Debate: Is Infant Baptism Biblical?

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so you know what the breakdown of the debate will be. 15 -minute opening statements followed by five -minute rebuttals, 10 -minute cross -examination, that's when the real debate takes place in my opinion, followed by five -minute rebuttals, then 10 more minutes of cross -examination, that's 10 minutes for each person asking questions, five -minute closing statements, and Q &A for 20 minutes.

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Now, I will be perfectly honest with you, I just realized that, are we gonna have cards?

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Okay, so we will have cards in the back. Are they already set up for folks to grab? Okay, make sure you get those cards if you wanna have questions put in.

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At some point, someone's gonna have to sneak up and hand those cards to me, and I will find all the easy ones for Oscar, and Gabe, you're in deep trouble.

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So, Gabe did want me to mention to you that he is tonight's victim of Southwest Airlines.

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He flew in, and his luggage did not. His luggage, well, we don't know where his luggage is, and that's one of the reasons

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I don't fly anymore, to be perfectly honest with you, because I like my luggage and what's in my luggage, so I like to get it to where I'm going.

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So, we will pray for Gabe as he tries to sleep tonight, wherever it is he'll be sleeping in a hotel, whether they've found his luggage or not, and maybe, are you just going home after this?

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Maybe it'll get to wherever it's supposed to go. So, just so you know, he's,

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I thought maybe Gabe was just trying to sort of go with the apologia look, you know, type thing, and no, he just simply doesn't have his luggage.

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So, for those of you who do not know Gabe, now, I've gotta tell you something. See, if I were to read this normally,

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I'd simply say, Gabriel Wrench was born in Texas, but since he sent it to me,

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I have to say, Gabriel Wrench was born in the promised land of Texas. Not sure exactly, our first theological disagreement of the evening at that point.

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Six states later, he ended up in Moscow, Idaho, yes, that Moscow, Idaho, where he graduated from the

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University of Idaho. You actually graduated and kept your faith. That's not easy to do.

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He has also attended Greyfriars Hall, the pastoral training program at Christ Church. Gabriel is a media and PR consultant, the co -founder of the

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Fight, Laugh, Feast network. I can testify that he also knows where taco time is in Moscow, so that he and I can woof down taco time right before doing cross -politic, which is actually a dangerous thing to do, given how sensitive the microphones are, so I'm not really sure we should continue doing that.

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And he's, of course, one of the hosts of the Cross -Politic TV show. He also serves as a deacon at his church,

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King's Cross, which, of course, is closely associated with Christ Church there, but they meet downtown.

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I've had the opportunity of preaching at both those churches and serves on various non -profit boards. His favorite food groups, you didn't put taco time in here.

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I didn't, nope. I'm really crushed. Our barbecue, ice cream, and topping the charts, scotch.

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Then there's something here about Balvany 21 -year, if you're asking. I have no idea what that is, I'm a Baptist.

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So, he lives on a small 10 -acre farm with his wife, three children, and a bunch of miscellaneous animals.

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He thinks he has an RV set up there, but he does not. I just want to remind him of that particular little issue that's just a little thing between the two of us.

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So, Gabe comes to us from far away, but let's make him feel welcome here this evening.

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Now, the hometown boy, Oscar Dunlap, was born, ready for this, and raised in Ypsilanti, Michigan.

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Pretty close, right? I know a few people from Michigan. How many times do you have to spell

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Ypsilanti? All the time. Yeah, every time, that's a very strange spelling. He currently attends

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Whitfield Theological Seminary in pursuit of his MDiv, Master's of Divinity degree. He has been wedded to his bride,

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Teresa, for nine years. Just letting you know, don't forget the 10th.

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Make sure it's big. Start planning now, just letting you know. That was 30 years ago for me, so.

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Nine years, is father to four children. He now serves as a deacon at Apology Edge Church, so I think it's rather interesting that we have a deacon and a deacon doing our discussion this evening on baptism.

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Teaches in various capacities, and leads weekly evangelistic and apologetic community outreaches for the church here at Apology Edge Church, and so we are glad to have these two gentlemen here.

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As I said, we're looking right at two hours on the subject of baptism.

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Gabe is going to be the one who has the opportunity of setting things up for us.

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Let me just mention that I think that it's important that we continue to have these conversations.

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You might say, well, haven't you debated this before? I have. In fact, the first time

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I ever debated this subject was right here on this stage in 1995, and so you might say, well, how many times do we do this?

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Well, the fact of the matter is, as long as we cooperate together, and we here at Apology Edge Church have very close relationships with the folks up in Moscow, we have very close relationships with our

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Presbyterian brothers. I have spoken at numerous conservative Anglican churches in Australia.

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We have to have these conversations. We can't just simply put these things under the rug.

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Each generation needs to think these things through, and sometimes hearing other voices is very helpful.

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Sometimes you get a perspective that you don't have in other contexts, and so I think it's important that we continue to do this, but this evening's debate will be done in the context of the confession of each other as brothers in Christ, and it is our desire that he be honored in all that we do this evening, including the attitudes that we have toward one another.

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So with that, I'm going to offer a word of prayer and then invite

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Gabe to come forward for his opening statement. So let's pray together. Our Heavenly Father, we do thank you for this opportunity to gather this evening to consider these important issues from your word.

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We ask that by your spirit, you would give us insight and understanding. Lord, even as we disagree, we would always come to your word and seek your wisdom and your counsel from your written scriptures.

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We ask that you would be with us this evening, and as we leave, we would be better prepared to be servants of yours.

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We pray all these things in Christ's name, amen. There is one thing, Gabe, before you begin.

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Now, I'm concerned about the fact that maybe someone might say, well, you're gonna be unfair.

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And I was concerned about the fact that people might see, because of the cameras, some reaction on my part, especially while Gabe was speaking.

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And so if I'm on my microphone, good. I said to Gabe, I said, Gabe, I think

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I might need to wear a mask while you're speaking. And he sent something back to me.

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And so, this is what I'll wear while Gabe is speaking. So that.

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It's good, it's good, you're good with that? Okay, so while Gabe's speaking, no, no,

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I won't, but it would hide the emotions fairly well. And I'm hoping it doesn't have any indication of what might happen to Gabe by the end of the evening or anything like that.

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So I will try to hide my emotions and my thoughts, and I thank you for the opportunity of getting to buy one of these things.

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I appreciate it. Well, thank you,

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Dr. White, for moderating this debate between a bunch of peon deacons.

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Thank you for that, and of course, thank you, Oscar, for setting all this up, and I know you put a lot of legwork together. Appreciate you, man, thank you.

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Glad to be debating you, thank you. And thank you to the Apologia family. We love you guys.

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We're glad we're close and friends, and we really appreciate y 'all's ministry and the interabortion ministries and all the hard work that you guys do and the gifts that you guys have that are unique to y 'all that are different from ours.

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So we really do appreciate you guys. To echo Dr. White a little bit, in our fallen world,

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I think debates are really important. We're finite creatures, and we need to debate these things.

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We need to continually be debating scripture. In fact, I think that's a sign of healthy times in the church, that we can debate and disagree and go out for beer afterwards and have good fellowship.

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That's really healthy. Iron sharpens iron. That kind of, we're finite creatures, and we need that challenge.

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So I'm really grateful for us. We're really grateful Apologia likes to have these kind of conversations.

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I grew up in a church that really didn't debate. I grew up in Texas, and the

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Baptists didn't debate the Presbyterians. The Presbyterians didn't debate the Methodists. I mean, there's no cross -challenging of each other.

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And in fact, it was largely discouraged debating. I remember even debating my high school friends in Dallas, and them getting, it being very difficult to do.

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Even as friends, just, you know, your junior year in high school debating them, and everyone kind of getting a little annoyed with each other.

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And that was representative of the church just not setting a good example for us. So as I hope, part of what's going on tonight is that we're sharpening each other's iron, and we're encouraging everyone here to dig deeper into God's word and to be concerned for the truth.

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You know, me and Oscar, we're pretty set in our views here. We're pretty set in our ways. We've been studying the issues.

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We, you know, know what we believe here. And, but even that, you can't have pride in your own stance.

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You need to be making sure your stance continually lines up with the word of God. So, you know, we're here.

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We got, we're here, we're like a family. You know, we got our crazy uncles. You know, you kind of married into the church.

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You kind of married into a family. You got your crazy uncles, and you want to be able to work through all these issues together. And so hopefully that's a part of what's going on tonight.

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And I think related to this, you know, Philippians chapter one, verse nine says, you know, we need to be growing in the love, excuse me, in the knowledge and love of God.

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And so we just don't be growing in love, like, you know, maybe the charismatic or evangelical church just always wants to talk about love, love, love.

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You know, we need to be growing in that knowledge too. And the more we know about God, the more we're going to be able to love

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God, and the more we're going to be able to understand how big his grace is in our lives. So, we're

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Christians, and we believe in the whole word of God, right? Genesis to Revelations.

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And we don't want to, at any point, have a Bible verse that we're embarrassed of.

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We don't want to, at any point, have a book that we're wanting to push to the side. And then, like Ann Lee Stanley, we don't want to unhitch half the

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Bible, you know? We don't want to create, we don't treat the

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Bible like the Old Testament was this angry God, and the New Testament was this gracious God.

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We don't treat the Old Testament like it's a kind of a different religion, or kind of, there's a massive chasm between the

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Old Testament and New Testament. That's not true. And we don't want to create this, we don't want to be like these modern evangelicals that want to unhitch the

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Old Testament. And in the end, they kind of end up severing Christ from Christ.

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Christ was in the Old Testament. Christ was revealed to us in shadows, and figures, and types, and so forth in the Old Testament. And everything was being fulfilled in Christ in his death and resurrection.

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But if we create this bifurcation in the

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Old Testament, if we create this separation from the Old Testament and New Testament, well, we're severing the word of God where God doesn't sever the word.

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And so we don't want to create this, you know, I wouldn't just say new religion, but this distinction that's not present in God's word.

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We want to take all of God's word, we want to receive it, we want to believe it, and we want to apply it how

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God's word teaches us to apply it. That's why biblical hermeneutics is so important. You know, we interpret, the most basic biblical hermeneutic is we interpret scripture with scripture.

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So when we come to a hard verse, when we come to a difficult verse, well, what we need to do is we need to go find maybe some scripture that's better and easier to understand that might bring light to that difficult text.

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What we don't do is try to reason to ourselves and try to maybe smooth out that text with our own reasoning.

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No, we want to receive that text, sharp edges and all, whatever's going on there, we want to receive it as the word of God, and we want to believe it as the word of God, and we don't want to apologize for it.

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And so, and I know that's not apologia, that's not Oscar, but I think that's something that we need to, you know,

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I remember when I first moved to Moscow in 2002, one of the biggest things that Doug challenged me with was he just said resolve to have no problem verses in the

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Bible. Whatever that problem verse is for you, you know, the slavery text, the, you know,

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Abraham lied about Sarah, his wife text, you know, Abraham walked up on the mountain with his son to sacrifice his son.

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You know, how do we, we want to receive all these difficult texts as the word of God, and we want to believe them because we know what

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God is doing is good. And we might not be able to have the full mind of God, we might not be able to understand the glory of God and the full mind of God in that way, but we know we need to receive it.

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We know that God's bigger than us, we know we're finite creatures, and we know we need to receive it. So, this debate is really about how we understand the covenant.

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This debate is really about how we understand the old covenant, and how we understand the old covenant in relationship to the new covenant.

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And we are the covenant body of Christ, we're

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Christians, we're believers, we're in covenant with God, so we want to understand that covenant. And as we understand in the

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New Testament, now we know that we're part of Abraham's covenant. Right, we're part of the sons and daughters of Abraham.

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You know, we're part of that sand, that stars in the sky that God promised Abraham. So, we're part of the historic covenant, we aren't just part of this, you know, the

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New Testament doesn't just present us this like, new covenant. Like new, totally separate from the old covenant.

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We don't have this, you know, very distinct, you know, the old covenant ends, the new covenant begins, and there's no relationship between the old and new.

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That's not what, that's not what the Bible presents. So, I wanna, with that in mind,

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I wanna kinda, you know, give you a definition of what covenant is. A basic definition of what covenant is, it's a promise that's associated with blessings and cursings.

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That's the definition of a covenant, that's the Bible's operating definition of a covenant. Some might like to use solemn bond, it's a solemn bond with attendant blessings and cursings.

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I like to use the word promised, because it tends to connect with our ears a little better. But it's a promise that comes with blessings and cursings.

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And those blessings and cursings are conditions, they're conditions placed on that covenant. You know,

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God says, you know, if you obey me, I'll bless you to a thousand generations. If you disobey me, I'll curse you to a third and fourth generation.

