TiL- The Reformed Faith

Truth in Love Network iconTruth in Love Network

0 views

Join Dan and Rob as they discuss the reformed faith as it was part of Dan's examination and also how Baptist can fall into this category.

0 comments

00:00
Welcome to the Truth and Love podcast. Tonight, we're going to be looking at the Reformed faith, mostly from the
00:08
Presbyterian and some of the Baptist perspective. Hope you'll stick with us. Full of surprises, are you?
00:50
It's amazing what AI can do, and I think AI is just going to continue to get better and better at what it produces, but it's really helpful to people like me who have zero talent in this, and so everything that becomes more user friendly, that helps me out.
01:10
Hey, I appreciate it. There you go. Welcome back to the Truth and Love podcast.
01:16
I'm Rob, that's Dan, and we're glad to be with you. We're going to be talking about the Reformed faith, Presbyterian and Baptist.
01:23
Of course, this stems from Dan's examination process and his process of ordination in the
01:31
RPCNA. People want to say CREC, but that's because I'm seeing all that pop up on social media, but the
01:41
RPCNA, RPCNA branch of the Presbyterian Church, yeah. So I apologize for the confusion.
01:50
Dan gets some of these questions through his examination so that they can determine and feel comfortable with his knowledge and his belief and stance on the
02:05
Reformed faith as the Presbyterians understand it, especially the RPCNA, and so we are...
02:15
One other thing, Dan, I'm looking forward to being with you again in person.
02:20
One year later, it marks a year. Yeah, I'll tell you what, it doesn't even seem like it was a year ago.
02:27
It doesn't. No, I mean, I think back and I remember all the stuff that would have happened.
02:34
I left the conference last year, and then my appendix ruptured, and I had had surgery, and I remember all the holidays, 4th of July, it snowed a lot, so winter must have happened, and then here we are again.
02:49
Here we are again, and what we're talking about is the Labors Conference coming up the end of this month,
02:55
April 26th through 28th at Rep Ramada Baptist Church in Knoxville, Tennessee. You can register.
03:01
It's a free conference. You can register at thelaborsconference .com. Let us know that you're coming.
03:07
There's limited seating, but we still have plenty of seats, and we'd love to see you there.
03:13
We would love for you to share the information about the conference in case you can't come, but maybe one of your friends can come.
03:20
The theme is going to be Empowered by the Holy Spirit, or Empowered, the
03:25
Work of the Holy Spirit in the Church, so that's going to be the theme stemming from each speaker, and it's going to be a good time.
03:35
Let me turn down my volume, which I should have done before we started. Let's jump into this,
03:42
Dan, the Reform Faith. There's a good bit of videos already out there, but I'm interested to see where our conversation takes us and what those who were examining you, what they were looking for in their questions.
04:03
So here's one of the questions that you sent me, and we'll start with that. What doctrine distinguishes
04:08
Reform Presbyterians from other Presbyterian denominations the most? Right, so we have several distinguishing doctrines.
04:19
We hold to exclusive psalmody. We don't use instruments in worship. We allow the ordination of women to the office of deacon, not to the office of elder, but to the office of deacon.
04:32
At least now, who knows what's going to happen at Synod in June. It may change.
04:38
There's a committee together now talking it over, so I have no idea what's coming up after that.
04:46
The Mediatorial Kingship of Christ and the practice of covenanting.
04:53
And so when they asked this question, I hadn't thought through which one of those distinctives distinguishes us the most, so I just named off all of them off the top of my head.
05:07
And the guy who is examining me, he's a retired RPCNA minister.
05:15
He knew that I'd been studying the distinctives, that I knew what the distinctives were.
05:22
He said, are you sure there's not one that maybe all the other ones would come under?
05:28
It was like, you know what, it has to be the Mediatorial Kingship of Christ. And that is, it's hard to define.
05:39
That's another one of those things that the Synod has put together a committee where they are actually trying to define that for us.
05:49
Because you know, you ask 15 Presbyterians what it is, and there's 15 slightly different answers that all revolve around the same basic understanding.
06:04
So I could give you a wrong answer, but I'll probably give you an answer that is generally correct, but some people may add or subtract a little bit of what
06:16
I'm saying. But I'll give you the general thrust of it. The doctrine of the
06:23
Mediatorial Kingship of Christ states that Christ is King now presently as He sits upon the throne.
06:32
He is King over His church. He's also King over the political sphere as well.
06:40
So all the nations of the earth are His. Each one who has power or rule is subject to Christ.
06:53
We take this from passages of Psalm 2, which talks about Christ being a ruler over the nations.
