JD Martin Baptism interview

Hello and welcome to the Reform Rookie video podcast. My name is Anthony Uvino, and I'm your Reform Rookie host, bringing you all things

Reform today. The goal of this video podcast is to take the deep -ripped truths of the Reform tradition and break them down into smaller, more understandable pieces.

I want to help you see the beauty of these doctrines and the joy you'll experience in understanding them better.

I want you to see how all of God's plan is interconnected. Understanding these truths will help us better know the

God of the scriptures and help us better appreciate the hope and the confidence we have in Jesus Christ. And to that we say, soli deo gloria, to God alone be the glory.

Today I have a special guest on the show by the name of J .D. Martin. Welcome, J .D. It's good to be on the show, brother.

Thanks for having me. Thank you for taking the time out of your schedule and your family to spend some time with us.

J .D. recently did a four -hour panel discussion on baptism with four other guests who held wide -ranging views on that topic.

And that's what precipitated my call to him to get him on the show. Now, J .D. holds a Reform Baptist view of baptism, which is also known as Believer's Baptism, which

I hold to also. So I thought it would be good for him to come on the show and discuss his view and my view and then the other views to see how these do or don't affect the gospel and then examine the scriptures to see what they have to say.

So today we're going to talk about baptism and the gospel. J .D., once again, welcome to the show. And could you tell the listeners where they can find your stuff online?

Yeah, so they can find my stuff on YouTube, primarily at Exploring Theology. I have a YouTube channel where I'm putting out content from there.

They can also find me on Sermon Audio under J .D. Martin as well. I do some sermons for my church that I put on there as well as content from the

YouTube channel, but primarily Exploring Theology on YouTube. And if you just put my name, J .D. Martin, just for Exploring Theology, but you put my name,

J .D. Martin, as well, you can find some debates I've done on other people's channels as well. Great. Yeah, no, you've done several debates.

In fact, Marlon just put up your cross -examination on the baptism panel discussion, which was great too, a good refresher for me to watch.

I'm eager to get into our discussion, but before we do that, I always ask first -time guests to the show to share their testimony into Reformed theology.

So J .D., could you tell the listeners how it is you came to be Reformed? Yes. So I initially was not

Reformed. I was initially hostile to the concept. I remember just hearing the gospel, believing the gospel and being saved.

And then I started immediately getting into apologetics early on from the Internet. And this is back in the days of chat room and all this other stuff.

And I remember, you know, the first time I ever encountered Reformed theology was actually people warning me, be careful.

There's these crazy heretics called Calvinists that are roaming the Internet and you need to stay away from them.

It's like Jehovah's Witnesses are bad, Mormons are bad, but Calvinists are real bad. Stay away from them. So that was kind of the way it was presented to me.

And so I remember talking to my dad and having a conversation about, you know, have you heard about these crazy

Calvinists that are hiding on the Internet, trying to destroy schools? And my dad said, yeah, and a matter of fact,

I'm a Calvinist. And I remember being so disgusted. It was like him telling me he was a

Jehovah's Witness or something. I didn't even know what Calvinists believed at that point. Or it was very ignorant of you.

I barely understood what they believed, but I couldn't believe it. I'm like, and I said, I literally looked at him and said, I guess you're a heretic too.

I think I actually said that to him and probably, hopefully it wasn't a disrespectful way. But then he, and then we got into an argument and it really didn't go well.

He tried to give some arguments and I just attacked and I was not having it. And then he said, well, what

Bible do you have? I said, well, I have a New King James. He said, I don't know. What study Bible do you have? I said, well, this is a

John MacArthur study Bible. And he said, well, did you know he was a Calvinist too? And I said, well,

I guess he's a heretic too. Time to burn that Bible. Yeah, I guess so. But and then he said, well, before you declare him a heretic and so forth, why don't you just hear the other side?

Why don't you just see this presented? And so then he gave me some tapes from John MacArthur and he was going through total depravity and unconditional exile.

I'm going to tell him that he was just the greatest person of all saints. And I remember listening to him and saying, well,

I mean, certainly this man has a lot of scripture. This isn't just, he's not just coming up with this out of nowhere.

He's at least seemingly bringing this out of the Bible. And so at that point, I went and decided, you know what, let me read the

Bible cover to cover and see what the Bible really says about the matter. And I remember being very much struck by the

Gospel of John, some things in the Gospel of John and then in Romans and some other places. But it was particularly a passage in the

Gospel of John which says that no one comes to the light whose practice is evil. Okay, everyone who practices light, everyone who practices evil hates the light and refuses to come to the light lest their evil deeds be exposed.

And I remember thinking about that passage and thinking, well, well, wait a second. Everyone practices evil. And if everyone who practices evil does not come to the light, then why did

I come to the light? And then I, because of that, I ended up becoming convinced that this must be the doctrine of total depravity being expressed here.

And then the solution must be unconditional election, irresistible grace, perseverance of the saints, the tulip. And so that's really what brought me into Reformed theology.

And then what's really kept me in many ways is the churches that I had gone to before that were non -Calvinistic, were not very healthy, to be honest.

And they were dispensationalist and fundamentalist and all that. So I don't want to say that every non -Calvinist church is unhealthy.

That's not the case. However, it's been my experience that as I've gone to Calvinistic churches, these people are not leftist.

They are conservative, Bible -believing, just healthy Christians. The health of the church has been such a blessing to me.

And I've been so blessed by being in Reformed congregations. And so I would say for anybody, anybody thinking about Reformed theology,

I would just say come and see at least before you make a definite decision, at very least attend a church before you, because a lot of people will declare all

Calvinists as evil, mean, self -righteous people. And I would say before you make that kind of assessment, go off the internet into an actual church where you can see maybe are they self -righteous or are they some godly people?

And my experience is they have been very godly. Amen. Amen. Thank you for that. So I was going to ask you, do you get opposition?

But actually you are opposition because you're debating Calvinism frequently on the internet.

Do you ever feel like going back? In other words, did you ever question, you know, maybe these doctrines just aren't right.

Maybe I really do have a free choice in the matter and I should go back that way.

Yeah, I don't think you're going to like my answer here. I think that we always need to ask the question, am

I wrong? We cannot be afraid of that question. Am I wrong? And so I think that's something that's healthy that we always have to continue to do.

And as we see new data from new scriptures, we can look at it differently. We say, hmm, and then we can harmonize that into the whole.

But sometimes if you do that enough, you have to step back and say, am I harmonizing all this in a whole or do

I need a paradigm switch? And so for me, I'm constantly in the point of re -examination.

I don't want to follow a tradition. I want to follow the Bible. So for me, every time

I pick up the Bible and I see a passage that challenges me, I go, hmm, how does that fit into the whole, you know?

And so I just want to be biblical and say, what does the Bible say? And if a beloved tradition ends up not checking out,

I don't want to hold on to it to the point where I had to twist scripture, right?

Now, what's beautiful is your tradition and the scripture mesh together. And it's that perfect harmony. Yeah. So that's how

I feel about that. I love that view. And that's the right view to have. I mean, if scripture is contradicting something that I hold dear, well,

I'm the one who's in contradiction, not the scriptures, right? So again, the principle semper reformata, always be reforming, constantly looking at our beliefs, constantly looking at our lifestyle.

You know, how can we better adapt to the scriptures? That's what it comes down to. So thank you for that.

I really appreciate it. And that's a terrific testimony. I hope your dad's forgiven you. He has, he has.

He was thrilled to see me switch sides. Amen. Amen. All right.