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So, every, you'll see in the scriptures that, you know,

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God made covenant with Adam and Eve, and I'll briefly hit on that. I'm not gonna go through all the covenants, but God made covenant with Noah, God made covenant with Abraham, God made covenant with Isaac, God made covenant with Jacob, God made covenant with Joseph, David, so forth.

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In every one of those covenants, that formula's there. God promises, and then God associates blessings and cursings with that promise.

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And whether the word covenant is actually stated, like, we don't see the word covenant really until Noah in Genesis chapter six.

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So, Adam and Eve were in covenant with God, but the word covenant wasn't there, but the formulation of a covenant was there.

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God promised Adam and Eve, God set up the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and there's blessings and cursings associated with that tree.

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And so, the shape of a covenant, the covenant was present there. And of course, each covenant, there's more revelation that comes with each covenant.

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God's revealing more and more about who he is with each covenant. And that's why we often refer, use the terminology like covenant renewal, or old covenant, new covenant, even old covenant, new covenant, it's really talking about covenant renewal.

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God's renewing covenant. The covenant that God made with Noah, the covenant that God made with Abraham, well,

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God's just renewing covenant. He's not making a new covenant up. And you'll see that in Galatians chapter three.

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And so, each covenant is more just of a renewing of that covenant. And it's a greater revelation also that comes with that renewing of covenant.

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We learn more about God and who he is through each revealing of the new covenant. And then, of course, in each covenant,

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God is kind of revealing a little bit about himself and what he's gonna be doing in the New Testament, what he's gonna be doing in Jesus.

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You see that Abraham was the father of all nations. God promised that. We see that God was gonna send a king, a king, a new king, a real king to deliver us.

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Well, King David was kind of representation of that covenant, that kingly covenant. And so, each covenant kind of has an element of revelation about who

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God is and what he's gonna be doing in the New Testament and through Christ. So, the structure of the covenant is, when

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Adam and Eve lived, before they were sinners, before they fell, the covenant had a promise, had blessing and cursings associated with it, had a sign and a seal.

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The sign was the tree of knowledge of good and evil and the tree of life. That was the sign of Adam and Eve's covenant. And then, of course, after the fall, sacrifices were added to that covenant, that fallen, the covenant now needed a sacrifice, now needed a way of dealing with that sin.

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And then, lastly, you'll see in a covenant, you'll see like a sacrament, a covenant mill.

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So, those are kind of the five things that you'll find in a covenant, the five markings, you could say, of a covenant, promise, blessing and cursing, sign and seal, sacrifices, and then a sacrament, a covenant mill.

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And you can see that in our marriages. Our marriages actually have that. Me and my wife, we promised to love each other.

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We promised to sacrifice for each other. We promised to, she promised to submit. I promised to lead.

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So, there's a promise there in our marriage. And then, you see that there's blessing and cursings associated with that promise.

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And then, you have a sign and seal. Well, my ring is a sign of that covenant, okay?

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Everyone knows I'm married because I got this ring right here. And then, you have, and of course, you can't have a sanctifying marriage without the death and resurrection of Jesus.

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You have a sacrifice for that marriage. So, you can have a good marriage. And then, lastly, you have a covenant, a sacrament.

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And the sacrament of marriage is sex. It's a mill. There's a mill there. And so, you see how

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God, covenant, God just laid, embedded covenant throughout our creation.

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It's just part of who we are. It's just part of what he created. It's just part of gravity.

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And then, of course, there's different kinds of covenants. There's the looser version of a covenant, you know, like a contract between businesses or a contract between an employee and employer.

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But they don't kind of follow some of the same pattern of the covenant that God made between man and God.

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You don't have this sign and seal. You don't have a sacrifice. You don't have, you know. But those contracts, those other covenants that you see kind of mimic, kind of resemble a little bit of what

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God had embedded in his relationship between God and man. And because that chasm, because when

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Adam and Eve fell, that chasm was so great, God began to mend that relationship through covenant first.

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So covenant is kind of the beginning of restoring the relationship, the sever that man had with God.

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And, of course, in that covenant, God promised full restoration through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. So, real quick,

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I just wanna run through, we're just gonna run through Abraham's covenant. I'm not gonna go through each covenant.

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I don't have time for that. But Abraham's covenant's kind of an easy covenant that I think we all recognize. So in Abraham, in Genesis, of course, you'll find

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God began to make covenant with Abraham in Genesis chapter 12, Genesis chapter 15.

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But I think the clearest, and then he repeats it in Genesis chapter 22, but the clearest articulation of the covenant that God made with Abraham was in Genesis chapter 17, one through 14.

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I'm not gonna read through it all for time's sake, but you can check it out yourself. But I'm gonna try to hit some of the highlights here, okay?

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So kind of chapter one through, excuse me, chapter 17, one through 14. Abraham was 99 years old.

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God came to Abraham. And here's God speaking to Abraham, and he's saying, I will make a, verse two,

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I will make a covenant between me and you, okay? I will make a covenant. No longer shall your name be called

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Abram, it'll be called Abraham. And then we go into verse seven. I will establish my covenant between me and you and your descendants after you and their generations.

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I wanna make one more point here about what included in the covenant. A covenant includes generations in that covenant.

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Every covenant, God included generations in that covenant. That'd be another identifying factor of a covenant that God made between God and man.

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Forever and an everlasting covenant to be God to you and to your descendants after you. Now go to verse 10.

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This is my covenant which you shall keep between me and you and your descendants after you. Every male child among you shall be circumcised.

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So that's the sign of that covenant. That's the sign of that covenant. So you already have the promises is being made here.

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I will multiply you in verse two. You have that promise in verse two. I will multiply you exceedingly.

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You have the promise of that covenant and it'll be everlasting covenant in verse seven. And then you have the sign of that covenant.

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Every male child shall be circumcised. You have that sign coming. And then verse 13 is kind of the second half of verse 13 says my covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant.

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That's the sign of circumcision is in your flesh for an everlasting covenant. And then you have, it goes on in verse 14 and the uncircumcised male child who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that person shall be cut off from his people.

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You have the blessings and you have the cursings. If you do this, you will be blessed to a thousand generations.

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If you don't do this, you'll be cursed to third and fourth generation. So that's kind of the structure.

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And of course we know later on, I'm not gonna go through here, but later on God cut that covenant. So the Hebrew word for covenant in the

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Old Testament is to cut, God cut that covenant. God cut that covenant of Abraham when he splayed the birds and laid them down and God walked through those birds.

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God cut through those birds. So we have the blood, we have the sacrifice of the covenant there. So that kind of structure is repeatable whenever God's making covenant or renewing covenant, you'll see a similar structure like that in scriptures.

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And of course, in the New Testament, we see all those factors present there. God made a promise to Christ.

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God had blessings and cursings there. Christ took on the ultimate curse, was hung on a tree.

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Christ was that ultimate sacrifice. Christ was the fulfillment of the sacrifice and the ultimate sacrifice.

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And I'm arguing here that baptism was that sign and seal of that new covenant.

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And then lastly, you have a covenant meal in the Lord's Supper. So all those, how much?

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Oh, we're about a minute over. Okay, all right, all right, all right. Well, you got to my point.

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That was just, let me just finish, 30 seconds here. So you'll see that all those structures and all that structure that you find in the

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Old Testament, the same structure that you find in the New Testament, and which is why I'll be arguing for today that baptism is the sign and seal of the new covenant.

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So thank you. It goes fast when it's your turn.

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Yeah. And slow when the other guy's up there. I should've turned around and asked how much time I have. That's all right. I can't see the clock.

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Yeah, I understand. All right, 15 minutes. Brother Oscar. I'm not that tall.

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So forgive me because my iPad isn't working and so I have to work off my phone.

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All right, so first off, I would like to thank my brother, Gabe, again, for taking this debate.

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Thank Redeemer for hosting it, for all you people in attendance who found it a valuable enough conversation to come in here and to hopefully learn.

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I'm honored before God to be here and to partake in this debate concerning a very important and yet secondary issue.

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Most of my conversations about scripture are with unbelievers. A lot of times on the street are these people that I'm debating with.

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So it's nice to be speaking to a fellow brother in Christ. I would like to begin my opening with a quote actually from Pastor Doug, our brother here, his pastor, a man that's been of great benefit to me in my

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Christian walk and in many areas I've learned a lot, a great deal about. He says in a video titled

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Infant Baptism, quote, when we come to debates themselves, we should always remember that they can only be settled through appeals to scripture.

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As the Westminster Confession puts it, scripture is, quote, supreme judge by which all controversies of religion ought and need to be resolved through appeal to the word.

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I cannot possibly agree more with this statement. And so from the gate, we recognize our starting point and our ending point is scripture, not history, not arguments from silence, not emotionalism, but scripture.

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With Luther, we can say my conscience is captive to the word of God. Therefore, to the audience,

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I caution, pay very close attention to the means by which our arguments are made. Which of us is appealing to the clear teaching of scripture and which of us is not?

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Because the reality is we both can't be right on this issue. This debate is rooted in our different views of covenant theology, as many as you,

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I'm sure, know the way in which the ordinance is administered is simply the outworking of previous presuppositional starting points concerning the terms of the new covenant.

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To put it simply, my brother will argue with Pato Baptist covenant theology, he would argue that the covenant of grace has been in effect since the time of Adam until the time of Christ.

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The only fundamental difference we have is the different administrations or mediations.

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Although scripture seems to emphasize the newness of the new covenant repeatedly, incessantly almost, we have a new covenant, a better covenant administered by a better mediator, inaugurated by a better sacrifice, ushered in by a better ministry, predicated upon better promises.

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Its members possess a better hope, and I would argue, therefore, they are given objectively a better sign.

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For the superior covenant, accomplished by the perfect work of Christ and enacted by the shedding of his innocent blood inevitably necessitates a superior sign.

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All that said, the Pato Baptist would confine the newness of the new covenant to mean something other than it actually being new.

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And therefore, I'd say conflate the practice of the new covenant sign given to the church with that of the old covenant sign given to ancient

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Israel. Some, I think, some of these hermeneutical practices,

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I think in other circumstances, we would scoff at. But in this situation, it seems that this position is seen to be biblically grounded.

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And because there is reference to scripture, of course, and there is a high view of scripture even in their position, but I think the way that the conclusions are come to is not the most thorough when it comes to hermeneutics.

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And for this reason, we have gathered today to put that claim to the test. Is the practice of Pato Baptism biblical?

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Like a good Reformed Baptist, I would say, nay. And the reason why is very simple. I'm sure many of you have heard the quote, even if you don't know where it came from, but you've heard the quote from an old minister, an old minister from England named

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Thomas Campbell. Where the scripture speaks, we speak. Where the scripture is silent, we are silent.

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This is essentially a summation of the regulative principle that we get from Calvin, right? We are confined in our doctrine and practice to that which scripture directly prescribes to us.

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Right, we go no further. The funny thing is both of these guys are Pato Baptists, so that's pretty funny.

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Anyhow, I ask if we as Reformed Christians apply this principle to baptism and commit to going no further than what scripture prescribes, it seems to me that this issue is pretty simple.

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It seems to me pretty simple. We know the question again, is Pato Baptism biblical? Let me tell you what is not the question.

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If infants were included in the old covenant, isn't it only proper that God would include them in the new covenant? That's not the question, right?

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At best, that's speculation derived from scripture, not interpretation. We've already determined that the argument, whatever argument we make must be rooted and grounded in biblical interpretation.

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Because, why are we saying that? It's because we recognize that God's word is sufficient.

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It's sufficient to fully furnish the man of God in all good works. And if baptism, if infant baptism is true, it is indeed a good work.

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And surely, if it's true, I beseech my brother, bind my conscience by the word.

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Before I go any further, let me be the first to admit that the argumentation typically spouted by Pato Baptist, my

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Pato Baptist brother, I think to be very compelling, but not in the right way.

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I think it to be emotionally compelling. I mean, which of us wouldn't want our children to automatically partake in the covenant of grace?

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I think we all would. Spurgeon says this, if I thought it wrong to be a

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Baptist, I should give it up and become what I believe to be right. If we could hold, if we could find infant baptism in the word of God, we should adopt it.

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It would help us out of a great difficulty for it would take away from us the reproach which is attached to us, that we are odd and do not as other people do.

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But we have looked well through the Bible and cannot find it and do not believe that it is there. Nor do we believe that others can find infant baptism in the scriptures unless themselves, they first put it there.

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I believe the argumentation in large part, as I said, to be emotional. And why I find no issue with emotional argumentation, it must be derived from scripture.

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When we are at the abortion mill and we're approaching a woman and we're trying to use the scripture to appeal to her emotions, we're doing so from the reality that God's word explicitly tells us that that child is an image bearer of God.

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See, our emotional argumentation is still rooted in what scripture clearly teaches.

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So before moving on, what I also say, while I totally disagree with paedo -baptism, I'm no friendlier to holding off baptism until we reach a standard that scripture doesn't prescribe to us.