07:01
The nations being told to kiss the sun lest they perish in the way that God has set
07:07
Christ up as the King, the Prince over all of the nations of the earth. So what that means is that that's the kingship.
07:18
The Mediatorial portion of that is that in His office of King, in His ruling over the nations and the church, all of His work is towards mediating the gospel to fallen creation.
07:37
So that means that there's a real obligation of the state to protect gospel ministry, to put forth laws that are in agreement with the law of God from His word, and that the state should be doing not the work of evangelism, but they should be setting up a society in which the church is able to thrive in its mission to preach the gospel and to love neighbor as ourselves.
08:25
So they should be rewarding the good and punishing the evil to that end, that the gospel of Christ goes out into the world.
08:37
What a doctrine that...you know, see, that sounds like something that a lot of Reformed folks could get on board with.
08:46
But we also tag another distinctive onto that called covenanting, where we believe that it is right for nations to actually covenant themselves together with God, that they would be explicitly
09:03
Christian nations, that they would be working towards the establishment and expansion of Christ kingship through the authority that they've been given in the realm in which they live.
09:16
We point back to an example of this in Scotland, in England, with the
09:24
Solemn League and Covenant, which was signed by the monarchs in Britain, and they went back on it.
09:38
However, it doesn't necessarily mean that they're out of covenant obligation.
09:44
If you make a promise to God, you're kind of stuck there. Covenant or not, you're not without obligation to God.
09:55
Exactly. But I would say there's a stricter obligation for those who actually engage in explicit covenant with God to be a
10:04
Christian nation, and then act like they are in Canada and Australia and the
10:10
United States, all having come from people who engaged in that covenant and then went back on it, even to the point where America doesn't have a
10:20
Christ named as head ruler of all things in his constitution.
10:25
We were the first nation to do that, or the first Western nation in our establishment documents to leave
10:32
Christ's name just completely out of it. It's not good. So we would distinguish ourselves from other
10:40
Presbyterians based on that doctrine of the mediatorial kingship of Christ.
10:47
Gotcha. Well, the next question has to do with distinguishing Reformed Baptists from other
10:53
Baptists. We could have a whole episode on that. We can have a whole episode on that because,
11:01
I mean, nailing down a Reformed Baptist, nailing down any
11:06
Baptist is difficult in and of itself. It's like nailing Jell -O to the wall.
11:12
Jell -O to the wall. And I was thinking about how the distinction between Reformed Baptist and Reformed Presbyterian or,
11:22
I mean, is the Reformed part so understood in the Presbyterian world that you just say
11:28
Presbyterian, or do you say Reformed Presbyterian? Well, normally they will just say
11:35
Presbyterian and they understand that Presbyterians are of the Reformed faith.
11:41
A Reformed Presbyterian is a specific thing coming from Scotland and the
11:46
Covenanters. Okay. And that's a good distinction because that's good information, new information for me to lock in there.
11:55
But thinking about the distinction between a Reformed Baptist and a Reformed Presbyterian like you're talking about, you started off in your dialogue or your answer there about psalmody.
12:09
And we've already talked about psalmody in another episode, singing the Psalms. And that got me to thinking of one of the distinct so -called distinctions that are mentioned when it comes to Reformed Baptists.
12:22
They'll say one of our distinctions would be the regulative principle of worship, which could be psalmody.
12:33
Could be, yeah. I think it is, but historically it hasn't always been.
12:39
Right. And so when it comes to Reformed Baptists, I guess that's the
12:46
Baptist part of everything. We leave, you've got your boundaries in regulative principle, but you tag the
12:53
Baptist title on there that it makes it into a rubber band.
12:59
It stretches those boundaries out to where you can, we were talking before we come on air about how you as a
13:08
Presbyterian, your confession is the Westminster Confession of Faith. And so you're holding to that and everything in it, as you explained it, has got to be pretty solid.
13:23
And if your conscience has some questions or disagreements or something within the
13:33
Westminster Confession, you explain that there's going to be a good reason, and you've got to have a really good explanation to why your conscience is not allowing you to hold to whatever little part there in the
13:48
Westminster Confession. And so when it comes to the Reformed Baptists, it seems like we're all over the place.
13:58
You can hold to this confession or that confession or this confession, and you and I can hold to the same
14:03
Baptist confession, and you can hold 95 % of it, and I can hold 75%.
14:14
There's a lot more give when it comes to being a Baptist. Yeah, well, a lot of that has to do with our difference in church governance, because each
14:27
Baptist church is autonomous. Y 'all are kind of your own thing. You're not responsible to the other
14:34
Baptist churches. I mean, you do have fellowships where they are going to ask you to be more or less in line with certain things.