So since tonight's topic is baptism and the gospel, can you give a succinct answer as to what baptism is?

What does it do? Yeah. So baptism is the first act of obedience, right? If you look at the New Testament, what you don't see is altercals.

You just don't see it. You don't see people saying, come down here to the altar and say a prayer and repent of your sins.

Now, maybe they did do that, but we certainly don't see any evidence that they did do that. What we do see is in Acts 2 chapter, in Acts 2 or elsewhere, we see people say, believe in Jesus and be baptized.

So the very first act of obedience outside of believing in Jesus as a Christian is to be baptized.

And so when I was doing that debate, what I wanted to express to people was, okay, what is the salvific status of an unbaptized believer?

Instead of this being some quaint or hypothetical question, to me, this is fundamental. What is the status of a unbaptized believer?

And this isn't some hypothetical. This is the position of every person who's correctly baptized, right? Because we're like baptized believers, and maybe we can talk about that as well.

Is that person becoming saved and currently not saved? Or is that person saved?

And I think that if you have a robust understanding of the gospel, namely that we are saved by grace through faith, it doesn't say grace through faith through baptism.

That's not part of the soul. That's not part of the scripture. Ephesians 2 says you're saved by grace through faith. This is not of yourselves.

It doesn't say you're saved by grace through faith plus baptism. And this is not of yourselves, right? So the

Bible is 100 % clear on this, that if you believe in Jesus, you will not perish, but have eternal life. Amen.

So that means that before the person has gone into the waters of baptism, the salvific status of this person is that they are saved.

And so their act of obedience to Christ and obeying one of his sacraments, one of his ordinances is a good work.

And that is a fruit of your salvation. Just like we have two ordinances, right? Where we're reformed here and historic

Protestant Christians. There's only two ordinances or sacraments that Christ has given his church.

Baptism and the Lord's Supper. Okay. You don't get saved by participating in the Lord's Supper. That is an act of obedience.

That is a good work. So, so to what baptism does not save you and Ephesians 2 way. It's a great example.

It says you're saved by grace through faith. Not of yourselves. It's against a God, not of good works, less any man should boast. And a lot of people stop there.

But the very next passage says that we are created in Christ Jesus as these new creations for good works.

Amen. And what's one of those good works? Be baptized. So I don't know that answer your question, but that's how

I would see the, the, the relationship between baptism and salvation is the same relationship between good works and salvation.

Right? So what would you say salvation is? I know you just said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, but what is salvation?

Yeah. So salvation. So what I like to do is salvation is the gospel. What is the gospel?

The gospel is good news, but before you can ever know the good news, you got to know the bad news. And here's the bad news.

Romans 3 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. You've lied. You've stolen. You committed adultery in your heart.

You've coveted. You've broken God's commandments, right? Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. You have broken both of these commandments and a whole bunch of others.

And so Romans 6 says that the wages of sin is death. Okay. So you're walking around as a sinner with condemnation and no matter good works can, can free you from that, those punishments, right?

You're not in trouble because of your good works. You're in trouble because of your bad works. So you could have done a thousand good works in your life.

It's not going to matter because you are a sinner condemned to die, right? That is the bad news. The good news is that God so loved the world that he has provided a propitiation.

He's provided an appeasement. He's provided a way of salvation so that you don't have to die, that you don't have to be cast into hell and that you can be forgiven.

And that's by Jesus Christ. So that's where John 3 16 comes in for God. So love the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.

So if you find yourself believing, you will find yourself having eternal life and not perishing and all your sins will be wiped away and you'll be cleansed from any, everything that the law could never cleanse you from.

Only Christ's blood can cleanse you from your sins. Amen. And once you find yourself believing, you'll be baptizing, right? And once you find yourself, okay.

So once you find yourself believing in Christ, right? You have repented of your sins. That means you turn away from your sins and turn on the guy.

You said, God, I'm giving you the keys to my life. You're not cleaning yourself up. You're saying, God, I give you, I don't want to say give you permission, but I give myself over to you for you to clean me, cleanse me up.

And now that the Lord is the Lord of my life. He tells me what to do. What's the first thing he tells me to do? Be baptized, join the church.

So, so we obey Christ in obedience to him and go into the waters of baptism. Okay. Excellent.

Thank you. Um, so now when you were in this panel view with the four of the views, we had a Presbyterian view.

We had a dispensational view. We had a Lutheran view and a church of Christ view, correct? That's right.

Okay. So now the Presbyterian view was, was held by Greg Strawbridge, which I understand that you have a debate coming up with.

I don't know how you knew that, but yes, I do. I think I'm subscribed to your channel and a little blurb went out that that's happening.

So I can't wait for that. And before we leave, just make sure you, you tell my listeners where we can watch that.

Cause that'll be, that'll be terrific. So from the Presbyterian, what is the Presbyterian view quickly?

So the, you know, the, the Presbyterian view, if you want to be honest and Greg Strawbridge is kind of on the,

I want to say the left or the right, however we're going to look at it. He's on kind of the appendage of the view, but, um, and there's just a flexibility to view, but basically, so what they would disagree, what they all can agree on.

And we disagree on is they believe that both believers and unbelievers should be baptized.

And that's radical. I mean, I hate to put it that way, but that's what you're saying. Believers and unbelievers. And I don't put it that way. They say believers and their children.

Right. But they know that some of their children are on believers. So they're saying believers and unbelievers should be baptized.

Namely the believers of, uh, the children of believers should be baptized. So they held to pedo baptism, infant baptism.

Right. That's the first thing. The second thing is most of them, Greg Strawbridge is kind of strange in this view, but most of them would say that it is a sign and a seal of, of the covenant, which that doesn't really necessarily disagree with so much, not using that terms a lot, but, but basically it points to a future reality.

It's just like circumcision. It points to covenant inclusion and it's forward pointing. And so somehow, um, giving the sign to an infant, they'll look back on it and see that the truths that were signified are now true of them, even though they weren't necessarily true to them at that time.

But the main difference is they want to baptize infants and we don't. And, um, that, that's kind of the main difference.

And then they have some kind of nuance about, you know, exactly what baptism would do to an infant.

And it kind of gets where it gets a little strange and some people would try to make it mean more than others. Right.

Okay. Okay. Um, how would, is that similar to the Lutheran view? Okay. Yes.

Similar to Lutheran view. And again, Greg, he seems to almost be Lutheran. He looks into debate. He's almost like, amen.

And these guys and attacking me the whole time is unbelievable. Um, but, but, uh, historically though, and he's, again, he's seems to be a little bit of anomaly, uh, historically that the, the

Presbyterians would disagree with the Lutherans. They're both baptizing infants. Okay. And they're both obviously baptizing believer, but what they would distinguish is the

Lutheran is saying, I know exactly what baptism does to an infant. It regenerates them.

Now the Presbyterians will get all the way up there almost, but they won't go that far.

That they will not say that that baptism itself is regenerating the infant.

And I also think, and someone might be correct me, but I'm pretty sure the Lutheran also say that baptism regenerates the believer as well, but they just hold to baptism regeneration across the board.

Um, but they would, they would also do it with the, uh, with infants. Okay. If you could just slow down one second and explain what that word regeneration means.

Yeah. So regeneration, we get this idea, um, from Jesus in John chapter three, there's elsewhere, but Jesus talks about, you must be born again.

Okay. So, um, we were originally, um, in an unfallen state in union with Adam.

I don't want to get people confused. Let's just think about Adam. Adam started off as pure and holy and good.

Then he fell into sin and he was corrupted just like creation, right? Creation out there is not what it ought to be.

