Baptismal Regenerationism

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I'm going to invite you to remain standing and open your Bibles, and we'll read the text of the day.
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Then I will invite you to sit as we begin our sermon.
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We stand for the reading of God's Word, for it is the very Word of God.
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We give honor and reverence as we stand in its reading.
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Our message this morning is Acts 15, 1, and then we're going to turn to Galatians chapter 1, and look at verses 6 through 9.
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So, if you have your Bibles open to Acts, we'll look at first chapter 15 and verse 1.
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But some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.
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Now, over in Galatians chapter 1, we see the Apostle Paul writing, dealing with a similar issue.
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Beginning at verse 6, he says, I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you in the grace of Christ, and are turning to a different gospel.
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Not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.
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But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one which we preached to you, let him be accursed.
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As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.
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Our Father and our God, we come to you now in Jesus' name, and we thank you Lord that you have given us an opportunity again to hear from your Word.
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I pray Lord, as I always do when I enter the pulpit, that you would keep me from error.
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For Lord, I am a fallible man, capable of preaching error.
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And for the sake of your people and your holy name, I pray that you would keep me from that.
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And Lord, I do pray that your Holy Spirit would fill me, use me, and ultimately God would open the hearts of your people to hear the truth.
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Father, as we examine again the concept of modern Judaizing and what that means and all that comes with it, help us never to have a heart of pride, but to Lord, truly be in prayer for those who have fallen under the curse of false teaching.
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May we be lights and love to them, not simply those who would condemn.
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We thank you, we praise you Lord, in Jesus' name, Amen.
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In the 15th chapter of Acts, Paul had just finished his first missionary journey with Barnabas.
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They had been back there at the church at Antioch, continuing to preach the gospel, continuing to see souls saved, continuing to see lives changed there at the church at Antioch.
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And men came down from Judea.
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We learn later that likely they came out of the church of Jerusalem, out of where the apostles were ministering.
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They came out of the church there in Judea.
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They went down to Antioch and they began to tell the Christians there at Antioch, you are not Christians.
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Even though you've proclaimed Jesus, even though you have called upon His name for the forgiveness of sins, even though you have repented of your sins and received the sign of baptism and proclamation of your faith, even though all these things have occurred, you are not saved.
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If you have not been circumcised.
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And by extension, the teaching was, unless you are obedient to the law of Moses, that law which accompanied the Sinaitic covenant, the covenant God made with Moses at Mount Sinai, unless you are obedient to that law, you cannot be a Christian.
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Because to be a Christian, you must first become a Jew.
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They saw Jesus as the door, but they saw Judaism as the pathway to the door.
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He was the vestibule, or rather, Judaism was the vestibule which you must enter through to get to Him.
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So the Apostle Paul and Barnabas took issue with what they were saying.
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The Apostle Paul and Barnabas said, no, that's not true.
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We deny that.
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And so they took the issue back to the church from which they came, the church of Jerusalem.
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They ended up having a council there at the church of Jerusalem with their elders and apostles, Peter and James and others.
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And they came to the conclusion that what these men were teaching was not the gospel.
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In fact, it was a false gospel.
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They had added to the gospel of grace.
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They had added to justification by faith.
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And they had, in essence, distorted the truth.
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And so, those men were rightly rejected.
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Their teaching was rightly condemned.
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And the apostles provided to us a letter which comes later in chapter 15, a response.
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Now, if you're not a normal visitor or member with our church, you won't know this, but we've been studying through Acts, and I've done four weeks on just what happened there in Jerusalem.
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So, if it feels like you're jumping into the middle of something, you are.
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Because what I'm doing now is I'm looking at a short series on what we call modern Judaizers.
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What is the word Judaizer? Well, a Judaizer is a nickname given to those men in the first century who proclaimed an addition to the gospel of grace.
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They added circumcision and the keeping of the law of Moses to the gospel of grace and thus distorted the gospel.
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And in fact, what the Apostle Paul says in Galatians chapter 1, which we read, he says, it's no gospel at all.
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Because there is only one gospel.
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So, if they're preaching something other than what we have taught, it's a false gospel.
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It's not the true gospel.
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It's not like there's several of them and you sort of just get to pick which one you want.
