?

Them. They're really kind of setting our doctrines and our standards if they get to come in on their own basis, because their own desires can you think of examples where tolerance, so -called, demands undiscerning and unmitigated non -exclusion?

Which is to say, if they really want to do this, they should be allowed to do this. In this culture of tolerance out there that Jameson argues is pressing in upon the church, leading to open membership, what are some examples where tolerance leads to complete undiscerning, unmitigated acceptance and non -exclusion things?

Can you think of any examples from the culture outside? Sorry? Yeah? Yeah, and it goes even a little further, because not just you tolerate, but if you disagree with any little point, you just threw the whole thing out, okay?

And the other things where a tolerant society around us is saying you need to just allow people to do and be included in about anything.

How about transgender sports? That's part of it, you know?

That's not necessarily theological in the strictest sense, but transgender sports, if you really want to, you're a guy who thinks you're a girl, well, you get to compete as a girl.

It's like, what? I can't believe that's even an issue. If you look at some of the people on either side of it,

Martina Navatorlova was a great tennis pro some years ago, and she's a lesbian, and she's an activist for the

LGBTQ plus crowd, and she's been their darling until she said, you know, a physical male can live as a girl, she believes that, but they shouldn't be able to compete.

You know this whole story. And she was thrown under the bus. Everything she's ever stood for is gone. They say, but we're being tolerant.

It's an insanity. Okay, so transgender sports. What other examples do we have? Thank you.

I just need a lot of hints this morning. Yeah, marriage. Okay, if you really want to marry this one, whatever gender, sex they are, or perceive themselves to be, you get to.

Religion itself, you get to declare your own faith. That's why it's so hard on people's feelings if they come and say, well,

I want to join a church. Well, are you a Baptist? No, I don't want to be. I just want to be with you guys. Polygamy.

Polygamy might be an example of that. Anytime it's a deeply held belief, as they say, then we should accept it, tolerate it, include it, rejoice in it, all these things.

It's a strange thing, though. If you think about tolerance out there and what they're asking us to do, but where is it where there's so many

Somalians who've come into the country? There's an enclave there somewhere in Minneapolis, Minneapolis -St.

Paul area, and while we're supposed to be all accepting, female circumcision is still illegal, right?

They can't tolerate that, though. That's a deeply held belief and part of their religion, so it never works perfectly.

He goes on, he says, it would be foolish to pretend that we're totally unaffected. The culture of tolerance around us, would you agree that we're affected by it in this place?

I mean, right here in Silicon Valley Reformed Baptist Church. Are we affected by the culture around us in this sense?

What would you think? I mean, I got a nod over here, yeah, yeah.

If we pretend that somehow we are insulated from it, that we're just so strong and so aware,

I think it'd be a little foolish. World's out there, it's like trying to keep water out.

You just can't seal things enough to keep water out. It just comes in. It doesn't mean that we're going to be infused with it.

This means we have to be on the watch. We have to be careful. We have to look at what we're doing and where things are coming from.

So there's a culture of tolerance out there. He says on page 23, one reason requiring baptism for membership seems intuitively intolerant is that many of us have imbibed a redefined notion of tolerance.

Okay? Just as we can't allow our culture's charge of intolerance to determine our sexual ethic, so we should not allow a similar judgment to prejudice about requiring baptism for membership.

So remember, this is where we're going. Why do we require baptism for membership? Okay? Second reason, he gives a pendulum swing on discipline and denominational divisions.

He says there's an intuitive appeal to, intuitive appeal is a historic pendulum swing among Southern Baptists and other evangelicals regarding church discipline and the related issue of denominational divisions.

What's the problem with church discipline then in terms of what he's saying here in open membership and all that?

What's the problem with church discipline? Thoughts?

Oh, it's intolerant, isn't it? We're saying you've done something wrong. We're gonna make you feel badly about yourself.

We're gonna harm your psyche by it. I mean, this would be the charge. We know that discipline is a means of God's grace.

It's a means of recovery and transformation. It's a means of getting back into line with what the scripture would say, which is a good place to be.