Creation used to be good. There was no thorns. There was no thistles. There was no death, corruption, pain, destruction, any of that.

Okay. But when Adam sinned, and you can see this in Romans chapter eight, that God or the creation was subjected to futility.

And part of that was also our natures. We used to be inclined to truth. Now we're inclined to evil.

We used to be inclined to peace and now we're inclined to violence. Okay. So we have corrupt natures.

And so in this fallen, corrupt, sinful nature that we have, we cannot enter the kingdom of God because we are sinners.

And so what God does is he regenerates us and restores us, cleanses us from, um, the effects of, at least a lot of the effects of original sin, makes us new creation so that now we have new hearts where we now long forgotten.

The imagery is he takes a heart of stone and makes a heart of flesh, right? So that we become these new people that now long after God and now have a heart for God.

So regeneration is a, is a crucial step for salvation. Titus, I think it's Titus three, five that says that he saved us by the washing and renewal of the

Holy spirit. Right? The regeneration is absolutely crucial. It's, it's essentially, there's two stages.

Justification is God declaring you righteous. And Saint and regeneration is God in some ways, starting to produce righteousness in and cleansing you from your sin and making that new creation.

We need regeneration, right? So regeneration basically means spiritually alive.

Whereas prior you were spiritually dead, dead, meaning separated from God. Yep. Now you're in union with God.

Um, the spirit lives within you. You have a new heart, new, new desires. You surrender to Jesus as Lord.

You repent, which means you sever all ties to whatever else was Lord in your life. And now

Jesus is your Lord and you're pursuing him. That's right. Yep. And what they want to tell us is that that happens in baptism.

Yes. Okay. I don't think so. I don't think so either. Now the, the, uh, the church of Christ view was similar to that.

They would only baptize believers. That's right. So it's kind of interesting, right? So if you look at the views, so the, the

Lutheran view and the Presbyterian view agree that you should baptize infants.

They, but the Presbyterian agrees with us that it does not regenerate, right?

The church of Christ agree with us that we should only baptize believers, but agree with the

Lutherans that it does regenerate. So it's like, it's like mixing and matching. Right.

So they would baptize believers. Only believers. But believers are not regenerate until they're baptized.

That's right. So baptism in their view would have to be part of the gospel.

It's not just believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you'll be saved. It's believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and be baptized.

If you're not baptized, that's the synchronon. It's, it's, it's, you're not saved until that.

Yeah. I mean that you're, you're right. I mean, it seems like a lot of people are kind of realizing that the challenges and the problems of that view.

So, you know, they'll kind of say, well, normally they're kind of, kind of parses well, normally you need to repent and be baptized, but you know,

God can be merciful even if you don't, but yes, normally. Repent and be baptized.

Just like, you know, normally they would, some people would even argue that you have to believe in the gospel, but you can make an exception for maybe people who are retarded or infants and so forth.

They're basically making an exception sometimes, but the gospel, like you pointed out is repent and be baptized.

Okay. Okay. Now the oddest view that I saw out of all five of them was the dispensational view.

And that view was basically that you were, baptism was only supposed to be performed on Jewish believers, not

Gentiles. Yes. I would, I would say, yeah, the extreme hyper dispensations, it hurts my heart to even say that's a dispensational view because I know so many dispensational that would scream and say, how dare you associate me with that?

That's a crazy view, but yeah, the extreme dispensational view was argued that basically baptism is an old

Testament slash very, very early church that ended with Peter essentially practice that was done away with by Paul.

And in watching the refresher thing that Mullen put out the other day on the gospel truth, he asked you a question, can you give me one verse where it says that we're supposed to baptize

Gentiles after, after they believe. And I almost fell on the floor because it's like, that's

Matthew 28, 19. Go into all the world, right. Baptizing them in the name of the father, son,

Holy spirit. And I will be with you till the end of the age. And the funny thing is the only verb in that phrase is make disciples.

All of the others are participles. So go baptize, teach.

Those are subsequent to make disciples. So you would make disciples and because they're disciples, the first act of obedience would be to be baptized and then teach them.

So it just makes sense. You make disciples, then you baptize them, then you teach them. That's exactly what's in the book of Acts, right?

That is the order. You would, you would think so. So, okay.

So let's, why don't we hit, uh, John three and five, uh, three verse five, because this is, this is one that everybody, you know, encounters.

And I think there's a lot here, uh, that we can lend clarity on, um, especially with you.

So John three, uh, verse three says, Jesus answered Nicodemus truly are truly.

I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus said to him, how can a man be born when he is old?

Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born? Jesus answered truly, truly. I say to you, unless one is born of water and the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

That which is born of flesh is flesh. And that which is born of spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, you must be born again.

So it's clear as day, JD, it says you need to be born of water. Don't you understand that? Yes. Um, it certainly says that one must be born of water, but to me, it's not clear as day that water first baptism, um, just because you are baptized by water.

It doesn't mean that every time that water is being brought up, that a baptism is occurring. Right. So to me that one has to make an argument that this water here actually refers to baptism instead of referring to something else.

And so there seems, there's several different interpretations of this. Yes, it is true that, um, many

Christians, even, even early on Christians, some early Christians believe that here water referred to baptism.

And is that an impossible interpretation? No, it's not an impossible interpretation, but it's certainly not the only interpretation.

I would say it's not even the best interpretation. So there seems to be two plausible views here. The first plausible view is that this term water here and the spirit are, um, it's a really, it's two words expressing one idea.

And the idea is that the spirit symbolically washes and renews, which is symbolized by water, our spirits.

And this is the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy spirit. And the, the, the thing that would point maybe that this is the right interpretation is that Jesus is talking to Nicodemus, an old

Testament believer. And from who had the Old Testament canon, there was, he didn't even have the New Testament. This is the first time

I've even heard of this concept, at least from Jesus's mouth. And so what he seen, and he says that, you know,

Nicodemus saying, how can these things be? I don't understand at all. And then Jesus said, well, you're the teacher of Israel. How do you not know these things?

Right. And again, he's saying that you should already know these concepts. Well, where was he supposed to know these concepts at?

Well, a couple of places. One, there was always the idea of, of getting heart circumcision. So he should have known this concept of, of renewal, uh, should have been in his mind, but that's not necessarily the same.

It is pointing to the same thing without the same language, at least of being born again. But this language of the spirit and water shows up in Ezekiel and Ezekiel.

It talks about the spirit. And even it talks about in Isaiah that he's going to the thirsty ground is he's going to, you know, send water on a thirsty ground is going to grow and, uh, plant, um, you know, fruit and all that other stuff.

So this picture of the spirit and water and renewal and birth and all of that stuff is certainly

Old Testament language. So it could be the simply that water here refers to the work of the spirit symbolically as, um, what he does is causes you to grow new.

That's possible. I personally think that that's not the right interpretation. Rather, I think that what water he refers to is natural birth because what he's saying is that, um, he starts off in verse three.

Truly I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Okay. And then

Nicodemus says, you know, how is this possible? Can a man enter his mother's womb and be born again?

Okay. And in response to that, Jesus, that truly, truly, I said, I say to you, unless one is born of water, I think that corresponds to the mother's womb and the spirit.

He cannot enter the kingdom of God. So you need to have not only a normal birth right in the womb, the water of the womb, but you also need a spiritual birth if you enter the kingdom of God.

And then in verse six, he said that which is born of flesh is flesh. Well, that corresponds with being born of water, right?