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There's one gospel which is the truth and everything else that calls itself the gospel is a fake.
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And so, what I have done in this series, and we began last week and it's a four-week series, is I have said, I've asked the question, who in our modern context are the modern Judaizers? Because there's not too many people running around today saying you have to be circumcised to be a Christian.
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I mean, there are some, I'm sure.
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But there are not many.
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But Judaizing as an idea, adding to the gospel of grace, is itself rampant in Christianity.
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Adding to the gospel of grace actually extends into many denominations, into many teachings.
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So, what I've done is I've looked at four in particular last week, and if you weren't here, the message is available for you online if you'd like to hear it.
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Last week, we looked at those who would demand the keeping of the seventh day Sabbath.
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Those who would say, you're not a Christian, you're not pleasing God, you're not actually saved unless you worship on Saturday.
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Because Saturday is the Sabbath.
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And there are people who teach that.
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In fact, there are people who teach that if you worship on Sunday, you've received the mark of the beast because you're an idolater.
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And we talked about that last week.
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So, last week was on the issue of the Sabbath.
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Next week, we're going to look at those who would say you can only use one translation of the Bible.
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And if you use any other translation, you're not saved.
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It came out in 1600.
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You probably know which one I'm talking about.
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And then the week after that, we're going to talk about those who would say that unless you've spoken in a tongue, you're not saved.
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That is taught in many churches.
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Unless you have spoken with tongues, you've not received the Holy Spirit.
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And if you've not received the Holy Spirit, you're not saved.
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But today, we are going to look at what is called baptismal regeneration.
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Baptismal regeneration is this.
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It is a very simple principle that is taught in several churches.
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Unless you are baptized, and the mode differs depending on the church.
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Some say you must be immersed.
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Some say you must be sprinkled.
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Some say you must be poured.
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That is really not all the same.
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But they say unless you've been baptized according to our way, and by our leadership, and according to the way that we say it must be done, you cannot be saved.
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Because the belief is that regeneration, and by the way, the doctrine of regeneration is being born again.
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They say being born again doesn't happen until you're baptized.
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And your baptism is the instrumental cause of your regeneration.
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That's the teaching.
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So, baptismal regeneration.
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Who teaches this? Well, it's taught in several groups.
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It's taught in Roman Catholicism.
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They believe that babies are born in sin.
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Well, we believe that.
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We believe everyone is born with a sin nature, according to the fact that we were all born in Adam.
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The Bible teaches that.
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No problem.
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But they believe that because babies are born in sin, we've got to get them immediately and baptize them, because baptism causes their new birth.
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And so they're born, and then they're reborn through the water.
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And the water removes the taint of original sin.
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And that's baptismal regeneration in Roman Catholicism.
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Eastern Orthodoxy has a similar view.
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They also teach that baptism causes regeneration.
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Mormonism teaches that.
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Oneness Pentecostalism takes it a step further.
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Oneness Pentecostalism says this.
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Not only must you be baptized, but you must be immersed.
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And not only must you be immersed, but you must be immersed in the name of Jesus only.
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They're called Jesus only, or Oneness Pentecostals.
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They believe that unless you are baptized in the name of Jesus, you can't be baptized according to the Trinitarian formula given to us by Jesus, which is how we baptize, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
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They say no.
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They say that name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit is Jesus.
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There's only one name.
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And you must be baptized only in that name.
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And if you're baptized any other way, or for any other purpose, than that of the forgiveness of your sins, then your baptism is not valid.
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So all of you good Baptists, who were baptized in the name of the Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, were baptized as a sign of your confession, and a sign of your conversion, not for the forgiveness of sins, but as a picture of the forgiveness of sins, your baptism is not valid because it was not done according to the right way, and for the right reason.
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Some Lutheran groups also teach baptismal regeneration, but they try to explain it in line with justification by faith, but just to be fair, there are teachings in Lutheranism which line up with baptismal regeneration as well.
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Now there is another movement, and this is the one I sort of want to focus on.
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We've been looking at those sort of in general.
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The one that I want to focus on is in the restoration movement.
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And they don't call it baptismal regeneration.
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They are very particular with their language.
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They call it baptismal remission.
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And the teaching is simply this.
