A Scriptural Understanding Of Baptism Week 3

LaRue Baptist Church, OH

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A Scriptural Understanding Of Baptism Week 4

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All right, let's pray, okay? Father, thank you for our time together now.

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Help us to understand this. Help us that your name will be glorified. Help us so that we will have an understanding of what the scriptures say.

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But Lord, help us not to be proud in knowing things. Rather, help us to be humble with the truth.

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We thank you in Jesus' name, amen. All right, last week we started talking about the case for paedo -baptism.

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I was hoping that I would be fair and accurate. And someone said to me last week, wow, after that, that's really cool.

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It'd be great to be president here. So I thought I did a good job, all right?

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But we're not done yet. We're gonna let them continue to make their case. So what we saw last week, of course, was that admittedly, and they will admit it, there are no biblical references to infant baptism in the

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New Testament. You can't find a record of one. And they openly admit that, okay?

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So what happens? Well, because of necessary and, well,

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I always forget that phrase because it's a good phrase, that by good and necessary consequences, we can deduce from Scripture the truth.

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That's true. And so what they've done is they've said, okay, the Abrahamic covenant is central to our belief.

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And if you understand the Abrahamic covenant, then the good and necessary consequences that give us the truth come from that.

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So we saw that God made a covenant with Abraham and basically promised him all these things and then said to him, this is for you and your household and your descendants after you.

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So that the household was circumcised and all the descendants that followed, generation after generation, were circumcised as members of that Abrahamic covenant.

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Now, they would say then that that circumcision, all that did was God's, remember, sign and seal that if you meet the conditions of the covenant, which is faith, then you will be saved, okay?

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Mosaic covenant, of course, has circumcision in it because they're all Abraham's descendants.

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And their deduction is simply this, that we are now Abraham's descendants and therefore because of that covenant, which is still in force, because of that covenant, then we have to give our infants the covenant sign, okay?

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So what's remained the same is the covenant and the fact that we, if you're descended from Abraham and we see in Galatians that we're

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Abraham's children, therefore, we have to give the covenant sign to the infants.

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That remains the same. What has changed is the covenant sign. It went from circumcision to baptism, okay?

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So that's where we were last week. But again, there are other considerations that they give besides just the

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Abrahamic covenant. One is a particular view of the church. There's a particular view of the church that comes into play here.

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Now, they will say God has one plan of redemption and one people through all the ages.

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And again, we can agree. There is one plan of redemption, granted. That's clear from scripture.

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And one people through all the ages. That's true too, but it's not the same as what they would say is one.

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We don't agree that it's quite the same. But here's what they would say. All right, one plan of redemption, one people.

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So they have a tendency, at least the old Presbyterian theologians, of talking about the church in the

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Old Testament, all right? The church in the Old Testament. Or they might refer to Israel in the wilderness as the church in the wilderness.

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So then they draw the following conclusions. This is from Charles Hodge, great

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Presbyterian, great theologian altogether, but particularly Presbyterian. He says, if the church is one under both dispensations.

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Now, what he means by dispensations is the Old Testament and the New Testament. If the church is one under both dispensations, if infants were members of the church under the theocracy, they are members of the church now, unless the contrary be proven.

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So you see, what plays into this idea is just this straight line. God's people in the

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Old Testament are the church. God's people in the New Testament are the church. So they will talk about the church in Israel or the church in the wilderness or the church here.

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They'll use that terminology and it's just one straight line so that if you gave, if the church in the

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Old Testament gave the covenant sign to infants, then the church in the New Testament does the same.

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It's just all the way straight across, okay? Here's the next argument they will make.

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There's a contrary command. You won't find the contrary command anywhere. There's an absence of it.

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And they would say, you create a Baptist, face the absence of a specific command to deny children the covenant sign.

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They say, there is no command that says, don't do that anymore. Because they argued this would have been an immense change for Jewish converts.

