April 6, 2018 Show with Fred Malone on “The Baptism of Disciples Alone: A Covenantal Argument for Credobaptism Versus Paedobaptism”

Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,

Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

Now here's our host, Chris Arntzen. Good afternoon,

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

This is Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Friday on this sixth day of April 2018.

And I'm amazed that after all these years of conducting Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, that this is the first time

I am ever interviewing this guest who I've known about for many years and have benefited greatly, enormously from his writings.

And I'm speaking of Pastor Fred Malone, who is an author and a pastor at First Baptist Church of Clinton, Louisiana.

He's also a professor of pastoral theology at the IRBS Theological Seminary, which is going to be launching its first semester this

September in Mansfield, Texas. Today we are going to be discussing a phenomenal book, a book that I'm amazed that anyone could read it and still walk away believing in infant baptism.

No offense to my Pato Baptist and other Presbyterian friends out there, but we're going to be discussing

The Baptism of Disciples Alone, a Covenantal Argument for Credo Baptism versus Pato Baptism.

And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time ever to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Pastor Fred Malone. Thank you for having me,

Chris, and I appreciate you taking this time to interview me about these things. Just to add one thing,

I'm also a professor of pastoral theology at the Covenant Baptist Theological Seminary in Owensboro, Kentucky.

Just wanted to clear that up. Sure, that's great. And before we even go into your own background, tell us a little something about the

First Baptist Church of Clinton, Louisiana. Well, it's a very historical church in Louisiana.

It was established in 1836, and the original statement of faith of this church was the statement of faith of the

Louisiana Baptist Association, the Mississippi Valley Baptist Association, way back when.

And there are nine articles to that statement of faith, and all five points of the doctrines of grace are specifically stated there.

So this church had a historical theology that was very clear.

Now, over the years, it lost that theology in process, but in 1983, the

Lord brought Pastor Bill Askell to this church to be its new pastor, and he found those articles and found that the church did have a solid theological foundation and began to preach expositionally and also to teach the doctrines that this church was originally established on.

Then the church went through a time under Bill of church discipline, of those who had been caught in adultery.

This caused a great crisis in the church, and the deacons stood behind their pastor and advocated a restoration of church discipline in this church by a resolution that was passed by one vote in the church meeting.

And so from that point, some left this church, some came to believe the things that Pastor Bill was teaching, but nevertheless, it went through a time of difficulty, and then the

Lord also brought others into this church who believed in the things that Bill was teaching and believed in the historic

Baptist doctrines of the church, and the church began to settle and grow again.

And then Bill took an opportunity to start a church in Shreveport, Louisiana, which is now

Heritage Baptist Church off Shreveport, and the church here in Clinton, First Baptist, called me to follow

Bill and to take his place. So I've been here now for 25 years as pastor.

The church, the first eight or nine years I was here, continued to go through reformation with some joys and sorrows, but overall, the congregation accepted the teaching of the 1689

Confession as biblical, and it continued to grow, and for the last 15 years or so, we've had a great unity.

We still have had ups and downs on matters that have been difficult, but overall,

God has blessed this church, and what's so amazing is it's really in the middle of almost nowhere.

Most Reformed Baptist churches, I think, of our size are in larger cities, and we're in the town of Clinton, which is about 2 ,000 people.

The parish has about, or the county has about 20 ,000, 24 ,000, or 5 ,000, and yet we are having on the

Lord's Day an average of around 160 people attending the morning worship, and God keeps bringing people here.

Now, just a couple of years ago, I asked the church to allow me to step back from some of the primary responsibilities, and the church called

Dr. Tom Hicks to be the new senior pastor here, and I'm still a pastor, but not doing all that I did before so that I could teach seminary courses overseas or in other places, and also try to do some writing.

So Tom has stepped in, and he has led faithfully and wisely from the first day he arrived here, so we are blessed all the way around at this church.

So Bill Askell, I'm assuming, is a brother or other relation to my friend

Tom Askell, the president of Founders Ministries. That's correct. Bill is the better looking and more intelligent.

We do accept Tom as he is, and he has led us faithfully all these years.

He's tremendous, and we're so thankful for him. Well, praise

God for that. Well, now let us get into your own personal testimony, starting with your testimony of what kind of religious upbringing you had, if any, and what providential circumstances the

Lord used to draw you to himself and save you, and then a very interesting addition to this is how you began as a

Presbyterian and became a Reformed Baptist. Well, I'm very thankful to God for placing his hand upon my life so undeservedly, and I was raised in Gadsden, Alabama, and attended

First Baptist Church, which was a large kind of downtown church in Gadsden, at that time one of those large

First Baptist churches of that era. My parents took me to church, all the services of the church as far back as I can remember, and when

I was about 10, I'd say something like that, I came under conviction of my sins very deeply and knew that I was on my way to hell, and I continued to hear about the

Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior, and so I was baptized on confession of my faith around that age.

I had many ups and downs after that, including just wanting to know more about the scripture and yet not having the systematic teaching that I need, particularly on the doctrines of justification and sanctification, so I had ups and downs in those times, and married when

I was at the end of my first year in college. Both of us felt we were Christians, and we married, but the first couple of years were very difficult, and again

I fell into sinful behavior toward my wife, struggling with sin and not finding strength, and then the

Lord used that revelation of the depth of my sin and anger as a husband to convict me and to help me to search out more thoroughly the work of Christ and what saving faith is, what a godly life is, how to live as a

Christian, and so at that point in my life, God worked in me and helped me to start growing, and our marriage was saved, thank the

Lord, by His grace, and God put in me at that time—I was a junior in college at that time—and

He put in me a desire to study the Bible that was overwhelming and almost obsessive.

I wanted to know the Bible, read it constantly, always had good grades, but sometimes once in a while a grade suffered because I wanted to read the

Bible, not suggesting that to any college students out there. But nevertheless,

God gave me this thirst, and I knew then that I had to go into seminary or some school just to study the

Bible. I didn't know if God was interested in calling me as a pastor, and so I delayed my military service and went into seminary, and that itself is an amazing story of providence.

Having been raised in First Baptist Church in Gadsden, Alabama, I went back to my home pastor and asked for direction, and he recommended a couple of Southern Baptist seminaries, but I also knew that at that time there was liberalism in the

Southern Baptist seminaries, and I did not want to go somewhere that did not believe in the inerrancy of Scripture.

That is something God had brought me to firm conviction about, so I left my pastor's office and I went to the pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Gadsden, Alabama, and the pastor's name was

Dr. James Baird, who was one of the founders of the PCA. I went to him because I heard him preach in high school about marriage, and it was the most biblical and wonderful message

I'd ever heard, so I trusted him, and when I went into his office, he showed me all of Spurgeon's sermons.

I didn't know who Spurgeon was, and discovered that he was on the board of Reform Seminary in Jackson, Mississippi, and that was in 1970, and so he persuaded me to at least stop by there and look at the seminary while I was searching, and I did.

