Who Should We Baptize?

Sovereign Grace Family Church

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March 12, 2023

00:02: I want to invite you to take out your Bibles and turn with me to Colossians chapter 2 and hold your place at verse 11, Colossians chapter 2 verse 11.
00:30: Last week I mentioned in my message that Colossians chapter 2 verses 11 and 12 happen to be some of the most debated verses on the subject of baptism and so even though last week I preached verses 11 through 15 to give the context of this section as we are doing our verse-by-verse study of the book of Colossians I said I was going to come back today and deal specifically with the subject of baptism and I want to preface with two things.
01:12: Number one especially if you're a visitor today, today's sermon will be somewhat different than the norm in that I'm going to be doing a lot of teaching today in that I always teach when I preach that that comes out as by nature God has given me that desire to teach but today will be even more so like a lesson but please don't let that make you think that it's any less important than any other sermon.
01:45: We need to be taught the Word of God and we need to know why we believe and teach what we do.
01:52: The second thing I want to say is that last night my wife and I were having a wonderful time of personal Bible study our kids had gone to bed and given us some time of peace and we decided to go through the sermon together and about halfway through she said well she didn't say it but her eyes said this is a lot and so I'm going to try to make this as digestible as possible because it is a lot and I could just tell by her look at me that you're gonna do this all in one week I said well there's an arch to this lesson an arc rather to the lesson and if I stop in the middle it's just not going to be good I want to do this all in one day I want you to see this all today so with that being said why are we talking about baptism well there is a link in the passage that we're going to read in just a moment that links the concepts of circumcision and baptism together and because of this we have within the body of Christ two different perspectives on baptism particularly within the Reformed tradition because we are a Reformed Baptist Church within the Reformed tradition there are two strains or views on the subject of baptism one being that of the Presbyterian Reformed and that being of that of the Baptist Reformed and they have two different answers to the question who is a proper candidate for baptism and the reason for this is because the act of circumcision is tied to the act of baptism in this text and therefore the the argument from the Presbyterian side is that we ought to treat baptism the same way we treat circumcision in that not only does it go to the believer but it goes to the believers children and so that's the subject that we're going to talk about today let's stand to give honor and reverence to the reading of the Word of God we will read from Colossians chapter 2 and we're only going to read verses 11 and 12 as the starting point for today's lesson it says in verse 11 in him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands by putting off the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ having been buried with him in baptism in which you were also raised with him through faith and the powerful working of God who raised him from the dead let's pray father in heaven I thank you for your word I thank you for your truth I pray that today that both your word and your truth would be magnified I pray that you would keep me from error I pray that you would keep me tied to the post of your revelation I pray Lord that you would be glorified and your people would be edified I do pray Lord also a very specific prayer today Lord keep me from error I pray that every week but today more than ever Lord as I know that this is a subject upon which great men of God have differed men that I would respect and hold in high esteem would disagree with some of what I'm going to say today so Lord I pray humbly that I would speak your word and your truth and I pray Lord also that the people of God would hear the humility with which I speak and know Lord that I am not perfect and I seek the perfection of the Word of God not my own when preaching I pray also Lord if there are those here today who do not know the Lord that they would understand that salvation is not found in the labor of baptism but rather at the cross of Christ and that baptism is a sign of that wonderful covenant that we have been given that Christ has established in his blood and as we studied last week father he took our sins he nailed them to the cross in his own body took our punishment upon himself and gave us his blessed righteousness and Lord that is something wherever we stand on baptism we ought all to be able to agree so Lord give us humility today as we study in Christ's name it's interesting that God would in his providence bring us to this passage today because it is in fact very true that right now we actually have five people who are being counseled for baptism so this subject is not one that is just one that we're talking about in some philosophical way but it's one that really practically applies to the church right now we are preparing several people for baptism and I want to say from the outset that as I just said in my prayer some of the most godly men that I have ever studied that I have ever read have been men that would disagree with me on some of the things that I'm going to say today and so on this particular debate I want to make it very clear that I do believe that this is both an intramural debate meaning it is within the bounds of believers that I'm not saying anyone who disagrees with me on this is not a believer that that needs to be said but also this is a secondary doctrinal debate this is not a primary doctrine primary doctrines like the doctrines which relate to the divinity of Christ or justification by faith alone those are things that all of us would agree on and we would all stand toe-to-toe with the world and we would be lockstep and joined arms against the world on those things so it's important to know that and I want to tell a quick story my wife and I we years ago went down to visit Dr.