I think the charge though would be total intolerance, not being willing to just accept people as they are and so forth.

On page 24, it's interesting, I hadn't known this. He talks about in pre -Civil

War America, as Will's documents, Baptist churches in pre -Civil

War Georgia excommunicated nearly 2 % of their membership every year, yet they grew at over twice the rate of the population.

But after the Civil War, church discipline declined until it virtually disappeared from Southern Baptist life in the late 19th century.

I remember hearing a talk by John MacArthur. It's talking about when he first came to Grace Community Church as the pastor there.

That's the name of his church there? Yeah, Grace Community. And what he said was really interesting. One of the first things he noticed as he talked to the elders and got to know the people there and everything, he said, when's the last time you did discipline?

They go, oh, discipline, ah, we don't do discipline here. That makes people feel bad. It keeps people away.

Well, long story short, he worked and worked and worked until discipline became a part of the warp and woof of the church.

And the church, just like it says here from Will's example, the church grew incredibly.

We know now we would call it a mega church and it's been going strong all this time. And not discipline itself.

It's fealty, loyalty to the word of God and doing what the word says and trusting God to bring good to us from it.

And the world outside, he's making the case, and I wonder if you guys would agree with his case, just anecdotally from what you know from your own experiences.

Is church discipline something that's falling by the wayside? I would say in general, it is.

It's nothing you wanna jump into lightly. I think it's a serious matter, but still it's something that is always there.

It's made very plain in the scripture that that's part of church leadership, part of church life.

Where is the rest of me notes? That doesn't matter. Okay. Okay, on page, excuse me one second.

I said my notes are not quite coordinating with my book. Okay. On page 25, here we go.

On page 25, then he begins to talk about the distinctives between churches and what churches are standing for.

And one church holds to one thing, another church holds to another, which obviously, you know, we know that.

But we're talking about baptism. Remember, that's the goal, baptism, as a requirement for church membership.

So he covers that kind of in this idea of a pendulum swing on discipline and denominational divisions.

That's this third of the six reasons that open membership just seems intuitively right.

What are the distinctives that we hold to? Now, I'm wondering,

I'm wanting to talk to you here. This is my excursus that I was warning you guys about. I'm thinking between true believing churches.

We were talking out in the foyer earlier this morning about whether Presbyterians are in sin because of the way they do baptism and membership.

Who was it who said that he was told that we were in sin? Somebody said that to me.

Jonathan, right. Somebody told Jonathan that the Baptists are in sin. That's right, Jonathan had a Presbyterian friend who said, you guys are in sin, not in error, or not doing something we disagree with.

He said, Jonathan, you guys are in sin. Obviously, we would disagree with that statement.

But if a Presbyterian pastor came here to preach, and we'll talk in a moment about whether we would allow that.

Would we allow them to then take the Lord's table? They heard what

I say, and we've been trying to make the point that these are not just three -word statements that would make these mean something to us.

We'd say, baptized upon profession of faith. A man of integrity would have to say, that's not me, even though they let me preach the gospel.

So, back to this idea of tolerance for just a moment, open membership and all that. Yeah, that's the assumption.

Reform Presbyterian, yes. Hold that thought a second, because I've got an example for that that actually happened here.

Should we let a man preach in this church who could not subsequently take the

Lord's table? Let's answer that first. If you think yes, raise your hand. Should we let him preach if he can't take the

Lord's table? Should we not let somebody preach who's not going to be able to take the Lord's table? Do you agree with that?

Yeah. If you can't take the Lord's table, you shouldn't preach here. That's what

I'm trying to say. What was the other thing

I told you to hold on to? Oh, baptism upon profession. We had a man here who was a

Reformed Baptist, a true believer, had been a member here for a long time, played the piano up until the last couple of weeks of his life, his name was

Don Penhill. He was saved on board a Navy ship. He was an executive officer on a pretty good -sized ship in World War II in the

South Pacific. And he was saved on that ship by a Presbyterian, and Navy, Presbyterianism's probably the big religion, at least back then.

But as an adult, as a believer, heard the gospel and was told, therefore, you've repented, let's be baptized.

