The following message was recorded at Antioch Presbyterian Church, an historic and charter congregation of the Presbyterian Church in America, ministering to upstate South Carolina since 1843. Come and visit us at the crossroads of Greenville and Spartanburg counties. Experience our past and be a part of our future. For more information, visit AntiochPCF.com. Father in heaven we thank you for loving us and for keeping us and for preserving your church and blessing us with all we need for faith and godliness. We thank you for your word and we ask now as we consider baptism that you would be pleased to bless our time together to give me clarity and accuracy and expression and to keep us mindful of the great blessing of baptism and how you mark us and set us apart as holy, even as we ask you to do this morning in our worship service. All this we pray in Christ's name. Amen. Alright, last week we reviewed or we covered the five church membership vows. The five S's, again, are Sin, Savior, Spirit, Support, and Submit. And taking membership vows in the PCA, we confess that we are sinners in need of a Savior who is Jesus Christ alone, fully God and fully man. And we are dependent on the Holy Spirit's help to grow in grace and godliness all the days of our lives, in every moment, hour by hour. And we commit to supporting the church and its worship and work to the best of our ability with time, talent, attention, and treasure, and all that, and then also to submit to the government of those men who are duly ordained and appointed and installed into office in the church, particularly the elders. This week, And for the next two weeks, today and next week, we're going to be looking at sacraments. Two more words that begin with the letter S. So, from sin, savior, spirit, support, submit, to sacrament, including the supper. But today, baptism, S is kind of buried in the middle of the word, so we'll do what we can with that. Sprinkling, how about that? Sprinkling and supper. Because as Presbyterians, we'll get into that. So, we're going to talk today, very generally, first, what is a sacrament? Which, in God's providence, is the question, Shorter Catechism 92, that we're going to be using in worship this evening. Though I'm going to look at Larger Catechism. 162 today in our lesson, and then we'll consider two aspects of baptism. We'll define baptism, so we'll get into that. Basically, what is it? But especially the two areas of contention among evangelical Christians. The mode of baptism how we baptize. And then the, we might say, recipients of baptism. That is whom we baptize. By the very word recipient, it's a hint as to our understanding of what baptism is. Baptism is not something we do, it's something we receive. And so that's very important to a biblical understanding of baptism. Alright, first, sacraments. A sacrament is a holy ordinance instituted by Christ and His Church that does five things. One, it has five purposes. One, to signify, seal, and exhibit unto those that are within the covenant of grace the benefits of His mediation. You actually get three verbs within one function, but signify, seal, and exhibit by an action unto those that are within the covenant of grace the benefits of Christ's mediation. He's the one that's instituted it. Two, to strengthen and increase their faith in all other graces. Three, to oblige them to obedience. Four, to testify and cherish their love and communion with one another. And five, to distinguish them from those that are without. Both baptism and the Lord's Supper have those five underlying biblical purposes. It's a sign and seal, even exhibition of what we enjoy through the mediation of Christ and the covenant of grace. It's a means of grace by which we are strengthened and our faith is increased. As long with the word and prayer, we have sacraments. And it obliges us to obedience because we are marked out, and he gets to that, distinguish them from those that are without. But because of that, we are then under obligation to God to live a certain way. When you're baptized, even if you're not yet a believer, you're part of a household, you're under obligation to obey your parents and to live a certain way. And then when you are brought to the table, The accountability goes up. You're accountable now, not only to your parents, but especially to the elders of the church to live as becomes a follower of Christ. And then, it's also a way that you testify and cherish your love and communion with Christ and with one another. And I think in much of evangelicalism, Baptism and the Lord's Supper gets reduced to that aspect, as this is my testimony. I do this because I've decided to follow Jesus and I'm a Christian. Now, That's true. That's one reason why you do these things, why you receive baptism in the Lord's Supper and engage in them, is because it's part of your testimony. But that's not the dominant feature, and that's not the dominant biblical reason for sacraments. And then finally, to distinguish them from those that are without. Muslims understand this. They don't have sacraments like we do. But one of the things that they have is the Shahada, which is a confession that they say in Arabic that there is only one God and that's Allah and Muhammad is his prophet. And in the history of Islam, particularly during the conquests, they would force people to their knees and at sword point demand that confession from them. And if someone confessed it, they were spared. And if somebody said, I can't confess that, I'm a baptized Christian, they're killed. There's no clearer way to show yourself set apart. Now, when we're