08:46: R.C.
08:46: Sproul's church this was back when he was still with us and his church is only a few hours south of here so one one day when I had a Sunday off we went down to visit his church and it was in the old st.
08:59: Andrews building which was much smaller than the current one that they have now the one looks sort of like Cinderella's castle it's this big big building the old building was much smaller wonderful place wonderful people got to see Dr.
09:13: Sproul talk to him a little bit it was very nice but I upon leaving the church and I want you to know that I got my wife's permission to tell this story because upon leaving the church we were driving out and we were remarking on how behind the pulpit there was a giant stained-glass window that had the picture of the Isaiah 6 King with the seraphim around if you remember that story in Isaiah 6 and it had the had that behind the baptistry's it's beautiful stained-glass picture and Jennifer remarked how beautiful the stained-glass was and I said yes it is a wonderful stained-glass picture and she says but if that stained-glass is there where's their baptistry because if you know anything about a Baptist church you got communion table pulpit baptistry and it's all in a line and it's all for a reason like this is our this is our construction we put it all in the center and it's in this way she said where's their baptistry I said well baby did you see the little water fountain at the front and she said no how do you get a person in there she didn't ask me that that wasn't it no no she's she was just surprised because this was very early on in our studies and we were very young and and she did not know that dr.
10:45: Sproul was Presbyterian so to know that he didn't baptize people by putting them in a tub that he didn't baptize people by immersing them in water that to her was an immediate like shock because she's thought everybody did that and you know if you grow up a Baptist or if you've only been a member of a Baptist church you might think that that's just what everybody does and when you go into a church where they pour water or where they sprinkle you might find yourself a little confused and so again that is my reason for today I want to address the the different ways that people baptize and talk about why we do it the way we do why are we convicted and we are convicted this is not and when I say it's not a primary issue that does not mean it's not important I would say the doctrines of grace are not a primary issue somebody cannot believe in Calvinism and not be saved that's so don't think it's important because I do think it's important just to be clear so today we're going to discuss two different types of baptism we're going to talk about and I'm going to use this whiteboard I know if you're watching that we have the camera got moved by the way if you're wondering why the sound room is up here now is because we really are hoping that wall comes out soon and so we've been trying to migrate some things around and that's why all of this is up here now but we're going to talk about two different words and that's why I have my big whiteboard that I asked for Adam to bring up here today we're going to talk about something called credo baptism and pedo baptism now these are the points of contention for today's lesson credo baptism comes from the Latin which the word that prefixes the baptism here is the word credo and credo is Latin for I believe so credo baptism is believers baptism meaning that the only people who are to be baptized are those who are able to profess faith in Jesus Christ now one immediate argument that comes is well what if the person doesn't genuinely have faith you can't look into somebody's heart and tell whether or not they have faith that is true but we can know whether or not they profess faith simply by asking right people come to the church all the time and one of the first questions we asked is do you know Christ do you know the Lord are you a believer right now again I can't look into your heart Caleb when you met me and I met you you were a believer but I couldn't look into your heart and prove that's true now we live life together now we do life together and I can learn more about you seeing the works of repentance that are flowing in your life but when I meet you I have to sort of take you at your word I'm a believer and that's a I believe statement it's a credo well the word pedo-baptism has a prefix which refers to children the word pedo meaning child but more specifically we would say infant so we'll call this infant baptism so we have two different types of baptism the credo-baptism says we require a person to make a statement of faith pedo-baptism says that a person who makes a statement of faith is to be baptized and his children and his children so for instance let me look around the room and see who we have here today well Matt and Anna came to our church and they had two children at the time they now have been blessed with a third but when they came to our church let's say they had come to our church as unbelievers heard the gospel and been saved praise the Lord that would have been a wonderful thing but they were already saved so that's good too they come to the church they get saved we would baptize them and by the way that's important to realize that people who practice this also practice this dr.
