Why Reformed Baptists Shouldn't Become Presbyterians

Welcome back to Conversations with a Calvinist. My name is Keith Foskey, and I am a Calvinist. I am joined today. I'm excited to be joined today by my friend John Sweat. John Sweat is a husband to Heather.

He is a father of three girls with a fourth on the way. He is a veteran of the United States Marine Corps. He's a graduate of Gordon Conwell Seminary with two master's degrees. He's a plumbing foreman, a pastor at Covenant Community Church, and he is the host, one of the hosts of Pilgrim Talk podcast.

John, thank you for being with me today.

Absolutely.

This has been in the works for a little bit. Not the topic, but just us getting together. So thanks for having me on, brother.

Yes, sir. I'm very excited to have you. I'm thankful to have an opportunity to talk to you today about something that I know is near and dear to both of our hearts, and that is the subject of believers' baptism versus infant baptism, or what is more specifically called credo baptism versus pedo baptism.

And recently, you joined a Reformed Baptist group. Can you tell us a little bit about that? This was just recent, right?

Yeah, yeah. So it's the Reformed Baptist Network. Really, it's an association of churches, but truly an association in the sense of preserving the authority of the local church, but association of like-minded churches who confess the Second Lenten Confession.

But I would say the sort of highlight of this association is it is a charitable confessionalism. And so they hold to the confession. They think the confession faithfully summarizes what the Bible teaches, but they do so with a charity in a way that upholds the authority of Scripture.

And so there's sort of, I believe they call it a system subscription to the confession, but there is room for acceptance, allowances, and disagreements with it. But anyway, it's a great, great group of churches who basically said, hey, we all confess the same doctrine.

Why wouldn't we not get together for the sake of missions and church planning? And also training men for pastoral ministry. Why would we not get together? And while one of us couldn't do very much as a church, especially since a lot of these churches are smaller, why wouldn't we gather to partner together?

Often Baptist ecclesiology turns into sort of this lone wolf mentality, this lone isolationism. And that's a shame. While we want to uphold the autonomy of the local church, there's the beauty of having sister churches that you can partner with.

Amen. Amen.

And I bring that up because it helps affirm what we're going to talk about today, that you and I both are committed in our Reformed theology, but we're also both committed to our Baptistic theology, our Baptistic distinctives.

And we would consider ourselves to be Reformed and Baptist, which some people believe is not possible. Wouldn't you agree that there are some, there are some, especially online, there's a lot of people who take to the internet comment boxes and try to make the argument that if you are a Baptist, that you're not truly Reformed.

But it's interesting that the group you're part of is called the Reformed Baptist Network. So I just, that's why I pointed that out. You know, you guys totally believe that you can be both Reformed and Baptist.

Reformed and Baptist: Why the Labels Belong Together

Yeah, you're absolutely right. You know, people think that a Reformed Baptist is like calling a circle a square, and you can't do that. It's illogical. And that's unfortunate. You know, I mean, if someone wants to take the label from me, that's fine.

But when I look at the men who helped pen the second line of confession, and even in the preface of the confession, they clearly saw themselves within the stream of Reformed theology. And they make in their preface, they say, and it's very humble of them to say, we're not here to add new and confusing language to theology, but we're simply here to confess.

Reformed theology.

I don't think they say it as clear as that, but we're here to confess the theology that's.

Before us.

But we would like to show how that theology has led us to actually come to a different position concerning the nature of the local church, and in particular, the sacrament of baptism.

Amen. Amen.

And another reason for us wanting to discuss this subject today is not just our own mutual commitment and our own distinctives as Baptists, but also, just recently, there was a sort of a public departure of a man who would have considered himself to be Reformed in his theology and Baptist, and he left one of the larger parachurch ministries known as the Founders Ministries.

Now, I have been a Founders fan for a long time. Our church has been listed with the Founders for probably the last 15 years, I think. We've been on their website as a Founders-friendly church, and Tom Askle, who is the head of Founders, was actually very instrumental in a moment in my life that was very important.

So I say all this to simply say, I have the utmost respect for the Founders for what they.

Do.

I appreciate Tom very much, and even the man I'm going to mention, the man who left the Founders, his name was Jared Longshore, he left, and I am in no way going to try to discount him as a brother or say anything bad about him, but he did leave because he has changed his view on the sacrament of baptism.

He has taken the view, according to his own words, that not only believers, but the children of believers, the infant children of believers, are to receive the sacrament of baptism, which means that he has gone into the position of the Presbyterian Reformed side, which would be upheld in the Westminster Confession of Faith.