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Baptism causes the forgiveness of your sins, thus remitting or remissing your sins.
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It takes away your sins.
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You go into the water as a sinner, you go under the water, and when you come out, your sins are washed away.
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And so it creates the forgiveness of sins because it creates the washing away of your sins.
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Now they would say that you are not born again until your sins are forgiven, but they wouldn't use the language of baptismal regeneration.
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They call it baptismal remission, but essentially it is the same doctrine.
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They use Acts 2.38 as their support verse, and that may be a verse you want to pin down because we are going to be looking at it more specifically later in the message.
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But Acts 2.38, Peter said to them, this is on the day of Pentecost, repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
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Well, that seems like it should end all the argument.
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Sounds like exactly what they are talking about.
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Sounds like, hey, I am wrong, they are right.
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End of story.
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Let's all go to lunch.
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No, we are not going to end there.
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Some take that passage to claim that baptism produces the forgiveness of sins, must be done in Jesus' name, and that is when you receive the Holy Spirit, is when you are baptized.
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All those things happen at baptism.
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Now, to understand this teaching, it behooves us to understand a little bit about the movement out of which it comes.
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The movement is called the restoration movement.
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The reason why it was called the restoration movement is because three men, Thomas Campbell, Barton Stone, and Walter Scott, and Alexander Campbell too, so we could say four men, gained attention in the 1800s because these men believed that the gospel had been lost for several hundred years.
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That the gospel essentially was lost.
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They believed that they were restoring the ancient gospel, or the gospel of the apostles.
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And what was it that they were restoring? The role of baptism.
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These men came out of Presbyterian and Baptist churches, and when they came out of these churches, they said, nope, the one place where everybody has missed it is the role of baptism, and the purpose of baptism.
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In fact, the restorers made great claims about their movement.
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I want to give you a few.
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Number one, the Christian church disappeared in the first century, and the gospel was lost.
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So up for 1700 years, the gospel was lost.
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Number two, the Roman Catholic Church and all Protestant churches are apostate organizations and are not Christian.
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Okay.
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Bold claim, but at least we know where they're coming from.
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Number three, all of the historic creeds and confessions are worthless and should be ignored.
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You've probably heard this before.
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We don't have any creed but Christ.
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Right? You ever heard that? No creed but Christ? That's actually pretty popular in the restoration movement.
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Number four, God raised up Alexander Campbell to restore the true gospel and to reestablish the Christian church, and he restored the true apostolic church.
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This is believed.
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This is the man who God used to restore the church.
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Number five, the millennium was going to be ushered in during the lifetime of the restoration movement.
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It seems interesting that in the 1800s, the end times, and particularly the millennium, was very influential in a lot of groups.
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We talked about the Millerites last week.
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The Millerites, what did they start with? It's the end times.
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They date set and they were wrong, and then they had to figure out a way to make that work.
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Well, the same thing has happened here with the restoration movement.
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It's all about the end of times, and we're the ones ushering in the end because we've restored it back to what it was supposed to be.
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Number six, most important one, the true gospel teaches that baptism for the remission of sins is essential for salvation.
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The baptism given by all other church is not saving.
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You have to be rebaptized in accordance with Campbellite doctrine to be saved.
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And I know this to be true.
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If you were to go from being a Baptist or a Methodist or a Presbyterian or anything else into a church that is a Campbellite church, and those are usually identified as the churches of Christ, the disciples of Christ, the independent Christian church, things like that.
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If you go into those churches having been baptized anywhere else, your baptism is not considered to be true baptism and you must be baptized again.
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Well, for them it would be a first baptism because your baptism before wasn't genuine.
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Number eight, and finally, only Bible names should be used in the name of the church, so it's wrong to describe anyone as a Baptist, Catholic, Presbyterian, or anything else.
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The only titles which should be used are disciples of Christ, churches of Christ, or the Christian church.
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That's what you'll see the distinction.
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So the Restoration Movement has seen a rise in notoriety recently.
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One of the reasons why I added it to our list of study.
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Why has the Restoration Movement gained so much notoriety recently? Well, there's a group of men out in Louisiana that have really big beards and really long hair and they like to make duck calls.
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And from everything I can tell, they're good old boys.