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And the formula is to repent, believe and be baptized. That's what we get from scripture. That's what we ought to be faithful to.

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We, as crado -baptists, ought not to hold our children to a different standard of their profession than we do someone who walked into our church.

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Are we holding off baptism until our children are 12 because we wanna make sure that they understand? We baptize upon profession of faith, a credible profession of faith.

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So I can understand where they come back at us and say, well, you're being inconsistent with what you say you believe.

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Let me also say I decided not to spend the short time that I have in this opening to address the method of baptism, but rather its substance.

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This is because no matter the form, regardless of what the form is, if the substance is not proper, if the substance is not what we derive from scripture, then no matter the form, it's incorrect, it's inappropriate.

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And so I'll take this time to address that substance. So when it comes to the issue at hand,

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I think there's three fundamental questions we must answer, I believe, to arrive at the proper conclusion. What is the new covenant?

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By what means do its members partake in it? And what is the sign of that covenant? Answering these three questions from scripture will result in the biblical definition of the new covenant, its requirement for membership, and therefore confine that the said sign be restricted alone to its members.

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So what is the new covenant? He said right, and I believe it starts as a promise. Jeremiah 31, which is also quoted in Hebrews eight, is one of the very best definitions that we have of the new covenant.

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Now I won't read the whole thing, but some defining points that can be taken from it. The covenant is called new, and therefore differentiated from its predecessors.

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Furthermore, it would be a covenant God made with his fathers, I'm sorry, it would be a covenant that God made with the fathers, not like with the fathers who broke it in unfaithfulness.

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The law in the prior covenant had been externally observed by the covenant people, would now be written on the hearts and minds of these new covenant people and observed internally.

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God vows to be the covenant God in a way different than that of Israel, and from the least to the greatest, all who partake in this new covenant will bear a special, revelational knowledge of God unlike that of Israel.

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Right, all throughout Old Testament Israel, we see remnant, remnant, remnant. There's always a remnant.

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There's that 7 ,000 that God speaks to when speaking to Elijah. There's always a remnant. We don't have that remnant in the new covenant, and so you see that all that partake in the new covenant, truly partake in it, are not members just by pretense, but partake in the substance of that covenant.

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Furthermore, the next chapter, Jeremiah 32, also speaks of a future covenant that God will make with his people in which

36:51

God promises there will be one heart among the people, right, and one way in order that they may fear

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God forever. It is said to be an everlasting covenant, which implies its unconditional nature.

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Lastly, Ezekiel 36, we have another future promise that God makes in which he again promises a new heart for his people and promises to put his very spirit within them to the end that this people might be faithful where Israel as a people were not.

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Now, all these texts are given in the Old Testament as promises of what is to come. In summer, we have the text seemingly revealing to us that the promised covenant would be everlasting, unconditional, exclusively made up of those it describes, signified by a new heart in the indwelling of the

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Holy Spirit, and efficacious to accomplish obedience to God by his partakers. With all this, while all this is extremely informative and necessary for a foundation to be laid, right, for us to answer the question as to what the new covenant is, it is a promise of what is to come and not the thing itself.

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For that, we must go to the new covenant scriptures. If we want to understand what the new covenant is, if we want to understand what the sign is, we must allow the scripture to explain it to us from the scriptures that God gave us with this covenant.

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The New Testament fulfillment of the, I'm sorry, the fulfillment of the new covenant in the New Testament.

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In Matthew 26 and 28, our Lord says, this is my blood of the covenant, and which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.

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This is to say the shedding of his blood is that which codified, inaugurated, instituted the new covenant. His blood was the means by which

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God covenanted, which literally means, as Gabe said, to cut and set apart this people that he had elected in grace.

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This text not only gives us the means by which the covenant, the means by which the covenant is made, but the result of the covenant, which is the forgiveness of sins.

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John 19 and 28 through 30 tells us, Christ, knowing all things pertaining to the accomplishment of redemption of his people to be complete, he received the sower wound and proclaimed his work finish.

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The substance of the promise had been fulfilled. The means by which God promised to save his people had been prepared.

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Now, the question is, how does one partake in that covenant? Well, the scripture speaks clearly as to this.

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Scripture teaches explicitly in a myriad of places that it is by faith that one partakes in that covenant, and no other way.

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John 1 and 14. John 1 and 12 through 14. But as many as received him, he gave them the right to become children of God to those who believe in his name, who were born not of blood, nor the will of flesh, nor the will of man, but of God.

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It is not by our bloodline or our household or our will even that we become children of God. It is by receiving

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Christ alone that one is made co -heir with him. And what does it mean to receive Christ? Romans 3 and 23.

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For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by his grace as a gift through redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom

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God put forth as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith.

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We receive membership. We enter into covenant with God through faith.

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And I say, if not by faith, then by what means? By what means do we have a real tangible union with Christ if it not by faith?

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And so, what is the sign of that covenant? That covenant that we only have interest to by faith, what is that sign?

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We arrive at that sign, and I argue the covenant promised by God, accomplished by the mediation of Christ, and applied by grace through faith is given and is reserved to those who profess the reality of their justification by faith in Christ.

40:29

That said, if pato -baptism is true, the sign given more closely corresponds to the Old Testament circumcision and is given apart from faith, apart from a profession.

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What does scripture say? Galatians 3 and 26. For Christ Jesus, you are all sons of God through faith.

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For as many of you were baptized into Christ have put Christ on. Again, in Romans 6, two through three.

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Do you know that all, do you know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ were baptized into his death?

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We were buried, therefore, with him by baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the

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Father, we might too walk in the newness of life. So I ask you, does the baptized infant identify with the reality of what scripture defines baptism as?

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A death, a burial, a resurrection with Christ by faith. And in doing so, we have union with him and are made co -heirs with him eternally.

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I say it does not. And I say you can find no other scripture that gives you a different definition of what baptism is.

41:37

And so you have an argument from silent and I say for those arguments, we rather go to the clear teaching of scripture to be informed.

41:45

Thank you. Thank you very much. Now we will have five minutes of rebuttal and clarification for each speaker.

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And we'll be going Gabe, Oscar, Gabe, Oscar in that order all evening. So it'll be pretty straightforward and pretty easy.

42:07

I should have asked if you want any time indications. One minute? Okay, one minute.

42:12

You got it, you got it. Thanks. Don't start the clock yet, don't start the clock yet, don't start the clock yet.

42:19

Okay, you can start it now. Okay, so Oscar's already doing it. Oscar already has to sever the

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Old Testament, the Old Covenant from the New Covenant. He has to pretend that the New Covenant is something totally new.

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Something that has no grounds in the Old Covenant with Abraham. And in addition to this, you have to pretend that the

42:43

Old Covenant was just a covenant of works. Just a covenant of you do this, I do that, okay?

42:49

But that's not how God talks about it. Okay, faith was the whole point of the

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Old Covenant. Okay, Deuteronomy 10 verse 12. What does the

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Lord God require of you? But to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve him, your

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God with all your heart, with all your soul, and to keep his commandments and his statutes which I command you today. And then he goes on to verse 16.

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Therefore, circumcise the foreskin of your heart and be stiff -necked no longer. And of course, the formulation of Abraham's covenant in chapter 17, it was accounted

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Abraham to righteousness because he believed first. He believed first, okay?

43:32

Romans chapter four verse six says that Abraham believed first and then was circumcised.

43:41

Okay, but that didn't, I'm trying to find the verse while I'm talking, but that didn't prohibit Abraham from circumcising his children.

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So if you go to Romans chapter four verse six real quick, it's believer circumcision, verse 11.

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And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of faith, which he had while still uncircumcised, a seal of righteousness of faith.

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He received the sign before he, excuse me, and he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of faith, which he had while still uncircumcised, that he might be the father of who?

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All, and then he proceeded to be circumcised and then he proceeded to have his generations circumcised.

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So faith was always the point in the Old Testament. Secondly, the reason why the

44:34

Old Covenant matters is because the Old Covenant is the basis for the New Covenant. Okay, go to Galatians chapter three.

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Galatians chapter three, okay, verse seven. Therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham.

44:50

Same covenant, same covenant. It's not a distinct covenant. We can't make up things in the

44:57

New Testament. We have to synthesize things between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. Jesus didn't come to just poof,

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New Covenant. No, he's the fulfillment of the Old Covenant. So the Old Covenant matters in this whole debate.

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It goes on, verse eight, and this is a beautiful verse. Verse eight, in the Scriptures, foreseeing that God would justify the nations by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, and you, all the nations shall be blessed.

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What a beautiful verse. The gospel was preached in the Old Testament. In that line, and you, all the nations shall be blessed.

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That's the gospel. Paul says that's the gospel. Is that your gospel?

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And then it goes on in verse 16. Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made.

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He does not say, and to the seeds, as many, but as of one, and to your seed, who is Christ.

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And this I say, that the law, which is 430 years later, cannot annul the covenant that was confirmed before by God in Christ that it should make the promise of no effect.

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That's Abraham's covenant. It was confirmed by God in Christ. Abraham's covenant was.

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So why would we, all of a sudden, wanna just redefine what the new covenant means?

46:20

You know, Oscar wants to hold to the, thank you. Oscar wants to hold to kind of the regulative principle.

46:28

Okay, if you can't find it in Scriptures, then we shouldn't believe it. We shouldn't follow it. Well, do women in this church take communion?

46:36

Show me a place in the Bible, in the New Testament, where women take communion. Show it to me.

46:42

Do you guys have a guitar in worship? Do we have speakers, microphones in worship? Show me a place in the

46:49

Bible where those are regulated, where those are clearly defined, clearly articulated.

46:58

And lastly, the covenant was a structure for family, okay?

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And even the Baptist can't say that the covenant, or that baptism is for all believers, because when you baptize people, you don't know if they're truly saved.

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In fact, a lot of people have walked away from that. So the covenant, the objective beauty of the covenant, which hopefully

47:19

I'll get into more later, is a great way of articulating this issue. So thank you. Thank you,

47:27

Gabe. Oscar, you have your five minutes.

47:52

So, just to respond to Gabe here, I do not entirely detach the old covenant from the new.

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I recognize that there is discontinuity as well as continuity between the covenants. The important thing is that we allow scripture to define what that discontinuity and continuity is.

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Scripture, the new covenant scriptures are going to define for us what the new covenant is. Most of what you hear from my brother here pertaining to the sign of baptism is references to the old covenant, old covenant, old covenant.

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Why would we not allow the scripture that God provided along with the new covenant sign, which is the new covenant scriptures, to define exactly what that means, to define the parameters of the sign and when the sign is to be administered, when it is the proper time to partake in the sign.

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That is my argument, is that God is allowed to define when the sign is to be administered and what the sign actually means.

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The two scriptures that I referenced in my opening, Romans 6, two and three, as well as Galatians 3 and 26, that gives us a clear definition as to what a proper baptism, rightly administered, should signify.

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And that is regeneration. Now does that mean it always is regeneration in the individual that partakes in baptism?

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No, and we're not claiming that. We don't believe in baptismal regeneration. But what we are claiming is that that is what the sign is supposed to point to.

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Right, so when you have an infant being baptized who cannot even profess to believe in the substance of that sign, again,

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I say that is biblically inappropriate. Furthermore, he mentioned, do we allow women to take communion?

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And this is an interesting one because though we don't see women taking communion in scripture, we see all of the things necessary to recognize that women have membership in the covenant.

49:57

Right, we see women being baptized. We see scripture in Galatians 3 said there's no more male and female, there's all one in Christ.

50:07

We have many texts referring to the reality of women's partaking in the covenant.

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We don't have that for infants. Now I know he would disagree with that, but when we're looking to the new covenant, the

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New Testament, the scriptures, to define for us what the requirement is for new covenant membership,

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I'm saying that is lacking because the scripture is clear to say that it is faith. Again, I ask, if not by faith, then by what means do we have union with Christ?

50:40

If not by faith, then what is Christ actually mediating to us? Christ is said to be full of grace and truth, and therefore all those who partake in him partake in the fullness of grace and truth.

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Well, Gabe would say that's not the case. He would say there was some that partake in the covenant or are under the federal headship of Christ, but are not partaking in the fullness of grace and truth, are not secure in their salvation.

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We would deny that. I would deny that and say that all those who are in Christ are secure in their salvation.

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And I don't mean the invisible church. I mean, I don't mean the visible church, I'm sorry. I mean the invisible church, those who

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God has elected from all eternity. Now, regarding the

51:29

Abrahamic covenant, there's a whole lot there to get into. But as I said before, when we're speaking of this issue, we must start with the new covenant scripture.

51:39

It's not to say that we can never reference back to the old covenant, but the scripture must be the defining point for us that God has given us to understand what the sign is.

51:51

Thank you. All right. Now we're going to stay at the tables,

51:59

I would assume for this part, and have our 10 minutes cross -examination.

