What Happened to Baptism? | Theocast

Theocast

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:02

Hi, this is John, and today on Theocanist, Justin and I are going to have a conversation of what happened to baptism.

00:09

How was its meaning lost? Which is union in Christ. That is the purpose of baptism according to scripture, and it's supposed to be a means of grace, a way to encourage and strengthen our faith, yet it's been lost.

00:22

Many things have influenced it, things like Arminian theology, pietism, and revivalism.

00:28

So Justin and I are going to have a conversation about what happened to it, how it was lost, and then we're going to use scripture to help bring us back to the encouraging strength of our faith, and that is baptism is union in Christ.

00:41

Stay tuned. A simple and easy way for you to help support Theocast each month is by shopping at Amazon through the

00:47

Amazon Smile program. When you make a purchase through Amazon Smile, a portion of the proceeds will be donated to our ministry.

00:53

To learn how to sign up, just go to theocast .org slash give. Welcome to Theocast, encouraging worried pilgrims to rest in Christ.

01:14

Conversations about the Christian life from a Reformed, confessional, and pastoral perspective. Your hosts today are

01:20

Justin Perdue, pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in Asheville, North Carolina, and I'm John Moffitt, pastor of Grace Reformed Church in Springville, Tennessee.

01:27

And for those of you watching on YouTube, yes, Justin and I have a larger wardrobe than what you've seen in the last two weeks.

01:32

We've just done two episodes back to back. We're just doubling up today, which means this episode is going to be done because we've already done an hour, which means

01:43

Justin and I have loosened up and we're in midweek form. Or we're just more tired.

01:49

It could be all three. But Justin, today, according to the title of the podcast,

01:55

I'm sure many are very interested in hearing what we have to say. So go ahead and relieve some pressure and then go ahead and set us up for others.

02:04

We're going to discipline, discipline, disappoint some, encourage others. Oh, there we go.

02:13

That's a minute and a half too long. Let's get into it. Yeah. Make Christ have mercy. That's right.

02:18

Yeah. Some disclaimers to start. So whenever the word baptism shows up in the title of a podcast, it's probably going to provoke people like, oh my gosh, what are these guys going to talk about?

02:28

So let's just go ahead and say from the jump that we're not having the conversation about paedo -baptism versus credo -baptism.

02:34

That is not at all the point of this episode. I trust that we're going to be talking about things that confessional

02:39

Lutherans, Presbyterians, Reformed churches, and confessional Baptists will agree upon. And so we're going to rejoice in baptism as a means of grace.

02:49

And so we're going to talk about it from a confessional covenantal perspective. And so when we ask the question, what happened to baptism?

02:56

We're asking what happened to this understanding of baptism in the evangelical church?

03:02

That's right. Because as we survey the landscape of evangelicalism and how baptism is thought about or just not thought about in some cases, what we see does not sound at all like,

03:13

John, what we would read in our confession. So truth in advertising for those who are newer to Theocast, John and I both subscribe to the

03:20

Second London Confession, the 1689 London Baptist Confession. So we are credo -baptistic guys, we're confessional covenantal guys, and we're coming at it from that angle.

03:28

So if you don't know what those things mean, stay with us, track with us. We hope you're going to be encouraged. But as we look around at many churches in our day, you've got one stream,

03:36

John, that I would say is just hailing straight from revivalism that is very pragmatic, that is very attractional in its philosophy.

03:44

Oftentimes you would see this demonstrated most clearly maybe in the megachurches that still exist where baptism is this big thing and there's a lot of excitement, there's a lot of hype, and you walk the aisle, you do the thing, you get dunked up there in front of everybody, they film it, it's put on social media, you take your picture after over here and you get the t -shirt when you leave.

04:05

That occurs and that's a thing that still happens. So we're going to talk about that a little bit and just what we observe there.

04:13

There's another stream though, maybe a revivalistic piece too, I'll just go and insert this one, this might be a third one, but a more maybe old -school revivalism that we may be able to touch on a little bit that's not as maybe bells and whistle -like as the megachurch movement is, but it's still revivalistic at its heart.