People in the flesh are born of water. That which is born of flesh is flesh. And that which is born of the spirit is the spirit.

So he's contrasting two types of births in verse six very clearly. And I'm suggesting he's also doing that in verse five.

He's saying you need two types of birth. You need a fleshly birth and you also need a spiritual birth. And again, that corresponds to chapter verse four right before where the guy says, how can we enter our mother's womb a second time?

So this idea of mother's womb is already there in the context. This idea of fleshly birth is already there in the context.

We all know that within the mother's womb, there is water there.

And that's why when the water breaks, a woman about to have birth, we say her water broke and we see water everywhere, right?

I don't know if you, anyone else on this call, I'm sure has seen a baby come out. I grabbed several of my babies, right?

And they were full of water. They were wet. In fact, it's so interesting, this idea of being born out of water is there's women, many women are having a natural birth.

And those who are doing that kind of stuff have water births. They actually have the baby in the water.

The baby can come out, swim in the water and not suck any oxygen because they've been in water the whole time.

They don't breathe. And it's until they hit the air that they start to breathe. So to me, it's very well established this idea that it very well could be that being born of water refers to natural birth.

Sure. That's certainly a very plausible, very plausible view. There's two other things that I want to point out in this passage, because you get to verse 11 and it says, truly, truly, truly, truly.

When Jesus says, truly, truly, it's like, listen up. Yep. All right. I say to you, we speak of what we know and we bear witness to what we have seen.

So this, if he's, if Jesus is continuing to speak about the new birth, he's saying we're going to, we, we know this could be him and the prophets or maybe a reference to the

Trinity. We speak of what we know and bear witness to what we have seen past tense. So this new birth is not something new or forthcoming.

This is something that's happened already and has been happening. Right. Paul points to Abraham being justified by faith.

We know that you can only be just, you can only receive faith as per, you know, the via the new covenant.

So they were old Testament saints that were born of God's spirit. This is very good. I like where you're going with this.

Right. And Nicodemus should have known this. He was the teacher of Israel.

You know, Romans one referring back to Habakkuk, the just shall live by faith. Faith, you know, comes by hearing, hearing by the word of God.

So this is not something new or novel that Jesus is introducing or else he wouldn't chastise

Nicodemus this way. That's right. And then if this is speaking about baptism and you need to be baptized, what's the culmination of the argument,

John three 16, whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. He doesn't even mention baptism.

No, that's, that's really good. So let's look at that real quick. So that's excellent because look at verse nine, nine says,

Nicodemus said to him, how can these things be? That's what it says. You have to teach of Israel. You don't know these things.

I told you earthly things you do not believe. How then can I tell you heavenly things? Right. And he goes on and then he then he says, no one is in heaven, except he would descend from heaven, the son of man.

And then he points in verse 14 to the picture of the gospel. And Moses lived up to the serpent in the wilderness. So must the son of man be like that.

Whoever believes in him may have eternal life. Then John three 16. And he's, again, he's still answering the question.

How can these things be? Right. But God said, Lord, he gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.

Perfect time. Right. To mention, oh, by the way, you also need to be baptized.

No mention. Right. It's either true or not true. If you believe, and that's, that's kind of where I built my whole case.

It's either true that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life or whoever believes and his baptized.

Right. Well, not perish, but have eternal life. Right. And it was, it was one of the questions as I watched the cross -examination again today, he says, can you give me one verse that says that all you have to do is believe or, or you can get in without being baptized.

And aside from this one, there's that one, he who believes in him and is baptized will be saved, but he who does not believe will not be saved.

They leave off baptism. Yep. So if you don't believe you're not going to be saved.

So the, the, the, the, the factor in that is not baptism. It's belief.

That's right. It's trust. Once you, once you place your faith and trust in Jesus, and the only way you can place your faith and trust in Jesus is by the spirit of God.

Cause you can only confess Jesus as Lord, except by the Holy spirit. Yep. So the

Holy spirit has done something to you, wrought something out of your heart, changed your desires.

And now of course you're going to confess him as Lord and trusted him. The next like step, like you said, of obedience would be to get baptized, to identify publicly identify with the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus.

Now, one of the things I think that we miss is the fact that back then, you know, you had to confess

Caesar as Lord or die. Right. So to come out and confess Jesus as Lord was very close to being a death sentence.

This was not something you would do flippantly. So to come out and publicly declare

Jesus as your Lord could have had serious ramifications and did in many cases have serious ramifications.

So this baptism back then is in a much, much different context than it is now.

I mean, yeah. So we, one thing before we go on that, because I think that's a great point. I want to say, why don't we go back to the

John three real quick, because I want to go back to something you said, and that was really amazing. So I think

I like what you said about the fact that regeneration is not, because people get this confused. Regeneration is not a new covenant reality, right?

We are saved by the washing renewal of regeneration. Well, if we're saved that way, how are they saved?

I mean, are they saved without the washing and renewal of the Holy Spirit? I don't think so. Same thing with, if you look at Roman chapter eight, then what is the spirit do?

It's by the spirit that we put the death, the deeds of the flesh. Yes. And so if we need the spirit in regeneration, new man to conquer the flesh, how did they do it?

Right. Obvious that they also needed the Holy Spirit. They needed to be washed and renewed.

They need to be saved by the washing of regeneration as well. Now let's play this out though. If that's the case, then, and if this is referring to baptism, then how would any of these people regenerated?

Because baptism did not exist in the old Testament. There was no command to be baptized. So if we're going to say that baptism is the act in the way that God regenerates people, how did

God regenerate anyone in the past? Now here's where it gets really interesting. Well, I think what people might say off the hip,

I suspect they would say, well, they had a different sign that communicated the same reality. Oh yes, they did. It was circumcision, right?

That talks about being regenerated. But if we say that they were regenerated through circumcision, then how do we make sense of Paul's argument where he says circumcision is nothing.

Right. Circumcision is not required for salvation. He didn't say it used to be, but it was replaced with baptism, which is now required to salvage.

So you get into all these kinds of crazy problems when you try to tie baptism with regeneration.

Right. And you have all those commands in the old Testament. God telling the Israelites, circumcise your hearts, circumcise your hearts.

They've already circumcised their flesh. Exactly. Now they need circumcision of the heart. I always go back to, because, you know, this really comes down to, one of the biggest factors in this is total depravity.

Right. Total depravity didn't start as soon as Jesus came on the scene. Total depravity existed back in Genesis chapter three, when

Adam and Eve sinned. That started it. Right. So how does an old

Testament saint get saved? By placing their faith and trust in the old Testament, in the future promise of the

Messiah. Yep. Right. Receiving a new heart. God tells them over and over, circumcise your hearts.

In Deuteronomy 29, four, God's talking to the Israelites who've come out of Egypt.

And he says, you have seen all that the Lord did before your eyes in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh and to all the servants and to all his land.

The great trials that your eyes saw, the signs and those great wonders. You would think seeing those signs, immediately they're going to believe.

Verse four, but to this day, the Lord has not given you a heart to understand or eyes to see or ears to hear.

God has to give you the eyes, ears, and heart to see, hear, and believe in him.

Even in the old Testament. I mean, that's in Deuteronomy. You can't get, you know, that's the

Pentateuch. So how, now Nicodemus should have known that. Yeah. And think about it.

Let's say Nicodemus says, okay, Jesus, I want to do what you're saying.

Can you baptize me? You know, that wasn't a reality then.

Jesus's death, burial, and resurrection wouldn't happen for another two and a half or three years. I'm so glad you mentioned that.

So, this is the problem. The gospel of John was written to Christians.