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The removal of the sign, the covenant sign for children. They say, that would just be totally radical.

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It would be like this. Imagine what happens when a Jewish convert who submits to baptism is told that his children cannot have the covenant sign.

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That's just way too radical. That just doesn't make sense. I mean, they've been practicing circumcision for 2 ,000 years of giving the sign to their infants.

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And all of a sudden, you're gonna say, no, no, no more children allowed. They say, that's just too radical. You gotta find a commandment that says, don't do this before you can assert that only believers can be baptized.

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And then, so there's these two views, a particular view of the church, the absence of any contrary command to stop giving the covenant sign to babies.

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And then, there's the household baptisms in the New Testament. And when you look at the

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New Testament, you see that the apostles expected entire households to be baptized once the head of the home accepted the gospel.

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In fact, when you read the New Testament accounts of baptism, every person identified as having a household present at his or her conversion also had the entire household baptized.

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They say, look, at every instance where someone is converted, his entire household was baptized, okay?

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And so, they say, okay, so the household has to be baptized. Now, what's the household? We saw it last week.

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Here's their contemporary definition. This included all of one's resident dependents, spouse, children, resident relatives, and dependent servants not earning regular wages.

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Now, it interests me, just as a footnote here, because I'm not gonna critique this yet, just kind of.

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What's interesting to me is how this not earning regular wages has slipped into the definition.

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And I don't understand why that is, other than they're trying to make the point it was just the slaves that were in the household who got it, and they were servants not earning regular wages.

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So, that may be where it came from. But it also delivers them from having to baptize the nanny that's living in your household and take care of your kids.

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Anyway, that's just a throw -off thought. It's a throwaway line. You can tuck it away, do what you want with that one.

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We may come back to it later. Let's look at some of these. Look at Acts chapter 16, verses 30 and 31.

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Here's the Philippian jailer. You remember the story. Paul and Silas have cast out a demon from a woman who's been making a lot of money for her masters and they get really mad, and they have

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Paul and Silas thrown in prison, and you remember, they're in the stocks, and it's about midnight, and they're singing, and all the doors fly open, and the jailer comes walking in.

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He's ready, he's running in, he's ready to commit suicide, and he says, what must I do to be saved? And they give him the gospel, and he is converted.

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And then we get down to verses 30 and 31. We read, where is that?

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Then he brought them out and said, Serge, what must I do to be saved? And they said, believe in the

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Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household. And they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house.

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And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their wounds, and he was baptized at once, he and all his family, okay?

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Then he brought them up into his house and set food before him, and he rejoiced, along with his entire household, that he had believed in God.

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So they say, look, there it is. He believed, and his whole household was baptized.

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Now they would say, if you look at that, Paul's words do not mean that the rest of the household would express genuine faith, but that the faith of the household head would now govern the life and faith of patterns, the life and the faith patterns in the rest of his family.

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So there's where they would point. They would also point to Cornelius in Acts chapter 10.

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It says that all of his household was baptized. In Acts chapter 16, verse 15, and she, that is

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Lydia, and after she was baptized, and her household as well, she urged us, saying, if you have judged me to be faithful to the

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Lord, come to my house and stay. And she prevailed upon us. So again, Lydia's baptized and her household.

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Later on, is the Philippian jailer. You look at Colossians 1 .16,

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wait a minute, okay? Here we go. All right,

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Cornelius, Lydia, Philippian jailer, Stephanus, in 1

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Corinthians 1 .16, verse 14,

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I thank God that I baptize none of you except Crispus and Gaius, so that no one may say that you were baptized in my name.

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I did baptize also the household of Stephanus. Beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else.

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So, he mentions the household of Stephanus there, okay? So, talks about his household.

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Another one that's implied is Crispus, we find in Acts chapter 18, chapter 18, verse eight.

