240114 - Adult Sunday School - An Orthodox Catechism (Baptism)

Silicon Valley Reformed Baptist Church

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Okay, so we're going to continue our, if anybody remembers, our impromptu exposition of the orthodox catechism.

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So if you want to look that up on your phone, it's called unorthodox catechism, un -A -N, like A -N, yeah, not unorthodox, but an -orthodox catechism.

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So just give me a moment while I get this up and then we'll sing in a second. All right, let me go ahead and sing and then we'll pray.

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All right, let's do number 35, immortal, invisible.

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Please stand when you have number 35. 35? Yes, 35. All right.

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Immortal, invisible, God only, wise, enlightened, accessible, hid from our eyes, most blessed, most glorious, the ancient of days, almighty, victorious, thy great name we praise.

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Unresting, unhasting, and silent as light, nor wanting, nor wasting, thou rulest in might.

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Thy justice like mountains, high soaring above, thy clouds which are fountains of goodness and love.

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Great father of glory, pure father of light, thine angels adore thee, all veiling their sight.

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All praise we would render, oh help us to see, tis only the splendor of thine height at thee.

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Dear heavenly father, we thank you for your goodness and kindness to us. We pray that you would bless our studies through what saints have said in ages past as they read your word, and I pray that the same spirit that led them would lead us as well in Jesus' name, amen.

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All right, so as I briefly mentioned a second ago, Brian has a flight back here from North Carolina that's been delayed, so I was preparing last minute the sermon and totally forgot about Sunday school, but we have been, each time this happens,

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I've just continued in an exposition through unorthodox catechism by Hercules Collins, so we'll just continue that again.

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Who remembers what an orthodox catechism is, specifically this document called an orthodox catechism?

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Okay, so the Baptist confession is a Baptist version of, sorry, the Baptist catechism is a

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Baptist version of which catechism? Westminster? More, there's more to that.

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Shorter. Westminster shorter, the Westminster shorter catechism. An orthodox catechism is the

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Baptist version of the Heidelberg catechism used by Dutch Reformed churches, so this was written by Hercules Collins around the same time the

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Baptist catechism was written. It is just as good, it's, but they're addressing different things in different manners, so let's continue here.

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All right, we are on question number 69, which is what is baptism? So it fits with the other

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Sunday schools you've had recently. Immersion or dipping of the person in water in the name of the

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Father, Son, and Holy Ghost by such who are duly qualified by Christ. So there's several things there.

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First, it is immersion. That is, that is what baptism is. That's what the word means, immersion, baptizo, means to immerse.

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There's not too long ago I taught a Sunday school here on immersion being essential to baptism, because one question that comes up, especially as you read our confession, our confession says that it is, that it is not proper to baptize in any way other than in dipping or immersion.

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But the question that comes up is, well, what does proper mean? Does that mean that it is illegitimate to do otherwise, or does it mean it's just bad form to do otherwise, but it still would be a legitimate baptism?

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As you go and you look at the primary authors of the confession, you see that all of them regard immersion as essential to baptism, that that is what the word means to, you know, if you think of it in English, to say to immerse by sprinkling doesn't make any sense.

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And so they would refer to sprinkling as rantizing, that coming from the

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Greek word rantizo. So baptizo means to immerse, rantizo means to sprinkle.

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And so they wouldn't even acknowledge sprinkling as some kind of form of baptism, because it's not immersion at all. They would call it rantizing rather than baptizing.

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Immersion or dipping of the person in water in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost by such who are duly qualified by Christ.

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But they didn't say upon confession of faith, right? That's going to be the next question.

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Yeah. So, all right, so immersion is what baptism is. It's not baptism if it's not immersion.

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And also, if you think about what, okay, so the importance of a sign is it's supposed to signify something, right?

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And there's some relation between the sign and the thing signified. And a lot of people are satisfied with sprinkling because they see mentions of washing in the context of baptism.

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And so, well, it sufficiently represents washing, even if many Presbyterians, many will acknowledge that the way it was originally done was immersion.

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And if you look throughout the history of Pato Baptists who sprinkle, they will acknowledge that the early church practiced immersion, but they will say that immersion is not necessary for it to be a true baptism and sprinkling does just fine.

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However, if you consider all the things the Bible says that it represents and the primary things it's supposed to represent, it represents a participation with Christ and his death, burial, and resurrection, right?

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We were baptized into his death. And so, how is that represented by a sprinkling, right?

