MacArthur vs Sproul Baptism Debate

the following message is a presentation of Ligonier ministries home of the radio program renewing your mind with RC sproule if you have read the material in the program you know that this pre-conference seminar has stimulated a lot of interest because it's on a topic that was so dear to the heart of our Lord and of the Apostles and is such an important topic in the scriptures and so today we have our pre conference seminar born of the water and the spirit there is much disagreement in the church concerning baptism and it says in our program within the reformed and evangelical circles some espoused infant baptism while others oppose it in this seminar dr. MacArthur and dr. Sproul will each present one side of the issue and then this seminar will conclude with a question-and-answer time later this afternoon after our break so you need to be writing down your questions now during the seminar and during both of the presentations and then turn those in at the registration desk and we will go through and try to deal with as many questions as we can with John and with RC a little bit later in the afternoon let's have a word of Prayer together and we'll get right underway our Father we thank you for the hospitality of the people at this church we thank you for the beautiful day that we enjoy and the safety of those who have arrived for this seminar and now we stop and we give you thanks and we acknowledge your presence with us and we say thanks for the opportunity together to talk about such an incredible subject and open our eyes enlighten the eyes of our heart that we may understand your word in your will a little bit better because of being here today we pray in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ we pray and everybody said amen John MacArthur will be our first presenter John is a graduate of Talbot Theological Seminary pastor of Grace Community Church here in the Los Angeles area for the last 27 years president of Masters College and Masters seminary author of numerous books recently editor of the MacArthur Study Bible on the radio every day grace to you for over the last two decades I thought it was interesting I asked John and he was baptized by his father who is Minister when he was about the age of 12 I think all of you are familiar with the Ministry of John MacArthur and we are looking forward to hearing his presentation as we begin this afternoon let's welcome him for our first presentation on our free conference well thank you Paul I had the joy when I came to Grace Community Church in 1969 of having as the only staff member there Paul sail hammer and we served together for many years before he got promoted to the Ministry of Chuck Swindoll and then drove check out of his church and the rest is history it's a joy to be here it's always a tremendous privilege to fellowship with RC and other compatriots of the faith to sit and share a little meal today with Sinclair Ferguson such a noble servant of the Lord and such a formidable advocate for the faith just a real joy to be able to minister to you and also especially I think this kind of discussion it seems to me today that the climate is such that you're just not allowed to disagree with anybody without being considered as divisive and unloving and unkind and shattering the body of Christ and all of this and that's sad because that disallows us to call into question those things that are important and essential to the faith that need to be discussed and I'm grateful for this opportunity I looked around at lunch today and I think I was the only person there who believed in believers baptism so I know why I was selected to do this but I do count the opportunity of privilege I'm glad that a lot of the amenities are over because I do want to use the time most helpfully in this discussion and that means getting at the point trying to say as much as I can in the time that I have obviously many trees have died in this discussion and it is just an immense chore even to try to read the literature that has abounded through the years on this discussion trying to sum it up and condense it down as a challenge and that's what I'm going to try to do in this session obviously related themes about covenants and sacraments could also be brought into the discussion but at some point you've got to get focused and we don't want to go beyond the purview of the immediate discussion with regard to baptism even though those are certainly related themes I also want to start by assuming the evangelical view that baptism does not save by whatever MOU food or manner it is administered and I think we will agree on that all of us will agree on that we're not talking about any regenerating right here it's important for us to understand that this is within the context of our evangelical conviction that salvation is by grace through faith alone apart from works even the work of baptism now with those things aside to sort of launch the subject a little bit of a personal testimony to begin with four years over radio grace to you has internationally aired believers baptisms with the most amazing responses coming from everywhere to my knowledge this has never been done at least not in modern Christian radio and we've had an amazing response to the regular airing of the testimonies of people standing in the waters of baptism also for nearly 20 years we've conducted pastors conferences at our church and through all of those years we have launched every pastors conference with a service of baptism in the opening evening and that - with tremendous blessing as we hear the testimony of those who have come to faith in Jesus Christ being made public in the waters of baptism also in our church every Sunday night of the year we have a baptismal service the Lord is adding to his church daily such as are being saved and we have a full congregation every Sunday night in our church who have come to hear the testimonies of those who are proclaiming their faith in Jesus Christ which is usually followed by the preaching of a biblical exposition by myself so this is a very important part of my life and ministry from top to bottom it serves as a component of ministry which is at the very heart of the declaration of the gospel which is so precious to me the domination I think of the church in recent years by psychology and in more recent years by pragmatism has produced I think a significant disinterest in baptism media ministries which so powerfully define and control evangelical consumerism are void of those ordinances and that's one of the reasons why we've introduced baptism into our radio format because I don't want to be a part of that kind of disinterest it is safe to say I think also that there is presently probably the largest unbaptized population of professing Christians in the history of the church and for most of them it isn't really something they're too concerned about this reality failing to take baptism seriously is also I think likely symptomatic of the independence and unfaithfulness of professing Christians who function autonomously like consumers rather than under church theology and authority and at the same time few things could be more unmistakable than the fact that the command of Scripture is to baptize and be baptized on that we will agree jesus said go into all the world and make disciples baptizing them and on the day of Pentecost Peter said repent and be baptized and we remember that Jesus engaged in a baptism personally then the Apostles followed involving themselves in baptism and of course you know the rest throughout the book of Acts in the New Testament in spite of this command in spite of this mandate in spite of New Testament clarity there is still widespread non-compliance and at the same time a rather strange paradox in that you have a very large population of baptized unregenerate people so if there's anything that needs some clarity I think it's this I would venture to say that a person who claims to be a Christian and has a disregard for baptism has not been baptized would have to fall into one of several categories number one they are ignorant that is they have not been taught or they've been wrongly taught secondly they are proud that is not willing to be humbly obedient to what is clearly a biblical mandate thirdly they are indifferent not considering obedience a priority fourth they are defiant just unwilling to obey our fifth they're not converted at all and therefore they have no desire to publicly demonstrate the significance of baptism in behalf of the honor of Christ surely most of the mass evangelize TV radio stadium converts have been left to themselves without the benefit of guidance and without the benefit of accountability for baptism were a lot of other things under any Church authority but I think that there's no excuse for not following what the New Testament says clearly and I think strikes to the conscience of every believer whether or not they understand Church authority baptism is therefore critical important must be understood and must be practiced it is not a minor matter and thus it commands our attention today I think justifiably it is a major matter it has in the past been even a more major matter where on some occasions people actually engaged in bloodletting over this I'm happy to be discussing this in a much nicer time otherwise it could cost me dearly and cost our seed dearly for even tolerating me I think the time has come however after all these years of history since the Reformation and here I'll show my colors to strip off the tradition and return to the simple New Testament design it's my own conviction that the Reformation is not yet complete and that consideration should force the argument I think to be a scriptural argument I'm really not interested in arguing on any other level than the biblical one and that does present some