baptized, we're not dunked into permanent blue stain or something. It's not something everybody sees, but it is... Whether you're immersed or it's poured or sprinkled on you, that is a physical record exhibition of this being set apart, consecrated, distinguished from those who are outside of the church. Now, do sacraments have any power in and of themselves? Westminster 161, the previous question and answer, gives us a helpful answer to that question. How do the sacraments become effectual means of salvation? The sacraments become effectual means of salvation, not by any power in themselves, or any virtue derived from the piety or intention of him by whom they are administered, but only by the working of the Holy Ghost, and the blessing of Christ by whom they are instituted." So, there is an objective dimension to, or aspect, to the sacraments, and then there is a subjective aspect. The subjective aspect is all invisible. The objective aspect is both visible and invisible, I would say. But what do I mean by this? Sacrament's gonna do you good, it's gonna profit you for your salvation, only if you are born again. Or if born again carries some baggage, you can say born anew. Born by the Holy Spirit or from above. Otherwise, a sacrament, your baptism, will be a sign of judgment against you. As Paul says about the Lord's Supper, we are to take care in taking the Lord's Supper lest we eat and drink judgment to ourselves. Even as a baby, if you were baptized without having any say into it, and you grow up and you forsake the church in Christ, your baptism is a sign of judgment, that you have forsaken the great privileges and benefits of the covenant of grace, which were yours to have as a child of believing parents. And if you were baptized as a believer, like I was, I was baptized as a teenager after making profession of faith, if you walk away after that, like Simon Magus, for example, or Ananias and Sapphira in the Bible, that baptism is a judgment against you. The Lord has laid claim of you, you've testified of his grace in your life, and yet you turn your back on him. But the sacraments are meant and intended preeminently as means of grace and mercy and signs of God's love and good favor and grace to you, but that doesn't mean that they in and of themselves do anything. You must be born again. It's a spirit working through them as a means of grace. Now, before we identify, well, we've already identified the sacraments, but I want to ask you, what are the parts of a sacrament? Larger Catechism 163, right here, we'll put this in here, Larger Catechism 161, but then 163 gives us the parts of a sacrament, And what's helpful about this is it helps us read the Old and the New Testament, because there's sacraments in the Old Testament that we don't have anymore, that Christ has not instituted in his church under the New Covenant. But we have certain common parts between those Old Testament sacraments and the New Testament sacraments all have these parts. One, an outward and sensible sign used according to Christ's own appointment. And two, an inward and spiritual grace thereby signified. So, in addition to having an objective and subjective aspect that are blended, visible and invisible, you also have just a visible or outward sign and then an inward reality, and we do, which is invisible, and that inward reality we do consider to be part of the sacrament, because the Bible will talk about the sacraments themselves and the inward spiritual realities using the same language, referring to one in terms of the other, such as when Peter says, baptism saves you. And he's not saying the washing with water avails anything. I mean, he goes on to say that. But what he's referring to is that which baptism signifies saves you. And thus, we understand that that is actually a part of baptism properly understood, biblically understood. So, how many sacraments has Christ instituted in his church under the New Testament? Has he instituted seven sacraments? What kind of crazy person would say he instituted seven sacraments? Thomas Aquinas, who's brilliant, and the Roman Catholic Church, claims seven sacraments. No, he instituted two. Two sacraments. Baptism, right here, and then next week we'll consider the Lord's Supper. I think I can name all seven Roman Catholic sacraments, but I'm not gonna waste our time trying to do that, so we're just gonna move on. But in the biblical church, in the Protestant church, we got baptism, the Lord's Supper. Marriage is not a sacrament. Getting ordained is not a sacrament. Having your last rites read to you on your deathbed is not a sacrament. Some kind of chrism or anointing with oil is not a sacrament. If you ask for the elders to pray for you by laying on of hands to heal a disease, that is not a sacrament. Foot washing is not a sacrament. There's all kinds of things that men invent, but the only sacraments that Christ has instituted very clearly for us are baptism and the Lord's Supper. Today we're talking about baptism. What it is, what all Bible-believing Protestant Christians agree about baptism, and what the PCA teaches to be the proper mode and subjects, or recipients, of baptism. This is going to be helpful, if a bit tedious, to write up on the board. But, Larger Catechism 165. in case you couldn't tell. I think the larger catechism is a faithful summary of scripture. It's very convenient for using that to structure the lesson and to present that to you rather than hunting down verses. Obviously, we're making reference to verses as we go along, but the larger catechism in particular has some really, really helpful stuff on just explaining