Would you open your Bibles now please to the Gospel according to Mark and the 7th chapter. This morning we are going to be reading Mark chapter 7 beginning with the 24th verse and reading through the 30th verse. Let's listen now to the inspired word of God. From there Jesus arose and went to the region of Tyre and Sidon. and he entered a house and wanted no one to know it, but he could not be hidden. For a woman whose young daughter had an unclean spirit heard about him, and she came and fell at his feet. The woman was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by birth, and she kept asking him to cast the demon out of her daughter. But Jesus said to her, let the children be filled first, for it is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the little dogs. And she answered and said to him, yes, Lord. Yet even the little dogs under the table eat from the children's crumbs. Then he said to her, for this saying, go your way. The demon has gone out of your daughter. And when she had come to her house, she found the demon had gone out and her daughter lying on the bed." And here ends our reading from God's perfect word. We're continuing this morning our protracted study of the nature and practice of Christian baptism. I'm just going to say that now. And so I'm going to ask here if I can have some help. with passing these out. I have, we were on page two out of four last time. Here's extra page twos. Okay, all right. So Matthew will take care of handing those out to you. Are you going to give everybody just page 2 or 2, 3, and 4? I do hope that we'll finish all the way through today, pages 2, 3, and 4, yes. Just by way of review, we've been spending weeks and weeks on looking, first of all, at the nature of the rite of initiation in the Old Testament circumcision. All the way back to Abraham, where that covenant was established. And we saw all the ramifications of that, how that sacrament was by way of covenant imposed on Abraham. We notice that God doesn't ask to negotiate covenants. He imposes covenants on his people, and he imposed this covenant upon Abraham that we call a covenant of circumcision. And he told Abraham that all the males of his household and of all of their descendants must be circumcised on the eighth day, and furthermore, that any Gentiles who desire to be joined to the people of Israel, that those males had to be circumcised, and that all of the male children of the household also had to be circumcised. Then we labored a great deal on this matter of dispensationalism and whether there is a wall of separation between the Old Testament and the New Testament. whether, in other words, God had changed this procedure. The sacraments, John Calvin said, the sacraments are the gospel in pictures. Two sacraments in the New Testament, baptism and the Lord's Supper, and they both look to the Lord Jesus Christ and cleansing in his blood. two sacraments of the Old Testament, circumcision, and the Passover meal. Once again, those sacraments, those gospel pictures pointing to Christ. I labored long with you to try to point out how the New Testament is very explicit about this, that The church of the New Testament is not a new tree. The Gentiles have simply been engrafted into that one tree, the root and stalk of whom is... no, not the Jews, not Abraham, Jesus Christ. Jesus is the root and the stalk of the tree. And he had this tree, and that tree grew up in the Old Testament. And were there unfaithful branches? Oh, yes. They were cut off, and they will be cut off. All unfaithful branches will be cut off. But God now was bringing the Gentiles in, and they were engrafted into the one body. There's only one church. There's only one body of believers. in all time, in all history, and in all places. Then we turn to the New Testament, and particularly in this outline, remember from the first page there, covenantal baptism in the New Testament. So I've been trying to look at this idea. Does the New Testament teach that the church, the membership of the church in the New Testament works on the same principle as the membership in the Old Testament? And I've tried to show on that first page, number one, that the Apostle Paul is actually explicit that baptism is the new circumcision. Colossians chapter 2 verses 11 and 12, you Gentiles, he says, were circumcised in your baptism. That baptism, as a matter of fact, is the parallel to circumcision in the New Testament. We saw that that's a general principle as we interpret the Old Testament, that the essence The substance, the reality of the way of salvation, the covenant, never changes. It can't change. You have the same problem Abraham had. You had the same problem David had. I was shapen in iniquity, conceived in sin, There's only one way that a person can ever be saved. The substance can't change, but the signs of those things can change. And so the easy one to see would be the Passover meal, the slaughter of the lamb, the blood painted on the doorposts and all is so clearly fulfilled and changed into Lord's Supper in the New Testament. And of course the Lord's Supper was actually established When? After the supper was over, the Lord took the bread in his hands. We had communion last week. We remembered those words. After that last legitimate Passover was over, now the reality was upon us, and the Lord Jesus Christ took the bread, and he broke it, and he took the cup, and he blessed it. So the substance stays the same. The reality stays the same, but the outward figures have changed. And then we saw that just as in the Old Testament, that when a Gentile wanted to come to the