if you could grab your catechism, we are beginning the section on the sacraments or the ordinances, depending on what you want to call them. Ordinances come from a word that simply means to command whereas sacrament comes from a word that means Mystery it is the Greek translation of the Latin Mysterium Which very much is what the sacraments are because the sacraments whether it is baptism or the Lord's Supper is a an external sign of an internal reality, okay? So that's what baptism is. It signifies or symbolizes our union with Christ, and that union with Christ is very mysterious. If you read through John chapter 17, and you read of the highly intimate language that Jesus uses to describe the union, not only of believers and Jesus, but the union that believers have with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It is very intimate and very mysterious. And so as we symbolize that in a sign like baptism, we call it a sacrament, something mysterious or the Lord's Supper that we do indeed feed upon Christ. This is mysterious. So in question 97, we have really kind of the opening salvo on the sacraments. We're going to read that and then we're going to get very quickly into what is going to take up the bulk of our time tonight. So question 97. The catechist asks, how do baptism and the Lord's Supper become effectual means of salvation? And we answer, baptism and the Lord's Supper become effectual means of salvation, not for any virtue in them or in him that does administer them, but only by the blessing of Christ and the working of the Spirit in those that by faith receive them. So very quickly, we've talked about this, and I don't want to spend a lot of time on it, but whether the sacrament or ordinance is administered by somebody who is holy or whether it is ministered by Satan himself, and I use that somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but I want to make the point, That doesn't matter because the efficacy or the effectiveness of the administration of baptism or the Lord's Supper depends on Christ's command of it and what the symbol itself stands for, not on the holiness of the man. So oftentimes when we have new members meetings, I will ask people, were you baptized? And sometimes I get people answering me saying, yes, but it was by a liberal female minister. I said, okay, did the liberal female minister baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit? Yes, okay, we're good. And then we move on to the next question. Because it doesn't matter whether, you know, even if their life is completely profligate. Okay, so that's what this question is getting at. It depends on the fact that Christ has instituted it. And then two more things that are very important. It depends on the working of the spirit within the person and the faith of the person themselves. And this is especially applicable when it comes to the Lord's Supper. So how is it that I feed upon Christ? Well, if I believe it and if the spirit is working, then there is a feeding upon Christ. If I don't believe it, then it doesn't mean anything. Well, actually, let me back up. It can mean what? Judgment. If nonbelievers take the sacrament and their heart is not in it, they do not have faith. Or worse, if whether it's a believer or nonbeliever, they're not believing, they're drinking judgment to themselves. So then that brings us to questions 98 and 99. And what I want to do this week and then next time we get together, which I think is going to be about three weeks from now, because next week we have the annual meeting. We are going to take the week after Thanksgiving off, so we won't have a Vesper evening service on that evening. And then I think the next one is the first week of December. So it'll be four weeks from now. We'll get back together and we'll do part two on baptism. But what I want to do in these two sessions is I want to give you a view from 30,000 feet of why we, as Baptists, only baptize believers. You notice little baby Tucker over there? He is what we refer to as a dry baby. What that means is he's not wet. He has not been christened, okay? If you spend any time in London, has anybody ever been in London? Anywhere in Europe? Okay. Has anybody ever asked you what is your Christian name? Has anybody ever asked you what your Christian name is? Anybody? Okay, what does that mean? Anybody know? What that means is what name were you given at your baptism? Because one of the things that parents will do together with the minister at the baptism of the baby is they will announce the name. And that is your Christian name. And that kind of gets at the heart of what's going on there. They are putting a Christian symbol on a subject that they believe to be a Christian. And so we're going to get to that in a moment. But we want to we want to lay out why we as baptists only baptize believers And i'm going to give you a view from 30 000 feet tonight And then next time we get together i'll go into more detail about why we don't baptize babies this week I want to speak positively why we do baptize believers and how that works from the old covenant to the new covenant and the next time we'll talk about negative examples about why we do not baptize babies and if I Get everything done correctly. I'll have a few minutes for questions afterwards. Okay, so let's look at question 98 question 98 in your catechism. The question very simply is, what is baptism? And we answer, baptism is an ordinance of the New Testament instituted by Jesus Christ to be unto the party baptized a sign of his fellowship with him in his death, burial, and resurrection, of his being engrafted into him, of remission of sins, and of his giving up himself unto God through Jesus Christ to live and walk in newness of life. So from the