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You see tie -ins with the images of Moses and the

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Israelites being immersed. You know, 1 Corinthians 10 speaks of that being a baptism. The flood, it describes as a baptism.

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You know, these situations where people are immersed into something and through judgment, you know, through death, having buried them, they come out with life.

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If that is what baptism is supposed to symbolize, sprinkling is not sufficient.

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It doesn't represent that at all. So, it might represent some aspects of our salvation like a washing, but it doesn't represent the primary aspects of what baptism is supposed to represent according to Scripture, which is that death, burial, and resurrection, that participation with Christ in that and being brought to new life.

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So, and then it says, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. So, you're familiar with this statement from Matthew 28, where Jesus says to baptize in the name of the

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Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. There are oneness

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Pentecostals, if you're familiar with them, they deny that, or they claim that the

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Son is the Father and the Spirit, and that these are all different external manifestations of one person, that they're not actually distinct persons.

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Yes, yeah, that's also known as modalism, right? And they will claim that you need to baptize in the name of Jesus, because as you look throughout

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Acts, that's how it almost always refers to it, says they baptized in Jesus' name. Now, to appeal to the authority of Jesus in baptism is certainly what one should do.

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There's no reason to take those statements and acts as specifying the verbal formula that is to be used.

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But even beyond that, I would argue that, and many Baptists have said this also, that what this means still when it says in the name of the

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Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, it's not, while we should use that as the verbal formula, anyone who is baptized with the

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Trinitarian understanding by a church that has, you know, that Trinitarian understanding, and they're appealing to the Triune God, whether or not that exact phrase is used is not of the essence.

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Rather, it's important that the baptism be, one, done in the name of the

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Trinity, whether explicitly or not. And you can see this in Jesus' baptism.

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It's debated whether or not he has the same baptism as us, basically whether or not the baptism that Jesus performed is the same as the one

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John performed, and who performed the baptism on him, John did. I would argue that they are the same baptism, and the whole point is him joining, having union with us in the same baptism.

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And did John the Baptist use that Triune formula? Did he say in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, I baptize you?

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He didn't. So I don't believe it is necessary to utter those specific words, although it is certainly good for us to be clear and explicit in that way.

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But when it is necessary to baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, that's not about some kind of magic behind the words themselves.

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Rather, it's the power of the Triune God who gave this ordinance. And it says, by such who are duly qualified by Christ.

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So, there are people who are qualified by Christ to baptize. In the

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Westminster Confession, it says that only ordained elders are capable of baptizing.

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However, the Baptist confession says that it's all those who are called by the church thereunto who are qualified to do it.

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So, it's not saying specifically just those who are ministers, lawfully ordained ministers.

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Now, what that's referring to, if you go ahead and you look in your hymnal on page, let's see, it's probably going to be 684.

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Yes, yeah, page 684 .11 there talks about preaching.

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It says, although it be incumbent on the bishops or pastors of the churches to be instant in preaching the word by way of office, yet the work of preaching the word is not so peculiarly confined to them, but that others also gifted and fitted by the

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Holy Spirit for it and approved and called by the church may and ought to perform it.

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All right. So, in Presbyterian view, unless you're a lawfully ordained minister, you should not be preaching.

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The Baptist confession acknowledges that preaching extends to more than that, but still that they should be called by the church and approved by the church.

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Just as a note, our church does not currently in its constitution have any way of doing that.

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I would like to see us implement that at some point. Right now, you know, it's just people working with the pastors to try out their gift to preach, but ideally

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I would like us to have some mechanism to do what it describes there as the church affirming someone is being gifted and called to that.

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And so, when it says that, and then later in chapter 28 .2,

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which is on the very next page, it says, these holy appointments are to be administered by those only who are qualified and daring to call according to the commission of Christ.

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What it's doing is basically calling back to 2611. It's talking about those who have been called by the church and are gifted to preach the word because the thing signified requires a gifted proclaimer of it in order for it to have meaning.

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You know, you can't just dunk someone underwater and call that a baptism. It has to be married to the word that is expressing this gospel.

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So, yeah, going back all the way to the first Baptist catechism. So, let me go back and explain this history.

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So, the first Baptist confession basically said that any church member could perform a baptism. The Westminster confession coming after that says that it's only specifically lawfully ordained ministers.

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And then the second London Baptist confession picks some middle ground and says, well, they don't have to be a lawfully ordained minister, but they do have to be capable of proclaiming the word.