Lord's table, the Passover meal, He had to be circumcised, but the absolute law of God was that his children, that the members of his household also had to be circumcised. Now the point I'm trying to get you to understand from that is, see, so many people who hold the Baptist position say, well look in the New Testament, you know, people believe and then they're baptized. And I'm saying, yeah, but in the Old Testament when Gentiles believed they were circumcised. But that doesn't prove that the children weren't circumcised. And in the New Testament, to simply point out that unbaptized believers were baptized doesn't prove that they're not yet believing children weren't baptized. It's illogical. to draw that conclusion. And the Old Testament proves that. I tried to show that as well. And then I took up in point three of your outline, Roman three, This idea of, in the Old Testament it's clear, household circumcision. Is that what we see in the New Testament? And I gave you a handful of examples where the New Testament explicitly says, the household of, the family of. Give you every indication. Be a Jew for a minute. and listen to the gospel and see if God isn't saying the same thing he was saying before. He's changing the form. Yes, it's no longer a bloody sacrament of circumcision. And not only that, women God has broadened out who gets to receive the sign, not only the males but the females too. I don't think you could prove that from the New Testament that women got to receive the sign. I don't think you could prove it except for Lydia in Acts chapter 16. Thank you, Luke. He wrote it down. Now we know. Women. Okay? I already pointed out to you. It's just a tiny footnote of a question in the Old Testament. Since the Old Testament says nobody comes to the Passover table who's not circumcised, did women come? I don't think you can prove it. You can assume it. I don't think you can prove it. I know there are two possible answers. One is, no, they are not circumcised. The other is, they are federally, or by way of headship, circumcised women under their father's headship, wives under their husband's headship. That is possible, but you cannot prove it. You just can't prove it. But in the New Testament, here it is. But what I want you to notice from it is, what? Did God narrow down who gets to receive the signs? Or did he broaden it out? And it's clear that he broadened it out. It would be passing strange if he said, OK, women are now allowed to be circumcised and come to the table, but the children are no longer allowed to be circumcised. passing strange that would be, that God somehow now has narrowed his focus on who gets to receive the sacrament. And then in Roman 4, I showed you by way of what may seem an odd scripture here. A lot of these scriptures, especially the one that I just read a few moments ago, they only make sense in terms of what I'm saying about covenant baptism. That's the only way they make sense. So we went to 1 Peter chapter 3 and his comment about how Noah was called to build the ark and go into the ark and be saved from the flood. In his family, household, The family came. A matter of them being believers. Do you think Ham was a believer? He's a cursed person. Not only he was cursed, but his descendants are cursed because of him. And then Peter makes that really odd comment that we have an anti-type, a fulfillment of that. There's a type and an anti-type. The anti-type, he says, is baptism. Household. It doesn't depend on whether the children are believers when they're eight days old, or one month old, or two months old, or 18 years old, or 88 years old. I'm going to try to make that distinction very clear eventually, but right now I'm just talking about who is in the household, and what privileges does the household have. So we're in Roman 5, and that's where we pick up today, page 2 out of 4. The Bible gives various other indications of the continued inclusion of infants in the covenant sign in the New Testament. We have already noticed that Peter, in his very first sermon, after the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the apostles, addressed the Jews of Jerusalem. What nationality are Jews? They're Jewish! These are not Gentiles he's talking to. He's talking to Jews. He addressed the Jews of Jerusalem with the words, repent and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit for the promise is to you and to your children." And every Jewish person there on that day said, bang, I get it. The promise is to me and my household. That's how the Jewish people are going to understand that. They must understand it that way. Notice well that the promise, here it is now. I know that you can read that. I'm always saying this to you. Just because a verse could be read to mean this, doesn't mean it's a legitimate reading of the verse. I know it doesn't say, baptize your children there. I recognize that. But we're trying to use Occam's razor. What's the obvious meaning unless the Word of God makes it clear that that can't possibly be the meaning. Notice that the promise is extended to the children. Please remember that phrase this morning. If you understand that phrase, you understand about the Syro-Phoenician woman. If you don't, you don't. You don't get it. You've got to understand the children. These are covenant children in other words. Covenant children are the children. Notice well that the promise is extended to the children of believers, that is, the children of those who repented. The promise is to you and to your children. The promise, I know, the Baptist view is saying, the promise, but not the sign