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Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, in Corinth now, Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, believed in the

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Lord together with his entire household. And many of the Christians hearing

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Paul believed and were baptized. And then when you turn over to 1 Corinthians 1 .14,

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it talks about, yeah, he baptized

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Crispus. So, they draw the conclusion, well, it says that his household believed and Crispus is baptized.

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So, that Crispus believed that his household was baptized in here. Well, no, in Acts 18, it says

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Crispus believed. In 1 Corinthians, it says he was saved. Household is mentioned in Acts, but Crispus is mentioned in 1

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Corinthians. Now, they say to us, Credo Baptists, why do you resist household baptism so much?

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They say, you're too individualistic. You've forgotten the representative principle. Remember, we talked about that last week.

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The representative principle where the household head represents the entire family.

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So, when he's baptized, the whole household is baptized. And they said, you're just too individualistic.

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You just bought too much into the American view of individualism and you forgot the representative principle.

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And that you don't understand how a covenant sign is a seal or a visible pledge that promises, that promises apply when you meet the condition of faith.

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Okay, you just don't get that, okay. All right, now, we'll talk now, also, so those are some other biblical considerations that come into play.

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Household baptism is a real big one for them because they think, they think that, aha, see, whole households are baptized, just like in the

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Old Testament. Okay, I'm not gonna deal with that now.

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You have to come back later for us to deal with that. I would just suggest to you, let me suggest to you that you read those accounts and pay attention to everything in those accounts, okay?

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Just read it, read it carefully, read it over many times, and see if it holds, all right?

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Okay, now, now they wanna talk about the benefits of infant baptism.

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What are the benefits that they have that we don't have? Well, first of all, they talk about, they might talk about the devotion of parents.

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And Brian Chappell writes this. Should we baptize infants because the sacrament will guarantee that our children will become genuine and eternal citizens of heaven?

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The answer is no, because no sacrament automatically creates or transmits the grace of salvation.

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No mere ritual will save anyone. And so they agree with us wholeheartedly that, that faith, faith is necessary to be reconciled to God.

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They'll never deny that. They'll agree with us, and I'm thankful for that. So if it doesn't confer salvation, then why do it?

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Because God makes covenantal promises to believers and their children.

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Well, we talk about devotion of parents, okay? In an infant baptism.

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Abraham devoted all that he had to God in the covenant faith. So what? What's the conclusion?

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So Christians should do the same. So Christian parents should do the same, okay?

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So Abraham devoted all that he had to God in the covenant, so we should too, all right?

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It demonstrates, it demonstrates very tangibly the commitment to be faithful stewards of our children's souls.

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It means to trust and to follow God in raising children, okay?

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It's saying that I've devoted my children and my whole household to God, and I'm going to lead them in the way of God, all right?

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Salvation truths are signified in baptism. Parents humbly acknowledge that they're dependent on God's grace, not only in the duty to raise the child according to scripture, but also to do what they cannot do, just to save it, okay?

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It signifies that we're dependent on God's grace, right?

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This covenant, because remember, remember the covenant. You remember that little baptismal ceremony we went through last week, where the pastor addresses the child and essentially says to him, if you believe you'll be saved, then this is

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God's promise that he'll save you. And so it's a promise from God that if you believe you'll be saved, okay?

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This public act of devotion makes the parents accountable to the church, before which they take their vows.

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So in that baptism, and I didn't do this last week because it would make it too long, but in the baptism, the parents make vows and the church makes vows.

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The parents make the vows that before the church vows, that they're gonna raise these children up in the admonition and nurture of the

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Lord. So now the whole church, the whole congregation has witnessed their vows to do this.

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And so they have vowed that they would help them so that if you're not raising your children the way you promised, we're gonna talk to you about it, okay?

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They're accountable now because they very publicly did this, so they're accountable. And it is the seal or pledge from God.