the biblical position on sacraments that we have as Presbyterians. So, baptism. is a sacrament of the New Testament. That's what NT stands for. Wherein Christ hath ordained, and this is what it is physically, the washing with Water, in case you were unclear about what water is, H2O, in the name of whom? The Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, or Spirit. to be a, these are key words, sign and seal of what? Engrafting. I like to use sometimes the word enchurchment, but engrafting into himself to sign and seal of our union with Christ, which is a beautiful thing. And of remission of sins by his blood, because blood and water go together, they're in the washing, and you might say of regeneration by His Spirit. It's a sign and seal, not a guarantee. But that's the being born again or being born anew of adoption into whose family? The Father's family. And of resurrection unto everlasting life. Wow, baptism is doing a lot of work, isn't it? Look at all that. I'm just going to put dot, dot, dot there. And whereby the parties baptized are solemnly admitted into the visible church and enter into an open and professed engagement to be the Lord's. All of this is in baptism before we ever get to what we show by being baptized ourselves. Baptism is instituted by Christ in His church. It belongs to His church. It's Trinitarian. It signifies admittance into the visible church. It comes with privileges and obligations. I love baptism. This is all just Larger Catechism 165 kind of mapped out, and I glossed over the end there. Now, that is what baptism is. What is the mode of baptism? It's washing with water. Washing with water. The outward element to be used in this sacrament is water. Wherewith the party is to be baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, by a minister of the gospel lawfully called Neron II. So, elements here, water, washing, You know, water washing, and then by a lawfully ordained minister. What does that mean? Well, it means your teenage friend in the school-sponsored youth group can't baptize you. Alright. BCO 56-2 specifies that baptism is to be administered in the presence of the congregation under the supervision of the session, which means in a worship service. I was baptized in a creek, Ridley Creek, Ridley Creek State Park, downstream from a horse farm. I don't recommend that. That was very unpleasant on the way home. But it was during a called worship service by my evangelical Presbyterian church. Acts 10.47 shows us the baptism of Gentiles, not with oil, not with dust, not with fudge, but with water. Acts 8.36 and 38, the baptism of the Ethiopian eunuch was performed by one lawfully ordained, even directly by God, in a creek or a source of water. And in Matthew 28.19, in the Great Commission is to baptize into the triune name. Go ye therefore, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them all that I have commanded you. Baptizing and teaching is how you make disciples. This is common to all Christians, but different than pseudo-Christian groups or cults. I don't believe that Roman Catholics have baptism. They sprinkle or pour water, In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Mormons also use water in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. But what they're both missing is lawfully ordained ministers. You can't have lawfully ordained ministers without the church. You can't have the church without the gospel. Both of those groups deny, officially deny, for all the world to know. the gospel as we understand it in the scriptures. They've said they've anathematized salvation by grace through faith. And the Mormon church has a different Jesus Christ. Uses the same words, means something totally different. And so they can't have baptism then. They can't have this thing that's been instituted by Christ without his church, without his gospel. And One thing that's very important is if you do have these things, in the PCA, we will recognize your baptism. If you have these three features, I mean, you want to say in a worship service, but we're going to construe that as broadly and as graciously as we can, understanding that in all churches, there is no perfection. There's a lot of imperfection. But this is what's required. So as opposed to, say, our friends in the Church of Christ, which is a Protestant denomination in this country, which is some expressions of it, some congregations, I think we can call brothers and sisters. Others are so schismatic, I don't think we can call them brothers and sisters. They're cultish. But they say across the board that if you're baptized as a baby, it doesn't count. In fact, if you're baptized in any other group than the Church of Christ, it doesn't count, even as a believer. Even if I would say, okay, you can believe that and still be a Christian, I would call that schismatic and that's a very dangerous, bad place to be. We'll recognize Lutheran baptism, we'll recognize Methodist baptism, we'll recognize Baptist baptism as long as it's done by a lawfully ordained minister with water into the triune name in a worship service. So this is where Dr. Pipe and I get a little different. You're in the United Methodist Church, you have a lady minister, and the lady minister baptizes you. Does that count? So Dr. Pipe would say, though the United Methodist Church is all but completely gone, we as the PCA have not recognized them to be apostate, and thus we will accept their baptism. And I say, well, I'll accept their baptism if it's performed by one lawfully ordained. Only a man can be lawfully ordained. So I don't think a baptism performed by a woman can