I went down there that night and awoke the next day in the old

White House in the guest room there and immediately found brothers and companions in the faith on that campus.

I never felt so much at home in the doctrines of grace, and I was still learning about the broader

Reform faith, so I went there, and it was a tremendous blessing.

I can never give enough thanks to the Lord for putting me at Reform Seminary at such a critical time in my life.

As far as I know in 1970, there was not a Reform Baptist seminary in the

United States that I could go to and be taught the things that I was taught there, and I had wonderful teachers like Dr.

Morton Smith, who's the president or former president of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary.

I was blessed to have him as a systematics teacher, and I had

Palmer Robertson my first year there who taught me on the letter to the

Hebrews and the life of David, and his imprint on my thinking and my understanding of the

Bible is still here. I had other great teachers like Jack B.

Scott, the Hebrew scholar, and Simon Kistemaker, the

Greek scholar. I was his great greater or his assistant,

I should say, at that time, so my experience with the

Reformed world opened up on that campus, and I began to see that there's a whole history of truth and doctrine that I had never heard of before and came to love the

Reformed faith, and at the same time, while I was there, I was on at RTS from 70 to 74 with a year out as a clinical year in a church in South Carolina, but nevertheless,

I was overwhelmed at the Reformed faith and began to have difficulty in worshiping and attending the

Baptist churches that I sought out, and began to see that the applications and implications of the

Reformed faith necessitated that I find a place where the Word of God was expounded, where sound doctrine was taught, and application of God's Word was needed, and so probably at the end of my first year on campus,

I joined Westminster Presbyterian, which was actually down from the campus and where the chapel gatherings were held by RTS each day and really had a wonderful time there learning

God's Word, and then later went to another Presbyterian church in North Jackson where I had

Brister Ware as pastor. He formerly served at First Presbyterian Church in Jackson, Mississippi.

He may still serve there, and so I joined that church, then went to a clinical year to Rock Hill, South Carolina, where I was an intern,

I guess you would say, of the pastor, Dr. Joe Everett, and that year at that church was a confirmation year for me because it allowed me to sit under a sound church for the purpose of examining my character and gifts and to give me advice on whether to pursue the pastoral ministry or not, because I still was not sure what

I should do even though I love studying and learning. So that year under Dr.

Joe Everett, I had opportunity to serve in just about every capacity in church life, to try to minister and to preach and to serve

God's people, and at the end of that year, the elders of First Presbyterian Church in Rock Hill, South Carolina, at a gathering with them, gave their evaluation of my year there and their counsel on whether I should continue pursuing the ministry or not, and they unanimously encouraged me to continue.

That was a wonderful time in my life where I wasn't just depending upon the desires of my heart or even the concerns of my heart for people, but I had a sound church take a look at me and give me direction, and so having finished that year,

I went back and finished my senior year at RTS as a

Presbyterian, and when I graduated in 74, I went to work for my homiletics professor,

Dr. Dick Bode, at First ARP Church in Gastonia, North Carolina, and he was very kind to call me there to serve with him, and that was a very helpful time in my life.

There, I was ordained as an ARP, an Associate Reformed Presbyterian, and served happily in that church with those people, and then an opportunity arose for me to serve as pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Utah, Alabama, and one of my dear friends, older men in the

PCA, wanted me to go there and put my name in, and so I did and served there about three years as a

Presbyterian. It was there that I began, I had plenty of time to study.

The church still was in the old pattern of the former

Southern Presbyterian Church, so they didn't have evening worship, they didn't have prayer meeting, and they didn't allow the pastor to teach

Sunday school, so I prepared all week for one sermon, and then, of course,

I started a ladies' Bible study and a men's breakfast and so forth, but I had a lot of time to study, and as I was studying covenant theology and going through those things again, one of my interests had always been the

New Covenant passage Jeremiah 31 through 34. I had been assigned that text by Dr.

Jack Scott back in Hebrew and done a lot of study on that, and I wanted to follow through with it, the

New Covenant passage, which Christ refers to at the Lord's Supper, which is quoted several times in the

New Testament, particularly in the book of Hebrews, so I started studying that, and as I did that studying covenant theology,

I used Berkhoff, Lewis Berkhoff, for my systematic, and I still do, but I started coming across some inconsistencies in hermeneutics that I recognized that I had not seen before.

I had adopted infant baptism back in seminary with a clear conscience of believing the arguments that had been put forth to me of the

Abrahamic covenant and circumcision and also in Acts chapter 2 verses 38 through 41 about the promise on the day of Pentecost when

Peter preached his wonderful message, the promises to you and to your children, and that that was seen in the light of the

Abrahamic covenant. By the way, brother, can you make sure that you don't take your mouth away from the mouthpiece because you drift in and out, and so that's much better.

Continue. I'm sorry for interrupting. I'm very sorry. Thank you for letting me know, but anyway,

I started studying that and found some inconsistencies in hermeneutics in Berkhoff on the on the sacraments that I hadn't noticed before, and that led me down a path of studying hermeneutics and approaching the issues of baptism again, and again,

I'd read probably for the third time John Murray on infant baptism and also began to see some inconsistencies there, so that led me to doing basically a wide research again back into the foundations, the hermeneutics, and the exegesis that supported infant baptism, and this time

I came out a Baptist, a confirmed Baptist, and so there were many things that went on at that time.

I let the Presbytery know that my mind had changed and I'd adopted the baptism of disciples, and when

I did that, I had already spoken to Southern Baptists and contacted Reformed Baptists, and there was no place for me to go and serve, so when

I resigned, I literally had no place to go, and the very night that I told my ministerial committee that I had changed,

I came home and my wife Debbie told me a man named Ernie Reisinger had called me to call him back, and so I called him back, and he had read,

I had sent John Reisinger, who always I will thank for passing my little study on to Ernie, but I had sent

John Reisinger a study on my change and asked him to comment on it, and he liked it, and he gave it to Ernie, so Ernie called me, and in a month or two,

I was in Pompano Beach, Florida as Associate Pastor to Ernie Reisinger. That's probably the only place on earth

I could have gone to serve, and God brought it to pass, and so my life has been bounded by a wonderful providence, and I almost live in a dream when

I think back of who I was and where I came from and what I didn't know, and God in his patience and kindness kept teaching me and leading me, and I've been blessed since that time working with Ernie.

I went to, in 1980, to a southwestern seminary in Fort Worth, Texas and was without a place to serve for the first year, and then a

Bible study of students started, and we first met in my home taking turns teaching, and in two years that turned into Heritage Baptist Church of Fort Worth, Texas, which is now located in Mansfield, and so that itself is a tremendous providence that God has been so kind to me about, and then this church who called me in 1992,

I started the first of 93. I had known these people and preached here several times, knew

Bill, and it was a terrible decision to leave Heritage and to come here, but at the end

I came, and God has blessed me so here. I feel like my life has just been, in spite of trials, it has been one blessing after the other, and here

I am about 70 years old this next week, and I look back on my life, and God has guided me step of the way,

I believe. I'm more convinced than ever than ever than in the baptism of disciples alone.

