SPEAKER_00: So we're spending three weeks in the Ad hoc Sunday school thinking about baptism.
SPEAKER_00: Remember where we've been the last two weeks?
SPEAKER_00: Baptism is a sign of what God has done for us in the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: And whatever mode by which the water of baptism is applied, whether it is dipping or sprinkling or pouring, each of those things reflects something in the Bible about the work of God for us in the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: We saw that baptism is itself not a sign of our faith.
SPEAKER_00: We are passive in baptism.
SPEAKER_00: God does something, but it calls for faith.
SPEAKER_00: And those inward and invisible blessings of the gospel, which are signed, which are portrayed to us in the water of baptism, they can only be received by faith.
SPEAKER_00: And then Christian people, baptized people, we then live our whole Christian lives as baptized people.
SPEAKER_00: So that's where we've been the last couple of weeks.
SPEAKER_00: Let me pray, and then I'll introduce where we're going today.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Father, we thank you for the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: We thank you for your kindness in reaching out to cleanse us and make us new and to fill us with your Holy Spirit and with your love.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for your kindness.
SPEAKER_00: And we pray for your mind now as we search your word this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Teach us, help us to understand your plan for the church and all of her members.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for your kindness in giving us not just your word written, but also your word visible in the sacraments.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you that you know our weakness and you give us things to strengthen our faith.
SPEAKER_00: So teach us this morning we pray in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: So we're thinking this morning about who should be baptized.
SPEAKER_00: Here's question 95 from the Westminster Shorter Catechism.
SPEAKER_00: To whom is baptism to be administered?
SPEAKER_00: And the answer, baptism is not to be administered to any that are out of the visible church till they profess their faith in Christ and obedience to him.
SPEAKER_00: But the infants of such as are members of the visible church are to be baptized.
SPEAKER_00: Now we're going to think about both parts of that answer.
SPEAKER_00: Many of us will have questions about the second part pertaining to the children of believers.
SPEAKER_00: So here at Emmanuel, our ministers and elders and our church confession of faith, sort of reflecting reformed thinking down the centuries, they are pedobaptists, that is, believing that believers' children should be baptized as infants.
SPEAKER_00: Other folk are credo-baptists, which means that a person is only to be baptized on profession of their faith.
SPEAKER_00: Now, that would be the view of many folk you will have heard me quote from who I greatly respect.
SPEAKER_00: People like C.
SPEAKER_00: H.
SPEAKER_00: Spurgeon or Mark Dever.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this is a significant question.
SPEAKER_00: For Christian parents, obviously, you can't avoid it.
SPEAKER_00: Either you will or you won't baptize your children.
SPEAKER_00: There's not really a halfway house.
SPEAKER_00: But it's also significant for how we think about the church.
SPEAKER_00: Are children members of the church or not?
SPEAKER_00: But also how do we relate to other generations within the church?
SPEAKER_00: Be it the church in Old Testament times or in other parts of the Christian past.
SPEAKER_00: Now, just a word about method.
SPEAKER_00: How do we work out our answer to this question?
SPEAKER_00: Should we be looking for that verse in the New Testament which shows children being baptized?
SPEAKER_00: Because we won't find it.
SPEAKER_00: And now for some people that's a very significant thing.
SPEAKER_00: But remember this: Scripture gives us truth in various ways.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't only give us practices which we are to copy.
SPEAKER_00: For example, there are no verses in the New Testament which show women taking the Lord's Supper.
SPEAKER_00: But you'll never meet a Christian who thinks women shouldn't take the Lord's Supper.
SPEAKER_00: So in other words, Scripture gives us truth in other ways than simply portraying a practice which we are then to copy.
SPEAKER_00: And when we come to the proper subjects of baptism, we do need to grasp a bigger picture.
SPEAKER_00: So that's what we're going to try and do today.
SPEAKER_00: So let's think about our first big heading.
SPEAKER_00: There is one covenant of grace.
SPEAKER_00: Two weeks ago, I tried to show you that baptism is a covenant sign.
SPEAKER_00: So it's a sign of this particular bond or relationship into which God calls people.
SPEAKER_00: When you look through the Bible, you find several covenants.
SPEAKER_00: To start with, there are the covenants with Adam and Noah.
SPEAKER_00: Really, they are creation covenants.
SPEAKER_00: Then there are the covenants with Abraham and Moses and David, and then the new covenant.