04:29

It's all about the decision to follow Jesus and this initiatory thing. Then over here in another stream amongst more thoughtful evangelicals, particularly

04:37

Calvinistic Baptist types, you have a discussion about baptism that's well -intentioned and the emphases are these.

04:46

Baptism is a step of obedience in following Christ. Baptism is how one publicly professes faith and baptism is how one is admitted into the church.

04:56

We're going to talk about that approach and that stream of thinking and just consider how baptism is certainly not less than those things, but it is a whole lot more than that.

05:05

Where we want to land and where we want to spend the majority of our time is talking about what baptism is biblically, how

05:14

Reformed people have understood it through history, and how Confessional Covenantal Baptist John have understood this through history in agreement with many brothers and sisters from other traditions.

05:24

Baptism is a means of God's grace that he gives us because it's for our good, because we're weak, and because we need it.

05:31

It is his testimony to us, it's his pledge to us, and ultimately, baptism is about our union with Christ and it's about the remission of our sins.

05:40

We're going to talk about those things today. I'm excited for this conversation, so again, unifying conversation around baptism.

05:47

God is so good to us saints in what he gives us. He gives us the sacraments for our benefit.

05:53

They are about his faithfulness to us, not ours to him. That's the posture that we're coming into this conversation with. That's right.

05:58

For those that might be new to the word sacrament, I always do this in my membership class. I know Justin does too. It's a good word.

06:04

You mean we're not Roman Catholic? Yeah. Well, yeah. And the thing is, Justin and I are Catholic in that we do believe in the word universal is what

06:12

Catholic means. We do believe in the universal believing of all believers, of faith of all believers. And sacrament literally just means sacred command, and that is sacred command from Christ.

06:23

And Christ gave us two sacraments, and so it's a good word. We can still use it. If it's been misused, we can reclaim it.

06:31

They are sacred ordinances that the Lord Jesus gives us that we receive by faith as a means of God's grace.

06:38

That's right. Amen. Amen to that. So the tradition I grew up in, and I know Justin grew up in a similar tradition, is that baptism never was offered to me as a means of grace.

06:48

I would never say that I was excited about my baptism post the event. It just kind of became one of those things that I just happened to, you know, like, to be honest with you,

06:59

I wear a wedding ring, but I don't get really excited about wearing one. It's just something that we do.

07:04

I'm actually not a big guy on jewelry. I like watches. I kind of wish we did a wedding watch. I'd prefer it over a ring.

07:11

Maybe we can start a new tradition, Justin. We'll start wedding watches. We've just lost about, I don't know, tens of listeners.

07:18

But we wear a wedding ring, and it's, you know, I'm thankful for it. It's a great identifier. It's a great reminder to me.

07:25

But baptism wasn't that. I would say definitely a wedding ring is more of a special reminder for me than my own baptism, which is sad because the way in which,

07:34

I'll even just start with this particular passage as a lead in for something later, but even in the way in which

07:40

Paul says in Galatians 3 .27, for as many of you were baptized into Christ, have put on Christ, that is like overwhelming once you understand what

07:51

Paul means by to put on Christ. Like, God looks at me as if I am his son in Christ.

07:58

It's glorious. But that's not how I saw baptism. The way in which I was trained and developed in my theology, which

08:05

I know a lot of you listening probably have this experience as well, is that baptism was that first step of obedience.

08:12

And it wasn't presented to me as a joy and something to be celebrated in that what

08:19

I was going to be receiving. It was more of an obligation. And if you weren't willing to be baptized, what's wrong with you?

08:25

You know, I was talking with a youth pastor once and he was telling me his woes about none of his youth wanting to be baptized.

08:31

And so I said, well, I said, explain baptism to me from your church and how it works. And I, you know, by the time he was done and I was like, well, no teenager in the right mind would want to do that.

08:41

That sounds humiliating. And he was like, what do you mean? I said, bro, the whole idea of baptism in that is basically, it's this dedication.

08:51

In other words, you are making it more about this massive, life -altering, radical decision for Christ versus what's already happened to you.