14:45
Think of the old ARBCA, the Association of Reformed Baptist Churches of America, had some requirements for membership that were a fairly strict subscription to the confession.
14:58
There was a lot of pushback on that, and now you have the Reformed Baptist Network and other groups that don't require such as a strict subscription to that confession.
15:12
It's also interesting that... Well, let me go back.
15:18
The Presbyterians, on the other hand, with our confession, we call them standards. This is what we as Presbyterians are going to believe.
15:28
So when we go to them, we have not just a confession that we believe to be a good historical document, but we are going to hold ourselves and others to that standard.
15:41
Not only that, but we actually have the authority to do it. If you go too far off base, they can defrock a minister.
15:49
They can take the whole church and say, if you don't repent, church, you're off on your own. There's a couple questions that I want to ask you when it comes to the
15:59
Baptist, because you do have knowledge in that area as well. One of the distinctives, many that I've read and listened to say of the
16:11
Reformed Baptist is that to be a Reformed Baptist, to give yourself that title or name, you've got to be what they call confessional.
16:20
They'll say, typically, a Reformed Baptist will hold to this or mainly this confessional faith.
16:31
Do you consider the Baptist faith and message BFNM 2000, would you consider that a confession?
16:43
It's a confession. I wouldn't consider it a Reformed Baptist confession though.
16:49
Okay. Now, here's the thing. A lot of what's in there is Reformed -ish in nature.
16:56
I think it's a lot more Calvinist friendly that I think a lot of people would like to admit.
17:05
The doctrine of the Lord's day is a whole lot more Sabbatarian than a lot of people would like to admit. They get really wonky on eschatology.
17:16
They're just basically like, eh. I'm a fan millennial. That's the official position of the
17:23
Baptist faith. The message is a fan millennial position that people disagree, but here's the fundamentals and it'll work itself out in the end.
17:30
It'll pan out in the end, yep. Yeah. As far as a Reformed Baptist confession,
17:36
I'd say you're pretty limited to two and maybe a third. I would say the 1644
17:44
First London Baptist confession, the 16, was it 1677 or 1689 confession?
17:54
1677, I think is when it was finished. 89 was when it was adopted because they weren't allowed to adopt it in London until it was at 88 or 89.
18:06
Then maybe you can make an argument for the New Hampshire confession, but that's much shorter and it reads more like a modern statement of faith.
18:17
I would say that those two, because they come out of the Reformed tradition.
18:27
The First London Baptist confession was written at the same general time as the
18:34
Westminster confession. I think they're only a couple of years apart while the 1689 actually copied the
18:44
Westminster confession and changed it up for Baptists to use. They did that for a specific reason.
18:50
They did that in order to show that they wanted to be theologically consistent with the
18:58
Presbyterians where they could be because they understood themselves as coming from the same
19:03
Reformed tradition. If we won't call them Reformed or not or whatever, theologically,
19:12
I'd say that they're at least cousins in that respect. I noticed something when you were giving your answer.
19:22
When we're talking about distinctives of being Reformed Baptist or being Reformed, like I said, one of those distinctives is being confessional, period, confessional.
19:33
But when you were giving your answer, you said, well, the
19:38
Baptist faith and message 2000s is not necessarily a Reformed confession.
19:46
So what makes it a Reformed confession? You see what I'm saying? Either you're confessional and that means you're not just simply a
19:57
Biblicist. Your boundaries are going to be a confession or it's got to be a
20:06
Reformed confession. Does that exclude it then from being a distinctive that you're confessional?
20:15
Or should it be more clearly stated, one of the distinctives of a Reformed Baptist is you hold to a
20:22
Reformed confession. Would that be more accurate? I would say that you need to hold to a Reformed confession.
20:28
The reason why I make that distinction is that Reformed is not just a theological category.
20:34
It's also a historical category. That's where you're getting a lot of folks like R.
20:44
Scott Clark who are like Reformed Baptists are not Reformed. They need to change their name. Never Reformed. Kick them on out.
20:50
And it's because of the way that they came about historically. They were part of, I believe the
20:59
Anglican church where they had significant differences with the
21:08
Anglican church. And I can't remember if they were a part of the conformist or the nonconformist side.
21:14
Well, they ended up splitting with John Spillsbury. And then a little bit later on, it solidified into a
21:23
Reformed Baptist movement. So calling themselves particular Baptist to separate themselves away from the
21:31
Anabaptists and even the general Baptist who believed in a general atonement.