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I'm not here to necessarily condemn these men outright, but they are part of the church of Christ and so their teaching is in accord with this.
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They would be Campbellite in their teaching and their doctrine.
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And what's funny is, I've done a little, just looking around at what these guys teach, trying to find out what it is, you know, that they teach.
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There are people who have driven several states to go to their church to be baptized.
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And you can watch the baptism videos online and this is the language which is used.
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The man doing the baptism, oftentimes people want to be baptized by the patriarch of the family.
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Those who've seen the show know who I'm talking about, the oldest one.
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They'll get into the baptismal waters and he will say this.
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He will say, you came into this water as a sinner.
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I'm going to put you under the water.
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When you come out, you're going to be a new person.
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God's going to seal the deal with the Holy Spirit and you're going to wash away your sins.
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And that's going to happen right now.
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That's what's happening.
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So this is not something that is hidden.
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In fact, you can find sermon after sermon preached by these guys which, again, explains what I'm telling you, that they believe that baptism itself is efficacious.
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In Roman Catholicism, it's called ex opera operato.
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Ex opera operato is Latin.
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It simply means that thing which operates does the operation or that which works does the work.
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So when you go into the water, what it symbolizes is what it does.
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Make sense? So, a brief overview of the teaching of baptismal regeneration and what's taught in the Restoration Movement and other churches.
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Those who teach baptismal regeneration remission appeal to certain biblical passages.
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The first one being Acts 2.38 which we've already read.
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Repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of sins.
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The other one that they would appeal to is Mark 16.16.
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Jesus says, whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.
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There, Jesus connecting baptism and salvation.
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And they would point to that and say, see here, even Jesus said so.
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Another place is 1 Peter 3.21.
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It says, baptism which corresponds to this now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
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So those are the three primary passages.
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There are others, John 3.5 and others.
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But particularly those three passages are used to make the argument for baptismal regeneration.
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And taken on their own, taken by themselves, devoid of context, both the context that they're in and the context of Scripture as a whole, taken on their own, they can be used to argue the point of baptismal regeneration.
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But to do so, you have to abandon the analogy of Scripture.
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Now what is the analogy of Scripture? Analogia Scriptorum in Latin, it simply means the comparison of Scripture with Scripture.
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The Scripture should agree with itself.
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Amen? The Scripture should always be a cohesive book, not pitting one against the other.
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This same thing happens when we talk about justification by faith.
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You go to James and James talks about justification and works, and people say, well here James and Paul are fighting against one another.
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Not if you seek to harmonize the two.
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If you see them as competing with one another, you'll only come away with competition.
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But if you see them as complementing one another, then you will see how they harmonize together.
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We've been studying James on Wednesday nights, and I've been showing how to harmonize James and Paul.
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It's really not that difficult if you understand the context that Paul is teaching in, the context that James is teaching in, the purpose for which Paul is writing, and the purpose for which James is writing.
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It's not that difficult, but it becomes difficult when we want to grab a hold of a single verse, rip it from its context, and make a doctrine which doesn't agree with the rest of the Bible, and say, well here's where I'm getting my doctrine, is this one verse.
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That is dangerous.
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It's called string of pearls theology.
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We take a string from here, or a pearl from here, a pearl from here, a pearl from here, and we string it together, but the context does not agree with our theology.
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It's not good.
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It's not a good thing.
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So I want to provide to you a brief rebuttal.
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If you look at the back of your bulletin, you'll notice I've kind of produced an outline for you.
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We look first at the history, then at what is taught, and then finally the rebuttal.
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And I've given you places to take notes if you'd like, or you can simply get a recording of this later and listen to it again.
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But here is a rebuttal.
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A simple rebuttal.
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Rather than arguing against baptismal regeneration and simply go through the verses that they use and take them apart, which I will in a little while, the first thing I want to do is I want to produce a positive case for what regeneration is.
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If they're saying baptism regenerates, let's first talk about what is regeneration and how does it happen.
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First and foremost, the Apostle Paul presents salvation as a gift from God which does not depend upon works.
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A few verses for your consideration.
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2 Timothy 1 and verse 9.
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It says that He saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works, but because of His own purpose and grace which He gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began.
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What does that tell us? Our salvation and our calling.