09:02

It's like a second level of Christianity. And that's not what baptism should be. It's not a second level of Christianity.

09:09

Yeah. I'll just go and say this since you've brought these things up. That is a dead giveaway that we have turned baptism into something that is primarily about us and it's primarily about our commitment level, our zeal, and our faithfulness to God.

09:24

And that is a great sadness and a tragedy. And this is a more broad comment about the sacraments in general.

09:30

I alluded to this earlier. I think one of the great sadnesses that exists in the evangelical church is the fact that the sacraments have been turned into something that is about us and it's about our faithfulness and our dedication, our abstinence from sin, and all these kinds of things.

09:44

And the sacraments actually produce anxiety for us rather than us seeing the sacraments as what they are, the gifts of God to us because He's gracious and kind and because we're weak and we need these things.

09:56

And they're actually meant to be something that strengthen and bolster us in the Christian life, even as we reflect back on our baptism and as we come week after week to the

10:06

Lord's table, we're sustained and nourished by these things. And it's really lamentable that that's not at all how the average

10:14

Protestant in this country, certainly of an evangelical ilk, would think about the sacraments. So, yeah,

10:20

I mean, just really quickly on the... Maybe, John, let's riff for a second or talk for a second about the kind of attractional hype train model of baptism that exists out there and just how that's detrimental.

10:33

And it's sadly common, man, particularly in the baptistic world. And you would see that, as I do, as a bad fruit of revivalism.

10:41

Do you want to talk about that for a minute? Yeah. And, you know, I want to start here.

10:47

I'm going to speak because Justin and I talked about this beforehand. So I'm going to speak on our behalf or on his behalf. We are not impugning people's intentions, right?

10:55

We're not saying how evil their hearts are, how stupid they are, none of those things at all.

11:02

You know, I take great comfort from Paul when he says that we as Christians who seriously love

11:08

Jesus can be tossed about by every wind of doctrine. We can be thrown over into areas we should not be and we don't intend to be there.

11:17

But if we've not been grounded in the truth of Christ, if men have not been rightly dividing the word of God, if we've not held truth, then it's easy to do so.

11:25

And so what we're about to say, please do not see us being critical for the sake of being critical or comparing ourselves to other people.

11:35

So there we go. Caveat set. That being said, I do believe that the desire, which is to celebrate the gospel and to celebrate what

11:45

Christ has done because of a Arminian background and because of a decisionalism, this is all based on decisionalism, we then celebrate the decision.

11:59

So instead of what Paul says in Ephesians, we do not have reasons to boast.

12:05

Therefore, a baptism should not be a moment of boasting. I think it does turn into that because of revivalism.

12:11

Right. So revivalism was you go into a town or the concept, I won't talk about the actual outflow of it, but the concept of it was to bring a powerful, fear -based message driven by guilt to press upon people to make a decision.

12:30

And once they made the decision, then it was celebrated and the way in which it was celebrated was baptism.

12:38

Even that song, I Have Decided to Follow Jesus, No Turning Back, is the outflow of the revivalism and the revivalistic understanding.

12:48

And so when you see a lot of baptisms today, and I would even say this is really big in the Baptist world, the Sun Baptist world, where it's this celebration, you get a t -shirt, there's a big hurrah.

12:57

And listen, I'm all about celebrating what Christ has done. So I'm not saying you can't celebrate baptism, but it's more on the decision that someone made versus what has happened to that person.

13:09

You were dead, now you're alive. No, amen. That's not what we're celebrating. No, I agree. I mean, I'll just go and say this, at CBC, I mean, when baptisms occur, it is celebratory.

13:19

Big time. I mean, we don't teach people or tell people what to do. I mean, we do baptisms, when we do them, we do them at the very end of our service after we come to the table.

13:27

And it is spontaneous. When someone is baptized and they come out of the water, I mean, it is kind of a cry of jubilance from the congregation.

