Baptism Discussion with Dr. Tony Costa

Well hello everyone and welcome to the Reform Rookie video podcast. It's good to have you with us this evening. Tonight I have a special guest, Dr. Tony Costa, but before we start our discussion I just want to let you know if you want to learn about Reformed theology on a beginner level please go to www .reformedrookie .com.

On that website you'll have access to the videos that we put up. We also have a YouTube channel. If you go to YouTube slash C slash Reform Rookie we have about a hundred and fifty or so videos about all different topics including the doctrines of grace.

We're going through a series on spiritual depression and Proverbs. We also have a podcast that you can find on iTunes or Anchor podcast. You just type it in online. Reform Rookie and we're going through a series on, Pastor Chris is going through a series on Leviticus and it's it's very very good.

So if you want to avail yourself to Reform Theology or learning a little bit more about it please again go to www .reformedrookie .com. You'll find the blog there then you can go to the YouTube channel or the podcast.

And with that I just want to introduce a friend of ours our church and our ministry and a dear brother in Christ. This is Dr. Tony Costa who's a professor at Toronto Baptist Seminary in Canada. He's a dear friend to our our family at Hope Reform Baptist Church.

Baptismal Regeneration Defined

Welcome Dr. Tony. It's a pleasure to be with you Anthony. Good to see you again. So we had a debate set up on does water baptism save and it was set up for October 31st which is Reformation Day and unfortunately due to COVID we had to postpone.

We still don't have a date rescheduled. So what I wanted to do Dr. Tony is bring you on discuss the different topics about baptism that probably would have been hit in the debate. And I sent you an outline.

I want to talk about baptismal regeneration. You know what that is. Then talk about infant baptism and believers baptism. So first maybe we can go through who supports each one of those views. Maybe discuss some of the scriptures behind them and then see what the early church fathers had to say about those views so that we can come to some sort of understanding.

So start with baptismal regeneration. For the people who don't know anything about not just reformed theology, just theology in.

General, what is baptismal regeneration? Yeah baptismal regeneration is the view that says that when someone is baptized the act of baptism regenerates the person. So that baptism, the act of baptism has the power to regenerate the person.

Now some people say well it's God who does it through the sacrament or God does it through the ordinance. Well what it suggests is that baptism in and of itself when it's utilized by the minister or a child or an adult it brings about the effect of regeneration.

And so Roman Catholics hold to this view. Lutherans believe it or not, at least we can talk a little bit more about this, but Luther post 1525 went in that direction very strongly. Baptismal regeneration is also held by the Eastern Orthodox Church and basically all the churches of the East.

So I'm talking about the Coptic Church and and the Assyrian Orthodox Church, the Syriac Orthodox Church. And there is a doctrine in Roman Catholicism called ex opere operato, which means out of the very work the work is done.

So the very act of baptism brings about the regeneration of the child, most cases it's the child, and they believe that the child becomes a child of God, going from a child of the flesh to become a child of God through.

The process of baptism. So that actually would bring about the person's salvation basically. Correct. So the priest or the minister would baptize the child and at that moment that person would be quote-unquote born again.

Correct, correct.

Yeah and not just born again but in their view the child has all their sins remitted so original sin is wiped out by baptism and the child is believed to be adopted into the family of God at that point and the child grows in the so-called the graces, the sacraments that they have to go through.

But this is no guarantee, at least in the Roman Catholic Church, there is no guarantee that your baptism or regeneration will guarantee that you'll be saved at the end because Rome teaches that you can lose your salvation through through a mortal sin.

Mm-hmm. So wouldn't also one of the Pentecostals hold to that? Yeah one of the.

Pentecostals, the only difference is one of the Pentecostals would say that first of all the baptismal formula is not Trinitarian, they don't believe that you baptize in the name of the Trinitarian God, they believe in baptism in the name of Jesus or they call it the Jesus only movement.

So they believe that unless you're not only baptized in water in the name of Jesus but unless you speak in tongues as well, you cannot be saved. So one of the Pentecostals would hold to a.

View of baptismal regeneration as well. Mm-hmm. So now I think obviously they're gonna put forth some scriptures that would point to the fact that like 1st Peter 321, baptism which corresponds to this now saves you not as the removal of dirt from the body but an appeal to God for a good conscience through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Right. So doesn't that verse say that baptism is.