21:37
And the church of England. Right. So they wanted to separate themselves from those things.
21:45
And so technically, and here's where people get hung up.
21:52
It's almost like they were a part of the Reformed tradition because the
21:58
Reformation came from folks who were seeking to reform the Roman Catholic church and come out of it. So you have a few different, well, actually just trying to reform it.
22:08
They weren't necessarily trying to come out of it, but they ended up having to because they were kicked out with some force.
22:15
The Lutherans would be considered Reformational churches, but maybe not Reformed because the
22:21
Reformed kind of took that name for themselves. You have the Continental Reformed, the
22:26
Dutch, the Presbyterians up in England, Scotland.
22:33
Then the Anglicans also broke free from Catholicism.
22:40
They would be considered Reformed in a respect. You see that in the modern day
22:47
Reformed Episcopal church, kind of taking that. So when the Baptists split, it's like they jumped off the
23:01
Reformed train historically, kind of. However, I'd say it like this.
23:08
If you're going to say that they're separate, they jumped off of the main road and onto the service road and then continued on the same path for a long way.
23:18
So they can wave at each other and say, hey, but maybe there's a little median in between. So there's a historical distinction to be made where you say
23:28
Reformed Baptists aren't Reformed. That'd be where it came from. But theologically, while there's some big differences, they were trying to stay within that Reformed vein with their confessions.
23:43
So I'm no expert. I'm not going to say you're in or out of the Reformed tradition, but that's why there's so much trouble in nailing down part of it, of what it is, because it started up funky.
24:01
You can make a historical argument against and for, and theological ones here and there, what constitutes
24:07
Reformed doctrine, what doesn't. I agree that there needs to be distinctions and definitions.
24:20
If you hold to this, you're definitely not Reformed. We've got to understand those things.
24:26
But then within the Reformed camp, I believe there can be some grace, because there's always been this idea or this transformation, this idea of always
24:38
Reforming. It has taken us in different directions, but we've all believed that we're always
24:45
Reforming. Of course, we believe we're going in the right direction, whatever direction that we're going, we believe it's the right direction, but we're always going in that direction.
24:55
That's right. Well, we believe that we're all Reforming. Since you brought up history, as you were talking this is kind of a side note,
25:02
I want to throw this in there. You hear about this idea of having more of the ability to tussle and discuss theological issues with one another when we're outside of wartime.
25:20
But when we're in wartime, we're more likely to set things aside so that we can battle shoulder to shoulder with one another.
25:36
But you're talking about this history and these Reformers. They didn't have it easy.
25:43
I think about the Presbyterian John Knox. He didn't have it easy, and he didn't make it easy on himself preaching to the queen.
25:52
You had Luther, who was, they were trying to find him and arrest him, and he had to stand before the
26:00
Diet of Worms and give an account. From my understanding, I think they wanted to kill him, right?
26:08
Yeah, he had to hide out in a castle upstairs and use his time to translate the
26:14
Bible into German and stuff. Yeah, and if you started to go the Baptist route, be it you were
26:19
Anabaptist or the real Baptist, the particular
26:27
Baptist movement, whatever Baptist line that you were in, they were persecuted as well, even from other
26:38
Protestants. You want to believe in immersion? You want to believe in rebaptizing? Here, we'll baptize you until you don't come back up.
26:48
I need reparations,
26:54
Dan. I'll get you a sprinkled donut. That would be a
27:01
Presbyterian donut for sure. I say all that to say they had it tough, and yet they had the wherewithal and the desire and the zeal to be laying down these theological foundations and studying
27:21
God's word. There's no excuse for us to be doing that either. Wow, we went a lot of places.
27:33
Yeah, we didn't even get to discuss the difference between Reformed Baptist and other Baptists.
27:38
Right. What would you think a distinction would be between Reformed Baptist and other
27:45
Baptists? Oh, man. You see, here's the thing. A Baptist, oh man,
27:55
I wonder if I still have it readily accessible. Well, that's the thing that holds us all together, credo of baptism,
28:05
Believer's Baptism. Yeah. My grandfather had an acronym for Baptist, and it wasn't just him.
28:16
I've heard it from many other people. The B stood for Believer's Baptism.
28:23
A was for, I forget.
28:31
You had to put that together. I've got it written down in a Bible of mine. P was the
28:38
Priesthood of the Believer. T was, oh,
28:44
A was Authority of the Scriptures. Okay. T was, I forget, but yeah, they went all the way down through, and it was several distinctions.
