We'll read from Galatians 4, beginning in verse 21 and reading through the end of the chapter. Galatians 4, 21-31. Hear the Word of the Lord. Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not hear the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondwoman, the other by a free woman. But he who was of the bondwoman was according to the flesh, and he of the free woman through promise. Which things are symbolic? For these are the two covenants. The one from Mount Sinai, which gives birth to bondage, which is Hagar. For this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and corresponds to Jerusalem, which now is, and is in bondage with her children. But the Jerusalem above is free, which is the mother of us all. For it is written, Rejoice, O barren, you who do not bear. Break forth and shout, you who are not in labor. For the desolate has many more children than she who has a husband. Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are children of promise. But as he who was born according to the flesh then persecuted him who was born according to the spirit, even so it is now. Nevertheless, what does the scripture say? Cast out the bondwoman and her son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the free woman. So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever. You may be seated. We are returning this morning to our ongoing series on the ordinances of the new covenant. And this is our third sermon on the subject of baptism. So three Lord's days ago, we answered the question, what is baptism? And we explored the picture that baptism presents to us. It is a symbol pointing to something greater than itself. namely, to the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ and us in Him by faith. And then two Lord's Days ago, we explored the text of the New Testament as it relates to baptism. And we demonstrated that in the words of noted Presbyterian scholar, B.B. Warfield, it is true that there's no express command to baptize infants in the New Testament. no express record of the baptism of infants, and no passages so stringently implying it that we must infer from them the infants were baptized. So this was his admission that infant baptism cannot be found in the pages of the New Testament. And we looked at the text of the New Testament and found that he was correct. But Warfield goes on to say, if such warrant as this were necessary to justify the usage, we would have to leave it completely unjustified. But The warrant for infant baptism is not to be sought in the New Testament, but in the Old Testament, where the church was instituted, and nothing short of an actual forbidding of it in the New Testament could warrant our omitting it now. Now what he's doing is making two arguments here. The first one is that the ordinance and positive laws of the old covenant, particularly the ordinance of circumcision, lay the foundation and set the parameters for the practice of a positive law and ordinance of the new covenant, namely baptism. So this is an argument from covenant theology. The second argument he makes is that nothing short of an actual forbidding of the practice of infant baptism in the New Testament would warrant their omitting the practice now. In other words, he wants to see a text of the New Testament that clearly abrogates, repeals, and does away with the principle of infant inclusion in the covenant community and therefore the sign of the covenant, which was circumcision and now baptism. So these are two related arguments that he's making, the argument from covenant theology and the principle of infant inclusion being explicitly abrogated or done away with. I had planned to address both of those this morning. but I realized that that was just too much ground to cover. So this morning we're going to deal with the argument from covenant theology, and then next week we will look at the principle of infant inclusion in the covenant community. They're related, so we'll do a little bit of that this morning, but we'll focus on that next week. Now, our pedobaptist friends, those who baptize infants, they base their practice not on an explicit text of the New Testament, as we have seen, but rather on a theological argument from the covenants of the Scripture. So I want to begin with an outline of covenant theology for those who may be unfamiliar, and then move on to discuss the differences between their covenant theology and ours. So what is covenant theology? Now there are many different phrases that you'll hear that use this word theology, many different kinds of theology that we might talk about. Theology is simply the study of God, the study of divine things. And as R.C. Sproul used to say, everyone is a theologian. Everyone has ideas about God. Even the atheist who said God doesn't exist, is making a theological statement. For him to argue that God doesn't exist, that's a doctrine that he believes about God. So that's his theology. So the atheist has a theology. We all are theologians. We all have ideas and beliefs about God. The question is, is our theology biblical or not? Now, if you say, well, I believe the Bible, well, that's great. So do the Mormons and the Jehovah's Witnesses. So what do you believe the Bible teaches about God, about man, about salvation, about a specific subject? Well, now you're doing theology. You're making a creedal or a confessional statement of theology. So this is the reason that we use creeds and confessions. They're simply summaries of what we believe the Bible teaches on any particular topic. And in many ways, they're what we might consider many systematic theologies. So a systematic theology is a method of organizing all that the Bible says on any topic and then arranging those topics in an order of their relation to one another, in order of importance, and in order recognizing that some doctrines are dependent upon other doctrines. And so we start with the doctrine of Scripture, and then we