of the promise. What? You see, I got a charley horse between my ears. The promise is to them but not the sign of the promise? What are you saying? The Jews who did become Christians were extremely sensitive even to non-essential changes from the rituals of the Old Testament. For example, the abrogation, the cancelling, the abrogation of Old Testament dietary laws was refused by Peter until God actually ordered Peter to take and eat non-kosher food. God had to order him three times in that vision. It wasn't just the one time, three times. Peter is a slow learner. The Jews, anything that would be different. Remember, is the Old Testament the inspired Word of God? All Scripture is inspired. They believed it. They believed it because it's true. And so if anything didn't fit, even if it just didn't seem to fit, see, the dietary laws didn't seem to fit at first. They had to grow deeper in their understanding to see how the dietary laws were no longer in effect. Because those dietary laws played a very narrow ceremonial role in the Old Testament. They were one of those tutors to lead us to Christ, and then fulfilled in Christ. You don't need them anymore. But you wouldn't say that, for example, about prayer. or about worship. Well, the modern church does. Worship is just an option. Commandments don't change. So they were extremely sensitive. And so, well, let's just go on number three. The change from circumcision to baptism at all was a huge bone of contention. All you had to do was read the Acts of the Apostles and see how the so-called Bible scholars called them the Judaizers. They were Jews who professed Christ. It's not my business to tell you whether their hearts were converted or not. How do I know? That's God's business. Judaizers were Jews who professed Christ but insisted that Gentiles had to become Jews first. And so they had to be circumcised. I mean that induces Paul to write that shocking line to the Galatians. If you're going to be circumcised you might just not believe in Christ. It's a pretty shocking statement. So this change, even just in this outward sign from circumcision to baptism, was a huge bone of contention. Those Jews followed Paul from city to city trying to get him. They followed him all the way to Rome to try to get him executed for teaching a new religion. And what does Paul say to Agrippa? I'm not teaching anything other than what the Law and the Prophets didn't teach. I'm Jewish! Christianity is just grown-up Judaism. That's all it is. But it is Judaism. Grown-up. And you can't understand it with that. You can't understand the New Testament without the Old. You can't understand the Old without the New. You've got to have them both. That's why God gave them to you. And that's why Paul wrote all Scripture. And Jesus said, every word that comes from the mouth of God. Okay, continuing with number three there. In order for infants not to receive the covenant sign, God would have to reveal that. He would have to reveal that he had changed his covenant with Abraham. Do you see that? God would have to change the covenant with Abraham. And if God was going to change it, in order to be faithful to God, there is no law outside God. The law is God. God would be obligated to tell you that. God can't change the rules and not tell you. A covenant which God solemnly swore was to be everlasting. See, that's my big question to the anti-pedo-baptists. Tell me then, how is the covenant of circumcision an everlasting covenant? I know what the answer is and unfortunately there are even a whole lot of pedo-baptists who give the same answer and they are just wrong about it. They say, well everlasting means to the end of the Jewish church. It means up to Christ and I say, everlasting. What does everlasting mean? It means it lasts forever. And, of course, there is no such revelation in the New Testament where, in other words, my question to so-called professing or believers of baptism people is, where does it say that children are not to be baptized? Just give me one verse. It's an assumption. Of course, there is no such revelation in the New Testament. In addition, Peter's words in his very first sermon give every indication that the inclusion of children was to be continued, for the promise is to you and to your children. If children were not to be recognized as part of the covenant family of God, we call that the church, the covenant family of God, what would be the sense of Peter making such a comment? Why would he bother saying it? What does it mean? In other words, if children were not included in the covenant people, then the promises would be no more for them than for any other pagan. The promises would be no more for your children than for any other pagan. The promise. But hold on to that word. You substitute the word salvation, now you're a heretic. The promise. The promise is to you and to your children. Nobody, not even adults, because of water baptism, get promised salvation. Believe in magic, do you? The promise is what you receive. Peter's comment about the promise, that's Peter's word, not mine. Peter's comment about the promise being explicitly given to the children of believers, you see that? Peter's comment about the promise being explicitly given to the children of believers seems to grow naturally out of Jesus' own recognition of the special holiness. Yeah, that's the word I want. That's why it's in italics. Also, it's a quote you might recognize. Jesus' own recognition of the special holiness of covenant children as distinct from the children of pagans. And so now, the scripture that we read as we began here this