52:05

Now, I realize cross -examination very frequently is what gets people thinking.

52:11

And so what I would like to do is give you this time to be listening, to be formulating your questions.

52:19

But if you have questions that you want to write down on the cards and get submitted, this will be the time to be doing that so that I have enough time to look through the questions and get them sorted by the end of the debate.

52:35

So I'm not sure who's going to be picking up the questions or exactly how they're going to be given to me.

52:43

Someone will need to figure that out back there. Maybe someone from San Diego or something like that.

52:51

And so if you guys can be working on that so that I can get the questions after this next period where we'll have 10 minutes.

52:59

Now, my understanding is that's 10 minutes for each one of you, is that correct? Okay. And you'll be going, you'll be,

53:06

Gabe will be asking the questions first. This is a free -form cross -examination.

53:13

You can only do this if you can trust both sides to behave. Okay? Because it can be abused.

53:20

People can talk longer than they should. Other people can try to cut people off. Hopefully that's not going to be an issue this evening.

53:27

So no President Trump. Yeah. Or just going, wrong.

53:33

That's probably not the best way to do it either. But Gabe will have control of the floor for the first 10 minutes, then

53:41

Oscar for the second 10 minutes. So let's begin our cross -examination. Go ahead,

53:47

Gabe. Oscar, do you agree with my articulation of kind of the definition of covenant? Did you have any quibbles there?

53:53

So I said, just a reminder, I said a covenant is basically a promise with attended blessings and cursings with it, associated with it.

54:00

No, I don't have a problem with that. So how would you define covenant? No, I said I don't have a problem. Okay, okay. And then you said in your notes that, in your last response here, that when speaking of the

54:17

New Covenant, we must start with the New Testament. Is that correct? But Galatians starts with the

54:25

Old Covenant. So that, how to explain to me, maybe synthesize those things for me.

54:31

If Paul starts with the Old Covenant, and you say we only need to be starting, when we define, when we talk of the

54:36

New Covenant, we need to start with the New Testament. How does that make sense with what Paul's doing in Galatians chapter three? Sure.

54:42

So to clarify what I mean, I'm saying when we are defining the parameters of the covenant, so in the

54:48

Old Covenant, we have a promise of what is to come. In the New Covenant, we have the fulfillment of that thing. So in order to understand the parameters of that covenant in detail, we don't go to the shadow, we go to the substance.

55:01

And so the New Covenant is the substance of the promise that was given in the Old Covenant. Now, isn't that what

55:06

Paul's doing? I mean, he's using the shadow to talk about the real, the covenant. At no point is

55:13

Paul saying that the shadow doesn't matter anymore. And he's basing his argument, in fact,

55:18

Galatians chapter three is the middle of Galatians, he's hinging his whole argument against the Galatians on that.

55:25

Yeah, yeah, and I wouldn't say, I wouldn't say that, even when he's starting with the

55:32

Old Covenant, I mean, everything that's laid out, it's beginning with Christ. The New Covenant scriptures are starting with the reality of Christ, right?

55:42

And then is he pointing back to reference what it means, what Christ accomplished? Sure, but the reality is

55:48

Christ died and resurrected and they all know that. And so that's the starting point. So are you, how would you,

55:55

I guess maybe this is a definitional thing here too, how would you define fulfillment? Are you saying fulfillment, does it start to negate the

56:02

Old Covenant or what's fulfillment in relationship to the Old Covenant? No, I don't believe it negates it.

56:09

It's a promise is given and it's fulfilled in the New Covenant. That which was promised comes to pass.

56:15

Yeah, and Jesus was that promise, right? Sure. So how in the, all right, so there's three debates with the

56:27

Jews in the New Testament, right? There's the debate in the Galatians, they were wanting to do the old ways, there's the debate in Hebrews where they're wanting to do the old sacrifices and then there's the debate in Acts chapter 15 where the

56:39

Jews were like, Gentiles need to get circumcised, right? Three debates. How come there was never a debate on infant baptism?

56:47

How come there was never a debate on the Jews saying that, oh my goodness, my kids aren't allowed to be in covenant with God anymore?

56:55

Well, this is something. I mean, don't you think that would be a big issue? Sure. This is something I think is interesting because oftentimes when

57:01

I hear Presbyterians or Pentecostals referring to Baptists, they seem to think that we have this strange relationship with our children where we don't consider them to be

57:12

Christians or we don't pray with them or things of that nature. And I would say that's not true and I would speak to the reality of the

57:19

New Testament scriptures and what it's showing us in the same way. God has given a covenant. It's not like these children no longer belong to the people group, right?

57:29

But, and also not children. We're not saying that either. But infants who are not able to profess faith in the substance of the covenant, right?

57:39

We're saying those, you can't give them the sign or recognize them as members apart from that which is, apart from that which actually institutes the covenant.

57:49

So the covenant is instituted by the shed blood of Christ. And so how can someone partake in the covenant if they don't even believe that?

57:57

Covenant is instituted by the shed blood of Christ. What do you mean by that? Like, what do you mean by -

58:04

I mean, the covenant, that is when the covenant is cut.

58:09

I'm saying the sacrifice of Christ is what makes the promise a reality.

58:17

Yeah, but again, so how come the Jews weren't thrown down about, I mean, they're thrown down about circumcision.

58:23

I would throw down way more about all of a sudden, for thousands of years, babies were circumcised and allowed into the covenant, people of God.

58:32

And then all of a sudden, Christ comes and then babies aren't allowed to be in covenant with God anymore. That to me, there'd be a whole book of the

58:38

Bible on that if that was the case. Sure, I understand it's an argument from silence, but I don't find it,

58:45

I guess, appealing enough to be the standard of our practice.

58:52

Scripture gives us something clear as to when the sign is to be administered. That doesn't fall under how

58:59

Scripture defines it for us. And so whatever troubles that we get from that, I say we take them because Scripture doesn't give us any other path, at least in the

59:08

New Testament, to understand that. It's not an argument of silence because there are examples in the

59:14

Old Testament where babies were baptized. So when Israel walked through the Red Sea, all were baptized in it.

59:20

And so it's consistent. It's a consistent question and consistent with the Scriptures and consistent with,

59:26

I think, how the Jews would be thinking when Jesus died and rose and instituted the New Covenant and they would be like, what do you mean?

59:34

Babies were baptized in the Old Testament? I mean, Paul says that, right? Yeah, I mean,

59:41

I would say if that was so normative, I would think we would have one example of it explicitly in Scripture as an example, whether in something being taught didactically or an example in Scripture.

59:54

I just gave an example in the Red Sea. No, I mean in the New Covenant. In the New Covenant? In the New Testament, in the New Testament. Yeah, but you can't even consistently apply that because there's no example of women taking the

01:00:04

Lord's Supper in the New Covenant. So you have to argue from silence to be able to make that, all right, now I agree with you.

01:00:10

I think women should take the Lord's Supper. I'm not arguing against that. But that's because I'm arguing from principle.

01:00:18

I'm arguing from the historic way God dealt with his people. And I'm not just making something up in the

01:00:25

New Testament all of a sudden and saying, yeah, babies are no longer allowed to be in covenant people of God.

01:00:32

They're now cut off until they profess according to some humanistic, human definition of what profession looks like.

01:00:41

Another thing I would say is when it comes to, I'm not making the argument that the children are cut off.

01:00:49

See, baptism is a sign of a greater reality. So let's say that there's a child and their parents hold off baptism for a certain amount of time because they're paranoid that they might not give a credible profession of faith.

01:01:00

That does not somehow negate their salvation. If God has granted them repentance and faith, holding off baptism is not going to cease that.

01:01:08

So any of those children that you're speaking of that actually had interest in the covenant, baptism is not going to hinder that or to give life to that reality.

01:01:16

That is true no matter what. But again, what we have is the clear and normative practice in the

01:01:23

New Testament is what it is. And I say we ought to hold to that. So, I mean, what would you...

01:01:28

How much time left, Dr. White? Oh, sorry. That's okay. Two minutes. Okay, thank you.

01:01:35

What would be the status of some Jewish infant in AD 34 after Christ died and rose again?

01:01:46

So in AD 30, that Jewish infant was in the covenant of God, people of God, and then when

01:01:53

Christ rose again, AD 33, AD 34, what would be the status of that Jewish baby?

01:02:00

Well, the Old Covenant doesn't assure anything for you anyway, so I don't think it necessarily changed regarding your perception of the

01:02:09

New Covenant. If the New Covenant does not secure salvation for its members, then I don't think there is really a difference because there is no more security in your understanding of the

01:02:17

New Covenant and the Old Covenant as far as salvation goes. So New Covenant secures salvation, so nobody in the

01:02:24

Old Covenant was saved? No, no, no. I'm saying participation in the New Covenant secures it.

01:02:29

That's not to say that people in the Old Covenant did not partake in it, but the covenant, the Old Covenant, the

01:02:34

Sinaitic covenant, that covenant did not secure anything for anyone. I'm saying the covenant that's given to Abraham where he is circumcised after the profession of faith is different than what

01:02:46

Israel has when they're circumcised on the eighth day. I think those are two different realities.

01:02:52

Thank you, Dr. White. All right, so now we move over 10 minutes to Oscar.

01:03:01

All right. Get your questions written down.

01:03:08

All right. All right,

01:03:13

I've asked this question a couple times in my opening and rebuttal.

01:03:19

If not by faith, in what meaningful sense do baptized infants partake in the covenant and have union with Christ?

01:03:26

Well, as demonstrated, of course, the covenant is the context of where faith happens and is nurtured.

01:03:34

God's normal way of salvation is through covenant, and so in the Old Testament, you saw

01:03:41

Abraham, I already read it in Romans chapter four, you saw Abraham believe God first and then was circumcised, and God did that for a purpose, to be able to include all the

01:03:50

Gentiles in it, and then God had Abraham circumcise all his household, his whole household, servants and everything.

01:03:59

And then in the New Testament, you have a very clear articulation of Paul connecting circumcision to baptism.

01:04:09

So in Colossians chapter two, verses 11 and 12, it says, in him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hand by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ, buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith and the working of God who raised him from the dead.

01:04:30

So you have very clear articulation that there's a baton passing through the death and burial of Christ between circumcision as the old covenant sign and baptism as the new covenant sign.

01:04:41

And so now - And you believe that circumcision made without hands to be the physical circumcision? I believe the physical circumcision pointed to the circumcision without hands, but circumcision without hands doesn't all of a sudden do away with the physical circumcision.

01:04:54

It's just showing you the true reality of what circumcision is pointing to in the first place. So the circumcision, that physical circumcision always point in everybody to the circumcision without hands?

01:05:02

Yeah, that's what a sign is. A sign is lesser than what it's actually pointing to. And so the sign of baptism, you don't believe that baptism saves when someone's just dumped with water.

01:05:13

You don't believe salvation's automatically happening in that moment. But baptism is pointing to salvation. It's pointing to the greater working of the reality of what's going on.

01:05:21

So that's why baptism's a sign. Sure. So I guess my next question is, if faith is not a requirement for covenant membership, would you say that Roman Catholic children also are part of the covenant community?

01:05:32

Faith. Faith is a requirement of covenant membership through the parents. That's always been, that's always been.

01:05:38

So no Roman Catholic? Well, we don't know if the baby's saved or not, but we do know that the baby's part of the people of God.

01:05:44

So this is the objective reality of the covenant. There's objective nature to the covenant. And that objective nature of the covenant means that we can identify, everybody in this room is a

01:05:54

Christian. You're baptized, you go to church and apology or whatever church you go to. And we say, you're part of the objective, you're part of the covenant people of God.

01:06:03

Now, do we know that they're genuinely saved? We have this, you have this, that question gets at, the

01:06:09

Baptists have the same problem that Presbyterians have. We don't know who's genuinely saved, but we do know who's born into the people of God.

01:06:15

When I, when my kids are born into my family, I don't all of a sudden say, well, you got to prove yourself to be a wrench someday.

01:06:23

I hope you do. Or someone becomes, you know, my kids are born and they become, they're automatically citizens of the

01:06:30

United States. We don't say, oh, you're gonna take a test in 18 years and then we're going to confirm that you're a citizen of the

01:06:35

United States. In the same way that as part of the covenant people of God, when children are born to believing households, they're part of the covenant people of God.

01:06:44

Now, well, I'll stop there because I don't want to run. If so, next question. If the covenant does not ensure the salvation of all its members, what does it do?

01:06:52

And how is it better than the oath? I'm having just a little bit of a problem hearing you. It's my ears, not you.

01:06:59

Could you repeat that? Yeah, I said my ears too. If the covenant does not ensure salvation for all of its members, what does it do?

01:07:06

And how is it better than the oath? It's better than the old one. So in the Old Testament, people were saved based on the future death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

01:07:17

It's like a paycheck. And then in the New Covenant, in the New Testament, people were saved on the reality of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

01:07:24

And that Old Testament check was cashed. So it's better because it happened. It happened, right. Okay. Does pato -baptism bring the unregenerate infant under the federal headship of Christ?