move on to the doctrine of God, and the doctrine of man, and sin, and then we get into the doctrines of redemption. So that's systematic theology. Another theology that you'll hear mentioned is biblical theology. Biblical theology is the study of a particular topic or idea as it develops through the course of the Bible chronologically from beginning to end. It's the development of a particular topic or doctrine over the course of time in redemptive history. Covenant theology is another way of organizing what the Bible teaches based on the various covenants that God makes with man. And because God has made these covenants with man, and we see their importance in the scripture, we see that the primary method that the Bible itself uses to organize itself is the basis of these covenants. So this is an approach that uses both systematic and biblical theology. Covenant theology combines those two together, right? Biblical theology focuses on historical development and progress, while systematic theology focuses on the complete view of what does all of the Bible say summarized on a given topic. Well, covenant theology addresses the progress and the unfolding of the doctrine of redemption throughout the course of history from one covenant to the next, while at the same time systematizing our doctrine of God and of salvation and of church government and the sacraments, etc. Now the main competing system to covenant theology, covenant theology does not compete with systematic and biblical theology, they all work hand in hand. The main competing system of theology is that which is known as dispensationalism. Dispensationalism organizes the Bible into dispensations or periods of time in which God deals with men according to differing standards for salvation and righteousness. It focuses on the historical nation of Israel, the church age, maintaining a clear distinction between the two, the premillennial eschatology, including the idea of a secret rapture, and a future coming kingdom of God. So I'm painting with a very broad brush here, right? All dispensationalists do not agree on the system and on the number of dispensations and how they relate to each other. In the same way, all covenant theologians do not agree on the nature of the covenants and how they relate to one another. But the basic idea of covenant theology is that God has chosen to relate to man through covenants from Adam to Christ. A covenant, then, is a supernatural order imposed by God on His creatures. What I mean is that man was created by God, and because He is the Creator and we are the creature, we owe to Him our obedience. That obedience, if done perfectly, merits nothing from God. It is only what is required of creatures. A covenant, however, is not part of that created order. It is something extra that God, in His grace, has instituted with man. It's a supernatural order, not revealed in creation, but by direct revelation from God. God voluntarily, not under compulsion. condescends to relate to his creatures, offering them fellowship with himself and other rewards as part of a covenantal relationship. Now, these rewards would not be available to man as part of the creator-creature relationship. They are explicitly rewards offered in covenant relationship with God. Things such as the land of Canaan, kingship over Israel, salvation through the blood of Christ and everlasting life. These are rewards of the various covenants. But covenants also include obligations placed on the creature by God, the covenant Lord. These are obligations beyond that which is simply owed to God as our creator. And they take the form of commands. positive commands of the various covenants, such as, don't eat from this particular tree. Adam would not have known not to eat from that tree had God not explicitly told him not to. The practice of circumcision or baptism, we wouldn't know to do those things simply from nature. They must be revealed to us in the Word of God. They are positive laws. Natural law has its place in creation, but positive law is part of the covenantal arrangement, and all positive law is covenantally conditioned, right? Positive laws are specific to the covenant of which they are a part. The word covenant is used throughout both the Old and the New Testament in Hebrew and in Greek, and it means that two or more parties have made commitments or promises to one another that are guaranteed by sanctions or threats. God being one of those parties, the commitment that he makes is always gracious towards man. And the sanction is always imposed by God on his creatures. These covenants are not optional, right? They're not take it or leave it. You don't get to opt in or out of the covenant. You're a child of Adam, you are in the covenant of which Adam was a head. The covenants are imposed by God. They're not the smorgasbord that you can choose to take or leave at your pleasure. The covenants are made by God to carry out his redemptive plan in the world, to fulfill his purposes and do good to man. Now, Nehemiah Cox, our particular Baptist forefather, defined a covenant as a declaration of God's sovereign pleasure concerning the benefits he will bestow on man, communion they will have with Him, and the way and means by which this will be enjoyed by them. It implies a free and sovereign act of the divine will exerted in condescending love and goodness. So the covenants are made by God in love and grace as He condescends to relate to His creatures in this way. And so as we look at this and we use that as our definition of the covenants, we recognize that all the covenants God makes with man contain a measure of grace. But we are particularly concerned with the covenant that we title the covenant of grace. Now we see a covenant between Adam and God in the garden. God gives Adam an obligation to tend and keep the garden, expanding its borders to fill the earth, to populate it with worshipers. And the implied promise is that Adam, upon