Now, I don't know, again, I've met Jared a few times. He seems like a wonderful person, certainly, probably a very good pastor and father, but in this, this is an area with which we would disagree with him, and we would disagree with others like him who have made the same departure, and that's what we're going to talk about today, because I'm going to, I'm going to ask the question, I'm going to ask and answer a question, then I'm going to let you, John, share your thoughts.

Why is it that we are seeing this? Because Jared's not the first, and he won't be the last. Unfortunately, I think that this is something that is, I've seen many times, and I'm not going to name names, but I could go through, my wife and I were talking about this before the show, I could go through, at least on my hand, enough people that I know personally who have gone from being Baptists to Reformed Baptists to Presbyterians, and that's, that's the direction, because a lot of people start out as Southern Baptists.

In fact, let me ask you, John, I know I didn't tell you I was going to ask you this before the program, were you, were you a Baptist before you were a Reformed Baptist?

I was.

Okay, yeah, because I, I, you know, I attended a Jacksonville Baptist Theological Seminary, which is a, which is not a Reformed school, it's a Southern Baptist school, but it's not a Reformed school, and I was taught, I was taught Calvinism was bad, it kills churches, you know, I was taught all the typical things that was bad about Calvinism, and so I, I, but I went from that to being Reformed, and if, if the trend is true, then one day I'm going to be baptizing babies.

I don't believe that, but that's, that's the trend, is people will go from being Baptist to being Reformed Baptists, and then they'll take that next step, and, and, and it got me thinking, why is that the case?

Why do men, you know, go in that direction? And my thought, and you tell me if you agree or disagree, and listeners, you can, you know, opine in your own mind, my thought is that when, when you are introduced to Reformed theology, it's an entire well and wealth of information that is somewhat new, and you begin to hear new names, people that you haven't heard before, solid teachers.

I mean, the one man who probably had more influence on my preaching than anyone else who was a contemporary theologian, R .C. Sproul. R .C. Sproul is honestly, and when I say I model my preaching after his, I don't mean I try to mimic him, but his preaching so affected me that I wanted to preach like him.

I hope that makes sense. I'm not Ed Litten. I'm not preaching his sermons, but, but, but, but, but I, I want, when I say his preaching is the kind of preaching I like to listen to, therefore it's the type of, it's the way I want to preach, you know, it's, it's because, and I don't know if you have guys like that for you, but for me, it was a Presbyterian.

So I can see how guys would say, you know what, if my hero is baptizing a baby, why, why should not? You know, and that's my thought about, and again, I'm not, I'm not discounting these men's fidelity to scripture.

I'm not saying they have not studied, but as we're going to see later, I think that they're wrong. So I do have to ask the question, what is it that, what is the extra step that's helping them take that step?

The desire to be more informed, the desire to be more like the heroes that they see as.

Heroes.

That's what I think. What are your thoughts on that, John, about the reasoning?

Yeah.

So let me just caveat that with, if you look at my bookshelf probably 90 of the books on my shelf are written by men who hold the patio baptism. And this is something that while I am a reformed Baptist, I struggled with for a long time.

It was, it wasn't, it wasn't while I have children. So it was never merely a hypothetical. If the Lord requires of me to baptize my children, this is nothing trivial. This is, this isn't like I can just wait till they're adults and then baptize them once they profess faith and say, Oh, but I hold the pedo baptism.

You know, I really wrestled with that. And so I just have great love in it, you know, and to maybe just to maybe sprinkle a little sugar, a little more on there before I kind of give answer your question, probably the, and this is probably cheesy to some, but honestly, when people ask me, what was the most helpful book for you and your study of theology?

It was the Westminster confession. I went to Trinity Baptist College here in Jacksonville, very Arminian dispensational school there. You're taught how to rip the Bible apart, but then you don't know how to put it back together again.

You don't know what to do with the things like the law and the gospel. And as I was wrestling with those questions, I, my wife gave me the Westminster confession. She had heard me mention it because I heard R .C. Sproul mention it and she gave it to me for father's day and I read it and it was so helpful for me.

Now I'm not a Presbyterian. And so here's kind of four, four, four categories to that question. Keith, I think first, I think there are some brothers who genuinely, they, they, they believe in scripture.