01:07:38

Under the federal? Federal headship of Christ. Federal headship, does pato -baptism? It brings believers,

01:07:47

I'd articulate it this way. It brings the infant into recognizable covenant with God.

01:07:53

Objective covenant. So in the same way, like John chapter 15 or Romans chapter 11, you see that there's people,

01:08:02

I am the vine, you are the branches, and there's people being severed off the branches and there's people being engrafted into the branches.

01:08:07

That's a covenant analogy. It's not people losing salvation. It's a covenant analogy of people coming in and out of a covenant based on faith obedience.

01:08:15

So you would say all people are born under the federal headship of Adam, but baptism can bring an unregenerate infant under the federal headship of Christ.

01:08:25

Well, we don't know if that, again, we don't know the heart of that baby, but we do know babies can be saved. Psalm 139, we have examples in the scriptures where babies were saved.

01:08:32

We don't know the heart condition of that baby, but we do know the family status of that baby. We do know the covenant status of that baby, just like we knew in the

01:08:40

Old Testament. Abraham's kids were part of the objective covenant people of God. And of course, we have examples in the

01:08:46

Old Testament where Eli's sons were obviously not Christians, but they were part of the covenant people of God.

01:08:52

And you have a number of examples like that in the Old Testament. So in John 6,

01:08:58

Christ says, all that the Father draws will come unto me. Being that you believe baptized infants have been covenantally brought to Christ in their baptism, would you then say that this applies to them, the scripture that God is drawing people coming to Christ, would you say that applies to baptized infants?

01:09:15

That's the whole point of the covenant. So that was the point of covenant that God made with Adam and Eve. The covenant was the beginning status, the beginning relationship that God made with his people before even

01:09:25

Christ had come. So that the covenant is just a gracious beginning of a relationship. Got you.

01:09:31

So when Christ says that he will not fail to raise all them up on the last day, do you think that means all infants baptized with Christian parents are saved?

01:09:43

I mean, my heartstrings would like to say yes, but I mean, I don't know which baby's saved or not, but I would like to believe that God's blessing his people to a thousand generations and that those, you know, let's say a baby dies in the mother's womb, a

01:09:59

Christian parent's womb, I would like to believe that that baby's going to heaven, that God genuinely saved that baby there, but that's probably more of a sentimental desire than anything.

01:10:11

Got you. But I'm trying to believe in the covenant promises and that's what I'm trying to do. So their salvation would be predicated upon status and not by personal faith, that's what you're saying?

01:10:22

Salvation would be predicated on God's promises. So God promised to bless Christian families to a thousand generations.

01:10:29

So it's predicated on God's promise, not on my works, not on anything special I'm doing, it's predicated on God's promise.

01:10:37

Sure, sure. In Romans 6, three through four, I mentioned this verse earlier, a substance of the sign of baptism is given, referring to the imagery of us dying and being resurrected with Christ.

01:10:49

Would you say that that applies to infants? Romans 6, three through four.

01:11:00

Oh, yeah. So there's this symbolic nature and the real reality of what's going on there.

01:11:09

So it's not like everybody jumped into the tomb with Jesus there, right? So that applies to the babies, that applies to the

01:11:18

Christian believers. It says, do you not know that as many of us were baptized into Christ, were baptized into his death?

01:11:24

It's not like we all jumped on the cross and were baptized into his death in a physical sense.

01:11:29

And so in the same way that that would apply to the covenant status of all of God's people.

01:11:37

That's a covenant blessing, that's a covenant sign.

01:11:43

Everyone's baptized, they're baptized into the death of Christ. Now, I mean, the same way someone who becomes a believer gets baptized, or we think becomes a believer, gets baptized, and then they leave the faith.

01:11:53

Well, was he baptized into his death of Christ? He was baptized symbolically into it, but we don't know the heart of what happened there.

01:12:01

So obviously, just like we said earlier, baptism is a sign of what's greater going on in that person's life.

01:12:08

And not everyone who's baptized is saved. Right, so if baptism is a sign of a greater reality, in the cases in which there is no faith, what is baptism pointing to?

01:12:23

Well, again, this just gets to the sign of what it means to be in covenant with God.

01:12:29

It's just a sign to his damnation, to the unbeliever. So if I have a child,

01:12:37

I have a baby, I baptize him, and they grow up to be an unbeliever, well, that sign's just a sign of damnation to him now.

01:12:44

Just in the same way, when you partake of the Lord's Supper and someone partakes unworldly, well, the

01:12:49

Lord's Supper's just a damnation to him. It's not a blessing to him. But that's just what it means to be part of the covenant status and covenant people of God when you come to the

01:12:56

Lord's Supper too. Sure. So you wouldn't say that someone can be a

01:13:06

Christian, and you wouldn't say that they can lose their salvation? 100%, once saved, always saved.

01:13:14

That's time. Right. Okay, so I need our questions because I'm old and it takes me time to do things.

01:13:26

So I can look through them before our Q &A period, which is after the closing statements.

01:13:34

And while they're coming forward, the next section is five -minute rebuttals and clarifications from each individual, and then we'll have some more cross -ex closing statements and the

01:13:46

Q &As. So I see at least one question down here. You know,

01:13:53

I thought you were gonna use your beanie to collect all the questions in. Okay, Gabe, you've got five minutes.

01:14:08

Do you want a one -minute marker? Oh yeah, please. All right. And don't worry,

01:14:19

I won't start the time until you get the microphone way up there in the stratosphere. Nice and tall.

01:14:26

There we go. All right, go. So I think part of our back and forth, you see there is that I'm trying to ground what a sign is into what the scriptures say a sign is.

01:14:45

I'm trying to ground what covenant is into the meaning of the consistent definition of what covenant is from the

01:14:54

Old Testament into the New Testament. I'm not arguing that we're saved by works.

01:15:01

I'm not arguing that a baby is saved by, you know, circumcision in the Old Testament, saved by baptism in the

01:15:08

New Testament. The Bible doesn't argue that. The Bible's very clear in the Old Testament that Abraham believed, then was circumcised, then he had all his posterity circumcised, all his household circumcised, and there was no argument that all his children were automatically saved.

01:15:24

And in the New Testament, as I mentioned earlier, you have Colossians chapter two verses 11 through 12 that says you were circumcised in the death of Christ, you were baptized in the burial of Christ, and so we see a very clear articulation that the circumcision is being equated with baptism as a sign of the new covenant.

01:15:47

And so that's why you can, whenever you see this covenantal language in Scripture, it should immediately, that's why you see

01:15:54

Abraham in Galatians chapter three, you see Abraham in Romans chapter four, Adam in Romans chapter five, you see all these examples of the

01:16:04

New Testament authors pulling forward old covenant examples, and then you see

01:16:11

Oscar brought up Jeremiah chapter 31. Well, that's quoted in Hebrews. It's quoted in Hebrews.

01:16:18

The Hebrews is basically a book, it's like a New Testament book of Deuteronomy.

01:16:29

And so if you kind of read through Hebrews, it's kind of articulating what the new covenant is.

01:16:35

And there's a number, I'm thinking of chapter eight, chapter 10, and so forth. And then that's why you get to Acts chapter two,

01:16:44

Peter's preaching at Pentecost, preached a home run sermon, did a great job. All these people are like, well, what do we do now?

01:16:51

And Peter, this is Peter's response. Acts chapter two, verse 38 and 39, he says, Peter said to them, repent and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the

01:17:03

Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children and to all who are far off, as many as the

01:17:09

Lord our God will call. That's covenant, that's Deuteronomical covenant language.

01:17:16

The promise is to you and to your children. Why would Peter say that? The promise is only to you. You're the one only getting baptized.

01:17:22

You're the only one believing today. The promise is only to you. It's because the apostles knew the covenant language of what it meant to be baptized into Christ and what it meant for that husband and that wife's family.

01:17:42

God's intention for the salvation of the world has always been generational. The normal way

01:17:48

God saves through his church is always generational. Of course, we go out and evangelize.

01:17:55

Of course, we bring people from outside the church. Absolutely. But the biggest way you guys grow is through your kids, generationally through your kids.

01:18:05

And so that's why the covenant is so important to understand. And so what happens is in all this, there's kind of two paradigms.

01:18:14

Obviously, you guys are seeing here. There's the paradigm. So Presbyterians, that's me, we see when we raise children, when we raise children in our family, we're like, we're raising a tree to become good fruit.

01:18:29

Of course, my kid's not automatically saved. I pray for my kid's salvation. I pray that they'll grow up and believe in Jesus in their heart.

01:18:36

But what I'm doing is I'm believing in the promises of God, knowing that I'm trying to water a tree. I'm trying to water a tree to bear good fruit.

01:18:47

I don't know what's going on in the kid's heart, but my goal is to water that tree the best I can to bear good fruit. That's the

01:18:53

Presbyterian paradigm. The Baptist paradigm is you have kids and they're like wheat for tares.

01:19:00

But you don't know if they're wheat and tares until they grow up. And so you're hoping the best, you're hoping the best that I hope my children grow up to be wheat.

01:19:12

But when you look at things through covenantally, you're looking at things through the promises of God, you're doing, you're faithful, believing in the promises of God, believing that, hey, if I'm faithful to God, he will bless me to 1 ,000 generations.

01:19:26

And of course, the only true way you can be faithful to God is through Christ working in your life.

01:19:32

Time. Okay, thank you. I was just getting there. I was starting to preach.

01:19:58

All right. So again, my position, let me move this.

01:20:08

My position is the sign of baptism rightly desired and properly applied is pointing to the greater reality of salvation for the one who partakes in it.

01:20:17

As I said before, there are times that people are baptized and that's not the case, but we baptize on profession of faith, right?

01:20:24

And so the secret things belong to the Lord. We don't know the status of every individual, right?

01:20:30

We're called to baptize when a person says that they believe. In the case of a child, they're not able to do that.

01:20:36

That is not to say that God can't save children. Obviously, we don't believe that, but God gives us clarity in the scriptures as to when to administer the sign.

01:20:46

That's simply not it. Gabe mentioned an analogy earlier of marriage as a covenant and a sign given in marriage.

01:20:53

And I think it's a helpful one to illustrate what I'm saying here. And so if a man and a woman are courting, if they are arriving toward the destination of marriage, but not yet married, it would be improper for the man to give the woman the sign of marriage before the covenant is actually made.

01:21:16

That's essentially what I'm saying where you think about the marriage bed and the consummation being a covenant, being the way that the covenant is cut for marriage, right?

01:21:24

We know that it is a sin for a man and a woman to partake in the sign of that covenant prior to it being inaugurated, prior to it being a reality.

01:21:36

It's the same that we're saying here. It's the same that I'm saying. To be presumptuous upon the

01:21:42

Lord and to apply a sign prior to the requirements that scripture gives us being a reality is to presume upon God's grace.

01:21:53

Now God is gracious and we believe his promises and I think we as Baptists can believe and be hopeful about the salvation of our children.

01:22:01

We can do that without baptizing our children, without redefining baptism because that's what it does.

01:22:07

The truth of the matter is baptism, when applied to infants, redefines what baptism is.

01:22:15

It's not just the method that's different, it's the actual practice becomes an entirely different sign for an entirely different reality because now the sign is an infant is baptized and it's pointing to the reality that their parents believe in the promises of God.

01:22:31

Well, where do we see that in scripture? Where do we see that as a means by which God is saying baptism is to be administered?

01:22:38

We don't. What do we see? Repentance and faith and baptism. That's what we see, right?

01:22:44

So to do anything other than that is actually to redefine the sign and misapply it and now turn it into something entirely different.

01:22:56

And I will go as far as to say it's rejecting, it's putting aside the commandment of God to place our own understanding and to redefine the sign that he has given to us.

01:23:12

When it comes to the salvation of children and when it comes to them believing and having faith, those are things that we try to constantly pour into our children.

01:23:22

Why? Why do we pray with our children as Baptists? Why do we sing songs with them? Why do we bring them to church?

01:23:28

Well, one, because we're commanded to by God and two, because it is the purpose of every human ever created to glorify

01:23:36

God. That is your vocation as a person made in God's image.

01:23:41

You don't need to be saved in order for that to be the meaning and the purpose of your life.

01:23:47

Every atheist in this city ought to be every Sunday in a church worshiping God.

01:23:53

And so we call our children whether or not they yet profess faith to do that exact thing. For God is faithful, right?

01:23:59

God has made man in his image to do this thing and so we call our children to do it. And we pray that in time they come to profess the reality of faith and then we baptize.

01:24:11

Thank you. All right, so we get to go back to cross -examination.

01:24:23

Now with all that clarification provided in the past 10 minutes. So all the questions will clearly be answered now and we'll be able to come to a final conclusion, right?