ever be legitimate, period. Now the response to that is like, well, when you say that the little Hebrew boys that were circumcised by the midwives or circumcised by Moses' wife need to get re-circumcised because it doesn't count. And I said, that's apples and oranges at that point. Baptism may be New Testament circumcision, but there's a major physical difference there. I'm talking about water washing by lawfully ordained minister into the triune name in a worship service. That's all I'm talking about. Anyway, we can have some differences on that. That's okay. That's what sessions are for, to work those out, right? Westminster Confession of Faith 28.3 says that dipping of the person into the water, what we call immersion, is not necessary. Is not necessary. But baptism is rightly administered by pouring or sprinkling And there's a biblical reason why we use the word pouring or sprinkling, because the Holy Spirit's poured out upon us, we're sprinkled and consecrated in prophetic language with the Spirit of God, the sprinkling of water upon the person. Hebrews 9 says in several verses, 10, 13, 19, 21, sprinkling of Old Testament furniture and people with the blood of bulls and goats is referred to as baptizo, baptizing, is clearly sprinkling. You're not dunking a whole couch into ox blood. You're sprinkling. tables and lamps and things and the altar. Mark 7, 2 through 4. Mark 7, verses 2 through 4. In the King James Version, it says, washings of tables. The word there is baptizo. Again, you're not taking a table and dunking it into any kind of fluid. They would be sprinkling it. Luke 11, 38. When there's a controversy about washing your hands ceremonially before you eat, They were not thinking about putting their hands into a bowl immersion-wise, but rather with a laver pouring water over their hands to cleanse them. And that's the mechanism that's being pictured there. Baptizo or bapto can mean immersion, it can mean submerged, but it more frequently means poured or sprinkled. And this is a bit inferential, but when you look at the environmental conditions of Jerusalem and you consider 3,000 people getting baptized all at once, how'd they do that? There's just simply not enough water and time in the day to dunk them all. So it must have been pouring and sprinkling by a group of men performing the baptisms. That's what was going on. And even with John the Baptist in the River Jordan, you would walk into the river and you'd stand there, but he wouldn't dunk you. He would take the water and pour it over your head. And if you look at the baptismal fonts of the early church, They were either dunking little people or they were doing what I just described, standing there and taking the water and pouring it. They weren't the big kind of mini pools that we have in a lot of Baptist churches today. But anyway, all I have to say is pouring or sprinkling is enactment language of the pouring out of the Spirit in Ezekiel 36. To be baptized into Christ's death doesn't mean to be lowered into the grave. in Romans chapter 6, 3 through 5, but it simply means to be identified with Christ in his death. In fact, when Jesus was buried in the grave, and I say quotes just because in our minds we think buried like we do in our cemetery here, dig six feet under and lower a body into the ground. Jesus was actually placed laterally into a cave. That's where his body was laid, in a shroud. A cave with a big stone in it that could be rolled away and you could go in and see or tend to the body. That's how they buried people in that culture. A lot of the proof texts for immersion don't really work, and I'm really running out of time. What about baptisms and gospels and acts? After being baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water, Matthew 3.16, talking about walking up the bank from the water source, not being brought up out. Mark 1 10 immediately coming up out of the water same motion acts 241 So then those who had received his word were baptized and that day they were added about 3,000 souls I've already mentioned that acts 838. This one's a clincher He ordered the chariot to stop and they both went down into the water Philip as well as a eunuch and he baptized him That's what the scripture says. So, if we're going to read that to mean that Philip dunked the eunuch, it means you would have to understand that then, because the verb applies to both of them equally, that Philip took the eunuch and went down under the water with him. But that's simply not what happened. They walked down to the water source where Philip then baptized the Ethiopian eunuch. In the cases of Lydia, the Philippian jailer, and Cornelius, I find it very unlikely, if not incredible, that they were immersed without mentioning where or into what pool of water in their homes. They were certainly sprinkled or had water poured on them. In any case, this is what you need to know about PCA. All you need to know. We recognize immersion as valid, but We do not recognize it as proper. So what that means is that people like me who come into the PCA having been immersed or dunked, as we say, and Mrs. Groff too, our baptisms are recognized as valid. We don't have to be baptized. again, or our baptisms are not ruled out as invalid, but as a gospel minister, I am never going to perform a baptism the way I was baptized. Isn't that interesting? I'm just not going to do it because I don't think it's proper. I think it's confusing. I think it introduces confusion. I'd much rather teach somebody the proper means. And my understanding of our book is that I'm not really authorized to do that as a PCA minister. Now other