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God's holy calling that He has given to His people does not come as a result of works.
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Now, I have heard this argument, well, baptism isn't a work.
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The same argument was made by the Judaizers.
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Circumcision isn't a work.
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It's an act of faith.
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But what did Paul say? You're mingling faith and works.
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So, just so you know.
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I have a friend, and we haven't talked in a long time, but years ago we used to talk about this issue all the time.
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I had a bracelet with Ephesians 2.8.
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It was on my wrist.
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Ephesians 2.8.
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For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God and not of works, lest anyone should boast.
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For we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works.
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That's Ephesians 2.8-10 actually.
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And I had a bracelet with Ephesians 2.8 on my wrist.
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He saw my bracelet, and he said, ha, if I had a bracelet, it would say Acts 2.38.
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Why? Repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of sins.
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He was a Church of Christ guy.
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And I remember just talking to him.
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I said, how do you reconcile your argument that it is not of works? Paul specifically says it's not of works.
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He says, well, it's not much of a work.
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You're just getting wet.
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You've just argued yourself out of the...
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You said it's not much of a work.
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I don't care how much it is.
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If it's your participation, if it's your merit, if it's something you do, it is a work.
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Therein is the answer.
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Titus 3.
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But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, He saved us not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to His own mercy, by the washing of regeneration.
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Not the washing of baptism.
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They will argue that's baptism.
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It doesn't say that.
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Regeneration is a washing, but not physical.
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And the Old Testament says He will wash us with pure water, not the physical water.
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It's a spiritual washing, a cleansing, a rebirth.
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That's why I think Jesus meant when He said, born of water and of the Spirit.
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I think He meant that.
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I think He meant that thing that happens to us internally.
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That cleansing which happens in an internal cleansing.
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Washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit.
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Works are never the cause of salvation.
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Works are the result of salvation.
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Works come as a result of having been born again, but they don't cause your new birth.
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How is a sinful man made right with a holy God? Well, yes, by faith alone, but I want to outline a little more.
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How is a sinful man made right with a holy God? Well, first, his sin must be punished.
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If I'm a sinner and God is holy, and He is just, and He is righteous, He must punish my sin.
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In the same way that if a rapist stood before a judge, and the judge simply forgave him, knowing he was a rapist, all the evidence in the world proved to him being a rapist, and the judge set him free, what would we say about that judge? He's an unrighteous judge.
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He should be off the bench.
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So if God looked at me, a sinner, and who deserved punishment, and He said, you get to go free, God would be unjust.
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So what does God do? He takes the punishment I deserve, and He applies it to a substitute.
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That's Christ.
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The Bible says God made Him who knew no sin to become sin for us.
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That we could become the righteousness of God in Him.
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Substitutionary atonement.
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What we call double imputation.
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Imputation being the charging to an account.
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God takes the sin that is in my account, He charges it to Christ.
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He takes the righteousness that's in Christ's account, He charges it to me.
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That's the gospel.
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That's the simple way that an unholy man can be made right with a holy God.
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His sin must be punished.
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And all that happened at the cross.
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But there is an event in our life which takes place in time.
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You see, all my sin was punished at the cross, but there is a moment in time where I move from a dead and sinned man to a man who is alive in Christ.
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And that moment is called regeneration.
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Being born again.
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Regeneration is the act whereby God removes the heart of stone, and He replaces it with a heart of flesh.
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Apart from regeneration, hear this, write it down if you need to remember it.
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Apart from regeneration, you would never exercise saving faith.
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Regeneration is what enables you to believe.
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It is not the result of your belief.
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That is an important principle in Scripture.
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John 6.44, Jesus says, no one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day.
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And then in John 6.65, He says almost the exact same thing.
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He says, no one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me grants it to him.
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God does a work in our hearts.
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The ability to come to Christ is a work of God.
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2 Timothy 2.24 The Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome, but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness, because God may perhaps grant them repentance which leads to eternal life and a knowledge of the truth.
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Why is it when I share the Gospel with someone who hates the truth, why is it that I'm gentle and loving with them? Because God may grant that person repentance.
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I don't slam their head in the concrete and stomp on them with my theological boots.
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I say, brother, friend, I love you, and I'm praying that God will overcome your stubborn heart and give you faith.