interesting dilemmas but we're going to attack them nonetheless I don't want to deal with the historical issue since I am convinced that while history certainly plays a role in understanding things history turned against tradition at the Reformation and we're grateful for that and history has to make such turns against what is a wrong tradition in my judgment history needs to re-examine tradition at this point again as well now to sort of summarize and obviously there are a lot of ways you can go but to sort of summarize I want to give you five reasons why I reject infant baptism as biblical baptism five reasons why I reject infant baptism as biblical bap and really these are categories of introduction for you that want to dig in deeper and read the voluminous amount of literature that is available on the subject but I would at least like to formulate the argument or the debate if I may around these five statements number one infant baptism is not in Scripture against this fact there is no clear evidence scripture nowhere advocates commands or records a single infant baptism it is therefore impossible to directly prove or support this right from the Bible Claire maca wrote and I quote all traces of infant baptism which one has asserted to be found in the New Testament must first be inserted there and quote and a host I think of German and front-rank theologian scholars including those of the Church of England have United basically to affirm not only the absence of infant baptism from the New Testament but from apostolic and post apostolic times it first arose and arguably I suppose in the second and third centuries the conclusion for example reached by the Lutheran professor Kurt Allen who has written on this after intensive study of infant baptism is that there is no definite proof of practice until after the third century this he believes cannot be contested the Catholic professor of theology Hegel bakka writes quote the controversy has shown that it is not possible to bring in absolute proof of infant baptism by basing one's argument on the Bible without the help of tradition and even the notable BB Warfield affirmed the absence of infant baptism from the scripture it would be my conviction here though not necessarily at all points that this is a good place that to apply the Calvinistic regulative principle which says if Scripture doesn't command it it is forbidden now that sort of tells you where I'm at given the Sola scriptura commitment of the Reformation given the fact that the Reformation was predicated upon that and given the Bible as the singular and therefore supreme and only authority in the matters of faith we might assume that the discussion was over at this point but in spite of all such testimony infant baptism is still defended and practiced as if biblical but one expects Rome I think to engage in such practices were used to that to defend as divine and essential rights and dogmas not in the Bible they do that they have amassed a Magisterium a tradition as we all know they do so because they believe that the church continues to be the unique recipient of post biblical revelation which carries equal weight with Scripture in fact the Roman Catholic Church not only asserts that it is the ongoing recipient of divine revelation but that it is also the only and infallible interpreter of all revelation biblical and traditional church history in one sense then could be said to be Rome's hermeneutic but it is not the hermeneutic of reformed theology in fact history is no hermeneutic the Bible is not interpreted by history God is not interpreting the Bible by history we would have to ask if that were true which history whose history traditional rites traditional ceremonies traditional doctrines are true not because some Church said they were true not because some council said they were true not because they have been traditionally affirmed as true but because the Scriptures affirm their validity and I believe that only honest hermeneutics in exegesis can yield the meaning of Scripture history again I say is no hermeneutic in reading traditional history back into the scripture is not a little way to interpret it it is also true that scripture nowhere forbids infant baptism that is obviously true since it doesn't discuss it at all it neither affirms it nor forbids it that fact obviously provides no basis for acceptance of or mandate for infant baptism as the ubiquitous ordinance that it has become there are many who would argue that because the Bible doesn't forbid it God somehow condones it but to justify that sprinkling of babies because it is not forbidden in Scripture is therefore the Divine Will is to standardize and imprint with divine authority other ceremonies which are not in the Bible and where does that end and to open the way to any ritual any ceremony or any dogma or any teaching also not forbidden specifically in the scripture not just to the point where you would allow it or tolerate it but where you would standardize it and infuse it with grace and efficacy that's a large leap in my judgment actually it was such traditions concocted beyond the pages of Scripture and without scriptural support and warrant that Luther had in mind when he himself drew the line in the sand and said this and I quote familiar quote the church needs to rid itself of all false glories that torture scripture by inserting personal conceits into the scripture which lend it to their own sense no he said scripture scripture scripture for me constrained press compel me with God's Word in quote now at this point some of you have some scriptures running around in your mind's and you're saying wait a minute MacArthur this is a biblical issue and there are biblical passages that bear upon this and I'm not saying they don't I am simply saying there is no mention of infant baptism in Scripture those who advocate infant baptism want to advocate it from the Word of God and so they use scriptures in which infant Baptists is not mentioned to support it because that's all they have and that is not a criticism that's a fact if it's not there you have to use what's not there to make the point in Matthew chapter 18 we read in verse 3 truly I say to you unless you're converted and become like children you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven whoever then humbles himself as this child he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven whoever receives one such child on the ground of my name receives me and you know the text when some have said well what you have here is evidence that children are in the kingdom I beg to differ with that I think what you have here if you put the Synoptics together and see the scene peter is in capernaum he may well be in his own house there and he has in his lap an infant he picks up a little child because the disciples are debating who's the greatest in the kingdom and the debate has reached a fever pitch we know how serious this debate was because John it even and James had enlisted their mother to go plead for them to be at the right in the left hand in the kingdom and they were all seeking the ascendancy in the prominence and in the middle of that debate as he anticipates of course what the reality is to be in the future they all gather around him he puts a little baby in his lap and says look while you're arguing about who's the greatest let's get to the real issue you're all little children verse 2 says he called a child set him in the midst and said you better become like this if you want to enter the kingdom and then he proceeds to preach a great sermon I think one of the great discourses in Matthew on the child likeness of the believer and in this chapter he is not talking about babies he's talking about childlike believers and that is pretty clear I think all the way through because he refers in verse 6 particularly these little ones who believe in me he's talking about how we treat each other as believers so this is not a scripture that deals with anything to do with actual children and their role in the kingdom but rather using a child as an illustration of the necessity of entering his kingdom as a child would what does that mean with no achievement and no accomplishment having done nothing learn nothing gained nothing accumulated nothing bringing nothing to bear upon that entrance the is simply saying you come the way a child comes and a child has nothing to offer having achieved nothing you come bare and naked with no accomplishment and no achievement and you come totally dependent I think that's the issue that he's talking about offering nothing to commend yourself to God realising your utter bankruptcy it's really a beatitude attitude then you have another passage that's often used in the next chapter of Matthew verse 14 let the children alone do not hinder them from coming to me for the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to such as these some make a strange connection between the word hinder here and the word hinder in the book of Acts chapter 8 where the eunuch is baptized and says what does hinder me you know here's water and they find in this some baptismal formula which is a serious stretch as far as I can tell but the text here says let the children alone don't hinder them from coming to me as you know that's in mark 10 and Luke 18 as well is Jesus saying something here about infant salvation well the answer is no what he is saying I believe is this God cares for children God has a special care for children you never see Jesus gather a bunch of unregenerate adults and bless them that doesn't happen but he does gather these little ones he has a special care for children and not just children of believing parents there's nothing to indicate that these children were children of believing parents or unbelieving parents there's nothing to indicate whether in fact there might have been a