And so he was baptized. Spring God, I don't know exactly how it happened, but it was the Presbyterian mode of baptism upon profession of faith.

He asked if we could baptize him. And when I talked to him, and Conley was involved in this too, because it was upon profession of faith, we said no.

You had a true baptism, you confessed your faith, and then were baptized. Having studied this out for a few more years after that,

I would have baptized him. I would change my mind on that. Dale, you said, now back to your question.

Because we say upon profession of faith. Those are the important words, I would argue. And then we don't say the mode.

You're correct about that. When I give the fencing statement, I don't say baptize by immersion in the name of the

Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit according to Matthew 28. I don't say all that. I know you're not suggesting

I would say all that. But no, we don't go into that many specifics.

But we do say baptize upon profession. And I think the way we state it, yes.

Yeah, the way we state it, a Presbyterian pastor, if he is like what

I was explaining with Don, who was saved under Presbyterian ministry and baptized when he came to the gospel and came to faith in Christ and then was baptized upon that profession, yes.

As it stands now, they could. So what are the distinctives then?

Let's just talk about this, church membership, what we stand for, and compare ourselves to our

Presbyterian brothers, okay? The one who told Jonathan that we're in sin because we baptized wrongly and all that, that's incorrect.

We're not in sin. We think they're in error, they think we're in error, but it's not heresy.

It's not blasphemy, okay? But the two strong Reformed communions are the

Baptists, like us, and the Presbyterians, like the OPC, over there, is it on Matilda? Is that where they are,

Matilda? It's just a mile or so from here. Okay. What are the distinctives between us?

What would you say? Between us and the true Calvinist, conservative -type

Presbyterians, Reformed Baptists and the Presbyterians, what are the distinctives between us?

Five solas, okay. Well, we would hold those in common. I'm looking for what's different.

What's the distinctive between us? What's the difference? Well, our pastor does get the dimple in his thigh right in the center.

I don't know if you notice it, and Calvin, over there at the OPC, does not. Is it only

Credo versus Pado -Baptism? Is that the only difference between us? Okay.

Okay. Uh, you're really close to where I wanna go with this, covenant theology.

What do you mean in relation to families? You mean how a child who's baptized is brought into the covenant family?

Okay, everybody familiar with what I just said? In the Presbyterian idea of understanding of baptism, a child is baptized, is it the eighth day?

Is it? Something like that. They, a child is baptized. They're not saying the child is saved the way the

Catholics do when they christen or baptize a baby. That's not what they're saying. We need to be fair.

But they are saying that this child, born into a covenant family, now is part of the grace of God in that family.

They're not saying that the child's a believer. But there's this grace that God bestows upon them because the parents are believers at a

Presbyterian church, okay? So it's bringing the child into that covenant family. We hold a very different view of baptism, of course.

It's upon profession of faith, and we don't sprinkle. The child, of course, is involuntary in all this.

They have no part in this. And that's a big problem. But is credo versus pedo baptism the only big distinctive between us?

Dale brought up governance, and I hadn't thought of that in where I'm going with this. But they do govern very differently.

Where they have a presbytery board and they have sessions that they work down from the presbytery board to the local church.

We believe in the autonomy and independence of the local church in consultation with other like -minded churches as needed, as it says in chapter 28 of our confession.

It says it in our confession. I'll just throw a question out.

Does anybody know or have an idea where this idea begins, this difference we have in baptism that distinguishes us?

Any idea where that starts? Yeah.

Well, they say the baptism equals circumcision, and circumcision is still binding upon the church.

I want you to go back to the theological basis for what you just said. Okay. Thank you.

Really close. Yeah, it's in the covenant theology. And that's the excursus

I'm gonna take. And after we get done with this, we're gonna fly through the last of the six reasons that Jameson has for, it just seems right to have open membership.

But this is important. And this is the excursus that we're gonna take. I'm in chapter seven, paragraph three of the

London Baptist Confession of Faith, the 1689, the one that we hold to. Let me read this to you. I better go up another.

