September 22, 2016 Show with Doug Van Dorn on “Waters of Creation: A Biblical Theological Study of Baptism”

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Now here's our host Chris Arntzen.

Good afternoon Cumberland County, Pennsylvania.

And the rest of humanity living on the planet earth who are listening via live streaming.

This is Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you all a happy Thursday on this

22nd day of September 2016.

I'm delighted to have back on the program someone who is becoming one of my very favorite guests,

Douglas Van Dorn.

He is pastor of Reformed Baptist Church of Northern Colorado and has written a number of books,

some of which have very controversial themes actually, and today is no exception.

He has written a book called The Waters of Creation, a biblical theological study of baptism,

which is an issue obviously every Christian knows, at

least one that has been in the faith for a reasonable number of years, that

the issue of baptism has been a hotly divided issue for centuries, even resulting in the

loss of life over the centuries, especially the loss of life for those who

believe in credo or believer -only baptism.

And it is my honor and privilege to welcome Douglas Van Dorn back to Iron Sharpens Iron.

It's great to have you on the program again.

Thanks for having me, Chris.

And this book we are discussing today, as I mentioned, Waters of Creation, a biblical theological study of

baptism, that is right there an interesting title, Waters of Creation, if you

could explain that.

And I was getting in town

and Reformed

churches around, and

I just saw

Matthew

starts off

with this long

typology, going down into Egypt,

and then he comes

back

out,

typed,

and

then I

started

reading the

church

about that.

Yeah, the Jews actually

have immersion tanks for mikvahs, correct?

Yeah, exactly.

You can go into the, you know, like Masada, and you'll find them still

there to

this day, so it's to

the end of

the Bible.

Yes, and it's interesting that Tertullian,.

One of the church fathers, from what I understand, the very first mention in history,

in recorded history, of an infant baptism is in the writings of Tertullian when he

is opposing it.

Am I right on that?

Yeah, I think I heard.

Okay, well, first of all, it'd probably be a good idea for you to give the

basics before we get into anything that may look like it is

novel or a different view or understanding of baptism.

Give us a basic definition of New Testament.

Baptism right now.

I believe that New

Testament and

not infant.

And do you

think

that

the original

Koine Greek is clear enough that this is

specifically

an

immersion

underwater?

Yeah,.

I'm very thankful, for one, that we don't have blood involved in our baptisms now.

Some of our Baptist forefathers, unfortunately, did when they were put to death for this issue.

Yes, and it is heartbreaking for we who are Reformed to say

that it was not only Roman Catholics that did this.

It was some of the magisterial Protestants, correct?

Yeah, it was.

Right.

I just

want to let

you know that as everybody who listens to this program

regularly,.

I, although I am a Reformed Baptist and I take a very strong position on

believer -only or credo or credo as some people pronounce it, baptism,

I have friends and brethren in Christ who I highly revere who are paedo -baptists

from the Presbyterian and Dutch Reformed and Calvinistic Anglican backgrounds and other

groups.

This is not meant to be some kind of a mean -spirited sectarian thing that we're doing today.

We are just delving into a discussion on a view that

involves believer -only or credo baptism, something that I embrace and something that the

congregation where I'm a member embraces and the association that we are part of, etc.

In fact, I very often have had Presbyterians even co -host this show with me, so I wanted to make that clear.

And I did receive today a humorous email from a

Presbyterian friend who will remain unnamed because if I

were to name him, he would probably be upset because he may lose half of his customers in the business that he has.

But he says, I'm puzzled by the promotion of your show today.

You say that your guest is having a biblical study of baptism and he's

a member of a Baptist church, so I don't understand this.

He's a Presbyterian who.

Is

pastor

of a

Baptist church?

So

in other words, you are saying that although this is.

Clearly a New Covenant ordinance, that it does have clear

biblical roots in the Hebrew scriptures.

Of the Old Testament?

Yeah, and I would go to find

something that he just kind

of gives,

but my argument is

that...

Well, you begin in part one of your book on the baptism of Jesus,.

Which obviously is taking place in the pages of the New

Testament, but it is before his, obviously it's before Christ's

atoning work on Calvary and his resurrection and ascension and so on.

But if you could tell us about the significance of the baptism of Jesus performed by John the.

Baptist.

I think that's probably the most...

Why was Jesus...

He actually, at that

point,

he's talking

and then what he...

And so the

people,

and it

seems...

And

John

looks at going back

to.

Well,

then

let's go...

Different reason for being baptized...

Into the

meaning of in the Gospel

of Matthew...

Fulfillment...

And the question then becomes...