SPEAKER_00: But really, they are all one.
SPEAKER_00: There is one covenant of grace that runs from Abraham through to the end of time.
SPEAKER_00: Now, one way to see that is to see how the Bible has one sound track, if I can put it like that, one theme tune, one catchphrase.
SPEAKER_00: And it's this I will be your God, and you will be my people.
SPEAKER_00: That is the covenant catchphrase.
SPEAKER_00: It goes along with the administration of the covenant.
SPEAKER_00: Whenever God says that, it was meant to remind God's people of his covenant with them.
SPEAKER_00: And that's the catchphrase that we see all the way through, from God's covenant with Abraham through to the end of the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: So what I want to try and show us briefly is the Bible story of the covenant of grace, but also to help us understand how people come into the covenant, come into this covenant relation with the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: So turn over to the inside of the handouts.
SPEAKER_00: You'll see some headings down the left hand side of the page and a diagram on the right, which I'll allude to.
SPEAKER_00: So, first up, God covenants with Abraham and his seed.
SPEAKER_00: Now, actually, before we think about God's dealings with Abraham, we almost have to step back a bit, don't we?
SPEAKER_00: And we go to the very start of the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Adam and Eve, they obeyed the first command of God to be fruitful and multiply.
SPEAKER_00: You can see them there on the diagram, that little number one.
SPEAKER_00: There's Adam and Eve, they're being fruitful and multiplying.
SPEAKER_00: But because of Adam's sin, all of their children come into the world as sinners.
SPEAKER_00: So we fell, we sinned in Adam, who was set up by the Lord as our covenant head.
SPEAKER_00: So all people come into the world needing the grace of God.
SPEAKER_00: Then, out of all the people in the world, the Lord chose this one man, Abraham.
SPEAKER_00: And he made with him a covenant.
SPEAKER_00: Now, in your Bibles, please would you open up Genesis chapter 17?
SPEAKER_00: The Lord speaks of this covenant in various chapters in Genesis 12, 15, 17.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to look particularly at Genesis 17, verse 7.
SPEAKER_00: But the Lord says to him, And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant to be God to you and to your offspring after you.
SPEAKER_00: So the Lord takes Abraham and promises him blessing, but the biggest blessing of all was himself.
SPEAKER_00: That is, God promises himself to Abraham, I will be God to you.
SPEAKER_00: Because there's obviously no greater blessing than to have the only God as your God.
SPEAKER_00: And the covenant was not only for him, but it was also for those future generations, for Abraham's seed or Abraham's offspring.
SPEAKER_00: And so the outworking of this covenant with Abraham and his children.
SPEAKER_00: Now his children, by the way, include the Lord Jesus, which is really important.
SPEAKER_00: I've tried to show that on the diagram under number two.
SPEAKER_00: There's Abraham and Sarah.
SPEAKER_00: They have children, including the Lord Jesus, that the rest of the Bible is their story.
SPEAKER_00: The story of the church is the story of what happened with Abraham's seed, with his offspring.
SPEAKER_00: Now, when you go through the story of the Bible, you get to Moses, hundreds of years later.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord said to Moses, Exodus 6, I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God.
SPEAKER_00: Again, it's that covenant catchphrase, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: Or when Ruth left the idols of Moab and trusted in the Lord, she said to Naomi, Your people shall be my people, and your God shall be my God.
SPEAKER_00: You know, there she is coming into the covenant.
SPEAKER_00: When God promised the new covenant in Jeremiah 31, he said, I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
SPEAKER_00: So it is a new covenant, but it's not as if the old relationship is scrapped, it's the old relationship renewed.
SPEAKER_00: And then we get to the very end of the Bible, Revelation 21, in the New Jerusalem, we're told they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.
SPEAKER_00: So from beginning to end, there is one covenant.
SPEAKER_00: God's not chopping and changing what he's doing.
SPEAKER_00: It's not that the old covenant is plan A and the new covenant is plan B.
SPEAKER_00: Actually, what God is doing with Abraham, Moses, and Jesus are all one plan, one covenant.
SPEAKER_00: But what if you're a Gentile?
SPEAKER_00: What if you are not one of the sons of Abraham?
SPEAKER_00: Now, of course, it was always God's plan that the nations would be blessed through Abraham.
SPEAKER_00: He promises him that in Genesis chapter 12.