completion of this task, will enter the Lord's rest. The threat or the sanction of the covenant is death if Adam is to breach the positive law of the commandment, which is not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Now, the word covenant is not used in Genesis 2 and 3, but in Hosea, God says of the southern kingdom of Judah, but like Adam, they transgressed the covenant. There they dealt faithlessly with me. So here the prophet is saying Adam transgressed the covenant that he was in with God. So Adam was in covenant with God and this covenant is commonly called the covenant of works, though it was graciously made with Adam by God and promised that which he did not deserve as a creature, that is to enter into God's rest everlastingly. Now, after Adam, we see a covenant with Noah following the flood, the Noahic covenant. And then there's a covenant with Abraham, the Sinai covenant, often called the Mosaic covenant, the covenant with David promising a son to sit on the throne forever, and then the new covenant in the New Testament made in Christ's blood. So in each of these covenants, God makes this covenant relationship with man for our good and to further his purpose of redemption in the world. So covenant theology in general understands the Bible and the history of redemption on the basis of these covenants. But how do they work? What is their relationship to one another? And how does that affect our doctrine of baptism? Now, let me say at the beginning, I'm painting with a broad brush again. Not all pedo-baptists, those who baptize infants, base their practice on covenant theology. Roman Catholicism does not have a fully formed covenant theology. Many of their practices are rooted in the Old Testament, their view of the Lord's Supper as a sacrifice, the priesthood, but their practice of infant baptism is based on tradition and on a theology of works, not so much on a covenant theology. But different pedobaptist groups develop their theology differently. And so generally speaking, all covenant theologians see the covenant of works with Adam in the garden very similarly. We generally agree on that. We recognize the Noahic covenant as an abiding covenant with all of creation. There's not much disagreement on that. But beginning with Abraham, we begin to see differences on how various groups understand the covenants and their relationship to one another. Presbyterians, Lutherans, and the Dutch Reformed see, again, generally speaking, the remainder of the covenants from Abraham through Christ as one covenant, the covenant of grace. They see a continuity between the covenants, all of them working together to bring forth Christ and culminating in the coming of the Messiah and the establishment of the church, His body. Abraham is promised a seed that will bless the world. Which seed is Christ according to scripture? The Sinai covenant promises Christ in types and in shadows through the ceremonial law of sacrifices, the priesthood, directly through a promise of a greater prophet than Moses. The Davidic covenant promises a king to sit on the throne and rule in righteousness forever. The new covenant gives us Christ, the promised seed, the prophet, the priest, the king. And so they see that there's grace in all the covenants. There's continuity between the covenants. They're organically linked together. Abraham, Abraham's descendants, Christ, the seed of Abraham. They see a continuity of ordinances from one covenant to the next. Circumcision is given to Abraham as part of his covenant. And then it is continued in the Sinai covenant or the Mosaic covenant. What they conclude from all of this is that these historical covenants are all one overarching covenant of grace administered differently through different covenant heads, Abraham, Moses, David, Christ. And so they use this language of one covenant, multiple administrations of the same substance, but of different outward ordinances. They argue that since it is one covenant with multiple administrations, and since the children, infant children, of covenant members were included in the covenant under these previous administrations, and since these covenant children included in the covenant were given the sign of the covenant, circumcision, Even though they might not grow up to know the Lord, they are not all Israel who are of Israel, Paul says in Romans 9, 6. In other words, there were members of the old covenant, the covenant nation of Israel, who were given the sign of the covenant, circumcised, they functioned as members of the covenant community outwardly, but they were never saved. They did not know the Lord. and therefore they were not members of the spiritual Israel of God. The sons of Eli and 1 Samuel, Eli was a priest. His sons served as priests in the tabernacle when it was at Shiloh. So here we have two men, members of the covenant community of the tribe of Levi, circumcised, serving as priests in the nation. And scripture says of them, now the sons of Eli were corrupt. They did not know the Lord. So obviously here are members of the covenant outwardly who are not members of the covenant inwardly. It therefore follows, according to our Presbyterian friends, that the new covenant, being a new administration of the same covenant, the covenant of grace, must function in a similar manner. And it is then proper to give the sign of the covenant to infant children of covenant members in the new covenant, though those children may never come to faith. They are outwardly members of the covenant, And they use the term covenant children to refer to the children of believers, but they may never be members of the covenant inwardly. So they bifurcate the covenant into outward and inward circles. levels of membership based on the idea that this is all one covenant of grace, of the same substance, but with multiple administrations. The Presbyterian Church in America, in their Book of Church Order, which is their official