Now we can argue whether or not they're accurately handling scripture, but they believe from scripture. They are convinced in their conscience, infant baptism is the Bible's position. But, but a lot of the brothers that I've ran into who were Baptist and maybe even reformed Baptist, um, I don't know their heart, but the trajectory in the conversations that I've had with them, that didn't seem to be the, the punching point.

And so what I often see is in some people, I know they grew up in very poor, um, churches with very low theology. They began to come to reform theology. They come to Calvinism. They see that Presbyterians take very seriously theology and there's this rich heritage, a rich heritage.

And so somewhere along the way in their mind, exegesis kind of takes a side seat to historical theology. And now it's, Hey, whatever the reformer said, whatever the Presbyterian, you know, the Westminster confession says, that's, that's me.

And, uh, if they're really consistent, they'll go all the way to the 1646 Westminster and there'll be covenanters, but not all of them are willing to do that. Uh, the other thing would be that the covenant theology, someone comes to an understanding of covenant theology.

They, they maybe leave something like dispensationalism and they noticed most of the guys who hold the covenant theology are Presbyterians or Dutch reform, but, but, or the point is Pato Baptist and they quickly, well, if I, if I'm going to be consistent in my theology, then maybe I'm required to become a Pato Baptist.

And that was what I struggled with for a long time. Um, in fact, I was in Michael Kruger's class on Hebrews at RTS and I had to write a paper on Hebrews eight, and I was really struggling with baptism and I didn't know anything about the second London.

I didn't know anything about these guys called the particular Baptist. I knew I didn't want to be an Anabaptist and I thought maybe those were the same guys. And I ran into a book by Pascal Denault and a Canadian theologian, and he compares the second London's covenant theology with the Westminster.

And so that was kind of the final straw that broke the camel's back. And I realized that I could be a covenant theologian. I didn't have to abandon covenant theology or embrace, you know, Pato baptism.

I could be a covenant theologian and embrace credo baptism on the basis of my covenant theology. Those would be the big ones.

I would say, and Pascal Denault not only wrote an excellent book, but certainly has the coolest.

Name.

I mean, you know, yeah, he's him and Meredith Klein. You know, you got to tell me, dude. All right.

That's okay.

So I'm not the only one who thought Meredith was a lady's name.

Nope.

Nope.

You know, the first time I heard Chris Arnson mentioned his name, I forgot where I heard him, but I thought, who is Meredith Klein?

Well, I was preaching Genesis and, you know, Meredith Klein is the framework hypothesis. And as I was preaching through Genesis one and two, I was discussing the various views. And I mentioned the framework hypothesis as was popularized by Meredith Klein, a man.

And I said that, I said it in my sermon. I said, Meredith Klein, who's a man. And afterwards, one of the, one of my church members came up to me and he said, listen, my grandfather was named Meredith.

Okay. It's not a lady's name. Like he was like, like he was kind of upset with me. And he was like, Meredith is a guy's name. I was like, yeah, well, you're right. You know, but you know, not anymore.

So I'm just glad I wasn't the only one. In the sermon, I said, Meredith is a guy.

So anyway, okay. All right.

Well, as we look at the subject of infant baptism, and I think you're right. I think, as you said, on the shelves, you know, and if you look at my shelves, you know, I've got the different guys who are reformed Presbyterian and certainly the heroes of the faith in many ways are, are Presbyterian.

And I, I can honestly say of the, of the issues that have, that I've had to face, this one has been, this is one that I have, I've, I've, I've had to deal with it, but it's not been one that has been as appealing to me as I know.

Some of my brothers say it's appealing to them. You know, the, the idea of infant baptism. In fact, I've had a few people who've told me they've heard me preach and they've heard me teach and they've said, oh, well, one day you're going to be baptizing babies.

And I'm like, no, I don't, I don't think so. But again, I pray that I hold fast to this truth. And because it's certainly not something that I ever see myself doing. It's certainly not a direction I ever see myself going because at like you, I feel like I have a biblical and covenantal framework that I can hold to that, that maintains the fidelity of believers only baptism that does not require the baptism of, uh, the children of believers.

And even that, and I, and I, I don't want to go down this road too, too much. Cause we'll spend another hour talking about this. But even when you begin to talk about the, the, the idea of the, the, the baptism of, of the children of believers, it's not children of believers.

According to Presbyterians, it's the, it's the infant children of at least one believer. And then you begin to say, well, what if it's a, what if it's a 13 year old who hates Jesus? Well, we won't baptize them, but wait a minute.