What saves you? Well it doesn't really say that baptism actually saves you, the language is very important here, because words mean what they mean in context. And so in 1st Peter 321, Peter uses the Greek word antitupon which is our word antitype.

And so an antitype is something that represents something else by symbol. So the sacrifices of the Old Testament in the book of Leviticus, and I'm sure Pastor Chris will mention this, but the sacrifices in the book of Leviticus are antitypes of the true representation of Christ's atonement on the cross.

So the animal sacrifices as the book of Hebrews points out could never take away sin, it could never remove sin, it couldn't expiate sin, it could cover sin temporarily, but it pointed forward to that great sacrifice that the Lamb of God himself would take upon himself and he would take away the sins of the world.

So the animal sacrifices in and of themselves did not really forgive their sin, it simply temporarily covered them, but they were shadows, if you will, of the ultimate reality, just like the Sabbath was a shadow of the absolute rest and the complete rest that we have in the Lord Jesus.

So what Peter says in 1st Peter 321, he's talking about the flood and he talks about the days of Noah and we need to understand that the waters of the flood did two things. It destroyed the ungodly world and it kept the ark afloat.

It saved the family of Noah while at the same time destroying the ungodly generation. But it was God who put him in the ark and it was God who closed the ark and the ark is a picture of Jesus. It's an antitype of Jesus because if you are in the ark you will be saved from the wrath of God, the judgment of God.

Similarly if you're in Christ you will be saved from the wrath of God. So what Peter is saying is that the waters of the flood corresponds to baptism as an antitype. So baptism in and of itself does not save you.

It only saves you as an antitype and then Peter clarifies that by saying as a pledge or a response of a good conscience towards God. And so Peter is very careful to say look this water baptism doesn't remove the dirt from your body.

It simply corresponds to something greater, what God has done already in your heart. And so Peter doesn't actually say baptism saves you. He says it saves you as a type, an antitype rather, a corresponding.

Antitype. So would the word antitype, what a synonym to the word antitype would be.

Symbol or more than symbol? Right like yeah it'd be a symbol or another good word we could use would be counterpart. A counterpart. And so Peter's very careful and 1st Peter 3 .18 he already told us that that Christ died for the ungodly.

He suffered once so that he might bring us to God. Notice Peter says it's Christ who brings us to God. And then 1st Peter 1 .2 he says we're saved by what? By the foreknowledge of God the Father, by the sanctification of the Spirit, and by the sprinkling of the blood of Christ.

And so he wraps it up in the triune God. The triune God the Father foreknows. He elects his people. The Spirit sanctifies us and we are redeemed by the sprinkling of the blood of Christ. And that sprinkling Anthony is deliberate.

Peter is referring to the sprinkling of the blood on the mercy seat on the day of atonement in Leviticus 16. So Peter's being very clear that he's not talking about baptism per se that does the work of salvation, but rather it functions as.

A symbol. Right. Would that sprinkling also correspond to Ezekiel 36?

Absolutely. Absolutely. And Ezekiel 36 would tie in with John 3 .5 where Jesus speaks about being born of the water and born of the Spirit. And so we can discuss.

That as well. Sure. So now okay what would what would be your pushback in opposition to this view? Obviously you and you know we both don't hold to baptismal regeneration. How would you push back on that?

On which one Anthony? Baptismal regeneration. In other words we don't hold to that. Right. The way to push back.

On that is simply by looking at for example Romans 8 5 to 8 where Paul says that those who are in the flesh cannot please God. And there's nothing we can do to please God. And so when we ask the question where does the desire for baptism come from?

Does it come from the fleshly man? Or does it come from the man who's in the Spirit? Well obviously we cannot obey God if we're in the flesh. Paul says that. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

They're not subject to the law of God nor nor can they be. It's impossible. And so in order for someone to say you know what I have a desire to be baptized in obedience to Christ's command. That is not a fleshly that's not a fleshly impulse.

That is something that is given by the Spirit of God who regenerates us. But that step of obedience. Remember our good works have been preordained that we should follow them. Ephesians 2 10. And so what I would say is this.

Baptismal regeneration is false on the grounds that it is God who regenerates us and makes us willing to obey him into baptism. And therefore just like Abraham brought Isaac to the altar to sacrifice him.

Abraham was already declared righteous and just in God's sight. God declared him to be just. And therefore Abraham wasn't declared just after he offered up Isaac. But he was already he was reckoned unto him as righteousness because he believed on the Lord even before his circumcision.