Something in the law.

When you go back and look at this law in...

Find that the...

He cannot have a

defect in any kind of a way.

He has

ordination

in...

Now, it seems from the scriptures that those that were baptized.

By John the Baptist, other than Jesus Christ, our Lord, God, and Savior,

everyone else was re -baptized, were they not?

Wasn't there a distinction made?

Christian?

Yes.

I suppose that could be the

case.

And why would that be?

What was the.

Difference between a Christian baptism and the baptism of John the Baptist?

John was not baptizing anyone.

Yes, I see that.

And there is a glorious picture that is occurring there at

the baptism of Jesus, where you have the Trinity present.

If you could explain that whole.

Scene for our listeners.

Yes.

And it actually...

Hovering

over Jesus,

that's language

that

we've

got.

It's an image that comes from Genesis 1

-2 again.

You find

a third,

and

again, the

red

is

coming

along, and

he's

fulfilling

all of those.

In those cases, they're signs.

They're not the fulfillment of all of the...

I want to give our listeners our email address in case they want to join us on the air as well

with a question of their own.

Our email address is chrisharnsen at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -H -A -R

-N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

And please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live

outside of the USA.

Before we go on to baptism and its relationship to the covenant, do you have anything

further to add about specifically baptism and the priesthood?

The

beginning of

the

Typol

or

Sinai, the chapters,

the beginning of chapter...

Giant Chi, people remember the

material.

56 begins with

this idea

of an...

It's almost the

last

time when God

is going to

make Levite.

And so, baptism is just...

It should be viewed proper on worship God in

the New

Testament temple of the

Holy Spirit.

And it's also in the church, New Testament temple of Christ,

where his body and he's

our head.

Holy ministry,

language like that, where it's not that the priest has changed.

Would you say that this understanding of baptism would actually go

hand in hand with the idea, an idea that gets a lot of

Messianic Jewish brethren of ours upset, and some dispensationalists upset

because they are misunderstanding, I believe, what is being said.

But that the church is the fulfillment of Old Testament Israel,

is New Covenant Israel.

And there is a label that has been hurled at us or placed upon us called replacement

theology, that almost sounds equivalent to some kind of an anti -Semitic,

Anglo -Israelism or Aryan type of bigotry, where you're saying Gentiles are

now the chosen rather than the Jews or something.

But that has nothing to do with what we are talking about.

When Jew and Gentile become one in Christ, and

this is the church, the body of Christ, both Jew and Gentile, the Gentile

grafted in to the Jew, the Jewish branch, would

this be coinciding with what you're talking about here, about the church being.

The New Israel?

Oh, absolutely.

See,

they're taking

that

language.

Now

he's expanding with

things like the Abrahamic covenants.

He's just explaining what he

would take of

people.

It's not replacement, it's more fulfillment of anything else.

It's

like my mind went straight.

And it's not like he's just making that language of baptism and clothing up.

That's to be

washed in water,

sprinkling.

And

in

1 Peter, the second chapter, we have

starting in verse 9,.

But you, and he's speaking to Christians, you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy

nation, a people for God's own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies

of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

For you once were not a people, but you now are the people of God.

You had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

I mean, I don't understand how anyone could deny that this is specifically

making a bold and radical and revolutionary declaration about who

Israel is since the dawn of the gospel of Jesus.

Christ.

Exactly.

And Paul, he's

talking to

the nation of Israel.

So by Peter quoting that text,.

He's not saying that you're calling the church.

And we have to go to a break right now.

If anybody would like to join us, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

I have not forgotten about those of you who are now already waiting to have your questions asked and answered.

So I appreciate you being patient and we will get to you as soon as possible.

And if anybody else would like to join them on the air with a question, our email address is chrisarnson at

gmail .com.

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

Don't go away.

We'll be right back with Doug Van Dorn and more of our discussion on

baptism.

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Welcome back.

This is Chris Arnzen, if you just tuned us in.

Our guest today is a returning guest, Douglas Van Dorn, pastor of Reformed Baptist

Church of Northern Colorado.

He is the author of a number of books, including the one we are discussing today, Waters of Creation, A

Biblical Theological Study of Baptism.

And our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com.

Chrisarnzen at gmail .com if you'd like to join us on the air.

I might as well take a couple of these listener questions as they continue to

mount up here.

We have Murray in Kinross, Scotland, who asks, Would you consider a correct

view of baptism a requirement of local church membership, or would you

consider it enough that someone be able to show obedience to the Lord in the matter of baptism

based on their own understanding of Scripture, even if it's a different position to the one

taken by the church?