My book was challenged when it was printed, and the last edition in 2002, challenged by various folks, and I've read their challenges.

I've examined the scriptures and keep coming back to a belief in the baptism of disciples alone.

So here I am talking with Chris on the radio. Praise God. Yeah, two of those men that you mentioned have a special place in my life.

First, John Reisinger is a friend of mine, and as a new Christian, I used to attend the

Bunyan Conferences, named after John Bunyan in Pennsylvania. I probably attended those for somewhere in the neighborhood of eight years, and so I was probably the only

Reformed Baptist outside of New Covenant Theology that was in attendance at those events. And I used to attend there because my late wife's pastor, who's also now in heaven for eternity with Christ, Don Blend, he adopted

New Covenant Theology and used to take me there to this conference, and that was a time for us to fellowship and so on.

And Ernie Reisinger, as you must know, is the founder of the church where I am a member,

Grace Baptist Church in Carlisle. Oh, yes. I didn't realize you were there. Yes, well,

I did live on Long Island, New York for most of my life, but moved to Carlisle after my wife went home to the

Lord, and I've been here since 2015, and I became a member of Grace Baptist, the

Christmas Sunday service, or perhaps it was the Sunday before Christmas of 2015.

I'm sorry about your wife, but I think you're in a great place, and the Lord continues to minister to you there.

I really appreciate that. And, well, we're going to go to a break right now, and I'm going to start off our discussion with the wonderful booklet.

I don't know if it's still in print because of the fact that your larger book really grew out of the booklet, but I want you to start off with the discussion on A String of Pearls Unstrung, which

I absolutely fell in love with when I read it, and then was very excited when the much larger book came out, over 300 pages of material in the larger book,

The Baptism of Disciples Alone, which we are discussing today. But if anybody would like to join us on the air with a question for Fred Malone about baptism, whether you agree with him, whether you disagree, or whether you're just not sure, perhaps you're not even a

Christian, well, we would love to hear from you at chrisarnson at gmail .com. chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the USA, and please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

Don't go away, God willing, we'll be right back with Fred Malone and more of our discussion on The Baptism of Disciples Alone.

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We are now back to our discussion with Fred Malone. Fred Malone, who

I've been wanting to interview for a long time, and providentially today happened to be the day that God wanted us to have our first interview for some reason.

And he is the pastor of First Baptist Church of Clinton, Louisiana, and a professor of pastoral theology at the

IRBS Theological Seminary in Mansfield, Texas. And we are discussing the baptism of disciples alone, a covenantal argument for credo -baptism versus pedo -baptism.

And before the break, I said that I wanted you to begin our next session, this session, with a discussion on how

The Pearl of Strings Unstrung came to be, a wonderful booklet that, as I told you,

I'm not even sure it's still in print. It should be still in print because they're a lot easier and less expensive to give out than the larger hardback book, and they will whet the appetite of people to buy the larger hardback book.

But tell us about A String of Pearls Unstrung. Well, that was the result of my search, biblical search, for the issue of baptism.

I do want to say that while I was working on that, which would have been 1976, I think, changing my view that everything that I knew then,

I owe to my Presbyterian brothers who taught me at Reform Seminary, and I still count them precious and have many

Presbyterian friends today. So I've been blessed. But nevertheless, the result of my research started coming clear to me in 1976, and I wrote it down in a little pamphlet that I sent to John Reisinger after I had finished it to get him to check on it.

I had been helped by David Kingdon's book, The Children of Abraham, and Thomas Watson, Should Infants Be Baptized?

So I sent that to John, and I think what may have happened is that he passed it on to John Zins, who then was the editor of Baptist Reformation Review.

And so John Zins asked permission to print that article, and he did so in 1977.

And I didn't know what was going on in the Baptist theological world so much then, but it turned out that that issue was

John Zins asking the question, is there a covenant of grace? And it began an investigation of Baptists into historic covenant theology to decide whether they could continue to adopt it as stated in the 1689

Confession. And that turned into the New Covenant movement in the early 80s, and the conferences out in Dallas, Texas and Salado, Texas.

Yeah, I remember John's periodicals searching together. Yes, and at that time it was

Baptist Reformation Review. He had taken it over from an older brother who was a 1689 man, so he began to change the theology of that review.

But anyway, so that was printed, and I began to see that I started getting contacts from people, and I was already down in Florida with Ernie at that time, and people asked that I that I print it.

Well, Founders Ministry started about 1983, and we wanted to start a

Founders Press, and so later on that booklet was published as the

String of Pearls Unstrung. And my premise was that there are certain pearls put on the string of infant baptism, doctrines, and scriptures, and my purpose was to examine each of those and determine the biblical fidelity to each of those points of doctrine, and to come away with whether or not they were valid as a doctrine in the scripture.

And so each point in the String of Pearls Unstrung was to remove a pearl from the and see that the string of infant baptism was no longer biblically valid.

And there were a lot of those sold. There may be some at Founders Ministry still.

I have a cache myself that, if someone wanted them, I think you could order it from First Baptist Church, Clinton, Louisiana, Peel Box 552,

Clinton, Louisiana, and 70722. So if somebody would like to have a copy of that,

I think I have a box or two left. So that's where that stood, and then years later, about 1996 or 7, while I was here in First Baptist Church, Clinton, I developed that pamphlet into the book.

Well, what was the first thing? Now, I probably, in some way, in some slight way, miscategorized you in my introduction to you as a convert from Presbyterian to Baptistic understanding of the ordinance of baptism.

It's really, you're a revert, because you began as a Baptist, became a Presbyterian, and then reverted back to Baptistic ecclesiology, and especially in regard to the ordinance of baptism.

What was the initial thing, as a Presbyterian, that started to give you reason for pause to say, wait a minute, something's not connecting here with what the inerrant scriptures are saying to you?

Well, it was a hermeneutical problem that I saw in Louis Burkhoff's systematic theology.

At least, in my view, it is an error. And that is that he argued for infant baptism out of good and necessary consequence from Abrahamic circumcision.

In other words, there was not a command nor an example, which he agreed with, in the

New Testament regarding infant baptism. However, because of the continuity with the

Abrahamic covenant of believers and their children, which was the main argument, therefore we could give baptism to infants by inference.

But then, when I was searching out his view of the Lord's Supper, and part of this had come from I attended the

TCA General Assembly in 1975, I think it was, and I heard friends of mine from RTS talking about pedo -communion.

And I do not remember talking about pedo -communion in those years at RTS, and so maybe it just slipped over my head, but it caught my attention, and I thought, pedo -communion?