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So, question number 70. Who are the proper subjects of this ordinance?

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The answer is those who do actually profess repentance toward God, faith in, and obedience to our

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Lord Jesus Christ. So, yes, this is particularly those who believe, those who have a credible profession of faith, not infants.

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You see in scripture every time it talks about a whole household being baptized, which is where Presbyterians get the idea that infants should be baptized.

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It also speaks of the whole house believing. And so, the scope of belief in those passages is identical to the scope of baptism.

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Whether or not that includes infants can be determined by whether or not the infant is capable of believing.

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And presumably, you know, apart from some special work of God, like we see in John the Baptist and Luke 1, it's to be assumed that they wouldn't until they are able to understand the word.

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Now, paedo -baptism is very complicated because it's something that's been around for a long time, and it has been variably justified by different groups.

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So, my main interactions are with Presbyterians, but their justification for paedo -baptism is not the same as in many other paedo -baptist groups.

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If it's not clear, paedo -baptism meaning baptism of infants. So, yeah,

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Lutherans would have a different reason. Roman Catholics would have a different reason. Presbyterians, it has to do with their status in the covenant.

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They believe that they are included in some new covenant status. Feel free to ask any questions.

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When you said it is, so that's the covenant status when it says you and your families, right?

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Okay. Right. Yeah, they believe that, right, that entails family. So, next, yeah, next two, when it says this promise is for you and for your children and for those of far off,

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I don't know how they divorce the children from the far off. It's usually when

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Presbyterians quote that verse, they don't quote the whole verse. They only quote the first half, but it seems pretty clear that this gospel is for people in both later times and other spaces.

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You know, that's what it's talking about there. It's not talking about that your children are automatically included.

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And if they are automatically included, what exactly is the promise? Because it's a conditional promise that's dependent on them having faith.

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But is that not the promise that all have, even those who are not children of believers, that if they have faith in Christ, they'll be saved.

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So, I think there's very little to distinguish what benefit the child in the covenant is receiving versus the child outside the covenant, unless you want to just argue for, you know, some exposure to the gospel, et cetera, which

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Baptists also acknowledge that, you know, that they have that, but that's not by virtue of covenant status.

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Question 71, should infants too be baptized? Answer, no, for we have neither precept nor example for that practice in all the book of God.

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And the Baptist catechism adds, or any necessary consequence that would lead to that.

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So, it's not just that, and we'll get this charge from Presbyterians a lot that we're Biblicists.

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So, you'll know what a Biblicist is. A Biblicist is someone who only accepts the direct statements of scripture and doesn't accept its logical implications.

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But that's not the case. We believe that it's not a necessary consequence of scripture either, that infants be baptized.

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They would say, well, if you were willing to pursue those logical consequences, you would recognize that their status in the covenant means that they have this sign applied to them since they're in the covenant.

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But yeah, that's usually the part that they're assuming that we would agree that they're in the covenant, which we don't. So, the logical consequence just isn't there.

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Certainly, that's the case with some groups like Roman Catholics. I don't believe that a

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Presbyterian would necessarily use the word confer to describe some kind of sacerdotal thing whereby the child is receiving grace in that particular way apart from faith.

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They would probably have a different way of expressing it. But yeah, they do believe it represents their status within the covenant, and there are benefits to that baptism, whatever they may be.

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In a child growing up in a Presbyterian church, so they would not get baptized if they had a confession?

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Right. Yeah, their baptism as an infant would be sufficient. And in most Presbyterian churches,

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I think this is most Presbyterian churches, they would accept any triune baptism, even from false churches. So, like, for example, a

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Roman Catholic baptism, if you had been baptized in a Roman Catholic church, they would, in most Presbyterian churches, they would accept that, that they wouldn't baptize you again.

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Yeah. And so, I find that, I understand why they say that, because, you know, it really has to do with these formalities of the covenant, and if you have a triune baptism.

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But if it's not a true church, they don't have the authority to perform these things. And yeah,

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I wouldn't accept a baptism from a false church. No, no. If you haven't gotten baptized.

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And walks into a

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Presbyterian church, would they get sprinkled? Yes. As an adult? Yes, I believe so.

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Yeah. And it's interesting, in Roman Catholicism, you have the option, they do both. Like, I visited the

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Roman Catholic church over at, somewhere on Lawrence, just to check out what happens there.

