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Good evening and welcome to the long-awaited baptism debate for infants or believers only. We've been waiting for this so long, actually I was hoping that Mr. Shishko would be baptized by now and this would be unnecessary.
But we finally have the opportunity to see these two men, two good friends and brothers in Christ, two scholars and two men, more than able to handle the job at hand for each of them. I want to, first of all, I want to thank Pastor David Knapp of the Full Gospel Christian Center here in Port Jefferson Station for allowing us to use these beautiful, spacious facilities that we have here for the debate.
Now let's have a round of applause for them. I particularly love the architecture of this building, it's quite beautiful, in fact, I wonder what they do with this thing over here. Looks like one of them little kiddie pools or something.
I guess they just cool off in the hot sun of it, is that... I'm not sure, but anyway. By the way, I am Chris Arnzen, formerly of WNCA Radio, and I'm hosting a new program that I hope you tune into called Iron Sharpens Iron on WNYG Radio, 1440 AM, it's a live calling program.
Today, we didn't have that many calls during the program, but I found out later that my listener died. So... No, but really, the program is quite an excellent program, not because of me, because the Lord has just, in his providence for some reason, given me so many friends and acquaintances over the years that I've had some of the most brilliant thinkers in the world on the station, on the program.
So I hope you keep tuning in to that program, and it's also available on the internet, you can hear it live, and there's also a flyer out there in the hallway for that program. But we have today, here at the debate, our competitors, if you will, Dr. James R. White, who needs little introduction.
Dr. James R. White is the Baptist debater, and he's going to be defending the proposition, baptism is only for those who have personally repented and believed in Christ. Dr. White is the director of Alpha and Omega Ministries, a Christian apologetics organization based in Phoenix, Arizona, and is an elder of the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.
He is a professor, having taught Greek, systematic theology, and various topics in the field of apologetics. He has authored more than 20 books, including The King James Only Controversy, The Roman Catholic Controversy, The Same-Sex Controversy, The Forgotten Trinity, The Part is Freedom, The God Who Justifies Dangerous Airwaves, Harold Camping Refuted, and Christ's Church Defended, and the soon-to-be-published Hope at Crimes, The Criminal Mishandling of God's Word.
He is an accomplished debater, having engaged in more than 50 moderated public debates with leading proponents of Roman Catholicism, liberal Protestantism, Islam, Jehovah's Witnesses, Oneness Pentecostals, Mormonism, and that was just a WMCA staff luncheon.
But here he is, ladies and gentlemen, Dr. James White. My other very dear friend who is here to oppose that proposition that we just mentioned, Pastor Bill Shishko of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.
His thesis is, baptism is not only for those who have personally repented and believed in Christ. Bill Shishko has served as pastor of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Franklin Square, New York for over 25 years.
During his time as pastor there, the church has been blessed with significant numerical growth and has overseen the formation of two mission churches, one in Mount Vernon and one in Bohemia, New York.
He is also one of the instructors at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Taylor, South Carolina, where he teaches in the Department of Applied Theology. He has written numerous articles for the Orthodox Presbyterian Church publications, New Horizons and Ordained Servant, as well as magazines such as the Banner of Truth.
His public ministries have taken him to such foreign mission fields as Suriname, Cyprus, Egypt, Uganda, China, and Wales. And his conference ministries have been carried out in a number of states in our own nation.
Ladies and gentlemen, Pastor Bill Shishko. Our moderator, who is a mutual friend of all of ours, Pastor Richard Jensen of the Hope Reformed Baptist Church in Medford. He is also the, I believe the youngest, he was the youngest, Suffolk County Homicide Detective, correct?
And was involved in the Amityville Horror murder case. Not as a participant, as an officer of the law. He is the moderator, and I'd like to introduce you to him, Pastor Richard Jensen. There are book tables, I just wanted to let you know, during breaks, if you'd like to go outside and see the different books, both sides have a book table up there.
We have the Reformed Baptist side has a book in particular, The Baptism of Disciples Alone, a Covenantal Argument for Credo-Baptism vs. Paedo-Baptism by Fred Malone. And there's also a book that the Orthodox Presbyterian Church is offering by Greg, it's edited by Greg Strobridge, The Case for Covenantal Infant Baptism, and there are other books and tapes and so on as well at these tables.
A very good friend of mine, Dave Grossi, has written a brilliant book, Preaching with Biblical Passion, a Scriptural and Historical Study, and Pastor Grossi has a book table out there as well. Speaking of book tables, it reminds me of when I was manning a book table one year at a Christian Reformed church that was having a conference.
The Christian Reformed church, as you know, also believes in infant baptism, as do the Orthodox Presbyterians, and this was in the basin of the church during a break and I was manning the book table, and a Christian Reformed pastor approached me and said, I understand this book table is being run by a Reformed Baptist church, is that true?
I said, yes. He said, are you selling anything conflicting with infant baptism here? I said, I don't see any Bibles. Just kidding. But I think you've had enough of me. I am going to hand over the debate to my very good friend, our moderator, Pastor Richard Jensen.
Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen.
Good evening, everyone, and just a couple of words on the role of the moderator. The first role that the moderator takes in this is to keep the debate moving along in an orderly fashion, and so my first order of business will be to keep this microphone away from Chris as much as possible.
Also what I will be doing is making sure that each of the debaters has the adequate time period that's allowed to them. It's part of my function to keep order and ensure that the audience behaves properly as well, and I'm just going to let you guess whether I'm carrying my piece or not.
That's up to you. Let your conscience be your guide. I'm also to see that the rules of debate are followed, and you need to know that the rules, which I'll state just in a moment, have been agreed upon by the two debaters, and there will be a strict adherence to the time limit, including the 15-minute break.
That's very important. As I give you what the format will be, there will be a 15-minute break more in the center of the debate. It's important that you come back in within those 15 minutes so we can continue.
The whole debate, including that 15-minute break, will be just under three hours, so that's why it's important that we move this along. One other word on that note, during that break, please do not approach Dr. White or Pastor Shishko at that time.
I know many of you are going to want to speak to them and ask them questions or give them advice. They need that time to prepare for the upcoming questions and the rebuttals and their closing statements, so please, you'll have to wait until after the debate.
The rules for the debate are given both for the benefit of the debaters, that they have the adequate time, and also for your benefit as well, that you can derive the most benefit. As far as the decorum is concerned, it should go without saying in an audience such as this, where both sides are orthodox in their theology, that Christian conduct is expected.
No boos, no catcalls. None of that should take place. And I would also say this, if the side that you are rooting for makes a good point, please don't applause, because if you applaud, you're going to take time away from him.
I will not stop the clock to allow for applause, so you're only hurting your side. Wait until the end of each time period, and then you'll have ample time to applaud your side. I would also ask you to turn off any cell phones, beepers, or put them on the vibrating mode.
The only acceptable interruption in this debate will be an announcement that the Mets have won the NLCS. That's the only acceptable exception. Where are the Yankees? Okay. No, we're just stating facts.
This is not a debate. There will be a time for questions at the end of the period of time that's allotted. Questions will be written. They must be written on three-by-five cards. We're not going to have questions from the floor, and that's because most people, especially here in New York, don't know what a question is.
These cards will be collected during the break. If you don't have a card, just raise your hand. If you want one, just raise your hand. We have people who will pass these cards out. The questions should be addressed to one of the debaters, and then the debater will be given a minute and a half to respond, and then the opposing side will have 45 seconds to respond to that.
Then we'll alternate. We'll go back and forth. Again, the definition of a question is this. It's an inquiry asking for an answer, clarification, or added information. It's interesting. I did find one alternative definition in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary.
It was definition 2C, if you want to look it up. It says, torture as part of an examination. We will not be using that definition tonight, except for those of the audience who don't obey the debate rules.
Then we might bring that one into play. I will be the one who would be selecting the questions. If it's not in the form of a question, I will not take it. While James and Dr. White and Pastor Shishko will not be available during the break, I will be for any inducements or encouragements to use your question.
I can be bought. Here's the format that we will be using, so you know. Here's the resolution resolved that the subjects of Christian baptism are only those who have personally repented and believed in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord.
Dr. White will be presenting the affirmative of that position. He will have 20 minutes. Then there will be a three-minute cross-examination, followed by the first negative by Pastor Shishko, and that will be for 20 minutes.
There will then be a three-minute cross-examination by Dr. White, and that will be three minutes. Then Dr. White will have his second affirmative statement, which is 15 minutes, followed by a three-minute cross-examination.
Then Pastor Shishko will have a second negative for 15 minutes, followed by a three-minute cross-examination. At that time, we will break for 15 minutes. Following the break, Pastor Shishko has 10 minutes to question Dr. White.
And following that, Dr. White has 10 minutes to question Pastor Shishko. Then Pastor Shishko will do a 10-minute rebuttal, followed by Dr. White with a 10-minute rebuttal. And then Pastor Shishko will do closing remarks for seven minutes, followed by Dr. White, and he has a seven-minute closing as well.
Following that, we will allow about 20 minutes for questions and answers. Just one quick word. There is definitely an art to following a debate. And if you've never done it, perhaps if you are taking notes, the best way would be to take your paper, put it sideways, or as they say in the computer, in a landscape position, and draw columns down, you know, one for Pastor Shishko, one for Dr. White, and then for rebuttal and cross-examination so that you can follow it across and in a logical fashion down, kind of like a flow chart.
And that might help you follow the debate. Now that's all the announcements that I have. Is there anything that I missed that you fellows would like me to speak to? Give me just a minute to go back to my place, and then it will be Dr. White will be presenting his affirmative statement.
It's indeed a pleasure to be with you this evening. I would like to begin by emphasizing what Pastor Shishko and I have emphasized in our personal conversations about this debate, that this is an intramural debate.
This is a debate between two Christians who believe that the Bible is the word of God. We believe that God's truth is vitally important for God's people, and that is really what has brought us here. This is not like many of the debates that you may have seen me do here on Long Island where I am debating someone who is opposing the Christian faith.
Here we are illustrating that within the bonds of brotherhood, within the bonds of love, we can come to the word of God, and even though we have a firm and strong disagreement on this particular issue, we can come to the word of God and we can trust God's people to look at what the word of God has to say.
Baptism is a topic of great importance because as our confessions of faith say, the Westminster Confession of Faith and the London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689, which is the one that my congregation utilizes, that baptism was appointed or ordained by the Lord Jesus Christ and is a positive and sovereign institution.
It is a divine truth, something that we need to understand. God has given to us baptism for a purpose. Therefore, to have the differences that we have should force us to the word of God to understand what God's wisdom in this matter really is.
While we fellowship in the gospel and in its defense, I was just speaking last evening at Brother Sisko's church on Islam and how to respond to Islam. While we fellowship in the gospel and in its defense, due to our disagreement on this issue, our fellowship is divided ecclesiastically.
We are both reformed, hence sola scriptura is a very precious truth to both of us, and we should have a shared reformed hermeneutic in allowing all of the scriptures to speak to all of life. Now that hermeneutic brings us to harmony on the wide body of Christian theology, the Trinity and the deity of Christ and the resurrection and justification, and so on and so forth, yet on this topic we are divided.
I have a challenge for the audience this evening. You must listen and decide for yourselves who remains consistent with the hermeneutic they use in all areas of theology. Which one of us does that? When one alters one's hermeneutic, this is clear evidence, a red flag that you might say, clear evidence of the fact that one's tradition has entered into one's thinking.
The existence of some outside tradition is interfering with the proper practice of sola scriptura. Now I am forced by the consistent application of hermeneutic methodology to believe that baptism as a positive ordinance established by the New Testament and exemplified and defined therein as a sign of the new covenant, signifying one's union with Christ, death, burial, and resurrection in him, and one's new life in him.
As such, it is given only to disciples, those who have professed faith in Christ and repentance from sin. It is the consistency of the teaching of the New Testament regarding the nature of the new covenant, the atoning work of Christ, the fact that Old Testament circumcision's New Testament fulfillment is regeneration, not baptism, and the clear establishment of baptism as an ordinance related directly to faith and repentance that precludes my acceptance of any other understanding of this New Testament ordinance.
Further, I believe that there were clear historical contexts and pressures which led men like Martin Luther and Ulrich Zwingli to continue the practice of paedo-baptism, and Calvin, as a second-generation reformer, gave a new form to the practice that, as far as I have been able to tell, no one before him in history of the church had ever fully held as he did.
And I believe this is the source of the tradition that disrupts the practice of the consistent hermeneutic of reformed theology. Now, you as the audience this evening have the task of weighing the claim to consistency that will be made by both sides.
We're both going to make the same claim, that it is the consistency of the New Testament that forces us to our position. Now, let me lay out my case in three steps. We have very little time this evening, and the clock goes very, very quickly when you're up here, and very slowly when the other guy is.
First, as we agree that baptism is an ordinance of the New Covenant, I believe we must begin with a biblical understanding of the nature of that covenant, for an ordinance of the New Covenant will not have a wider, proper application than the New Covenant itself.
Next, we must establish a consistently interpreted understanding of how the apostles practiced baptism. There is little dispute, honestly, that there is no clear and undisputed example of the baptism of a non-believing, non-repentant person in the New Testament, at least a baptism knowingly performed upon such a person.
There are plenty of examples of baptism of unbelievers, but every one of them professed faith and repentance at the time of baptism, only to later demonstrate, as 1 John 2 .19 puts it, that they were not truly of us, as they later left the external church in rebellion and apostasy.
But never do we find the apostles purposely giving this ordinance to an unbelieving, unrepentant person. And since we agree that this is an ordinance of positive establishment, arguments from silence or analogy are insufficient to fulfill these requirements.
Then, I must examine the texts that are commonly put forward to defend paedo-baptism, and tonight, in particular, those used to defend oikobaptism or household baptisms. Here, my consistency of interpretation and my hermeneutic can be tested for all to see as it should be.
So let me begin our time this evening by clarifying a common misunderstanding in this debate. First, I believe that one enters the New Covenant by regeneration, not by baptism. I believe a consistent and in-depth interpretation of Colossians 2, verses 11 through 12, rejects a sacramental interpretation and instead indicates that the New Covenant fulfillment of circumcision is the circumcision made without hands, that is, regeneration itself.
For the Baptist, then, both ordinances, baptism and the Lord's Supper, do not look forward to a hope for fulfillment. They look backward to a past fulfillment and a present reality. The two sides tonight differ fundamentally on this point, though only one side treats both ordinances in the same fashion.
That is, as a Baptist, I protect both baptism and the Lord's Supper by asking the same for both. I ask for a confession of repentance and faith before baptism, just as I do before giving the Lord's Supper.
For I believe both ordinances look back upon what Christ has done in that person's life, so if that person remains in an unbelieving and unrepentant state, the ordinance is not for them. We must keep this difference in mind tonight.
One side says both ordinances must be given to repentant, believing individuals alone and that the elders of the Church, just as the apostles of old, should seek to the best of our ability to protect these ordinances in that light.