I don't think I've heard of that. In fact, let's just clarify for our listeners unfamiliar with that term. That means communion for infants.

That is correct. And you have admission also to the

Lord's Supper. And historically, if I'm not mistaken, until recent history, the only individuals or churches within Christendom that did that were the

Eastern Orthodox. And then, in more recent history, some professing to be

Protestants began the practice. That's my understanding as well.

But Burkhoff said we admit infants to baptism, but we cannot admit them to the

Lord's Supper because of the New Testament requirement to examine yourself and then to eat.

So in Burkhoff's view, there was a New Testament qualification for those who take the

Lord's Supper, and it could only be professing believers because you had to examine yourself before you eat.

And when I read that, I thought, well, it also says repent and be baptized.

And so I began to search that out, and I found out

Jesus and John both baptized disciples only, and that on the

Day of Pentecost, the passage, Acts 2, verses 38 -41, or you could include 42, that had been used and, in my mind, justified infant baptism,

I saw there that there was the requirement to repent and to believe before baptism.

In fact, in verse 41, it says, those who had received Peter's word, that is, welcomed

Peter's word, were baptized. And that seemed as clear to me as examine yourself and so let him eat.

Examine oneself and so eat. So I saw that as an inconsistency of letting the

New Testament determine who is admitted to the sacraments. And while both sacraments have an

Old Testament background, of course, the Passover feast is at the background of the

Lord's Supper, but the Lord's Supper is not the Passover. So in infant baptism, if it did have a background of Old Testament circumcision, still the

New Testament required an act of those who professed to repent and believe the gospel and be baptized.

And I began to search through the consistency of my concern and found out that that was really at the heart of things.

So consistent hermeneutics was something that drove me. And as I did that, and I read

John Murray on infant baptism, Pierre Marcel.

Pierre Marcel was actually given to me by the Presbytery to convince me to stay a

Presbyterian. And when I finished reading Marcel, I became a more convinced Baptist than ever.

And the reason was because he had things I had never even heard before. For instance, in his view, when a baby is baptized, an infant is baptized, they no longer carry the guilt of Adam's sin.

So they are no longer under the covenant of works, nor are they yet under the covenant of grace, but are basically restored to the

Adamic state, wherein they will have to, I guess you would say, make their choice of whether they're going to close with the covenant of grace or not.

And that kind of extreme covenantal infant baptism, and I do consider that extreme, really caused me to continue to see that there's some problem here in the doctrine of baptism that I have not settled with.

In fact, that is not even the predominant view amongst the more conservative

Presbyterian and Dutch Reformed bodies, is it? No, I don't believe it is, but that's the book the

Presbytery gave me to read to convince me to stay a

Presbyterian. And it's hermeneutics were so poor, I felt, that I really was on the right track.

And so, nevertheless, I came to the conclusion that the

New Testament has to determine how the Old Testament is fulfilled in it. And that comes from Augustine and the limerick that we say, the new is in the old concealed.

The old is in the new revealed. And, or the new is in the old and it's now revealed.

So, I'm getting it backwards, sorry. The new is in the old concealed, the old is in the new revealed, which means that the

New Testament has to determine how the Old Testament is fulfilled in it, rather than vice versa.

In other words, if there's a prophecy in the Old Testament, that the New Testament is the final authority of its fulfillment.

The dispensational error is to require that the New Testament fulfill the

Old Testament prophecy in every part and form. In other words, literally.

Or it's not fulfilled. That's what is the foundation of dispensational eschatology.

But, in the prophecy and fulfillment of the

Reformed faith, the reigning principle is that the new must determine how the old is fulfilled in it.

And when I applied that, that the New Testament is the clearer, latest revelation of God that interprets the

Old Testament for us, I began to see that the ground and principle of infant baptism could not be based, as so many have stated, for instance,

Charles Hodge and others, that the ground and authority and warrant for infant baptism could not be the

Old Testament. Because it is a sacrament of the New Testament. Now, when we trace the history of infant baptism back to its earliest mention within any historical document, the last

I read, and perhaps you have other information that would contradict this, but I had heard that Tertullian was the very first person in history to write anything that mentioned infant baptism, and he was writing in opposition to it.

I'm sorry, you were muffled, brother. Yes, that's my understanding, too.

Now, throughout all of the history of the Church, until we reach the age of the

Reformers, who most of which would be, and some would say all of which, were believers in infant baptism, was there ever taught, even in the history of the

Roman Catholic Church, the understanding that infant baptism was the new covenant circumcision?

Was that something that was historically taught that has ancient roots, or was that a

Reformation way of explaining it biblically, or trying to? I am not sure about that, when it came into the argument, but I believe that it was

Zwingli that brought that into the argument for infant baptism. Really? I mean, you don't know of any other precedent before that?

Not in my knowledge, which is limited, I'm sure, but my understanding was that Zwingli first brought that into the argument for infant baptism, against the

Anabaptists. But anyway, one of the interesting things in hermeneutics that I kept finding is that, by the fact that there was no mention of the baptism of infants until Tertullian, and there's also a real question whether Tertullian was talking about immediate infants or small children.

That is still a debate. But he was still writing in opposition to it, though. Yes. Well, in any case, he thought that Jesus was about 50 years old, too, and so you had to be an adult.

But anyway, getting back to what I'm getting at here, is one of the arguments for infant baptism that disturbed me was the argument of silence.

And in the New Testament, there is no mention of infant baptism, and every

Presbyterian scholar will say that, that there's no example and there's no command.

Well, that right there should make any of us pause when we're talking about the sacraments.

In fact, that's where we have to stop there for our midway break, and that's a interruption in mid -sentence there.

Yes, we will begin at the fact that the Presbyterian and Pado Baptist argument for infant baptism is very often the argument of silence.

And if anybody else would like to join us on the air with a question, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

chrisarnson at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the

USA. And please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. Don't go away.

We'll be back after this elongated break with Fred Malone, right after these messages from our sponsors.