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And not during the worship service, I wouldn't have attended that, but just to see the building.

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And they have a, their baptistry is this, like, kind of circular pit, where they can, you know, hold an impet and sprinkle it, or you could, you know, duck down and be baptized.

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So it's, so yeah, they do, they do both. It's not just sprinkling, but in Presbyterian church, I think it's usually just sprinkling.

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In fact, I have, I have Presbyterian friends who have shared articles about someone being baptized at sea and got swept away by a riptide.

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They say, this is why credo baptism is evil, because it leads to death. I should have just done what was allowed, and just sprinkled.

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It's crazy. Did I answer your question?

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Sorry. Yes, you did.

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Okay. Yeah, you said that you would answer. Right. All right. Okay.

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Question 72. Does the scriptures forbid the baptism of infants? Answer.

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It is sufficient that the divine oracles, that meaning scripture, commands the baptizing of believers, unless we will make ourselves wiser than what is written.

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Nadab and Abihu were not forbidden to offer strange fire, yet for doing so, they incurred

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God's wrath, because they were commanded to take fire from the altar. So, what's being made here is an argument from the regulative principle of worship.

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The regulative principle of worship claims that we should not worship God in any way other than he has commanded.

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We should not add to any of his ceremonies. And the example that's typically given and given here is that of Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, who offered strange fire to the

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Lord. Basically, they, either in the ingredients of the incense used or whatever the case may be, they went outside of what

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God had commanded, and because of that, they were destroyed. And they were killed by God's wrath.

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So, if that's the case, if we shouldn't worship God in a way other than he has commanded, why would we add to scripture and have some new way of worshiping him in this way?

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And I believe that this applies to baby dedications as well. You know, you see a lot of, at a lot of Baptist churches, they won't baptize infants, but they'll have almost all the same formality and ceremony, even in the context of a worship service, just without the water.

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And really, you're coming across the same issue here, where you're offering strange fire. Now, it's totally right for people to pray for a new infant and to, you know, even, you know, with laying hands on the family and blessing them, but as an element of a worship service, you are adding to the worship of God, and this is more than just the standard prayers that God has commanded.

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It is, you're making a new ceremony out of it. So, yeah, this is something that invades even

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Baptist circles, in my opinion. Right, yes, yeah,

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God declares what is holy for worship, and we're not allowed to add to that, and so adding to ceremonies, you know, having fat flag twirlers in the service is, you know, one more extreme example, but there's all kinds of things that people do that violate the regulative principle.

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You know, for example, we used to have, just as one example of how we've kind of tried to refine our practice, we used to have the testimonies given during the service.

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Now, we have them before during the announcements, right, because testimonies are not a part of religious worship.

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It made sense at the time to put them there, because as far as the convenience, but in thinking about the order of worship being particularly for worship, and nothing that God has not commanded as part of worship, you know, it shouldn't, something like testimonies belong outside of the service itself.

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This is also why we do the announcements before the service and not in the middle after the second hymn like a lot of churches will do, right, so there's a lot of, there's a lot of small ways that worship is not preserved where it really should be.

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I'm not saying we do this perfectly. There's still a lot of things where, yeah, it just always requires, you know, reformation and deep thought about what

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God has commanded and what he hasn't. Yes, no, right, right, right, so we signify it with the call to worship and then the benediction at the end, right, a statement from God's Word that we're about to begin worship and the statement from God's Word that you're blessed and et cetera, and now that's how we signify, but what spiritually is going on as Hebrews 12 describes is there's an assembly that is occurring that goes beyond us.

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Even the angels and the saints who have passed, there's a sense in which we are spiritually united as we gather particularly for worship.

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So, yeah, there's something profound that is happening on these occasions where we gather for worship, and we have the authority to conduct that and essentially, hopefully this is an okay word, you know, invoke that special presence of God in the heavenly assembly, and it is that that must be preserved.

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So, in Matthew 16, it talks about the keys of the kingdom that are used to loose and bind, then

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Matthew 18, it talks about those keys of the kingdom loosing and binding, and it says, wherever two or three are gathered, there I am with you.

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So, it is particularly when we're gathered that we have that authority to worship God and bring him holy worship in a way that we just don't have the same authority, we don't have that same presence of God apart from that.