So what should unite or divide Christians light or life?

And that would be the position that Murray is speaking about is a position that has been

taken by a couple of denominations like the Evangelical Free Church, and

also the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster and the Free Presbyterian Church of North America.

They have both Pato and Credo Baptists who are pastors

and members of their congregations, but if you could comment on Murray's specific question.

Yeah, that's a good question.

How do

you

respond

to the

Christian,

perhaps

the more

strict

Baptist who would say.

That category of membership is not found within the pages of Scripture?

We do have Jason in Fort Worth, Texas, and I am going to give a shout out to Jason

because I don't think he'll mind me giving his full name.

Jason Delgado, he is the first webmaster for Iron Sharpens Iron

when we relaunched in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

We had another webmaster for years when we were broadcasting out of Long Island, New York, but Jason was

our very first webmaster who came forward immediately as a volunteer to help out

Iron Sharpens Iron relaunch, and we were so delighted, and it was an answer to prayer that this occurred,

and I just thank him for all of his labors to create a very attractive

website and to maintain it for quite a long time, and so I

just want to send my love and my brotherly greetings to you, Jason, in Fort

Worth, Texas, and he asks, besides on the issue of infant baptism, how does your

book compare in its biblical theology to that of Professor J. V. Fesco's book,

Word, Water, and Spirit, a Reformed Perspective on Baptism?

Um, okay.

I didn't read anything ahead of time of his either, so.

Okay, so I'm assuming then there.

Is a lot of similarity there.

There is some similarity in terms of he has a section in that book that talks about some of the old, and

that's why, you know, it's not every book on

baptism that kind of ignores the Old Testament.

His was in some ways groundbreaking, at least from the

perspective,

you know, he makes some of the same connections with

what I do and mine,.

But he's obviously...

Yes, and Jason is not

a paedo -baptist.

He's a credo -baptist and is involved with the Confessing Baptist

website.

So thanks a lot, and by the way, Jason, you are getting a free copy of Doug Van

Dorn's book, Waters of Creation, a Biblical Theological Study of Baptism, and that's going to be shipped out to you

by our friends at Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com.

C -V for Cumberland Valley, B -B -S for BibleBookService .com, and we thank Todd and Patty

Jennings for helping us out in that enormous way by shipping out all of our

listeners free books and Bibles when they submit questions, at no charge to Iron

Sharpens Iron or to our listeners.

So thanks a lot, Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service.

And obviously one of the major issues that has divided

Christians and professing Christians is the issue of what is actually going on at a

baptism.

You have those who are Roman Catholic and even Lutheran who believe

that regeneration is taking place, and

obviously there would be differences of opinion on some of the finer points and details in that area.

Many of us who are Calvinists would embrace, nonetheless, many of the

conservative confessional Lutherans as our brothers and sisters in Christ, and I'm sure that there's going to be

some Baptists who are shouting at their radios and computer screens

that they disagree with that.

But tell us about your opinion about what God is doing to the recipient of

baptism during that ordinance.

The sprinklings,

it's not the

language

of

regeneration.

From

that

moment,

regeneration is

standard.

And obviously the Lutherans

also believe in that.

Regenerational factor of baptism, and it seems, on the surface, to contradict

everything else Luther believed.

He was the champion of the solas of the Reformation, that we are saved by grace

alone through faith alone, and it seems odd that he maintained a belief in baptismal

regeneration.

Do you know anything about that conflict of his, what seems to be a

conflict?

And I have heard that Anabaptists actually at

one point brought him close to that point, close to embracing

their view, but he thought that it would just be the the seedbed

of anarchy, and he had some kind of a strong belief in

the citizens of a nation being baptized and being a part

of that nation's declared faith from their infancy, so that it would be

their whole lives a part of that confessed faith.

But anyway, that is an interesting issue.

Now what about those, and they do word it differently, I

have friends that I truly believe are brothers in Christ that have

misunderstandings about baptism that come out of a

Restorationist movement, Church of Christ, Christian Church background, and

they are not a monolith, there are all types of people from that background.

So I have even, believe it or not, met a couple that are Calvinistic, but that

would be rare for sure.

But when they use the scriptural language of arise and be baptized for the forgiveness of your sins, how do you

work that into a non

-sacramental view or a non -salvific.

View of baptism?

Well, I suppose

what is a sacrament, and we also have the Lord's Supper

as Protestants, and you know, we don't take the view that we're actually eating the body of Christ, you know, we

feast on Christ, and so there's some kind of a mystical

union in heaven.

It's a sign,

it points you to something else.