sessions come to different conclusions. There are some PCA churches that will bring out a little kiddie pool or an inflatable pool and do an immersion if the person says, I really believe that I should be immersed. I don't see Antioch doing that. But that's ultimately a sessional decision, and if the session decides it, I'll probably have to say, I can't perform that in good conscience, so we'll have to find another minister to come and do that. But I don't see that happening. Now, the proper subjects or recipients of baptism is actually where most of the controversy is, and we're out of time. But we believe this to be very simply, and you all already know this, professing believers and They're children. A long time ago in this church, one of the ministers approached the stated clerk, this was like 40 years ago, and said to him, or no, he wasn't a stated clerk at that time, he was just an elder minister. He said, hey, there's a Mormon woman who wants me to baptize her child. Am I allowed to do that? And the other minister said, no, you can't do that. She's not a believer. He's like, yeah, that's what I thought. I just wanted to double check. So we don't baptize just anybody that asks us to baptize somebody. You either have to be a professing believer or the child of a believer. The principle of visible church membership extends to credible professors of faith together with their children or household members. Look at Noah and the ark for example. And also Abraham with his children. We know Ishmael was not converted and yet received circumcision in Genesis 17. We see that in Ezekiel 16, God rebukes the nation of Israel for slaying, quote, His children. That is, all the children of Israel, even before they could make profession of faith, if they were being sacrificed to Moloch, Which happened, God said, you're killing my children. That is, He's in covenant with them. He claims that for those who are too young to make a profession of faith. In Acts 2.39, a popular proof text for this principle is what Peter says, the promise is for you and your children and all those who are far away. And then Paul in 1 Corinthians 7.14 teaches that the household is sanctified by one believing parent or spouse. The sacraments of the Old Testament, in regard of the spiritual things thereby signified and exhibited, were for substance the same with those of the new. And so, we say, same and expanded from circumcision. Men only. Yeah, men only receive circumcision for obvious anatomical reasons. The Muslims don't think it's as obvious, but it's obvious for us. Now, men and women receive baptism because under the dispensation of grace, we might say, or in the covenant, the new covenant, administration of the covenant of grace. The scope is expanded to include more, so why would we limit it then, if we're expanding it to women, why would we cut off children? It makes no sense. It doesn't fit with the pattern of Scripture. In the Old Testament, the initiatory sign was given to sons, the principles not revoked in the new. Indeed, the signs of covenant community membership are expanded as women are now baptized and welcome to the supper, though that's never explicitly stated, So it holds that children are still recipients and subjects of the initiatory sign, which is no longer circumcision but baptism. Colossians 2 really makes explicit that connection between baptism and circumcision. This is Christ's revolutionary countercultural regard for children. members of his covenant community. He goes so far as to identify children as living analogs for disciples writ large. Consider what that would have done to the ancient Roman mind. The pater familias in ancient Rome could do whatever he wanted to anybody in his house. He could put to death any of his children, even teenage children. He could put to death his wife. He could put to death any of his slaves with no Consequences. You can just do it. But in the Christian mind, what Christ teaches, children have human dignity, nobility, and worth, and they're recognized as such. They are living pictures of Christian discipleship. So why wouldn't we regard them then as disciples, even before they can make a credible profession of faith? This is the argument. Now, when we perform baptisms, you've seen me do it. I think everyone here has seen us do that. BCO 56-4, which is constitutionally binding, tells us what we are supposed to do before we perform a baptism. We're supposed to explain it. We're supposed to pray. We propound certain questions to the parents or to the man or woman becoming a believer and we use membership vows if it's somebody who's making profession of faith as an adult because if you're an adult you get baptized and thus you're immediately welcome to the table. As a child That's not the same thing, because the requirements for the Lord's Table include self-examination and discernment of the body. We're going to talk about that next week. We're going to talk about communion and why we do not practice paedo-communion at Antioch, among other important subjects. Lord willing, let's pray. Father in heaven, we thank you that you do lay hold of us and you claim us, that you put your favor upon us and you show us to be true and to be loving and merciful. We pray that you give us an increased understanding and appreciation for the ordinances that you've established and instituted in your church. even especially baptism in the Lord's Supper. We pray all this in Christ's name. Amen. Thank you for listening to this message from Antioch Presbyterian Church. For more information about Antioch, visit us at our website at antiochpca.com.