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that's solid -ground -books .com and see what priceless literary gems from the past to present you can unearth from solid ground solid ground christian books is honored to be a weekly sponsor of iron sharpens iron radio hi i'm buzz taylor frequent co -host with chris arnson on iron sharpens iron radio i would like to introduce you to my good friends todd and patty jennings at cvbbs which stands for cumberland valley bible book service todd and patty specialize in supplying reformed and puritan books and bibles at discount prices that make them affordable to everyone since 1987 the family -owned and operated book service has sought to bring you the best available christian books and bibles at the best possible prices unlike other book sites they make no effort to provide every book that is available because frankly much of what is being printed is not worth your time that means you can get to the good stuff faster it also means that you don't have to worry about being assaulted by the pornographic heretical and otherwise faith insulting material promoted by the secular book vendors their website is cvbbs .com

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if you purchase fifty dollars or more worth of worth of merchandise and you mention chris arnzen on iron trap and zine radio not only will you receive a free copy of a book but it is a 22 hardback that you'll be getting for free the salt of the covenant or the biblical doctrine of salvation this was first published in 1908 and reprinted with revisions by sovereign grace union of london england in 1932 it's a 271 page hardback shrink -wrapped uh and you will get that for free if you purchase fifty dollars or more worth of merchandise by mentioning chris arnzen on iron sharpens iron radio a couple more announcements that we have before we return to our interview with fred malone on our subject the baptism of disciples alone uh the philadelphia conference on reform theology is just around the corner it's going to be held at two locations the first christian reform church of byron center michigan and the proclamation presbyterian church of brinmar pennsylvania the michigan location will be held april 13th through the 15th and the brinmar pennsylvania location will be held the 27th through the 29th the theme this year is the spirit of the age and the age of the spirit and the speakers include daniel aiken richard gaffin daniel hyde my favorite preacher of all time i believe the most powerful preacher alive on the planet earth conrad and bayway of cubata baptist church in lusaka zambia africa who god willing will be our guest again on iron sharpens iron radio next week uh richard phillips another friend of mine pastor of second presbyterian church in greenville south carolina jonathan master david murray and scott oliphant if you'd like to register for either of those events or for both of them go to alliancenet .org

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that's also the email address where you can send in questions for our guest fred malone pastor of first baptist church of clinton louisiana and professor of pastoral theology at two seminaries the irbs theological seminary in mansfield texas and also the covenant baptist theological seminary in owensboro kentucky so send in your emails now to chris arnson at gmail .com

chris arnson at gmail .com if you have a question for pastor fred and when we left off before our elongated midway break pastor fred you were discussing one of the most disturbing arguments made by pedo baptists to defend the baptism of infants is the area of silence yes you know as in doing my research way back when and even to this day it's amazed me that one of the strongest arguments that is claimed is that there is no mention of infant baptism in the new testament either by command or example and that the argument of silence testifies that it was understood and practiced regularly so that there was no need to address the question that those from an abrahamic background would understand that with circumcision in their background that they should baptize their infants as well so there's no need for a command or example and not only in terms of the scriptures but in church history and that is that since there is no mention of infant or child baptism till tertullian probably around 200 a .d.

or so there was no need to mention it because it was practiced in other words the argument of silence that it was never mentioned by the apostolic fathers or those early church fathers means that it was just accepted and practiced and that that is a very strong argument for pedo baptism or infant baptism i just can't accept that argument for a lot of reasons but one is the the regulative principle of worship in our confessions in chapter 21 on religious worship and the sabbath day in both the westminster but also the savoy congregational savoy declaration and the baptist london confession first written in 1677 it's very clear that the and i'm quoting from the westminster but the acceptable way of worshiping the true god is instituted by himself and so limited by his own revealed will revealed will that he may not be worshiped according to the imaginations and devices of men or the suggestions of satan under any visible representation or any other way not prescribed in holy in the holy scripture in other words the worship of god must be limited by his own revealed will instituted by himself that means in words and that it cannot be practiced in the local church if it's not prescribed in the holy scripture so that introduced me to the issue of uh the regulative principle and i had for many years used g .i

williamson's commentary on the westminster confession which i believe is excellent and it was in print when i was back in the early 70s in seminary and in there basically uh g .i

williamson says if it's not commanded in holy scripture or worship then it's not permitted now how does g .i

williamson get around being a commentator on the westminster confession of faith how does he get around that when he endorsed infant baptism well that that gets into the oh it is discussed from the overall covenant theology rather than the institution of worship by god in other words it comes under the abrahamic covenant and in general and that adding to that the argument of silence in the new testament and church history then somehow it can be permitted but one of the things that i noticed in my research is and by the way there are some baptists who disagree with me using this argument but the elements of worship all must be commanded instituted by revelation prescribed in the holy scripture it does not leave room for good and necessary consequence to establish an element of worship and the discussion of the regulative principle today has been muddied by those who have written about the elements of worship versus the circumstances of worship the circumstances have always been understood by the reformed faith as being the time of worship there's liberty there whether you use pews or chairs the order of worship whether you pray first or read scripture first and so forth there are circumstances of any human gathering that have to be arranged uh in order to worship right including whether to have a piano or something like that what are the worship in a house or a church building yeah right that's a circumstance of worship but uh it's been confused of late by john frame's book on worship in the spirit and truth in which he advocates that the circumstances can include drama uh dance and things of that nature in the worship service but that's never been the understanding of circumstances well anyway uh there are some that have argued for circumstances in terms of baptism we're commanded to baptize and a circumstance would be a child so uh what we have in our fathers there was an appendix attached to the uh 1677 composition of these of the 1689 confession that written by nehemiah cox i believe and in the first few paragraphs it says this therefore we cannot for our own parts be persuaded in our own minds to build such a practice as this that is infant baptism upon an unwritten tradition but do rather choose in all points of faith and worship to have recourse to the holy scriptures or the information of our judgment and regulation of our practice all institute worship receives its sanction from the precept and is thereby is to be thereby governed in all the necessary circumstances thereof so i believe forefathers recognized that the regulative principle was being violated by infant baptism and i believe it's stated there in the appendix to the 1689 confession when it was published in the public and and so there's more to infant baptism than is there an example or a command there is no example or command and i believe that it undermines the uh the doctrine of the principle of worship and opens the door for unregulated worship baptists today of all stripes might say that they believe in regulated worship but when we consider the elements of worship and the activities of worship in many baptist churches today we find that the elements of worship for instance the reading of scripture and the proclamation of scripture and prayers many times are pushed out by what could be called circumstances the music the element of congregational singing is to be there in worship we're to speak to one another in psalms hymns and spiritual songs but nothing is to move the scripture and the proclamation of the scripture out of their places or out of their time in in a regulated worship situation so we baptist need to restudy the regulative principle and we need to understand those that are attracted to presbyterianism uh may not realize that they are in my opinion uh violating or transgressing the regular principle of worship to do so one of the reasons that i wrote my book uh to expand the original pamphlet was that like myself i saw many baptists who had been blessed by their presbyterian brethren and reform brethren to learn the doctrines of grace uh covenant theology the um the doctrines of the faith and the confessions that we had not known for so many years that it came to be clear that if you were a baptist and you wanted to serve in a typical baptist church at least in the southern united states which i'm familiar that if you if it was known that you were a calvinist you would not be employed in that church or as happened so many times men that came to the doctrines of grace were removed from their churches baptist churches because of that and so many of them began to study not only the doctrines of grace but covenant theology and that was a good thing but at the same time many of these baptists began to adopt the covenant theology of presbyterianism which includes pedo -baptism and entered into the presbyterian churches or denominations to serve and i've always wanted to see if there's any way to count and see how many presbyterian pastors were formerly baptized some of the great ones today were from the baptist background and i wrote the book to try to help sincere baptist men to think through the theology of the covenants and uh and the arguments of pedo -baptists and state baptists uh build reformed baptist churches and and uh and to follow their forefathers even in suffering to do so so uh yeah so over the years i've seen that the lord has used the book to help many to do that and i'm thankful for that but um i'm uh i pray that uh more will examine exegetically the texts that are used uh we'll examine the hermeneutics the standard uh reformed hermeneutics that um that uh lewis burkhoff and others have put forth for us and will uh and not be persuaded perhaps by um arguments of silence or arguments of opportunity and instead let their conscience be founded upon the word of god completely i'm not judging not judging or condemning anyone i'm just simply saying uh sometimes when i've asked men why they became presbyterian uh from being baptist i have not heard a very consistent presbyterian argument for accepting infant baptism uh if you're going to be a presbyterian then go for it with the argument of scripture as far as you can say but don't um reject the baptist view without thoroughly examining it as well amen well we're going to go to our final break it's going to be a lot briefer than the last one and when we come back i have a question of my own and then we'll go to our listener questions and we'll take as many as we can as many as time will allow but if you want to get in line do so now forever hold your peace because we're rapidly running out of time our email address is chris arnzen at gmail .com