Look at the sign and go, oh, I'm at McDonald's.

Well, I don't

know why I always

say

that.

It's a confusion of the

sign and

the

thing

signified.

Yes, and in Acts 10, you have

the Jewish Christians being rebuked for not baptizing the

Gentiles who have the same gift of the Spirit as we do.

Wouldn't that also be an indication that these Gentile believers were already born again?

Because how could you have a spiritually dead, lost sinner having the same gift of the Spirit as the

Christians?

Yeah, so it would be the.

Idea they're

signified.

Yeah, and

one

thing,

though,

that would seem to militate against.

The typical Baptist practice, including Reformed Baptists, and I'm not

broad -brushing because I have learned there are exceptions, but it seems

that even in this instance in Acts with Peter,

you have baptisms occurring, and you even mentioned it, immediately.

Peter commanded the Gentiles to be baptized immediately.

We have the jailer that

had imprisoned Paul and the disciples, who was baptized that very hour, I believe,

in the middle of the night.

You have this kind of thing where there's an urgency involved in

performing this rite or ordinance as soon as one gave a credible

profession.

Why don't Baptists do that normally?

Oh, you do?

Okay, so you agree with me on that.

Yeah,

and I

think

that

those who believe that water baptism is salvific,.

I think that their arguments against Baptists and others

would have less weight if Baptists in greater numbers practiced the ordinance

the way the Bible describes it.

You understand what I'm saying?

Oh, yeah.

Because the argument is very often, well, if your view is right, why aren't you

baptizing people right away?

Why are you sometimes waiting a year?

Like, for instance, some churches say, every Easter we baptize people that

have become Christians, and they want to obey Christ in that ordinance, then we're going to make you wait

11 months to do that.

And therefore, they should actually be making them wait 11 months to take the Lord's Supper, which is strange

to me.

And of course, you have others who say, we do our baptisms every summer because we like to do it at the beach.

And you have all kinds of reasons.

You have people who say, we have to wait till a month to baptize Brother Bill because his family needs to

fly in from Chicago, or whatever the case is, because they want to make more of a ceremony,

a celebration of it with people that the person who's being baptized loves and

knows to be witnesses of this.

So anything further to say on those issues?

Are those just pragmatic excuses that have no biblical weight to them?

You know,

Bible is

the faith.

And how about, are many of us within Baptists and other

Baptistic churches and fellowships and denominations, when I say

Baptistic, obviously I'm referring to people who believe in credo baptism, who believe in

baptism by immersion in water of believers only.

Many of us say this is purely, just as the Lord's Supper is purely a

memorial, this is purely just an outward sign and picture.

It has no other significance.

Is that, do you think, too much of a diminishment of what is actually occurring?

Let's go to another question.

We have Aaron in Indianapolis, Indiana.

I recognize where credo baptism is in Scripture, but wonder about the origins of

pedo baptism.

Do you know anything about the historical roots of infant baptism?

We mentioned earlier that Tertullian is the first person in recorded history

to write about infant baptism, and he was in opposition to it.

And it's interesting that the Didache, and I know that other people pronounce it differently than that,

but there was nothing in there.

That is the earliest written manual of Christian conduct and practice in the

church that has ever been found in all of antiquity outside

of the Scriptures.

And there is no mention of infant baptism in there, which is also very interesting.

But if you could comment on that.

Do you know.

Anything about the origins of infant

baptism?

Well, they would

say

that Jesus, when

he was.

Even blessing the infants or the children, he was

baptized.

No, but they would use that as an.

Excuse.

And

certainly the Protestants, post -Reformation, were

really using something.

That the Church of Rome had already been practicing.

Were there actual, a lot of exegetical

arguments by the Protestants to defend their continuing

the baptizing of infants?

Did they use the

circumcision arguments from the Old Covenant, carrying that through to the New Covenant, and all the other

things that the Paedo -Baptists typically bring out?

Or were those later apologetic tools or arguments that came

about in history?

That's a good question.

I'm.

Not entirely sure.

Well, they might have, though,

if you're talking

about the latest...

Yeah, I mean, it's possible that their catechism at age...

Yeah, because there's all kinds of also liberal novelties that never existed in Rome in centuries past.

I mean, the people who drafted the modern -day catechism may have been executed by the Council of Trent.

Right. That's true.

Mel Gibson, right?

That's right.

Yeah, that was a little Sedevacantus joke, I think.

And Mel Gibson is real strict, well, at least at one time.

I don't know about where he is now, but his family, his father, was a

strict Latin right Sedevacantus to believe that the Popes were not true Popes since Vatican

II.