beginning of the church, there has been a huge debate which in the fallout of that debate has been one of the reasons why we have those who baptize infants and those who only baptize believers. And the question of the debate is very simple. When you look at your Bible, it has two parts. And what are all those parts? Old Testament and New Testament. So here's the question. the Old Testament and the New Testament a Christian book? Or are they two different testaments of two different religions? And one of the earliest heretics in the Christian church was a man named Marcion. And Marcion had the heretical or false idea that the God of the Old Testament was the God of wrath. And he was a different God than the God of the New Testament who was a God of love. And there was actually a following, they were called the Marcionites, and they were condemned in an early church council, which recognized that teaching as heresy. And ever since, the church has sought to show in her teaching, in her preaching, in her literature, that this Bible is one book of one religion. But the moment you say that the moment that you say that Old Testament is not just for the Jews, it's not a religion of Judaism. It is the precursors of Christianity. And the New Testament is the fulfillment of those precursors. You've got your work cut out for you because now you need to read through the Old Testament as we are fond of saying here, Christo centrically. That is to say, as I read the Old Testament, I have a lens over my eyes. It's a hermeneutical lens that seeks to find Christ in the Old Testament. And one of the first appearances of Christ in the Old Testament, as many of you know, is Genesis 3.15. It is often called by the church fathers the Protoevangelium, which means the first gospel. And what it is, is when Adam and Eve fell, God is giving a curse to the man, the woman, and the serpent. And in the midst of that context, in Genesis 3, He says to the woman, the seed of the woman will bruise the head of the seed of the serpent. So the seed, the descendant that comes forth from the woman is going to be victorious over the seed of the serpent, but in so doing, in crushing his head, he will bruise his heel. And we are always fond of saying as Christ crushed the head of Satan on the cross, He used Satan's head to step onto the cross and his heel was bruised. That is the first veiled form of the gospel that then, as the Old Testament moves forward, progressively gets flowers into the fuller revelation of the gospel. John Calvin dealt with this problem in his day, and he was very eager to show that the whole Bible is the Christian Bible. So now we begin to see why this becomes a problem. Because in the Old Testament, the sign of the covenant people was what? Somebody tell me. Circumcision. And circumcision went on believers and their what? Children. Okay? Now, here's Calvin's problem. If in the old covenant, the sign of the people of God went upon those who believed in Yahweh and their children, then when we get to the new covenant, unless the new covenant tells us to stop doing that, then we continue to put the sign, which now in the New Testament is baptism. On believers. And their children, OK? That in a nutshell is the Presbyterian and in some respects Methodist and in some respects Catholic argument, although in each tradition it's a little bit differently. So what is good about this argument? What's good about this argument and what we can agree with Calvin about is that we too want to see a unity in the Bible. It should bother us if there's such a disjunction between the old covenant and the new covenant that they really do seem like two different religions, right? And so we want to sympathize with Calvin, but then the next question we want to ask is, isn't it the case that even from the old covenant to the new covenant, there was a change in the sign? And Calvin would say, we, we, because he spoke French. That's right. Yes, there was a change of the sign. So if the new covenant is already starting to change things up, then is it not also possible that the subjects upon whom that sign is put will also change? Well, that's where Calvin would demur. But here's the thing. Think about circumcision for a moment. Upon whom was circumcision place specifically? Males, that's right Israel males. There was no form of female circumcision as we have in Islam today But now in the new covenant our Presbyterian brethren, what will they limit the sign of baptism to males? No, they'll also put it on females Is there any command in the New Testament to do that? No, there's no command. So you see, the Presbyterians are already starting to open it up a little bit more and change things based on what the feel of the New Testament is. So what we want to ask is we want to ask why does the New Testament give us any information at all about the subjects of the sign of baptism in the new covenant. I'm going to argue that they do. Okay. So I'm going to ask you to grab your Bibles and we're going to, we're going to look at a number of passages and I hope that this will be made clear to you. Okay. Notice in question 98 the first words right out of the gate. Baptism is an ordinance of the New Testament instituted by Jesus Christ to be into the party baptized. That statement right there tells you what the authors of the catechism believe to be the hermeneutical control of the Bible. What do I mean by that? The authors of the catechism had a presupposition in understanding the sign of the covenant for the new covenant people of God. And it was this, listen to me very carefully. The New Testament interprets the Old Testament. Okay, I'm gonna say that again. The New Testament interprets the Old Testament. So whatever categories are given to us in the