I better start with paragraph one. Here, let's just take a sec. The distance between God and the creature is so great that although reasonable creatures do owe obedience to him as their creator, yet they could never have attained the reward of life, but by some voluntary concession on God's part, which he hath been pleased to express by way of covenant.

Moreover, man having brought himself under the curse of the law by his fall, it pleased the

Lord to make a covenant of grace wherein he freely offers to sinners life and salvation by Jesus Christ, requiring of them faith in him that they may be saved and promising to give unto all those who are ordained unto eternal life his

Holy Spirit to make them willing and able to believe. This covenant is first revealed in the gospel.

This covenant, excuse me. This covenant is revealed in the gospel first of all to Adam in the promise of salvation by the seed of the woman and afterwards by father's steps until the full discovery thereof was completed in the

New Testament. Stop there. That's the London Baptist Confession of Faith. The Westminster Confession of Faith.

The distance between God and the creature is so great that although reasonable creatures do owe obedience unto him as their creator, yet they could never have any fruition of him as their blessedness and reward, but by some voluntary condensation on God's part, which he hath been pleased to express by way of covenant.

Sounds very like the first paragraph on ours, right? Okay. The first covenant was made with man, the first covenant made with man was a covenant of works wherein life was promised to Adam and in him to his posterity upon condition of perfect and personal obedience.

Paragraph three, remember we're in Westminster now. Man by his fall having made himself incapable of life by that covenant, the

Lord was pleased to make a second commonly called the covenant of grace wherein he freely offereth unto sinners life and salvation by Jesus Christ requiring of them faith in him that they may be saved and promising to give unto all those that are ordained unto eternal life his

Holy Spirit to make them willing and able to believe. Do you hear any difference between those two?

I know I read them fast and you don't have them in front of you, but did anybody hear a difference between the two?

There's words here and there that are a little different, but the meaning is exactly the same, okay?

Ours doesn't say specifically covenant of works, but they both mean covenant of works. That's the covenant

God made with Adam which Adam broke and then in Genesis 3 .15 where it speaks of the one who will bruise

Jesus' heel and Jesus will crush his head because of the seed of the woman versus the seed of the serpent and it starts there.

That's the proto -evangelium. That's where the covenant of grace begins. So we believe in a covenant of grace and in my notes,

I said so -called because it's not called that in the Bible. God doesn't, you know, stop the earth from spinning for a moment and say behold,

I make a covenant with mankind. That doesn't happen. We call it the covenant of grace, Genesis 3 .15. The Presbyterian told you a covenant of grace that begins where?

Genesis 3 .15. What's the difference? What distinguishes us if what

I read to you from the two confessions, the Westminster Confession and the London Baptist Confession, they're not exactly the same, but it's only a few words here and there.

They mean exactly the same thing. If you just read it in plain English, who can help me here?

What's the difference? What's the distinction between us? How does this work?

How did they end up with pato -baptism and we have credo -baptism?

Pato mean they're gonna baptize the infants. Credo mean you baptize them on a profession of faith. How does this difference occur?

If we both hold to the idea of a covenant that works with Adam that was broken and a covenant of grace that was begun in Genesis 3 .15.

Jonathan. That's exactly where I'm going.

Yeah, that's exactly right. Everybody hear what Jonathan just said? What about continuity versus discontinuity of the covenant?

We both believe in covenant of works. Both confessions state that pretty clearly. Both the Presbyterians say it explicitly.

We imply it, okay, and we both have covenant of grace. What Jonathan just said is exactly the point.

The Presbyterians hold to a covenant of grace begun in Genesis 3 .15 that continues all the way until Christ's return.

It's one covenant under two administrations. This is what he was referring to when he said continuity versus discontinuity.

One covenant, two administrations. One administration revealed by farther part,

I think was the expression that we had in their confession. So progressively revealed, progressive revelation, okay?

We had it in Genesis 3 .15 from the hand of Moses. We have it in the Psalms.

We have it progressing through the prophets, Isaiah and Ezekiel and so forth. Progressive revelation pointing to Christ and then a new administration of that one covenant when

Christ comes. That's the Presbyterian view. One covenant, two administrations.