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So, for example, churches that during the pandemic told people, you know, grab some crackers and juice out of your refrigerator, we're going to celebrate the

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Lord's Supper over a live stream, without that gathered presence, they don't have the authority to invoke

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God's presence. And yeah, it doesn't matter how many ways you try to fix it, you know,

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I knew one pastor who tried to, or who would actually deliver the bread beforehand, so it was actually the same bread, that's an improvement, but if you're not gathered, and then

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I knew a lot of churches that also did RSVP systems, because they had limits on the building, and so, you know, some fraction of their church that is gathered, rather than everyone actually being invited,

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I would argue that even in that context, they don't have the presence of Christ, because they've not invited the whole assembly that would have the authority to be able to conduct things like excommunication or baptism as it describes in Matthew 18, that same passage that I mentioned where it says wherever two or three are gathered.

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You know, if you wouldn't have an RSVP, where only 10 out of your 100 person church get to come to excommunicate, then yeah, it doesn't count for baptism or anything else.

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Yeah, there's a relationship between God and his people that exists in a perverted way, even between false gods and their people, right, and that's clear in the understanding of scripture, that the people of a

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God worship that God, and that God blesses that people, and there's something special when that happens in the highest acts of worship, and this is the highest act of worship that we have, and so if we are to be blessed by the ministry of the word and the

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Lord's Supper and all the other things that he has given to bless us, it's a two -way relationship, not that he is, you know, on our own merits granting us anything, but he has determined, he has ordained that we should come to him in this particular way, and that we receive of him primarily in this particular way, where that special presence is, and this is also why the church is called the temple.

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Because it is where God dwells, not just us individually as believers, the Holy Spirit dwelling within us, which is one thing scripture calls a temple, but it also calls the gathered assembly a temple, because there's an additional special presence of God when we are gathered, particularly in worship.

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May not, this is question 73, may not the infant children of believers under the gospel be baptized since the infant descendants of Abraham were circumcised under the law?

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So you see, there's a, in the old covenant, children were included, they received the sign of the covenant, and the new covenant, shouldn't children be included and receive the sign of the covenant?

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The answer is no. Abraham had a command from God to circumcise his infant descendants, but believers have no command to baptize their infant children under the gospel.

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So this is, uh, let's see, I'm not sure if it's going to get into it, but this question is avoiding the concern about whether or not the old covenant and the new covenant are one in substance, because that's what

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Presbyterians are typically defending, that they are one in substance. So if if infants were included in the old, then certainly they're included in the new, because these are actually the same covenant, just with different administrations.

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This is avoiding trying to answer that question, but it is saying that there's no such command in the old testament, and for the old covenant, or there's, sorry, there is such a command in the old covenant that the infants be circumcised.

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There's no command of this in the new. All right, question 74.

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If the infant children of believers are in the covenant of grace with their parents, as some say, now this is going to get into that question, why may they not be baptized under the gospel as well as Abraham's infant descendants, as well as Abraham's infant descendants were circumcised under the law?

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By the infant children of believers being in the covenant of grace, it must either be meant of the covenant of grace absolutely considered, and if so, there can be no total and final falling away of any infant children of believers from the covenant, but all must be saved.

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So if you consider what the Bible says about the new covenant, that the sheep that have been given to Christ, he does not lose from his hand, that's

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John 10, 28, and these are the proof texts that are mentioned here, and then you have the promise in Jeremiah that their sins would be remembered no more in the new covenant, which is repeated in Hebrews 8.

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One of the things that is promised in the new covenant is the inability to depart from the new covenant.

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Now, what is presumed by paedo -baptists who would make this argument about children's belonging to the covenant of grace is that they could actually leave the new covenant, whereas the

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Bible says they cannot leave the new covenant. Now, the Presbyterian looking at Hebrews 8 will typically say that this is not something that is yet true of the new covenant, it will be in glory, but right now it's not yet true.

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If I were to do, if I were to organize a debate on baptism, I would like to at some point, this would be the question on hand is, does

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Hebrews 8, has Hebrews 8 been fulfilled? Has Jeremiah 31 been fulfilled as declared by Hebrews 8, or does this have yet to be fulfilled?

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So, let me go ahead and show you that, and I think the reason why

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I would pick that is, for one, people have argued baptism every which way on other topics, and they're usually going to the express proof texts, but if we're really going to talk about it in terms of how the covenant functions,

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I think this is really, this is really the key passage. All right, so let's start in verse 6,

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Hebrews 8, 6. But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is more excellent than the old, as the covenant he mediates is better.