But this conversation actually happened between Jesus and Nicodemus. So we have to remember when we're reading a historical narrative, there are two contexts.

There's the context of why John wrote this and gave it to us. But there's also the context of Jesus actually interacting with real people, right?

And how Nicodemus would have understood this. And I think people who try to make this baptism completely ignore the fact that Jesus was actually talking to Nicodemus.

How could Jesus be referring to Christian baptism when Christian baptism hadn't even been started yet?

Christ hadn't even commissioned Christian baptism, but Nicodemus is supposed to know, oh, this is referring to Christian baptism that hasn't even started yet.

It's just impossible, right? So I just really think that it's just bad exegesis to claim that this refers to water baptism.

Think about this. If their interpretation was correct and this was talking about water baptism,

Nicodemus couldn't even obey it at that point because Christian baptism didn't exist. Exactly. So Jesus is telling him to do something that he couldn't do for another two and a half years, but he should have known that.

Yeah, it's just all kinds of problems. That's a big stretch. That's a big stretch. All right,

I think we hammered that one pretty good. The next one everybody likes to go to is

Acts 2 .38, right? The formula for baptism. Repent and believe on the

Lord Jesus Christ and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, you and your family, and to all those who the

Lord your God will call. So see, it says JD, it says right there, repent and be baptized every one of you.

Don't you understand? Yeah, so there is two kind of, well, there are several different interpretations of this passage.

One would say when it says Peter said, repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sin.

Some want to translate the word for here as meaning because of the forgiveness of your sins. And there's some parallels elsewhere.

And I'm sure that you have those references that we will look into where the word for in the context where we see with John the

Baptist, it does seem to have that idea is that they are repenting or they're being baptized because they repented, not they're being baptized in order to repent, right?

It clearly means that they are. So they would say, well, here's a context where the same preposition is used in the context of baptism.

And the for here signifies sense or because not in order to.

So that's one possibility. And you know what? It's not a bad argument per se. There is parallels there.

And if someone wants to go that route, then that's perfectly fine. And they might be right there. I personally don't go that route just because when

I look at the preposition for, it doesn't communicate sense in this context for me per se, but it's certainly possible.

For me, what I think what's going on here, I think you alluded to this already, is we have to understand that for these people, they literally just killed the

Messiah, okay? And these people were being hunted down by the state essentially, right?

It wasn't a surprise that later on, the same people that killed Jesus would start persecuting the church exactly what they did.

So this is a very high commitment thing for these people to do. And so what's going on there is,

I think what's happening is he's saying, repent and signify your repentance through baptism.

Don't say you believe in Jesus and then go in the coffee shop and never come back here. I don't know. If you believe in Jesus, then signify that by taking on the sign that you have become a

Christian. And what does that sign? Baptism and joining the church, right? This is all connected.

There's not this sense of, oh, you're saved, I'll never see you again. That's not what's going on here. Oh, you're saved, really?

Then join us. How do you join us? By being baptized, by participating in the life of the church.

And that's exactly what they do, right? It says that everyone who received this word, they were baptized and they were added to their number, about 3000 people.

What number? The number of the disciples. And then right after, do they never see these people again? No, they start doing house churches and start breaking bread and being taught.

And you actually see the whole Matthew 28 formula here, right? They make disciples, they baptize them, and then they teach them.

And they're fellowshipping with the disciples and breaking bread, which is probably a reference to communion and all of the rest.

So to me, what's going on here is that there's almost a conflation of repent and be baptized, right?

The baptism is the outward expression and the fullness of their repentance. If you really repent, you will be baptized.

And this will save you. Not the baptism, but the heart that repented and believed in such a way that it truly would be baptized.

And to be honest with you, if I had somebody where in this kind of, you know, persecution situation and they say they believe in Jesus, just think about this.

You're dealing with a Muslim and they say, I believe in Jesus. And they say, OK, let's be baptized. I'm like, no, I'm not sure about all that.

Then this person, I'd be like, no, I'm not sure about your salvation. Right. I mean, what kind of how are you saved and you're repenting and believe in Jesus when you refuse to pick up your cross and follow him?

Right. So I think that baptism here is the fullness of conversion. It was the test almost of their conversion.

Yeah. And in addition to putting them at odds with the state, this would also put them at odds with other

Jews who were vehemently against Jesus, right? And following the teaching of the Pharisees, you know, they were the ones who urged

Pilate to put Jesus on the cross. I mean, so that's going to put them at odds with them. But there's another thing that I noticed here.

Um, the word repent, the verb repent is plural. Okay. The word for baptized is singular.

So really it's repent for the forgiveness of your sins and be baptized every one of you.

So the repentance is what precipitates the forgiveness of sins. When you turn from your sin, okay.

And, and trust in Jesus, that's when your sins are forgiven, not afterwards.

You're sorry about that. That's another interpretation that people have pointed to, which is, again, it has grammar to back it up is the idea that and be baptized is kind of a parenthetical comment.

And really the main comment that, or the actual comment that came out of Peter's mouth was repent for the remission of your sins and then, and be baptized.

And it really is kind of brought there. It's added there parenthetically, but you almost put that in parentheses.

So that's another possible interpretation as well. Yeah. I want to take a look. Parallel verse that I would say is

Luke 5, 14. And you know what I'll do? I'll start at verse 4, 5, yeah, 5, 14.

I'm going to start at verse 13. It says, and Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, the leper saying,

I will be clean. And immediately the leprosy left him and he charged him to tell no one, but go and show yourself to the priest and make an offering for your cleansing.

As Moses commanded for a proof to them. So he received his cleansing and then he had to go make an offering for his cleansing.

So when we see baptism, repent and be baptized for the remission of sin, it's because you've repented, your sins have been remitted.

And now your baptism is proof like to the priest that, yes, my sins have been remitted.

No, no, that's right. I mean, there's certainly, it's certainly within the semantic range of four, right?

And this is a good example. And the other example you can find in the case of John the Baptist to be baptized for repentance,

I think is the way that is described. There's a few other examples as well, where the word for it definitely seems to have the idea of because of.

Right. Okay. So I think we can safely say Acts 2, 38 has been handled.

I don't think it's a knockdown verse for baptism or regeneration or the need for baptism to be saved for salvation.

The next big one, obviously, is 2 Peter 3, 21. And did

I get that right? 2 Peter 3, 21. No, it can't be. 1

Peter 3, 21. I think so, yeah. Yeah, I have the wrong number. Yeah, 1

Peter 3, 21. Okay, it says, okay, I'll start at verse 19, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison because they formerly did not obey when

God's patience waited in the days of Noah while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is eight persons, were brought safely through water.

Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as the removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience through the resurrection of Jesus.

So, CJD, it says this baptism saves you. Why don't you believe this? Yeah, so I think, again, we need to look at the context of what's going on here.

So, baptism, which corresponds to this, what is the this? Well, what's this is the ark of Noah, right?

The ark is what saved the eight persons, that they were brought safely through the water.

And then baptism, which now corresponds to the ark, now saves you. And so, what is the symbology of the ark?

The symbology of the ark is of Christ. Hopefully everyone can see that, right?

That Jesus Christ is the ark. When you enter into Christ, you now enter into salvation.

The waters of death come upon the ark, namely Christ, and you in him are safely brought through the waters of death.

You get on the other side and you walk into the new earth. This is a very clear picture of our salvation.

This is also why in the Bible, it talks about being baptized into Christ Jesus. And elsewhere it says, all who've been baptized into Christ Jesus have put on Christ.