few Gentile children of Roman soldiers splattered in there who hadn't even been circumcised there's nothing to indicate whether or not they were the children of true Israelites who had their hearts circumcised or whether they were those of just the nominal Pharisee ik legalists who seemed to dominate the society Jesus neither baptized them nor caused them to be baptized this is a dry verse and so was Matthew 18 dry what he did show there's no baptism in either place he did show clearly the children are precious and they're dear to God and that God has special care and concern for them another passage that of course is used would be the list of passage with regard to household baptisms in the book of Acts and also noted in first corinthians there are five households that are mentioned to have been baptized some would say that the babies were baptized with those households as an act of family solidarity however none of those scriptures mentions any babies being baptized none of them at all I read one interesting writer who said that he had as much right to say in the case of the Philippian jailer that there was nobody in the family under 16 as somebody had a right to say there was somebody in the family who was a baby in other words there's purely no basis for concluding that there was any infant baptism going on there because it doesn't say it there was the idea that a father served as a surrogate for the faith of the children might be something you believe but you can't find any such children for whom surrogate faith may have been exercised in those household baptism since none are mentioned and if you look at them collectively as I have this is sort of a summation of them rather than going into all of the detail in Cornelius home it says all heard the word the Spirit fell on all and all were baptized and I simply note that the all is defined as those who heard the word and upon whom the Spirit fell which demands cognition and faith before baptism in the jailers case it says all heard the gospel and all were baptized again the all is defined as those who heard in the case of the house of Crispus all believed and all were baptized acts 18 in the accounts of Lydia and Stephanus where you have less information given we must understand the same thing as is in the more explicit text all hear the gospel all believe all received the Holy Spirit all were baptized the households then are thereby collectively defined as those capable of hearing understanding receiving the Holy Spirit and believing no infants can do such nor are any mentioned in the case of Stephanus household all who were baptized it says were then devoted to the ministry of the saints 1st Corinthians 15 16 and were helping in the spiritual work of the church the next verse verse 16 which is impossible for infants and children in the case of Lydia I think it's quite amazing in the case of Lydia that she's the hostess she invites men into her home she is a traveling woman who went as far as 300 miles away it would be a real stretch to believe that she was married to start with or it would seem like her husband would be the host in the home and would do the inviting if men were to be invited in strange to imagine a woman traveling in the course of business if she had nursing children in the home most likely appears that this is a single woman and it's again I think arbitrary to assume there were any children there in that environment the text of John 4 verse 53 says and he himself believed and his whole household and in that case where you have household used in John 4 speaking of course of the nobleman whose son jesus healed again he himself believed and his whole household clearly the household there must refer to the believing there is no mention of baptism there there the household refers to the believing and I think that is a normative expression for the representation of the household certainly couldn't refer to babies at that point because they couldn't have believed household is defined as those who believe another text that is used is in acts 2:38 and 39 just so we remember these where Peter says repent and let each of you be baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins you receive the gift of the Holy Spirit and then verse 39 the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off some would see here your children as representative of babies in the family I would take it that your children here simply means that the condition by which you have received the Holy Spirit that is repentance and faith the condition by which you have received the Holy Spirit will be the same condition by which your offspring will receive the Holy Spirit repentance and faith in other words it's for your generation in every other generation and he's speaking to Jews of course at that point and then he adds as well as to Gentiles who are defined as those afar off so what you have here is just a very generic statement about the fact that there is going to be one basic means by which you come into relationship with God that is by the hearing of the gospel responding to the gospel in repentance and faith and upon that act of repentance and faith being granted the Holy Spirit and it will be the same for all the generations that come out of your loins that's not going to change and for all peoples both Jew and Gentile they will be called to the same salvation which will be with the same salvation blessings and then one other text first Corinthians 7 is often used because it does make an interesting statement and the context here you must understand I think first of all the context the 1st Corinthians 7 is about marriage we all understand that right and the underlying problem was in the Corinthian church people were coming to Christ and they were having problems trying to sort out what to do if they were still married to an unregenerate person I mean this was before there was a real explicit teaching on this obviously and now you've got a believer married to an unbeliever is this aligning with Satan is this being unequally yoked am I in a terrible compromise what God speak to me in the same way that he did you remember in Ezra's time and said divorce your idolatrous partners and get out of that relationship what should be my attitude in that environment that's what's behind this this is not a passage about children in fact they're only offhandedly mentioned in that one place this is an issue about should I leave my unconverted spouse and in verse 12 he says if any brother has a wife was an unbeliever and she consent to live with him let him not send her away it's a expression for the word divorce don't divorce your unconverted partner simple verse 13 a woman who has an unbelieving husband he consents to live with her don't divorce him stay together if there's consent why why would I do that for the unbelieving husband is sanctified now in what way can an unbeliever be sanctified in a limited way would you agree with that in a limited we're not talking about salvation sanctification we're not talking about the sanctification that we understand as that process by which we are increasingly conformed to the image of Jesus Christ by the work of the Spirit of God we're not talking about that we're talking about some kind of setting apart that's what that word means they're set apart in some limited way and then verse 14 says the unbelieving wife is set apart through her believing husband in other words set apart from the full force of ungodly environs they're set apart we are fully set apart as being sanctified in Christ they're sort of minimally spared the full blast of ungodliness because they're in an environment where God's grace is being poured out on their most intimate companion and therefore the spillover of that marvelous grace accrues to the comfort and the betterment of life temporarily for that unbeliever and of course there is always that possibility of their coming to faith through that influence first Peter you remember where the unbelieving wife is told a winner's husband by her godly conduct the spillover of blessing ungodly conduct can influence that individual not only for the betterment of temporal life but toward faith as well then also adding just as a passing comment at the end of verse 14 otherwise your children are unclean but now they are sanctified same term they are set apart so what happens is in that home where you have one believing spouse you have God pouring out the means of grace God blessing the virtue of that individual God being good to his own child and consequently mitigating the full blast and the full force of worldly godless Christ las' influences and therein lies the manner of that setting apart and nothing more than that the meaning is don't divorce your unbelieving partner because both that partner and children in the home will feel the goodness of the grace of God upon you if in fact this is a mandate for infant baptism and there is no baptism this is another driver Segen if this is an mandate for infant baptism it must be also a mandate for the baptism of that unbelieving partner as an adult because you can't have one and not the other and nothing is said at all about anybody being baptized the issue here is a passing comment with regard to the influence of godliness and that's why you want to stay together so the full counsel of God is either expressly set forth in Scripture or and I stand on Reformation soil when I say this the full counsel of God is either expressly set forth in Scripture or can be necessarily compellingly and validly deduced by good and logical consequence but it has to be necessary compelling and inescapable such as the doctrine of the Trinity I don't see necessary compelling inescapable information on the text of the New Testament to conclude infant baptism second infant baptism is not New Testament baptism infant baptism is not New Testament