28:59
When you got through there, all of the Baptists that I knew of, at least the ones that weren't Ragin' Heretics or whatever, they could fit into all of those.
29:10
I could probably look it up. It's got to be fairly common.
29:19
Well, I would say one of the distinctions that's going to make somebody
29:24
Reformed, this distinction between a Reformed Baptist and other Baptists would be the
29:32
Calvinistic understanding of soteriology. Yeah.
29:40
Hold on. I found it. All right.
29:48
I was wrong. I was right that there was an acrostic. I was wrong on what they were. B is for Biblical Authority.
29:55
A is for the Autonomy of the Local Church. Okay. P is for the
30:01
Priesthood of all Believers. Oh, come on. Where did it go?
30:20
It disappeared on me. We almost had half of it.
30:29
Almost. Just like a Baptist, starts working, then quitting on me. Whoa, wait a second.
30:37
Oh, hold on. There we go. Biblical Authority, Autonomy of the Local Church, Priesthood of the Believer, Two Offices of Elder and Deacon, Individual Soul Liberty.
30:49
In other words, you are saved on, let's see how they say it.
31:01
You're able to disagree with other people and still call each other brother and sister.
31:08
The Separation of Church and State and Two Ordinances, the Baptism in the
31:13
Lord's Supper. Okay. That's not too bad.
31:19
Yeah. Now, I've heard as far as Reformed Baptists go, that they need to hit, how is it?
31:25
Three Cs. They need to be confessional, holding to one of the two Reformed Confessions.
31:31
They need to be Calvinistic in their soteriology. They need to be covenantal in their approach to Scripture.
31:41
Meaning that they would hold to either the 1689 Federalism or the newer form of, what do they call it?
31:53
20th century Baptist covenant theology, which mirrors the
32:00
Westminster theology, only comes to Baptist conclusions. That's what
32:06
I've heard as well. Need to have those three Cs to be considered a Reformed Baptist. I would tend to agree with that.
32:14
I'm okay with that. I'm trying to find a picture while you were talking. I want to keep looking for it.
32:24
If anybody else, the comment line is open. It's always open.
32:29
If you have any questions or comments or anything that you would like to add to the conversation, we would love to hear from you.
32:35
At least say hello, let us know that you're watching. We really appreciate it. What distinguishes
32:40
Reformed Baptists and Reformed Presbyterians? So much. The main difference between Reformed Baptists and Reformed Presbyterians is their covenant theology.
32:57
The differences in covenant theology is what leads to almost all of the other differences between them.
33:09
So their understanding of how the covenants work and function together, it leads the Reformed Presbyterian to understand infant baptism as being valid in our understanding of the church and how it should function and look.
33:24
In the Reformed Baptist covenant theology leads them to conclusions of believers only baptism and how their church should function and look.
33:35
So that would be your big distinction there is how the covenant theology is put together.
33:43
What do you actually believe about the covenants and how God has revealed himself to mankind?
33:50
Because all the other issues stem from that issue or most of the other issues anyway.
33:57
Right. You've got your Baptist and Presbyterian distinctives or differences, but yeah,
34:06
I think you're right when it comes to Reformed Baptists and Reformed Presbyterians. That issue of covenant and how you understand that.
34:16
Really any baptism debate between Presbyterians and Baptists or Baptists and Presbyterians, when
34:24
I go put either one first, although we're right, any discussion that doesn't go back to their understanding of covenant theology is just going to be running around and around in circles because one of the two is going to grab some sort of distinctive or something that they hear.
34:47
They're going to drag it back into their own theological system, beat it up, say it doesn't work and then say, look, it doesn't work in my system, so it shouldn't work at all.
34:57
I'm like, well, hold on. I've got an entire system over here of understanding the scriptures that I believe is consistent with the scriptures that make what
35:05
I'm saying correct. So unless you go back and analyze the covenant theology and the differences in understanding, you're not going to come to any sort of a substantive conclusion.
35:18
You're not going to get anywhere. You're just going to be spinning tires and talking past one another. Right. Here are those distinctives that you gave the
35:27
Reformed Baptist earlier, confessional, covenantal, and Calvinistic. There you go.
35:33
Oh, there we go. And so we said that was, and we agree that was a distinctives
35:41
Reformed Baptist, but I've got that little, those three words up there underneath you and I both.
35:52
Yep. So is that consistent? Would that be consistent for to bring you and I together?
35:58
I would say so. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. In fact, there was a little church called
36:05
Serenity Baptist Church in South Gastonia of North Carolina, had right on the sign that they were a 1689
36:13
Reformed Baptist church. They were confessional, covenantal, and Calvinistic. There was like nine of us there.