01:24:34

Yeah, 100%. All right, so Gabe, 10 minutes. Okay, I wanna reiterate a question

01:24:48

I brought up in the first round and I wanna start here. Because I think there's a fundamental misunderstanding with what the meaning of a sign is.

01:25:04

So you brought up the marriage analogy again. You said it was sinful for a man to have sex with his girlfriend before they got married, which we agree with.

01:25:18

But the problem is that that analogy breaks down because what we're talking about is what the church can see objectively versus what is inwardly going on, okay?

01:25:29

We can't see what is inwardly going on. So if a man marries a woman, she can't inwardly see that he's gonna be faithful to her.

01:25:38

But that's what the sign is about. So it is appropriate for the ring to be put on, it's appropriate for the baptism to happen in an infant and bringing those covenant promises of God on that child and believing in the covenant promises of God for that child's salvation.

01:26:04

So I guess this goes back to like, is baptism the, is it replacing the sign of circumcision in the

01:26:16

Old Testament? Is that what, is baptism doing that? I would say no. So how would you understand

01:26:23

Colossians chapter two, 11 through 12 that I read earlier where you're circumcised in the death of Christ and buried in baptism?

01:26:33

Is Paul not equating the signs there? Well, as I said earlier, Paul is speaking of a circumcision not made by hands, the circumcision of the heart, which is regeneration and baptism.

01:26:45

But that was always the goal of circumcision. That doesn't negate the sign. You're negating the sign when you do that.

01:26:50

Well, it was the goal of circumcision, but it wasn't always the result of circumcision. It wasn't always the reality.

01:26:58

Every time someone was circumcised - Same for baptism. It's not always the reality that someone's saved because they're baptized. Sure, sure.

01:27:05

But the administration of baptism is taken upon profession. So it's taken upon, you said this earlier.

01:27:13

You said, well, we don't know. Essentially, we don't know if a person is saved. We don't know the inward working of the baby. We don't know if the baby has salvation.

01:27:19

And so I would say that's why we wait for a profession because at least we have a means by which we say, okay, we can trust the profession rather than saying, well, we'll just administer the sign and find out later.

01:27:31

But isn't that a man's standard? Isn't that a man's standard to assess the nature of that child by saying, hey, you need to say these exact words and then we'll baptize you?

01:27:42

Aren't we creating some sort of man's standard there? No, I would say that's what scripture says is the prerequisite for baptism.

01:27:47

And furthermore, I would say that when you baptize an infant and then you watch their life to see whether or not they're

01:27:54

Christians, I would say you're doing the same thing. Yeah, so I agree with you that the scripture says that for adults.

01:28:01

But what I'm saying is, are we ascribing some sort of standard to the covenant children who aren't being baptized in the church and we're making them have to work up to some sort of standard that the

01:28:10

Bible doesn't require out of them? Sure, I don't see in the New Testament a dichotomy between what's expected of adults and children regarding a profession of faith.

01:28:21

Well, that's because you have to sever off the meaning of the Old Testament and the Old Covenant view of the relationship between children and God in the

01:28:28

Old Covenant. Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't say I sever it, but I would say there's absolutely discontinuity.

01:28:35

There's a reality of the New Covenant that is superior to the

01:28:40

Old Covenant. So you're saying there's discontinuity in the Old Covenant that children are now no longer allowed in covenant with God?

01:28:48

You're saying that that's the discontinuity? No, not that they're not allowed in covenant with God, but that covenant with God is not predicated.

01:28:57

I read earlier in John 1, 12 through 14 that by faith, all those who receive him are called children of God.

01:29:06

That's the prerequisite for covenant membership is that you receive him by faith. So I'm not saying that that's what the scripture's saying.

01:29:14

Well, but the Bible said that in the Old Testament, too. It's always by faith. Abraham believed by faith. Faith was always the intention of the covenant.

01:29:22

I think something being the intention and something being the reality are two different things. When the infant was circumcised on the eighth day, was it because of their faith like Abraham?

01:29:31

It was because of Abraham's faith, which is why in the New Testament we baptize based off the parents' confession of faith.

01:29:41

So I guess what is insufficient in the

01:29:47

Old Covenant? The Old Covenant clearly included children, babies, infants. When I say children, I mean infants, just shorthand.

01:29:52

I'm just shorthanding it. When the Old Covenant clearly includes babies in the

01:29:58

Old Covenant. So that must have been insufficient. Because we do believe, we both agree that the

01:30:06

Old Covenant was insufficient because Christ hadn't died and rose again, right?

01:30:12

So I guess a part of that insufficiency was that babies were part of the Old Covenant. That was part of the insufficiency of the

01:30:19

Old Covenant because clearly in the New Covenant, babies aren't allowed to be part of the covenant anymore. So it's the New Covenant's more sufficient.

01:30:26

So to repeat my question, are babies part of the insufficiency of the

01:30:31

Old Covenant? You mean baby's covenant membership is that part of the insufficiency? I would point to the same text in John 1, 12 through 14.

01:30:43

The difference is, it actually points out in that text, not by human will, not by blood, not by man, right?

01:30:51

We become children of God by faith. I think the insufficiency of the Old Covenant is that it cannot secure anything for you.

01:30:58

It cannot secure salvation for you. So no one was saved in the Old, so flesh that out for me.

01:31:04

Because I hear that and I think, okay, are you saying no one's saved in the Old Covenant? No, I'm not saying no one's saved in the

01:31:10

Old Covenant. I'm saying the reality as a promise, the promise of the New Covenant is in the

01:31:16

Old Covenant and those Old Covenant saints are looking forward to the shedding of Christ's blood. Romans 3 speaks about this as God, and he forbade their sin in past times, but in this time, he showed himself to be just by the death of Christ on the cross, right?

01:31:30

So that's a reality. But did circumcision always point to that reality? Does everyone that was circumcised, are they partaking in the reality of the

01:31:38

Old Covenant saints? No. We don't know if they partook through salvation, but we know they were part of the covenant, people of God.

01:31:45

Yeah, sure. So I agree with you, the distinction between being part of the covenant people of God and being truly saved.

01:31:50

I'm with you there 100%. And I'm saying I don't see that reality in the New Covenant.

01:31:55

I don't see a dichotomy between a remnant that is saved and one that is not. Sorry, again, sorry to repeat.

01:32:02

You don't see the dichotomy between what? In the New Covenant of a remnant that is saved and then a portion that is not.

01:32:08

That's part of why you asked about the insufficiency of the Old Covenant. Well, the New Covenant is predicated upon the shedding of Christ's blood, not animals, right?

01:32:17

So what's secured is salvation for all of its members. And so that's a huge difference there, is that I believe that salvation comes to all those who have covenant membership.

01:32:29

So I agree with you that the administrations change in the Old and New Covenant, okay? The administrations are, the

01:32:36

Westminster were defined by kind of liturgical and sacrificial system. That was the administration.

01:32:41

That was a shadow. The shadow grew into the reality, right? So the administration in the Old Testament was just a shadow.

01:32:49

And then the administration in the New Testament was the reality of the securing of salvation,

01:32:54

Jesus. And that's why we only practice baptism and the Lord's Supper. We don't have to do all these sacrifices and everything.

01:33:00

How much time left, Dr. White? 141, okay. So I agree with you that the administrations change between the

01:33:07

Old and New Testament. And the Bible's very clear that those administrations change. What the Bible never negates is that the definition of who's included in the covenant people of God never changes from the

01:33:21

Old Testament to the New Testament. So you're correct about the administrations, but you're incorrect about the definition of who's included.

01:33:32

So, well, we'll just stop there. We're good?

01:33:39

Anything else? Okay, all right. You're letting them off easy.

01:33:45

You still have a minute to go there. All right, we have our five -minute closing statements from each of our debaters.

01:33:54

Is Oscar gonna ask me questions? I got two. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I thought - You were gonna let him go.

01:33:59

I thought we had gone longer than we had. So, all righty. 10 minutes then.

01:34:06

All right, okay. So Gabe, would you say that Christians, whether or not it's known to them, are in sin for rejecting infant baptism?

01:34:16

Sorry, did you hear that? Are you asked, are Christians in sin if they reject infant baptism? No, I would, that's a good question.

01:34:30

I would say that Christians could be in sin if they have a knowledge of something that they should do that they don't know about, that they don't do, then

01:34:44

I would say that's a sin. I would say the modern church largely isn't taught this, and so I would show a little grace there because it's been not well taught in our last probably century, century and a half of church life.

01:35:04

Would you say that infant baptism is clearly taught in Scripture?

01:35:11

I would say covenant generational theology is clearly taught in Scripture, and I would say that the sign of baptism replacing circumcision, very clearly taught.

01:35:27

Okay. Sir, if there was one text that you could point to that best displays

01:35:33

God's command to the church to partake in paedo -baptism, what would it be?

01:35:40

In infant baptism? Yeah. Well, again, I'd argue from covenant, and from the nature of the covenant.

01:35:48

It wouldn't be a text, it would be. Well, and then I would point to texts like Colossians chapter two, 11 and 12, where why would you equate the sign of circumcision with baptism, and then not let, and knowing full well that babies were circumcised in the

01:36:05

Old Testament, and then all of a sudden not letting them be baptized in the New Testament. That just doesn't make sense.

01:36:12

Gotcha. Is there any practice other than paedo -baptism that you would consider obligatory for Christians that is not explicitly prescribed by or displayed in Scripture as exemplary?

01:36:23

I know you spoke about the women in communion. Would it be anything else that you could point to like that? Where it's not explicitly?

01:36:30

Yeah, like you would say it's obligatory for Christians, but it's not given to us didactically, and it's also not shown to us.

01:36:37

Well, again, I mean, I would, I mean, I think the regulative principle in Scripture is not a wooden tool.

01:36:49

I mean, God gives us, I think it's in Hebrews, where God says, through wisdom, you exercise your reason.

01:36:56

So God totally gives us wise people the ability to exercise their reason well, and I don't have a problem with,

01:37:05

I'm not a strict regulative principle guy. And so, yeah,

01:37:12

I mean, I guess I don't really have any insight, but I would say that it's clear how the

01:37:18

Bible defines covenant, and it's clear that the New Testament constantly is quoting the old covenant. And so the definition of who's included in the covenant at no point is negated in the

01:37:31

New Testament. And in the same way, it says, repent and be baptized.

01:37:37

Well, in the same way that was, basically that same message was preached to Abraham. Believe and be circumcised.

01:37:43

And we have believers circumcision in the Old Testament. That didn't negate his kids being part of the covenant people of God. And you have believers baptism in the

01:37:50

New Testament, and that doesn't change the nature and definition of who's included in the covenant. Sure. From your interpretation, what does it mean for the child to be called holy in 1

01:38:00

Corinthians 7 .14? Yeah, that's a great question. And so the Greek word there is hagios.

01:38:06

It's usually translated saint. Obviously, we know to be holy is to be set apart.

01:38:13

And so I think the context of that verse is, so Paul, the

01:38:19

Corinthians, what we're seeing with 1 Corinthians, you're seeing there's a letter before that where it looked like, or there's a bunch of questions that came to Paul, and Paul's responding in 1

01:38:26

Corinthians. And so Paul's answering the question. It appears to be, they're asking, okay, there's a believing husband and an unbelieving wife, or there's a believing wife and an unbelieving husband.

01:38:37

What's the status of the kids? That appears to be what they're asking Paul. And Paul's saying, well, the believing spouse, their kids are holy, their kids are set apart.

01:38:52

So I believe that it's clear that Paul is saying that there's something unique here that's happening because I'm working in mom's life, and I'm gonna say that, and those kids are set up, therefore, because what

01:39:06

I'm doing in mom's life, those kids are set apart. And so I believe that those kids could be initiated in baptism, because these are new believers.

01:39:14

These are, you know, Corinth was a pagan, it wasn't a Jewish place, it was a pagan place. So they're trying to figure out, okay, if mom becomes a

01:39:21

Christian, how do we handle the kids? Do we let them become part of the covenant people of God? And I'm saying,

01:39:27

I would argue that absolutely, those kids could be baptized and come into the covenant people of God because they're set apart through mom, or through dad, the believing spouse.

01:39:35

And would you say the unbelieving spouse is set apart and holy as well? The unbelieving spouse? Yeah. Well, you have to understand the nature of covenant.

01:39:49

Because covenants are done by representation, if the husband, this is probably where you're gonna get into some serious disagreement with me, if the husband was saved, and therefore, the children were set apart, and if the unbelieving wife was interested in being baptized,

01:40:08

I would have no problem with baptizing her because her husband is the head of the family, and the whole household could be baptized because of that.

01:40:17

So if it was a believing wife and not the husband, he couldn't be baptized, but if it's a believing husband.