So baptismal regeneration unfortunately is is really if you trace it it really is a.

Man-made doctrine. Right. So would you is. Is this heresy? Is it a damnable heresy?

What I would how would it fit in? Well I wouldn't say it's a damnable I wouldn't say it's a damnable heresy. But what I would say is that if you follow it to its logical conclusion then what you're basically doing is you are you are at the cusp of negating justification by faith alone.

So take Luther for example. I mean Luther before 1525. Now you notice Anthony I mentioned that year 1525. Something happened in 1525 in Germany that really that rattled Luther. And that was the the the peasants revolt.

When the peasants started taking Luther's ideas of the Reformation and you know breaking down churches and and and beating up priests and so forth. Luther became very disillusioned with what happened.

And he became a lot more let's say liturgical. More ecclesiastical. And so what you find is that Luther still maintained justification by faith alone. But he ends up defending baptism regeneration. And so there are Lutherans that I know who love the Lord and are trusting Christ alone for their salvation.

But if I were to ask them do you believe that a child is made a child of God at baptism? They don't say yes. And so I think I think it's one of those areas like our Arminian brothers who think that it was their choice that brought them to salvation and it was their decision to accept Christ.

I think that there's a lot of Arminian brethren who are truly saved. But I think they have a a misunderstanding of the the the the doctrines of grace. And they have a misunderstanding of how God moves us by his grace and brings us in.

And so I think that baptism regeneration I would say is on is on that cusp. And and I think that it's an area that we need to logically argue in good faith with our Lutheran brethren like our brother Chris that we were supposed to engage in.

But with Roman Catholicism is a different animal together. Roman Catholicism denies the sola gratia, sola fide, sola scriptura unlike the Lutherans. So it is a serious question and it's an area I think that we as believers have to dialogue with with our brothers in those.

Different denominations. Right because the danger could be from a man a man centered point of view. Well I was baptized right. So and they end up having faith in their baptism and the fact that they were baptized and that's what brought me into the kingdom of God so therefore I'm a Christian.

And they're pointing to something that was done by human hands not done by the Spirit of.

God. That's right. That could be a serious a serious error. Exactly right and I've heard people use that type of language. People in the Christian Reformed Church who would say well my son is not following the Lord but but he was baptized and God's gonna honor that.

Well yeah it's a step to say God is gonna honor what we did. Well it's not about God honoring what we did. It's about it's about God's honor and the glory that is all his in his in his.

Sovereign right to choose his people. Right yeah God is gonna honor what he did in the form of punishment. Unfortunately I hate to say it that way.

But yeah the only thing he honors is the death is the cross of Christ in the resurrection. He honors that but you're right he God will also honor his.

Justice as well. So baptismal regeneration is something that's held by.

Lutherans Eastern Orthodox also? Yeah yeah they hold that. Eastern Orthodox however don't believe in sola gratia sola fide. They believe that works. I mean they will say it's by grace alone but they will tell you that without baptism you cannot be saved and you you need the church to receive that.

They don't call them sacraments they call them the divine mysteries. And so in order to in order to become absorbed into what they call the triadic life of God that they call it theosis you have to be part of the church and you have to engage in the liturgy of the church and so forth.

So Eastern Orthodoxy just like Rome does believe that you are saved by grace but you're kept by law. So it's the.

Same thing again. Right. You know and you know what I'll do because you and Eli did a great talk on that. You reviewed Hank Cantergrass interview with Eli. So what I'll do is I'll put a link to that in the comment section so that if anybody wants to look up Eastern Orthodoxy and learn more about it.

You did two sessions with Eli and I thought they were. They were excellent very very informative. Thank you. So as far as baptismal regeneration go did any.

Of the early church fathers hold to that? Yes a number of them did hold to that. And some people would argue well there you go I mean the church fathers held to this therefore not all of them obviously.

When we talk about the church fathers Anthony we need to be very very careful because we're talking about a huge broad area. Differences of opinions exist. Some of these church fathers were deeply influenced by Greek philosophy.

Justin Martyr was very influenced by Plato's Platonic philosophy. Saint Augustine also was was influenced by Neoplatonism. So we need to be careful in these areas because some of the fathers looked at this through Greek philosophical lenses.

Others believed that baptism was something that should be delayed until your deathbed. So a lot of these fathers did not hold to infant baptism as a means to save the child. There was we know from there's some tombs that scholars have found from the century AD that have on the epitaphs on the tombstones they will mention a child that that died and was baptized.