baptism here is a second uncontestable fact really while the Bible is absolutely silent on the matter of infant baptism it speaks clearly and repeatedly and precisely on the matter of adult believers baptism nobody can miss this its meaning is crystal clear in the New Testament baptism was a ceremony in which a believer was placed into water and taken up out of that water as an outward sign of their salvation two verbs express this reality bapto and baptize Oh which mean to immerse to dip into and they are the word by the way for drown the noun Baptist moss is used in Acts always to refer to a believer being immersed in the water the Latin equivalent is immersive and sub mercy oh the Greek language has a different word it's the word ranted so for sprinkle and the mode does come in because of the imagery involved every New Testament use of the BAP Thole requires or permits immersion even John Calvin said and I quote the word baptize means to immerse it is certain that immersion was the practice of the early church and if you mess with that word and you make it something less than immersion in water baptism passages then you're going to make it something less than immersion in Romans 6 when it means to be immersed into Christ and now you will confound the meaning of what is the heart and soul of the Christian gospel and that is the sinner by virtue of justification coming into union with Christ we cannot mess with the word we can't it's like the people who want to deny eternal hell they just denied eternal heaven at the same time because if you're going to redefine what eternal means in terms of perdition you've just redefined it in terms of glory also this ordinance was designed by God and conveyed by the correct inspired words to fit the symbolism that God intended water immersion commanded of every believer is a picture and an object lesson and a symbol and a visual analogy of a spiritual truth it is the way God is designed to teach the truth of personal salvation and what does it symbolize well you all know unmistakeably throughout the New Testament Christian baptism is presented as a picture of the central spiritual truth of salvation you understand that the central spiritual truth of salvation is this that one who was a sinner is now in Christ I am crucified with Christ nevertheless I live yet not i but Christ lives in me I don't even know where I ended he begins we are so immersed I have been united in his death and resurrection Romans 6 is unmistakably saying this in Romans 6 is not talking about any water right Romans 6 is talking about a spiritual reality in which God places us spiritually into Christ that we die in him when we rise to walk in newness of life Galatians 3 Colossians 2 you know the passages to be placed into Union with Christ that is the baptism that saves first Peter 3:21 to be spiritually immersed into Christ this is the washing of regeneration Titus 3:5 this is the washing away of sin acts 22:16 so immersion into water was and is the inseparable outward sign of that spiritual union it's the only outward sign that depicts the death burial and resurrection so clearly defined in Romans chapter 6 and it becomes synonymous with salvation insofar as Jesus used it instead of the word for salvation when he said go into all the world and make disciples that was the substantive verb that the following verbs are participles that define that how do I do that baptizing and teaching some people would say those words should be converting and teaching but baptism had become so synonymous that not only could Jesus use it as if it referred to salvation because it did Paul could use it in Ephesians 4 so explicitly as to say 1 Lord what one faith one baptism and so baptism and the Lord's table become the two solemn acts which the Lord appoints for his church both give to the believer opportunity to proclaim the death of the Lord who has died for us and with whom we have died so as to walk with Him in a new life both of them depict that the church has had the sacred duty to preserve and administer those precious institutions and legacies of the Lord with conscientious faithfulness and according to the meaning of their founder but the church has not done that she has introduced arbitrary changes into the communion I think arbitrary changes into baptism and in the course of time has surrendered the privileges of the Saints to the whole world and even forced them upon people the sacred documents of primitive Christianity the writings of the New Testament I think are pretty clear on that New Testament baptism today must have the same significance it had them and it is clear what its significance was at that time Third Point infant baptism is not a replacement sign for the abrahamic sign of circumcision now we're getting into the Nitty Gritty here infant baptism is not a replacement sign for the Abrahamic sign of circumcision simply scripture never makes such a connection you cannot find such a connection in Scripture nowhere does the New Testament ever say infant baptism replaces circumcision no such connection is ever made Peto Baptist nonetheless without any specific statements of Scripture claim some inferential evidence connected to circumcision also without any specific statement of Scripture and the argument simplified sort of goes like the circumcision was the old covenant sign of faith while baptism is the new covenant sign of faith since the old covenant sign of faith was applicable not only to adults but and primarily and eventually exclusively to children the same should be true of the new covenant sign now I understand that reasoning but I think it's simplistic I think it's it's way under States the issue the fact that the Abrahamic covenant serves as a foundation of faith in which all who are in Christ participate I will not dispute I am a spiritual son of Abraham by faith though I am NOT an Israelite I'm not a Jew but I am a son of Abraham in the sense that I follow his faith but that circumcision was a sign of personal faith I reject I do not see circumcision in the Old Testament as a sign of personal faith I believe it was something else I believe it was a symbol of the need for cleansing there were people who were circumcised as adults who had faith and there were people who circumcised as adult proselytes probably gentiles who came into israel who never really had faith in god they were joining the nation of israel for whatever reasons we don't know the genuine is thrown out of their heart but circumcision is certainly not to be defined in itself as a sign of faith I believe that if you look at circumcision honestly it is more a sign of the desperate depravity of man and the need for God's salvation what do you mean by that well if you wanted to identify the depravity of man how would you do that if you wanted to say well here's ample evidence of man's depravity here's the endemic issue of iniquity and here's how I know how deep it runs what would you point to you say well maybe out what he says maybe his speech would betray and well some people are dumb and can't talk at all are they depraved how do you know they're a manifestation of depravity and some people guard their speech pretty well Pharisees did somebody else might say well by what they do some people guard what they do fairly well Mormons do now if you want to know how deep and endemic and systemic and profound depravity is you don't look at what people say you don't look at what they do you look at what they produce you might not see my depravity I'm pretty good at covering it up my life is controlled by preaching and teaching the Word of God and you might not see my depravity but I'll tell you where it's unmistakable I have four children and they are all depraved not only that they couldn't kill it either I've got eight reprobate grandchildren you want to know how to pray view are you look at the progeny right and I believe by the circumcision of the reproductive organ God was saying you need a profound cleansing this one has some health benefit throughout history it's interesting to read that Jewish women have had the lowest rate of cervical cancer because of the benefit of circumcision physiologically because that disease is less readily passed on but the real issue I believe there is that this was a sign of the need for cleansing at deep deep level and that God by His mercy and grace would provide that I don't think it offered or brought that cleansing I just think it demonstrated the desperate need for that cleansing and furthermore not only did circumcision not apply as an act of faith or as any kind of cleansing in itself it wasn't applied to girls at all they were completely outside it so I don't see it as some kind of sweeping rite of faith which is normative for everybody certainly just the elimination of all the women in Israel would be enough to convince me that it was not a normative thing somehow tied to faith all the adult members of households had to be circumcised also do you remember reading when Abraham was circumcised when Abraham was circumcised so were all the adults in his family now if this is going to be the normative pattern if Abraham's adult circumcision is his normative pattern then the whole household of new converts would have to be forced to be baptized immediately which I find an impossible thing and again there is no such connection made between circumcision and baptism in the scripture circumcision was a sign of ethnic identity this is very important to understand it was a sign that one was a Jew and was participating and this is the key in physical temporal features of the Abrahamic covenant not necessarily spiritual ones not all Israel is Israel circumcise your hearts the Prophet said the spiritual promises and realities of the Abrahamic covenant were only efficacious to those who later believed right there can be no efficacy at the