36:22
Let's see. One, two, three, four, five, nine, 10 or 11, something like that.
36:28
We were just a small group. And then it's no longer there, but.
36:35
Well, and I really think that's how I heard your name years ago from that church and people
36:40
I knew from that church. Yep. I'd say probably. Yeah. So you were talking about the differences and how we understand covenants from scripture.
36:50
The next question I think stems from that. Let's see.
36:59
Facebook user says, and you know, it's a Baptist thing because there's acronyms everywhere.
37:07
So this covenant, covenantal thing, and this was one of your questions again from the presbytery or your examiners.
37:15
Who are the proper subjects of baptism defend theologically? Yeah, the answer that I gave and I stand by it is that proper subjects of baptism are those who believe and their children.
37:30
So believers and children who have at least one believing parent. The reason why we say that is it stems from our covenant theology.
37:41
We believe that our covenant on the basis of covenant.
37:51
And as he's dealt with us in covenant, the covenant, the covenant relationship that he's had with his people has always been between the people and their children.
38:03
So it would continue on throughout time. So we believe that the different covenants that you see in scripture are an administration of the one covenant of grace throughout time, which stems from, and some people will agree or disagree on this point, that there's a, there's another inter -Trinitarian covenant called the covenant of redemption, where God, before time made covenant with himself to save a people for himself, that the father decreed it, the son would accomplish the salvation necessary.
38:40
And then the Holy Spirit would apply that to those people who are going to be saved. The covenant of grace, then, is that outworking of that inter -Trinitarian covenant throughout history.
38:52
So when God made a covenant with man to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he did so knowing that we would fall, but he also did so with the tree of life right there.
39:12
So as we fell, it wasn't a surprise to God.
39:21
And so his plan was still going forward, going into motion. So each covenant afterwards is a working out or a further revelation or administration of God's covenant of grace.
39:34
So when you come to Abraham, he gives them, the Abrahamic covenant gives them the promises of the land, promises of through circumcision that was for him, for his children, marking off in the flesh of people who are going to be saved through someone coming in their bloodline.
39:54
Moses, the Mosaic covenant, marking off a people as gods, also through circumcision to them and to their children.
40:08
David being given the promise of one of his offspring sitting on his throne for forever, that one pointing directly to Christ.
40:18
And then the new covenant in which all of the type and shadow and foreshadowing that came throughout history was then fulfilled in Christ as Christ came and died on the cross for the sins of men and then rose up again and seated at the right hand of the father.
40:39
So since the covenants had always been to a people and to their children, then in the new covenant as well, the promise of salvation through Jesus Christ is to each one and to their children.
40:56
And that's why we baptize our children, because that mark of the promise of the covenant of God is given to our children as well.
41:04
So we raise them as Christians to believe in those promises. Those promises are given to them.
41:13
Obviously, if they do not receive them with faith, those promises are not salvific for them.
41:21
But that's why we baptize infants, because we believe that God has throughout history dealt with in covenant through those who he entered into covenant with and then also, by extension, their children.
41:38
So if this one would be a good one for us to kind of work towards the end of the program on, because in keeping with the theme of what we're talking about, looking at Presbyterian, and since I'm also a member of this podcast, talking about Reformed Baptist covenant theology, we're going to look at it from a different perspective.
42:04
And so help me understand this more clearly. So from what you just described and what you explained, according to how you interpret covenant theology, the reason you can baptize infants is because you see infants.
42:20
Please correct me if I'm wrong. I'm still trying to understand this. You see infants as a part of the visible church.
42:29
Is that correct? Right. And so they're a member of the visible church because they are part of the covenant because they were born to a believing parent or two believing parents.
42:46
Okay. So whereas the Reformed Baptist would see that kind of opposite, if the child may be part of the covenant, so we would include them in the invisible church from the
43:08
Baptist perspective. No. Okay. No. So help me understand this.
43:13
At least not the way that I heard you say that. You may, but just not the way that I heard you say it. Okay. In Baptist covenant theology, at the time of the new covenant, all of the type and shadow went away.
43:33
All the way away. Okay. So what you're left with then is only a people who would be believing and receiving the promises of the new covenant in faith.
43:48
So believer's children would not be a part of the new covenant because they have not received the promises of that covenant in faith.
43:59
They have not entered into covenant on a personal level with God. In the words that I was using, the
44:05
Reformed Baptist would not see a infant or child in the visible church like the
44:11
Reformed Presbyterian does. Right. But they also wouldn't see them in the invisible church either, unless there was a credible profession of faith.