Anybody wanna take a shot at our view on that covenant of grace? There's a really good book called

Baptist Distinctives in Covenant Theology by a man named Denault, I forget his first name. D -E -N -A -U -L -T.

It's a little bit of a hard read. Fairly modern, I mean, he's a contemporary of ours.

And he does a very detailed study of it. It's a bit of a tough read, but it's worth working your way through if you ever wanna give it a try.

For the Baptists, the covenant of grace is announced at Genesis 3 .15.

And it is progressively revealed what God is going to do in the covenant of grace. Notice the words

I said. Progressively revealed through the prophets and through the Psalms and through the law, et cetera.

The whole Old Testament is progressively revealing what God is going to do in the covenant of grace.

And then when Jesus comes, he inaugurates the covenant of grace. And that's what we are under now.

Any questions about that? For those of you who are familiar with it, did I explain it clearly enough? Everybody understand that?

Okay. So one covenant begun in Genesis 3 .15, and it goes all the way until Jesus' return, which we with the

Presbyterians believe is going to happen. Maybe tomorrow, maybe next century, we don't know. It has two administrations of that one grace, the old covenant so -called, the new covenant so -called, or testaments, okay?

Versus us, covenant of grace announced.

Presbyterians say begun. We say announced in Genesis 3 .15. We say that it's revealed and revealed and revealed in this increasing clarity in the

Old Testament Scriptures until Jesus comes and he inaugurates it. And now by his life of perfect obedience to God, by his sacrifice of himself for our behalf, by his resurrection and his ascension back to God, he's inaugurated.

We're under the covenant of grace, okay? And it remains until his return. So in that sense, we have the same endpoint whenever that will be as the

Presbyterians. Questions, comments on just that? Are we getting it?

Is it the end of the day? I'm getting a quizzical look over here. What do you think in there, Dale? You okay?

Right, we're talking about why we don't believe in pato -baptism. We're talking about what's the distinction between us and the true believers in the

Presbyterian side. And also I want us to understand where their view comes from.

Where this idea of pato -baptism, this bringing children into the grace of God because they're members of the covenant family, where all that comes from.

I just want us to understand them and why it's important to us and why membership is, or excuse me, why baptism would be required for membership.

Different view we have. Okay. What happens then?

It has to do with the law. If you have one covenant that began in Genesis 3 .15

and picks up everything that we call progressive revelation of a covenant to come, they say it's picking up the terms of the covenant that we're under.

What gets included in there? All the Old Testament law. Now, they with us know that much of the law was abrogated.

They with us would say that the sacrificial laws are done with because Christ fulfilled them all, et cetera. Okay, there's no big differences there.

But what happens is, because it starts in Genesis 3 .15 and we're under that covenant, it picks up the law as you go into the new covenant administration of that one overarching covenant.

And by that, then, they pick up the law of Genesis 3 .15,

Genesis 17, which is the Abrahamic law, the Abrahamic covenant of circumcision, really, really important.

Leviticus 12 .3, which is the Mosaic law, which says that the child's going to be circumcised on the eighth day.

Now, we pick all that up and you're under that. That's a binding law upon the church.

Because it's not just something being revealed that's leading to Christ, it's a law that we're under. And because they pick it up in the way they do, meaning the

Presbyterians, that's why children are baptized and brought into the covenant community or the covenant family the same way the

Old Testament child back in Moses' day, et cetera, or pre -Christ, I should just say, on the eighth day was circumcised, as was

Paul, he says, circumcised on the eighth day. Who else was circumcised on the eighth day other than me?

Who else? Dale, okay, who else?

Jesus, okay. Yeah. So, so, it's the idea of being under a covenant that includes the law, needing to correlate that Old Testament law to the

New Testament church. It's one covenant, and therefore, what we would say is a misunderstanding of the idea of baptism and circumcision in accordance with, for example,

Romans chapter six, where it speaks of circumcision, it speaks of being baptized.

I'm sorry, I don't have all the pages in my notes, that's why I'm stumbling for a second. Dale, can you help me here?