The other gives the ordinance of baptism to unrepentant and unbelieving individuals on the basis of family units, though I would argue a differing definition of family units than that found under the old covenant.
My brother protects the Lord's Supper by asking for a profession of faith on the part of the one participating, but he does not do so for baptism. Now, having laid this out, let me emphasize that as a Baptist, I do not believe every person I baptize is automatically a part of the new covenant.
Nothing I can do joins a person to the covenant in the blood of the Son of God. That is God's work. Instead, my job is to seek the same evidence that my brother seeks when giving the Lord's Supper. Whatever level of confession and assurance he finds suitable for the Supper is what I find suitable for baptism.
This does not require infallibility on my part any more than it does for my Oikobaptist brethren. If I baptize an unbeliever, I do so against my desire and only upon the basis of a false profession of faith, just as with Simon in Acts 8, all those who attempted to sneak into the fellowship, noted by Paul, and those referenced by the Apostle John, who had left the fellowship having been once baptized and a part of that external church.
So once again, I view baptism as an ordinance only given to those making a profession of faith so that it points back to an accomplished reality in their lives. I do not believe we can establish any example of baptism in the New Testament that is given in hopes of a future fulfillment to an unrepentant and unbelieving person of any age at all.
Those in the formal membership of a Baptist church who are unbelievers are so by false profession and are not by mere membership in the church part of the New Covenant. This does not mean that the two sides actually agree, for we do not give the ordinance properly to anyone who is an unbeliever, while the Oikobaptist position believes this to be perfectly acceptable, hoping that the sign will eventually be fulfilled by a future act of grace in bringing that person to true salvation.
Now with that, I wish to turn your attention to the nature of the New Covenant. Jesus described the New Covenant, Luke 22, 20, as the covenant in his blood. As Reformed believers who, I assume, accept the truth of what's called particular redemption, that is, that Christ's death was specifically intended to atone for the sins of the elect, there must be a consistency between our belief in this doctrine and our views of the New Covenant in his blood.
I believe baptism, as it is a New Covenant ordinance, has as its recipients those in the New Covenant, just as the supper does. I further believe that when we examine the full explication of the New Covenant in Hebrews 8 and 10, we discover that there is a fundamental difference between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant regarding the nature of the members of each.
Hebrews 8 is a part of an apologetic defense, if you want to look at that text. The entire book of Hebrews is demonstrating that those under pressure to go back to the old ways truly have nothing to go back to.
It is a lengthy demonstration of the supremacy of what's new in Jesus Christ. As such, the argument of Hebrews 8 is simply this. The New Covenant, established in the blood of Christ, is better than the Old.
The only way this argument could have any relevance in the context of Hebrews is if the New Covenant has, in fact, already been established. All interpretations that try to put off the establishment of the New Covenant in the future do so, I assert, for extraneous, not textual or exegetical reasons.
Now what does the text say? Very briefly, Hebrews 8, 6 -13. But now he has obtained a more excellent ministry by as much as he is also the mediator of a better covenant, which has been enacted on better promises.
For if the first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion sought for a second. For finding fault with them, he says, Behold, days are coming, says the Lord, when I will effect a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt.
For they did not continue in my covenant, and I did not care for them, says the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord. I will put my laws into their minds, and I will write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
And they shall not teach everyone his fellow citizen and everyone his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for all will know me, from the least to the greatest of them. For I will be merciful to their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.
When he set a new covenant, he has made the first obsolete, but whatever is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to disappear. End quote. Now please note the consistency of interpreting the new covenant as being coextensive with the number of the elect in this administration.
The law is written on the mind and the heart. That is, it has become internal through regeneration. They know the Lord, just as Christ said, he knows his sheep and his sheep know him. It is extensive, and this is key, for all know the Lord from the least to the greatest of them.
This is vital, for we must remember that the old covenant was a mixed covenant given the nature of the sign itself. The sign of circumcision was given on the basis of genealogical relationship to all male Israelites.
It was properly given to those whose hearts were changed, like David, but it was also properly given to those whose hearts were always corrupt, like Ahab. The new covenant is not a mixed covenant. All in the new covenant know the Lord.
All, not some, not most, all. There is no textual reason whatsoever to say that this will only be true in a future fulfillment. In fact, to say so destroys the apologetic argument of the writer to the Hebrews.
Remember, he is telling people in his context, in his day, who were under great pressure to return to the old ways, that the new covenant now is better, now is greater, now is superior. It is not an argument, an apologetic argument to say, well, someday the new covenant will be better.
No, it is better now, in the same way that Christ is a better mediator now, and the sacrifice of Christ is better now than the sacrifices of the old covenant. Note as well that all those in the new covenant have their sins forgiven.
How are sins forgiven? The atoning work of Christ. For whom did Christ atone? For the elect of God. Once again showing the consistency of the inspired text on this point. And therefore, how do we know who the elect are today?
Only by their profession of faith. We have no greater means, so to whom should the sign of this perfect covenant be given? The answer is clear. Should we knowingly give the sign of a perfect, unbreakable covenant to unrepentant and unbelieving individuals, infants or otherwise?
In no way is this consistent with sound exegetical practice. Now, my second point, which I only have a few minutes to address, and we'll probably have to continue in the next portion. The apostles established a clear and consistent example of baptizing repentant, believing individuals only.
Since faith and repentance is so consistently noted, it is unreasonable to demand that it be explicitly cited in every single instance of baptism. This would require that every time scripture noted faith, for example, it would note its object in the accompaniment of repentance.
Now, it clearly does not do so, nor does it have to do so. We do not need to have a specific name and address and personal testimony of every person baptized in the New Testament to establish an apostolic pattern.
So let us look at the text. Remember very briefly the fact that in John's baptism, he baptized those who repented. Jesus, in his baptism and the baptism performed by his disciples, continued that pattern of baptism of those who were repentant believers, not of infants.
Would it not be a radical change for the apostles to move from the baptism that Jesus taught them to practice household baptisms thereafter? Let's look at the key text, Matthew chapter 28, verses 19 through 20, where we have an establishment by the Lord Jesus of baptism itself.
Go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you, and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.
Here, in reference to the making of disciples, we are given two commands. What's the means? In the original language here, we're talking about the means, the participles of means that describe the process whereby these disciples are to be made.
Well, we have baptizing and we have teaching. Now, I would like to assert to you that you cannot put a wall between those two. Whoever you're baptizing, you have to be able to teach them. If you can't teach them, you shouldn't be baptizing.
Now, you can talk about baptism being the means of making disciples all you want, but the text puts the two participles together. If you divide them, you're violating the text where the Lord Jesus himself indicates to us that those who are to be baptized are able to be taught.
And the teaching there, of course, is not just, well, yes, my infant learns to love God by loving me at the age of one week. No, we're talking about teaching them to do what? To observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.
There is an ability to understand that is inherent in the text. And this comes out very clearly in the first example of baptism in Acts chapter 2, verses 38 through 41. Peter said to them, Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.
And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit for the promises for you and your children and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call to himself. And with many other words he solemnly testified, and kept on exhorting them, saying, Be saved from this perverse generation.
So then those who had received his word were baptized, and that day there were added about 3 ,000 souls. Now, what do we see in this text? Well, it has been rightly said that very often our Paedo-Baptist brethren are so sensitive to the old covenant echoes in this text that they miss the new covenant fulfillment.
Very often, as I hear this text being discussed, what you hear is, For the promise is for you and your children. And it stops right there. Actually, it says, For you and your children and for all who are far off.
Now, who is this? Well, there are differing interpretations. I believe that what the reference here is, For you and your children, Jews, and for all who are far off, Gentiles. But what is the controlling phrase in Acts 2 .39?
The controlling phrase is, As many as the Lord our God will call to himself. Now, Reformed people especially sort of catch that word called, you know. We sort of notice that word, and we sort of zero in on that because we have here the electing grace of God.
Even if you say, Well, this is just a general call, it's still something that is discriminating on the part of God in this particular text. Now, some have suggested, Well, there might be another reason why you have the children mentioned here.
Remember back in Matthew 27 .25, we have those chilling words that had been spoken only a few weeks before in this context. When Pilate sends Jesus to be crucified, what do the Jews say? And all the people said, His blood shall be upon us and on our children.
Possibly, maybe this is an emphasis in Peter's part that, No. You may think that you've been cursed because the Messiah was crucified under your yells and screams, but God has proclaimed forgiveness in him.
But the point to make sure you see is that when the apostle preaches the message, who was baptized? Were households baptized in Acts chapter 2? So then those who had received his word, to receive the word of God is to receive the message of who Jesus Christ is and what he has done.
We know that they were struck to the heart, so they received his word, the instruction. These are the individuals who are baptized in Acts chapter 2. So no matter what the text indicates to us, the interpretation of Peter's words were that those who received his word were baptized at that time.
And so with that, we will stop at that point, looking at the particular apostolic text. In my next opportunity, I would like to pick up from there with Acts chapter 8, Acts chapter 10, move into the text to talk about the quote-unquote household baptisms and continue to establish the apostolic parameters, the apostolic paradigm of the giving of baptism to those who are repentant and have faith in Jesus Christ.
Thank you very much.
Dr. White, is everyone who is baptized in the New Covenant on your model?
Is everyone who is baptized? No, sir. There are those clearly who make a false profession of faith, as I mentioned in 1 John 2. Paul talks about the people who snuck into the fellowship unawares and so on and so forth.
So no, baptism is not what joins you to the New Covenant.
Can the New Covenant be broken in terms of its administration in the Church?
The question denies the position that I just announced. The question assumes that the external Church is the administration of the New Covenant, which I would not say is an accurate statement. I do not see any evidence.
You would not say that the external Church is the administration of the New Covenant?
No. I would say that the New Covenant is with the elect. The external Church very clearly, as I just mentioned, has those who make false professions of faith and that it is God's purpose that we struggle against those who would seek to draw away from us.
So you have people who are baptized who are not in the New Covenant, even though it's New Covenant baptism, the New Covenant being with the elect only.
Because of the fact that they make a false profession of faith, they make a profession of faith to us as elders, that they believe in Jesus Christ and are repentant, a person who right now, I would not have any knowledge of who they are, we're not kicking anyone out of the Church at the moment, that there is the possibility that there is someone in the fellowship who has made a false profession of faith, who is not a part of the New Covenant.
That is correct, but has been baptized.
Are there any infants in the New Covenant?
Well, you'd have to define infants. If you mean a person prior to the ability to be taught, obviously all of us, the elect in the New Covenant are the same people. And so when you say in the New Covenant, do you mean in the New Covenant from an eternal perspective or currently as professors?
Are there any infants who can be in the New Covenant in which there is forgiveness of sins?
Any of the elect who are in the New Covenant will be brought to faith in Jesus Christ. At the point in time, it is up to God, but I don't know how to answer that question.
Is there any evidence in the New Testament of delaying baptism to find out if people are regenerate?
Well, I think we're just looking at Acts chapter 2, and as soon as people ask the question, the disciples, the apostles, asked them. They gave them further instruction, and those who received his word, they were the ones who were baptized.
And they were baptized immediately. It wasn't a long delay, but there was a clear desire that those who received baptism have the knowledge of what baptism meant.
Is the New Covenant the same as the Everlasting Covenant?
The term berith olam in the Old Testament, I believe, is used about 25 times, and I would say that there's too many uses of it to make a direct equation. Thank you.
I, too, am thankful for the opportunity to be here, and I appreciate your taking the time this evening to be with us, and I'm very thankful to Pastor Knapp and the congregation here for your hosting us.
We have prayed for this debate. It is our goal that this debate will promote the spirit of the Bereans who search the Scriptures daily, whether these things were so. Let me give you some notes before I give my presentation proper and this first negative speech.
Number one, neither Dr. White nor I is dealing with so-called Essene baptism, the baptisms that preceded the New Covenant era proper. Although there's interest in that, that's not the topic of our debate tonight, and neither are Dr. White and I dealing with the views of the Church Fathers, which is certainly subject to various interpretation.
Both of us will confine ourselves to the biblical data before us. Second, I want you to know that I do not hold a sacramentalist view in this regard. I do not believe that baptism automatically confers grace, nor do I believe that everyone baptized is necessarily regenerate or is necessarily saved.
And you'll notice that that is true of my opponent in this debate's position as well. Neither does he believe that everyone who has received water baptism is surely saved. My concern in this debate is that we have a conviction regarding the subjects of Christian baptism, which allows us to do justice to all of Holy Scripture.
My opponent in this debate speaks, as do I, of sola scriptura, the final authority of the Scriptures alone, not tradition, but the Scripture alone. I would add to that that I hope that he is also convinced that we should be abiders by tota scriptura.
It is what all of Scripture teaches that should be our normative standard for our practice, and our conviction should allow us to do justice to all of Scripture in our views of baptism. And it is my deep commitment that is not the so-called credo Baptist view, believers baptism only, but what I prefer to call the oiko Baptist view, the household Baptist view, that is most consistent with all of Holy Scripture.
Now let me give you some assumptions, three of which I would believe Dr. White and I would agree upon, and then two that Dr. White and I would not agree upon. Number one, my first assumption that there is a unity in God's dealings with both Israel in the Old Testament and the Church in the New Testament.
These are not two parallel tracts and two distinctively different ways in which God deals with his people in the Old and the New Testament, but rather, as Romans 11 and verses 16 and following teaches, the Gentiles, who were what are called there a wild olive tree by nature, are by faith grafted into a cultivated olive tree which represents Israel as it was a partaker of the covenants and the promises and so forth.
There is a unity in God's dealings with Israel and the Church. My second assumption on which I believe Dr. White and I would agree is that Christian baptism, whatever else it is, is a sign of membership in the visible Church.
Acts 2 and verse 41, those who were baptized were joined to the Church and became a part of it. Or, in other words, these are people marked out as and to be disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ. I cite, as does Dr. White, that our Lord Jesus said, we are to make disciples of all the nations in two parallel tracts, as I understand it, one by baptizing them and then second, teaching them to keep everything our Lord commanded us.
And the third area in which I believe Dr. White and I would agree would be that there is a difference between the external administration that we know of as the Church. Dr. White would not say it's an external administration of the new covenant, but there is an external administration in the Church in which there will be the elect and there will be non-elect and the essence of the covenant, which is with the elect only.
Both Dr. White and I are Calvinists. We both believe that the Lord Jesus Christ, by the blessings of the new covenant, has given himself fully for and only for those chosen from the foundation of the world.
And so we would agree on the essence of the covenant as being only with the elect. Now there are two things, and they are cardinal things, on which Dr. White and I would disagree. Number one, Christian baptism, on my assumption, is not a sign and seal of our faith.
It is not necessarily a sign and seal of something that has actually happened in the one who is baptized. But rather, Christian baptism is a sign and seal of the work of God in his work of redeeming sinners.
And commonly within the so-called Reformed community, we say it is a sign and seal of the covenant of grace, that way by which the Lord God administers his grace and saves his elect. And so it is my firm conviction that you cannot establish from the scriptures that Christian baptism is a sign and seal of something in us, but rather something that God has promised in the covenant of grace.