44:22
Now, there could be, from what I understand, Reformed Baptist could understand a child who has not made a profession of faith to be one of the elect, depending on the circumstances.
44:39
Well, and that's kind of my point of them potentially being in the invisible church. That's kind of the idea of it being invisible.
44:47
You can't see it. You don't know. Right. Well, I mean, even adult professing believers could, in the
44:55
Baptist view, potentially not be a part of the new covenant. Yeah. You could be a professor, but not have obtained salvation.
45:05
Yeah. Right. So, the Presbyterian understanding would say that the makeup of the church is a lot like what you saw in the nation of Israel, that there was believers mixed with unbelievers, and that only those who received the promises that were laid before them by faith received salvation.
45:27
But that all the folks who were in covenant with God were given those promises that through faith in God, either through what he had revealed about himself previously, or through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, that they would have salvation.
45:52
So, the Presbyterian understanding is that a promises, whereas in a
46:00
Baptist understanding, the new covenant, while it's not synonymous, it can almost be said to be the same thing as salvation.
46:08
So, it'd be only the promise as received by faith.
46:17
Yeah. And I hesitate bringing this up because I don't want to go down this rabbit trail, but we talked about this in Elias, the
46:32
Reformed Berean in his episode, when we actually talked about, well, in the last Laborers podcast, we talked about Lord's Suffering Baptism.
46:39
But it's why I can understand how there's a consistency there when it comes to you,
46:53
Dan, and the Presbyterian, Reformed Presbyterian faith, and how you view and understand baptism and Lord's Suffering, where there's more substance there, and that would be consistent with this covenant theology that you're describing.
47:13
We baptize them because there's substance there, there's a meaning to it there, where, as a
47:22
Reformed Baptist, yes, I'm going to hold to a Reformed confession of faith, and it seems as if I am leaning away from a majority of Reformed Baptists and Reformed confessions.
47:39
However, because of our Baptistic beliefs, I feel like I'm being more consistent as a
47:47
Reformed Baptist that I'm not interpreting,
47:52
I'm not seeing more of a substance there in the Lord's Supper and baptism because of how
47:57
I understand covenant theology from a Baptistic point of view.
48:02
Does that make sense? I get what you're saying. I just disagree with you. I understand.
48:08
Yeah, I know you disagree. Even from a Baptist perspective, if you believe that those who are actually part of the new covenant are saved, then
48:18
I don't see how, especially in the Supper, that you could come to it and not see the grace of God through the gospel being given to each one who partakes of the
48:29
Supper. Yeah, and I know you disagree, and some of my
48:36
Reformed Baptists would disagree. Richard Mosellos disagrees. I'm going to bring you that book.
48:45
We'll bring you that book in a week or so, if I can find it. I got you. I got you. And it would be helpful for me to look at that.
48:54
It was funny. The Reformed Forum, I believe, reviewed his book, and the book, right on the front of it, it says he's talking about the
49:04
Lord's Supper. And they're like, well, it was good and all, but he didn't talk about infant baptism enough.
49:10
It says it's on the Lord's Supper, guys. Give him a break. But even they appreciated what he'd said.
49:17
Yeah, yeah. Well, my point in bringing it up to you is to see if you would agree that you feel like I was attempting to be consistent.
49:31
Yeah. Okay, okay. That's my main thing, is I want to be consistent and not off the tracks, off the rails.
49:42
Let's see here. This would be a good one to end on.
49:52
I brought the term up earlier, Biblicist, and I would say, well, that's one of our distinctives, is that we are confessional.
50:03
We hold to a confession. A confession is our guide and boundaries. So why is it more beneficial to be confessional as opposed to simply a
50:15
Biblicist or say, I have no creed but the Bible? Yeah.
50:22
Saying I have no creed but the Bible goes away the second you say anything about the
50:29
Bible. I mean, unless you can just read Scripture and not ever talk about it, you do some sort of a theology.
50:40
A confession of faith states in writing for everyone to examine, this is what we believe the
50:50
Bible says. So it's called a subordinate standard.
50:57
So you have Scripture here. Scripture is our standard. This is what we go to.
51:03
It's what we believe. A confession of faith comes in underneath that and says, this is what we believe the
51:11
Scriptures teach. So the Scriptures may not lay out everything systematically, but we're going to lay it out systematically.
51:18
Here's what we believe concerning the Scriptures. Here's what we believe concerning salvation, the deity of Christ, the
51:26
Trinity, how we should act with the civil government, all across the board.
51:32
And so what that does is it allows other people to look at our doctrine and say, okay, so you believe this about the nature and person of Christ.