15:26: Sproul points that out in his lesson on infant baptism is that they would still baptize an unbelieving adult if they'd never been baptized before you see so they would take someone's profession of faith as reason to baptize them had they not been baptized before and they would baptize them but they would also see in their family their two children their lovely son and daughter as also being candidates hey baby also being candidates for baptism because their children according to this theology their children are brought into the covenant community by birth they are brought into the covenant community having been born to Christian parents or living in a Christian home now those two positions obviously cannot both be right this is one of those times where somebody's wrong sometimes you can agree to disagree and say well you might be right or I might be right and that's this is one of those times where one of us is wrong and so we have to then go back to the scripture to find our answer and I want to say very clearly that the Bible does not explicitly say that we are to baptize infants but it also does not explicitly forbid that we baptize infants and therefore when we talk about explicit statements they're not as abundant as we might like and therefore we do have to draw some inferences from the text on both sides and so we have to be honest about that but very quickly I do want to do I want to do a little exercise here as I normally do in the Academy we do and I'm not going to ask you to interact because this isn't a lesson in that regard but I do want you to think as I'm doing this up here I want to first ask the question who who is on this side and who is on this side historically who practices believers only baptism and who practices pedo baptism or infant baptism the first that we should recognize is on the side of the pedo Baptist we have the Roman Catholic Church the Roman Catholic Church has long practiced infant baptism the next church that we could put on this side would be the Orthodox Church the Orthodox Church has long have you ever seen an Orthodox infant baptism they immerse them at least the Roman Catholics and the others on this list poor the Eastern Orthodox I know I shouldn't have done that but that's just that's what they do they go in and out like a figure-eight and the baby is well aware that they've been baptized and unhappy but they do they in they immerse in a giant silver basin it's very neat to see even though I disagree with it still need to watch them do that so you have the Roman Catholic Church the Orthodox Church and then you have the Lutheran Church this is one of those things that Luther was very firm about about the baptism of infants now we also have the I'm going to say Presbyterian but understand under Presbyterian there's a lot of there's a lot of space under that because we could talk about the Orthodox Presbyterian the Presbyterian Church of America we talk about the Scottish Presbyterian Church we can talk about there's a lot under that reformed umbrella but we're just for now going to say Presbyterian all right so we have the Presbyterian Church and finally well not finally we can put the Anglicans and the Methodists now the Methodists I'm gonna put a star next to it because the Methodist actually depends on the church some practice believers baptism some practice infant baptism and some sort of do a hybrid where they let the parent decide right so the parent can choose one or the other so but understand this Methodists are actually an offshoot of the Anglican Church and so that if you understand some of the history of how these came about you'll kind of begin to get a better picture of how all this happened but notice that's a lot right like like because when I get over here trust me it ain't gonna be that many we are in the minority can I say here amen yeah we're in the minority on this we are both by virtue of how many churches and by virtue of history we're gonna talk about that in a minute too so by virtue of churches what churches practice believers baptism Baptists I mean it's sort of in the name what's another church practices believers baptism the Anabaptists now some people believe those two groups are the same historically they are not in fact one of the first things in the Baptist confessions that was written was we ain't Anabaptists like they like like if you read our confession the 1646 confession the 1644 confession even the 1689 we're writing this to distinguish ourselves from the Anabaptists now if you don't know who the Anabaptists are the modern-day expression the Anabaptists would be the the Mennonites the Amish the Hutterites even the Quakers are offshoots of the what was known as the radical Reformation that came out of Switzerland in the 16th or yeah 16th century 17th century so this is the two right away but there's others you may not realize this but most of your Pentecostal friends are also believers baptism and some of you aren't super excited cuz you're like well I had to have somebody on my team I'd make rather I mean no offense I love my Pentecostal brethren but we have some differences for sure but that's one area we tend to agree is on the issue you don't tend to see infant baptism in Pentecostal churches as much not saying it never happens but certainly the minority report and then we have on this side another group and that is a group that I would definitely separate myself from and that is the churches of Christ now the churches of Christ do believe in believers baptism meaning you have to be a believer to be baptized but the churches of Christ have an entirely different doctrine of baptism in that they believe very similarly to the the groups right here they believe that baptism actually accomplishes the function of bringing about a person's regeneration see if you ask a Roman Catholic what happens when you're baptized they will say that you are born again that baptism causes regeneration regeneration is just a fancy theological word for being born again so if you ask a Roman Catholic what happens when you baptize that baby that baby's born again they were just born now born again if you ask a orthodox same thing it's being born again in the water now Lutherans also believe that most people don't realize that Lutherans believe in baptismal regeneration they don't believe that the effects are applied until faith comes but they do believe in regeneration through baptism the Anglican sort of have a they always have a halfway the via media is what they're known for that means the Middle Road and