Second, in both the old and the new covenants, the signs and seal of the covenant of grace are given to households of God's people. Now if that pattern, the sign and seal of the covenant of grace given to households of God's people, if that pattern is abrogated in the New Testament, there must be explicit proof of such a radical departure from all of God's covenant dealings with his people.
In other words, the burden of proof is on the affirmative, which Dr. White is, to prove that that household principle is abrogated. And I'm going to ask you throughout if Dr. White fulfills that burden of proof.
One of the reasons he has the first speech and the last speech is it gives him that added opportunity to do that. Not only, I would add, is this household pattern not abrogated, but the scriptures give abundant evidence that it continues in and is an inherent part of the new covenant.
Now let me in the second place give you the basic case for household baptism in the New Testament, and at this point I will preempt Dr. White. I'm sure he'll cover some of these texts as well he ought to do in his next speech, but let me get the jump on him at this point.
The basic case for household baptism in the New Testament. The traditional argument for the so-called paedo-baptist or infant-baptist view is to reason from the Old Testament to the New Testament or from the roots to the fruits.
And that certainly is legitimate, but it will not be my approach this evening. My approach, and I believe the preferable one, is to go from the fruits to the roots. In other words, to use the data of the New Testament together with its Old Testament background, which I believe compels belief in the normative pattern of household baptisms.
So a survey of Christian baptisms in the New Testament, and these specific illustrations are given in Acts and 1 Corinthians. There are not many, but it's fascinating to see them. The first is given in Acts 2 and verse 41.
And notice these are not random. These are purposeful, and I'm giving you the order in which they're given, meant for the instruction of the Christian church. The gospel is to go from Jerusalem to Judea.
In Acts 2 and verse 41, note that those who received the word and were baptized were men. The text makes clear in Acts 2 and verse 5, Acts 2 .14, Acts 2 .22, Acts 2 .29, and Acts 2 .37, that these were men who received the word of God and were baptized.
There may have been, perhaps there were others there who were baptized, but the text does not say that. Acts chapter 8 and verse 12, the gospel goes from Jerusalem and Judea to Samaria. And it is significant that there these Samarians are baptized, and it is at this point that Luke, under the inspiration of God, notes that both men and women were baptized.
And then in Acts chapter 8 and verse 13, there is the example of Simon the sorcerer, clearly an unconverted person who was nevertheless baptized. Acts 8 and verse 38, the example of the Ethiopian eunuch, as the gospel begins to go to the uttermost parts of the earth, represented by the Ethiopian eunuch.
And I think we would all agree that because of the status of that man, he would not have had a household to be baptized, but it was a mission situation. And Dr. White and I are agreed that wherever the gospel goes to someone who has never been baptized, who has never believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, surely that adult must be baptized, as was the case with the eunuch.
Acts 9 and verse 18, Saul, who would become the apostle Paul, is baptized, and of course he too did not have a household. Then we come to the uttermost parts of the earth, Acts chapter 10 and verse 47, and it's interesting that as we come to the spreading of the new covenant to the Gentiles, almost exclusively there are references to households.
Cornelius and his household are baptized, and while there's surely mention of the Spirit coming upon them, and they're speaking the word of God in a foreign language, there's no explicit mention of their faith.
Acts 16 and verse 15, Lydia and her household are baptized, and here there is no mention of the faith of any other member of the household. The text is clear that only Lydia herself believed. Acts 16 and verse 33, the Philippian jailer and his household are baptized, and once again the text interestingly does not say all of his household members believed, which is the burden of my opponent in this debate's position, but rather the text is very clear that he himself, the jailer, was the one who believed in God, and I ask you at this point, if the household principle is abrogated in the new covenant, after over 2 ,000 years of covenant history in the Old Testament, when the whole household has been included in God's covenant dealings, why are these household references minus any specific reference of faith to faith other than in the head of the home even mentioned?
Acts 19 and verse 5, the disciples of John in Ephesus are baptized, and here I must differ with Dr. White. John's baptism is not Christian baptism. John ministered in the Old Covenant. He ministered one of the many lustrations or baptisms mentioned in Hebrews 9 and verse 5, but the rebaptism of those disciples into the name of Christ indicates that John's baptism was hardly Christian baptism.
First Corinthians 1 and verse 15, 14 rather, Crispus and Gaius are baptized, and Acts 18 and verse 8 notes that Crispus believed in the Lord, here it is with all his household to be sure, and many of the Corinthians hearing believed and were baptized, and in that mission situation that would be the case.
But that brings us to this interesting text in 1 Corinthians 1 and verse 16, where here the Apostle Paul, while pointing out that baptism is secondary to preaching the gospel, notes that he baptized the household of Stephanas in Corinth, and he notes after this, besides, I do not know whether I baptized any other, and we need to ask the subject of other.
Here it would be clear in the text the subject is not individuals but households. It would seem from this text that household baptism was the norm in the New Testament pattern. Now we ask, why is that the case?
It is because all of God's covenant dealings in Old and New Testament are with household. What is interesting is that there are various types of Christian baptism in the Old Testament. Noah received literally a baptism as he went through the flood, 1 Peter chapter 3 and verses 20 through 22, where that going through the waters and being delivered safely is called a type of the anti-type, not Christian baptism but the work of Christ that saves us.
Here Noah's households were delivered but the emphasis clearly was on the faith of Noah. The covenant that is made with Abraham, Genesis chapter 12 and verses 1 through 3, Genesis chapter 15, Genesis chapter 17 and verses 1 through 14.
Here the New Testament teaches in Romans and in Colossians that Abraham receives an Old Testament parallel of baptism, which is called circumcision, the Old Testament equivalent of baptism. Notice that it is the sign of not Abraham's faith, but it is the sign of the covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for an everlasting covenant to be God to you and your descendants after you.
Genesis 17, 7. Notice that it is in that covenant you have the heart of the covenant promise, verse 8, I will be their God. Genesis 17 and verse 5. It is to many nations and the heart of that covenant is in you.
All the families of the earth will be blessed. It is that covenant that Paul says believers are partakers of in the New Testament. The gospel, Paul says in Galatians 3, was preached to Abraham just as it is preached to us.
Abraham surely believed and was circumcised. As in any mission situation, there would be baptism following belief. But that covenant was with Abraham and his descendants, and his descendants, though they were too young to believe, were also circumcised receiving the Old Testament equivalent of baptism.
And it is important to note, Genesis 18 and verse 19, that circumcision marked out Abraham's family as disciples. Abraham was not to presume grace for his children. God told him, you are commanded to bring up your children after you, that I might bring about all the things that I promised you that is promised in my covenant.
Covenant established in the time of Noah with Noah's family, that the earth might be preserved, with Abraham and with his descendants receiving the sign of circumcision, the Old Testament equivalent of baptism.
Moses, covenant with Moses established in the wilderness, Exodus 19 and following and other references, clearly children are included. Pharaoh would have let the adults go, but Moses insisted the children go with them.
And when that covenant at Sinai was made, it was not only made with Moses and with adults, but with the children as well. And this is, incidentally, a very clear example of infant baptism in the New Testament.
First Corinthians chapter 10 and verse 2, all our fathers, remarkable statement, converted Gentiles who can look to the covenant people of the Old Testament and call them our fathers. All our fathers baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and that surely did include infants.
My colleague here, my opponent in this debate, has referred to the prophecies of Pentecost, or rather to Pentecost itself, and has sought to use that as an example of only the fact that only those who are old enough to believe in the Lord can be baptized.
And I would submit to you that, at least for my own as I had studied this, what became apparent to me as I began to study this many, many years ago, is that reference, the promises to you and to your children and to as many as the Lord our God will call to himself, that number one, that as many as the Lord our God will call to himself is probably a reference to the as many as you and your children as the Lord our God will call to himself.
And on what basis do I say that? Isaiah 44 and verses 3 and 4, these prophecies of the spirit to come in the new covenant, for I will pour water on him who is thirsty and floods on the dry ground. I will pour my spirit, what would come on the beginning of the day of Pentecost, on your descendants and my blessing on your offspring.
Inherent in the new covenant as it is inaugurated on the day of Pentecost is a promise that is to you and to your children, which is exactly why Peter would quote this. Isaiah 59 and verse 21, As for me, says the Lord, this is my covenant with them, my spirit who is upon you, what would have its initial fulfillment on the day of Pentecost, and my words which I put in your mouth shall not depart from your mouth nor from the mouth of your descendants, nor from the mouth of your descendants' descendants, says the Lord, from this time forth and forevermore.
So I say again, even these Old Testament promises of a glorious new covenant to come are promises and prophecies that specifically include whole households. And I say again, it is the burden of my opponent in this debate to prove conclusively that that household principle is abrogated and to do it against the fact that very clearly there are households baptized where there is only a reference to the faith of the head of that home.
Pastor Ciszko, would you agree that the covenant of grace predates the Abrahamic covenant? Yes. Was there a distinct covenant sign given to the infants of those in the covenant of grace from Adam to Abraham?
No, there was not. Would it follow that it would be a true statement for me to say that the covenant signs for children are therefore not a definitional aspect of the covenant of grace itself?
I'm not quite sure I'm understanding what you're asking.
If there were no covenant signs from Adam to Abraham, then covenant signs for children could not be definitional of the covenant of grace as a whole.
Correct. Covenant signs are signs of the covenant. I'm not sure that I would call them definitional for the covenant as a whole. They're signs of God's promises.
Okay, but would you say that you can have the covenant of grace, as you did between Adam and Abraham, without infants receiving a sign of that covenant? Yes. Okay, all right. That was what I was working toward.
Now, you had just made reference, Christian baptism is not a sign of our faith, I believe was the quotation. Correct. And we talked a little bit about Romans chapter 4, and Abraham, you raised that. In Romans chapter 4, Paul raises the question, how was it reckoned to him?
How was righteousness reckoned to him? Was it uncircumcised or circumcised? Could Isaac have functioned as the father of us all, as Abraham did in Romans chapter 4?
No, because Abraham became a model in the Old Testament of the believer with whom God made a covenant. Isaac was a recipient of that.
In Abraham's situation, his circumcision came after or before faith?
Abraham's circumcision came after his faith. Clearly, the scriptures say that.
Right. So, is it not the case that, for example, John Calvin, in utilizing Romans chapter 4 and Abraham's circumcision, and expanding it out to making circumcision equal to baptism, was there not something different between Abraham's circumcision and the circumcision of almost any other Israelite who received the sign of circumcision, as Isaac did?
I'm not sure of the reference to Calvin, although we're not debating Calvin, we're debating the scriptures. The sign of circumcision was a sign in Israel that meant the same for each person who received it.
It was a sign, basically an essence of God's promise that he will be a God to you and to your children, and, of course, his expansions of that.
Only nine seconds, I don't have enough time to answer another question. I would like to thank Pastor Shishko for covering some of the passages in Acts for me, so I can move ahead and get more of my presentation done here.
I would like to look at a few more passages in Acts and then address some of the issues of the household baptisms. Turn with me, please, to Acts chapter 10. There you have Peter coming and proclaiming the gospel to Cornelius.
And in Cornelius' situation, please note beginning in verse 46, where they were hearing them speaking with tongues and exalting God, then Peter answered, Surely no one can refuse water for these to be baptized who have received the Holy Spirit just as we did, can he?
And he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked him to stay on for a few days. Now, please note something. Peter then explains more of this in Acts chapter 11, verses 15 through 18, when he says, And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them just as he did upon us at the beginning.
And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he used to say, John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. Therefore, if God gave to them the same gift he gave to us, also after believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God's way?
When they heard this, they quieted down and glorified God, saying, Well, then God has granted to the Gentiles also the repentance that leads to life. What is the point? In Cornelius' situation, all those baptized repent and believe.
They have received the word of the Lord. There is belief, there is repentance. We are seeing an apostolic example provided here in the book of Acts, where when you have baptism taking place, it takes place after we see repentance and faith.
Then we turn to Acts chapter 16, verse 14. A woman named Lydia from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple fabrics, a worshiper of God, was listening, and the Lord opened her heart to respond to the things spoken by Paul.
And when she and her household had been baptized, she urged us, saying, If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house and stay. Now here is where the issue of consistency comes out.
If up to this point, every baptism has had faith and repentance, we come to one, we are told of Lydia, she is from Thyatira, exactly what she's doing there, exactly what her household would be. She invites the apostles in, which would be unusual if she had a husband there or anything like that.
Certainly if she had infants, this is a really unusual situation. But the point is, we have given to us simply the statement that Lydia is the one who believes. Upon what consistent point of exegesis do we take all the consistent example that has come up to this point and go, ah, the text is teaching us that now the apostles began to baptize unrepentant individuals who are their household, based upon the profession of faith of one person.
What is our basis for that? Where do we get that from the text? Where do we even get that from the Old Testament? Because the demand to have a statement of faith on the part of one person to then baptize the whole household is not how circumcision was run.
So where do we get this? How is that consistent? The same inconsistency, I think, in the Eucharist position comes up in the next position of Acts 16, verses 31 through 35 with the jailer. Beginning in verse 31, they said, Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.
Look at verse 32, And they spoke the word of the Lord to him together with all who were in his house. Let me stop just for a moment. The word has been proclaimed to these individuals. If they do not believe, they have rejected the gospel, right?
Isn't that the normal way we'd read this? Keep that in mind. We continue. And he took them that very hour of the night and washed their wounds, and immediately he was baptized, he and all his household.
And he brought them into his house and set food before them and rejoiced greatly, having believed in God with his whole household. Now, my brother is going to emphasize to you that the word there about believing is singular, he.
But there's also that term, panoikai, which means with his household. And the vast majority of English translations, the vast majority of them, render it in this way, understanding that he and his household had believed.
Now, I don't think there's any reason for Reformed folks to argue about this, because it's very, very simple. I have never understood, this is the one place I must admit I've always stopped and gone, wait a minute, are you really saying that?
When my Reformed Pato Baptist brother and say, well, what happens here is the jailer believes, the family does not, but they rejoice with him that he believed. The word was spoken to them. They've rejected, if they have not believed, they have rejected the Gospel.
And here you have the jailer rejoicing that he's accepted Christ, and here you have unregenerate people who've rejected the Gospel rejoicing with him that he has accepted Christ. Now, here, from a Reformed perspective, we don't believe that people who reject the Gospel rejoice when other people embrace the Gospel.
It just doesn't make any sense. And so that is why I think the vast majority of translations go, yes, clearly, he is rejoicing together with his household having believed in God. If they had rejected God, they would not be rejoicing with him that he had accepted the message.
And so there is no warrant here for the idea being, well, he is believed, and on the basis of his faith, all his household has been baptized. I do not see that as a meaningful exegesis consistently with our professed hermeneutic.
Acts 18 .8, Crispus, the leader of the synagogue, believed in the Lord with all his household, and many of the Corinthians, when they heard, were believing and being baptized. What's connected with baptism?