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Because faith doesn't come from us.
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Faith is a gift from God.
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In fact, Romans 8 tells us those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
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Quick question.
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Does faith please God? Yes.
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The answer is yes.
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Does faith please God? Yes.
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If faith pleases God, is it something that people can do who are in the flesh? No.
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No, because Romans 8 tells us those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
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It's a work of the Spirit, folks.
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This is why Jesus said in John 3, the Spirit blows where He wills.
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It's a work of God's Spirit that you believe.
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This is the work of God that you believe in Him who He sent.
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This is God's work, not yours.
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That's what being Reformed is all about, by the way.
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Not that I want to change and chase a rabbit because we'll be here all day.
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But really the difference between Reformed theology and Arminian theology is that we believe that salvation begins and ends with God.
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Salvation is of the Lord.
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We participate passively.
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God is the active agent in my salvation.
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He draws me.
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He saves me.
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He's the one doing the work, not me.
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So that's the point that I want to make about baptismal regeneration.
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If regeneration precedes faith, and when I say that, I mean logically, not practically.
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It logically precedes faith in that it causes it.
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I'm not saying you can be regenerate and six months later you come to faith.
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No.
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What I'm saying is regeneration produces faith as a natural result.
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Regeneration causes faith.
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And it's a same time thing, but logically one happens before the other.
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Here's the deal.
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And I want to speak now, I understand that some of us come from different backgrounds and baptism can be an issue when we're talking about infant baptism and believer's baptism.
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But we practice believer's baptism.
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Believer's baptism, you have to want to do that, right? So it's an act of faith.
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Right? If regeneration precedes faith, and baptism comes after faith, baptism can't be the cause of regeneration.
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There's my argument.
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There's my logical argument.
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If regeneration precedes faith, and faith is necessary for somebody to want to be baptized, then regeneration cannot be caused by baptism.
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Now you can go to lunch.
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I'm not done.
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But that really is my argument.
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That is it.
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Regeneration is a work of God where He sovereignly opened your heart to believe and as a result of your faith you want to be baptized.
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You want to demonstrate your faith.
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You want to receive the sign of entrance into the covenant.
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You want all of these things.
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It's your desire.
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Which I understand could be desired by a lost person.
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There are people lost who desire to be baptized.
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So I'm not saying that every person who wants to be baptized is saved.
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I want to clear that up.
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Lost people desire...
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There's all kinds of reasons people might want to be baptized.
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Some people just want to be part of a community, man.
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They're not saved, but they want to be part of something.
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Some people are baptized because their parents really push them into it.
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Some children are baptized because their parents push them.
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That's why I'm very careful when you bring me little Johnny and you say, you know, there's no real little Johnnies in here.
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I don't want to make sure I'm hurting anybody's feelings.
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You bring me little Johnny and you say, little Johnny's ready to be baptized.
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And little Johnny doesn't know what sin is.
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He doesn't understand the requirements of the gospel.
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He doesn't understand what it means to follow after Christ.
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We're going to be very careful baptizing little Johnny.
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Because baptism is serious business.
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I was baptized before I was saved the first time.
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Eight years old I was baptized because I saw other people doing it and I thought it looked like what I was supposed to do.
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So I did it.
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And guess what? All it meant was that day I got wet.
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I was baptized at 12 years old again because my mother at the time was part of the Pentecostal church and they believed that 12 year olds reach an age of accountability and that the 12 year old is the mark.
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And so I was baptized at 12 years old because Mama said if I didn't I was going to go to hell.
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That's motivation.
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That's very serious.
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Motivation to get in the water.
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But neither of them were motivated by faith.
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In fact, I was genuinely converted at 19 years old by a work of God's grace.
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I was converted and I didn't get baptized for a while because I didn't realize that my baptism was on the wrong side of my conversion and I waited a while.
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In fact, Brother Jim is the one who baptized me.
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The guy who plays the guitar with the big nice beard who outshines the Duck Dynasty.
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I'm just going to tell you.
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I'm sorry.
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Now I'm embarrassing.
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But because I fell under conviction after going to seminary and learning that my baptism was on the wrong side of my salvation and I was under such conviction that I asked my friend to baptize me.