chris arnzen at gmail .com please give us your first name your city and state and your country of residence if you live outside the usa and please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter don't go away we'll be right back with pastor fred malone and the baptism of disciples alone charles heddon's virgin once said give yourself unto reading the man who never reads will never be read he who never quotes will never be quoted he will not use the thoughts of other men's brains proves he has no brains of his own you need to read solid ground christian books is a publisher and book distributor who takes these words of the prince of preachers to heart the mission of solid ground christian books is to bring back treasures of the past to minister to christians in the present and future and to publish new titles that address burning issues in the church and the world since its beginning in 2001 solid ground has been committed to publish god -centered christ exalting books for all ages we invite you to go treasure hunting at solid -ground -books .com

that's solid -ground -books .com and see what priceless literary gems from the past or present you can unearth from solid ground solid ground christian books is honored to be a weekly sponsor of iron sharpens iron radio hi i'm pastor bill shishko inviting you to tune into a visit to the pastor's study every saturday from 12 noon to 1 pm eastern time on wlie radio www .wlie540am

.com we bring biblically faithful pastoral ministry to you and we invite you to visit the pastor's study by calling in with your questions our time will be lively useful and i assure you never dull join us this saturday at 12 noon eastern time for a visit to the pastor's study because everyone needs a pastor and that is the voice of my favorite pato baptist bill shishko formerly the pastor of the orthodox presbyterian church in franklin square now retired from pastoral ministry and is now a missionary a domestic missionary with reformation metro new york a parachurch organization under the oversight of the orthodox presbyterian denomination and a dear friend and in spite of our difference on baptism he has been one of the most uh encouraging supporter of iron sharpens iron radio that i know in fact uh pastor fred i don't know if you'd ever be interested but he has informed me that he would love to get into a friendly uh a friendly discussion conversation style of give and take on iron sharpens iron radio with a baptist pastor over the issue of baptism so perhaps you could think about that and get back to me if you'd like to participate in something like that with pastor bill shishko well i've heard his name for many years and always highly respected i'll think about that and we'll see what happens great and if anybody calls into a visit to the pastor's study please tell pastor bill shishko that you heard about his radio program from chris arnzen on iron sharpens iron radio and that program airs every saturday 12 noon to 1 p .m

eastern time at wlie540am .com globally via live streaming or if you live anywhere in the new york tri -state area and even parts of massachusetts rhode island and pennsylvania you can hear that at 5 40 on the a .m