Hearing and believing. Now, there's no repentance here, but if we're going to make a demand that every single word has to be used every time, that obviously is not something that we can demand of the text of Scripture.
But Crispus and his household are baptized because they have believed. And that's important because I want you to look at 1 Corinthians 1, as my brother brought up, where Paul says, beginning verse 14, I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, so that no one would say that you were baptized in my name.
Now, I did baptize also the household of Stephanas. Beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized any other. Now, you can clearly make the argument that any other means any other household. You could also make the argument that since he has said, so no one would say you were baptized in my name, that that also would sort of indicate what we're talking about here.
But let's not even argue that particular point. I think it's questionable. Let's not even argue that point. Let's say it's households here. Let's look at all of the households that are mentioned so far and what we've looked at in Acts and here in 1 Corinthians 1.
Cornelius, they all believed. They heard the message, they repented and believed. The jailer's household, I would argue to you, the only way to consistently read that is that they all believed, or the jailer's rejoicing with people who just rejected the gospel.
Crispus, all of them believed, Acts 18 .8. Stephanos, I would say all they believed because they're called the first roots of Achaia in 1 Corinthians 16 .15. So then you're left with Lydia. She certainly believed, and I would assert to you that there is no warrant whatsoever with the apostolic example having already been established at that point to read her situation as anything other than they also believed.
But then we have Gaius, and we're not told anything about him. No information is given. So all of these households, when enough information is given, what is the consistency in each one? They all repented and believed.
And what's wonderful about the household is not that there's some household principle that's being continued on. What it is is that God had been merciful to an entire household because, folks, if you look at the book of Acts, that didn't happen all the time.
In fact, if you want to have a household principle, I think we need to also bring in some other things about the household, specifically Luke 12, verses 51 -53. What did Jesus teach about the household principle under the preaching of the gospel?
Do you suppose that I came to grant peace on earth? I tell you, no, but rather division. For from now on, five members in one household, same word, one household, will be divided. Three against two, and two against three.
They will be divided. Father against son, and son against father. Mother against daughter, and daughter against mother. Mother-in-law against daughter-in-law, and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.
There's a household principle that the gospel divides. And that is exactly what the church is experiencing. That's what the whole book of Hebrews is about. Many of these people who are being invited to go back to the old ways and blaspheme Christ, were being invited to go back by their own family members.
The gospel divides households. And that, of course, raises many problems. There's so much more that could be said about that, but I want to emphasize one other aspect of this. What is the status of a covenant child?
What is the status of a covenant child? What is the status of a child? Because I can't find any reference in the New Testament to how we're supposed to view an unrepentant, unbelieving person who's been given the sign of the perfect covenant in the blood of Jesus Christ.
I don't see, or the New Testament tells me, how I'm supposed to view that person. How do we view a covenant child? A child who has been given the sign of baptism, but that sign is looking forward to a hope for fulfillment.
My argument has been from the beginning, that's not what baptism does. If baptism is a sign of our union with Christ, I will not be united with Christ in the future if I have not been united with him in the past.
And so the question becomes, what is the status of covenant children? There is a very popular book. I've heard my brother quote from it in his lectures. I don't know if he likes all of it or just parts of it, but he's quoted from Pierre Marcel's book, The Biblical Doctrine of Infant Baptism.
And here's some of the things that Pierre Marcel says. He says, quote, he says that he has removed condemnation for the children of the covenant. Page 108. God, according to the promise, restores liberty of choice to the children of the covenant with the result that, confronted with the alternative of life or death, they are able voluntarily and freely to embrace the one or the other.
Page 110. Original sin is indeed partially and in principle nullified by baptism, though not totally so. Page 147. They are separate from the profane world and are placed neither under God's judgment nor under Satan's power.
God regards them as members of his kingdom. Page 191. Now, I hope that I do not have to point out there is nothing in the New Testament to even begin to describe this kind of a person who's sort of a new Adam.
Original sin has sort of been vitiated a little bit or they've been brought to this. I cannot even begin to comprehend where this comes from in the text of the Scriptures. It comes when you allow good and necessary consequences to become less than good and less than necessary.
And that's what you have in this situation. Now, I am very thankful that my brother says you must call your children to repentance and faith. But as he knows, there are many today within his own camp that say no, that is questioning God's promise.
We don't have that issue within our camp because we say if we call our children to repentance and faith, because while they have a great blessing to be raised in a Christian family under the preaching of the Gospel, God's law functions to curb them and their evil, they're still unregenerate.
And they still have to be called to repentance and faith. And probably one of the greatest experiences of my life was first to hear from my children's lips their confession of faith, a recognition of their sin, their need for repentance, their need to cling to Christ and to Him only.
And then to have the privilege of because of that confession of faith, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, which took place only within the past couple of years. That was a great privilege, but the point is my children needed to be called to repentance and faith.
And God is under no obligation because He's been merciful to me to show mercy to anyone else. What is the nature of covenant children? That becomes such an important question. Finally, Romans chapter 4.
I would submit to you that Abraham, and what I was trying to get to in our cross-examination, Abraham experienced what we Reformed Baptists like to call believer's circumcision. We had believer's baptism, and now we have believer's circumcision.
The reason that Abraham can be the father of us all is because in his experience, faith, then the sign. Then the sign of that covenant. And I submit to you that that becomes the paradigm. Not giving of the sign in hopes for faith, but instead the giving of the sign because there is faith, which we recognize is the gift of God to His elect people.
So who's being consistent? When we look at the text of Scripture, when we follow the same kind of hermeneutic principles that we utilize in regards to justification, we utilize in regards to the Trinity, the deity of Christ, the resurrection.
When we say that we are going to the New Testament, where do we find this baptism of unrepentant, unbelieving individuals? How can that be a positive institution by the Lord Jesus Christ when we can only try to infer it from things, for example, like Moses' baptism or being baptized into Moses in the Red Sea?
The apostle Paul didn't make that connection. He isn't even talking about baptism there. When the apostles address the issue of baptism itself, do they go to these texts? Do they draw these Old Testament parallels when defining baptism?
Or is the clear proclamation, the establishment, believe, repent, be baptized? I believe that's the teaching of the New Testament. Thank you very much.
Do you agree that the abrogation of the household principle of covenant membership in the Old Testament would be a radical change in the New Testament period?
Obviously, we do not agree on exactly what you mean by the household principle.
But the promise of the covenant is to believers and to their children.
And that there's an appropriate sign. We also believe that that covenant had earthly aspects that are not continued into the New Testament that I did not have an opportunity to discuss.
So, Dr. White, do you agree that the abrogation of the household principle of covenant membership is a radical change in the New Testament?
I would call it the same radical change you have in a better covenant with a better mediator and better promises. But it is a radical change.
From what God's people have been familiar with for over 15, well, actually over 2 ,000 years. Yes. Okay. If it is such a radical change, Dr. White, and if the scriptures specifically teach that only those who personally repented and believed in Christ should be baptized, why in Acts 16 .14 is there no specific mention of repentance and faith of each member of Lydia's household?
Because the apostolic example had already been established at that point. I do not believe that every single time the term baptism appears in the New Testament that you have to have a repeated assertion.
Regarding repentance and faith. But you said it's a radical change. Why would there need to be a mention of the household?
I don't agree with that particular language, radical change. I think that's not exactly an accurate way of saying it. But my point is that up to this point that has already been established. Repentance and faith is already there.
You don't have to keep repeating that over and over and over again for it to be understood on the part of the readers.
But if there could even be a confusion in the church of all ages, why is the household even mentioned specifically when there is no mention specifically of each one repenting and believing?
The only reason households, I believe, are mentioned at all is because of the rarity of that experience in that God's grace has been poured out and an entire household has been saved. Because the majority of early believers didn't have their families,.
Except the messengers. But if it's such a rare experience, why at least half of the reference is to baptisms, household baptisms?
Well, I'm not sure that's a fair way of counting the numbers. I mean, there were thousands on the day of Pentecost that were baptized. You're including those as a single.
But I see no evidence that those were household baptisms. You agree that Abraham's circumcision.
Was a parallel to baptism? I agree that Abraham's circumcision is used by Paul in Romans chapter 4 in regards to the relationship.
Of promise and grace. Then why were his infants also circumcised? Because of the fact there's something called a land promise.
In the Old Covenant that is not continued into the New Covenant.
I want to remind you that the responsibility of the affirmative, my opponent in this debate, is to conclusively demonstrate, number one, the household principle of inclusion in the New Covenant is abrogated.
He has already granted, as we all must grant, that that was a fixed institution for all of recorded covenant history. And it is indeed a radical change if that principle is abrogated. And I would remind you that if this issue is as clear as my opponent in this debate says it is, there should be absolutely no question in the New Testament that each member of households that were admittedly baptized, that each member personally repented and believed in Christ.
And therefore, my opponent in this debate must demonstrate conclusively, not by inference, that only those who have personally repented and believed in Christ as Savior and Lord are to be baptized. So I've already reviewed the household principle as it is reinforced in the Old Testament and as it builds on the roots of all of the Old Covenant promises and administration.
Let me now give you, for my second negative speech, some subordinate proofs. These do not, I agree, categorically or in any sense prove household baptism. But I would submit to you two things. Number one, they make absolutely no sense unless we admit that the children in the New Covenant, children where there's at least one believing parent, are regarded as part of covenant dealings.
And number two, they are absolutely inexplicable on the view of my opponent in this debate. First subordinate proof, Jesus and household ministry. In Matthew chapter 10 and verses 5 through 15, it is significant that Jesus sends the disciples in the foundation of New Covenant ministry to go to whole households and not just to individuals.
And in Luke 19 and verses 1 through 10 in a fascinating text, Zacchaeus surely is a believer. Zacchaeus is a believer who comes to the Lord Jesus and wants to follow Him. And Jesus says, interestingly, in that text, Zacchaeus, I must go to your house.
Salvation has come to your house because you also are a child of Abraham. Why did Jesus say that? It is because of that enshrined principle that not only a believer like Abraham, which my opponent in this debate agrees, is a parallel to a New Testament believer, but his whole house is to be recipient of the blessings of Christ.
And I ask you again, why would this language of a household principle even be present if the household principle is abrogated? Second, our Lord Jesus Christ in His dealings with the children. Now again, our Lord did not practice Christian baptism.
Distinctively, Christian baptism began on the day of Pentecost. So we would not expect our Lord to do that. But notice language in Mark 10 in verses 13 through 16 with the parallel in Matthew 19 verses 13 through 15.
Jesus takes not adults with childlike faith, whatever that might mean, but He takes children and says, for of such is the kingdom of God. And I would ask you, and I would ask my opponent in this debate, what does that mean if it does not establish the fact that God continues to have covenant dealings with believers and their children?
Jesus further commends, amazingly, a child's faith. Whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a child will by no means enter it. And my dear friends, I submit to you that the view of my opponent in this debate turns faith on its head.
Adult faith is what my opponent in this debate commends. Jesus commends the faith of a little child. In Luke 18 in verses 15 through 17, even more remarkably, little infants are brought to the Lord Jesus Christ.
And these are those that Jesus blesses and says of these infants, of such is the kingdom of heaven. And I ask you, if the principle of covenant membership of families in the new covenant is abrogated, why did Jesus say that?
And what did He mean by it on the view espoused by my opponent in this debate? Of such, these and these like them are the kingdom of heaven. And Jesus even assumes an infant faith in a child. Now this I don't pretend to understand, but remember in sola scriptura, in toda scriptura that we follow, Mark 9 in verse 42, one of these little ones who believes in me.
And even more remarkably, in Matthew 18, verses 1 through 5, and verse 6, and verse 10, in that entire section, Jesus speaks in the first section of this little child, not an adult with childlike faith, but this little child as a model of one who is converted.
Unless one is converted and becomes, not like an adult, but like a little child, he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 18 in verse 6, one of these little ones who believe in me. Matthew 18, 10, do not despise one of these little ones.
Jesus, dear brothers and sisters, is the savior of children. And this is not just an emotional argument. What it is saying, point blank, is that the model of adult repentance and faith is not the model Jesus commends.
He commends the childlike dependence of those who surely believed in Jesus and looked to him who brought their little children to him for his blessing. And I ask you again, if the household principle enshrined in the Old Testament is abrogated, why are these references even here?
Jesus' commission to Peter and the apostles should not be treated lightly. While Jesus says, feed my, tend my sheep, and feed my sheep, it is most interesting in John 21 in verse 15 that Jesus says as well, feed my lambs.
In the Old Testament, particularly in Isaiah 40, the promised Messiah to come is the one who promises to gather the little lambs in his bosom. Are they those who are not part of the new covenant? Are they those who are not part of the church?
Surely that would make no sense unless we have a continuation of the household principle. First Corinthians 7 in verse 14 is the most interesting text in this regard. I've read, I must say, with a good bit of humor, some of the responses of these by my Calvinistic Baptist brothers in dealing with it.
Here, the apostle Paul is dealing with a Gentile situation in which there will be, as there is in any age, believers and unbelievers who are married together. One is converted and has an unbelieving spouse.
The question is, how should you regard the unbelieving spouse? How should you regard the children? In First Corinthians 7 in verse 14, the apostle Paul says the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife.
He does not say saved by the wife, but rather there is a certain blessing, as in the Old Testament, there was a sanctification that came by identification with the temple. So there is blessing that comes by that one who is admittedly part of the new covenant temple.
And the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband. Otherwise, your children would be unclean, but now they are holy. My Reformed Baptist friends say that that term unclean is describing a child who is not illegitimate.
Paul is saying that this, your children should not be regarded as illegitimate. Now my dear friends, that isn't even a question in Paul's purview here. Children are made legitimate, not by grace, but by marriage.
The apostle Paul is asking the question, what about the children? He wanted to use the word illegitimate. He could have used another Greek term, but he does not. He uses the language of sanctified, or in this case holy.
That is, they have a certain holiness by virtue of connection with at least one believing parent. I ask again, why is this even here if the household principle is abrogated? And these, friends, are questions you must ask.
Why would this language even be here? If the issue in the New Testament is as simple as the only ones baptized, marked as part of the Church, or part of the New Covenant, are those who have personally repented and believed in Christ.
These are not texts that say, particularly in the case of Jesus, and especially in the case of infants, that these have shown that, and this at a time that the Lord is laying the foundation of the New Covenant ministry.
And then Ephesians chapter 1, and verse 1, it's most interesting. Here the apostle Paul is writing to the Church at Ephesus, and he writes to the saints at Ephesus, and those who are faithful in Christ Jesus.
I'm not disputing with my brother at all. Those who profess the name of Christ should be faithful. We bring up our children to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. We operate on the principle our Lord himself enunciated.
There is some kind of a childlike faith, however that comes, and we seek to nurture that by teaching it. Paul writes to the saints in Ephesians chapter 1, and verse 1. And then, interestingly, in chapter 5, and beginning at verse 22, the apostle does what would be called in our circles discriminatory preaching, and discriminating in that he deals with different groups within the Church.