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This is God's continuing visible pledge to his church that he will fulfill his covenant promise if that child puts his faith in the

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Lord Jesus. Again, one of the Presbyterian writers says, by the marks of this sacrament,

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I promise that any, this is God talking in baptism. So God essentially says in baptism, by the marks of this sacrament,

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I promise that anyone who trusts in my mercy through the blood of Christ will have his sins washed away and will be as pure before me as the water that flows from this font so that we will be in holy union forever.

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Again, a visible pledge of God's merciful grace. It's evident in baptism.

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It's there for our children to claim, okay? So what's the benefit of infant baptism?

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The devotion of the parents, what they're gonna say they're going to do. Then there's the blessing to the children or of the children.

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They are blessed as well. Blessing places each child into a privileged position of being raised in a

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Christian home, in a Christian home where they will hear and understand the truths of the gospel, okay?

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He lives in a home that through baptism has promised to provide Christian nurture.

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In baptism, you're making a vow before God that you're going to raise them in a way that in the fear of the

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Lord. And so these parents have through baptism promised to use the resources of the church to make the nurture truly biblical in character.

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So puts them into a Christian home. And the parents publicly promise in this sacrament to pray with and for their child so that early in life the child might know the realities of God's saving grace in Christ.

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So it puts them into a privileged position of a Christian home. It also places the child into the privileged position of church membership so that he is exposed to the gospel.

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Now listen, some of us, you know, well, a lot of us who are

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Baptists, this just kind of doesn't sound right because we have so solidly stood on believers are baptized and brought into membership.

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But you have to remember that when an infant is baptized, and as we're going to see later in a few more weeks,

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I use that term loosely. When a child is sprinkled or water poured on them, they become officially a member of that church.

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Okay, got to get that into your mind. They then become a member of the church.

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So if, let's say we practice this, let's say we're a

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Presbyterian church. All right. The baby that Sarah is going to bring into the world in a couple more weeks, if.

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Don't even draw the picture, Andrew. Is that what you're saying? It's just an illustration.

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It's just an. So that little boy is going to be just as, when he's baptized, and I use the term loosely, he is just as much a member of this body as I am, as you are, okay?

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He is a member of the church. And it's, so what's the advantage of that?

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Because it's within the covenant community that the child has all the advantages of hearing the word of God.

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The child also has a promise of the church to support the parents in their spiritual nurture and admonition.

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The church, again, remember, has vowed to be a part of this. And so has the resources of the church.

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And when the church is truly one in this effort, a child is surrounded and embraced by the testimony of Christ at every turn.

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One writer writes this. In this atmosphere of faith, in this,

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I'm sorry. In this atmosphere, faith naturally germinates and matures so that it is possible, even common, for the children of Christian parents never to know a day that they do not believe that Jesus is their

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Savior and Lord, okay? So they're saying, because of the atmosphere, it's not unusual to hear a child say, well,

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I've always believed in Jesus, okay? And the last thing is they cannot be treated as unbelievers.

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You'd never treat them as unbelievers, but as part of the covenant people of God in a special position before God, in a special position before God, okay?

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So they're not like kids that are not in church or have been baptized. They're not like non -members.

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They're, and so you don't treat them as unbelievers. You say, but I don't know whether they believed or not. In their way of thinking, you're treated as a believer until you do things that would say otherwise and then discipline follows, okay?

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They do believe in church discipline, but it's exercised when you start showing that you really don't belong, okay?

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So, in fact, they quote 1 Corinthians 7 .14 oftentimes in this regard.

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Let's look at that. This is in the passage that has to deal with marriage and singleness and divorce.

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So it's set in that context. And in 1 Corinthians 7 .14, and this is another proof, by the way, okay, here's what you read.

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Okay, now this is having to deal with divorce when a believer is married to an unbeliever and the unbeliever says,

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I'm done with this marriage. I'm out of here. The believer is told to let them go, just to let them go.