document, states this, By virtue of being children of believing parents, they are, because of God's covenant ordinance, made members of the church. But this is not sufficient to make them continue members of the church. When they have reached the age of discretion, they become subject to the obligations of the covenant, faith, repentance, and obedience. They then make public confession of their faith in Christ or become covenant breakers and subject to the discipline of the church. Now, what that means is that in their view, the new covenant is by nature a mixed membership of those who are saved and those who are unsaved, both intentionally given the sign of the covenant and made outwardly members of the covenant. and that it is possible for the new covenant to then be broken by those who have been made members of it and given the sign of the covenant, just as the old covenant was broken. And so their argument for infant baptism rests on their formulation of covenant theology, and it does not depend on any particular text in the New Testament. They do apply to New Testament texts and use them to support their practice, but its foundation, as B.B. Warfield said, is rooted in the Old Testament and the nature of the Old Covenant, not in a positive law of the New Covenant. Then the answer to this is not to reject covenant theology. The answer is to correctly exegete the texts of the New Testament, as we attempted to do previously, but also to correctly formulate our understanding of covenant theology. So let's try to do that now. The first distinction between our covenant theology and theirs is the extent of the covenant of grace, where they see all of the covenants from Abraham to Christ as differing administrations of one covenant of grace, we see the new covenant alone as the covenant of grace. Our confession speaking of the covenant of grace says this, this covenant is revealed in the gospel first of all to Adam in the promise of salvation by the seed of the woman and afterwards by farther steps until the full discovery thereof was completed in the New Testament. Now, this is chapter 7, paragraph 3 of our confession. So, Reformed Baptist covenant theology, sometimes known as 1689 federalism, roots the covenant of grace, not in the New Testament, but back in the promise made to Adam in the garden. Now, technically, this is not a promise to Adam so much as it is a curse pronounced by God on the serpent. Genesis 3.15, And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. This is the promise of Christ, the seed of the woman, who would do what Adam had failed to do. That is, he would defeat the serpent and keep covenant with God. And so this is where our biblical theology comes into play as part of covenant theology. The covenant of grace is first revealed to Adam in the garden. But that's not a lot of information. And so it continues to be progressively revealed in greater detail, as our confession says, by farther steps. Each covenant, full of types and shadows, reveals a bit more of this promised serpent-crushing seed of the woman, the Redeemer, who is to come. until he finally does come to fulfill these promises, to fulfill the tides and the shadows, to enact redemption in the course of human history in his perfect life, sacrificial death, resurrection, and ascension. And this is what our confession calls the full discovery of the covenant of grace that we see in the New Testament. So we see the new covenant as the covenant of grace and the previous covenants as historical covenants, national covenants, types and shadows pointing forward to Christ who is the substance. We see a continuity between the covenants. We agree with our Presbyterian friends on this. There is a continuity. The same gracious God makes all the covenants. They all bear a resemblance. But we see a distinction between the new covenant and all the others. I think of it this way. Cats and dogs are both creatures made by God, and they bear many similarities. They are all made of the same stuff, the same physical material, and when they die, their bodies decompose and turn to dust, which is indistinguishable to one from the other. They each have four legs, hearts, lungs, paws, teeth, ears, eyes, mouths, digestive systems, reproductive systems. There's a lot of continuity between cats and dogs. Should we then conclude that they are the same creature just under outward administrations? Well, no, they're not the same creature. They are distinctly unique in their DNA. They are not capable of interbreeding with one another. This is how we see the covenants. They are related because of their relationship to the God who made them. They all contain grace, voluntary condescension on God's part, blessings from God to men. But like cats and dogs, they are unique. The New Covenant is distinct from the Old Covenant. The covenant with Abraham, the Mosaic covenant, and the Davidic covenant are all closely related, one building upon the other. And taken jointly, they're often referred to as the Old Covenant, in contrast with the New Covenant. And that's what we see in our text in Galatians that we read here at the beginning. Adam had two sons, Ishmael and Isaac. Ishmael was born to Hagar, Sarah's handmaid or bondwoman, a slave. He was born through the will of the flesh. Abraham took Hagar to be his wife, had relations with her, produced a son in an effort to keep God's promise for him. Isaac, on the other hand, was born to Sarah, Abraham's rightful wife. She was too old to bear children and she had been barren her entire life. Isaac was born by the will of God, miraculously, as God rejuvenated Sarah so that she could have a child in her old age. So Isaac is born according to the promise. And the scripture says in Galatians 4 and verse 24, which things are symbolic? For these are the two covenants. These are the two covenants. The one from Mount Sinai, which gives birth to bondage, which is Hagar. For this Hagar in Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to Jerusalem, which now is and is in bondage with her children. But the Jerusalem above is free, which is the mother of us all. Now this would have been shocking to Jewish readers of this text. Scripture equates by way of analogy Ishmael to the Jews, not Isaac, but Ishmael, Mount Sinai in Arabia, not in Canaan. This corresponds to the Jewish nation, the old covenant. But Isaac is equated to all those who believe, not Jews only, not by physical descent, but spiritually, by faith, members of the Jerusalem above, which is the church of the new covenant. The two covenants, the old and the new, are contrasted with one another. The new covenant is new, it is not like the old. Sure, it bears resemblance to the old covenant, being graciously instituted by the same God, the way cats and dogs bear resemblances and similarities to one another, but it is distinct. It is distinct in purpose, it is distinct in scope, and it is distinct in quality. The New Covenant is distinct from the Old Covenant in purpose, in that the purpose of the Old Covenant was twofold. Its immediate purpose was life in the land of Canaan for the physical descendants of Abraham. Its extended purpose was to use the family of Abraham to bring Christ into the world. This is the purpose of the Old Covenant. The Old Covenant served this purpose by preserving national Israel, the descendants of Abraham, as a people group so that the Christ, the promised seed of Abraham, might come into the world. It promised them land in Canaan, in the promised land. What the Old Covenant did not promise them was everlasting life. The Old Covenant never promised that. In Galatians 3, the scripture asks this question, is the law then against the promises of God? Certainly not. For if there had been a law given which could have given life, truly righteousness would have been by the law. The law of the Mosaic covenant could not give everlasting life. It never promised that. It promised them life in the land of Canaan. The new covenant, however, promises much more. Hebrews 8, verse six calls it a better covenant, which was established on better promises. The New Covenant does promise everlasting life. Now, the classic verse for this, of course, is John 3, 16. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. He gave His Son how? As a sacrifice. the sacrifice of the new covenant. And whoever believes in him, trusting in his atoning sacrifice, has everlasting life, the reward of the covenant. Something that was never promised as part of the old covenant. Secondly, the new covenant promises life not in the land of Canaan, but life in the new heavens and earth. The inheritance of the old covenant was geographically limited to the land of Canaan. The inheritance of the new covenant is much greater. 2 Peter 3.13, nevertheless, we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. So the purpose of the covenants is distinct. The old covenant promised life in the land of Canaan through law and ceremonial system of animal sacrifice, its purpose being to bring Christ into the world. The new covenant promises everlasting life in a new heavens and a new earth through the once for all sacrifice of Christ. But you might ask, well, how then were people in the Old Testament saved? They were saved by faith in the promise of the coming new covenant. The old covenant saints believed the promises of the Messiah. They believed the types and the shadows embedded in their covenants. And they were saved by virtue of the new covenant, though it had not yet been established in historical time. This is one reason why the Old Covenant saints, upon death, went to paradise in Hades rather than directly into the heavenly realm. Christ had not yet offered himself as an atoning sacrifice and opened the way into the presence of God in heaven. And so they went to Abraham's bosom, paradise, as prisoners of hope, as the prophet Zechariah calls them. Once the new covenant was established in Christ's blood, he went and freed the prisoners of hope, leading many sons to glory in fulfillment of that prophecy. If you need more information on that idea, I refer you back to my sermon on the Apostle's Creed and the line that he descended into hell, where we discussed this idea of him freeing the Old Testament saints from paradise and leading them into the presence of God in heaven. So the purpose of the New Covenant is distinct from the purpose of the Old Covenant. And everyone who has ever been saved from Adam until today and until Christ returns is saved by virtue of their trust in the promises of the New Covenant. The scope of the covenants is also distinct. The old covenant scope was limited to the physical offspring of Abraham. The scope of the new covenant is much broader. It is extended to all those who are children of Abraham by faith. This is why Paul, a Jewish man, could say to the Gentile church in Galatians in verse 28, now we, Brethren we that is you and I a Jew and you Gentiles as brothers were as Isaac was children of promise In chapter three, he said, therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham. Only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham as it concerns the new covenant. Christ commissions his church to go to the nations. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations. in Matthew 28, 19. So the scope of the new covenant is not limited to one family, but is for all those who believe throughout the world, regardless of physical ancestry. And unlike the old covenant, only those who are saved by faith are members of the new covenant. Let's revisit a text that we looked at not long ago, Jeremiah 31, the promise of the new covenant. Part of that promise of the new covenant in Jeremiah relates to this. In Jeremiah 31, it says this, beginning in verse 31. Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt. my covenant, which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord." So God is making a new covenant not like the old covenant. The old covenant was broken. The new covenant is different. So now we're addressing this idea that the Presbyterians have that there could be people who are outwardly members of the covenant and then break the covenant by never becoming inward members of the covenant. But God says in Jeremiah, the new covenant is different. It's not like the one that could be broken, it is different. Verse 33, this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord. I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts and I will be their God and they shall be my people. God will put his law in our mind and in our hearts. We will be his people and he will be our God. No more shall every man teach his neighbor and every man his brother, saying, know the Lord, for they all shall know me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity and their sin. I will remember no more. There will be no members of the new covenant who do not know the Lord. They all shall know the Lord. according to Jeremiah 31. Now this verse does not mean that there is no need for teachers or preachers in the New Covenant. But it does mean that what is taught to members of the new covenant is not conversion. Conversion is taught to those who are not yet members of the new covenant. But those who are members of the covenant are not taught, know the Lord, for they all shall know me. They already know the Lord. There are no more members of the covenant community who do not know the Lord, as Eli's sons were. This is how you become a member of the new covenant, is by knowing the Lord Jesus Christ. The Old Covenant was a mixed community of both believers and unbelievers, intentionally so. The New Covenant is different. It is intentionally not a mixed community. Now, this is not to say that all the members of visible churches are actually saved. There are false professors in our churches. But that is because of our failure to discern properly, not a purposeful inclusion of unbelievers as was under the Old Covenant. So the New Covenant is distinct from the Old Covenant in that way. The New Covenant is distinct in quality as well. The New Covenant is the typological end point for the types and shadows of the Old Covenant. The ordinances of the Old Covenant find their telos, their completion, their end in the New Covenant. The washings of the Old Covenant were typological of our being washed clean of our sins by the blood of Christ, which is pictured in baptism. In our first sermon on the subject of baptism, I briefly explored the idea that the Old Covenant washings are the background behind the New Covenant ordinance of baptism, not circumcision. And that's a whole study in itself, but one example is in order here. In John chapter three, John is baptizing in an area of Judea in a particular region where we are told that he was there because there was much water. He's baptizing by immersion. And Jesus and his disciples come to the area and they begin to baptize. And then it says this in John 3, 25. Then there arose a dispute between some of John's disciples and the Jews about purification. And they came to John and said to him, Rabbi, he who was with you beyond the Jordan to whom you have testified, behold, he is baptizing and all are coming to him. So a dispute about purification which is a reference to the Old Testament washings, is about baptism. A dispute about washings is about baptism. The Old Covenant washings were typological of the New Covenant ordinance of baptism. Circumcision of the flesh was typological of the circumcision of the heart in the New Covenant. The animal sacrifices of the Old Covenant were typological of the sacrifice of Christ in the New Covenant. The priesthood of Aaron was typological of the high priesthood of Christ. The temple was typological of the church. The land of Canaan was typological of the new heavens and the new earth. The old covenant was a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ, Colossians 2.17. These are not one covenant of the same substance with different administrations. These are different covenants with different substances, types and shadows. The substance is Christ. The new covenant is qualitatively better than the old covenant. The Old Covenant was but a shadow pointing forward to Christ who is the substance of the New Covenant. The New Covenant is distinct from the Old. Its purpose is everlasting life. Its scope is all those who believe. Its substance is Christ. The very nature of the New Covenant, in distinction from the Old Covenant, says that the new covenant is made with those who are sons of Abraham by faith. And therefore, our covenant theology demands the baptism of believers alone. As Reformed Baptists, our practice of believer's baptism is based on exegesis of the texts of the New Testament. Baptism means immersion. Every mention of baptism is demonstrated by immersion. None of them include, hint at, or demand the baptism of infants. The picture that baptism displays is of death, burial, and resurrection. The Old Covenant washings are analogous to baptism. The nature of positive law demands that the practice be defined by the covenant of which that law is a part, not a previous covenant. Our doctrine is not based on proof texts alone. It is our understanding of the distinction of the covenants that leads to our doctrine and practice of baptism by immersion of believers alone, those who are members of the new covenant by faith. nature of the New Covenant itself demands the baptism of believers alone. Next week, I intend to address the question of the principle of infant inclusion in covenant membership. And next Sunday will be our third Sunday fellowship, next Sunday evening, where we will continue this discussion and answer the question of how should we have this discussion with our Presbyterian brothers and sisters. But let's close this morning in a word of prayer.