initial point of circumcision that is purely entry into the ethnic social earthly participation in temporal features by which God blessed or in some cases cursed Israel and if you were in the in the nation you got them both in fact you got more curses than blessing in terms of circumcision Paul in Philippians 3 called it excrement just to use the word ethnic identity and participation in an earthly covenant did not provide him the righteousness of God which he received by faith in Jesus Christ and when he saw that he said that's manure that's dung a person born in Israel of Abrahamic covenant seed then was physically related to temporal and external blessings and nothing more the New Testament however changes that dramatically since in the New Covenant listen there is no such thing as a physical participant in temporal and earthly features attached to the land and the race the New Covenant knows nothing of physical temporal limitations the Scriptures for example nowhere refer to a remnant of the faithful within the New Covenant there's no such thing as a doctrine of the remnant in the New Testament you don't have a whole group of covenant people in which there's a little believing remnant in the New Testament and if you ever do question that then you need to deal with the text of Jeremiah 31:31 234 which is the watershed issue I believe on this whole discussion in Jeremiah 31:31 234 he promises the new covenant and here's what Jeremiah says there is a covenant coming it's not like the Covenant you know it is a new covenant and he says this here's how it's different and of all the options at Jeremiah depict of all the things that Jeremiah could have said of all the choices that he could have made to distinguish the new covenant from the old this is what he said verse 34 they shall all know me from the least of them to the greatest of them the essence of the New Covenant is everybody in it knows God savingly that is the I think the significant distinction between belonging to the Abrahamic covenant ethnically and belonging to the New Covenant savingly and so a sign that suited an ethnic covenant is not parallel to a sign that suits a saving covenant and there in Baptism is to be made distinct from circumcision and again I remind you the scripture does make no such connection if there were to be a connection made I would think the better connection just a suggestion for you reformed folks who hold to infant baptism if you want to make a better connection you should connect New Testament baptism with the baptism of John the Baptist if anything serves as transitional that does and you find in the baptism of John very clearly a pattern of baptism the likes of which you also see in sort of intertestamental proselyte baptism but I think John's is even unique from that what you see in John's baptism is repentance first of all conscious repentance and a preparation for the Messiah and in fact he blistered with a malediction heartily without equal until Matthew 23 those leaders of Israel who came out there and he called him snakes and asked him what in the world are you unrepentant people doing here trying to get in on this baptism so if you want a parallel New Testament baptism with anything you're on much safer ground with the baptism of John because it's a baptism of repentance and because it is a baptism of immersion which can prefigure and demonstrate the death and resurrection of Christ and it is a baptism in which Jesus himself participated I think not only to fulfill all righteousness but also to fill it with the meaning that Christian baptism would eventually have it is clear in my mind that John the Baptist did not regard membership in the Messianic community as a matter of birth right did he he refused to baptize Jews who were not repentant I think that's a better partner for New Testament baptism fourthly and this will just be a brief point I think I have about seven or eight minutes left infant baptism is not consistent with the nature of the church infant baptism is not consistent with the nature of the church what happens with infant baptism is you now have confusion as to the identity of the church confusion stems from the failure to distinguish between the visible local church including unbelievers in the invisible Universal which is only believers in fact it is true that pedo baptism strikes a serious blow against the doctrine of a Regeneron lies in the failure to differentiate clearly between what it means to be a little member of the Covenant as a baby and what it means to be a true child of God it is my conviction that the scripture teaches the true church is made up of only believers that's unlike Israel you can't make a parallel it's unlike Israel the rest of people apart from believers whether baptized or not baptized whether confirmed or not confirmed do not belong to the redeemed Church and they are at best tears to be burned they are at best branches fruitless to be cut off and burned and I really believe that infant baptism confounds the clear identity of a redeemed Church because you have a world full of Catholics and Protestants who have been baptized as babies ranging all the way from hypocritical irreligious apostate religious through indifferent to outright godless christ-rejecting and blasphemous and the question is are they in the church or are they not in the church well if they're out of it when did they get out of it infant baptism I believe is a holdover from the absolutist state church system and in evidence of an incomplete reformation which in complete Reformation I believe sentenced that new redeemed community in Europe to the terrible terrible death that it died the death of which we can see even today I am convinced that unless you have a regenerate Church you have chaos but with the absolute church system in the national sovereignty Catholic Church had all that power and the Reformers wanted some power to counter room and so while Luther started out with a good intention of freedom of the conscience and all of that eventually they started imposing everything on people and they I think they forced back in the infant baptism thing to create the state Church control that could allow them to have a power base to fight against not only each other the Lutheran fought the reform but the Roman states also state Christendom in every form Catholic old Protestant Lutheran and reformed I think misunderstands New Testament church doctrine and it's sad to think that Luther abandoned his original lofty idealism where he contended for a Christianity of freedom and renouncing force and living by the word in the spirit and backed up into a state church perspective but Luther said this and I think this is maybe the truest expression of his heart I say that God wants no compulsory service I say it a hundred thousand times God wants no compulsory service no one can or ought to be compelled to believe for the soul of man is an eternal thing above all that is temporal therefore only by an eternal word must it be governed and grasped for it is simply insulting to govern in God's presence with human law and long custom either the Pope nor a bishop nor any other man has the right to decree a single syllable concerning a Christian man apart from his consent all that comes to pass otherwise comes to pass in the spirit of tyranny end quote sadly he allowed I think what he hated to take place there's no there's no tragedy greater I don't think coming out of the Reformation than the fact that the true church got executed got stamped out under the massive weight of the state church system there is no doctrine of the remnant in the New Testament no such teaching and I believe with sad darkening a Reformation light was the secularizing of the church they brought back the very thing that Constantine had brought in that they tried to get rid of sadly modern Protestant Europe is as dark as old Catholic Europe a state Church and biblical Christianity are and always will be completely opposed to each other the true church is not of this world does not incorporate the unconverted infant baptism served the state church well but horribly confuses the true church and then you have to bring up the question how do you do church discipline how do we do church discipline on these people well a final point number five infant baptism is not consistent with Reformation --all soteriology now that ought a ranker a few folks but I'm just doing my part here on my side now infant baptism is not consistent with Reformation --all soteriology I have through the years and be a little personal I have through the years tried to help fundamental evangelical by believing Christians understand the gospel not a sad thing but that's what I've tried to do I have if there's any one single subject I have worked more diligently on than any other it is the clarity of the gospel and when you spend years and years and years of your life coming to a crystal clear understanding of justification by grace to faith alone and what it means to affirm the lordship of Christ and all that is bound up in salvation that becomes a very precious reality to you and I don't want to be anecdotal and I don't want to make a point personally but I can only tell you from my understanding and the broad picture of salvation I cannot for the life of me find anything that infant baptism contributes to that but confusion because there is no faith in the child there is no comprehension of the gospel there is no repentance in the child what then is this and what do you have and they talk about well you have sort of a peremptory election act or you have a preemptory salvation act in the child and you can read the strangest kind of statements that are made I wrote down about 25 different statements from books I read on what the baptism of an infant meant and they were all varying shades of all kinds of things but all