But anyway, we're going to be going to another break right now.

And if you'd like to join us on the air as well with a question, our email address is chrisarnson at

gmail .com.

By the way, I forgot to mention, I think, to a couple of our listeners who wrote in,

you're also getting a free copy of the book that we are discussing today on baptism,

Waters of Creation, A Biblical Theological Study of Baptism, thanks to our guest Doug Van Dorn

and the Waters of Creation publishing ministry that Reformed Baptist Church of Northern Colorado

operates.

And you'll be getting them shipped to you by Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service in Carlisle,

Pennsylvania, cvbbs .com.

And we thank, again, Todd and Patty Jennings for doing that so faithfully for us.

We're going to be right back after these messages, so don't go away.

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Welcome back.

This is Chris Arnzen.

If you just tuned us in, our guest today for the full two hours of the program is Doug Van

Dorn, Pastor of Reformed Baptist Church of Northern Colorado.

We are discussing one of his many books, Waters of Creation, a

biblical theological study of baptism.

If you'd like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnzen

at gmail .com.

We have Linda in Hilltop Lakes, Texas, who says, How

were the 3 ,000 converts baptized in Acts 2 41?

I heard George Grant once say, that would be a good argument for sprinkling.

When you answer that, I want you to be as kind as possible to Dr. Grant, who I happen to have a lot of

high opinions of.

He is going to be my guest on Thursday, October 6th on Iron Sharpens Iron.

He's returning as a guest.

I really enjoy him for many reasons, but obviously disagree with him on baptism, since he is a Presbyterian.

But if you.

Could comment on that.

Really?

No, I've never

even thought about it.

Yeah, it's interesting.

That there were comments in Scripture, in the God -breathed writings of the Bible, that

baptisms were taking place because there was much water there and so on.

Right, exactly.

And this is something that I find interesting and kind of comical.

I have had my Presbyterian brethren and friends joke and

laugh and mock when they say that when we say

one of the proofs for immersion in water is the verses that allude

to both the baptizer and the baptizee going down into

the water.

And they chuckle and they say, well, if you're going to use that as an argument, you're going to be saying that

the person baptizing also was immersed.

And my response is, no, that's ridiculous.

What it means is, if they're being sprinkled or having a little bit of water poured on them, why would

anybody have to go down into the water?

They could do it on the shore of the lake or the stream or the

bank of the stream or the river or the shore of the ocean and so on.

They wouldn't have to go into the water to sprinkle somebody.

I mean, don't you see the illogical or the comical

mockery that they hurled towards us, having no weight?

Well,

right.

I mean,

and

then,

you

know,

baptism was it.

So you would say that those paedo -baptists who insist that baptizo

only means to wash, it does not mean to immerse, you're saying that they're incorrect?

View that the word

dip

actually uses.

So the sprinkling of blood in the old covenant is a different word?

Obviously, it would be a Hebrew word, right?

There's an appendix I have at the end of a different word.

We have a listener, a first -time questioner.

I don't know if he's a first -time listener, but he's a first -time questioner.

Sean in Centennial, Colorado asks, how can this book be used to

counter paedo -baptist arguments?

And he also asks, is the aim to bridge the gap between paedo and credo

-baptists?

Actually kind of get

means it's kind of a long answer, right?

That's fine.

We got plenty of time.

All right.

You know, a

basic thing

that

I would

say about reformed

Christians,

not going back

to

they

make

this

art,

and so therefore

actually the language that is

out there didn't have necessarily a problem of thinking about it in terms of,

so I discovered that Jesus

being baptized in fulfillment of a particular Levitical

and ordination covenant in the Old

Testament.

Now, wait a

minute.

Old Testament,

you do

find it

in some.

I think that

that's a, I think

it's actually

really,

really, if we're going to be rooting baptism in the Old Testament,

if we have a right to do that, if

we

can do

that,

that is

baptism.

And so

what

I

would

want to

say is,

well, of course I should be baptized.

That's what I'm supposed to

do.

One of the things that it seems, I don't know how much you have read up on

or studied about the federal vision movement, but it seems that they are

trying to be logically consistent, taking a lot of

Presbyterian or Pato Baptist thought to what they would consider logical conclusions.

And one of them include the fact that if you believe that baptism

enters you into the covenant and infants are to be baptized, you are going to have

in the covenant, in the new covenant where Christ is mediating

between us and the father, you're going to have

reprobate individuals in that covenant.

And the big question is, how is Christ mediating for these people?

Is he failing?

Is he not a perfect mediator?