You, you believe in family baptism. If you believe in familial solidarity and, you know, it says in first Corinthians that the child is made holy by the believing parent, but it also says the unbelieving spouse is made holy by the unbelieving or by the believing spouse.

So if that is the case, would you baptize a believing spouse? I've asked Presbyterians that I've said, would you baptize an unbelieving spouse? If they're, if they're a Christ hater, but for the sake of their love for their spouse, if they said, well, I'll accept baptism.

Would you baptize them? Even though they say, I hate, I'm not a believer. I've had both and I've had both answers. I've had some people say yes.

Oh yeah.

I've had, I've, and I, again, not going to name names, but I, in conversations, I've had people say yes, for the sake of familial solidarity, even though they're a Christ hater because they have the spouse that makes them holy.

We would baptize them in this one church. And then in another church, they said no, because they have denied Christ. We would not baptize them. Now, now, now I know that, that, you know, there's a divide there.

Like I said, but it just, it, it, it further solidifies in my mind that there's sort of a, there's, it's almost like nailing jello tool to the wall. It there's, there's not a hard and fast, you know, well, we're going to baptize children, but it's gotta be children who can't make the decision not to believe.

Well, let's say, okay. So, so is it familial solidarity or not? And again, I know we're going to talk about arguments in a minute. I've kind of jumped ahead a little, but, but, but if the argument is familial solidarity, which I believe was, was something that Calvin himself popularized that prior to Calvin, the, the arguments for infant baptism were more in line with the, with the doctrines of baptismal regeneration, which is certainly what was taught in the Roman Catholic church still is, if you go to the Roman Catholic catechism, you go to the Roman Catholic doctrines and dogmas, that's what they teach.

And even Lutheranism still holds to a version, even though they would, they would say they believe in, in justification by faith alone, they, they believe in a, a form of infant baptism, I'm sorry, baptism regeneration.

So, so anyway, I just want to throw that out there when we, when we're talking about infant baptism, it's like, it's like trying to nail jello to the wall, because we're talking about different, different Lutherans are going to hold a different view than Catholics and Catholics are going to hold a different view than the reform.

And certainly we would care most about the reform, but we can't simply discount the other ones because what you'll hear among reforms of reform guys is they'll say, well, this is the historic position and say, well, wait a minute, the position you hold is not the historic position.

The position that you hold is not in line with all of the people who held it in history, because a lot of those historic people that you're citing believe that that actually conferred regeneration on the recipient.

That's not the same thing you believe because Calvinistic Presbyterians do not believe in correct me if I'm wrong. They do not believe that baptism produces regeneration in the child. Is that correct?

Would you agree with that?

Yeah. Yeah.

There is some strand of that still in Dutch reform circles. You see Kuyper kind of advocating for that and Bavin kind of pushes back on that a little.

Bit.

But you are right in that kind of historical survey. And the interesting thing is, even if we begin at the Reformation from from Zwingli all the way, let's say let's let's say John Owen, right, kind of maybe the high watermark of the Reformation, the arguments for infant baptism just in that short span of time are wide ranging.

And what baptism does.

Right.

So we baptize our infant. Where are they at in category in relation to the church, to union with Christ? Are they still in union with Adam?

Where are they?

There have been different answers to that. And for a long time it was convincing to me, hey, there's just one historic reform position. But as I began to study covenant theology, Presbyterians can't even agree over what the covenant of grace is and how you deal with what the covenant of grace is in relation to the Mosaic covenant, for example, or the Noaic covenant.

How is the Noaic covenant a covenant of grace when it is a common covenant made with all of humanity, a covenant of preservation merely to preserve creation till God's plan of redemption, which is which promise in Genesis 315 is fulfilled when when Christ returns.

So, yeah, I think you're exactly right there. It's a bit simplistic to well, it's the argument from church history. Hey, my position has these guys. I think we should look to church history. I don't think we should be snobbish and think that our church and the Holy Spirit and ourselves are the first ones to open the Bible and to read it.

And we shouldn't lean on those who have gone before us. But it also is quite dangerous to do the other side and say, I can rest assured that my position is right because of all of these people and never wrestle with the text.

The New Covenant Is Better Because It Is Unbreakable

Absolutely right. Absolutely right. Well, what I'd like for you to do now, John, if you would, is when we talked about this, obviously we had a pre-show conversation and we've been talking back and forth via messenger.

You provided four points that you believe should be addressed in the conversation on infant baptism. So this is you having the conversation about infant baptism. And the four things that you would say are why you hold to the Baptist distinctive, that there are four major reasons.