agreeing that it didn't save but it put them in some place where they were more fortunate and likely to be more blessed by God and I say that's no different place than any child would have baptized or unbaptized living in a godly environment and that's the point of 1st Corinthians 7 it is a needless to do because it ministers no saving grace to the child it guarantees no future salvation to the child and on the other hand it perpetuates a misconception in the mind of parents that against all evidence this child is somehow saved because of some event that occurred at their baptism Luther had to go so far as to finally say they have unconscious faith because he knew salvation was by faith children are children they do not understand I cannot for the life of me understand why you'd want to convolute the purity and the clarity of the doctrine of justification by grace through faith alone to the one who comes and repents of sin and embraces Jesus Christ with this act which admittedly has no saving efficacy delivers no redeeming Grace infers no faith is not symbolic of any union with Christ the only point of it is to confound the person about what this meant and to confound the church with an unregenerate membership why not defer the sign until the reality of saving faith nothing is lost certainly doesn't change election and I think it helps it helps to wait until calling an election or sure doesn't change anything for the child but rather could hamper a child's true understanding of their spiritual condition the confusion in Christendom would be greatly lessened the church would be instantly purged Christ would be honored if there weren't millions of people outside salvation running around with a false security and bearing an untrue symbol of an unreal condition I really feel that we reform folks need to finish the Reformation here and I see this as a way to do that two ways are before us I really believe one embodies ritualism institutional Church mixed with the saved and lost Christianized pagans and as one writer said is a relic of popery the other leads to faith alone the glory of the cross and resurrection and the true identity of the redeemed Church baptism is at the crossroads the cry of the Reformation was not tradition tradition tradition the father's the father's the father's but scripture scripture scripture thank this last week somebody was talking with me and they had a copy of the brochure for this conference and they said I see that you and John MacArthur are going to be talking about baptism when whether it is to be administered to infants and I said yes they said well I hope you go out there and change John's mind on this subject and I said let me tell you something about the John MacArthur that I know that if you can prove your position to John MacArthur from the pages of Sacred Scripture he'll change it in a heartbeat because I've never met a man in my life who was more sold out to building his theology on the basis of scripture alone than my brother John and so that really is my burden is to try to persuade him on the basis of scripture you won't let me appeal to history or tradition or Church Authority so but this is something that I hope and trust is true of the overwhelming majority of Christians who struggle with this question my working assumption when this debate arises among believers and of those who are committed to the doctrine of Sola scriptura from the Reformation my working assumption is that both sides want to do what is pleasing to God and to be faithful to the Word of God and unfortunately those of us who disagree on this point though we both desire to be pleasing to God and faithful to the Word of God obviously this is one of those places where we both simply cannot be right and in fact it's one of those also where we both cannot be wrong somebody's right and somebody's wrong and we all know who that is so we can take a break one of the things that John has made absolutely clear in his excellent presentation today is that there's nowhere in the New Testament that explicitly commands the baptism of infants or explicitly mentions the baptism of infants and so he concludes it's simply not in the New Testament and from an explicit perspective I agree with him completely we also have stipulated and agreed that there's no explicit prohibition against infant baptism to be found anywhere in the New Testament either so in the absence of explicit teaching both sides in this controversy are forced to rely upon inferences drawn from what is explicit in Scripture and that should by the very virtue of that fact force us to go the Second Mile in patients with one another when we recognize I cannot prove to John MacArthur that scripture commands the baptism of infants and by not baptizing infants he is being disobedient to his Lord and at the same time he can't point to a text in the Bible that explicitly prohibits infant baptism and say to you RC you have to stop doing with Scripture prohibits I think we all understand the absence of the explicit directives in either case and since we are both relying upon inferences we have to be exceedingly patient and charitable with each other now one of the most important things that John has already gone over is the classic defense in reformed theology of infant baptism on the grounds of its relationship to the circumcision in the old testament and obviously there are certain things about circumcision in the Old Testament that are is not simply implicit but are clearly explicit now what I want to do is take some time and look at the relationship between circumcision and New Testament baptism and here's where it does get a little bit complicated because I often hear people say emphatically RC New Testament baptism is not circumcision there is no equation between the two or identity between the two and when I hear people say that I am impressed with their amazing grasp of the obvious I don't know anybody in the history of the church who has argued that there is an identity between circumcision and baptism on the one hand Jewish people who were circumcised in the Old Testament were not circumcised with water that's not the same thing obviously now the issue however is not one of identity but one of relationship and the question is is there any continuity between circumcision in the Old Testament and baptism in the New Testament if we're going to be careful and look at this in technical terms we have to see and I think we would all agree that there is some continuity at least between circumcision in the Old Testament and baptism in the New Testament and yet at the same time there are serious and significant points of discontinuity so we have elements of continuity where they are similar to each other elements of discontinuity obvious element of discontinuity is circumcisions in the Old Testament baptisms in the New Testament that's obviously a difference isn't it now in terms of the historical argument for infant baptism here are the crucial points in terms of continuity that in the Old Testament it is almost universally agreed by scholars I'm not sure I agree with John on this or that he would agree with me I sort of think he would that circumcision whatever else it was in the Old Testament was the sign of the Old Covenant yes sign of the Old Covenant and that baptism whatever else it is is the sign of the new covenant that both sides tend to agree on now here we see that there are different signs one is circumcision one is baptism but both of them are signs of some kind of covenant that God makes with people in the case of circumcision we say it is the sign of the Covenant that God made with Abraham now in reformed theology we would argue that part of the terms of that covenant that God makes with Abraham includes temporal earthly blessings like descendants like the possession of the land real estate and so on but that beyond those external matters of physical inheritance ethnic and national is communicated the Old Testament promise of redemption unless you want to argue that people were saved in the Old Testament in a manner radically different from how they are saved in the New Testament I'm going to say something I've never said before publicly though I believe it but all basically out of response to John's passion and his years of faithful defense of the purity of the gospel where he has been the strongest of allies and comrades alongside of me in the trenches and when the issue becomes the gospel of Jesus Christ I don't have to look very far to know who I want to call stand next to me and be in my foxhole when there's something about the gospel Who am I kidding John no sir ah all right it's a tag-team when that comes it airs what I want to say in a very real sense beloved circumcision in the Old Testament was a sign of the gospel of Jesus Christ why do I say that because whatever else circumcision was circumcision was the sign of the Covenant and the heart and soul of the Covenant is the promise of God to provide redemption for his people and that abraham believed that promise and was counted just by God Abraham rejoiced to see the fullest manifestation in history of the terms of that covenant in the appearance of the one who embodied Israel our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ I think it would be a vast oversimplification to reduce the meaning of circumcision in the Old Testament simply to ethnic or national characteristics a point which many Jews in fact did for which they receive the scathing critique of the prophets and of the Apostle Paul himself in the book of Romans now I don't believe that circumcision was a sign of faith exclusively that is that the only thing the circumcision indicated or signified was faith it signified a whole lot more than that but no less than that let me say it again the circumcision signified a lot more than faith but by no means less because the