their view is that baptism causes regeneration but it actually no I'm sorry there's grace in baptism but they actually don't receive regeneration until they believe so it's this there's sort of two things happening but the point is when we get over here Baptists and Presbyterians have a similar view and that neither of us would believe that baptism causes salvation neither of us would believe that baptism produces regeneration you ask a Presbyterian when they baptize their infant does that bring about their salvation and if they're being in keeping with their theology they will say no because even though they would say it marks them out it makes them a member of the Covenant it brings them into the Covenant community all those things that they would believe but they would be honest if they said but it does not produce regeneration so in that Baptists and Presbyterians would be similar because we see baptism not as something that produces regeneration but rather something that is a sign of entrance into the New Covenant now that brings me to the subject of circumcision because when we talk about circumcision what was circumcision in the Old Testament circumcision was the sign by which children of the Covenant were marked out from the rest of the world as being different from the rest of the world and of course it only was for boys because circumcision is a male operation but it was meant to separate that child out from there the world and separate them into the Covenant community remember I said last week circumcision has two parts separates out of and includes into separates out of the world includes into the Covenant community well in a similar sense baptism has that same effect because when we are baptized what are we doing we are saying to the world I am separating from the world and I am entering into this community of faith called the church I'm being made a part of the church in fact in this church you cannot join this church unless you have been baptized now some churches don't hold to that but we do you have to you have to be scripturally baptized before you can join this church because we believe that that sign is necessary as a act of obedience and a marking out of this person to be made part of the Covenant community in fact if you've been to our new members class you will know that because one of the things you have to acknowledge is either you have been baptized or you're willing to be baptized because can't join any other way so I want to mention this thinking back we would agree with the Presbyterians that baptism does not bring about regeneration but rather it is a sign of entrance into the new Covenant but if you notice over here I said these don't agree these have a different understanding and that's why when I move to this second portion I hope this makes sense to you because not only do they have the majority report of the church but they also have the majority report of history throughout the history of the church the vast majority of baptisms that have occurred have been on that side of the fence and that's I don't I don't know anybody who would want to argue that but if you want to come to me later and argue that there was some secret Baptist Society that existed outside of the church and there are people who believe there was a there was a fringe church that existed outside of the mainline church and that this fringe church has always practiced baptism these are called landmark Baptists and they have a very different view of church history than I do because they believe there was a hidden underground Baptist Church that's always existed I don't agree in fact I interviewed a man on my show two weeks three weeks ago and I told him I because he believed it and I said I don't don't agree but ultimately if we look at the history of the church infant baptism has been the majority report the first time we see infant baptism being written about is in the third century I'm gonna write that right here the third century Cyprian mentions baptism and the debate that he was discussing was whether or not infants should be baptized on the eighth day now why would he care whether they were baptized on the eighth day because circumcision happened on the eighth day so by the third century there was a tie between circumcision and baptism that had arisen children were being baptized in Christian homes and therefore by the MIT which by the way the third century is the 200 so around 250 we have writings that regard infant baptism okay so historically this has been going on for a long time when does the first Baptist Church not the first Baptist Church but when does the first when does the first Baptist for when do the first Baptists arise in history you may know I said it earlier think 17th century so the 17th century I am NOT good at math but I'm pretty sure that that is earlier than that by like a lot now you may think that I'm trying to convince you of infant baptism I'm not I'm just giving you the facts right I got to give you the facts and these are the facts the vast majority of church history has practiced infant baptism that is without a fact it was really without debate and it goes back at least to the third century after the time of Constantine it was the majority report Constantine would have been the fourth century so absolutely once the church became a state church and being baptized became a part of citizenship it was absolutely the majority report and that has to be understood historically as well by the way did you know there was a time in history where your baptism certificate could function as a birth certificate because that's how important baptism was in communities baptism was seen as a as a sign of a person's entrance into the community not just the covenant community but society in general in a Christian nation you understand America is not a Christian nation right oh I know I just made some people mad but listen listen up America is not a Christian nation now you we can argue we were founded on Judeo-Christian principles and we could talk about that all day long but a Christian nation is a nation where by virtue of citizenship you are part of the church we've never been that but there have been nations that were and so how do you become part of that church or nation you you baptize it's part of your citizenship in fact this is one of the reasons why I believe Luther and Calvin were so adamant at keeping it because Luther and Calvin wanted to maintain the state church model Luther and Calvin and Zwingli were what were known as magisterial reformers