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So, first of all, this is a better covenant. I do not believe it can be said that this is the same covenant or one in substance, this is a different covenant.

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Since it is enacted on better promises, better promises, okay, so different, different promises, not the same promises.

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For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second. For he finds fault with them when he says, so it's not the old covenant that itself was, had fault, it was the people, so it needs improvement, not because of its own lacking, but because of the people's lacking.

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For he finds fault with them when he says, behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, this is Jeremiah 31, when

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I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when

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I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, for they did not continue in my covenant, and I showed them no concern for,

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I showed no concern for them, declares the Lord. So, the problem with the old covenant is that you can depart from it, is that you can, you can leave it, not continue in it.

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For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord, I will put my laws into their minds and write them on their hearts, and I will be their

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God, and they shall be my people, and they shall not each teach, they shall not teach each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, know the

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Lord, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, for I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.

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And speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete, and what is becoming obsolete is growing old and ready to vanish away, it not having vanished, because this is before 70

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AD, when the temple is destroyed. But at this point, at our point, it has, it has vanished, there's only the new covenant.

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And so, these statements about being merciful toward their iniquities, remembering their sins no more, the idea that a child could be in the covenant, and his sins could be remembered, that he could leave, it just doesn't fit.

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Now, the Presbyterian will look at verse 11 and say, well, they shall not teach each one his neighbor, saying, know the

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Lord, and that's what I'm doing right now in the Sunday school classes, and I'm telling you all to know the Lord better. But I believe this is talking about the fact that in the old covenant, there's just no guarantee that someone is a believer, but in the new covenant, there is.

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Now, the new covenant is not church membership. The new covenant is a spiritual family, a spiritual kingdom, is spiritually ordered, not by, you know, some kind of physical boundaries that we can set up and identify exactly.

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So, I don't think that, I think that's part of the problem is that the Presbyterian is almost always thinking of covenant membership as the same thing as church membership, which it's just not.

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Yes. What's the, is there a question there?

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Right, so circumcision represents the inward circumcision of the heart.

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So, in as much as it is paired with that inward circumcision, that sign is valuable, and the same goes for baptism, right?

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The washing of dirt from the flesh, according to First Peter, doesn't mean anything, right? It's only the appeal to God for good conscience that that represents, and one who truly has that appeal is going to go through the means that God has given them.

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Go ahead. Oh, today?

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Oh, no, no, right, yeah. I was speaking of in the old covenant.

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What was the benefit? Right, no, yes, there is no benefit in the, yeah, in the covenant that we belong.

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It doesn't, yeah, there's no sign that it would be, or there's nothing it would be signifying in particular, other than a return to the law is what it would be in danger of signifying, which is why

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Paul tells Timothy not to be circumcised, and then he tells Titus in Acts 16,

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I think. Am I getting, I might, hopefully I'm not getting the names backwards, but he does tell, he does tell one disciple to get circumcised.

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Let's see. Okay, sorry,

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I got, I did get the names backwards. Yeah, it was Titus that was not circumcised, that he commanded not to be circumcised, because there was no need for it, but then

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Timothy, who is half Jewish, and because the new, the old covenant still stood while the temple stood, and to the

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Jew, be a Jew, you know, making sacrifices, yeah, and that doesn't mean imitating people or trying to be less offensive on all counts.

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Obviously, Paul is very offensive to people, but yeah, for the, for the particular purposes here, it was right for him to get circumcised, but yeah, after 70

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AD, not the same, yeah, not the same thing. All right, there was more to this, this answer in 72, the question about 72.

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Aren't they part of the covenant of grace? Or they must, or they must mean conditionally, so before he said absolutely, so are they absolutely part of the covenant of grace?

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Well, that's a problem, because then you'd be saying they can't leave, and obviously some infants do leave, or conditionally, if conditionally, on consideration that when they come of age and maturity, they by true faith, love, and holiness of life, taking hold of God's covenant of grace, shall have the privileges of it, right?

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And this is, yeah, this promises to your children, i .e., this thing is true if they have faith.

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This being their sense, I then ask what real spiritual privilege the infant children of believers have more than the infant children of unbelievers?

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That was the same point I was making a minute ago. If they live also two years of maturity, and then by true faith and love, take hold of God's covenant.

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I further demand whether the seal of the covenant does not belong as much to the children of unbelievers as to the children of believers, right, if both have that same promise.

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Unbelievers also have the promise that if they have faith, they will be saved. Shouldn't they be baptized too?