51:45
You believe this about the Lord's Supper and baptism, but why do you believe that?
51:51
I think you're wrong. It allows for a scrutiny of someone's beliefs.
51:59
So that way you can't just make it up as you go and have wishy -washy doctrine that floats all over the place.
52:09
One thing that that does is that over time these things get tested. They get tested for their truthfulness, for their consistency with Scripture.
52:20
People will make arguments against certain parts of it, or they'll uphold it, or they'll say, hey, this is a really good statement.
52:27
Everybody should kind of jump on board with this. And what that does is while you're reading your
52:32
Bible, say you come across something and you're having some deep thoughts on it.
52:38
Say you come up with something that says like, well, it seems like Christ had two natures and two persons.
52:48
And then you go to reading the Reformed Confessions and the definition of Chalcedon and other things out there.
52:58
And you're like, well, throughout all of church history, it seems like I would be a heretic.
53:03
So perhaps I should back up and see what the Scripture actually says. I have missed my point.
53:10
And then you'd come to realize that Christ is one person in two natures and not any confusion in them.
53:19
So it helps you keep on track. So if you go off base, you can get gently corrected.
53:29
It's like gutter guards or bumper guards when you're going bowling. You don't want to go off in the gutter.
53:36
You may still miss all the pins at the end, but at least you'll be within the lane. That's really the issue there with confessions.
53:46
Well, speaking of going off the rails, going off track, we as humankind have done that to the most supreme level when it comes to God.
53:58
We've broken His laws and commands. We've done it from the very beginning. And I'm always reminded every time
54:05
I talk about the gospel and understanding our sinfulness, I'm reminded of James chapter 2, verse 10.
54:13
Even if you keep the whole law, yet you stumble at one point, you're guilty of the entirety of the law.
54:19
And so we've sinned against a holy God, a thrice holy
54:25
God, and we deserve because God is eternal. God is eternally holy.
54:32
God is eternal in all His good characteristics. We deserve an eternal punishment, which the
54:39
Bible does describe. The Bible does describe that. The internet is available to most people in the world today, and there's different interpretations, theories, conspiracy theories, myths out there, liberal interpretation, all kinds of interpretations.
55:05
But what is true is that the
55:10
Bible describes all mankind as having sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
55:17
And God, the second person of the Trinity, became a man, fully
55:23
God and fully man, came from outside of this world, outside of time and space, and came into our world, the tabernacle to dwell among us.
55:37
And He lived that sinless perfection that none of us could ever live, where there was full and complete and total obedience to the
55:47
Father. And His sacrifice then of Himself on the cross,
55:52
He was the spotless Lamb of God, was acceptable to the Father.
55:59
And the sign of that acceptance was His resurrection. And so He rose from the dead,
56:05
He ascended into heaven, sits at the right hand of the Father, and as Dan was talking about earlier, as the
56:12
King of kings, king over everything. And the question is, will we submit to the truth of our sinfulness, submit to our need of His salvation, and submit to His kingship?
56:31
And if we'll do that, the Bible says, if we'll repent of our sins and put our trust in Jesus Christ, then
56:36
God will make us a new creature. God will save us. God will make us born again. All those terms that the
56:43
Bible uses, whichever term that you want to use, it is for God's glory, and it is good for us to be saved, to have eternal life with Him and not eternal separation in hell apart from Him.
57:00
So we would plead with you that if you have not repented of your sins, put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ, that you would answer that call this evening.
57:10
Dan, would you mind to close us in prayer? Yeah. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for tonight, for talking about the differences in different denominations.
57:19
But we know that we have one Lord, and you are calling us together to live in unity and to trust in you and what you have done for us.
57:28
Pray that we would do those things that we have fruitful discussion, come closer and closer to one another as we look forward to being unified completely with you in your holiness.
57:40
In Christ's name we pray. Amen. Amen. I feel like we're going to have to have a part two of this one, just like we needed a part two of Theosis.
57:48
So we'll be working on part twos coming up after the conference.
57:53
And Dan, you have on a nice polo shirt. I've got on a nice polo shirt.
57:59
I've cleaned up the overlay background. We've turned over a new leaf, brother.
58:05
Oh, this one's just comfortable. I promise I won't do it anymore. Hey, I like it.
58:12
I like it. And I think everything looks fantastic.
58:19
So I appreciate you, brother, doing this with me and ministering with me. And we appreciate you guys watching.
58:25
And as always, remember that Jesus is King. Go live in the victory of Christ. Go speak with the authority of Christ and go share the gospel of Christ.