01:40:23

She's not the head of the family. Gotcha. But there would be a bunch of caveats around that, like I would wanna disciple her,

01:40:30

I would wanna walk through, I would wanna, and I would believe God would be working, if she wanted to be baptized, I'd be glad God's working in her life already.

01:40:37

So I think there's some initial working of the Holy Spirit happening there, but I would wanna hold her hand through that process and not force it upon her.

01:40:46

Sure. Okay. I kinda asked this earlier, but I wanted to ask again because I don't know how clear the answer was.

01:41:00

In the case of infants being baptized, if salvation by grace through faith is not being mediated to them, what is he mediating?

01:41:12

So there's a blessing in being part of Apologia Church. Even if a non -Christian came here, man, what a blessing.

01:41:22

And he even came here for a year and he never became a Christian. It's just being around the people of God is a blessing.

01:41:29

And I think you apply that to the covenant and for a child to grow up into the covenant people of God, that child is under the far greater blessing and far greater cursing if that child leaves the faith.

01:41:42

That child's in a far greater blessing than some child in third world country

01:41:48

Africa who's not growing up in the covenant people of God. There's blessing to be had being around God's people.

01:41:55

And so that's part of the beauty of the covenant is that what we're acknowledging is we're acknowledging that God's blessing this people,

01:42:02

God has covenanted with us and our children get to grow up to be part of that covenant blessing.

01:42:07

In fact, that's why God says, children are a heritage to the Lord and that if you obey me,

01:42:13

I'll bless you to a thousand generations. So God assumes the covenant status of children. It's just assumed in that language.

01:42:21

Sure. So when it comes to covenant, what is the, what would you say is the requirement for covenant membership?

01:42:34

Well, if you're talking for an unbeliever, it's different for an unbeliever. I have no problem repent and be baptized.

01:42:41

He has no part of the church. He's walking into the church. He has to repent and be baptized. In the same way, if a

01:42:49

Gentile in the Old Testament came into the covenant of God, he'd have to believe first and be circumcised.

01:42:59

So there's two different requirements. One for the unbeliever and one for the one who is a part of a believing family.

01:43:10

It's a different order of service. Sure. Okay.

01:43:16

The unbeliever coming from outside has to repent. He's not set apart like the baby is. The baby's already set apart.

01:43:23

Doesn't mean he's saved, but there's already a holiness to that child that is not a holiness that the world gets to partake of.

01:43:29

That child's already set apart as the covenant people of God in a way that unbelievers not.

01:43:35

And so that child, that baby, gets to be baptized because of mom and dad's faith.

01:43:42

And that covenant blessing, that covenant reality is being recognized in the generational baptism of the child.

01:43:49

And so the unbelievers, yeah, repent and be baptized all day. So last thing, we got a couple seconds left.

01:43:56

In terms of Jude and what Jude says is that this is a faith, contend for the faith that's once and for all handed down to you.

01:44:04

When we get first in the New Covenant, when we get in the New Testament, we get these scriptures that tells us how to administer baptism, tells us about covenant.

01:44:13

You say you reject that? No, I say, again, Jude is using covenantal language that's being passed down from generation to generation.

01:44:24

So I'd say that's just consistent with the whole goal of the

01:44:29

Old and New Covenant, was for the salvation of the believer. You have circumcision, circumcise your hearts in Deuteronomy.

01:44:37

And you have that same language, that circumcision of the heart in New Testament also. Gotcha. All right.

01:44:45

Okay, we've come to our five minute closing statements and we'll start with Gabe when he gets his iPad to do whatever it's supposed to be doing.

01:44:57

And then afterwards, we will have our Q and A. Well, thank you,

01:45:12

Dr. White, for moderating this. I'm sure there's a number of points where you had to bite your lip. Yes, sir.

01:45:20

Yes, sir. And again, thank you, Oscar. Appreciate everything that you've done. It's been fun to spar with you. It's beautiful.

01:45:30

The covenant blessings of God are beautiful. God promised that we had the first gospel preached to us, the

01:45:39

Proto -Ewangelion in Genesis chapter three, verse 15, that God would send a seed that would crush the head of the serpent.

01:45:48

And that that was a covenantal promise there. That was in the context of God covenanting with Adam and Eve in a fallen world.

01:45:57

And that that seed would come and crush the serpent's head. And then you have Noah in chapter six through nine.

01:46:05

You have all the elements. In fact, that's the first time where we hear the word covenant spoken by God, the actual word covenant.

01:46:13

And so we see a little more clear articulation of what God is doing in his covenant promises.

01:46:19

And then you have very clear promises that God gave

01:46:26

Abraham before he had Isaac, years before he had Isaac. In fact, God had to remind

01:46:32

Abraham multiple times, I'm gonna bless you, and through you all the nations of the world will be blessed.

01:46:39

And God came to Abraham in chapter 12, and then in chapter 15, and then finally in chapter 17.

01:46:47

So God had to remind Abraham that I'm gonna bless you before Isaac was even born.

01:46:52

And of course, Sarah laughs because of God's wild promise in their life. And then you have the covenant that God made with Isaac, the covenant that God made with Jacob, the covenant that God made with Joshua, the covenant that God made with King David.

01:47:07

And then you have the fulfillment of all those beautiful and wonderful covenant promises in Jesus Christ. And you have thousands of years of this covenant articulation in the

01:47:21

Old Testament. And then you have the prophets calling Israel back from their rebellion against God, calling them, saying, you're breaking covenant with God.

01:47:32

Stop breaking covenant with God. And then of course, you have the beautiful text that Oscar brought up in Jeremiah chapter 31, where God is promising a new covenant.

01:47:44

A new covenant that finally the Holy Spirit will be working in your lives to where that word will be written on your heart.

01:47:50

That was always the goal. Remember, Deuteronomy chapter 10. Believe in God, God promises to write the word on your heart in Deuteronomy chapter 10.

01:47:59

That new covenant promise was always the goal of the old covenant. And that's why

01:48:05

I wanna submit to you that how we think about the covenant, it's not one old covenant and one new covenant.

01:48:11

It's a revelation of the covenant God made with man from the fall of Adam and Eve.

01:48:17

And that that one covenant was a greater and greater revelation of what was

01:48:22

God gonna do. And then finally, that one covenant became that new covenant, which was the fulfillment of Jesus dying on the cross for our sins and for the sins of this world.

01:48:33

And so, why would we wanna sever the covenant blessings of what that covenant means, not only to us, but to our children and to our children's children?

01:48:43

Why would we wanna all of a sudden change the definition of who's included in the new covenant, people of God?

01:48:52

Well, I think the Bible's very clear that circumcision, the sign of the old covenant, baptism replaces that sign.

01:49:03

And so, and then you see in the new covenant, Paul in the New Testament, Paul's constantly referencing

01:49:08

Abraham's covenant. Abraham's covenant, he referenced Abraham's covenant, but all of a sudden, new covenant kids aren't allowed to be part of this stream of generational blessing?

01:49:19

One minute. And so, really what I wanna submit to you today is that no matter how you slice it, all baptisms are infant baptisms.

01:49:32

No matter how you slice it, a new believer coming in, that's an infant baptism, okay?

01:49:39

A baby who's born into the family of God, that's an infant baptism. All baptisms are infant baptisms.

01:49:47

Thanks for your time. Say again, thank you,

01:50:17

Gabe, for being here and for partaking in this. It's been. Microphone.

01:50:24

Short, I forgot I'm short, I'm sorry. So, this debate was about is infant baptism biblical?

01:50:36

And I told you guys at the beginning to pay very close attention to the way that we argued, the way that we argued from our point.

01:50:43

Who argued from the clear teaching of Scripture and who did not? And I'll leave it up to you to determine that.

01:50:50

But what I wanna leave you with is this. It is of utmost importance that we hold dear to Scripture and what it teaches us and to not veer to the left or to the right regarding what it prescribes for us.

01:51:06

It is the way by which God throughout every generation is reforming His church and mending

01:51:12

His church and healing His church and growing His church. If we start to drift on any of these issues, doctrinally, the ramifications thereof will be great in due time.

01:51:26

This is a practice that's been in the church, I think they go back to the third century.

01:51:33

But again, history is not a hermeneutic for us. We don't look at history as the means by which we determined what is proper in light of Scripture.

01:51:42

We look to Scripture. And this is the plain reality of this debate. There is no text that teaches this mode or means of baptism.

01:51:53

There is no text that defines baptism in the way that Gabe defines it. You have to go to the

01:51:59

Old Testament to be the basis and the foundation of understanding this in order to apply it in the way that he does.

01:52:08

And I say, God has given us the New Testament for that purpose. Again, it's not to detach it from the

01:52:14

Old Testament. It's the New Testament is the greater revelation. It is the fulfillment of the old covenant.

01:52:19

And therefore, in order for us to be Christians who are striving for godliness in every aspect of our life, well, why would we not go to the words that God gave us to define the sign and to rightly apply it?

01:52:36

The word of God is what sharpens us. And it's what keeps us in a position of being blameless before God as we seek to be faithful to it.

01:52:50

I think this debate is very clear. While it's an emotional argument to say some of these things that I think my brother has said, and I think he's even admitted some of it, the clear teaching of scripture says what it says.

01:53:05

It does not mean children cannot be in covenant with God. It means covenant membership is not automatic.

01:53:11

That in order to be in covenant with God, you must have union with Christ by faith. For if it is not by faith, there is no union.

01:53:21

And so when I asked him about 1 Corinthians 7, about the child in that situation, I asked specifically to get to the next point, which was, well, what is the status of the unbelieving spouse?

01:53:32

And again, if there is an admission or a willingness to baptize someone who's not only not an infant, right, but someone who is an unbeliever, scripture calls an unbeliever, if we apply what we mean covenantally by holy to that situation, we've just uprooted so much of what the

01:53:55

New Testament speaks to. The holiness of the saints is not a set apart in simply in the marriage, but it's set apart by God in covenant.

01:54:06

That couldn't have been what that situation was speaking about. And so again, I say it's extremely important for us to be consistent in what we believe and what we teach from scripture, because if not, you get ramifications such as that, such as an unbeliever being baptized, someone who not only is not an infant, but does not profess faith at all.

01:54:26

If we start with covenant and not start with what scripture has given us as a prerequisite for baptism, then we have situations like that.

01:54:35

And I say again, that is not at all appropriate for what we see in scripture and any of the examples or any of the means by which baptism is defined for us.

01:54:46

You never have that ever. And so let us stick to scripture. Let us hold dear to it and live in light of what

01:54:54

God has revealed to us clearly. Thank you. Okay, looking at the clock,

01:55:05

I'm sure it's my fault. We're running a little bit behind. So I have eight questions for Gabe, three questions for Oscar.

01:55:13

So you win the number of questions, popularity contest there, Gabe. And I have five questions that were not addressed to anyone in particular.

01:55:24

So I imagine it would be proper to give it to both. So here's how we get this done on time.

01:55:32

I will address the ones that are to Gabe and to Oscar to them. We'll have one minute.

01:55:38

Okay, if you can get done faster than that and go, I just got done talking about that, fine. And then when we do the ones to both of you, we'll do 30 seconds for each of you and we'll just rip through them as quick as we can.

01:55:51

So Gabe, you've got the bigger pile. So let's start with this one.

01:55:57

How do you hold a baptized non -professing individual to the standards of church discipline given in scripture?

01:56:07

A baptized non -professing individual. If this person grew up in a family and was baptized and didn't profess and he leaves the faith, that's what basically de facto excommunication.

01:56:24

So he would at some point be excommunicated. Okay. But I'm assuming that he was baptized in a family and grew up, so.

01:56:36

Yeah, I think that's what it was referring to there. I'll do two for you and one for you and that way we'll sort things out if that's all right.

01:56:42

Gabe, are you equating the baptism in Moses in the sea and the cloud, a temporal salvation from physical slavery with the baptism into Christ?

01:56:53

No, that's a shadow of what was to come. Just like Israel in the Red Sea was a shadow of what was to come.

01:57:00

But what I am arguing is that even in that shadow, infants were baptized. And so the scriptures doesn't have a problem with infant baptism even in the shadow of that symbol.

01:57:14

All right. Oscar, are you more concerned about babies taking part in communion or baptism?

01:57:26

Both. Both. Okay, that was, boy, we're gonna get done real well.

01:57:33

You guys are working with me well here. This is good. We're cruising. We're cruising. Gabe, since the

01:57:39

Judaizers claimed to be Christians, is it your position that they would circumcise and baptize their infants at the same time?

01:57:49

Yeah, I mean, I think there was probably a period of time where that was happening.

01:57:54

I think the Jews were required to baptize their covenant children. And so I'm sure -

01:58:00

Baptize or circumcise? Both. Well, I think they were required to baptize, but they were no longer required to circumcise anymore.

01:58:05

But I bet because of tradition, they did it. Okay. In reference to Colossians 2, 11 through 14, how can baptism be for the unregenerate?