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And more too, since some infant children of unbelievers take hold of God's covenant, and some infant children of believers do not, as this often occurs to the sorrow of many godly parents.

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Suppose all the infant children of believers are absolutely in the covenant of grace. Believers under the gospel should not baptize their infant children any more than Lot had warrant to circumcise himself or his infant children, although he was closely related to Abraham, a believer, and in the covenant of grace too, since circumcision was limited to Abraham and to his family.

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Also, by the same rule, we should bring infants to the Lord's table, since the same qualifications are required for the proper administration of baptism as for the

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Lord's Supper. So he's arguing there that consistent paedo -baptism also has paedo -communion.

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If you're not familiar with paedo -communion, that's a very minority position among Presbyterians, and they are usually fairly hostile toward other

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Presbyterians who do paedo -communion, where basically where you let children who aren't capable of examining themselves as 1

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Corinthians 11 says you must do take communion. Yeah, basically, I don't think it's necessarily infant infants.

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Sometimes it is, but, you know, just children who aren't even capable of talking or anything right there.

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Because if you believe that they're part of the covenant, and this is one of the signs of the covenant, it makes sense. And so he's saying that is consistent paedo -baptism.

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Consistent covenant -based paedo -baptism also has paedo -communion. Yeah, it's very interesting to see, because a lot of these

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I think of as modern arguments, but it turns out they were making the same arguments back then. We must know the covenant made with Abraham had two parts.

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So this is important, and one of the main things that makes it difficult to get a good grasp on covenant theology.

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A lot of times people look at the covenant with Abraham. They see the promise of the gospel in it, right?

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Galatians 3 even says the gospel is preached beforehand to Abraham. They say, well, this covenant of circumcision is therefore the covenant of grace.

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It's the covenant that the gospel entails. But what he's arguing here, and what many

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Baptists would argue, is there's actually two covenants made with Abraham, or at least one covenant with two parts, and that is significant to discern, or else you will be very mistaken about how to consider the new covenant.

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First, a spiritual covenant consisted in God's promising to be a god to Abraham and to all his spiritual descendants in a particular manner, whether they were circumcised or uncircumcised, who believed as Abraham, the father of the faithful, did.

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So as Galatians 7, 3, 7 says, who are the true sons of Abraham is those of faith.

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This was signified by God's accepting them as his people who were not descended from Abraham, but through Jesus Christ, the

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Gentiles, the uncircumcised who believe, should have their faith counted for righteousness as Abraham's was before he was circumcised.

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So this is, that's the gospel preached to Abraham, which is not the same thing as the covenant of circumcision.

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And Galatians 4 makes this very clear, there's a child of promise, right, and there's a child of the flesh,

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Ishmael, and they're both circumcised, but one did not truly belong to that spiritual descendancy.

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This was signified by God's accepting them as his people who were not descended from Abraham, but through Jesus Christ.

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I've just read all that. Second, this promise consisted of temporal good. So God promised

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Abraham's seed should enjoy the land of Canaan and have plenty of outward blessing and sealed this promise by circumcision.

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It was also a distinguishing character of the Jews being God's people from all the nations of the

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Gentiles who were not yet the spiritual descendants of Abraham. But when the Gentiles came to believe and by faith became the people of God, as well as the

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Jews, then circumcision, the distinguishing mark, ceased. The character of being the children of God now is faith in Christ and circumcision of the heart.

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Whatever reason may be given for the infants of believers to be baptized first as their children, as being the children of believers, or secondly, their being in the covenant, or thirdly, that the infant descendants of Abraham, a believer, were circumcised, all this you see avails nothing, for circumcision was limited to the family of Abraham and all others, though believers were excluded.

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It was also limited to a particular day, the eighth day, and whatever reason might be given, it was not to be done before or after.

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It was limited to male and did not include female. If baptism came to the place of circumcision, came in the place of circumcision, and is the seal of the covenant under the gospel as circumcision was under the law, none but the males must be baptized because none but males were circumcised.

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Sir, you've probably heard a lot of these arguments. It's interesting to hear someone back in the 1600s making the same arguments.

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But as the law regulated circumcision, now the gospel regulates baptism, and it depends purely upon the will of the lawgiver at what periods of time, upon what persons, in terms, baptism is to be administered.

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We will do well then to heed what is declared in scripture. All right. So, yeah.