morning, which otherwise is a rather odd scripture, that story about Jesus and the Syro-Phoenician woman, specifically the daughter, of the Syro-Phoenician woman. Number one, when the Syro-Phoenician woman begged Jesus to heal her daughter, Jesus responded, let the children. Who are the children? Do you see how he's saying, your daughter is not a child. He's saying, let the children be filled, but your daughter is not one of them. She's not a child. Now you know that means, therefore, that he means a specific kind of child. He means a child of the covenant. He met the children of Israel. We even call them that, the children of Israel. I've never noticed a synagogue in Texas, and we've lived on two different occasions for more than 20 years in Texas. I assume there surely are some synagogues in Texas. However, in western Pennsylvania, where we grew up, There are lots of synagogues, especially if you go to Squirrel Hill, that's virtually a Jewish neighborhood. Granted, Mr. Rogers did live there and he wasn't Jewish, but he didn't live in the posh side, by the way. He lived at the other end of Squirrel Hill. Well, anyway, you do know who Mr. Rogers is? Thank you. I mean, if you're going to have a child, you may as well know who. Mr. Rogers used to come on to the seminary campus. He was on the board of directors of the seminary that I attended. And he'd walk across campus, and every kid less than eight years old would go. He was like a magnet. All these kids go running to see Mr. Rogers. Oh, yes. Well, anyway, there's all these synagogues. in Pittsburgh, and one of the really popular names for synagogues. You'll often see Beth Shalom. Beth or Beth. Beth Lechem, house of bread. Beth means house in Hebrew. Beth Shalom, house of peace. A nice name for a church, isn't it? But one of the popular ones is B'nai Berith. I told him, don't put up the board. I hardly ever write on it. So here's how you spell it. Capital B, apostrophe, N-A-I, second word, capital B. And then spell different ways. I'm going to spell it E-R-I-T-H, because it's hard sometimes to figure out how you should spell, how you should change the Jewish letters into Latin letters or English letters. B'nai is the plural of Ben. You know Ben Yamin, son of my right hand. Ben Ami, son of my people, that awful, awful, awful name. B'nai Berith, sons, or usually in the Old Testament they translated children. because that was the word they used. They didn't have a separate word for children. They had sons and they had daughters, and if it was a mixed group, they used the word sons. That's just the way you do it. That's just the way the language works. And b'nai barith means sons of the covenant, not in the sense of boys and not girls, but it means children of the covenant. To this day, the point I'm trying to make to you is the Jews are really aware of this concept of the children of the covenant. There are lots of children in the world, but only some of them are the children of the covenant. That explains when Jesus says to the Syrophoenician woman, let the children, the bene barith, the sons, the children of the covenant, Let the children be filled first, for it is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the little dogs." What else does he mean if he doesn't mean that? I mean, that's a little girl. Of course she's a child. What are you talking about, Jesus? He's talking about the covenant. He can't be talking about anything else. It doesn't make sense any other way. And in that general context, remember Jesus did say, go to the 10th chapter. Let me make sure of my chapter, yeah. Matthew chapter 10, where Jesus gives what we usually call his great missionary discourse. And he sends the disciples out on their first missionary trip. And what does he say? Do not go to the Gentiles. The children are first. They really are the chosen people, you know. Notice that the Gentile woman's daughter is not one of, quote, the children. That is, the children of the covenant. She's a child, but she's not a child of the covenant. This indicates the special status of covenant children. We have a new sin today, it's called racism. I think the Ten Commandments adequately cover our relationships to one another, and we don't need to add number 11. Ronald Reagan did that, but that was only in jest. but people were in earnest today. They like to add new commandments. But Jesus is recognizing the special status of covenant children as being holy, holy. Number two, Jesus also recognized the special status of covenant children when he said, let, there's no separate word for little in the Greek here. They are little, but they're children. Let the little children, the point I'm trying to make is it's still the children. Let the little children come to me, and do not forbid them, for of such is the kingdom of God." What's he mean by that? Well, yes, I agree that he He apparently means that there are certain natural characteristics of children which would be seen in a sanctified manner for those who are true believers. Now, if that's not complicated enough for you, maybe I can make it more complicated. But, you know, people say, for example, well, children are totally dependent on their parents. Yeah. They never rebel, right? Do you have any kids? I'll grant that there is a kind of a, you're coming in a, children may be a word picture. Well, it's not a word picture, it's a picture for words. The children may show us something about coming to God in our need and with our trust and in our fear and all of those, I grant that. But I don't really think that that really satisfies when Jesus says here, for of