13:36

And it's not because they're trying to be weird, but it's because this is awesome what the Lord has done. And I'll talk about the liturgy we use for baptism here in a minute, but the emphasis is unashamedly on union with Christ, the remission of sins, and that God grants faith and repentance, and that that is what we are celebrating today.

13:54

And so that's just a very different perspective than what you're describing, and we'll get to that more in a minute. Yeah, I would just maybe double down on what you said and say that whether we're talking about the megachurch movement, which frankly is just a modern attractional presentation of revivalism, or whether we're talking about more of an old school hellfire and brimstone, or just more of an old school tent meeting type feel to a revivalistic approach.

14:23

Either way, the fruit is bad. And what we've got there, as you said, it's typically an intense message.

14:30

There is pressure of a spiritual and emotional nature put on people, and the goal is to get people to make a decision and then to live a morally transformed life thereafter, and so one can see when you put all those pieces together how baptism as it fits in between that big decision, that personal fervor and intensity within, and I make the profession, and I make the decision, and I go and I get baptized, now

14:54

I'm going to live a morally upright life. That's how it's talked about, and no wonder people have trepidation about that kind of an understanding of baptism.

15:04

I say, I don't know if I'm ready for this. I don't know if I want to do this. I'm sympathetic to that. Now, let's talk briefly maybe about a more thoughtful stream amongst evangelicals, the

15:11

Calvinistic, Baptistic types, and if that's not the tradition that you find yourselves in, you still, though,

15:17

I think can identify with some of these things, there is a tendency there, too, with the best of intentions to turn baptism into something that's about our faithfulness, and it's about our discipline and our obedience and our sincerity, and so baptism is talked about there as obedience to Christ.

15:32

It's talked about as a public profession of faith. It's talked about as entryway into the church, and when it comes to those things,

15:37

John and I would not dispute that those things are true. It's a clear command of Christ to be baptized. Great.

15:44

Clearly, it is a public profession of faith because it's done as a means of grace in the congregation of the saints, so it's public, and then, yeah, everybody agrees that baptism is the sacrament by which we are initiated and by which we enter into the membership of the church.

16:00

That's true, and so we don't dispute any of that, but there's a lot more that we can say, and the emphasis in this world is often upon the decision made, the sovereign grace of God in regenerating the person, yes, but now this act of baptism and initiation into the church, and it's not so much what's said that's bad, it's what's lacking that's bad, and that's,

16:25

I think, where we're going to go next. John, do you have thoughts about this, though? Because you came from this world, too, just in a different sense because you were in more of the

16:32

Bible church stream, whereas I was in more of the Calvinistic evangelical stream that was

16:39

Baptist. Well, and as you mentioned, it's still rooted in pietism, so for those of you that might be new to the podcast or new to Reformed theology, if you've not read our book on rest,

16:51

I encourage you to do so. Justin has a brilliant section in there on what is pietism, and he compares it to what we're trying to explain about resting in Christ, but pietism is this overemphasis on, like, you are constantly looking internally to confirm one's faith, and we misuse passages like examine yourself to see if you're of the faith, or work out your salvation with fear and trembling.

17:15

Those passages, when looking at context, it is not a self -examination because we're worried about whether we're truly regenerate or not, and baptism can often fall into that to where it becomes a means of confirmation of our salvation, which is slightly true, and we'll get to that in a little bit when we talk about remembering our baptism, but it can be used as a means of the evidence of it, and we can say things like it's an outward sign of an inward reality, and that's basically all it is.

17:49

It kind of stops at that moment, but when you're baptized, it's just another fruit confirmation that you need to do in order to prove to people that you are a believer.

18:01

It's evidence of a credible profession, and I know our elders wrote a position paper on baptism where we outline our view as covenantal confessional guys that's different than that, and we don't need to get into the minutiae of that.

18:18

But I will say in that teaching, Justin, that baptism almost gets robbed of its joy.

18:26

It purely is just an evidence. It's all it is. It's evidence, and it gets robbed of its joy, too, because of the scrutiny with which we approach the whole thing.