We've talked about this before. Where's the one? Is it in Colossians where it talks about the baptism? Made with hands.

My apologies, I'm not gonna be able to pull that, but we can still move on without that. But the idea is because they're under that one covenant, and it picks up the

Old Testament law, therefore, circumcision's still required, and baptism equals that circumcision.

My apologies, I forget the letter Paul wrote and the exact part of it that they used to support that, and I think they mis -exeged it.

I just don't have it in front of me, so I'm not gonna try and recover it here while I'm talking. That's the idea.

That's the big difference. That's the big distinctive, okay? That we're under that covenant in the presbyterian mode all the way through two administrations.

We say, no, no, the covenant of grace was inaugurated by Jesus, okay?

Any questions about that? I know I kinda fumbled around there a little bit. I'm not sure I made it clear.

That's the one I couldn't bring to mind. He's asking, where's the idea that baptism replaces circumcision? Thank you.

Oh, Colossians 2. Let me get that. Thank you so much.

Are you saying

I'm an anachronism? Yeah, no,

I appreciate that. I should've just asked somebody to use their, I've actually got one in my pocket. Here we go.

Beginning of chapter, or verse eight. See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit according to human tradition, according to the elementary spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.

For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him who is the head of all rule and authority.

In him also you were circumcised with the circumcision made without hands by putting off the body of flesh by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God who raised him from the dead.

Thank you so much, Tim. That's the passage. And that's one of the main places that the

Presbyterians look to and say, okay, this is why baptism equals circumcision.

Now, not a rhetorical question. Why is it still required?

Why do they have circumcision still required? The way

I just explained it. Presbyterians. They require physicals?

No, circumcision slash baptism. It's because of the way they view that covenant of grace, remember?

Because it's one covenant, two administrations, so everything gets carried along with it all the way through.

And that's why the law of circumcision, Genesis 17, Leviticus 12, carries into the church.

And this passage, Colossians 2, that Timothy helped me with, is the one that they can point to and say, this is why we baptize children because baptism equals circumcision and circumcision is still binding upon the church.

Clear? Questions about that? Not clear?

The way I explained it or the way they do it? Okay. Does the difference that I explained, does that make sense to people?

Okay. So Dale's saying thank you that I made some sense the way

I explained it. I was fair to them because this is where they go. It really doesn't make sense. They take this one portion and Paul is telling them not to be taken captive by these wrongful things, not to be looking in wrong places, not to be confused about the difference between true faith and worldly philosophy and this sort of thing.

And circumcised with a circumcision, made without hands and so forth, what's he talking about?

What is circumcision? What could that circumcision be other than equal to baptism today?

It's a circumcision that Moses promised when he commanded the children to be circumcised. He says you need to circumcise your hearts and later he says you cannot circumcise your hearts.

God will circumcise your heart for you. Circumcision is set apart. It's a set apartedness.

That's what circumcision was always about, okay? It signifies membership in the covenant family back then in the

Old Testament law. That is what it signified. The Presbyterians, because they pick up that law the way we explained that one covenant, remember?

They pick up that law and do the same thing. If circumcision on the eighth day brought an

Old Testament Jew into the covenant family, which it did, then it must be the same today.

This is the distinctive between us. This is really where it lies and because of that, then you go to where Dale started out where he mentioned polity, the way they managed the church.

That's where they take that Old Testament structure of priests and prophets and temple and so forth and we're not gonna go into detail about that, but they pick all that up as well and that's where they get the

Presbyterian, the Sessions and other terms that they use. Is there anybody that can help me with those?

Presbyterian is the big board. Session is the church, but they pick it up.

It's an overlay from the Old Testament because they pick up that law. It's the same idea, the same way of thinking that picks up pato -baptism because pato -baptism brings you into the covenant community because the circumcision law is still binding upon the church and circumcision has been transformed into baptism.

We don't have choirs.

Yeah? Is that why, did you ever hear what he's saying?

He's saying it's also why we don't have choirs. I thought we didn't have choirs because we're concerned about falling into entertainment.