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Don't fight about it. Let them go. So he says in verse 12, to the rest I say,

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I not the Lord. In other words, he's just got them talking about what the Lord had taught. Now he's gonna say, this is something the

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Lord didn't teach, but this is what I'm gonna say on my apostolic authority from Jesus himself.

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To the rest I say, I not the Lord. That if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever and she consents to live with him, he should not divorce her.

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If any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him.

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For the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife. And the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband.

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Otherwise, your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy. Now do you see that?

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Your children are holy. And they say, look, there you go. Right?

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There it is. Baptism makes them covenant members, so they're considered holy.

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All right? You say, there's gotta be more to that. Yeah, there is, but we're not gonna get into it this week.

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Okay? Here's the last benefit they talk about. When a child is baptized, God enters the scene.

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God now becomes involved. He promises to strengthen and enable the testimony and training of parents who seek his aid.

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Okay? He promises to strengthen and enable the testimony and the training that the parents give to their children when they seek his aid.

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He promises to walk with and fulfill the covenant promises to the child who matures in faith.

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All right? And lastly, God uses the devotion of parents and the church to further the spiritual nurture of the child.

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Okay? So there we have it. The Abrahamic covenant is central. Many deductions are drawn from that.

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And then you've got all these other considerations to take into mind from the

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Bible, particularly household baptisms. Okay? All right, that's it for today.

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We're done. You're saying, how can that be? Because I went long last week.

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Okay? Okay? All right. Okay, I haven't even asked a question.

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Yes, Steve? How does this correlate with other sacraments in St.

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Communion? I mean, I know they do communion every week. So do the baby's take communion?

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Is there a baptism of the fellowship? All those other things.

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Interesting question. That Presbyterians themselves don't agree on. There's some guys like Doug Wilson.

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You've all heard of Doug Wilson. Most of you have. Some of you have. Doug Wilson, who's very reformed, makes the case for paedo -communion.

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That children should, because they're covenant members, they should be allowed to the Lord's table. What's the problem?

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But that's a very minority view within Presbyterianism. Most would say, oh no, absolutely not.

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No, no. Because when you read 1 Corinthians 11, there has to be knowledge of what you're doing.

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That's clear. The question is, on what basis do you make that distinct?

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That's the question I ask. What basis do you make that distinction? It's entirely consistent for Doug Wilson to say, baby should be part of communion.

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Right? So, Bethany? In fact, I didn't get back with him until today.

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Obviously not that great, because we're in bed. But we got in towards the scene as if he asked if we could get back on stage.

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And it's like, oh, that's crazy. Yeah. Is that really necessary? We'll have to ask that question later.

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Because I think that's a good question. You know what? Years and years ago, any of you remember

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Robert Jones? Robert did a Bible conference here several years ago.

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He was a pastor in West Virginia. He went on to become, he's now a professor of counseling at Southern Seminary.

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He's in their program down there. And Robert and I, Robert's a good friend.

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And we were teaching together at a counseling event where Jay Adams was the plenary speaker.

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And Jay's a Presbyterian. And I'll never forget

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Robert saying this to Jay. Jay, I got just one question for you. What advantages do your children have?

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Don't hang on. I don't remember what Jay said. So just, okay, it was just a good question.

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And I wish I remembered the answer. I do. Maybe it's because I was so overwhelmed with the thought of hokey smokey.

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Are you really gonna ask Jay Adams that? How can you even question this guy? I don't believe it either, but I'm not gonna ask him that question.

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You know what's interesting is when Jay was here speaking, and some of you kids remember that. You took a shot at Jay here.

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I did? Yes, you did. When he was here? Oh yeah, but he got me on that. You know, if you don't remember,

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I took, remember our old green cups we had that someone gave us as American Baptist men on it?

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So he's back here just yucking it up with everybody in the congregation, having a good time.

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And I walked up and I said, okay, I'm gonna give it. And I said, Jay, I wanna present you with this cup.

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Right? It says American Baptist men on it. He looks at it and he says, wow, this is great.