SPEAKER_00: But how?
SPEAKER_00: And the answer is Gentile converts are brought into the covenant people.
SPEAKER_00: And it happened occasionally in the Old Testament, like Ruth.
SPEAKER_00: Ruth the Moabitess, Ruth the pagan.
SPEAKER_00: Yet she came in.
SPEAKER_00: But after Pentecost, the gospel goes global.
SPEAKER_00: So here is the Apostle Paul talking to the Gentiles in the church in Ephesus, Ephesians 2, 12 and 13.
SPEAKER_00: Remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the Commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world.
SPEAKER_00: That is to say, you are outside.
SPEAKER_00: You are very far from God, from God's people, and from God's covenant.
SPEAKER_00: But what's changed?
SPEAKER_00: Well, now through Christ you've been brought near.
SPEAKER_00: What have you come near to?
SPEAKER_00: Well, you've come near to, look at those verses, to Christ, to the Commonwealth of Israel, and to the covenants of promise.
SPEAKER_00: It means that they have actually been brought into Abraham's covenant line.
SPEAKER_00: So when a pagan is converted, they join the covenant.
SPEAKER_00: They join this house, they join this family.
SPEAKER_00: They become true children of Abraham because they have faith in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And that actually is always the marker of a true child of Abraham.
SPEAKER_00: They were out, but through faith in the blood of Christ, they have been brought in.
SPEAKER_00: That's what I've tried to show in the diagram, in that little number three.
SPEAKER_00: Someone on the outside being then brought in.
SPEAKER_00: Note that God has not ditched his covenant, he has expanded it.
SPEAKER_00: Ephesians tells us, in that passage actually, that Christ has removed the dividing wall of hostility that stood between Jew and Gentile, between the insider and the outsider.
SPEAKER_00: So he's done away with the ceremonial law, with its bloody sacrifices and its food laws.
SPEAKER_00: You don't need those things anymore to belong to God's people.
SPEAKER_00: One function that they had was actually to separate Jew and Gentile, and that has been removed.
SPEAKER_00: So Turks and Greeks, Scythians, anyone can belong to the people of God and inherit those promises made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
SPEAKER_00: But note, it is the same covenant.
SPEAKER_00: So think about the New Testament church and what she is.
SPEAKER_00: The New Testament church is the expansion of Israel, it is not the obliteration of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: In Romans 11, Paul uses the picture of Israel as being like an olive tree.
SPEAKER_00: So imagine an olive tree in your garden.
SPEAKER_00: And when the Gentiles put their trust in Jesus, they are grafted into the olive tree.
SPEAKER_00: They become true children of Abraham.
SPEAKER_00: God does not burn down the olive tree.
SPEAKER_00: God does not plant another tree next to the olive tree.
SPEAKER_00: New Testament believers are the flowering of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: Now, one little uh implication of that, Pentecost is not actually the birth of the church.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you've heard that.
SPEAKER_00: You know, the church's birthday is Pentecost, when Jesus pours out his Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: That's actually not quite right.
SPEAKER_00: The church has existed much longer.
SPEAKER_00: Ever since there has been a covenant of grace, there has been the church.
SPEAKER_00: The Pentecost, however, is a bit like the church's 18th birthday.
SPEAKER_00: It's the church leaving her infancy, it's her coming of age, it's her reaching maturity.
SPEAKER_00: And with that comes this vast expansion.
SPEAKER_00: The gospel goes global.
SPEAKER_00: So the church and Israel, they are not two separate groups.
SPEAKER_00: The New Testament church is Israel expanded as Gentiles are admitted in.
SPEAKER_00: So all down the line, one covenant of God, as the Lord rescues people through his Son Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: So that's Gentile converts brought into the covenant people.
SPEAKER_00: What though about the children of believers?
SPEAKER_00: Where do they fit in?
SPEAKER_00: Are they in?
SPEAKER_00: Are they out?
SPEAKER_00: Well, here's the Bible's answer.
SPEAKER_00: That's heading C.
SPEAKER_00: Believers' children are born within this covenant.
SPEAKER_00: You read in 1 Corinthians 7 14, talking about uh Christian marriage and the implications of it.
SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy.
SPEAKER_00: That is literally set apart.
SPEAKER_00: It means they are in the covenant, they are not out of it.