And I'd like for you to outline those for us briefly and we can interact on each one. Obviously we won't be able to do a whole sermon on each one, but I think the educated listener will be able to pick up on what you're saying and know what it is that you're getting to.

So if you would, I've already seen them, of course, but if you would outline them for the listener and I may ask you a few questions as we go.

Sure.

Yeah.

So there's lots of places you could go. There's lots of texts. I'm sure people would take you maybe Acts 2 or the household baptisms of the book of Acts. And those are places you can certainly go. And I think there's sound exegetical arguments for those things.

But what I've found as I've read the literature and as I've had conversations, even with people in my church about this question, there are really four theological pillars that I think must be addressed.

The first one I think is, you can maybe argue that the second one should be first, but we'll keep them the way that I have. The first one, I think, is understanding the nature of the new covenant. In relation to the Old Testament covenants.

And so when you so so the question is, when you go to Jeremiah 31 or you go to Hebrews eight, which quotes Jeremiah 31, 31 to 34, which is the longest Old Testament citation in the New Testament. And when the writer of Hebrews is constantly hammering home this point of Jesus is better, Jesus is better than angels.

Jesus is better than Moses. Jesus is better than the priest. Jesus is the mediator of a better covenant. Jesus is a better sacrifice. When he is talking about better and in relation to what we're talking about, a better covenant, is this covenant only better in quantity or is it qualitatively better?

And what we see in this prophecy from Jeremiah is a complete contrast with the Old Testament covenant, the covenant made with Israel. And I'll just read a few here, if that's OK, Keith. I'll read from the Hebrews eight citation of Jeremiah 31, Hebrews eight, verse eight, for he finds fault with them when he says, and he's quoting Jeremiah here.

Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. Here's the qualifier. Not like the covenant I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, for they did not continue in my covenant.

And so I showed no concern for them, declares the Lord. There's a conditional element to the old covenant, right? If you think back to Exodus 24, Moses gives the terms of the covenant of the people in Exodus 34, they say all that the Lord has commanded us, we will do and their privilege and position, the land and their privilege and position as God's holy nation that he calls them in Exodus 19 was conditioned on their obedience to the covenant.

And the law of the covenant was written on tablets of stone. But we know from from Paul and Romans that the law could not guarantee that they would obey the covenant, right? Because of their sinfulness, the law could not could not give them obedience.

And we see here in this prophecy of Jeremiah, because they did not continue in the covenant, the Lord showed no concern for them. Verse 10 of Hebrews 8, for this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord.

I will put my law into their minds and write them on their hearts, not on tablets of stone, but on their hearts. And I will be their God and they shall be my teeth, my people, and they shall not teach each one his neighbor and each one of his brother saying, know the Lord, for they shall all know me from the least of them to the greatest, for I will be merciful toward their iniquities and I will remember their sins no more.

And so the writer of Hebrews now is going to give you in verse 13 of chapter eight, his explanation of this text, verse 13. And speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.

So the question I ask, brother, as I'm looking, taking people to the new covenant, I say, which one of the covenants in the Old Testament promised forgiveness of sins? Which one, which, which, which one of the covenants in the Old Testament guaranteed that, that, that, that they would unconditionally be bound to God.

And there would be no condition on their part in which they would have to give obedience to remain in covenant with God. And not a single one. Not a single one. Do you have anything? I could go on it for a second.

But do you have anything to, to, to note there?

One of the things you, you mentioned it being a better covenant. And I have heard the argument from my Presbyterian brothers that how could, how could we call it a better covenant if our children are not included?

I've, I've heard that argument and you know, my answer to that, and maybe I should let you answer first. What would you say if someone said, how can I call it a better covenant? If my kid, if I, if my kid's not automatically in it.

Yes.

What I'd say to them is so, so first, are you saying that your, your children are no longer in Adam and a need for the gospel because you baptize them. And if you grant that they are still in Adam and they need to profess faith and they need Christ, then whether you baptize them or you do as I do, and you bring them in church and you raise them to the nurturing and fear and admonition of the Lord, we are both praying for them to be converted.

So by a better covenant, the beauty of the covenant is while the old Testament covenants were conditional and you could, you could be kicked out of the covenant for lack of.

Obedience.

This covenant is better because it is God himself who has promised to, well, let me back up. It is God himself who has kept the terms to establish this covenant and all those united to his son can never fall out of this covenant.