18:37

Not that we don't want to be discerning, not that we don't want to be thoughtful, but just like in a pedobaptistic church, you're trying to exercise great discretion and discernment about when to admit someone to the

18:45

Lord's table. Of course we want to be wise and discerning and thoughtful in how we practice these things and how we administer the sacraments, but it's a detriment to us all when we approach things with such scrutiny that it becomes anxiety -producing, and the agony is about whether or not we're going to mess it up rather than the focal point being the grace of God to someone who sincerely means to trust in Christ.

19:06

Anyway, we could probably move on here because I know we want to spend the bulk of our time here talking about, hey, there's a better way, and there's a more historic way to think about these things.

19:16

So let's talk about this from a confessional perspective and a covenantal perspective, and I'll just go ahead and say a few things,

19:22

John, and I might even read a little bit from our confession just to launch us into this conversation. So if I were to summarize what is baptism in a word, in a phrase, baptism is about our union with Christ.

19:39

It is the sign of our union with Christ. So listen to these words.

19:44

This is chapter 29, paragraph 1 from the Second London Confession. Baptism is an ordinance of the

19:50

New Testament ordained by Jesus Christ. Ordinance is just a synonym for sacrament, by the way. To those baptized, it is a sign of their fellowship with Him in His death and resurrection, of their being grafted into Him, of remission of sins.

20:06

How often do you hear people say that? And of submitting themselves to God through Jesus Christ to live and walk in newness of life.

20:13

So there's that latter portion about life moving forward in the Lord Jesus Christ, which sadly is the only part that's ever mentioned in most contexts.

20:21

But hear this. It's about a sign of our fellowship with Jesus in His death and resurrection, that's

20:26

Romans 6. It's of our being grafted into Him. That's also Romans 6 kind of language,

20:31

Colossians language, Galatians language, of remission of sins. I mean, that is significant, that it's a sign of the remission of our sins.

20:41

And then it's a sign that we have been raised to walk in newness of life in the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen to all those things. If you're new to Theocast, we have a free ebook available for you called

20:53

Faith vs. Faithfulness, A Primer on Rest. And if you've struggled with legalism, a lack of assurance, or simply want to know what it means to live by faith alone, we wrote this little book to provide a simple answer from a

21:05

Reformed confessional perspective. You can get your free copy at theocast .org

21:10

slash primer. So this is the part where we're going to talk about how to get where we get to then come in and use

21:19

Scripture where at times it can be confusing, but this is where I would say, like Justin, in my membership class,

21:27

I had someone this last week ask me, well, what's your view on baptism? And the way in which

21:33

I describe baptism is this way. If God has instituted by means of Christ that it is part of the two ordinances that are given to the church, both of them are designed to do the same.

21:46

So when we think about communion, unfortunately, we just need to... We should probably do a podcast on the

21:52

Lord's Supper. Probably. We'll do a little tip of the hat to it here. Maybe we can do it next week.

21:57

Yeah. Communion has also been lost. It's turned into a detriment. It's been turned into an examination.

22:05

Oh brother, it's one of the most anxiety producing moments of anybody's Christian life. Which I understand why churches have pushed it to once a month, once a quarter, once a year, if at all.

22:14

I understand. But for those of us who understand that it is the means by which God has said, I'm going to strengthen your faith.

22:20

I'm going to encourage the weak hearted. I'm going to be reminding you of who I am. Literally, what does Jesus say?

22:25

I'm going to give you all that your faith and love might lack. Jesus says, when you do this, remember me. Well, remember what part of Jesus, right?

22:32

Jesus as judge? Jesus as condemned? No, Jesus as our savior, right?

22:38

As our replacement. The body of Christ and the blood of Christ for you. That's right. For you.

22:43

So both of these are pictures. So I love this idea.

22:49

They are visual representations of the gospel, right? They are visual representations of the gospel.

22:54

So we, we hold as sign Jesus's body and blood. And then in baptism, we experience the washing away and covering of Christ.

23:06

So Christ cleanses us and then he covers us, right? And we come out fully clothed in the representation of Jesus Christ.

23:14

So it's going back to Galatians, what I had quoted earlier. What does he say in Galatians 3, 27, right?