Is that a good question to bring into the discussion?

It is a question that

I understand.

Yes, but the federal vision, just to bring it forward, even I think in a stronger way, where they

are including infants in the communion table.

One of the federal vision chief proponents, Greg Strawbridge, baptizes

unbelieving spouses of believers.

Oh wow, that's fascinating.

I've always thought that that's exactly what they should do.

Yes, and he does.

In fact, I specifically asked him that question from the audience at a debate he had

with Dr. James R. White on the issue of infant baptism.

And I was not expecting him to say that.

Yeah, that's the first person I've ever run into that.

Yeah, and he said, not only do I agree with it, I do.

But I'll tell you something, though, he did, and you'll have to watch and listen to the video of the debate.

Do they still use the word video?

I don't know.

But the DVD of the debate or the YouTube of the debate,

he makes a qualification that really, I think, sunk the argument into the depth of the sea.

No pun intended, when he said, if the woman is demonstrating that she wants to

follow Jesus, but it's not clear that she's a Christian, I will baptize her.

That's totally fudging this.

Yes, I know.

And the moderator did not press him on it.

I wish the moderator had really pressed him on that to

have him clarify or harmonize the apparent contradiction in what he was saying.

It would have been more in harmony with his view as if she was an atheist and just said,

I am doing this because I love my husband and I want to be submissive to him.

That would be the more logical way to harmonize those things.

But anyway, we do have Tyler in Mastic Beach, Long

Island, who asks, well, you've already brought this up, so Tyler's question

is a bit outdated, for lack of a better

term.

But perhaps you want to add to your discussion on this.

How does baptism affect one's view of the covenant?

Why

not?

It

makes

more

sense.

It's

not

related

to

the

Abrahamic

covenant.

Would you say that a lot of the

misunderstanding or the drawing wrong conclusions

about baptism that are done by those who believe in baptismal

regeneration or believe that baptism is in some way salvific?

I know that there is a disagreement amongst those who believe in the salvific nature of

baptism as to whether or not to call it baptismal regeneration.

Not all of them would use that phrase to describe their own view.

But don't you think a lot of it has to do with going back to the core of the

doctrines of grace, of Reformed theology, that clearly

reveals from the pages of scripture that man is helpless and dead

in his sin prior to his regeneration, and therefore you're not going to have

a willing participant standing in a baptismal tank eagerly awaiting

to obey Christ in this ordinance if he's still dead in his sins?

Yeah, in

fact

most of

those

who believe,

if not all today, who believe in

the salvific.

Nature of baptism would say you cannot force a person to baptize.

It would make it illegitimate because repentance is a necessary requirement.

And I'm speaking of those outside of Rome typically because I'm not sure

how hard they would hold fast to the concept of repentance

being a requirement.

I think you would probably get the Roman Catholic Church to baptize anyone who was interested

and willing, especially if they just wanted to make peace in a family that was a mixed marriage or something.

But those that take it more seriously, they seem to insist that baptism

would necessitate an evidence of genuine faith and repentance first, not somebody

just saying, yeah, why not?

Yeah, I'll go through the Duncan thing.

It's going to make my parents happy, or it's going to make my wife happy, or whatever.

Typically they're not going to baptize that person.

So there needs to be a change of heart that takes place before that person

is eager and willing to have this ordinance performed.

And how did that happen?

That's the issue that the Sovereign Grace believer, the Calvinist, if you want to nickname him that, or

the Reformed Christian, that's where we have

historically, I believe, brought to the surface of the pages of Scripture.

That's why there is a very serious issue in the Scripture that reveals the nature of

man being totally depraved.

He is dead in his sin, and when he is quickened to new life,

he is being regenerate while he is in the midst of his

deadness.

He is brought to life.

And that happens before any willingness to obey and follow Christ.

Am I right?

Exactly.

Yes, amen.

And what about the argument that many of our Pado -Baptist

brethren and friends will say that, who are you to talk

about baptizing unbelievers, meaning infants,

and including them in the covenant as being ridiculous and unbiblical and

harmful?

When Baptists do that all the time, there are so many cases of Baptist church members

and even pastors being excommunicated because they later proved to be false converts

or charlatans or backsliders in the midst of unrepentant

wickedness, and they are removed from the church, and therefore you have

proved that you baptized an unbeliever.

Isn't the difference.

Though with the intention?

And even

that

person can't infallibly know that.

Exactly, exactly.

So we're not baptizing...

Amen.

We are going to our final break right now.

And by the way, I think I forgot to mention an extra bit of good news to Sean,

who is in Highlands Ranch, Colorado.