dial every saturday 1 12 noon to 1 p .m eastern time well we are now back to our final half hour with our guest pastor fred malone and we are discussing the baptism of disciples alone what i wanted to ask you about uh pastor fred is household baptisms i personally have arranged and was the master of ceremonies for two debates on baptism the first uh between my dear friend dr james r white of alpha and omega ministries who defended believer only or disciple only baptism commonly called credo or credo baptism and there were two different um uh pato baptists in each of these debates or should i say there was a different pedo baptist in each debate uh the first was pastor bill shishko the second was greg strawbridge and interestingly enough both pastor shishko and greg strawbridge chose as their strategy of defense for infant baptism the fact that the new testament records household baptisms and therefore the assumption is that there were infants or at least one in those households why that should be automatically assumed i have no idea but that was the assumption by both pedo baptist participants in these two different debates on baptism the difference was however that even though that is that was the defense of pastor bill shishko he does not practice household baptisms he does not baptize anyone in a household just by a sheer virtue of the head of the household becoming a christian and being baptized but greg strawbridge does do that which really surprised me is the first pedo baptist i had ever met who openly admitted to uh be uh participating in baptisms of unbelieving adults under the roof of a believer including an unbelieving spouse uh but what what is your reaction to the whole household baptism argument that pedo baptists commonly use well first of all in again in hermeneutics it's uh clearly understood in the reformed faith and reformed hermeneutics that it's very difficult to establish a doctrine uh in historical narrative versus a doctrinal discussion for instance the great commission is clear that um that jesus commanded the disciples to make disciples of all the nations to baptize them not the nations but the disciples made in the name of the father son and holy spirit teaching them that is these baptized disciples uh all that christ commanded his apostles on earth to do those things and he promised that he would be with them now there are some who have who have said that the great commission uh teaches that we are to make disciples by baptizing and teaching thus including um the baptism of infants in a household and raising them as if they were christians the problem with that statement is that uh luke 24 uh teaches clearly that the idea of making disciples or go having gone disciple all the nations is about preaching the gospel to all the nations that's what luke 24 says so it's not about uh making disciples by baptism baptizing and teaching but it's making disciples by proclaiming the gospel to all the nations and to bring to repentance and baptism so that's that is one way the orcas formula or the household formula uh comes in and i believe uh adjust the exegesis sometimes of certain passages now there's uh this this goes back into high scholarship between joaquin jeremias and kurt alan in talking about the baptism formula or the orcas formula and they disagree about it the reason i have a problem with it is that uh the revelation of the new testament says in galatians chapter 3 and i believe romans 4 that the children of abraham are believers that the children of abraham who is our father in the faith have the same faith as our father abraham in galatians 3 is very clear that that the seed of the promise to abraham that was to come and fulfill the promises made by god to him to be the father of a multitude of nations and kings would come forth from him and so forth that seed is jesus christ a singular seed and through him through jesus christ those that have faith in him as abraham did are themselves the children of abraham in fulfillment but not believers and their seed but those who it is those who are of the children of abraham so the household orcas formula that is appealed to in abraham's covenant is redefined in new testament exegesis as jesus christ as the final seed of abraham who now becomes the head of his household those who have believed in him who are the true spiritual seed of abraham now you can't use the household baptisms first of all they're unclear and they're debated as as the final argument for infant baptism that there must have been an infant in that household we do not know that and in fact um on the day of pentecost we have clear statement which sometimes is referred to as household baptisms the promise is for you and your children but sometimes i've seen that phrase actually cut off at that point in an argument for household baptism and and and not quoting the full verse or the promises for you and your children and all who are far off as many as the lord our god shall call to himself amen the prop the promise being if you repent and are baptized you shall receive the gift of the holy spirit in verse 38 and so to uh automatically assume that the children would be baptized of those who believe uh goes far beyond the text because it actually is identifying the promises to you those who were listening on the day of pentecost to your children and to all who are far off that is more yet to come the promises and it is qualified by effectual calling as many as our lord shall call the lord our god shall call to himself so it's not a blanket promise to baptize the infants of believers and that's why verse 41 says as many as received or welcomed peter's word were baptized and that day there were 3 000 souls that were baptized so uh the household baptisms do not clearly mention uh an infant in them it rather seems to indicate that the whole household was converted uh in uh cornelius's household in acts 10 it says while peter was still speaking these words the holy spirit fell upon all who were listening to the message right and all the circumscribed believers that come with peter were amazed because the gift of the holy spirit had been poured out upon the gentiles also yep but they were hearing them speak with tongues and exalting god and peter answered surely no one can refuse the water for these to be baptized who have received the holy spirit just as we did and he ordered them to be baptized that is clear an example of disciples baptism as there is in the new testament right amen it is i'm sorry yes and i was also going to say that at least on one of the accounts i don't have them all in front of me but you have the family rejoicing with the one baptized and to me it makes no sense at all for non -believers to be rejoicing with a head of a household being baptized because he would actually be bringing danger into their lives possibly torture and death by becoming a christian well that's the philippian jailers account and in acts chapter 16 and it says uh they said believe in the lord jesus and you'll be saved you and all your household believe and you will be saved you and all your household in other words if you believe you will be saved and your household all your household will be saved if they believe and they spoke the word of the lord to him together with all who were in his house and he took him that very hour of the night and washed their wounds and immediately he was baptized he and all his household and he brought them into his house and set food before them and rejoiced greatly having believed in god with all his household and so uh there's some there's some a problem in translation with that text but the argument is babies can rejoice with adults when they're laughing and rejoicing and that supposedly answers the issue of rejoicing the whole household rejoicing but it appears in the text that those who rejoice are those who believe and those who were baptized on the basis of their belief um we can debate household baptisms all day long but the problem is they are historical narratives they themselves mention no infants nor command no infants to be baptized with their believing parents and it is it is not exegetical evidence to establish which is what i'm talking about and to institute by revelation and prescribe by holy scripture a sacrament for the worship of the local church um may i go to one other thing maybe you have other questions but i want to mention one thing sure and that is there's a great interest in studying covenant theology again today by baptists and there's they're starting to rediscover that our baptist forefathers had a strong covenant theology and we find in the work of nehemiah cox who was probably the man who actually wrote or composed the 1677 and 1689 london baptist confession that he wrote a book called covenant theology from adam to christ and in that book he advocates a very robust covenant theology and that baptists have held that was in the 1600s and held to the present day even into the 1800s we had one of the great leaders of the of southern baptists named th male who who wrote a book on the covenants john l dagg explained the covenant and his systematic theology and so forth it's just that baptist had a different view of covenant theology and when you said the western confession and the london baptist confession on god's covenant these are parallel chapters on explaining god's covenant what you find is that the westminster confession looks upon the old covenant and the new covenant uh as being uh the covenant of grace differently administered in the time of law and in the time of the gospel in the law it was ministered to promises prophecies sacrifice circumcision the paschal lenin types and then under the new covenant it was i'm sorry you're gonna have to brother you're gonna have to repeat your last sentence because you got very muffled and broken up well i don't know why but i'll try what i was saying is that the uh covenant theology uh of the of the westminster looks upon the new test new covenant and the old covenant as being basically the same covenant of grace differently administered baptists believe that the covenant of grace was established in history at genesis 3 15 with the promise of the seat of the woman and by steps was brought to fulfillment in the new covenant by the other old testament covenants which paul calls but the covenants of the promise there's an article there in the text in ephesians 2 12 so baptists looked upon the old testament covenants as fulfilling step by step the promise of genesis 3 15 until christ actually was born and established the new covenant in his time so we do not look upon each of those covenants as being covenants of grace the covenant of grace by faith in the promised messiah was operated through every old testament covenant as was the condemned covenant of works through every old testament covenant each covenant having its purpose to bring to pass the coming of christ the new covenant has to be defined by revelation concerning it and the revelation of the new covenant are you there yeah you're loud and clear i don't know what happened but you i can still understand you i hit the wrong button but anyway um so the new covenant revelation revelation has to describe what each covenant consists of when you bring good and necessary consequence from one covenant into another covenant it is it is not allowing the scripture to define the meaning of each covenant the new covenant is defined in jeremiah 31 31 through 34 and by jesus as those who have the law written upon their heart who possess the forgiveness of sins and know the lord and and that is a different covenant than the sinai covenant which israel broke so the new covenant is described as an effectual covenant with each member and that is where we differ with our presbyterian brothers where we as baptists seek to build churches new covenant churches on the basis a profession of repentance and faith hoping that that person has been regenerate but we build the church on a confession of faith under the new covenant and its uh stipulations and its description of itself and not by importing the form of the sinai covenant or any other covenant and placing it over the new covenant by inference we have to let revelation determine what is the new covenant who are its members what are its blessings and what does it mean to be a member of the new covenant so covenant theology also is at the forefront of baptist discussion today and some in the past many i think have been convinced of the presbyterian argument but there is a baptist argument of covenant theology that is that has been part of our belief since the establishment of our baptist churches in england in the 1600s and coming over into america in the philadelphia and charleston associations on to the present day and i would encourage those studying covenant theology to study some books like covenant theology from adam to christ by nehemiah cox covenant theology that is edited by earl blackburn in which some some of us authors have tried to explain it to our modern day baptist audience and then richard barcellos new book on getting the garden right i believe is a must read uh to understand uh what exactly is the covenant of works which is denied by many baptists today um and and also understand that that denial of the covenant of works in the garden is also contributing to the new perspective on paul and his teaching of covenant theology in his letters so this this is a big theological discussion today but when it gets down to infant baptism we must follow biblical hermeneutics reformed hermeneutics and not let our desires for family life or the hope for the salvation of our children or the era of good and necessary consequence bring from another cover from an old covenant like the sinai covenant into the new covenant and become part of its stipulation so covenant theology really needs to be discussed by baptist and studied by baptist today and i am so thankful for those that went before us in our reformed camp like witsius and others turton uh those who out of the bible out of the reformation finally had the freedom to profess their beliefs about covenant theology and we stand on their shoulders but at the same time baptists have a distinctive hermeneutic that brings them to the point of a baptist covenant theology and that is why we believe that we baptize only those who profess faith in the lord jesus christ who publicly repent and believe in him and i believe that's consistent with the new testament amen well we we better get to our as many of our listener questions as possible we have a first time questioner from ashborough north carolina grady and all of a sudden i'm hearing the theme music the sanford and son in the background in my mind but grady says hi brothers chris and fred i have a friend that keeps trying to convince me that infant baptism is biblical he only uses the acts two passages i don't see it but was wondering what other passages do others with this view use thanks this is grady in ashborough north carolina um well actually they use the household baptism passages in the book of acts there are other passages when speaking of the covenants that are used one is in hebrews chapter 10 verse 29 and that is that speaking of those who continue sinning willfully after coming to the knowledge of the truth and it is advocated that this passage teaches that you can be a member of the new covenant and yet break the new covenant and uh what it says is um how much severe punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled underfoot the son of god and is regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified and has insulted the spirit of grace so here's a person who it is claimed was a member of the new covenant but broke the new covenant they were sanctified by the new covenant they broke the new covenant and therefore they have considered the blood of christ unclean and deserve greater punishment because they've trampled underfoot the son of god the problem with that statement he's regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified and has insulted the spirit of grace first of all john owen understands by which he was sanctified to be christ as regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which christ was sanctified further simon kistemaker in his commentary on hebrews which was his specialty says that this passage is speaking of a false convert who was never in the new covenant and he is a pedo -baptist himself you can look in his commentary and then we have john brown commentary on hebrews and john brown doesn't think that it's speaking either of an apostate or a or of christ but rather it is a a general description of those that is regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which there is sanctification so it's not that the person was in the covenant and broke it by which he was sanctified we have three pedo -baptists in major commentaries disagreeing and that is therefore an unclear text that cannot be put forth as a sound doctrine that you can be in the new covenant break it and be put out of the new covenant the effectual nature of the new covenant is described in the jeremiah passage which is quoted in hebrews 8 and 10 as being uh the covenant of the christian those who have received the forgiveness of sins verse 17 of chapter 10 of hebrews those who know the lord and uh as a result the law is written on their heart in verse 15 now richard pratt uh believes that this passage in jeremiah 31 and these passages in hebrews um do speak of the new covenant as being an effectual covenant but not now it is only for the consummation so he puts an already not yet construction on the present nature of the new covenant and i'm telling you the passages are some of the passages used here and what what dr pratt who's a very wonderful uh teacher and man um he says that the new covenant is established now but the members of the new covenant include believers and their seed now so it may have unconverted people in it who do not have the law written on their heart who do not know the lord and are not forgiven namely uh even perhaps infants of believers but that at the consummation when jesus returns and fulfills the kingdom it will only be those who are effectually uh called those who have the law written on their heart the forgiveness of sins and know the lord in reality the problem with this construction is that when a covenant is established in the bible its members are specifically designated in that covenant everyone that was designated a member a descendant of abraham was a member of the abrahamic covenant when it was established there were further promises in fulfillment but there was no question who was a member of the abrahamic covenant they were circumcised and of the blood of abraham the same with the sinai covenant when it was established there was no question who was a member it was the children of israel and those who were circumcised and they were physically related to abraham and therefore were members of the sinai covenant or by proselytism and circumcision there was no waiting for a future uh fulfillment of the sinai covenant when everyone knew the lord but rather it failed it was broken and god promised the new covenant through the prophets especially from jeremiah 31 31 through 34 that everyone in the covenant would have a new heart they would be born again we believe the kingdom of god is by new birth you must be born again to see or enter the kingdom of god and that is why we believe that even though there will be a consummation of the kingdom everyone who's a member of the kingdom of god now is a born -again believer and everyone who's a member of the new covenant is a born -again believer who has the law written on their heart and the forgiveness of sins and knows the lord so we don't accept uh dr pratt's explanation even though we highly respect him in fact his first 30 pages of his explanation is a very good reformed baptist presentation of what we believe it really is and and so he knows what he's talking about but we do not accept the already not yet membership of the new covenant we accept that one day the law will be written on our heart perfectly and we will know god because we shall see him as he is but right now we are all members of the new covenant who are born again so that's one uh passage great well thank you grady in ashborough north carolina and because you are a first -time questioner not only are you getting a free copy of the book the baptism of disciples alone by fred malone compliments of founders press but you are also getting a free new american standard bible as a first -time questioner compliments of the publishers of the nasb so make sure we have your full mailing address in ashborough north carolina so cvbbs .com