He deals with wives, he deals with husbands, and particularly with husbands. And then in chapter 6, in verse 1, he deals with children. Why would he deal with children in the context of the Church? Why does he call them saints?
He doesn't say children who are saints, children who have believed. He says children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. When a person is baptized into the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, or into the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, this does not, either on my opponent in this debate, you or mine, mean that the individual, adult or child, is saved.
What it does mean, very really, is that that adult or child is identified with a true and living God now in our age who has established a new covenant with his people. The language of identification is commonly the language in the Lord.
Paul always deals with the disciples by giving his imperatives, by dealing with them as in the Lord, by virtue of the covenant. There is indeed an external administration of the covenant with the elect and the non-elect and an internal essence.
Here Paul uses the same language of a child. He does not say repentant and believing child. He simply says children, obey your parents, as I would understand this, as those who are identified in the Lord.
If we were only speaking of elect children, he would say you children who are in the Lord, obey your parents. He does not say that. Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Neither is he saying children, obey your parents if they are in the Lord because children should obey their parents anyway, whether they are in the Lord or not, unless of course their parents ask them to sin.
Why is that there? If there can be any confusion at all on this issue, and obviously there has been, why would the Holy Spirit see fit to use this covenant language to describe children if in fact the principle of household membership in the new covenant is abrogated?
Which brings me to this argument for silence. If the principle was abrogated, the principle of believers and your children inherent in the covenant beginning with Abraham, whom my opponent in this debate admits is a parallel to the believer in the New Testament, Abraham believed and was circumcised.
Adults who have never been baptized believe and are baptized. Abraham's children were to receive the sign of the covenant circumcised, and it is exactly the same principle in the New Testament with baptism.
But, if that principle repeated over and over and over again, and that is inherently a part of a covenant, because remember, God says to Abraham, in you all the families of the earth will be blessed. If that principle was abrogated, there would have been fury.
There was already fury over the issue of what circumcision meant in relation to the law. And there were specific statements to Peter about the cleanliness laws being abrogated. Why then, would there not be some specific mention of the abrogation of the household principle?
Now, I say all of these things to say once again, I have a concern that we have a conviction regarding the subjects of Christian baptism, which allows us to do justice to all of Holy Scripture, including these subordinate evidences.
And I ask you, does the view that only adults who have repented and believed in the Lord Jesus Christ personally, the view that excludes children from covenant dealings in the new covenant form of the kingdom of God, does that best deal with this data?
Or the view that the covenant continues with believers and their children, fully recognizing not all children baptized or all adults baptized are elect. There is an external administration, but the internal administration being exactly the same.
Brother Shishko, in 1 Corinthians 7 .14, the unbelieving spouse and child, do you baptize unbelieving spouses? No. Well, obviously, people don't believe they shouldn't be baptized. You have an adult who clearly rejects the gospel.
That would completely be contrary to the principle that without faith it's impossible to please God. Okay. Did I ever say that children who are able.
To repent and believe are excluded from the new covenant? I don't know that you spoke specifically to that, but certainly in the case of an infant I would infer from what you're saying that they're not able to repent and believe in the way you defined it.
So, obviously, do you see a difference between an infant who cannot speak and cannot understand language and a child who can? Well, in terms of a child or an infant, our Lord deals with both children and infants and says, of such is the kingdom of heaven.
So, in that sense,.
No, I don't make a distinction. Okay. Do you recognize that we do? Absolutely. We would never debate if you didn't. Thank you. Now, was there fury when John the Baptist baptized individuals.
Instead of households? I'm not convinced that John the Baptizer did not baptize households because it speaks of all Israel going out to be baptized. So, you actually believe that John the Baptist, that he was baptizing infants I don't believe the data is clear because you have illustrations in the Old Testament, some of which only applied to adults, but you have, in the case of Joel and others, whole families that come out for acts of consecration.
So, Jesus and the Apostles likewise have been baptizing children? Infants? They may well have, but that wouldn't have been Christian baptism. Was Ahab rightly given the sign of the Old Covenant? Absolutely.
Well, when I say that, I mean, Ahab's family, I'd have to go back to, technically, in the Old Testament, they were households of disciples, and there should have been discipline of covenant breakers. And I don't know enough, if I go back over the data, or if the Scriptures give enough, to say whether Ahab should have been disciplined when he was a boy, rather than let the Lord deal with things he did when he got older.
Well, though he had no faith, was it right to give the sign to his sons as children of Israel? No. If he should have been disciplined in his home, no, it would not have been. There was no halfway covenant in the Old Covenant.
There should not have been a halfway covenant in the Old Covenant, any more than there was in American history. So those, his sons, were improperly circumcised. If indeed, at that point, he was showing himself to be a covenant breaker and should have been disciplined, yes.
Would it not involve a radical departure from the Old Covenant to baptize women? Well, absolutely. That's why the New Testament specifically says in the progression in Acts, not just that men were baptized, as in Acts 2, but with the Samaritans that men and women were baptized.
Where was the fury over that? Well, there wasn't any fury over that, but the scriptures specifically say it was with men and women and that was the final arbiter in that. At this time, the second half of the debate will be, will begin with Pastor Shishko having ten minutes to question Dr. White, followed by Dr. White having ten minutes to question Pastor Shishko, and then there will be two rebuttals and then closing remarks followed by questions and answers.
So at this point, we can begin with Pastor Shishko questioning Dr. White for ten minutes. Dr. White, to go back to the question that I asked you before, what I asked you is the New Covenant the same as the everlasting covenant prophesied in the Old Testament, specifically in Jeremiah 32 and verse 40, after the Lord says they shall be my people and I will be their God, this is of course in the context of the New Covenant, and I will give them one heart and one way that they may fear me forever for the good of them and their children after them, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them.
Is that referring to the New Covenant? In that particular context, it would. It also, however, is used, for example, in Isaiah 25 of the whole earth violating an everlasting covenant with God from creation.
So the only reason I answer it that way is that there's not just one use of that term, but it's a lot in the Old Testament. So there is a proper use that is used of the New Covenant in general. Thank you.
I'm interested in the New Covenant. I want to be sure I understood you properly. The New Covenant is fulfilled now, there is not a future fulfillment to it? What I said was that the elements of the New Covenant in Hebrews chapter 8 are realities now.
That is, all those who are in the New Covenant have the law of God upon their heart, yes. All those in the New Covenant. Now when you say all those in the New Covenant, you're speaking of the elect. I am.
But you're not saying that all those who are baptized, even as adult believers, are in the New Covenant. There is no question in the New Testament that there is such a thing as false profession. Men who sneak in, well women too I would imagine these days, but who sneak in for fellowships, spying on our freedom, but they do so through the waters of baptism.
So what, I don't understand what your point is then, because we would agree completely that the Covenant, the New Covenant here is with the elect only. How does this sphere on baptism then if you're admitting that not everyone that you baptize as an adult believer is in the New Covenant?
That was the emphasis of my opening statement is that we seek to avoid giving the sign of the New Covenant to those who are not truly believers. We do not give it to anyone who does not give evidence of faith and repentance.
We are attempting to protect both it and the Lord's Supper at that point. And my point has been that there is an inconsistency in trying to protect the Lord's Supper but not baptism at that particular point in time.
In other words, it's a violation of what we were told by that individual. If someone I baptize becomes an apostate, they are violating what they said to me. They in essence said why to me and then to all who observed their baptism.
So the New Covenant then as administered in baptism, if I may use that term, can only be administered to one who is a believer.
The New Covenant sign of baptism should only be given to one who makes a profession of faith in Jesus Christ. Now are you saying one who makes a profession of faith or one who is a believer? Well, again, since we as believers, as elders in the church, are not given an infallible insight into the heart, what I'm saying is I have to exercise the exact same discernment that you have to exercise in protecting the table.
Do the kingdom parables that our Lord gives pertain to the New Covenant, especially the parable of the sower, the parable of the mustard seed, the parable of the wedding feast, and so forth? I'm not sure what you mean by the New Covenant.
My emphasis has been upon the identity of the members of the New Covenant, not so much the period of time during which the New Covenant is being administered. But do our Lord's kingdom parables speak of the period of the New Covenant?
As they are applicable to us today, if the New Covenant is applicable today, then yes. So they do speak of principles applicable in the New Covenant? Sure. Is the kingdom of God essentially another term for the New Covenant?
No, I would not say that that's necessarily an apostolic application that is made. I am very concerned that the use of the phrase New Covenant to be kept strongly biblical because of its apologetic application by the rest of the world.
So by New Covenant, you're not speaking in any sense of an external administration. You are only speaking of God's dealing with His elect. That is how I understand Hebrews chapter 8. Yes. How is the New Covenant related to the New Covenant?
Well, the kingdom of God, as I understand it, I mean, there's obviously many different applications of the phrase kingdom of God, but I think the closest to this application here has to do with the rulership of Christ, and that would both be in the hearts of His people, but also, I would see an application of the kingdom of God in the proclamation of His truth being used in the curbing of man's sin, the fact that the Church as a whole functions as salt and light in the earth, and there's broader applications beyond my chief concern, and that is that the members of the New Covenant all have the law of God written upon their hearts, and they've all been forgiven.
You're talking there about the elect. You're not talking about just professing Church members. I am talking about members of the New Covenant because of the emphasis of Hebrews chapter 8 that all of them, from the least to the greatest of them, that is a strong emphasis in the languages.
How are little physical children and infants of the kingdom of God on your model, for example, Luke 18 and verses 15 and following? Well, again, we seemingly have a differentiation that you don't make, and that is I would differentiate between the fact that I was a, I guess in some context, a little child when I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior and experienced His grace, and the infant who is incapable of even hearing the message of Christ or having any knowledge of the gospel of the law, repentance, faith, sin, guilt, or anything like that.
I make a distinction there. And so I believe that I was made an heir of grace at a very young age. So I know that my children were blessed by the preaching of the word of God at a very young age, and that would be a part of the exercise of Christ's kingdom.
So your children were of the kingdom of God even though they were not baptized. My children were influenced by the kingdom of God. I would not specifically say that they were made members of the kingdom of God in the sense of new covenant members.
I don't know where the Bible So you cannot say as Jesus did that little physical children and infants of those who come to Him are of the kingdom of God? Well, again, I would say that that's a misapplication of that text in the sense that obviously the little children that are mentioned there have exercised faith.
And so we're not talking, to be honest with you, I don't even know what that has to do with the subject of infant baptism because we're not talking about the infant at the font who cannot say anything, hear anything, understand anything, may not even be able to see past his own infant.
If it's a little infant, how does our Lord know he has faith? Well, again, that would seemingly indicate that we're talking there. As you know, brephos, pideos, and those terms have wide application and I would suggest to you that that would indicate that we are talking about infants who because of their obedience to their parents or their trusting in their mother or father do demonstrate faith.
I don't know how Unless we go to Luther, I don't think we want to go to Luther and infantile faith here. I suggest that's begging the question. Is receiving the kingdom of God an expression of faith? Is what?
Is receiving the kingdom of God an expression of faith? You mean in the context of Jesus stating unless you receive the kingdom, obviously that is an act of faith. Thank you. Now, my last series of questions is regarding children and faith.
Dr. White, can you produce a text stating explicitly that children of at least one believing parent are unbelievers? Can I produce a text that says children of at least one believing parent are unbelievers?
Given that the entirety of the message of the New Testament is that each individual, and we both, I thought, agreed on this, must believe and repent, that would be like asking for a text that says, can you show me one text that says that any particular individual has to believe and repent who's the child.
Of but one believer, or something like that. I don't even know how I would answer a question like that. But can you produce a text? We've talked, Jesus speaks about little children who believe. Yes. I'd like a text that speaks of little children of believing parents who don't believe.
I don't think it's ever addressed in the New Testament. Thank you. Can you teach the infant children of Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church to sing, Jesus loves me,.
This I know, for the Bible tells me so? No, we tend to use the Trinity Hymnal so that one doesn't appear in there. Dr. White, I'm very thankful that you do because that hymn is in the Trinity Hymnal. Well, okay.
Can you teach your children to sing it? Well, we teach our children to sing all sorts of songs in the context of calling them to faith and repentance in Christ and asking that they someday make this to be real for themselves.
We do everything in our power to keep from producing false professions in our children. Is there any objective promise that a child of believing parents who dies in infancy will be with the Lord? I think we, both of our Confessions of Faith utilize the terminology elect infants, but I don't believe that there is an objective...
Are those elect infants in the New Covenant? Well, in the sense of all the elect in this administration are in the New Covenant, yes. But we don't know who elect infants are and if you're asking if I believe that every believing parent has an objective promise from God that all of his children are elect, no, I don't see that at all.
David certainly didn't have that. Thank you. Pastor Shishko, in Hebrews chapter 8, as we were looking at just a moment ago, the writer does emphasize that the New Covenant, every person in the New Covenant, the least of the greatest of them, knows the Lord.
Yes. Do you believe that that is the case today? Absolutely. With all of the elect, absolutely, that is true. Now, Jesus identified the New Covenant as the covenant in his blood in Luke 22, did he not?
Yes. And you and I would agree that in God's purposes, Christ shed his blood with the specific intention of redeeming the elect of God. Absolutely. When you give the sign... Back up. Would you say that baptism is the sign of the New Covenant in Hebrews?
Absolutely. When you give the sign of the New Covenant to an infant, are you saying.
That that infant is of the elect? No. Not necessarily. In the same way when you baptize an adult who believes, you're not necessarily saying that person is of the elect. When an adult believes and you give them the sign,.
You're doing so on their profession of faith? Yes. If they've never been baptized and they come to faith in Christ, absolutely. And if someone came to you, a man comes to you, he is converted and he brings his household, you will not baptize an unbelieving spouse?
Correct. If a person clearly is unbelieving, there should not be baptism because baptism is a sign and seal of a promise that is to believers. Will you baptize a 15-year-old unbelieving child? No. If the child clearly is not believing, absolutely not.
How about 10? And the same thing. So, at what age will you baptize their children? Of a single confessing person? We believe that when Jesus speaks of little children who believe in him, that that's the case.
Unless there is an expression to the contrary, we would take Jesus' words.
And we would baptize them, give them the sign of the covenant because at that point our Lord speaks of little ones who believe in him. So you would ask for a profession of faith in the children? Well, in our circles, a profession of faith is for admission to the Lord's Supper, which warrants the maturity to examine oneself.
It's an active, it's a sacrament in which a person is active, unlike baptism where they're passive. And we do, certainly, if we see conviction of sin and a desire to partake of the Lord's Supper, we prepare them to take those vows.
Could I go to Israel today and grab myself a few acres of land because my baptism is the complete fulfillment of circumcision? I think you'd get an awful lot of trouble if you did that. And would you go with me to do this?
No, because I don't think it's the right thing to do. But do you see my point? No, absolutely not. I do see your point, but that's not. Once the Old Covenant was done away with, that national, typical role is done away with.
So there was an element of circumcision that had, that does not have a direct connection to the Lord's Supper, to the Lord's Supper, in the New Covenant baptism? No, actually it has a much greater fulfillment.