Not only are you getting a free copy of our guest's book, Doug Van

Dorn's book, Waters of Creation, since you are a first -time questioner in our

audience, you are also, on top of that, getting a brand new copy of the New American Standard Bible, a

beautiful compact edition of the NASB.

It's not quite pocket -sized, but it's small enough to easily carry around.

Women can carry them around easily in their pocketbooks, men in perhaps a coat pocket,

easily fitting in a briefcase and so on.

This is a beautiful edition that has an embossed cross on the cover, and I've been getting

rave reviews from our listeners for this Bible.

And we thank the publishers of the NASB for sponsoring our program ever since it first

began way back in 2006.

So thanks again to the publishers of the New American Standard Bible, and you'll be getting

that in addition to the book by Doug Van Dorn, Sean, so thank you very much.

We're going to our final break right now, and if you would like to join us,

our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail

.com.

I do have to say that we are out of Doug Van Dorn's book now.

We've given them away to as many as we could, but if you have any

new time questioners out there, we will certainly give you a free

New American Standard Bible if you've never written in to us before and won one.

So we're going to be right back after these messages, so don't go away.

And I hope that this ad starts soon.

I just love technology.

Well, we're going to go back to that ad, I guess, in a little bit, and we're going to go to a

different...

Chris Arnn's in here, and I can't wait to head down to Atlanta, Georgia, and here's my.

Friend Dr. James White to tell you why.

Hi, I'm James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries.

I hope you join me at the G3 Conference, hosted by Pastor Josh Bice and Praise Mill Baptist Church, at the

Georgia International Convention Center in Atlanta, January 19th through the 21st, in

celebration of the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation.

I'll be joined by Paul Washer, Steve Lawson, D .A. Carson, Vody Balcom, Conrad M. Bayway,

Phil Johnson, Rosaria Butterfield, Todd Friel, and a host of other speakers who are dedicated to the pillars

of what G3 stands for, gospel, grace, and glory.

For more details, go to g3conference .com.

That's g3conference .com.

Thanks, James.

Make sure you greet me at the Iron Sharpens Iron exhibit booth while you're there.

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Welcome back, this is Chris Arnzin,.

And if you just tuned us in for the last 90 minutes, in the next half hour to come, we have been interviewing and will

continue to interview Doug Van Dorn, pastor of Reformed Baptist Church of Northern Colorado,

and author of the book we have been discussing, Waters of Creation, a Biblical Theological Study of

Baptism.

And if you could, Doug, go through some more of the implications for Christian

baptism in this final 25 minutes.

That

we have.

We

have

CJ and

Lyndon

Hearst

Long Island,

who

wants

to know if

a

person

who

believes.

That when they were baptized as a believer, they were faking

a conversion, if later on in life, they became truly born again,

should you re -baptize that person since, in reality, since there was no

genuine repentance or faith, in fact, a fraud had occurred, that person

was never really baptized to begin with.

There's a lot of different,.

My own personal,

not as a

person like that who made, it's

not like

it's going

to,

another part of that is, well, what happens if the second time,.

End, you know?

But isn't there a difference between somebody who is knowingly perpetrating a fraud,

like I even know of a case, a really horrible case, where a woman who was

dating a man before she was a Christian, she was dating a non -believer, she became a

believer, they had been dating for years, by the way, and even had

a couple of children out of wedlock, I think, and when the woman became a believer, she

said that she had to break off a relationship with the young man, and the young man

faked a conversion so that she would marry him,

and on the honeymoon, he said, guess what, I faked it, I'm not a Christian, I don't believe in this stuff, I just did it so you'd

marry me.

Now, isn't there a difference between that and somebody who's like, you know, when I look back at my past,

I really probably was not a believer after all.

I mean, there is a difference, isn't there?

Well, certainly there's a difference on.

The inside of a

person.

So you

wouldn't say

that the person was sinning by doing it?

Well, they probably were sinning by doing it.

No, no, no, I mean to have another baptism.

Performed.

Yeah, I mean, I kind of, I guess we just don't have a lot of data.

By the way, I have to, I've repeated it on this program a couple of times, I heard

a line years ago by a young black

Christian preacher on TV, he was a guest on some show, and I think he was

not even a teenager at this point, just a very

faithful, enthusiastic Christian young man, and he was talking about

baptism, and he said, by the way, if you think that baptism is going to get you to

heaven, if you go in that tank of devil, you're just going to come up a wet devil.

Yeah, exactly.

So that's why, again, at the end of the day, I mean, I guess you

can get...