01:58:22

It's, well, it depends. Baptism for the, if you're an unbeliever and you grow up, if you grow up as a pagan and you confess the name of Jesus, then you get baptized.

01:58:34

This is how the sign worked in the Old Testament. If you were a Gentile and you became a

01:58:40

Christian, you professed your faith in Jesus or God, God the Father, you would be circumcised and come into the covenant people of God.

01:58:48

So no distinction, no difference there. I think we did too.

01:58:56

So Oscar, it's a long question. If faith always needs an object, and we know that the

01:59:03

Old Testament people of God had genuine faith, then what was the object of faith in the Old Testament church?

01:59:09

If it was Christ in types and shadows, then how are they not partaking of the same substance as us?

01:59:15

I would say the Old Testament saints are partaking in the same substance of us. It's just that all of them didn't.

01:59:22

They're in types and shadows, but not all of them believed in the substance of those types and shadows.

01:59:27

This is why in Psalm 1, God is telling the people, I hate your solemn assemblies. I'm full of the blood of goats and rams because the things that God has given them to point to the reality of Christ, they did without faith.

01:59:39

And so those who did them with faith, I would say they are partaking of the same reality that we are. Gabe, in light of your covenantal categories, would not different promises between covenants,

01:59:55

Hebrews 8 .6, mean that those different promises make for entirely different and distinct covenants?

02:00:02

In other words, different promises, different covenants. Um, well,

02:00:08

I think some of the administrations were different from covenant to covenant.

02:00:14

I mean, Noah had the sign of the rainbow. You know, Abraham had a sign of circumcision.

02:00:19

So there was some different administration through those covenants. But the promise is always the same. The promise is always that a savior was gonna come to save God's people.

02:00:30

So I don't, read that one more time so I can finish my thought. No, because it says Hebrews, specifically points to Hebrews 8 .6.

02:00:37

Different promises between covenants, Hebrews 8 .6, mean that those different promises make for entirely different and distinct covenants.

02:00:46

Was established in better promises. Yeah, I think that's just, so he's also the mediator of a better covenant, talking about Jesus, which was established on better promises.

02:00:56

Then I think that's just the shadows, the old covenant promises were shadows of the promise of Jesus to come.

02:01:05

And so I think Jesus was the greater mediator. I don't, he's the better mediator.

02:01:10

I don't see how that, I'm not quite sure what they're getting at, because I agree with that.

02:01:19

Okay, okay. Gabe, you say infants are part of the people of God given that parents are saved.

02:01:26

What would you say the infant status is if only one parent is saved or parents become saved after, during infancy?

02:01:37

Slice and dice. I would say for the one believer side of things, the infant is,

02:01:45

I wouldn't say saved, I would say set apart as God's people. That's what 1

02:01:50

Corinthians 7 is arguing for, is that if there's one believer in a marriage, then the children are set apart.

02:01:58

And so I would say that that baby's part of the covenant people of God. And in the same way, if mom and dad are not

02:02:04

Christians, they conceive a child, that child is now set apart. So I think 1

02:02:10

Corinthians 7 applies to both those examples. I feel like asking the question,

02:02:19

Gabe, did you ever listen to Dr. White's sermons on 1 Corinthians 7? But we will skip over that. Oscar, how is baptism better than circumcision if baptism has more restrictive preconditions to be given, yet baptism is a symbol with no power to join you to the covenant, whereas circumcision did have that power?

02:02:44

Because circumcision joined you to a covenant that didn't promise you anything. Ultimately, it didn't promise you anything.

02:02:50

What I'm saying, as far as the sign being greater, we can use the same analogy of marriage, right?

02:02:56

You have a wedding ring and your wedding ring is more valuable than something else in your house because of what it's pointing to.

02:03:04

The value is derived from what it's pointing to. And so baptism, why I said is objectively a greater sign is because when rightly desired and properly applied, it points to regeneration, it points to adoption, it points to being co -heirs with Christ.

02:03:20

That doesn't mean that that's always the case, but when it is properly applied and rightly desired, then that's the case. For circumcision, that could be the case or that could not be the case.

02:03:31

And so the significance, the greater significance comes down to the greater covenant.

02:03:39

Okay, I've got two more for Gabe and then the rest are for both of you. So we'll go to a 30 -second mode on that.

02:03:46

Gabe, is there anyone today who is part of the covenant who will not be saved as there were some circumcised, as some circumcised

02:03:57

Jews were? I think is what it says. Yeah, I mean, John Piper's son. He was baptized, he's not saved.

02:04:07

There's a lot of unbelievers out there who were baptized and not saved. Okay, but so is there anyone, okay, who is part of the covenant who will not be saved?

02:04:18

Okay, so you're saying yes. Yeah. Okay. And finally. Just go to the

02:04:23

Presbyterian church and look at pastor's kids. Ooh, ooh.

02:04:29

Okay, doesn't Romans 4 .13 -14 clearly state in naming

02:04:37

Abraham a reference to the old covenant that simply being heirs of the law that the promise is worthless if not baptized by professing faith?

02:04:51

Is that to me? Could you read it one more time? Yeah. Doesn't Romans 4 .13 -14 clearly state in naming

02:04:58

Abraham a reference to the old covenant that simply being heirs of the law that the promise is worthless if not baptized by professing faith?

02:05:08

I'm not sure what baptized there means, but maybe you can look at Romans 4 .13 -14.

02:05:14

Yeah, that's one of the texts I quoted earlier. And if, let me just recount it real quick and see if I do my best to try to answer that question.

02:05:25

So Romans 4, verse 11, gotta back up, says, and he received the sign of circumcision and still the righteousness of faith, which he had while still uncircumcised.

02:05:35

So Abraham had faith while still uncircumcised that he might be the father of all, that's the point, those who believe.

02:05:43

And though they are uncircumcised, that righteousness might be imputed to them also and the father of circumcision to those who not only are of circumcision, but also to those who walk in the steps of faith, which our father

02:05:53

Abraham had while uncircumcised. And then it's verse 13. For the promise that he would be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to the seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.

02:06:04

So I have no problem with having believers circumcision. Abraham had faith and was circumcised and then had a covenant, his whole household became in covenant with God after that.

02:06:18

God did that to be able to signify that the unbelieving pagan Gentiles out there who had no connection, no covenant connection to God, they would one day come into a saving relationship and a saving covenant connection with God.

02:06:30

Okay. All right, now these did not have anyone addressed. So I'm assuming they're to both and we need to be very, very brief.

02:06:40

So this one has actually two related questions on the same sheet. Were unbelievers included in the old covenant?

02:06:48

Is the new covenant only made up of true believers? I think this probably is where the division is.

02:06:55

You give Oscar first. Yes, Oscar. Were unbelievers included in the old covenant? Yes. And is the new covenant only made up of true believers?

02:07:03

Yes. Yeah. Yes to both. Clearly there's

02:07:09

God's word speaking of remnant all throughout the Old Testament.

02:07:14

And then when Paul in Romans 11, he's referencing back that reality. And he says, look, God has been faithful to his people because his people have always been a remnant.

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The old covenant people, there's always been a remnant of them and God has been faithful to them. Even in the midst of judgment that God has rendered to the rest of the people who were under that covenant.

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Christ came for the blessing and curses. He came to administer blessings and curses to that covenant people.

02:07:42

So yes, both were under the old covenant. As far as the new covenant goes, you see no talk of a remnant whatsoever.

02:07:48

You see no scriptures that are giving you a dichotomy between those who are truly in Christ and those who are in Christ, but then separated by some type of reality.

02:08:01

Like I said, you can have an individual who has the pretense of being in union with Christ. They have the pretense, but actual union was not there.

02:08:11

This is where a lot of the disagreement lands on the new covenant side of this thing.

02:08:17

First, unbelievers in the new covenant and the old covenant. Yes, there were examples of unbelievers. Aaron's kids were burned by fire at the temple for doing all sorts of sins.

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They were in covenant people of God. Eli's kids were in covenant people of God and they, I think, were unbelievers.

02:08:35

So I think there's examples in the old covenant where there were unbelievers who were part of the covenant people of God and who were unbelievers.

02:08:41

In the new covenant, do we have unbelievers? Again, what I'm arguing for is that baptism is an objective sign that people are in covenant with God.

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Baptism is an objective reality that this person is coming in covenant with God. We don't know the status of his heart condition.

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We believe his words. We believe he's saying that he's saved. I believe in Jesus. We believe that and we believe him at face value, but we don't know if he's genuinely saved.

02:09:04

And so I think you have examples of like Paul excommunicating leaders in the church and telling them, parting ways with them, and I think those people were unsaved and they were baptized, they were part of the covenant people of God.

02:09:18

If we get the new covenant wrong, will God be angry like he was at Moses in Exodus 4?

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Whether we baptize when we shouldn't or if we withhold baptism when we should? What I would say is,

02:09:33

I started off my opening by recognizing this is a secondary issue. While I think it's a serious issue,

02:09:40

I'd say it's secondary. We agree on the essentials of the faith. We would call each other brothers in Christ.

02:09:46

Will God be angry at our sins, per se, but our sins are covered in Christ.

02:09:53

So yeah, that's how I would answer that. David? Yeah, I mean,

02:09:58

I think that... Wait, ask me the question one more time real quick. If we get the new covenant wrong, will

02:10:05

God be angry like he was at Moses in Exodus 4? Whether we baptize when we shouldn't or if we withhold baptism when we should?

02:10:11

The new covenant is far much weightier. It's very clear that in Hebrews chapter 11, the great hall of faith, that the covenant promises of God to the people were much weightier.

02:10:23

And it was a greater promise, it was a greater reality. So I think those who've seen Christ, those who've had the message preached to them, carry a much greater burden of judgment on them than those in the

02:10:33

Old Testament who didn't get to hear that message preached. So hands down, the new covenant is much...

02:10:39

The blessings and the cursings in the new covenant are much greater. Okay, real quick, two more. Grace is defined as unmerited favor.

02:10:47

Is there any merit required on our part or our parents' part in order to enter into the covenant of grace?

02:10:55

Every covenant has all been by grace. The covenant that God made with Adam and Eve before they sinned, that was a covenant of grace.

02:11:03

That was the very fact that God created Adam and Eve, the very fact that He gave them the garden, the very fact that He gave them life, that's all grace.

02:11:10

And then after the fall, that covenant that God made with Adam and Eve was all grace. The covenant that God made with Abraham was all grace.

02:11:16

Every covenant has always been by grace. So that's my 30 seconds. I would say every covenant has been gracious, but not all have been the covenant of grace.

02:11:26

The covenant of grace being unconditional in nature, the finished work of Christ. I mean, the covenant is made with God, by God, and He accomplishes it all.

02:11:36

And so that is what I would understand as the covenant of grace. While the other covenants did have conditions in them that if they were broken, then the covenant like we have with Israel, Jeremiah three, was severed.

02:11:49

Okay, and this is the last one I've got here. Were baby girls included within the

02:11:56

Old Testament covenants since they were not circumcised? Yeah, through the headship of their dad.

02:12:05

I would agree with that. Okay, all right. There you go, folks. Let's thank our debaters for their contributions.

02:12:17

Let's, I do have one last question for Gabe. Who is the better copy editor reader, me or Toby?

02:12:28

Hands down, you, doctor. We were in full agreement on the show on that one too.

02:12:33

I hope we have that on the film. So we will pray that Gabe will be reunited with his luggage when he gets back to his hotel.

02:12:45

That would be a wonderful blessing to have in trying to get to sleep. Thank you very much for coming.

02:12:51

For all of you for coming this evening, I'm sure it will only begin more and more conversations. I will mention that on the 24th,

02:13:01

Eric, 24th, is that the date? 24th of February up in Salt Lake City, Eric Yeager, my son -in -law there, will be debating

02:13:10

Zach Lautenschlager. And it's very similar, but what's the thesis exactly again?

02:13:20

Who is included in the covenant of grace? And that'll be taking place up in Salt Lake City.

02:13:26

So you may wanna be looking forward to that conversation taking place. Then I was watching

02:13:32

Eric feverishly taking notes over there. So there you go. So let's thank the

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Lord for our time together and then be dismissed. Father, we do thank you that we still have the freedoms in this land to be able to discuss things of your truth, to be able to travel and meet together and have fellowship around these things.

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We ask that you would help us in our understanding. Lord, we desire unity in your body.

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And the only way for that to happen is if we continue to come to your word. So we thank you that iron does sharpen iron.

02:14:02

And we would ask that that is continued in our conversation this evening. We ask that you give blessings as we travel home this evening and especially father, we do pray that you would give

02:14:13

Gabe blessings as he travels home tomorrow, reunite him with his luggage. Lord, we know that kind of thing can be annoying.

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It's not something of eternal value, but it is annoying. So we would ask that you would bring him back together with his luggage and Lord continue to bless his ministry as he travels and works as well.