Entertainment, I thought we were concerned about slipping into entertaining. Oh, I'd have to think about that.

I did not know that. Okay. Does everybody understand how

Presbyterians can be true believers, reformed believers, Calvinist believers? We're true believers, reformed believers, and I'd say we're

Calvinist believers, but we have this big difference between us. Did everybody see where that difference comes from? Where do they get the pato -baptism?

One covenant, two administrations, and because it's one covenant, it picks up, sucks along with it,

I would say, all that Old Testament law. And then in Colossians 2, baptism is the new circumcision, and because they picked up all that law, circumcision's still required, but it's now just baptism.

Any last thoughts? Because we're gonna end with this. Are they brothers?

Oh, you had a question? The baptism position is that Jesus Christ, when he sends out the disciples, he gives what we call the

Great Commission. What'd he say? Go and make disciples of all nations, okay?

Now, what does he mean by make disciples? He means preach the gospel, and God will bring about conversion, right?

That's what it means to make disciples, okay? Make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the

Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Right there, we would say, okay, disciple first, believer, then baptized.

Clear from Jesus's words. An example of that might be in Acts chapter eight, when

Philip goes to the Ethiopian eunuch, and he explains the gospel to him, and he believes the gospel, and then he says, well, there's water here.

What prevents me from being baptized? Well, whether he got sprinkled, how deep the water was, I don't even care about that right now.

The point there is the order of things. He believed the gospel. He heard the word of Jesus from Philip.

When he believed and expressed his faith, he was eligible for, and was required to,

I would argue, be baptized, okay? The apostle

Paul, was he baptized when the scales fell off? Did not Ananias baptize him? Let me just take a quick look for that, and then we'll close with that.

While I'm looking for that, I really wanna know when he was baptized. I know this, that we only cover two of the six reasons that Jameson gives for why open membership just seems intuitively correct.

Now, when Pastor Brian comes back here and goes to chapter three, I need to present to him a class that knows the other four reasons.

Y 'all's gonna read it, right? You're not gonna throw me under the bus and say how I only got to two of the reasons, and then went off in my own direction.

He escapes from Damascus, and I was a disciple of Damascus, and Ananias, my chosen instrument.

Thank you, verse 18. He arose and was baptized, so after he professed his faith, we would hold to that in other places and examples, that it's profession of faith, then baptism, and baptism is actually required once faith has been professed.

It's one of the proofs of the faith that was confessed. Thanks for your help. Last questions or comments?

Everybody understand our distinctives? Yes. It's simply the key thing. Yes, there's the difference in mode or circumstances.

I, yeah, as long as we hold the mode of baptism as very important, then you're right.

Yes, it is more important. The occasion is more important than the mode. Yes, I would agree with that statement.

Yeah, like the case I had with our, the guy who used to play piano here for us, Don Penhill. He was sprinkled upon profession of faith as an adult on a ship in World War II, actually in the

South Pacific. Though now, having studied it more, I accepted it. I don't have any,

I don't have a guilty conscience about that, because we really did think it through, but now I would make a different decision.

I would say, so, and this is also, remember, this is why we require baptism for membership, not because baptism equals circumcision and brought you into the covenant family.

Not at all. We require baptism for membership because baptism is that sign and seal and public declaration of your faith, that declaration that's been accepted by the church, which you're adjoining, okay?

All those things working together. Read, the rest of the chapter's a very short chapter, okay?

And the six reasons that it seems right to have open membership, they're really easy, okay?

But please be prepared for that, because it'll make better sense when Brian takes over next week and picks up chapter three.

Okay, all my students agree? Chapter two, thank you.

Okay, let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for this day once again, and for the time you've given us and just for the good discussion that we're able to have.

Father, I pray that we would hold our beliefs tightly as they come from your word, and humbly,

Father, for we are fallen people, we are infallible, and Lord, we can only do our best to know you through your word and to do what it says.

And we pray that we will be humble and easily corrected when your word shows that we've gone astray.

Even so, Father, we thank you for the solid foundation you've given us in Christ, and we pray that you will be with us as we continue to worship in his name, amen.