Now, this is an interesting, something that you said about this brings into play

something that normally would not involve a Baptist.

It's really a Presbyterian, Lutheran, and Dutch Reformed issue of

those that practice infant baptism.

There is a difference among them on whether or not Roman

Catholic baptism is a valid baptism, and probably today,

in the 21st century, most paedo -baptists do accept Roman Catholic baptism as

a valid biblical baptism, and there are some that do not.

In fact, I am going to be interviewing a Presbyterian at some point in the future, God willing, a

Presbyterian pastor who does take the unpopular view that a Roman Catholic

baptism is not valid.

But that normally would not involve a Baptist, because we would say, well,

if anybody that was baptized as an infant, it's not really a baptism.

But what about a person, having said what you said about it not really mattering

if the person inwardly was already regenerate, they received

a valid ordinance, so we're not going to re -perform that unless the person

is really insisting upon it.

What about the person that comes to faith later in

life and is baptized, even by immersion, by a Roman Catholic priest?

Because I know that it does happen, it's not typical, but it does happen, especially people who go on

vacation to Israel and do all kinds of other things, and they want to get baptized in the Jordan.

There are occasions I've heard of where Catholic priests have baptized believers by immersion, because they

came to faith later in life, but so is that a valid baptism in your opinion?

Are you trying to, like, get me fired?

No, this is just iron sharpening.

Iron.

I'm so unpopular,

we

have in

our

confession, you

know,

and

I

see

it.

It is

interesting

that the.

Eastern Orthodox baptize everybody, even babies, by immersion.

Yeah, they do.

And so that would not even involve an unusual circumstance with a Greek

Orthodox or a Russian Orthodox person, a priest, baptizing an adult by

immersion, because that's the way they always do it.

In fact, anybody who ever saw my big fat Greek wedding, you may recall that the

young man marrying the Greek girl, they had to bring in a kiddie pool into the

church for him to be dunked.

But anyway, I really, before I go to

any other listeners that are anxiously waiting, oh, by the way, I want to mention something that

I failed to mention.

Our listener in Indianapolis, Indiana wrote in, Erin, and she said something, and she gave

us a very kind gesture.

She said, I've been blessed with so much information and many books from Iron Sharpens

Iron.

If another listener writes, please send my copy to him or her.

So CJ and Lennonhurst Long Island, who was our last questioner, you're going to get

that free book by Doug Van Dorn, not only compliments of him and Wars of Creation

Publishing, but also compliments of Erin in Indianapolis, Indiana.

That was very kind of you, Erin.

In fact, that's the first time, I think, in our audience.

Actually, no, I do remember a couple of times when someone made that kind offer.

And we're going to send you, Erin, a different book.

I don't know what it is right now, but we'll find something to send to you.

And we appreciate your kindness for that.

We want to reward you for that.

Now, I really want to make sure that before I go to anybody else, that you have the floor

to just really solidify everything that you want to say in summary form that you

most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today.

Talk

about

motions.

You've

got

the

cord

of

the

flood

and

you've

got

the

free

sign

of

anytime God makes a new,

I find it a beautiful.

Amen.

And let's

see, we have Harry Jr. in

Brooklyn,.

New York, who says, I know that the oneness Pentecostals do

not believe a Trinitarian baptism is valid, but is a

baptism in the name of Jesus only valid if it's done with the understanding.

That

God is a

Trinity.

And that's

why some

of

those

of our brethren in the Presbyterian and.

Other Paedo -Baptist circles, when they say a baptism is a baptism is a baptism,

well, when they defend Roman Catholic baptism, it is to me odd because I

don't think that they would really be consistent in welcoming any cults,

converts into their own fold.

It's funny, I

actually...

Yeah.

We have a

BB in

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, who says,.

Most Baptist churches that I have been in, when they have the Lord's Supper, they say that

only those who have been scripturally baptized may partake of the Supper.

If you do that as well, does that mean you restrict Paedo -Baptists who are

truly born -again believers from the Supper?

Inside the holy place, meal

in the

New

Testament temple.

Very briefly, we

have Arnie in

Perry.

County, Pennsylvania,.

Who wants to know, can any Christian baptize a professing believer?

Not

just

an elder.

It should come up

in Israel.

That's why God

says, I

mean,

set aside

a good...

Okay, we're out of time, and if anybody would like to find out more about Pastor Doug Van Dorn, his church,

and his writing, go to DougVanDorn .com, DougVanDorn .com.

I want to thank you, Doug.

I look forward to having you back in the future, and I want everybody to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a

far greater Savior than you are a sinner.

God bless you all.