So, all throughout your Bible, you have this idea of being baptized into Christ or putting on Christ or being in Christ.

So, it's very, very clear that Christ is pictured as a location, as a symbolic location that we enter into and that we are saved in that respect.

So, baptism here, it goes on out of its way to say, this is not referring to the water, the actual water, not the removal of dirt from the body.

So, not the actual water. No, that doesn't save you. What does? But as an appeal to God for a good conscious through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

That's what saves you, right? So, what saves you, again, I think there's, again, maybe two possibilities here.

Baptism here is being used to symbolize conversion. It's the outward expression of your conversion.

That's how you enter into Christ. That is how you're saved to the resurrection of Jesus, right? I think that's very, very much, probably what is being expressed there.

Yeah, and we do have other scriptures that point to this cleansing of the conscience, right?

Hebrews 10, 22, it says, let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

So, there's an inward cleansing that has to happen and then an outward cleansing, so to speak, in identification with the inward cleansing.

So, if you had your heart sprinkled clean from an evil conscience, that would point back to Ezekiel 36, which

Nicodemus would know, which I believe Jesus was talking about in the new birth, John three and five.

And then we have the water baptism, which having your bodies washed with pure water, a reflection of what happened on the inside of you, because appealing, making an appeal with your conscience is not, that's something that happens on the inside of you, not on the outside.

Exactly. Conscience is internal. Yeah, again, I think that all this is really talking about is baptism, which points to and pictures your union with Christ is what saves us and we enter into Christ by an appeal to God for a good conscience, right?

How do you get into Christ? It is by appealing to God, it's by crying out. I mean, with the mouth, one makes confession and is saved, right?

Whoever calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. We enter into Christ through crying out to God and this corresponds to baptism of entering into the ark and being in Jesus Christ now saved us.

So, all it's really saying is union with Christ saves us. This should be something every Orthodox Christian should be able to agree with.

Right, and the other thing I think about is Jesus is the one who baptizes us with the

Holy Spirit. That's right. Right, so this is not something done by a human being.

This is not a work of man and everybody who talks about baptism, who's for baptism or regeneration of baptism, baptizing of infants, say, well, are you calling baptism a work of man?

How would you respond to that? Well, in one way it is. It depends on what baptism we're talking about and that's kind of what

I was alluding to the second interpretation. The first one that verse 21, baptism refers to the conversion process.

Second one is this refers to spiritual baptism. But yeah, it depends on what we're talking about. If we're saying it's kind of like is circumcision the work of man?

Well, which one? If the heart circumcision is not performed by hands, that's why in Colossians it says that we have the heart circumcision not performed by hands.

Right. God is the one who circumcised your heart. Who circumcises your flesh? Man. And that's why Paul flips out on people in the

Galatians when they try to be circumcised and try to say that it's necessary for salvation. He says that you have fallen from grace.

You're moving on to good works. You might as well keep the whole law. He doesn't distinguish circumcision from the law.

It's all part of the law. It's all the same thing. So baptism, when it comes to the

Holy Spirit taking you and putting you into the body of Christ, that's all done by God.

But a person, you know, obediently following the command to baptize and then someone dunking them in the water, that of course is the work of man.

Right. They try to say it isn't. To me, it's just playing semantic games. And here's my pushback on people who try to do that kind of stuff.

Well, I say if baptism isn't a work, physical act of baptism, then by what argument is circumcision a work?

Right. Your same arguments to get around baptism is the same thing that could be applied to circumcision. And I don't think

Paul would be like, you know, I never thought about that. Maybe circumcision is not a work. Maybe I was wrong. Right. You know, it really comes down to hermeneutics.

I mean, if you're hermeneutic in understanding the Old Covenant and the

New Covenant is going to play a big role because what happens is they take the Old Covenant and they overlay it over the

New Covenant rather than letting the writers of the New Testament describe the New Covenant and how it's different than the

Old Covenant. They're trying to make this link and show this continuity between them when there's a discontinuity.

This is not like the covenant I made with your fathers that they broke. This is a new covenant.

And when you read Ezekiel 36, where you see all the things that God's going to do, he says,

I will sprinkle clean water on you. I will give you a new heart. I will write my laws upon your heart.

I will compel you to keep my laws. I will, I will, I will. There's about 15

I wills, right? So this is a covenant that's being completed by God, not by us.

And I actually think Romans 8, 28 is the parallel to Ezekiel 36 with all the

I wills because it says, those whom he predestined, he also called. Those he called, he also justified.

Those he justified, he also glorified. It's God doing the work in each one of those steps, which is exactly what's happening in Ezekiel 36.

So this is the work of God, not the work of man. So now

I think what our Lutheran brothers are gonna tell us and maybe our

Presbyterian brothers, well, when you preach the gospel, is

God in the midst of that? And obviously we'd say yes. They say, well, why can't God be in the midst of the baptism if we baptize our children?

How would you answer that? Yeah, I mean, again, I don't think that it's necessarily somehow logically impossible for that to be the case.

I just don't think that it is scriptural. I mean, again, with the case with children, it's just, it's crazy.

You're baptizing unbelievers and God is regenerating unbelievers. I mean, this is literally as far as extreme as you could possibly get in my mind, right?

You're not baptizing the right subjects. Then you're claiming this sounds like essentially magic to me, right?

You're taking, I mean, you're taking an unbeliever and making them a believer just by baptizing them.

I mean, if that's the case, we really should go around and be breaking into hospitals, baptizing children and regenerating them.

I mean, if all we have to do is get our hands on some child and baptize them and we don't even have to dunk them.

I can just spray them. I can go in there with a soaker and just get them all real quick. You know, just run

Bible in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And what did you just do to my kid? Nothing. You know, and seriously, it's just to me, it really is.

Where do you get this from the Bible? That's my main objection. Right. Where do you see this taught in the

Bible? Especially for our Presbyterian brothers who are reformed and they recognize the sovereignty of God in salvation and they see it over and over and over again in the

New Testament, how God, you know, brings Paul to his knees on the road to Emmaus and fills him with the

Spirit. I mean, it's never, okay, you're gonna baptize somebody and that's where the

Spirit's gonna be. In fact, Jesus precludes that in John chapter three. He says, no one knows where the

Spirit goes. You hear it sound, you don't know where it goes, where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone born of the

Spirit. So if baptism was what saved regenerated infants or human beings, then we could say, we do know where the

Spirit is. Yeah, that's right. It's there every time. But Jesus says, no, you don't know where the

Spirit, it blows wherever it wishes. So I think that's another, you know, argument against the fact that it doesn't always happen in baptism.

Yeah, and it just doesn't make sense to me. I mean, so, you know, you can baptize an infant or I guess somebody unconscious and they guarantee to be regenerated.

Well, does that mean we can baptize unbelievers who are professing unbelievers and they're guaranteed to be regenerated? Or somehow they need faith.

And the whole thing to me, it seems very obvious that this is man's tradition. These are people trying to patch things together that I just don't see in the

Bible. Where is this talking about? Right, I think the next place they usually go after you start knocking down the scriptures is, well, the church fathers.

You know, all of the early church fathers, they held to infant baptism. So, you know, that's the way it's, you know, one faith, one baptism.

This is the baptism. JD, how do you counter all the early church fathers? Yeah, well, when

I would say, I don't believe all the early church fathers believed in infant baptism at all.

We don't see any indication of that in the Didache. And there is disputes about whether or not, in fact, oftentimes when they point to citations where supposedly the church fathers are talking about infant baptism, all

I see is talking about the possibility or the reality of children being saved. How does that prove infant baptism, right?