And what we know from that early period is that children would have been baptized in in times of emergency like clinical death when they're approaching death. But why would they need to do that if they were baptized very early after their birth?

So we need to ask these questions. Why did they delay this baptism? And there's many examples of this. In the West in the Western Church what we do know is that the idea of infant baptism and baptism regeneration really gets its driving force from Saint Augustine.

So about the year 410 AD that's where it really starts to get pushed very hard in the West. But there are fathers of the church that did hold to this. But then again we need to understand that the church fathers number one a lot of folks will look back in history.

So the Roman Catholic will look down the long well of history and at the bottom of the well you know Anthony there's there's water right? You look down the well there's water. You see your reflection.

So the Roman Catholic looks down the well of history to the fathers of the church and they'll say ah St. Athanasius was a Roman Catholic. All the church fathers were Roman Catholic. And then the Orthodox will look down so they were all Orthodox.

And then the Reformed Baptists will say ah they were all Reformed Baptists. We need to let them be the you know we need to let church fathers be the church fathers. And we need to understand Anthony that we need to hold them to the same scrutiny that we hold each other to.

And that is we need to use the scriptures as our standard. So if you take Irenaeus for example. Irenaeus about 8150. He says that he was taught by the Apostle John and he claims that he received from the apostolic tradition.

This is the first use of the term apostolic tradition in Irenaeus. He says that he received from apostolic tradition that Jesus was 50 years old when he died. Now I don't know one Roman Catholic scholar, Protestant scholar, Orthodox scholar who believes that Jesus was 50 years old when he died.

They usually place him at 30, 33, 32, around 30 to 33. But but notice Irenaeus says he got this from the Apostles. Already at this early stage in Christian history you've got this guy saying for the first time this comes from apostolic tradition.

And yet we all know through reading the New Testament very clearly that Jesus had a three-year ministry. And that he started when he was about 30. And the reason why Irenaeus does this is because of the Greek concept of the the three ages of man.

The you know when he's a child, when he's an adult, and then when he's a mature adult. And so what he was trying to say was that in Jesus he was recapitulating all of life in himself. And so this is why I've always said be very careful when you read the Fathers.

They're not infallible. And they openly admitted that. That they were not and they never said their writings were Scripture. And so if we take the patristic route we need to understand that there's there's some weird things that the fathers of the church speak of too.

Like Saint Basil the Great said that when you baptize you have to face Jerusalem. And you have to be baptized with your face going down into the water like head first. Right. With your face. And to do it nine times.

Three times for each person of the Trinity. So I don't know anybody. I don't know Orthodox or Roman Catholics or Protestants who baptize.

That way. But Basil said this is the way we do it. Wow. Okay. So it seems like the early church fathers look much like the Protestant Church does today. Yeah. Yeah. We're united on the essentials. Exactly.

And you know we vary on the non-essentials let's say. Exactly. And in all things we need charity. Right. Yeah. That's that phrase in all things. In the essentials unity. In the non-essentials liberty.

And in all things charity or love. So I think that's important. And when when people like Roman Catholics point to the early church fathers and say that there's unanimity, unanimous consent of the fathers, there's no such thing.

No.

No. No. No. Even with my debate with Robert Sugenis, Anthony, which you've honored. Remember that? Yes I do. In Carlisle, Pennsylvania. If you remember that, Robert was saying, oh yeah, all the early fathers believed in the Immaculate Conception.

And yet you've got church fathers saying, yeah Mary sinned. Mary sinned with the sin of doubt and arrogance and so forth. So again, none of the fathers at the Council of Nicaea. There were 318 bishops that assembled at the Council of Nicaea.

We don't know any of those fathers who said anything about Mary that the modern Roman Catholic Church says. The Assumption, the Immaculate Conception, almost to perpetual virginity of Mary. But I think on the subject of baptism, what we'll find is that many of the church fathers actually would defer baptism as close as possible to death, near death.

So Constantine the Great, Constantine the Emperor, wasn't baptized until his deathbed. And the same goes with many other Christians. And the question once again is, if infant baptism was the standard, why is it that Constantine and even the children of many Christians were delayed baptism until they were able to understand the Christian faith?