Because the land, the scriptures speak of you shall inherit the earth. And, of course, it's a new heavens and a new earth. It's ultimately, that's very physical and it's far better.
But that's a radical change, isn't it? No, it's actually an expansion and it's a fulfillment of the promise of a new heavens and a new earth. So instead of radical change, you accept the terminology of fulfillment and expansion.
Correct. I mean, even in the Abrahamic Covenant,.
It was kings would be blessed and nations would be blessed. So here is a fulfillment.
And expansion. So if the Baptist views the giving of the covenant sign in the greater light of what the nature of the New Covenant and the elect is as a greater fulfillment of circumcision, it wouldn't be proper to refer to just a radical departure, a radical change.
It could be a fulfillment. Well, no. The radical departure is the household principle being abrogated specifically when there is no evidence at all that that principle is abrogated. When Jesus said in Luke 8, 21, but he answered and said to them, my mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it.
Yes. Why doesn't a text like that and the text I cited earlier from Luke where Jesus said the gospel will divide father and mother and son and daughter, why don't they speak to the nature of households in the New Covenant whereas something like Isaiah 61 can't speak to the New Covenant?
Well, first of all, we're dealing with the gospel of grace and I think that would be stretching the scriptures way beyond what they bear to say that grace's role first of all is to divide families although the gospel.
Will bring division because Jesus says whoever is not with me is against me. But it's interesting that in that text that you mentioned it's not just dealing with adults but he's also dealing with sons in that text that are apparently younger ones who are part of those disciples.
Okay. But would you not agree that as part of the Reformed hermeneutic that the New Covenant scriptures define how the Old Covenant will be fulfilled in them rather than the Old Covenant scriptures role to define how they themselves will be fulfilled?
Yes. Well, the New Covenant surely is the flowering of all of that and of that I don't disagree at all. But what I'm saying is that there are prophecies of that New Covenant that cannot be understood with the abrogation of the household principle and that it's precisely because that principle continues that the household references are there.
Yes. But is it not a part of our interpretation of the Messianic passages that the New Testament determines what is and what is not a Messianic passage and how it should be fulfilled? Absolutely.
So we look that direction. Why are we looking the other direction at the text you're looking at? Because when the New Testament speaks of the New Testament of the Old Covenant it does so by quoting prophecies like those from Jeremiah 31.
And so because the New Testament itself does that we're warranted to do the same. Okay. In Matthew 28, 19 -20 you have strongly asserted in your teaching and past debates that by baptism we make disciples.
That you go and you make disciples and the way that's done is by baptizing them and teaching them to keep everything I've commanded. So you would agree with me that baptism test.
The participle there is a participle of means in regards to how the verbal element of mathetu to disciple is... Yeah, I think means or manner I mean it's the way it's the way it's to be done either one, yes.
Would you also agree that the that didaskon test to teach Yes. is parallel to to baptize? Oh, absolutely. Yes. Is it not the case that you are baptizing individuals that you cannot teach? No. It's not.
In fact, the scriptures teach you can teach children that they are taught. Okay. How do you teach an eight day old infant all the things that Christ commanded it? Well, one of the ways you can do it is by begin singing Jesus loves me this I know for the Bible tells me so.
So you would say that is a fulfillment of baptism. Yeah, I would say obviously you're the fathers that are bringing up their children in the Lord and so you're going to begin bringing up your children in the child training and admonition of the Lord is the Lord's child training and admonition from the time they're born, certainly.
And that is discipling. So it is your assertion that to teach here is not just the impartation of the specifics that Christ gives here, but it can actually be something that takes place later on down the road.
Oh, absolutely. It's an ongoing process. It's an ongoing process even dealing with older ones who are constantly being discipled. Unless we say the discipleship process stops at a certain point, but you're going to do that based on the age and the maturity of the person.
Is it unfair for me to say that I cannot find anywhere in the New Testament where the apostles baptized an unrepentant or unbelieving person? Okay, repeat it one more time. Is it unfair for me to say that I can find nowhere in the New Testament where the apostles baptized an unrepentant or unbelieving person?
Yes, it is, because there are specific references in the New Testament in which whole households are baptized and the head of the home is referred to as believing, but there's no mention specifically of the others repenting or believing.
Yes, I believe that is unfair. Okay, so you believe that it is consistent with Reformed exegetical hermeneutics to look at Lydia and assume that there are unrepentant and unbelieving people in her household that are baptized.
No, I do not, because in that culture under the head of a home, there would be a following of what the head of the home does as basically it is in the Middle East today, although that's not our standard.
I believe they would have.
Followed the head of the home. We are very much influenced by American individualism in the way we look at those texts. So the head of the home would have meant that they repented and believed? Yes, I think they would have, because that was the pattern of that day.
Whether it was heartfelt or not? I'm sorry? Whether it was heartfelt or not? Well, even you've admitted on your pattern.
We don't always know the heart. We can't administer the heart, but I think outwardly, absolutely. So would you say then with the Philippian jailer that they likewise had repented and believed? The text does not say that they did.
The text says specifically that the jailer himself believed, and the reason for that is because it's the same pattern as with Abraham. Abraham believed and his infants, males at that time only, were circumcised.
And I believe that the New Testament does this. Even though he was not a Jew, that would have been the pattern? And the New Testament is reiterating that pattern, that it's not abrogated. I'm sorry. That's all right.
We ran out of time. Professor Shishko now has a ten-minute rebuttal.
Let me just give you a few quick responses to miscellaneous points and then deal with what I think really is the heart of what we've dealt with this evening. Number one, remember, we abide by the principle of sola scriptura and tota scriptura, the scriptures alone and all of the scriptures.
My opponent in this debate has, I think, made the assumption that little ones cannot be taught. And yet following the principle of sola scriptura, 2 Timothy chapter 3 and verses 14 and following, Timothy himself is spoken of as one who was discipled as a form of the disciple word even from his youth.
Continue, Paul says, into things. This would be in 2 Timothy chapter 3 and verse 14. Continue, he says, you must continue into things which you have been discipled in and been assured of, knowing from whom you've learned them and that from the word childhood as the Greek word brephos which means from infancy you have known the holy scriptures which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.
On the principle of sola scriptura we cannot say that even little infants cannot be taught in a manner that is appropriate to their age. My opponent in this debate has noted that Abraham himself was an Old Testament pattern of one who believed and then received the sign and seal of the covenant.
I ask again if he was a pattern of the believer in the Old Testament why then was his child what were his male children to be circumcised? My opponent in this debate will say it is because there was a land promise.
I respond in two ways. Number one, circumcision like baptism was also a sign of regeneration. The Old Testament prophets would say to the people of God circumcise the four skins of your heart and be no longer stiff necked.
So it did represent regeneration as new covenant baptism does. Nevertheless, his children too were to be circumcised. My opponent in the debate would say that is because of a land promise and yet I want to tell you again that the gospel is a gospel of a promise not just of a lands of a land but Jesus speaks of lands of a whole world that is to be influenced by the gospel and ultimately of new heavens and new earth.
That land promise has not been abrogated it has been expanded in the New Testament. And again, my opponent in this debate has spoken about gospel division. I would remind you that in that text it also speaks of sons of younger ones who can be disciples.
And I would ask you the question is it the role of the gospel primarily to divide families or to bring them under the lordship of Christ as Ephesians 6 .4 says bring up your children in the child training and admonition of the Lord.
But I want to spend most of my time on dealing with this issue of the new covenant. I find this most intriguing. My opponent in this debate and I have absolutely no difference on the nature of the new covenant.
We are both Calvinist as I mentioned at the beginning and we both believe that the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ the blood of the everlasting covenant in its essence is only for the elect. My colleague agrees with that.
My colleague also admits that there are those who receive the sign of baptism which I call a new covenant sign which I believe is the new covenant sign. There are the non-elect ones who may be baptized.
There is absolutely no difference that the elect that the covenant the new covenant is only with the elect. But we differ on this point number one that new covenant does not have its complete fulfillment in the new testament.
In the texts in Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel these speak of that covenant as a foundation is laid after the exile of a fulfillment that comes with the Messiah but the consummation of that covenant is within the new heavens and the new earth when no man will teach his neighbor at all but then and only then will all know me from the least of them to the greatest of them.
And I hope you are aware that my opponent in this debate is impaled on the horns of a dilemma. He wants to in some way connect the baptisms in the new testament only with those who repent and believe but Hebrews chapter 8 makes no mention of repentance in faith.
He wants to say that that new covenant is only with the elect and somehow that must be represented in baptism I would assume but it cannot be represented in baptism because on his own admission non-elect ones are baptized.
I ask what's the difference? When we baptize whole households and then find in time that some of those infants themselves are not believers so I believe that my opponent in this debate is utterly inconsistent and is impaled on the horns of that dilemma but there is a much deeper concern I have in this matter.
Tota scriptura all of scripture is to determine our understanding of any of these concepts with which you are dealing. The old the new testament calls quotes from Deuteronomy and Jeremiah from Ezekiel in particular dealing with the new covenant.
All of the main prophecies of the new covenant in the old testament every one of them specifically include children. Let me give you just some of the many examples that could be given. In Deuteronomy chapter 30 a prophecy of what will happen after the exile for Israel's disobedience when the Lord would bring them back to the land there is this earliest promise of a new covenant and the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants new covenant promise to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul that you may live.
Does that mean every last one of them will be elect? No but in the administration of that covenant unlike the old covenant life comes. Isaiah 54 verse 10 and verse 13 nor shall my covenant of peace a promise of the new covenant be removed says the Lord.
What is that covenant of peace? And that covenant of peace is referred to in Ephesians 2 14 through 17 our Lord bringing peace by the blood of the covenant. What is that covenant of peace? What is the essence of it?
All your children shall be taught by the Lord and great shall be the peace of your children. Isaiah 61 verses 8 and 9 another prophecy of the everlasting covenant. Our Lord speaks of the blood of the everlasting covenant that he shed.
I will make with them an everlasting covenant. What is that covenant? Their descendants shall be known among the Gentiles and their offspring among the people. All who see them shall acknowledge them that they are the posterity whom the Lord shall bless.
In Jeremiah 31 the prophecy of the new covenant I will be God to all the families of Israel. Benefits that believing Gentiles are grafted into. Doesn't that explain to you why the New Testament does speak of families still in covenant dealings with God?
Jeremiah 32 verses 38 through 40 They shall be my people and I will be their God. Then I will give them one heart and one way that they may fear me forever for the good of them and their children after them.
And I will make an everlasting covenant with them that I will not turn away from doing them good but I will put my fear in their hearts so that they will not depart from me. And that's the heart of new covenant promise.
Jeremiah 33 7 and 8 I will cause the captives of Judah and the captives of Israel to return and that of course included children. In that new covenant I will cleanse them from all their iniquity and will pardon all their iniquities.
And I remind you that adult or children because all are conceived and born in sin there must be forgiveness of sins and it can only come by that blood of the everlasting covenant. Ezekiel 37 verses 24 through 28 David my servant shall be king over them and they shall have one shepherd and they shall also walk in my judgments and observe my statutes a law written on the heart.
Then they shall dwell in the land they shall dwell there now within the earth. Listen, they and their children their children's children forever and my servant David Christ himself shall be their prince forever.
Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them and it shall be an everlasting covenant with them. I will establish them and multiply them and I will sit in my sanctuary in their midst forevermore.
My tabernacle also shall be with them indeed I will be their God and they shall be my people. Language in 2 Corinthians 6 and verse 16 to describe a church. The church in which as we learned from Ephesians not only adults mothers and fathers and husbands and wives are addressed but also children are spoken of as well.
And I say to you again the view that you hold on those who receive the sign of the new covenant must enable you to do justice to all the data of Holy Scripture including these references to households that are incomprehensible on the view of my opponent in this debate.
Now Dr. White will have a 10 minute rebuttal as well. The only reason that my position would be incomprehensible is if we do not distinguish between the child that I was when I heard the message of the gospel.
I heard about the cross. I heard about my sin in simple words but I knew who Jesus was. I knew what my sin was and I turned away from that sin and I wanted to believe in that Savior. The only reason that that could be incomprehensible is if we refuse to distinguish between that kind of a child and the infant in the arms that can do absolutely nothing.
Cannot understand the difference in language. Can only tell the difference in tone of voice or loud noises. Cannot be instructed about sin, repentance or anything else. But I would submit to you that we all make that differentiation.
And if that differentiation is allowed to stand the vast majority of the text presented to us this evening almost none of which had anything to do with baptism whatsoever really have nothing to do with the subject at all.
There's no question that God has dealings with children. There's no question that God had dealings with Timothy when he was a young person as he did with me. That has nothing to do with the purposeful giving of the ordinances of the new covenant to a child at the font who makes no profession of faith and cannot do so.
Those are clearly two different things. I would submit to you that it is a part of our standard hermeneutic that the new covenant scriptures define how the old covenant scriptures are fulfilled in them.
This came up in cross-examination. Let me give an example. Sometime next year, Lord willing, I will be debating one of the leading Islamic apologists in the English-speaking world and one of the topics that we are going to be debating is whether Muhammad is prophesied in the Bible.
And interestingly enough this man said I'll debate you on that however first you must debate me on whether Jesus is prophesied in the Old Testament. Now isn't that interesting? Now, I have a feeling that Brother Shishko and I would make almost identical presentations concerning the Messianic prophecies.
But we would do so by allowing the new covenant scriptures to fulfill and to determine how the old covenant scriptures are fulfilled. Have you ever noticed that you can go to many of the Messianic Psalms and there are sections of those Messianic Psalms that were not fulfilled in the life of Christ.
They had to do with David. And so if we go from, if we go backwards, if we go from the Psalm and say this is how it must be fulfilled, we would have a hard time even proving the Messiahship of Jesus. And yet I submit to you that's exactly what we just heard.
What we have heard this evening is I see that this must be how the old covenant promises will be fulfilled. And whether the apostles interpret it that way, whether the apostles ever raised those texts in talking about baptism, whether the apostles ever baptized anyone in fulfillment of that reading of the old covenant, never seems to suggest itself in that context.
And that is where I say to you there is a fundamental inconsistency in the hermeneutical method that is being utilized at this point in time. We were just told, for example, that circumcision was a sign of regeneration of the old covenant.
That would have surprised Ahab. Certainly would have been surprised everyone who looked at Ahab. Think of all of those unrighteous kings in Israel who were circumcised. They were children of Abraham. They bore the covenant sign, but they were not regenerated.
And here again we come back to what I said at the beginning. The fundamental difference between the two sides is that I do not believe that the New Testament gives us any warrant for giving the ordinances of the new covenant in hope of there someday being fulfilled in the life of the person who receives them.
On one of the two ordinances, we agree on that. We agree in regards to the Lord's Supper that you do not give that ordinance to someone in hopes that someday this might mean something to them. You don't give them the bread and you don't give them the cup and go, I hope someday you'll be able to discern the body and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
I'm simply saying I think I'm the consistent one because I say these are both ordinances of the new covenant. That means that they have to have the same audience as the new covenant. And we've agreed, who is the new covenant?