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Basically, don't add to scripture. All right. I think we have enough time for the next few questions, which are also about baptism.

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Question 75. How does baptism remind you and assure you that Christ's one sacrifice on the cross is for you personally?

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In this way, Christ instituted this outward washing, and with it gave the promise that as surely as water washes away dirt from the body, so certainly his blood and spirit wash away my souls in purity.

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In other words, all my sins. So, it symbolizes the washing away of sins, and it should be a reminder that Christ's blood washes away sins.

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That is how it is a reminder and assurance, not the thing itself accomplishing that washing away, but symbolizing it.

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What does it mean to be washed with Christ's blood and spirit? To be washed with Christ's blood means that God by grace has forgiven my sins because of Christ's blood poured out for me and his sacrifice on the cross.

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To be washed with Christ's spirit means that the Holy Spirit has renewed me and set me apart to be a member of Christ so that more and more

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I become dead to sin and increasingly live a holy and blameless life. So, entailed in this washing is not only justification being made right with God, but also sanctification becoming more pure and blameless.

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Question 77. Where does Christ promise that we are washed with his blood and spirit as surely as we are washed with the water of baptism?

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In the institution of baptism where he says, therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the

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Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.

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This promise is repeated when scripture calls baptism the washing of rebirth and the washing away of sins.

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All right, so all these different aspects of washing.

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And the next section is going to get into, well, actually, let's do the next section because it's pretty short.

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All right, stop me if you have any questions. I'm going a little bit faster because I still open to questions.

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Does this outward washing with water itself wash away sins? No, only Jesus Christ's blood and the

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Holy Spirit cleanse us from all sins. That's the big mistake that a lot of people, especially in the past, have made is they think that baptism washes away sins, and that's why you baptize your infant so that you can wash away their original sin.

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And if they die in infancy, as many of the kids did a long time ago, they'd be good to go.

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This is where infant baptism likely came from, is high infant mortality rates and the idea that baptism would wash away their sins rather than Christ's blood as symbolized in baptism.

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And you also have a lot of people waiting for deathbed baptisms like Constantine, right, waiting until the last moment to get baptized, so all your sins are washed away, and then you're good to go.

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Why then does the Holy Spirit call baptism the washing of rebirth and the washing away of sins?

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In other words, if it doesn't actually wash away sins like the blood of Christ does. God has a good reason for these words.

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He wants to teach us that the blood and spirit of Christ wash away our sins just as water washes away dirt from our bodies.

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But more important, he wants to assure us by this divine pledge and sign that the washing away of our sins spiritually is as real as physical washing with water.

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So yeah, the blood of Christ washes away our sins as water washes away dirt from our bodies, and it is as real as the spiritual truth is as real as the physical truth about washing, yes.

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Right, so I think there's, okay, there's definitely room for Christians to be mistaken and confused about things.

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I'll start off there. Yes, if your trust is in baptism and in anything more than Jesus Christ, if it's 99 %

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Jesus and 1 % my baptism, that's not good enough. Our faith needs to be entirely in Jesus Christ.

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And the way this is discerned as to whether or not someone is just confused versus really has their trust in something other than Christ is through them being confronted on that.

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For example, for a long time, I thought you could lose your salvation. Now, the implication of that is that your salvation needs to be maintained by you.

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As soon as someone pointed this out to me, you know, I abandoned that belief. But before that,

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I was confused, and I believe I still was completely trusting in Christ, even if my beliefs didn't add up and weren't all consistent.

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So yeah, you look at thinkers in ages past and them being confused, but they're confused at a time where they're not necessarily other people who have the clarity to confront them on these things.

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And so you have to be gracious about that. But yes, you see someone in modern times who, regardless of the confrontation they experience, embrace baptismal regeneration and believe that that is the means by which they're saved, that it's not by grace through faith, but by some work that they have done that they are right in God's eyes.

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That's a different gospel and not one that saves. All right, any other questions?

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All right, well, let's go ahead and pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for this church that Christ has instituted and the ordinances that he has given.

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We pray that you would give us the clarity and the zeal and boldness to uphold them.

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And we also thank you for this providential circumstance that has led us to study baptism in the middle of a series on baptism, though the usual Sunday school teacher is away.

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Pray that you would bless our time spent in worship and that it would be one that blesses you and then also one that blesses us in that secondary sense.

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God, we pray that you would, yeah, that you would give us a great sense of the of your presence in worship and of the solemnity and holiness of that time.