such is the kingdom of God. Now, you could go the opposite extreme and say, well, it's because all children are saved. Now, they may lose their salvation and then you're off and running. You're making up a whole different way when you do that. Of such is the kingdom of God. What's the kingdom of God on earth? What's the visible kingdom of God? Does anybody know? The church is the kingdom of God. The church is that institution made up of people who profess that Jesus Christ is king. When you pray, thy kingdom come, you pray for the conversion of the world amongst other things. Children are part of the visible church. This is a very fine point. I haven't been emphasizing this and you don't necessarily need it to catch my whole flow of thought here, but it is one thing that is true We historic Presbyterians, not modern Presbyterians, but we historic Presbyterians say it this way. We do not baptize your children to make them a member of the church. We baptize your children because they are members of the church. They're members by birth. You can't take it from them. God gives a privilege, you can't take it from them. Remember when the angel of the Lord attacked Moses for not circumcising his child, his second child, son, by the way. Moses knew full well he was supposed to be. circumcised. Now, you know, there's lots of mysterious things about that story, but I'm just saying you can't take it away. Even Moses can't take away the covenant status of his son. We baptize children because they are members of the visible kingdom of God, the church. We don't baptize them to make them members. And when a person becomes a believer from outside, baptizing them doesn't make them members of the church. They are members of the church by their rebirth, by their new birth. We simply recognize that. That will help you to understand baptism and how to avoid some of the problems like baptismal regeneration and silly stuff like that. It recognizes a truth. So, of such is the kingdom of God. I think that means, this is by far not everybody's report. It's probably even a minority report. I believe that means children are members of the church. and I'm the Lord of the church, and you let those children come to me." Then we read that he took them up in his arms and blessed them. He treated them as beloved members of the covenant family. Does that make sense? They're members of the family. As soon as I get down to seven here, I'll try to explain that further. But I do want to make this point in verse six, which I think is one of the verses in the New Testament that simply prove infant baptism, doctrinally. It's not even talking about baptism, but it doctrinally proves the point. This explains why Paul proclaims in that otherwise very peculiar statement to Christian parents that, quote, your children are holy. 1 Corinthians 7, verse 14. If you have a decent Bible, it will have a footnote beside that because the word for holy is hagioi and it means saints. So it either means your children are regenerate, or it means they're members of the visible church. Paul writes to the saints at Corinth. Does that mean that every member of that miserable church in Corinth was an actual believer? No. But it does mean that every member of that church was a member of that church. That's what hagioi means. Hagios means set apart. And it means you are holy in the sense of covenantally holy. Be very careful. Don't fall off. Don't fall off this wagon now. It doesn't mean they're saints in heaven. It doesn't even mean, it doesn't mean they're believers. it doesn't even mean they're elect. It doesn't mean that. But it means that God has set them apart. As surely as he set apart the members of Noah's family on that boat, as surely as he set apart Lot's miserable daughters. And Lot's wife, who showed herself not to be a believer. But she was still... Does God know what he's going to do? Or is he making this up as he's going along? Does God know that Lot's wife is going to turn around and look back at the city of Sodom? Why don't you just leave her there? covenant household. They are holy, that is, quote, that's a funny way to write IE, quote, set aside, which is what the word hagios means, by their covenant status expressed in their baptism. Verse 7. Paul had emphasized the huge benefits which all the Jews, all the Jews, adults as well as children, had received. So he wrote this. What advantage then has the Jew? Or what is the profit of circumcision? Do you understand now? So if you want to get a hold of this, remember I'm going to substitute the word baptism for circumcision. Then see what it does for you. What is the profit of circumcision? Much in every way. Somebody says, why baptize your kids? What's a profit in baptism? Much in every way. Chiefly, because to them, the Jews, were committed the oracles of God. What are the oracles of God? The scriptures. That's the Bible. Is that an advantage to a non-believer? Pharaoh was the most blessed ruler outside of Israel in the ancient world. God sent a prophet. unless you don't think it's a good thing that God speaks to you. What advantage had Pharaoh, much in every way, chiefly because to him was given the oracles of God? Well, we're talking about the Jews, not talking about Pharaoh here. Much in every way, chiefly because to them were committed the oracles of God. For what if some did not believe? I'm talking about baptism. I'm talking back and forth, baptism. What if some did not believe? Believer's baptism. No, no, no, no, no. What if some did not believe? Will their unbelief make the faithfulness of God without effect? If some baptized