The elect of God. What do the people of the new covenant experience? Forgiveness of sins by what? By the blood of Jesus Christ. So why would you give when circumcision, according to Colossians 2, 11 through 12, circumcision in the old covenant does not point to baptism, it points to regeneration.
So why would you give baptism the sign of that new covenant to unregenerate individuals? The only answer I've gotten to that is, well, God can regenerate a little child. Well, what does that lead to? That leads to the stuff that I quoted from Pierre Marcel.
That leads to the danger of the presumption of regeneration. And friends, history tells us something, that is what happens in this system. That is what happens. You can't avoid it. Because there's no scripture that is written to someone that says, look back on your baptism, live in light of your baptism, and hopefully someday you'll experience the reality that you as an infant were given in that sign.
There is nothing in the New Testament to guide these individuals, to talk to these individuals. Because they didn't exist in the new covenant era. That's the whole point of this. By the way, I did want to make one factual correction.
I did not identify John's baptism as Christian baptism. What I said was, John baptized repentant individuals. There is no evidence anywhere that John ever baptized an unrepentant child or an unrepentant adult.
Nowhere. That is, again, the Reformed hermeneutic would say in any other instance, in any other subject, that if you don't have any instance of this, you're not going to assume that it was there. And all I'm saying is, when Jesus and the apostles began baptizing, Jesus baptized his disciples, not their children evidently, and then they were baptizing, that they only baptized who?
Baptism of repentance. Same thing. Where was this furor over this great change? Baptize my children. Baptize my infant. It's not there. You have to assume these things. And I'm simply saying to you that if we are saying that baptism is an established ordinance of Jesus Christ and the apostles, why don't we first do what we do on every other subject of theology?
We go directly to what they did and said about those things. And when we come to the book of Acts, every single time, who are they baptizing? They're proclaiming the Word. They are baptizing those who believe and repent.
That becomes the apostolic example. And unfortunately, what happens many times, people say, well, that was just in the early church. Once the church is established, then that all changes, and now you just start to baptize your infants.
So that only in the missionary position, where you've got all these people that are coming to you, and they've not been baptized as children, and you're out there in the bush someplace, and they've never heard the gospel.
Okay, there's no church there. You're a missionary. You're proclaiming. Okay, that works there. But once the church is established, then that whole order becomes usurped. It becomes turned around and backwards.
Where's the evidence of this? Is it really the case that there is this household principle, so clear and strong, and I would like to suggest that a number of the references talk about families and children.
Who are the children but those who do the will of God? Who are the children who come but those who have faith? Sometimes that term family is just referring to language groups in that particular context.
There's all sorts of things like that, but again, it's the new covenant that has to tell us how those things are fulfilled. We can't go back there and create this entire concept and then put it in the New Testament and say, okay, the apostles may not have made these applications, because when we do that, we're going to start seeing things.
We're going to start looking at 1 Corinthians 7, and we're going to start looking at where Paul's talking about. People are going, hey, I've become a Christian. Should I still stay married? And somehow think that has something to do with baptism when the clear apostolic examples are overthrown for that kind of interpretation.
That's what happens when we become inconsistent and allow a principle to overthrow our application in this particular point. We just had an illustration in closing. We were just told, Hebrews 8 makes no reference to repentance and faith.
My friends, does it have to? It speaks of the forgiveness of sins. If we believe in sola Scriptura and tota Scriptura, we know what that means, doesn't it? Don't we know that it is the work of the Holy Spirit of God in redeeming His elect to give the gifts of faith and repentance?
Why do we in this one instance all of a sudden have to have this completely different standard that we don't have when talking about any other subject within Reformed theology and Biblical theology at all?
That, to me, is the most important issue because I come at this not only as an elder in a church, but also as an apologist. And as an apologist, I have to be consistent in the hermeneutical methodology that I utilize.
And that is what I see taking place in this context. We need to be consistent. Thank you very much.
Seven minutes. Pastor Shishko now will have his closing remarks and they will be seven minutes long. The essence of the New Covenant is not that children are excluded. If there has been a change in that principle of a household dealing with God's people, it should be absolutely clear in the New Testament and it is not.
My opponent in this debate begs the question by saying that only those who repented and believed were baptized. That's what he's assumed. Yet he's not answered the question why are there mentions of households in which there is no specific mention of each one repenting and believing before they were baptized.
Why the household reference at all if that principle has been abrogated in the New Testament? But I have a much more fundamental concern. And in a real sense, it's the biggest concern I have in this entire debate.
Under the rule of sola scriptura, only scripture, and tota scriptura, how do you regard the children of at least one believing parent in the New Testament? See, my experience as a pastor with not a few people who've come out of Reformed Baptist backgrounds is this.
They ask the question, what do I do with my children? And as they get a grasp of the unity of Holy Scripture, they realize they cannot fit the view of what the scriptures in tota teach with the way they have been taught to view their children.
Let me ask specifically these questions. How does my opponent say of the children of believers, of such is the kingdom of God, that kingdom which our confessional standards identify as the church of the Lord Jesus Christ?
Notice he did not specifically say of such are the kingdom of God, although Jesus did. If he can't say that, why not? If so, what does he mean? And does he mean what Jesus meant? Can my opponent speak of these little ones, including infants, who believe in me?
If so, why not baptize them? Especially if baptism is a badge of faith. If not, why not? And if he waits for mature or adult faith, or whatever he would like to call it, isn't he turning Jesus' words upside down?
Unless you receive the kingdom of God as a little child, you will by no means enter it. Can my opponent say to children in the church, of which he is an elder, obey your parents in the Lord? If not, why not?
If so, what does he mean by it? Can my opponent address children as saints, as Paul did? Where in the New Testament are children of believers referred to as something other than of the kingdom of God?
Or for that matter, other than believers, when our Lord has spoken of children as believers? Where is the New Testament warrant for baptizing children of believers later in life? And how long do you wait?
What does the Bible say of that? Are there any objective promises for children of at least one believing parent who die in the womb or in infancy? Are there any objective promises for special children or for handicapped children who may for whatever reason be unable to confess their faith?
Can they be in the New Covenant? Can they receive a sign of the New Covenant? Are they spoken of at all in Holy Scripture? Or are they excluded in the New Covenant when clearly the Old Covenant did address such?
And if they are not included, where is the expansion of the grace of God in the New Testament? Is it a more gracious covenant when children are somehow excluded? In short, how does my opponent treat children of believing parents?
Draw the data from the New Testament. And I challenge you tonight, dear friends who are here, that is the big issue. We can go on and on and on all night long dealing with the subjects of baptism. Baptism, we've agreed, marking out people as part of the visible church.
But what does my opponent say about children? What does the Bible say to you about children, especially in the New Testament? We do not presume the regeneration of our children. But in the words of our Lord Jesus, we give a judgment of charity regarding our children.
Jesus speaks specifically of these little children. Of such are the kingdom of God. What about those who are unregenerate? That's a tension in both of our systems and I'll grant that. My opponent has already granted they will baptize people who are not elect, even though he and I both agree that the new covenant is only with the elect.
And I'm still trying to figure why that's such a strong argument for baptism of believing adults only on his system if he admits that the non-elect are baptized. But however we look at it, the resolution is not by excluding children.
Specifically, when old covenant prophecies, such as those cited in the New Testament to explain the new covenant, include children. The resolution is not by excluding children, but by proper church discipline.
Especially when the New Testament data, direct and indirect, prophecies of the Old Testament and the New Testament demonstrate inclusion among the people of God of children. And that's signified by Christian baptism.
And I challenge you again, as I have throughout the entire debate. You've got to do justice to all the data of Scripture. Radical change in the New Testament on my opponent's viewpoint. After 2 ,000 years of God's dealings, beginning with Abraham and a redemptive covenant of children of believers with a sign of the covenant, that's done away with?
That basic principle is done away with? Burden of proof is to show it is abrogated. I submit to you, my colleague has not even taken up anything like that burden of proof. See, if he could, he would not be able to, because the reason he doesn't is because he cannot explain why there are references to whole households being baptized.
When at the pivotal point, the Holy Spirit could make clear only those who personally repent and believe in Christ are to be baptized. Because those texts, specifically under the inspiration of God, in most cases only say there was the faith of one believing adult.
Just as in the case of the Old Testament parallel with Abraham. Circumcised in belief, baptism in belief, but the sign also applying to children.
We were just told that in the majority of instances of household baptisms there is only one professing person. That is simply untrue. I gave you the list. There were only two possibilities where that was the case, where household baptisms took place.
All the rest of them very clear, you had repentance and faith in the part of all those who were baptized. And those other two, there is no reference, no positive reference to the establishment of a baptism of an unrepentant or unbelieving person.
And so we have here, once again, going from the Old Testament, taking a presupposition, and then reading it into the New Testament, saying you have this 2 ,000 years of households, but we start off asking a question.
That's not what you had from Adam to Abraham. Where was the furor then? There was no furor then. Where was the furor when Jesus and John are baptizing people who are repentant only? There was no furor then.
The essence of the New Covenant is not excluding children. The essence of the New Covenant is the perfection of that covenant, whereas the Old Covenant did not perfect anyone. That's the difference between the two, and that's why the signs differ.
You gave the Old Covenant sign to wretched reprobates, and you did it purposefully. You had to to keep the nation of Israel and the land in the proper order and who was to possess it and everything else.
That does not come through into baptism, and therefore, that equative element, which is absolutely necessary, simply disappears. Why are families mentioned? I've answered this three or four times already.
The places that are mentioned are illustrations of the grace of God because that was not the normative experience of the early church. It was not the normative experience of the early church for everyone in a family to respond positively to the Gospel.
That's what Jesus Himself said. And I'm not sure what the argument is that, well, doesn't grace join families together? Well, that depends on whether God is blessing a nation or He isn't. Right now, as we look around our nation, I'd like to suggest to you that true faith normally divides.
Not the other way around. And so, when we talk about children, this debate should not be about children. This debate should be about Jesus Christ's authority to define the ordinances for His own people in the clarity of the writings of the New Testament and not take the writings of the New Testament and overshadow them with a demand of fulfillment of old covenant promises.
And that's what I've said over and over again is a violation of a consistent Reformed hermeneutic. If we were to follow this methodology in any other area of theology, it would lead us to conclusions very different than the ones that we share.
And so, who's being consistent this evening? It is not a matter of excluding infants. The New Covenant does not have infants who are included in it who will not ever experience the blessing of God in eternal life.
I don't mind excluding an infant from a covenant that doesn't perfect them in the trust that God will, in fact, be gracious to them in the New Covenant. I pray that God will be gracious to my children, but I cannot force God to do so.
And I'm not sure exactly where, you know, well, one parent in the Lord. Where does that come from? What's the Old Testament parallel to having one of the two profess faith? Where did that come from? We weren't given any information like that.
How can I speak to the children at my church? I speak to the children of my church the same way I speak to the adults at my church. I don't have the ability to see into their hearts. That's why there are warnings in the book of Hebrews.
That's why you have, in the same chapter, where you have the perfection of the New Covenant, in Hebrews chapter 10, those by this will, they have been perfected, those for whom Christ died. You then have later on the warning.
So there's nothing more to go back to, folks. If you go back to those things, there is no salvation for you. By the way, Hebrews 10, 29 is talking about Christ as the one sanctified by that blood, not the apostate, but that's a whole other issue in regards to the New Covenant.
Here is what I'm saying. When I speak to my children, what does it mean to obey your children in the Lord? Well, you know, when I talk to one of those, how many of you have ever had that, you know, purgatorial experience of talking to junior high schoolers?
That will cleanse you real quick. Did you just cross yourself? Okay, no. It would have scared me there if you had done that. Didn't mean purgatory to become literal there. You've had that experience, right?
How many of you have done that? Ever tried to talk to those folks, they don't want to listen to a word you're saying? Am I not going to speak as Paul spoke? When I say, obey your parents in the Lord, am I sitting there going, oh, well, you know, I need to try to look into every one of these little hearts.
I can't see anything in their hearts. Maybe the younger ones you might have a little bit, but junior high schoolers, man, they're impossible. They put that, you know, that thing on, they do it to their parents too, you know, you ain't going to look into me, oh, no, I'm not going to give you any indication I'm listening to a word you're saying.
And they're pretty good at it. What does it mean to obey your parents in the Lord? Well, when you do, and I remember this as a junior high schooler, by the way, I was taught to obey my parents in the Lord, and that's how I knew what my service to the Lord was to be.
I knew that if I was in Christ, that in the Lord, I was to obey my parents. That is, in my role as a Christian. Now, do I know when I speak to my adults, when I preach from the pulpit, am I assuming that every single person sitting in front of me is regenerate?
No, I can't do that. I wish God gave me that insight, but He doesn't. And so there have to be warnings, there has to be a recognition of the fact that while we live in this world, every church faces this, but the difference between the two sides is this.
I seek to protect the ordinances of the church by asking that those who receive those ordinances, which are signs of the new covenant, profess faith and repentance. That's what the apostles asked. That is what is necessary to discern the body and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
I'm simply being consistent that in both ordinances, I am seeking to protect them. I do not give those ordinances hoping that someday they may be fulfilled. That was old covenant. That was before the cross.
In the new covenant, the ordinances are given to those who are saying, yes, I've been united with Christ. Yes, I have died, been buried and raised together with Him. So those who experience it recognize their union with Christ.
And that's why it's a testimony to others when they see that take place. That's the difference between us. Do we give the ordinances purposefully to unbelievers, or do we follow the apostolic example and ask for repentance and faith?
First question is for Dr. White. If the new covenant includes only those who repent and believe, why when Peter presents the new covenant promises to Jews in Acts 2 .39, does he speak of the promises as to their seed?
Well, I sought to explain that. Acts 2 .39, I think, is a very strong argument for my side because as Peter says, in the text he says, the promise is to you and to your children and for as many as are far off.
That last phrase tends to fall out very frequently. As many as the Lord our God shall call. That Greek term, as many as, determines the identity of the preceding three groups. Now people disagree as to whether you and your children means Jews, those who are far off Gentiles, or if this is a less specific delineation.
I think it is Jews and Gentiles. But the point is, the promise is to as many as the Lord our God shall call and then the fulfillment of that in the next two verses is, as many as received his word were baptized.
And so the promise is to Jews of that day and to this day. To any person who will believe and repent. Even in light of the fact that they had called down God's curse upon them in Matthew 27. His blood be upon us and upon our children.
The promise that is given to them is that they and anyone that the Lord our God shall call, Jew or Gentile, if they will but repent and believe, the promise of the spirit of God.
And salvation is theirs. The first thing I would say in response to that is, number one, it was only men who were baptized. Obviously if there were men, they were able to repent and believe. Number two, those who are far off would certainly refer to the nations.
Now the Abrahamic Covenant is having its flowering and so all the nations are to be blessed. And I think as many as the Lord our God shall call, it's notice that you and your children that the Lord our God shall call.