23:20

For as many as you were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. So our baptism is the representation of who our new identity.

23:31

This is why he says walk in newness of life, because the way in which we now approach

23:38

God as a baptized believer is one who says, I, by means of Christ's work on my behalf,

23:45

I now receive all of the inheritance of Jesus because of my baptism, because of my baptism.

23:52

Well, and it's like, yeah, so you're baptized. So that means that you have put on Christ. You've been clothed in his garments and everything that's his is yours.

23:59

Let's here's some, here's some more scripture, Romans six. I'm going to read this and comment. So Paul says, beginning in Romans six, three, do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death.

24:10

We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the father, we too might walk in newness of life for if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.

24:27

We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.

24:35

For one who has died has been set free from sin. He goes on. I mean, why do I read all of those verses? Because what's happening in the waters of baptism?

24:43

I mean, you were talking about this earlier. As surely as I go under the water, I have been united to Christ in his death and his burial.

24:49

His death is my death. In Christ, I've died to the law and I'm now free from it. And as surely as I come out of the water,

24:55

I've been united to Christ in his resurrection. So I've been raised to walk in newness of life now, but ultimately this is pointing to the resurrection that God will cause to happen to me one day when my body is ripped from the grave.

25:07

And so in being grafted into the Lord Jesus, all of the things that he's accomplished is now counted to me, and everything that's his is mine.

25:14

And so we talk in these terms about baptism, and I'm just so heartbroken,

25:21

John, that I know I grew up never hearing any of this, and I know that many, many other people grew up the same way or have spent their life in the church the same way.

25:30

There are other texts that we could perhaps look at, but I'm happy. I'm happy. No, yeah. And I have another one,

25:36

Colossians 2, just going to that same idea of our past and many people's understandings.

25:41

And some have been raised in, you know, titled or performed churches that still don't emphasize these things, that get caught off on other areas of the culture.

25:50

But what I love about this is that when Paul says in Colossians 2, in him also, you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands by putting off the body of the flesh by the circumcisions of Christ.

26:02

So this, again, this was not a decision you made. You didn't make this decision.

26:08

It's regeneration, man. Christ did this to you. So this is why, even when we, to receive baptism is also something we receive.

26:19

We don't baptize ourselves, right? We receive baptism. So then he says this, having being buried with him in baptism, in which you also were raised with him through faith in the power of working of God, just going down later in this whole idea, he then says in verse 16, therefore, let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food or drink or whether regardless of festivals or Sabbath, he said, listen, you have been set free from all of it because God has circumcised your heart.

26:50

He's cleansed you. He's washed you. Again, this is the language of baptism. So again, when

26:56

I say it's a visible sign of the gospel, this is why we celebrate. We erupt in roar.

27:04

Why? Because we're watching the gospel before our very eyes. All right.

27:09

So I'm going to read, it's brief. I'm going to read the liturgy that we use, that our elders have written for our congregation.

27:15

Largely based on our confession and then based on other things in the scriptures. And obviously, you know, you would fill in the blank of the person's name and depending on whether it's male or female,

27:23

I'm just going to use he for the simplicity of reading it. So, you know,

27:29

John comes today to be baptized as a sign of his union with the

27:34

Lord Jesus Christ, as a sign of his union with him in his life, death, and resurrection, as a sign of the remission of his sins, as a sign of his being raised to walk in newness of life in Christ, as a sign of his being sealed with the promised

27:48

Holy Spirit, as a sign of God's pledge to keep him unto salvation. So that's how we start, and that's what's emphasized.

27:59

It's about God's action. It's about what Christ has accomplished. It's about union with Christ and the remission of sins and the fact that God will keep us kept, right?

28:09

And this is what baptism is about, and this is why it's celebratory. And so this is why,

28:15

John, I'm maybe slight pivot here to talk about pastoral applications and how baptism is used, should be used in the life of the church, even as we talk with people and even as we ourselves are wrestling with sin and doubt and all these things and fear.