children grow up to be pagans, does that make the faithfulness of God? A Shemera, a non-entity? Certainly not. Indeed, let God be true, but every man a liar. Now Paul's talking about the Jews in circumcision there, Romans 3, 1 to 4. In Romans 9, he comes back to the topic. Who are Israelites? To whom pertain? To whom belong? the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, and the promises. The promises, there it is. A, in the days of the Old Testament, the children of the covenant received innumerable benefits, much in every way, including circumcision, that is to say the covenant sign, the scriptures, that is to say the oracles of God, the inscripturated law of God, the quote giving of the law that Paul just mentioned, the worship of the true God, the mere fact that they got to go to the temple and worship, that they got to go to the synagogue and hear the word of God preached to them, and the promises. If you will believe really, and if that faith is true and shows itself in works, not because of the works, but because of the faith, you will be saved. There's the other side of the promise too. Most preachers today can't stand it and won't preach it. The other side of the promise is if you don't believe and obey, you will go to hell for all eternity. And you'll remember I said this and you won't like it. That's a promise. It's a promise. Just like Peter announced when he called his first sermon listeners to believe, be baptized, and that the promise was indeed to them and to their children. The children of New Testament believers share the same benefits that the children of the Old Testament believers shared. The scriptures are taught to them. They are brought to worship. Well, not nowadays. We usually ship them off to play games someplace in some nursery. The scriptures are taught to them. They are brought to worship. They are taught the commandments of God. They are given the promises, plus and minus, positive and negative. And they receive the sign. God has imposed his covenant upon you. You belong to him. Will you accept that or will you reject it? But you can't ignore it. You have the sign. God is sovereign. Unless God had specifically removed that benefit from the children in the New Testament. Do you see how I'm saying that? That's impossible. You have this whole line of benefits that Paul says. What benefit has the Jew? How about the New Testament? Children of believers. Not that one. It's like today, people read the Ten Commandments and they make them into nine or eight or seven or whatever ones they like. God has not taken away the benefits. from his covenant people. That's the heart and soul of Reformed baptism, which is covenant household baptism. That's the heart and soul. God has not taken away the benefits given to his people. Number eight now. Here we go. It was vital for the Jews of old to understand and equally vital for Christians to understand that although their children do receive innumerable benefits as covenant children, Yet neither circumcision in the old nor baptism in the new, neither circumcision nor baptism either conveys regeneration nor promises salvation to those who do not keep the covenant." I'm always quoting Psalm 103. The mercy of the Lord is from generation to generation, family, covenant, is from generation to generation upon them that fear him, to those that keep his covenant, to those that remember his commandments, to do them. That's what the word of God says. Neither circumcision in the old, nor baptism in the new, neither one conveys regeneration, what we call baptismal regeneration. It doesn't do that. The Holy Spirit is the only one who regenerates. God has reserved that to himself. It does not convey regeneration and it does not promise salvation in and of itself. It promises if you will keep the covenant, if these children sitting here will believe and obey, trust and obey, they will be saved. but they do receive, and thousands and millions of kids on the streets of this country, and some of them sitting in the churches of this country, never hear the promise. You don't think there's a benefit in being brought up to understand you're a child of the covenant? does not promise salvation to those who do not keep the covenant by personal faith." We believe every bit as much as our Baptist brothers that our young people must believe and they must profess their belief. I'm trying to remember another quote from the psalm. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so. They must profess their faith and it must be real faith that they profess. We don't disagree with the Baptists on that. We just say that's not baptism. Baptism is God's claim on you. Lord's Supper is your claim on God. Take and eat. Take and drink. Your profession is not your baptism. Your profession is Lord's Supper. About the circumcised, Paul writes, for he is not a Jew who is one outwardly. Nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh, but he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision, the circumcision that saves. Circumcision is that of the heart and the spirit, not of the letter, meaning not of the ritual. Circumcision can't cut away sin, and water can't wash away sin. Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Nothing. God may sovereignly choose to regenerate the soul even of the tiniest infant. Somebody tell me how God would not be able to do that. Oh, I know, from the Arminian point of view, you have to believe first and then you're saved. But from what I take it to be the Bible point of view that we call the reform point of view, God regenerates and then your faith is a response to that. The dead can't believe. And to those who don't buy that, I'd say this. If you don't buy that, I guess you're saying that every baby that dies is lost. God can't regenerate them. Come on. Come on. He can regenerate them. and they don't even have the ability to rationalize yet, maybe for 10 years or 20 years, and get it, and actually grab, take, and eat Christ. I mean, not the symbol of Christ, but actually take and eat. You see? The Reformed view is that You know, I haven't, you know, in all the years of my ministry, I've almost never, I say it a lot publicly, but not have to say it privately, you know, yes, God took your baby. If you think he's good enough and strong enough, that you can depend your life on him, then how could you not trust him for your baby's life? It would be foolishness to go beyond that, but I think it would be faithlessness to not go that far. Of course God can save the unborn For all I know, that may be the majority of conceived children in this world don't make it. Certainly a lot of them that we don't even know about. I'm not saying that they're all saved. I'm saying you give me a reason why they can't be. And with this doctrine, the doctrine of the covenant, what advantage? Much in every way. That makes a lot of Reformed people. I would say probably, if you use the word Reformed in a little bit broader way, and I would prefer to use it in a very technical sense, probably the majority report amongst Reform Bible scholars and theologians over the centuries, probably the majority report is if a child of a believer dies, a child is in heaven. I wish I could say that. But the Bible doesn't say it. And if the Bible doesn't say it, I'm not allowed to say it. I'm not allowed. But I can say, if you can trust God with your life, surely, You can trust the absolutely wise, perfect, good God. You can trust Him with the life of your child that you just lost. Then I might even go further and say, at least as much as you can if that child lives to be 20 or 30 or 40 or 50. Parents, you gotta trust God with your children. Easy for me to say, I know. Easy for me to say. It doesn't make it not true. We have to trust God with our children. And for God, there's no age limitation at which he begins to be able to save them. If salvation is of the Lord, Yeshua, salvation is of the Lord. So God may sovereignly choose to regenerate the soul, even of the tiniest infant, even in the womb, but he does not promise to do so. Most of us, not all of us, most of us believe that John Baptist was regenerate in the womb because the inspired word of God says he leapt for joy in spite of John Calvin's tortured misinterpretation of the text. I would not commonly call John Calvin. I'm some kind of midget. He actually, if I've understood him, maybe God willing I haven't understood him on it, but it seems to me that he's saying that that joy is Elizabeth's joy. I'm not the theologian that John Calvin is, but I'm a pretty good reader. And I just don't get that. But anyway, I think John the Baptist was regenerate in the womb. And if a tiny infant can have joy, that joy is faith. I mean, there's a very, very tiny difference. There is a difference. There's a very tiny difference between joy in the Lord and faith in the Lord, isn't there? You can't have one without the other. It's not possible to have faith in the Lord and not have joy in him. It's the second of the fruits of the Holy Spirit. Love, joy, peace, patience. You can't have faith without having joy, and I don't think you can have joy without having faith. You can't have joy in Christ. You can't rejoice in God without being a regenerate person, without having life. B. Nor does he promise eternal life to any who do not personally believe. On the contrary, God promises to curse covenant breakers both in Abraham's day and in our day. So that's, there it is, that's my tour de force on why in the world the church for three quarters of its history Nobody, nobody thought such a thing as withholding baptism from the children of believers. Nobody thought of it until 1527. Was the church wrong? Of course the church could be wrong. Was it wrong? No, it wasn't wrong. Hey, they dreamt in Greek. They understood the New Testament and the Old Testament and how the New Testament is just the Old Testament grown up, but it's not a new and different thing. It's the same thing only just matured. So then my final comment here, which is really just an intro to next week, only one question remains. How is Christian baptism to be administered? That is, what is the biblically prescribed what we call mode of baptism? We will attempt to answer that question in our last section of this lengthy study next week. I'll give you about five minutes. Anybody want to seek what I used to say, questions, comments, derogatory statements. I had a teacher in high school who used to say that. Well, you can think about it then. Let's pray. Our dear Sovereign Heavenly Father, how we praise you that salvation is of the Lord and we praise you that you are the God who calls people to yourself and we thank you and bless you for the huge benefits that you have bestowed upon the children of those who have believed. Father, how we pray that you would help us with understanding and humility, with courage to believe and to practice your word. In a special way, we pray for the children here those that we can see and those who are yet unborn. Oh Father, how we pray that you would be pleased to regenerate their hearts, give them knowledge and love, faith and obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray it in his name. Amen.