And I remind you Isaiah 44, 3, Isaiah 59, 20 and 21, Isaiah 65, 23, are Old Testament promises of the spirit to come in the day of Pentecost. They all refer to children. It probably is what Peter has in mind at that point.
Okay, this question is for Pastor Shishko. You emphasize household baptisms rather than infant baptism. If a couple with teenage children come to faith in Christ, do you believe their teenagers are to be baptized even if they reject the faith of their parents?
I think it's made clear. Clearly if there's a rejection of the faith, and of course here we have something in our culture and it's individualism that would have been different in the first century where we very much emphasize the individualism.
Certainly if there's a rejection of the gospel, the Bible says without faith it's impossible to please God. And so you would not baptize someone who explicitly rejects the gospel. And that applies also with the unbelieving spouse.
In the case of children, we baptize them because of the warrant to you and to your children. And our Lord Jesus, however I don't understand this, but our Lord always in dealing with children of believers speaks of them as those.
Who believe and uses their dependence as a model of our faith. I personally believe that it is one example of the radical departure from the Old Testament model that allegedly is the foundation of Oikobaptist practice.
Not just given to men, it's given to women as well. The house has been completely redefined. The house that received circumcision was much wider. It would have included teenagers. It would have included servants during the Civil War South.
If Presbyterians had been consistent with this, they would have baptized their slaves. There has been a change here, but there is no warrant given for that change outside of the cultural applications.
And if we're going to use terms like radical departure,.
Radical changes, I would say those are radical changes too that would then have to have the same level of foundation given to them. And I don't see that foundation given. This question is for Dr. White.
Speaking with reference to Jewish Christian believers, Paul, the new covenant minister, states in 1 Corinthians 7 .18, let him not become uncircumcised. Let him remain, in other words, a practicing Jew, continuing to circumcise his household.
Does not Paul himself, therefore, continue the household principle for Jewish believers?
I would have a feeling that my brother and I would be on the same page on this one because if that were the case, it would be a startling argument against oikobaptism because it raises the whole issue, is circumcision still a valid thing?
And if it is, then why are any of these people being baptized in the first place? I think that's a misreading of 7 .18 at that point. What he's saying is the condition in which you were called remained therein.
He's not saying you continue to engage in circumcision and so on and so forth. What he's saying is stay in the condition in which you were called. Do not try to make radical changes. And I think that is consistent with what my interpretation of verse 14 is as well.
So, again, if we believe in tota scriptura, looking at 1 Corinthians 7 .18 that way would totally violate what the Acts Council did and Paul's teaching in Galatians and throughout everything else. I'm not sure how anyone could really take 7 .18 in that fashion.
Well, to show you the age of wonders has not ceased, I agree with Dr. White on this one. You were supposed to say more than that. Time for more questions. Okay, this one is for Pastor Shishko. Romans 6, 1 to 9 and Colossians 2, 11 to 12 seem to indicate that baptism unites symbolically the recipient with Christ in his death to the forgiveness of sins.
Does baptism not represent this? If not, if it represents the coming of the Spirit, are we to say that all infants receiving baptism have received God's holy, irresistible Spirit? Well, I think there's at least two questions in that one question, but at least it is a question, which I appreciate.
Baptism is like, I think, on either model, baptism is very much like a diamond ring. There's many facets to it. It represents many things, specifically because it's the sign and seal of the new covenant.
So it does indeed represent the coming of the Holy Spirit, and it's true that the Holy Spirit is at work in covenant members. That's why in Hebrews 6 you can speak of those who partaken of the Holy Spirit, and yet some were turned away.
But with respect to Romans 6 and Colossians 2, 11 and 12, without taking the time to read all of those texts, it's true that these are signs and seals of being united with Christ and His death and raised with Him, having been circumcised with Him with the circumcision of Christ, which I believe has to do with union with Christ and His crucifixion.
But baptism is, I think, on either model a sign, and perhaps my opponent in the debate wouldn't say seal, but at least a sign of these things. It does not necessarily indicate that the reality of those signs is present in each one baptized, and my colleague has affirmed the same thing on his model, his model of credo baptism.
I think the only disagreement I would have there, because I honestly did not quite follow the question, but the only disagreement I have there is in Colossians chapter 2. One of the problems we have here is that if you continue through the sentence, it says raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.
And so I would suggest to you that there can be no meaningful application of this text to a pedo-baptist experience, because yes, this is regeneration, and we believe that regeneration results in the giving of the gifts of faith and repentance.
But I don't think that that can be put way down the line as something we hope for happening. Here again is the difference. It's something that represents something that's a reality already.
And for Dr. White, at what age would you consider a child to be able, with understanding, to make a credible profession and therefore be qualified to receive baptism?
How old was the youngest person you had baptized? Well, you know, to be honest with you, this kind of a question, I struggle with having it as a part of a debate, because it is so clearly pastoral and has to be handled within that particular context, because we all know that there are some individuals, some children, who show incredible insights into their own hearts at a very young age, and others that, to be honest with you, at 35 you're wondering if they'll ever grow up.
And we've all seen that. And so, ironically, I spoke with a good friend of mine for about 45 minutes on this very subject on the phone just recently, and he's struggling with the same thing, a very young child who wants to experience baptism.
But there is this concern that there is no understanding of exactly what that means, and the concern that young children want to do what pleases Mommy and Daddy. And if you know Mommy and Daddy's going to be pleased, then you answer all the right questions.
But how many of us have seen those young people who have experienced that at a very young age, who at the age of 16 and 17 are bringing great and tremendous dishonor upon the name of Christ, because they show absolutely no concern whatsoever with the things of God?
That is not an easy question to answer. I think the youngest person that I baptized was 15, actually. But I don't do the normal baptisms at our church. That doesn't necessarily mean anything. But it's a...
This is... I'm out of time, but this is, I think, a pastoral question that needs to be answered within the context of each individual family. That's why, dear brothers and sisters, it's simpler just to stick with the Scriptures.
When there was a believing adult, the whole household was baptized. Sola Scriptura. It's very interesting that my opponent in this debate and his colleagues struggle with this. They struggle with this because they try to make baptism a sign and seal of what's in the heart, and yet we don't know what's in the heart.
Now, the logical end would be if we baptize someone who really didn't believe and turns away, we'd have to baptize them again. And yet the Bible never teaches that kind of rebaptism. Or perhaps the logical end, really, would be to delay baptism until near death.
But the Bible doesn't teach that either. Yes, it is a wonderful pastoral question. You can't avoid it in this debate. Stick with the Scriptures which speak of household baptisms. Pastor Shishko, you cited Matthew 18 and 19 as further examples of children in the covenant.
Isn't Matthew 18, 6 clear that these children believe, thus the analogy for the kingdom of heaven? In Matthew chapter 18, Jesus, in an extended section, notice what Jesus says in verse 3. Assuredly he takes, there are children with him.
Verse 2, there is a little child brought to him. He says, Assuredly I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. It's interesting.
He doesn't take an adult who is a model of conversion, but he takes that child. Again, whoever humbles himself as this little child is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. A child is dependent upon the Lord.
Whoever receives one little child like this in my name receives me, showing the identification of Christ with those children. Now in that context you have verse 6. Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, our Lord has no insight into the heart.
There has been no profession of faith.
By the child. That's not indicated here. He simply speaks of that child's dependence as a model of what belief is. But the point is, Jesus does use that little child as a model of faith. Not 15 years old, I might add.
The text is very clear. Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to stumble. We were just told there's no reference to faith, but it says, who believe in me. I'm not sure how much clearer that can be.
This is a context of at that time the disciples came to Jesus and said, who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven? And I'm going to simply have to borrow a Spurgeonism here. What on earth does any of this have to do with baptism?
This is not a text about baptism. Suffer the little children to come to me is not a text about baptism. None of these things are about baptism. Please note, if this is an ordinance of positive establishment, why are we going to all these texts that have nothing to do with baptism to establish baptism?
Dr. White, if only those who repent and believe may be baptized and included in the church, aren't all those who are physically incapable of professing faith excluded from the church? Again,.
One of the primary arguments that someone I know down in Lynchburg uses against Calvinism is anyone who could ever believe that any infant could ever be lost must be a hyper-Calvinist and all you Calvinists are mean, nasty, terrible, horrible people.
We're talking about issues that people admit there is so little scriptural information. I mean, I believe that elect infants, I give God the exact same freedom to save infants that He has to save adults.
God's salvation is all of God in one way or the other. I just don't tie God's hands and say as long as it's an infant, you have to say it. I happen to believe in original sin. I happen to believe that people are conceived in sin and they are in Adam and outside of a positive extension of God's grace, there can be no salvation.
But once again, the question I have to ask is, what does any of this have to do with the clear examples and clear teaching of passages of scripture that says believe and be baptized? We're taking the exceptions of the rule and trying to create rules out of the exceptions rather than looking at the rules, allowing them to be, and then dealing with the exceptions as they come up.
For example, people in our churches, and we've had people in our church who were individuals who simply did not have mental capacity. We did not exclude them, but we also did not make them elders. We can recognize where they are and deal with them on that level.
That's what we have to do.
I'd only note once again, it's interesting that my opponent in this debate struggles with this issue because everything for him hinges on the ability of a person to repent and believe. Thankfully, the gospel is much more gracious than that.
Our Lord Jesus Christ came into the world to give grace to the poor, the blind, the lame, and so forth. I remind you that for anyone to be saved, that person must be in the new covenant, which is with the elect only on either model.
And I would also remind you that on both models, we believe that baptism means that you are part of the visible church, and according to both of our standards, outside of the visible church, there's no ordinary possibility of salvation.
And yet, Dr. White wants to have it both ways. He wants to say there can be salvation for people who, because of some inability in themselves regarding profession and faith, cannot be part of the church.
Pastor Shishko, if this was so clear that circumcision was related to... I'm sorry, let me begin again. If this was so clear that circumcision was related to baptism, why did the apostles not provide this for us in Acts 15, easily answering the question?
The situation in Acts 15 was very different than the matter of who the members of the covenant were. The Judaizers in that time saw circumcision, again, an old covenant ordinance that was to be done away with, the doing away of the new covenant, as an emblem of total obedience to the traditions and to the laws.
And for that reason, then, circumcision was not to be imposed upon Gentiles. Essentially, it would make them Jews rather than Christians. But it has absolutely no bearing on the issue of those who are to receive the new covenant sign of baptism.
That's clearly taught to be the replacement of circumcision as a new covenant sign. It's a bloodless ordinance because the blood of Christ has been shed. It's a cleansing ordinance showing that the blood of Christ.
Cleanses from sin and so forth. I repeat the assertion that it is, in fact, regeneration that is the fulfillment of circumcision. And most definitely, if this had been the apostolic understanding of circumcision and baptism, Acts 15 would have gone a very, very different way than it did.
In fact, it would not have been raised as an issue. And so I would agree that that is one of the arguments that goes against this concept because, once again, if we are consistent in our exegesis, we will apply the same standards to each one of these texts, to each one of these issues.
And I see continuously a different standard applied to texts about infant baptism than about any other subject that we would look at. And that, to me, is the indication of tradition interfering with the practice of sola and tota scriptura.
Dr. White, Psalm 22, 9 to 10, David writes, But you are he who took me out of the womb. You made me trust while on my mother's breasts. I was cast upon you from birth. From my mother's womb you have been my God.
On Baptistic presuppositions, what provision is made for an at this young age believer in God to be a part of the Church?
At this young age, it is the great blessing of children within the Church to have godly parents to be taken into the fellowship of the people of God where they will hear the Word of God preached. They will hear the Word of God sung.
They will see the attitude of those in prayer. The preaching of the law of God will function as a curb upon their evil. They will have examples from their elders of what it means to be a godly person.
And if God is gracious to them, then they will have all of those examples given to them. If God is not gracious to them, they will be hardened in their rebellion. And all of us have met those people. And it's a sad and terrible and horrible thing to see.
But this, it is, I think, simply untrue to assert that somehow, well, the way you get around these pastoral issues is to just simply give the sign to everybody. That way you don't have to worry about these things.
And that means you don't have to, you don't have to struggle about these things anymore. Let me remind you. If my position is ungracious as it was just described, then isn't Pastor Schisco's very ungracious about Lord's Supper because he demands the very same standards that I do?
Where is the consistency here in the application? Well, the first thing I'd say is that baptizing everyone is a red herring. Nobody's brought that up in this debate at all. We stipulated and said in the Old Testament.
Abraham believed and there was circumcision and his male infants were circumcised. We're saying that's the same pattern in the New Testament. I would say regarding the Psalm 22 text, I think that's referring ultimately to Christ himself who is a model of one who trusted from his youth.
It did remind me of Psalm 71 in which David says specifically in verse 5, you are my hope, O Lord God, you are my trust for my youth. And if I wanted to borrow my colleague's presupposition and say we were to baptize only based on faith, all the references to the children of believing parents or where there's at least one believing parent speak of their faith.
So if I wanted to use that as a basis, I could, although still baptize them because of the promise of God. And this will be the last question. It's directed to Pastor Shishko. Doesn't circumcision, when understood as a direct application of infant baptism, deny the dichotomy of flesh and spirit in the old and new covenants?
That which is born of the flesh is flesh. And if baptism merely conveys membership in a covenant community as an outward act apart from faith, why did God change the symbols? I think it's very important.
Many people understand circumcision as the same way the Pharisees did in Jesus' day. The Pharisees who had perverted the Old Testament said that they were children of Abraham only because of their circumcision.
And John rebukes that by saying, don't say that. God is able of these stones to raise up children of Abraham. So we want to be careful not to have that view. In the Old Testament, circumcision did prefigure regeneration.
It prefigured a removal of the, it prefigured a removal of sin. But it did have, it had a national reference to be sure in that it marked out a person as part of Israel. Israel should have disciplined its covenant members, but Israel is also a type or a picture of the church as well.
So while it did have that national reference, that national reference is now expanded into a church that is part of a kingdom filling the whole earth. I think we can close with what was, what was just said because I think it illustrates it.
We just heard it said that circumcision prefigured the removal of sin, and I would assume in regeneration. That's the whole point. That's not what baptism does. Christian baptism does not prefigure something you hope for down the road.
Baptism means you've been united with Christ. It's pointing back to an already accomplished reality, not a hope for fulfillment in the future. And I say to you, it is far more gracious to have a covenant that always points back to a finished reality and a perfect salvation than in the old covenant where you had so many who bore the sign but never experienced regeneration.
Okay. That concludes the debate, and I just want to make one comment, if I might. Chris, are you going to have some words to say as we close? Protect that microphone. Okay. First, let me just say what a wonderful audience you have been.
As a moderator whose job it is to kind of look at these things, you made my job easy. And I'm sure that both of these gentlemen appreciate your attentiveness, your demeanor, your decorum, and I know that certainly God was glorified in what took place here.
And why don't we just give one final thank you to both of these men for all of their diligent labor.