Old Covenant, they are to be filtered through how the New Testament authors and writers and teachers interpret them, okay? And that is the very first principle that we must understand. Now, within this principle, I'm gonna give you two questions that you need to ask that are gonna help you understand anything, whether you read it in the New Testament or the Old Testament, okay? So here's the thing. When you're reading your Bible and you see a command, a promise, an institution, or a curse, or a blessing, whether it's in the Old Covenant or New Covenant, you ask two questions. Here's the first question, okay? To which covenant is this and just whatever it is, promise, command, curse, blessing, et cetera, attached, okay? To which covenant is this promise or this institution attached, okay? And then secondly, once you figure out the answer to that question, you ask this question. Am I a party to that covenant? If you answer these two questions, you will have the answer to the bigger question of whether it is for you or whether it is not for you. OK, so I'm going to take these two hermeneutical questions and we're not going to run through some passages that are going to lay out for us the answer to the question. Do I put the covenant sign of baptism in the new covenant upon little baby Tucker or any child of a believer? OK, so here we go. When you think of the first time that the sign of circumcision was given to the people of God, it was first given to whom? Who remembers? The promise was given to Abraham for his son Isaac, right? We refer to this as the Abrahamic Covenant. The Abrahamic Covenant first came in Genesis 12, and then later in Genesis 15 it was ratified and reconfirmed. And then in 17, that is the first time that we get the command of circumcision. And then later that that promise of the Abrahamic covenant is reiterated to Isaac and Jacob later on in chapter 22, 25 and 27. Here's what I want you to see, OK? Whether no matter where you see the Abrahamic covenant in the old covenant. There are two things that are attached. It's made up of two things. physical promises and spiritual promises. Okay, physical promises and spiritual promises. So I want you, I'm a horrible artist, but here we go, okay? I want you to think of the Abrahamic promise, okay, as a husk of corn or a husk with a corn in it, okay? The husk is the physical promises and the corn is the spiritual promises. Now. Without going through all the details, I'm just gonna rattle off what the physical promises are and what the spiritual promises are, okay? Here's the physical promises. This is all coming out of Genesis 17. He tells Abraham, I will greatly multiply you. Verse two through six. Verse six, kings will come from you. Still physical, okay? I will be a God to you and your offspring. Eh, it's kinda in between, but it's more nationalistic, okay? I will give you the land of Canaan. Physical, I will bless those who bless you and dishonor and him who dishonors you. I will curse. These are all physical blessings. Now, the spiritual blessing comes principally from Genesis 12, verse three, and it's reiterated in chapter 22, verse 18. Abraham, in you, all the families of the earth will be blessed. In you. And when he says in you, he's talking physically in you, because who is gonna come from the loins of Abraham? Jesus the Messiah in you okay now that is the gospel unveiled form all of the world will be a recipient of the blessing of the fulfillment of the Abrahamic Covenant Through the promised seed that is the only spiritual blessing that was given Okay, now, when we come to the New Testament, what you are going to see is that Paul or Peter or whoever it is, they systematically will start saying, all the physical blessings, they've been fulfilled. And now they're no longer active promises, they are done. And the only thing that continues is the spiritual side. So let me give you three examples from the New Testament of how the physical has fallen off and the spiritual continues, okay? And before I begin, let me just say this. The Old Covenant people of God, as a result of being a national entity, they were a spiritual entity as well. But in the Old Covenant, you were an Israelite just by virtue of being what? Born. So it was through a physical birth, through a physical birth, you were part of the people of God. It's very important that you note this. Remember Esau, Romans 9? An Israelite, okay? As you read about Esau in the Old Covenant, does he strike you as the kind of guy that was a lover of Yahweh and a devout worshiper of God? Absolutely not. Esau, in our day, is more closely associated with what religion? Muslim Islam, that's right. Okay, but circumcised. Okay on the eighth day probably he was an Israelite He had the sign of circumcision. So in the Old Covenant The people of God were by virtue of physical birth mixed. In other words, there could be people who, though they had the physical sign of circumcision, they were not actually believers in Yahweh, but they had the physical sign by virtue of physical, physical birth. Now look at the three things in the New Testament that are going to show that the physical is gone and only the spiritual remains. Number one, Circumcision is fulfilled in Christ because Christ is the seed that was promised to Abraham We see this in Galatians 3 16 And you know if you could just jot these down. I'm just gonna kind of fly through these okay Paul says this now the promises were made to Abraham and to his ESV says offspring, I like seeds. It does not say end to offsprings plural, referring to many, but to one and your offspring. And then Paul just says it right away. Who is Christ? In other words, the promised seed was Christ. You want to know one of the principal reasons why, and Paul