So there's a famous martyr, Tony, called Perpetua. Perpetua was a woman, a Christian sister in Christ. She was imprisoned in Rome and she had a child. She had a baby. And before she was led out to the Colosseum to be fed to the lions and so forth, she asked for baptism.

Well, there she is. She's asking for baptism right before she goes to her martyrdom. But here's the funny thing, Anthony. She was baptized but she didn't have her child baptized. Which is very strange because, again, if infant baptism was the standard, you would think that Perpetua would have asked for her child.

To be baptized as well. But he wasn't. Right. Yeah, I hate to say that that's a departure from justification by faith alone. I mean, look, I don't know the state of her soul, but it seems to me that in waiting to the end of your life to be baptized, you're waiting for that baptism and pointing to that baptism as the operation that's going to save you.

And anything that you're pointing to outside of Christ alone is a work of man.

And the reason why they deferred baptism, Anthony, was there was a belief that if you committed grievous sins after baptism, there was a belief that your salvation could be on the line if you committed these sins.

And that's why, if you notice, they would defer these baptisms to near the end of their deaths. That way they can guarantee that they don't sin because they're on their way out. But you're right. That was the understanding.

That they had. Wow. Okay, so that kind of encapsulates baptismal regeneration in a short period of time. Let's move on to infant baptism or paedo-baptism. Where does the term paedo-baptism come from?

Well, the word.

Paedo-baptism is just a Greek word. The word paedo means child, like we use the word pediatrics, pediatrician. And so it simply refers to a child. And so paedo-baptism means the baptism of a child or an infant.

So that's basically a term that was created to distinguish it from crado-baptism, that.

Is baptism for believers. Right, now the groups that I would say that would still be considered Reformed would be Presbyterians that hold to paedo-baptism,.

Correct? Right, right. And the Christian Reformed Church as well. And there are Anglicans, the evangelical wing of the Anglican Church would also hold to paedo-baptism. Methodists would hold to paedo-baptism.

And some of the Westlian churches, well Methodism is a form of Westlianism. And so a number of.

These churches would perform infant baptism or paedo-baptism. And obviously Lutherans would also hold to infant baptism. Yes. But only out of that group, really only Presbyterians would be considered Reformed.

Right. We wouldn't consider Lutherans Reformed. Would you consider Anglicans Reformed? There are a number of.

Anglicans that are strongly Reformed. I mean even in the history of Anglicanism when the Church of England was formed, if you read Thomas Cranmer's Book of Common Prayer and the 39 Articles of Faith of the Church of England, Cranmer had a very strong Reformed bent to him.

And even today there are very strong Reformed Anglicans today. And then again there's the Anglo-Catholics, the High Anglican Church which is more closer to the Roman Catholic side of things. But even with Lutheranism, I mean you know Luther did begin with a very strong sense of predestination, bondage of the will.

But I think Melanchthon, after Luther's death, Melanchthon kind of let's say did a Reformation of Lutheranism himself.

Okay. And one strong Anglican Reformed guy that comes to mind is.

Michael Horton. Right. That's right. And I think Jerry Packer would have leaned in that direction. Okay. But yeah Michael Horton.

For sure. So what would be the scriptures that a Presbyterian or someone who holds to paedo-baptism, what would be the scriptures that they point to that would lead them or someone else to believe, yes we should be baptizing our babies?

Right. Now they all believe, all paedo-baptists believe that the New Testament has baptism by immersion. And they also believe that adults were baptized. The only places they go to to argue for paedo-baptism is they would go to the household baptisms in the Book of Acts where you read about this person believed and was baptized and his whole household.

Right. And the assumption there is that the household, and again these are assumptions, the assumption is the household would include infants even though the text doesn't say that. And an indirect text they use is where Jesus says, a supper not for children to come unto me for to them belong the kingdom of heaven.

That's just an indirect side note they use. And so the problem with that of course is that when they mention these household baptisms, they're following what the Westminster Confession of Faith says, good and necessary inferences.

And what that means is that, well if they had households then they must have had infants in there. That's not what it says. So the refutation for that I think is very clear that every read about a household baptisms, you always hear about them hearing the Word and they believe, the plural pronouns are used, they believe and then they were baptized.

So to include infants in there I think is.

Really, really a push. Right. And the way I think about it, if an infant is baptized and the scripture says repent or believe and be baptized, belief and repentance would follow baptism in that situation.

Whereas I see scripturally it's repent and believe and then be baptized. So that would have to precede baptism which is a picture of our union and our identification with the death.