At very most, it proves that they may be potentially baptized small children or children or something like that, or they just believe that children were saved.

So I think there's oftentimes, this is really exaggerated. Now I have heard, I have not checked this out myself, but I have heard that many other church fathers did believe in baptismal regeneration.

I have heard that before. And it seems to me that the church fathers basically took everything literally. You want to know what the church fathers believed on things.

They basically took everything literally. I don't think Lutherans take everything literally. I don't think

Reforms take everything literally. I don't think Baptists take. We don't do that, right? And so I think we have to be willing to say, unless we should all just take everything literally, then maybe the church fathers were wrong about some things.

I don't say that lightly, but that's just a fact. And unless you start to think, you cannot swear that,

I was just listening today. It sounds like the early church believed that you could not remarry after being lawfully divorced.

I don't know many Christians who believe that anymore. So you can't be a slave and beat everyone about the church fathers when you want to.

And then when you don't want it to say, well, they were wrong about that. Either they could be wrong or they're always right. And I think very clearly they can be wrong.

And this is where they're helpful. They're useful, right? Especially when people, this is where they're mostly helpful, to be honest.

They're mostly helpful when people claim, well, you know, the Greek mind or the early church mind would have perceived the text like this, right?

And then you look at them like, that's exactly opposite of what they said. That's where they're super helpful. But they're not super helpful when you try to say, this is the infallible guide for the right interpretation of the scripture.

Because nobody holds onto everything the church fathers believe. And they disagree with each other half the time. I mean, yeah.

And, you know, when you look at the early church, in many, many instances, they would caution somebody before they were baptized to pray and fast and be taught before they're baptized.

Now, I don't know any babies that pray and fast. I don't know any babies that were taking notes and being discipled.

So again, that's another evidence in the early church that points to the fact that they cautioned them before they were baptized to pray and fast, make sure.

It doesn't really make sense to me either, though. Like, so why would you... So when you see churches that believe in baptismal regeneration,

Church of Christ, Apostolic churches, these kinds of things, they often want to baptize you immediately for obvious reasons.

If you need to be regenerated through the walls of baptism, I'm not going to delay it at all.

Right? And yet the early church delayed. To me, there seems to be an inconsistency, like, well, I'm not sure if you're saved yet.

And even they would say, they even held beliefs that if someone who was a catechumen, someone who was learning the faith were to die for their testimony, for example, then they would say that they're saved and then claim that their death was a baptism of death, so they really were baptized.

It was just incoherent, kind of. It just didn't make any sense, right? Either they weren't saved and you needed to become saved, or they were saved already.

And if you're going to say they were saved already, that's why they died for their faith, then they were already regenerated.

So it wasn't actual. They weren't going to be regenerated in the waters of baptism. I mean, it seems like you just have to be consistent here.

Yeah, yeah. Okay, so let me ask you this. Are there any verses that talk about salvation without mentioning baptism?

Tons. Give me a couple. There's tons. We already looked at John 3 .16. We can do

John 3 .15. We can go into the whole, basically the whole book of Romans.

Romans 10 .9, I was thinking. Romans 10 .9, if you confess your mouth to Jesus. I think it's Romans 10 .9,

if you confess your mouth to Jesus Lord and believe his heart, then you got a reason for the day. This one's not quite there, but 1 John 1 .9,

right? That if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, forgive us of our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Right. I think also just a helpful understanding of how

Old Testament saints were saved, right? The same way that they were justified by faith. We already talked about that, but it was not, they were not saved by the waters of baptism or circumcision.

They were saved by faith. And that's Paul's very point when he gets in, I believe it's Romans chapter four, when he says that with Abraham, that his faith was accounted to him as righteousness before circumcision.

Right. It's definitely before baptism. So, I mean, I think there are so many scriptures that the gospel itself, this is why when

I gave my presentation, what is your gospel? Okay. And another thing is we see

Paul separate the gospel from baptism. He says that I did not come,

God did not call me to baptize, but to preach the gospel. That statement makes no sense if Paul thought that part of the gospel was baptism.

Right. Absolutely. Absolutely. Look, I think Romans nine says it best. If you confess with your mouth,

Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart, God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. There you go. He says, if you acknowledge me before my fellow men,

I will acknowledge you before my father in heaven. You know, there's so many things that again, go point us to faith, which is trusting in Jesus Christ alone for your salvation, which this is the next question.

Can your view of baptism disqualify you from salvation? And what I want to add to that is, can you be trusting in your baptism and not in Christ?

Yeah, you can. So absolutely. You can be trusting in your baptism. You can be trusting in your good works.

Thankfully, whenever I talk to these people, it seems that they are blissfully ignorant. They utterly refuse.

And I don't want to say that, hopefully not in an arrogant way. They utterly refuse to acknowledge that baptism doesn't work, right?

They're not saying, most of them, and I don't know how they get there, but most of them are saying, baptism isn't a work, we're saved by grace through faith alone, not by good works.

But baptism is just not a good work, right? And it's just the way that God regenerated me through the waters of baptism and God could do that sovereignly.

And again, they get there and I'm still looking. I'm like, it sounds like good work to me. And they just refuse to admit it. And so thankfully, this is why

I do think Lutherans and many other people who believe in baptism and regeneration most likely are saved because they're most likely trusting in the actual gospel.

But if someone actually did trust in their baptism, in their good works, then no, this person is not saved, right?

This person is the Galatian heresy. They're trusting in something other than Christ.

And to do that, you're not trusting in Christ. And so you are not, you need to be evangelized. You need to realize that you're saved by faith, not your good works.

And as long as you continue to hold onto your good works, you're not trusting in Christ and you're not believing the gospel, right?

Sounds right. You know, Paul says, having begun in the spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by works of the flesh?

I mean, you know, it just can't be like that. In fact, I had, tell me what you think about this. I had a

Lutheran who said, if you're questioning your salvation, he pointed to Martin Luther and quoted him saying,

Martin Luther said, look to your baptism. Yeah. Is that dangerous? It's extremely dangerous.

I mean, it doesn't make any sense on his own theology anyways. I mean, seriously, in his own theology, you lose your salvation.

You can be a baptized person going to hell. I mean, think about what Jesus said. He said, many will say to me,

Lord, Lord, do we not do all these good works? Do you think they did those good works and weren't baptized? No, of course they were baptized.

So looking to your baptism as a guarantee of your salvation is extremely dangerous.

Your baptism does not prove anything, right? What your baptism shows is that you were baptized.

That's all it shows. What you need to do is look to Christ and see that you were saved. Now, I say all that to say this. I will say all that, but let me take it back a little bit because I actually preached a sermon and I quoted

Martin Luther in that quote and I said it positively and I took it from a different angle. So to me, what

Christ does, and here's how we can look to our baptism when we have doubts in some level.

Here's how it works. Baptism is an outward sign of an inward truth. But Christ is the one who said, make disciples,

I believe. Be baptized. And then be taught. That's what Christ picture. Okay.

And in the picture of baptism, it symbolizes regeneration. It pictures your body is washed.

You go from the waters of death and you go into newness of life. All of this is a wonderful picture of a spiritual reality.

Okay. And Christ is the one who established that picture for you. And so sometimes if you say,

I don't, not, we're not talking about people who are doubting Christ. We're talking about people who are like, I'm just a sinner. I'm nasty.

I'm dirty. I was a horrible person. God can't really forgive me. Then I would say, look to your baptism.