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I'll use it at my next baptism. I can't get the upper hand on that guy.

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Anyway, but when Jay was here, I'll never forget that we had tons of people come.

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We had people from Cleveland coming and stuff. And I remember we're trying to get to the back for fellowship. And there are two

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Baptist guys here, just really trying to convince him how wrong he was. Just like, that's not the time or place.

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Let the poor guy go so he can have some coffee. Yes, first, Dennis. So let's say you have a family of unbelievers and the husband and the wife come and say, yeah, would you, would a

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Presbyterian baptize the other part of that couple, even if they were very explicit in their conviction?

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Just because how should that be? You know, that's a question that I've never heard anybody ask or answer.

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I've been reading and I haven't heard anybody. You know, and again,

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I was maybe saving this for later, but I'll, I may mention it later, so what happens when your unbelieving brother who's made you the guardian of his kids is killed?

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He and his wife are killed and those unbelieving teenagers now come to live with you. Do you take them to church and have them baptized?

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I would say you'd have to. But I don't know of anyone who's ever done that.

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I may be wrong. I don't know if they've ever done that. I need to ask Rhett about that.

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See what he says. So I have at least an answer from the Presbyterian side. I just wonder about that.

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Or your unbelieving mom comes to live with you. She's living in your household now.

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Mom, we're going to church today. Why? Because you're going to get baptized.

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Blankety blank, you know what I think of your blankety blank church, right? I don't know what they do with that.

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I have to ask. Andrew. Saying that Israel's church, calling

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Israel a church in the Old Testament. Yeah. Would you, because there's Baptists, you know, imperatives,

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Baptists would do that. Yeah. But they would qualify it as, because it foreshadowed the church, right?

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Would you, does that give you heartburn or would you? Yeah. So even as a foreshadowing tool, like since it foreshadowed.

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Well, I mean, are they going to say then, here's my question then, so are you going to call circumcision Baptism? It's foreshadowing

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Baptism, so are you going to call that Baptism? Well, I understand that.

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I understand that. But you don't have to discuss this.

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I still think Baptism is connected to that. Yeah, I do too, but it's not correct. But I never heard a

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Presbyterian call circumcision Baptism. You never what? Heard a Presbyterian call circumcision

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Baptism. Ah, that doesn't make any sense. Nevermind. Forget I said that.

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All right. Is that it?

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Yes. Let's say, let's say you grew up in this church and you move away to,

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I don't know, let's say North Carolina. Oh, I know what you're going to ask. And you go to a place like Wilmington, North Carolina.

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Yeah. Yeah. And you decide that you're not going to baptize your kid.

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Would it be appropriate for the church to exercise discipline? You mean, you mean if you go to a

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Presbyterian? If you're a member of a Presbyterian church. Yeah. But you're not a

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Baptist. I don't know of any who do that.

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They allow creative Baptism in its members, but they don't discipline you if you don't have your children baptized.

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I don't know why not. I'll have to ask that one, too. Someone write down all the questions

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I need to ask. Maybe it's the Southern Presbyterian denomination that does this. I don't know.

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So. All right. You're asking good questions. Anyway, so there's the case for paedo -baptism.

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And then I've given you just the highlights, okay? They'll dive deep into a lot of stuff for that.

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Levi, did you have a question? Okay, just scratching your head. All right.

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All right, so. Next week, I hope to do some critique.

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And I also want to talk about mode of Baptism, why dunking, as opposed to anything else.

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I want to spend some time. So what is this, the third week? I have three more weeks? Yeah, okay.

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Well, does someone want to close us in prayer? Besides Andrew? Oh, all right,

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Levi, thank you. We praise the

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Lord for the evening. Even on things that is controversial, we do thank you for the time that we have to consider these issues,

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Lord, and be more sure of what it is that the Lord has for you. We pray,

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Lord, as you go out into the presence of Jesus name, amen.