Burial and resurrection of Jesus. Yeah I mean Luther had to play with words like, well the child reaches out in childlike faith, the way a child reaches to be suckled by its mother, the child in faith reaches out to Christ.

Well I mean that's very melodramatic but again there's nothing biblical, there's nothing.

To back that up biblically, nothing at all. Right yeah. So here's a question because I believe that Presbyterians hold that this puts the child in the covenant. Right. I mean is that something that they hold to.

Concretely? They do and the problem with that Anthony is because they believe that baptism is the New Testament sign that responds to the Old Testament sign of circumcision. And so most of them take Colossians 2 .12 where Paul talks about circumcision and they talked about we were buried with them in baptism.

And the issue here is they'll say the Old Testament type, the sign rather, that brings the person into the covenant and the Old Testament was circumcision and that has been superseded in the New Covenant by baptism.

And they believe that baptism it brings the child into the covenant. They become part of the faith community and so baptism ushers the child into that new covenant. And there's a lot of problems with that.

Well first of all the problem with circumcision and baptism, that's a major problem. And the other problem is the idea that children are inducted into the covenant merely by baptism. So would.

Presbyterians say that when when the child is baptized he's brought into the visible church and not necessarily the covenant or does it.

Have to be both? Well I mean I guess it depends on how we define the covenant. They would say that they enter into not just the visible church but they believe that that that reception of the child into the community of faith also brings them into the invisible church as well.

And that's why they talked about the promises God, the promises that God makes in baptism to us and so forth. But that.

Is so rife with so many problems. Yeah no I agree. And in my conversations with some people they said that if once the child is baptized God would see that child differently than a child who wasn't baptized but is being raised in.

The church. Yeah it's strange isn't it Anthony that they're very strongly reformed but yet there's something God, God reacts to something we do which again sounds like anathema to our reformed Baptist ears.

Because the idea is that there's nothing we can do that can please God. And it's not, God doesn't owe us anything I mean other than judgment. And so to say that God looks at this child in a different manner in which he looks at an unbaptized child, I just don't see that.

I mean they try to use 1st Corinthians 7 where Paul talks about a Christian who's married to an unbeliever but then he says but then your children are holy otherwise they would be unclean. But that's by virtue of the fact that the child is receiving this counsel of the gospel, he or she is hearing the gospel from the believing parent.

And so in that sense the child is is receiving if you will the influence, let's say the filling over of the cup of that Christian parent that will educate that child or speak the gospel to that child's life.

And 1st Corinthians 7, Paul's not even talking about baptism, he's talking about marriage. And in this case between a believer and a person who remained an unbeliever. Right. But.

Wouldn't the common grace of God being raised in a church be extended to.

Children whether they were baptized or not? Yes definitely because he causes the rain to fall on both the good and the bad and his son the sun shines on both the good and the bad. So common grace is indiscriminate.

God does not discriminate in allowing all of his creatures to breathe the oxygen that he's created. And so I agree with you that there's nothing in Scripture that would suggest that a baptized child, I mean that very concept is not even, it's an oxymoron.

The Scripture doesn't even speak in those terms. I think that it's it's more of a man-made idea rather than a biblical doctrine. Right because our baptism is.

Again a picture of our union with Christ. And if these infants are not in union with Christ, it must be picturing some future union that may or may not happen. Right. So I just don't see how that would, how they can consider that child to actually be in the new covenant.

Yeah and I think the new covenant Anthony is.

Is it's delineated for us is it not in Hebrews 8 quoting from Jeremiah 31 31 that it's God who will make that new covenant. It's God who will write his laws in our hearts and put his commandments in our minds.

And then he says this, he says that no one will have to say to them know the Lord for they shall all know me from the least to the greatest. So in the new covenant they have an immediate awareness of God.

They're having an immediate awareness of their salvation with God. And you cannot be in the covenant unless God has brought you into the covenant by his grace, written his laws in your heart. And they all, all those who are in the covenant, in the new covenant, all of them know him.

They shall all know me from the least to the greatest. But in in this Presbyterian idea of the covenant community, not all these children know the Lord because a lot of these kids tend to apostatize at some point.

They walk away from the church. And so do they, are they really in that new covenant? Because the only ones in it, the only ones in that new covenant are those who know the Lord. And that certainly cannot be said of many people who've been baptized in these denominations and then later don't even think about God or have no interest in.