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He did and we did it together at a youth camp.
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But I tell that story simply to say this.
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Yes, can an unsaved person be baptized? For sure.
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Unsaved people can desire baptism.
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But when you tell me that baptism causes your salvation, it brings about your regeneration, my argument to you is this.
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The only people whose baptism have been genuine are people who come by way of faith.
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And faith is a result, not a cause of regeneration.
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So that's my argument.
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I hope that that's been helpful to you.
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Now I want to finish by simply looking at Acts 2.38 because that's the argument passage.
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That's the passage everyone looks at.
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And if I don't address it, then somebody's going to send me an email.
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So I might as well go ahead and finish by addressing the argument.
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I've taught on this before over the years.
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This is my tenth year here.
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I've taught on this before and I have put videos online.
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A lot of ugliness comes.
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Well, you didn't answer this question.
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You didn't answer that question.
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So allow me at least to make a point.
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We would argue, by the way, before we get to Acts 2.38, let me say this.
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What do we believe baptism is? I want to read to you from the London Confession, 1689, because I think that it expresses how we would teach what baptism is and its purpose.
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So just hear this now.
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London Baptist Confession, chapter 29, verse 1.
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Baptism is an ordinance of the New Testament ordained by Jesus Christ to be to the one who is baptized a sign of His fellowship with Christ in His death and resurrection, of His being engrafted into Christ, of remission of sins, and of that person's giving up of himself to God through Jesus Christ to live and walk in a newness of life.
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It is a sign of those things.
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It's not actually those things.
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That's what we would teach, and that's what I believe the Bible teaches.
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Because if it actually does those things, think about what is the extension of that.
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If baptism actually saves you and it is required to wash away your sins, does that mean that a person who believes in Jesus Christ, trusts on Him for salvation, repents of his sins, and dies prior to his baptism, would he then be saved or lost? Now, I have heard it both ways.
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I've heard somebody say, well, it was obviously God, you know, didn't have it in His plan to save him, so He died before His baptism.
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He's not saved.
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The Roman Catholics actually have a different teaching.
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It's baptism by desire.
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If you desire baptism but happen to die, you know, you get hit by a truck on your way to the baptistry or whatever, they say the desire for baptism in itself fulfills the need.
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So at least they have somewhat of an answer for that.
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And a lot of people ask, well, what about the thief on the cross? And you might mention that to me later.
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And that is a good example, but they won't accept that example because they will say that was prior to Pentecost, that was prior to Acts 2.38, so it doesn't count.
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I'm just saying, this is the argument.
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I've been around this for a long time.
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But let's just look at Acts 2.38.
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And Peter said to them, Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
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What is the preceding of this? What has happened? Well, in Acts 2, the apostles are preaching the gospel.
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The apostles have received the gift, the miraculous gift, whereby they can now express the gospel in different languages so people of different languages can hear what they are saying.
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That's the gift of tongues, by the way.
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There's a miraculous thing happening.
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These men, some of them think they're drunk because they see all these people talking in different languages.
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You guys must be drunk.
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Peter says, no, it's not even 9 a.m.
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And even drunks don't get drunk before 9 a.m.
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apparently, so we know we're not drunk.
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But, this is what it means.
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This is a fulfillment of the prophecy of Joel.
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This is a promise of God.
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The gospel has come to all nations, all languages, all people.
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And He preaches the gospel to them.
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And then we get to verse 37, Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart.
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Their hearts were cut.
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Just pointing that out.
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Something happened.
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And they said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, Brothers, what shall we do? What now? Let me tell you something.
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I just want to say this.
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If a person came to me today and said your message about the gospel cut me to the heart.
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I know I'm a sinner.
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I need to know what to do.
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I would say repent.
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I would say and then we need to baptize you.
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As a sign of your confession.
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Yeah.
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So I would say it basically how Peter is saying it.
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Now, they get caught up in the use of language because he says for the forgiveness of sins and he says in the name of Jesus Christ.
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They get caught up in that.
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But just know that from the basic principle, the same thing Peter says, the same thing we'd say.
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Repent of your sins, trust in Jesus Christ, and be baptized.
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But know this.
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Know how those operate.
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Your desire to come is a desire that God is already working on your heart.