28:31

The phrase, remember your baptism, is a phrase that we use a lot in our congregation and people might, if you're not, if you're new, especially to like confessional streams of thinking, you might be thinking like, what are you talking about, brother?

28:44

Here's what we're talking about. Remember your baptism. We're telling you, remember that there was a point in time in your life that here you are today, you're struggling, that's acknowledged.

28:54

There was a point in time in your life where you were baptized, you received baptism, it was given to you as a sign of the fact that you've been united to the

29:02

Lord Jesus Christ and that He has you, that your sins are forgiven and there's been the remission of those in Christ Jesus, and God is going to keep you as a result of your union with Christ, you will be finally saved.

29:17

There was a time in your life where that occurred and here you sit today in the midst of struggles and wrestlings and fears and doubts and all that, still meaning to trust the

29:25

Lord Jesus Christ. And how in the world do you think that happened? It's because God has done that for you. Remember your baptism and when we say remember your baptism, we are encouraging you to remember your union with Christ as signified to you through that thing that happened to you.

29:41

And this is a means of God's grace to you and it's His testimony and His pledge to you that you've been united to His Son and therefore will never be lost.

29:53

And so it's just another way for us to talk and to preach the gospel to people that they might look away from themselves unto the

29:59

Lord Jesus Christ and look upon the grace of God that they received in the sacrament of baptism.

30:05

That's so good. So all throughout the Old Testament, God has been instituting signs and symbols.

30:11

He has been instituting forms by which Israel could look to as remembrances.

30:16

And so they would build altars and God would institute different things. I mean, a great example of this is the rainbow in the sky.

30:24

We look to the promises to God. And so baptism is another, which by the way, the whole flood and the ark is also who uses that,

30:33

Peter, as an illustration of baptism. My flood sermon was called

30:39

Brought Safely Through Water when I preached in Genesis. Yeah. So God, in His kindness and His grace, has given us signs and symbols that we might look on them and say, assuredly, as this has happened,

30:50

God's promises are assured to us. And I love that God, to people who are visible, to people who are tangible, we taste, we see, we look, we feel.

31:02

And God says in His kindness, I'm going to give you something as a remembrance that you might constantly receive.

31:08

I'm going to give you a sign of my covenant. That's right. And the purpose of it is not just for you to remember. It's just not just like, oh, yeah, that happened.

31:16

The purpose of it is grace. That's the part of it that was lost for me, was never really explained to me, that when

31:25

I embrace the three means, one, His word spoken to me, then number two,

31:32

His word in fellowship, right? We consider how to build one another up in fellowship. This is a means of God's grace.

31:38

And then we are given prayer as a means where we kick and we commune with the Father to cast our anxieties upon Him and request from Him mercy and grace.

31:47

And then He says a third way in which you will receive the ongoing supplement of my grace, this way which will strengthen you and encourage you in times of weakness, is these two sacraments, baptism and the

32:00

Lord's table, my table, my body, my blood. So my encouragement to you is that baptism, when rightly understood, it's great to remember, because this is why,

32:10

Justin, when we sin, when we sin, why can

32:16

I run with boldness into the throne room of my Father? Because I am clothed in the baptism.

32:24

I am clothed in Christ and I have right to be there, not because of my merit, but because of the merit of Christ and that was given to me in my baptism.

32:36

You've been united to Christ. You are in Him. You have put Him on, right? And in Him, you have washed your robes white and made them clean.

32:44

That's right. Yeah. Why do I have boldness to stand and preach the gospel as a sinner? Because of my baptism.

32:50

Why do I have the right to request from the Father when I have need? Because of my baptism.

32:56

It's always pointing back to, because remember, it is a sign pointing to the reality of what happened.

33:04

And those two are supposed to be the encouraging factor that my faith is in something that is outside of myself and my worth and my actions.

33:12

It's a sign of God's covenant of grace, baptism is. And well, what is the covenant of grace? It is the fact that it's the covenant that God gives to us, wherein

33:24

Jesus, His merit in fulfilling a covenant of works is counted to us.

33:30

It's given to us. We receive it by faith. It's given in grace. We don't earn it. We don't achieve it.