magisterial reformers means that they have the support of the magistrate or the City Council's leaders behind them and therefore they wanted to maintain the link between church and state America was a great experiment because America separated the link between church and state but that link was there got a little off topic let me get back to baptism you get into history for a second but my point is infant baptism was practiced much longer but I but I I have to quickly add this in the reason for it was different the reason for it was different Roman Catholics baptize infants for a different reason than Presbyterians do you understand what that matters because when a Presbyterian says well our baptism is 1800 years old slow down the mode and candidate is the same but the reason is different see the concept that Calvin introduced which was the concept of familial solidarity that we baptize our infants because they're part of the Covenant family was actually not the reason that the Roman Catholics baptized their infants the reasons that the Roman Catholics baptized their infants was because they believe that they were born with original sin and the original sin had to be washed away or if they died they would die and go to hell you see the difference in the theology there it's a much different theology so when we consider that we see that though the practice is ancient them the reason behind the practice is not consistent and inconsistency is the hallmark of a failed argument oh now I'm getting saucy is that because I don't believe in infant baptism but I do believe that it's been the majority of the report of the church I got to give you the facts but I also want you to notice something else notice that we see that it's the third century that it begins to be written about what happened in the first and second centuries that's a big question right because we don't have anything outside of Scripture in early Church writers that tell us what was happening we have very little writing about infant baptism from that period of time but we do have other writings the Bible for instance was written in the first century and what's our soul infallible rule of faith and practice Church the Bible that's the definition of sola scriptura the Bible alone is our infallible rule of faith and practice so we go to the scriptures but we also go to other historical documents and one that I like to point to is one that some of you maybe have never heard of how many of you have ever heard of the did a K okay a few hands have you been in my class I know you have you've been in my class for years I teach the Academy class here and I talk about the did a K a lot because I think it's an important document it's not Scripture no doubt we talked about this the other day it's not Scripture in fact I would say it's probably written in the second century so it's it's outside of even the apostolic era but it was written I would say probably in the mid possibly mid 100s okay so that's a that's that's an old document and I want you to hear what it says about baptism I brought I brought a copy of the relevant portion this is from chapter 7 of the did a K this was an early church document and understand what the did a K was the did a K was a document that was written as a manual of order for the early church it deals with things like how to handle visitors and how to deal with people who are needing ministry within the churches all kinds of stuff the did a K deals with and it's really neat to look at a 2,000 year old document and say that's how the church was doing it 2,000 years ago because we still do deal with that stuff today me and Andy and Mike when we have meetings we're still talking about some of the same stuff well here what the did a K says regarding baptism within we'll say within 200 years of the Apostles within 200 years of the Apostles this is chapter 7 it's only a short paragraph and concerning baptism baptized this way having first said all these things baptized into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit in living water but if you have not living water baptized into other water and if you cannot in cold then in warm but if you have not either pour out water thrice upon the head in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit I'm going to stop right there for just a moment in an interesting that it starts out with saying baptize them in living water living water by the way is like a stream of running water that's what living water is it's it's it's moving water so baptize them in the river but if you can't baptize them in the river baptize them in a pool and make sure the water's cold I didn't write it but it's like make sure the water's cold but if not you can use warm and if you don't have enough water you can pour I find that interesting because we often do make the big distinction whether you go in the pool or whether the water is poured on your head we make that a big deal even by the time of this document they were allowing for the pouring so okay that's interesting but here's the part that I find very interesting but before the baptism let the baptizer and the baptized and whatever others can fast but you shall order the baptized to fast one or two days before the baptism so what does this document say it says that in the early church a baptismal candidate was required to fast before they could be baptized now I don't know about you but I ain't never seen an infant fast the point of this is that the person who's being baptized is someone who understands what they're doing so much so that they can enter into a spiritual discipline of fasting prior to their baptism that is not something that you would expect to hear in a church that practices the baptism of infants now does that prove anything no but it does point to a historical reality that at least prior to the third century we have a document that shows that there was a requirement for baptism that was fasting by the way for those of you who are looking forward to being baptized here we don't require fasting but we do encourage it because it is a good spiritual discipline and it is a good time of preparation before you enter into the water to be baptized now all of that was introduction now let's look at the text I have five minutes and I got as much time as I want you guys just leave I just keep talking now I want to I want to now address the scripture because again we've gone back in history we've showed both sides we've said one side wins the war of how many churches and one side wins the war of the historical