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Your faith to come is a picture of the fact that you've already been regenerate.
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Now you show that through baptism.
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You don't receive it through baptism.
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But anyhow, the key to understanding Acts 2.38, I believe, comes in the word for.
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Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins.
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Now the argument from the those who teach baptism and regeneration is the word for means in order to receive.
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It is a preposition.
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E-I-S.
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In the Greek ace is how it would be pronounced.
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And the preposition has up to eight different nuances of meaning.
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They argue that it can only be understood one way and that is in order to...
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So this is how they would translate it.
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Repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of sins in order to receive.
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I'm sorry.
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Repent and be baptized in order to receive the forgiveness of sins.
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That's how they would understand.
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And that's how they understand the word for.
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Ace being the preposition.
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So how would I respond to that? Well, I would say, okay, if that's the argument that you're going to make, let me make a counter argument.
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The preposition ace, and this, don't go to sleep on me now.
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You want the answer, right? Well, don't conk out on me just yet.
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I promise.
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I don't mean to take you through the drudgery of the minutiae.
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This is important stuff because somebody may want to address this and at least you need to know how I would respond, how you might could respond.
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The preposition ace can mean in order to, it can also mean because of.
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I'll give you an example, probably the best example I've heard.
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If you saw a sign with my picture on it and it said, Keith Foskey wanted for murder.
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Would you assume that that meant Keith Foskey is wanted in order to commit murder or Keith Foskey wanted because he has committed murder? Now, you know how to, you know what it means, right? Same preposition can be understood in order to or because of.
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So now if I say repent and be baptized because of the forgiveness of sins, does that change at all? I would say it does.
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Now, let's say you want to take the issue and you want to press it further.
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You want to say, no, I really believe that this preposition means in order to.
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Well, now I'm going to really kind of throw something at you because in the Greek, the word repent and the phrase the forgiveness of sins are both in the second person plural.
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But the word for be baptized is actually in the third person singular.
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So it could be translated like this.
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Repent all of you for the forgiveness of sins and be baptized.
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Each one of you.
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Now, am I trying to just mess around with your heads with a bunch of language? No, I'm saying that they are saying that it has to be this.
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It has to be that you're baptized in order to receive the forgiveness of sins.
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I'm telling you, I don't believe that that's what this is saying and I don't believe that that interpretation of what Peter is saying agrees with the rest of Scripture.
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So ultimately, I'm telling you that what Peter means here cannot mean what they're saying it means because then he would be essentially eliminating the argument that we are saved by grace through faith and not of works.
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We know that the Bible does not contradict itself.
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We know Scripture clearly teaches that salvation is not of works.
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And if someone adds a work, no matter how noble, no matter how seemingly biblical, as a causal factor in our salvation, we have a problem.
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So we examine the text and we use all of the Bible when we examine the text to see does this agree with what God has said in His Word.
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Now, as I conclude, I want to conclude with one final thought.
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One of the best arguments against baptismal regeneration I've ever heard comes from Chris Arnzen.
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Chris Arnzen is my friend.
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He is the host of Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio program I've been interviewed on a few times.
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He's a great man of God, sweet man.
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And he and I talked about this because he's interviewed men from the Restoration Movement in the past and he said this and I thought it was the most thoughtful thing I'd ever heard on the subject and I want to end with this.
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He said, baptismal regeneration is the only system which calls itself Christian, which teaches that a person can genuinely believe in Jesus, can truly repent of his sins, can actually love God and still die and go to hell.
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That to me is enough to say it's a modern Judaism.
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Let's pray.
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Father, I thank You for Your Word.
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I hope that, Lord, You will use this to further our instruction, to give us, to whet our appetites, Lord, for a further study of this particular issue that we would understand, Lord, that though You call us to obedience, our obedience is not the cause of our salvation, Lord, but the obedience of Christ.
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And when we stand before You, Lord, when we stand, we will stand not on our own merits, but we will stand on the merits of Jesus Christ alone.
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Father, I pray that as we leave this place, that we will take away the one thing that's most important, and that's the true understanding of the Gospel, that we are saved by grace through faith in Christ alone.
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Thank You, Lord, for that promised salvation.
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In Jesus' name we pray.
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Amen.