All of their covenant membership is rooted in Christ's work. That's how it's a better covenant. So if you want to place your assurance in giving your children, wetting them with water as if that's going to bring them to Christ, I fundamentally disagree.

That does not, I don't understand how that weakens the argument of the newness of the new covenant.

I don't know.

What would you say to that?

Well, one of the things that I've heard, and again, I have some wonderful brothers who are Presbyterian and often they have children and they will tell me, they'll say, Keith, my children are Christians because they've been baptized as Christians.

What do you call your children? Do you call your children pagans? Keith, do you, and I've heard this, maybe you'll laugh, but they'll say my kids can sing Jesus loves me, this I know. Your kids, Keith, can't because they are not members of the covenant.

I don't know if you've ever heard that argument, but I've been told that. And so my response to that is, are you saying that your children are saved by their baptism? And they'll say, no, no, no. The baptism is not regeneration, but they are under the promise.

And I have a promise from God. And I say, so wait a minute. So what you're telling me is they're certainly going to be saved. Well, I don't know for certain, but I have a promise that I'm holding to from God.

So again, it comes back to this nailing Jell-O to the wall. I have a promise that's not really a promise. I have a confirmation that's not really a confirmation. I have assurance that's not really assurance.

So that's really where I take the issue is that I can tell my kids to sing Jesus loves you. I don't know if you sing Jesus loves me with your kids, but I can sing Jesus loves me with my children because of my belief that Jesus has a disposition of love.

And I can say that God's disposition is that of love and grace and mercy. And he says he does not take pleasure in the death of the wicked. I mean, there are certain things that we learn about God that speak of his benevolent disposition.

But my answer, if somebody said to me, it's not a better covenant because your children are not in it, my answer would be going right to the passage you would. And I would say, no, it's a better covenant because everyone in it is a believer.

It's efficacious.

Yeah, that's right.

Yeah.

Everyone in it is saved, whereas everyone in the Abrahamic covenant was not saved. Everyone who was circumcised, who was brought into the covenant family was not saved. And see, that's the problem with covenant theology from the presbyterian perspective, because they have covenant families too, and everyone's not saved.

And so, yeah.

Absolutely.

And just while you mentioned it, when you go to the Old Testament, you say, well, if the new covenant is the only God, I don't like the term covenant of grace. I think it has so many different meanings for so many different covenant theology models.

I say new covenant.

New covenant.

I say gospel covenant. None of the Old Testament covenants were gospel covenant. None of them promised salvation. They pointed to salvation. They pointed to forgiveness of sins, but none of them offered it.

By virtue of being a member in the Abrahamic covenant, the only thing you inherited was the land through your obedience. By virtue of being a member of the new covenant, you receive a better inheritance.

So to go to what you said, and maybe someone's asking, well, how are Old Testament people saved? They're saved by the new covenant. They're saved by forward-looking faith, seeing the promises, seeing the types, seeing the shadows in the Old Testament covenants that drive their faith forward-looking to this one, the seed of the woman in Genesis 3 15.

And so they're saved the same way as we are. Their faith is forward to the cross. Our faith is backwards. But Paul makes very clear that not all of Israel are of Israel and that the true seed of Abraham are those who have faith.

You know, we're jumping to number three. We'll go and go there. I think it's just natural. But Abraham's seed is a badly abused theological concept, right? So I'll say this controversial thing. Dispensationalists and Presbyterians both make the same error when they look at the Abrahamic covenant.

They treat the true fulfillment of the Abrahamic seed as the physical descendants of Abraham rather than seeing what Paul says in Galatians 3, that the true fulfillment of Abraham's seed is Christ. And therefore, all who are in Christ are the true seed of Abraham.

And so the point is, it's not as if the church is a plan B and Israel was plan A dispensationalism, but rather it is those who have faith who have always been the true people of God. And Israel is sort of a parentheses.

The nation of Israel sort of gives us a glimpse of the kingdom of God consummated at the end of all things. But is the church is the true people of God that was in seed form in the Old Testament and comes the full blossom of the New Testament.

That is the true people of God. And that's what Paul gets at in Galatians 3 and in Galatians 4.

That's right. Christ is the seed, not seeds plural, but he is the singular seed of Abraham.

The Abrahamic Seed Is Christ, and All in Christ Are His People

Yeah, and maybe give one more just illustration on that. If you think of a building being built, a rather large building, and it's got a scaffolding around it. Well, the scaffolding is important. Scaffolding helps the builders place each brick on brick and build the building upward and fashion the building to its finished form.