doctrine of justification by faith alone was taught throughout the abri make covenant as Paul Labor's in Romans three and chapter four of the New Testament now when does Abraham receive the sign before he has faith or after he has faith before he realizes the content of the promises of the Covenant or after he actually realizes the content of the promises manifestly he receives the sign of the promise after he's received the substance of the promise after he's believed after he's repented right then he is given the sign of circumcision but not only is this sign of circumcision which indicates all that's contained in the promise of redemption is given to Abraham after he has faith and has been repentant and all the rest that is regenerate so on God not only permits but explicitly commands that the infant son of Abraham receive the sign of this same covenant not only is it commanded to Abraham and to Isaac and to Jacob but when Moses delays it god threatens to kill him for withholding the sign of the Covenant from his infant son that's very important because here in the Old Testament the sign of God's covenant of redemption is not only permitted to be given to the children of believers it is commanded of God so to be done and if faith has the remotest portion of the content of the promise of Abraham and if it does not then would have to say that Abraham is justified by some other means or some other instruments than faith which I don't know any Baptists who would want to argue that but the point is that if even has the smallest portion of the content of the meaning of that sign of the Old Covenant and we have to say that we have explicit biblical teaching that God Almighty at least in one time in history has explicitly commanded that a sign of faith be administered to a person who does not yet possess that which the sign signifies so the first point we have to see here that's emphatically taught in the Old Testament is that the sign of redemption is commanded of God to be given to infants not to all infants indiscriminately but only to those who are in the Covenant community to the visible household of faith which I'm going to take the liberty to call the Old Testament church now there were people in the Old Testament who believed that the sign saved correct and they lived on into the New Testament times when the Pharisee said we're the children of Abraham we're circumcised and Paul talks about how circumcision doesn't save anybody only the person who is circumcised inwardly are saved only those who actually have faith or saved you can have the sign without faith but you can't have what the sign signifies without faith so again we don't want to ever get to the conclusion that a person is justified by circumcision in the Old Testament or by baptism in the New Testament there's one thing that my my buddy John said that I have to speak out on in terms of my emphatic disagreement with it because on this one point I am absolutely 1000% sure he couldn't possibly be more wrong I know he's wrong I'm positive he's wrong and I'm going to prove to you right now beyond not a reasonable doubt but a shout of it out that he's wrong my dear brother stood up here in front of all these people and said that we had lunch and it was really brunch just a couple of hours ago and the speaker's got together sat around a table did you hear him say that he was the only one there who believes in believers baptism did you say that all right little cross-examination was I there okay this is how I can prove he's wrong because I believe in believers baptism and I was there and I'm positive that Bob Godfrey believes in believers baptism and the Sinclair Ferguson believes in believes baptism because all reformed people believe in believers baptism you want to get anecdotal three weeks ago I had one of the most precious privileges a pastor a minister the gospel can never have baptized three adults at st. Andrew's Church we only have 43 members and it was such a thrill to baptize those adults into the Fellowship of Jesus Christ and let me tell you what not only do we baptize adults but we will not baptize adults until or unless they first make a profession of faith and give evidence of repentance and of clinging in faith to Jesus Christ now there's abundant evidence in both Testaments for the adult reception of the sign of the Covenant in the Old Testament as John has pointed out that we have the records of those who were strangers and foreigners to the Covenant from the Gentile world who come over and embrace Judaism and receive circumcision as adults and before they can be circumcised as adults they must make a profession of faith and likewise we have abundant records in the New Testament of adults being baptized which adults are called upon to profess faith and so on of actual 12 references in the New Testament to actual baptisms they're all adults four of those baptism accounts include the away cost formula that John referred to which is translated house or household which by the way in passing los trachoma and the swiss new testament scholar argues that in antiquity that not only just possibly included infants but he believes that that word was used with specific reference to infants but that's too much of a stretch for me what it does indicate is some kind of continuity of the principle of corporate solidarity that we find clearly evident in the old testament but i wouldn't care if the term boy costs or the term household occurs or not in the new testament because i think every single reference to adult baptism in the book of acts is 100% utterly completely and totally irrelevant to the question we're discussing here as we've stipulated we all believe in adult baptism and we all believe that in the case of adult baptism there is a prior requirement of a profession of faith no argument about that whatsoever so no sense taking in time arguing over what we agree on only one thing the only evidence that that adult baptism has for this controversy in the new testament is one that's somewhat secondary not utterly insignificant but it has some significance and that is that all of those who are baptized adults are presumably first generation believers if the opponent of infant baptism could point to one case of an adult baptism in the new testament where the person who's being baptized as an adult was the child of christian parents when that person was an infant then they would have a relevant case to point to in fact that would be all it would take to change me on that but you don't have any such evidence whatsoever and all of the pointing to the evidence of adult believers is only obfuscating the issue because there's no debate about what are the requirements for believers baptism we all agree with that the question is simply should the child of a believer receive the sign of the covenant in the New Testament as it clearly and incontestably did in the Old Testament now again we recognize that there is a difference between the New Testament and the Old Testament John pointed out one in the Old Covenant economy the only people who received the sign of the Covenant were males boys little boy the women didn't and presumably in the New Testament the sign of the covenant is administered not only to the males but to the females as well what does that tell you one thing it tells you is that as the New Testament Labor's over and over and over again and New Testaments a better covenant than the Old Testament and one of the ways in which it's better or at least different is that it is obviously more inclusive rather than less inclusive than the Old Covenant in the Old Covenant you didn't have to be a child of an Israelite parent to be saved but one of the great mysteries in the history of redemption is the role that the Gentiles play and that there is a radical expansion of outreach and evangelism to the Gentile world in the new covenant that is absent in the Old Covenant it's a radical expansion it's not like there's no outreach to the Gentiles in the Old Testament there was some but not nearly the degree to which you find it in the New Covenant now it just seems strange to me that if in general terms the new covenant is more inclusive than the Old Covenant why would a practice of including the children of believers in the reception of the sign of the covenant overdue that is in practice for 2,000 years would suddenly be repealed and abrogated in the New Testament without a single word I really think the burden of proof here is on those who say that at the point of including children of believers in the reception of the covenant sign of the promise of God for redemption that the burden for that should be on those who want to argue that there is this radical change in the history of redemption that a practice that is normal and normative for 2,000 years suddenly stops without a word in the New Testament not only without a word in the New Testament but as Jehovah chemi Ramius has pointed out that we can't find anything in the literature of the first century apart from the Bible we're in too long into the second century and not much at all until the middle of the third century about the practice of infant baptism and the first reference we have to it that has survived in antiquity in literature outside of the Bible describes infant baptism as the universal practice of the church now it's possible in 100 or 200 years that the whole Christian Church could have departed from the apostolic practice without one word surviving in written complaint against that despite the mountain of information that has survived from the first three centuries about a host of other theological controversies about which the patristic s-- were divided that isn't it strange that this departure and deviation from the purity of the Apostolic Church took place to the extent that it captured the whole of Christendom and not one