Were you really wet? Yes. Were you really cleansed of your dirt? Yes. That is a picture of what Christ did to you spiritually.

And so in that way, you can say, oh, yes, I believe the picture communicated in the baptism is true about my spiritual soul.

Yes. Do that, brother, sister. But just saying I got wet and therefore I must be saved.

Don't do that. Right. And for your position, what you just said to hold true would mean that the person wasn't an infant when they were baptized because they couldn't look back to that to remember it.

They would have had to made a profession of faith, remember going into the water, experience that for themselves.

And then subsequent to that years later, they can look back and say, yes, I did make a profession of faith.

I was baptized. And what you said was beautiful. It's a picture. They went in wet. Their bodies were cleaned.

The same way when we're baptized by the Holy Spirit, our our conscience is cleansed.

Our soul. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, exactly. And under that, and if you believe that God is commanding infant baptism, right, let's just play with that argument for a second.

So then God commands people who ultimately go to hell to be baptized.

So what's the picture of baptism? Doesn't guarantee anything for you, right? It just guarantees that you had a promise.

All it is guaranteeing you is if you it's like an if then statement. If you believe, then this will be true of you. I mean, how does that give you any comfort?

What I'm saying is God said, since you believe this is true of you, right? And so as long as you know that you really did believe, or more importantly, that you really are believing that you can look at the baptism and say that is true for me.

That's the whole reason why God gave me the sign for assurance. So to me, that whole view totally destroyed any comfort you could possibly find in baptism.

Excellent, excellent point. Yeah, on top of that, the scripture says, look to Jesus, the author and finisher of your faith.

This is about a person. This is not about, you know, something that I did. And you can so quickly slipped into trusting.

Well, I was baptized. I did that. And yes, you may have done that, but anything not done in faith by the command of God for the glory of God is not done in faith.

And without faith, it's impossible to please God. So, you know, there's plenty of people who get baptized who don't have faith.

You know, all our good works are filthy rags before the Lord. So it's, you know, faith is a gift.

We have to have that faith. And then the acts we do in faith are, I don't wanna say meritorious before God, but acknowledged by God.

Amen, amen. You know, so, okay. So our view is the believer's baptism view.

It's also called credo baptism. Do you think that should be called reformed? Our Presbyterian brothers are gonna push back and say, no.

Why would we hold that our view is reformed and theirs isn't? That's an interesting question.

So I would say it is an interesting question of whether it should be called reformed or not, particularly.

I would say that, so I like, I'm gonna quote Paul Washer here a little bit here.

And he said, you know, that the reformers didn't go around saying we're reformed.

That we're biblical, we're biblical. And being reformed, the heart of it is saying,

I am biblical. That I stand for what those reformers stood for, which is the principles of the reformation, which is sola scriptura, which is the gospel, right?

And our view of baptism certainly holds onto all five solas, much more than people saying baptism regeneration, right?

And we're holding onto that. What we would say is sola scriptura. Amen. Right. We are more reformed in that way because we're being more consistent to the reformation doctrines, right?

We're saying to these guys, if you read the Bible, you're never gonna get this.

You never would have come up with infant baptism. In fact, if you go back to Luther, you know what

Luther said? Luther was becoming convinced, from my understanding of the infant Baptist, I mean, the cradle

Baptist position, but he basically said the church could not possibly be wrong. It couldn't be wrong. The church just couldn't have been wrong this whole time.

And so then he patched it up with vicarious faith and all this other junk.

I hate to say it like that, but all this other stuff that just doesn't make any sense to try to salvage a church tradition because he couldn't just fathom the truth being wrong.

That's not sola scriptura. He was being inconsistent. And we're saying the same thing. That's basically the same thing that happened to Calvin, right?

He's just looking at this and saying, well, we got to find some way that this is biblical. And that's what he did, right?

He didn't go into the Bible and find infant baptism. He had infant baptism and justified it from the Bible. That is the same thing our

Catholic friends do. They have the church tradition. They say, let's make the

Bible support the adoration of idols and images and all of these other things.

And they come out on the other side and say, it's fine. But we say it's not in there, right?

And I'll also say one other point about that is that there's the regulative principle of worship.

Yes. I don't know how infant baptism is a regulative principle because I've struggled with this. I've listened to their arguments.

They might be right. Here's the truth. The truth is I don't know with 100 % certainty that Peter did not baptize infants.

I can't prove it, right? However, I certainly don't know that he did. But I certainly know that he baptized believers because he told me that he baptized believers, right?

And so the thing is that everything I have in the New Testament regulates my practice of baptism and says,

I'm going to do what they told me to do. And I saw them do. And so I don't, and that's the whole idea of regulative principle, right?

I'm going to regulate my worship, my practice of baptism based on what they said and did, not based on my own vain speculations.

And I hate to say it, but that's exactly what they're doing. They're saying, I think, I've even heard people say, do you know they baptized infants?

They say, no, it's morally certain. No, that's a good way of saying you don't know, but you're just going to do it anyways. And that's not the regulative principle.

No, definitely not. When I look at it and I hold to monogism, right? The one working of God in the person.

If baptism was to regenerate, well, then it's synergism truly because that person cannot be regenerated.

An infant or a believer cannot be regenerated apart from me baptizing them.

So man is involved in some way, shape or form, which again, takes it out of God's hands completely.

And man is in some way involved. As soon as you get men involved in anything, okay, it becomes religious.

It becomes sinful. My illustration is if you were in the museum of art in Manhattan, you saw the

Mona Lisa and you took out your paintbrush and says, oh, let me just touch this up a little bit. The moment you touch that thing, it's worthless.

It's you've ruined it. The moment we think our hands are going to bring about a child's salvation, we've ruined it.

We've taken glory away from God. God is the one who regenerates human beings.

We pray that God does it. When they do, when God does it, we celebrate and we baptize them.

But once man gets involved and tries to manipulate things and figure out how he can add his handiwork into the mix, we're asking for trouble.

Yeah, I love that picture. I kind of rephrase it like this. As soon as you try to add your good works into God's salvation, you have ruined the picture.

I think that Paul would say absolute amen. Because you can't just add baptism. You got to add the whole law.

And I think that's Paul exactly what he would say. Don't just add baptism. You have to fulfill all the law. And you can't.

Exactly, exactly. Well, brother, listen, we're coming up, I think, a little bit over an hour. I very much appreciate your time.

Could you tell us where and when this baptism debate with Greg Strawbridge is going to happen?

So that baptism debate should be happening, I believe, in November. It'll be happening on the

Gospel Truth channel. So it'll be on that channel and we'll be doing it there.

And then I will also be coming out. I have a few videos on baptism on my own channel, The Exploring Theology.

I plan on making some more videos on baptism to kind of, and not really in preparation.

I was planning on doing this anyways. It just so happens I started studying baptism. I mean, I've done it multiple times, but I started really studying it again recently.

And so I plan on kind of going through some of those systematic theologies and saying, these are their arguments and these is why they do not work.

So that's going to be coming out on Exploring Theology. Amen, I look very, very much forward to that.

So check out J .D. Martin on YouTube. His channel is called Exploring Theology. Please also check out the website www .reformrookie

.com where you'll find articles, catechisms, videos, and this video podcast. Be also sure to like our videos on YouTube and subscribe to our channel, as well as our weekly podcast.

Friends, thanks again for listening. Remember, a life reformed is a life conformed to the Jesus of the scriptures and to God be the glory.

So Semper Reformanda, always be reforming. Here we stand. We can do no other. I'm Anthony Vigneault.