says this in Romans 9, Israel was circumcised. They were marked off from everybody else. They were the custodians of the covenant, custodians of the promises. Why were all the males and not females circumcised on the eighth day? Because they might be the Messiah. Every male was circumcised because it was possible that they might be the Messiah. They were preserving the line until Messiah comes. Now, once Messiah comes, you don't need to circumcise your kids anymore because the promise has come. The promise has found its fulfillment. And so circumcision no longer means anything. So the true seed has come. Circumcision is fulfilled in Christ. Number two, The meaning of circumcision is now laid out in the New Testament as a fulfilled sign. So listen to Paul in Galatians 6.15. Neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. Because one of the many things that circumcision pointed to was the need for the new birth, the new creation. And so now that Christ has come, the fulfillment of that sign of circumcision is come in Christ. And so Paul says it straight up. Circumcision doesn't mean anything. He even tells the Galatians, if you get circumcised, you're doing it for nothing. It has no religious meaning whatsoever. It's all tradition. So the physical has come off and the seed, the kernel is still there. Listen to Colossians 2, 11 through 12. In him, referring to Jesus, also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands. That is regeneration. That is God turning our heart of stone into a heart of flesh. By putting off the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God who raised him from the dead. So that's two things so far. The true seed is Christ. Secondly, the seed is fulfilled. So the sign of circumcision is fulfilled. And now what remains is what it pointed to, which is regeneration. And now, thirdly, and this is probably the most important, this is going to give us the answer to infant baptism. Number three, the new covenant shows that the people of God have been reconstituted. Reconstituted from a mixed people to a pure people, okay? From some people in the covenant being saved to all people in the covenant being saved. Listen to Jeremiah 31, verses 31 through 34. This is the promise of the new covenant that he's prophesying, okay? Jeremiah 31, 31 to 34. behold the days are coming declares the Lord when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt my covenant that they broke though I was their husband declares the Lord For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days declares the Lord I will put my law within them and I will write it on their hearts and I will be their God and they shall be my people now watch verse 34 this is the this is the switch and No longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother saying know the Lord and for they shall all know Me. From the least of them to the greatest declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and they will remember their sin no more." Here's the switch. Old covenant, mixed people. Everyone's got the sign, but not everybody knows God genuinely. This is what Paul was getting at in Romans 9. Not all Israel is Israel. There is a true Israel within physical Israel. And so it was a mixed people. And what Jeremiah is saying is there's coming a time you're not going to have to look at your neighbor and evangelize him, even though he has the sign of the covenant, because everyone in the covenant that is the new covenant will know the Lord. So it goes from a mixed people to a pure people. Now, if he's talking about who the members of the new covenant are, It is only the members of the new covenant, that is those who know the Lord, who receive the sign of the covenant. And so what is a prerequisite for receiving the sign of the covenant? Knowing the Lord. You must know the Lord. In the New Testament, how does the New Testament authors describe what it means to know the Lord? Repentance and what? Faith. So in order to be a Christian, you must have repentance and faith. Babies do not have repentance and faith. Now we will say this as a concession. Is it possible that the Lord has regenerated a baby's heart? Absolutely it's possible. But we operate as the church as finite people, right? So the elders in the church and the congregation are not going to put the sign of baptism on somebody that to our knowledge has not repented and professed faith in Christ. And so the new covenant people know the Lord. So coming back to our controlling questions. Well, one more verse before I move on to that. In Galatians 3, 6-9, Paul transfers the idea of physical birth, being a child of Abraham by virtue of being born, to, in the New Covenant, spiritual birth. Listen to Paul in Galatians 3, 6-9. Just as Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness, know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, in you all the nations will be blessed. So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. So who are the children of Abraham according to Paul, according to the New Testament? Those who have faith. So in my humble opinion, even though I think I'm right, so I guess that makes it not so humble, those who put the sign of the new covenant on their children are making the error of thinking that the covenant in which we are in is still what? Well, mixed and what? Physical. Because it's my physical child, I put the sign of the covenant. But this covenant is a spiritual covenant. It's not a physical covenant. It's a physical covenant. And while it is the case that in the old covenant, it was both spiritual and physical, what the coming of Christ has done is narrowed it down to just a spiritual covenant. So our children, if they do not repent and have faith, are not part of the new