single word of protest survives from that period now that's an argument from silence but it's a very screaming silence I'm saying the reason why there's no explicit command to baptize in the New Testament is that it would be clearly assumed by any Jewish or early Christian believer that the same practice and principle of including the children of believers in the reception of the covenant sign would continue unless God said stop it now I'm trying to do this real quick because I have much time that I want to real quickly point to a text that John pointed to that I thought was a very important tax I don't need to read it he did all those appeals to suffer the little children and all that I agree with John on those we can stipulate those and you don't have to debate them I don't think they have the tiniest significance for this discussion but I do think the passage from first Corinthians regarding marriage and the unbelieving husband well that I think that this passage does have special relevance for this reason we understand as John rightly pointed out and when it says that the unbelieving wife of the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the unbelieving husband the unbelieving wife etc that the word there that is used to sanctify could be a little bit misleading to us because we normally use the term sanctification or to sanctify to refer to that growth in holiness and progress in conformity to the image of Christ that immediately follows after our justification and presupposes justification now obviously what John is writing pointing out that that can't be the meaning of the text here unless we want to assume that the Bible teaches two different ways of justification in fact maybe even a third the one hand the New Testament teaches that we're justified my faith our faith not somebody else's faith right Paul says that the women are saved to the bearing of children and if we mean by saved in that context be placed in the state of grace and in a state of justification then we can say the second way of salvation the second way of justification is limited to women that is by having babies you can be justified and if that doesn't work and then you're barren or if you're a man and can't have babies and don't have any faith the third way of salvation is to marry somebody that does because the unbeliever is sanctified now I've tried to reduce this to absurdity and show you that this tax cannot mean that the sanctification that is in view refers to that sanctification that follows from and flows out of necessarily immediately and so on justification is that clear so it can't be what John called the maximalist view it has to have a minimal thing I don't think it's nearly as minimal as my brother John does I think it means far more than to be putting in favorable environment with respect to the secular influences of the world understand what it does mean I want to call attention to the language and call attention to the language as it is found in Scripture if you look and see what it means to sanctify biblically its primary meaning is to set apart or to consecrate to be placed in an other or different setting or environment it goes back to God's initial setting of Israel apart saying be holy even as I am holy and I will be your God and you will be my people and God sanctified to himself a nation not everybody in that nation was sanctified inwardly but the whole nation was sanctified outwardly Israel was given a holy vocation they became the holy people the chosen of God God set them apart and so I'm saying to you that the primary way in which the Bible uses the term to sanctify is to set apart or to consecrate so that when Paul says the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the believing husband or the unbelieving eyes of a Papa means that they are set apart not that they are saved but they are set apart they're set apart from something they're placed in some kind of situation that differs from that which is ordinary or normal and the reason for this that the Apostle gives is not with particular reference to the benefit of the unbelieving spouse but as John eloquently pointed out the benefactor from this sanctifying or setting a part of the unbeliever this whom the children now listen this language God said I'm going to set apart the unbelieving wife or the unbelieving husband for the benefit of the children that issue from this marriage because he says else would their children be unclean but now are they holy now here's what the Apostle Paul does say explicitly in the New Testament namely that the offspring of at least one believing partner in a marriage where that's why for centuries churches the do practice infant baptism do not do it indiscriminately and will not baptize any infant but only if there is a profession of faith by at least one parent but listen to the language doing this Paul says for the sake of the children else would they be unclean do you ever hear that word in the Bible unclean what is the primary reference of the concept of being unclean to a Jew to be outside the Covenant to be numbered with the unbelievers to be numbered with the Gentiles in Israel to be a foreigner and a stranger to the Covenant promises of God that's what it meant to be unclean to be outside the camp outside the community where the grace of God is focused and Paul said I will not have the children of unbelievers be unclean because now they are holy now what I'm submitting to you is that that is manifestly covenant language it is the language that is used consistently throughout the Bible to refer to those who are in a covenant relationship with God and my times up so I'm just going to say this in summer in the Old Testament circumcision does not convey Redemption it's the sign of redemption in the New Testament baptism doesn't convey Redemption and it's a sign of many things it is a sign of our cleansing it is a sign of our regeneration it is the sign of our sanctification it is a sign of our being baptized with the Holy Spirit and as John eloquently pointed out it is a sign of our being buried with Christ and raised with Christ it is a sign of all of those things that are part of the content of salvation which sign does not automatically communicate the reality by the outward sign what it does communicate is the reality of the promise of God to all who put their trust in him that they would receive the fullness of redemption that is promised in the gospel in a word the sacrament of baptism is a dramatic object lesson a visible sign of the spoken promise we proclaim the Word of God in the presence of infants they maybe don't understand the word and they don't understand the sign either until it's explained to them that's why it's the responsibilities for the parents and for the church to say to this child you received the sign of the promise of God you receive the sign of the gospel of Jesus Christ and let me tell you what that sign means and you tell them what the sign means and you tell them if you trust in this promise of Christ you will be saved and as Calvin pointed out that which a sign signifies in the Bible may be given before or after the sign is present exhibit a sign that was given to Abraham after he had faith to Isaac before he has faced and if you want to raise a principal objection about giving a sign that includes among other thing a sign of faith to people who are incapable of exercising faith at that time if you want to raise that objection in principle don't hesitate to object against God himself because it's exactly what he did in the Old Testament I agree with Calvin that the preferred method of baptism is immersion I disagree with Baptists who insists that the Greek word baptizo can only mean immerse because it is clearly used in the septuagint to translate a text in Leviticus 14 where two birds are used in a sacrificial way and these two birds are killed the one has its blood drained out of it and the other one has to be bought teeth sewed in the blood of the first one there just ain't enough blood and the first one to immerse the second one you dip it in there but anyway that's a secondary issue and not a primary issue there are many many more things to be said about this what I hope our discussion is done today is to get you to understand if nothing else but this is important to God and we ought to try to dig at it get down to it and try to work it through and where we have reasoned improperly or fail to understand a nuance of the scripture we need to be willing to change on that I used to do this when I taught the sacraments at seminary level I would have students that were both from the reformed tradition from the Baptist tradition and I would do this I would make the students from the reformed tradition write a term paper on the case against infant baptism and I would make the Baptist guys write a paper on the case for infant baptism and I wouldn't grade them on what they personally believed I would grade them on how accurate they were in their articulation of the different positions because most of us unfortunately just follow our traditions as John said there's blindly accept the Christian subcultural view in which we have grown up and just carry it on when this is something we should search the scriptures to understand what God wants us to do and then do it let's pray father we thank you for your words we thank you for the outward signs that you give that demonstrate the truthful most of your word we pray that we may be faithful both to your words and to those signs that you've given to your church where we ask it in Jesus name

Channel: undefined

Views: 490,075

Rating: 4.7046571 out of 5

Keywords: macarthur, sproul, baptism, credobaptism, paedobaptism, theology, debate, bible, Christian, Christianity, infant

Id: 2VzUOiNtgio

Length: 100min 13sec (6013 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 12 2013