cumberland valley bible book services can ship that out to you as soon as possible and i know right now fred if you are interested in returning to iron tripman's iron radio we need to have part two because we've got a whole bunch of listeners waiting to have their questions asked that we never got to and i just want you and i don't know if you're you're able to answer this question right now but we have monday open if you're free to come back monday but if you can't answer now we can have you look into your schedule later on now i'll have to look in it and text you back on that okay okay that's fine but i'd like you to now summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners before they uh leave this program today well i i think i would i would say i want you to really examine the newness of the new covenant certainly there's continuity with the old covenant but there is a distinctive newness of the new covenant that jesus christ established by his blood and righteousness and that is a people who are born again who know the lord who are forgiven of sins and of such people churches uh should be established and that is our baptist ecclesiology uh based upon the uh our belief in the fact that the new testament was composed of disciples alone and that is why if you look it up in the book of acts the church is often called quote unquote the disciples and and we desire to establish churches of people that are professing in faith and have a good confession of faith who pursue holiness and who worship in spirit and truth and that we are in our missions strategy wanting to establish other churches we want to preach the gospel to all nations making disciples baptizing them and teaching them a teaching ministry of the whole council of god the law and the gospel in the local church and we do believe in the covenants of god that has brought this to pass so our hope is to preserve those who are studying covenant theology out of a good recognition that the bible teaches it and if you're baptistic to be slow on accepting the presbyterian argument until you have fully examined the historic baptist argument on the covenants and the doctrine of baptism which is an element of regulated christian worship that must be instituted by god so we want to keep building baptist churches that that understand the nature of the church that worship is by those who love christ and who are seeking to live godly lives for him we do not want to have churches in which we have people that are brought up in the church and in any way or form confused about what is baptism by those who can repent and believe in the lord jesus christ and just to establish strong churches that build strong churches well we're out of time brother and i want to make sure our listeners have all of your contact all of your contact information first of all the first baptist church of clinton louisiana their website is fbc clinton la fbc clinton la .com

fbc and then we have the irbs theological seminary is irbs seminary .org

irbs seminary .org and the covenant baptist theological seminary of owensboro kentucky is cbt seminary .org

cbt seminary .org and last but not least founders press can be found at press .founders