covenant. Now, I know that that raises a number of questions, and next time we get together, we can unpack them a little bit more. But let me just conclude with this, and then if there's a few questions we can get to them. Coming back to our controlling questions, when you come across a command, a promise, a curse, a blessing, or an institution like circumcision or baptism, the first thing you ask is, to what covenant is this attached? Circumcision was attached to the old covenant, okay? So it doesn't apply to us. And that's why Paul says circumcision means nothing. Secondly, what do you ask? You ask, am I a party to that covenant? No, I'm not a party to the old covenant. So that sign does not go on me. So now when I come to baptism, what's this attached to? It's attached to the new covenant. Am I a party to that covenant? Well, if you repent and have faith, you are a party to that covenant. then you should get the sign. If you do not repent and have faith, then you are not a party to that covenant, okay? So we put the sign as Baptist only on those who repent and have faith. All right, are there any questions? I know that that was really, really quick. I totally get it. But does anybody have any questions about baptism? Mm-hmm. Sure, right. Yeah, because this gets down to, we believe that regeneration is a separate act from our actually repenting and confessing faith. Now, I think in most cases those happen like the difference of time that it takes for me to flip a light switch and the light actually coming on. That switch actually comes up nanoseconds before the light actually goes on, but it's still first. But I do think there probably are cases where people are regenerate, but they just have not consciously repented and confessed Christ. Uh, and so, um, chapter 15 in the London Baptist confession of faith actually tackles this. And it's something that would take a long time to unpack, but yeah, I, the general theology of the confession would say that these are two separate things. God does regeneration and we in response, repent and have faith, but they are two separate things. So the elect are going to be regenerate at some point in time. And this is why I believe we can have hope. Now, please listen to me very carefully. I am not personally of the opinion that any baby who dies goes to heaven. I don't think that the Bible gives us that promise. I want to be very careful because I know that, just for the record, we've lost three children through miscarriages. This is something I've had to emotionally wrestle through. But nor do I think it's the case that any baby who dies because they don't repent and have faith are going to hell. I don't believe that either because the Lord can and does and I believe has regenerated babies. And this is why our confession says all elect infants will go to heaven. And I believe that with all my heart. It's kind of a cop out because elect anything and elect anyone is going to go to heaven. Elect a zebras are going to go to heaven, right? I mean, anything that's elect, you put that adjective on the front, they're going to heaven. But yes, they are two separate things. And so it is possible for somebody to be, you know, I think this is probably also the case in, you know, the psyche of mentally handicapped people, perhaps the Lord can handy, it can regenerate them, even though they may not have some type of confession of faith. But I can even begin to unpack what that looks like. Any other questions? Yeah? Yeah, so you're asking about the mode of baptism, which we'll get to that next time. The elders believe with a confession that sprinkling or aspersion is not real baptism. But that's less important than who's baptized. So we would say they need to be baptized, not re-baptized, but baptized. But that being said, we have people in our congregation who, though we have approached them with this conviction, they've said, You know, I'm still a paedo-baptist, which means ones who baptize as infants. I'm not convinced of the credo-baptist position, which is our position, baptizing only believers. But I want to be in this congregation, but I don't want to be rebaptized because I believe that my baptism was a real baptism. It's hard for us as elders to say, Christ has accepted you, but we're not gonna accept you. It's hard for us to do that. So we will accept them into membership, but we will do everything we can to try to convince them to be baptized. And some people have said yes, and some people say no. So now there are some Baptists that would rebuke me for that, but I really don't care, so. All right, any other questions? Okay, in four weeks, we'll talk about why we don't baptize infants from a negative perspective, principally spending most of our time in the New Testament. Okay, let me pray. Yes. Right. Yeah. But as a pastor, I would tell a grieving mother and father who had just lost their child, will not the judge of all the earth do right. And your baby is in the hands of a loving God. I can say that. I don't know where that baby is, but I can say that God's will is sovereign and it's true and it's right. And whatever he does, you know, we have to put our hands over our mouth. But I'd far rather say that, A, because I think that's as much as the Bible gives us. But B, I'd far rather say that than to just tell people that they can have an assurance when really the Bible doesn't give them that assurance. I think that's devastating, actually, from a pastoral perspective. Let me pray for us. Father God, thank you for this time. Thank you for our teachers. And I pray that they hold no bitterness in their heart toward me. And we ask all these things in your son's name. Amen. All right. Please go get your children. And thank you very much. Have a wonderful week.