practice but that doesn't make it right because I could argue with you that the practice of praying to Saints is also ancient but none of us would agree that that is right the practice of praying the Rosary is over a thousand years old but none of us would agree that we should be doing that so let us be careful to always say that just because it has become tradition that makes it correct what does the Bible tell us about traditions everybody said something different Bible says a lot about traditions let me give you my answer it's like I hear what everybody said it says that we ought not teach as doctrines the commandments of men don't teach his doctrines the commandments of men so what are the textual arguments well one of the first textual arguments that comes up in regard to the subject of baptism is the fact that often in the Bible when baptism is mentioned households are mentioned I'll give you three examples in the case of Lydia and Acts chapter 16 verse 15 when Lydia was baptized she was also baptized along with her house and we read that in Acts 16 verse 15 another house that was baptized in that very same chapter was the Philippian jailer you remember when Paul and Silas were singing in prison and the jailer came in he was going to commit suicide and Paul says don't hurt yourself we're still here we haven't escaped because the earthquake had opened up everything and he went to their home with him that night and what did he do he baptized them and who else their household we also see in the book of 1st Corinthians the baptism of Stephanus and it says the household of Stephanus so this creates what's known as the doctrine of Oikobaptism or household baptism or Oikos referring to household and again that is not proof it's just an argument from the side of the infant baptizing who would say well if they baptized all the family and it stands to reason that there may have been an infant in those homes then they would have baptized the infant and therefore we should baptize infants now maybe you've heard that argument maybe you haven't maybe you've dealt with that argument maybe you haven't I want to tell you my response to that is that one I think that it is absolute conjecture to assume that there were infants in those households because very few households have infants because I could go around the room right now and the vast majority of people in this room live in households where there are no infants I happen to be an infant haver that's not right I couldn't think of a good word I have an infant in my home but I haven't for long he's only been there for the last five months right I mean I'm not going to ask you to raise your hand but not everybody in here has an infant so to assume that these these houses would have had infants I think is an assumption and even dr.
44:18: Sproul and his lesson on this same subject again he disagrees with me he even says he doesn't think this is the best of arguments because it's an argument from silence it doesn't say there were infants and therefore it's conjecture at best the second argument is the argument that children of believers at least one believing parent are made holy and I'll invite you to turn to this one because this one may be one that we want to look at at least for a second turn to 1st Corinthians chapter 7 and go to verse 14 it says in verse 14 it says the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband otherwise your children would be unclean but as it is they are holy right there your children are called holy and the argument goes well if your children are made holy then they are candidates for baptism my response and I'm going to make this very short you can hear my longer response if you want to go back I was on a podcast recently we're actually debated a Presbyterian on this subject and I showed that this argument I don't think holds water but here's the simple part of my argument if you're going to baptize the unbelieving child then you have to baptize the unbelieving spouse and they're not willing to do that because both of them are called holy in this passage so I don't think that the argument holds water it says both of them are made holy by the believing spouse but we only baptize one why because of tradition not because of the text all right another passage is Acts chapter 2 so if you want to turn there very quickly in Acts chapter 2 the apostle Peter is preaching and he is asked in verse 20 let's see excuse me verse 37 he is asked what should we do he just got done preaching his sermon on the day of Pentecost and the response is from the people it says now when they heard this they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the Apostles brothers what shall we do and Peter said unto them repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit so that what do you do you repent and you be baptized that's what you do that's how you respond to the gospel repent and be baptized which is which is parallel to believe because you wouldn't believe you wouldn't be baptized if you didn't believe so there's a parallel there repent and believe repent and be baptized verse 39 is the part that's normally disagreed upon because it says in verse 39 this promise is for you and for your children and that's normally where they stop by the way because they'll say this is for you and your children see your children need to be baptized but that's not where the verse stops so that's not where we're going to stop it says for this promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself what is Paul what is Peter saying Peter was just asked a question the question was what do we do at the response of the gospel how do we respond Peter says repent and be baptized and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit and that promise what's the promise the gift of the Holy Spirit that promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off as many as our Lord will call to himself so what Peter is saying is that yes indeed your children are included in the promise if they believe they are included in the promise the same way anyone is included in the promise if they are called by God and given the gift of faith so those are only a few passages there are many others that we could discuss and debate but ultimately it all comes down to this question who is a member of the new covenant who is a member of the new covenant the old covenant members were covenant members by birth they were brought into the covenant of God by birth new covenant members are brought in by rebirth recently I interviewed dr.