33:35

We receive it. So that's what the covenant of grace is. And that covenant is signified by this sign.

33:44

That's right. You know, in addition, this is the initiatory one. We're marked off as people of the new covenant.

33:50

We're marked off as people of the covenant of grace in receiving the sign of baptism. And then the other sacrament that we're given, the

33:58

Lord's Supper, this is the new covenant in my blood. And obviously we can talk about that maybe in another episode.

34:07

Well, we may talk about the Lord's Supper next week even, but this is how we should talk, we should talk in covenant of grace language, promises of God language, union with Christ language, remission of sin language, the fact that God will keep us in Christ's language, that's what baptism is about.

34:26

And this is so encouraging and it strengthens and bolsters us, comforts us, reminds us of what

34:34

God has done. And then from it, there are all kinds of things that we could talk about in terms of the

34:41

Christian life, but this is something that happens to us. Well, that's kind of where I wanted to go for a little bit and then we could take it into, I'm sorry, but multiple times

34:48

Paul says, because of your baptism, now walk in newness of life.

34:54

What he means by that is that not only have you been liberated from your sin and the wrath of God, but you have been granted all of the obedience and righteousness and favor of Christ.

35:09

So he goes, you can actually live as if that's true.

35:15

Not live as if, he says, live because it's true. What that means is that, you know, sometimes we walk around with this obligation all the time.

35:24

I'm obligated to do this. And Paul's like, no, you're not obligated.

35:29

You've been set free. Now live like it. James says it this way. He says, so speak and so act as ones who have been under the law of liberty.

35:39

You've been liberated from it. And so your baptism, he wants us to remember it, recall upon it because you now are going to live every single day as a child of the

35:51

King, inheriting all of the blessings of Christ, and you're going to live reflecting, or as Paul says in Ephesians four, walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you've been called, right?

36:02

So we now have been set free to enjoy this newness that we have in life.

36:09

Amen. Romans six, really helpful, really instructive in this way. How does Paul begin to respond to the age old objection?

36:19

Should we just send all the more that grace may abound? He responds with union with Christ. And in responding with union with Christ, where does he start?

36:26

Baptism. We've been baptized into him. We've been united to him. We've died to the law in him.

36:32

We've died to sin in him. We've been set free from the tyranny of sin via union with Christ, baptism.

36:39

And then he goes on to talk about how, you know, we're no longer under the dominion and tyranny of sin. We're not under the law anymore.

36:45

We are under grace and how we have become obedient from the heart. So that's super, super significant in thinking about the

36:53

Christian life. We always talk about how the Christian life, it all flows out of justification. It flows out of union with Christ.

37:01

Well, it's right to say it flows out of baptism. It is right to say that. And nobody talks this way,

37:07

John. That's my final comment for the regular episode. Yeah, I'm with you. Take us over to SR, dude. Yeah. Yeah, no, there's, um, we've got a couple more things.

37:15

I definitely want to, I think we need to spend a little bit more time in helping people understand, uh, baptism and union with Christ, the benefits of Christ.

37:23

What does that look like? Um, I've got a couple more thoughts on that and how we tend to de -emphasize things that we need to be emphasizing.

37:31

And it could be because of things like pietism, lordship, salvation, uh, of really a lack of understanding of the sovereignty of God and our salvation.

37:39

So, uh, for those of you that are interested, Justin and I do a second podcast every week, it's, uh, where we kind of, uh, land the plane often on some of our thoughts here.

37:49

And, uh, we started this podcast kind of as a thank you and as a way to continue the conversation for those who partner with our ministry, who want to see the message of the reformation continue.

37:59

And so we started a ministry and a podcast called Simple Reformanda, which means always reforming. And this ministry, uh, again, is for those who partner with us.

38:07

And we have an app that we interact with. There's hundreds of people on there. Uh, we produce this podcast and we would love for you to come over and enjoy that with us, you can go to theocast .org

38:17

if you'd like to learn more about that. And for those of you that are going to be joining us over there, we'll see you. If not, thank you for listening and the