SPEAKER_00: It does not mean that the child of Christian parents are automatically saved, but they do have the covenant promises as their promises.
SPEAKER_00: They'll be encouraged to pray, to confess, to grow up in the grace of Jesus, their Saviour, not brought up as outsiders or pagans, but as members of the church belonging to her.
SPEAKER_00: Because, in God's mercy, they were born within the covenant of grace.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this is actually one of the purposes of a Christian marriage, that a husband and wife should bear godly seed, godly children.
SPEAKER_00: That's Malachi 2, 15.
SPEAKER_00: Now, why and how?
SPEAKER_00: Why and how does it work like this?
SPEAKER_00: Well, very simply, we see all the way through the Bible that God deals with households.
SPEAKER_00: He does not just deal with individuals.
SPEAKER_00: So when the Lord saved Noah, he didn't just save Noah, he saved his household, eight of them in the ark.
SPEAKER_00: That was actually, if you like, the first baptism, you know, and a whole household was saved.
SPEAKER_00: When God saved Abraham, he didn't just call him, he called his household.
SPEAKER_00: At the Passover, that meal was to be observed in households.
SPEAKER_00: You know, every household was to put blood over the door.
SPEAKER_00: It's not that individuals were each to have blood over their own bedroom or over the end of their own bed.
SPEAKER_00: God dealt with them as a household.
SPEAKER_00: The crossing of the Red Sea, it was men and women, boys and girls, infants who crossed the Red Sea.
SPEAKER_00: And the New Testament actually says that they were baptized in the sea.
SPEAKER_00: Or Rahab.
SPEAKER_00: You remember the story of Rahab when she is saved at Joshua's conquest of Canaan?
SPEAKER_00: Her whole household is rescued, not just her.
SPEAKER_00: And this just seems to be the way that God views us and treats us.
SPEAKER_00: We are not just individuals.
SPEAKER_00: The world we live in, particularly in the West, has encouraged us to think individually rather than tribally, probably for about two, three hundred years.
SPEAKER_00: But it's not the way that the Bible thinks or operates.
SPEAKER_00: Households, and households that have multiple generations that exist actually over time.
SPEAKER_00: And that is the Lord's plan.
SPEAKER_00: So when someone puts their trust in the God of the covenant, they join the covenant with their household.
SPEAKER_00: Now maybe the clearest summary of this is in Joshua 24, 15.
SPEAKER_00: You're probably very familiar with those words, but just stop and think about them for a moment and what they imply.
SPEAKER_00: As for me and my house, says Joshua, we will serve the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: So it's not me, I will serve the Lord, but we.
SPEAKER_00: So here is Joshua.
SPEAKER_00: You know, he is the head of his household, and he says, we.
SPEAKER_00: We will serve the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Did uh the rest of Joshua's household have a say in that?
SPEAKER_00: Well, in a sense, that's irrelevant.
SPEAKER_00: Um we will serve the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Fact.
SPEAKER_00: So there is actually something undeniably tribal about being a Christian, if I can put it like that.
SPEAKER_00: Um you're part of a tribe, and we're not just a bunch of individuals.
SPEAKER_00: Well, let's go on.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, by the way, so that's what I tried to show uh on the diagram in number four.
SPEAKER_00: So there's a there's a Christian couple and holy children.
SPEAKER_00: Uh let's go on.
SPEAKER_00: Uh big heading number two.
SPEAKER_00: Who then should receive the sign of the covenant?
SPEAKER_00: So in the Old Testament, uh, the covenant sign was circumcision, so the cutting off of the foreskin of the man's genitals.
SPEAKER_00: And this was the sign that was given by the Lord, first of all, to Abraham.
SPEAKER_00: And it signified the covenant.
SPEAKER_00: So if you've got your Bible open still at uh Genesis 17 and verse 9, I actually mean verse 10, don't I?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: So he says, of circumcision, this is my covenant, which you shall keep between me and you and your offspring after you.
SPEAKER_00: Every male among you shall be circumcised.
SPEAKER_00: So it's a sign of the covenant.
SPEAKER_00: And it is about cutting off and killing.
SPEAKER_00: And always, really, in the Old Testament, it was about an inward cutting off.
SPEAKER_00: And so there was an outward sign of something inward.
SPEAKER_00: So the law and the prophets said, your heart must be circumcised.
SPEAKER_00: The New Testament says that we have been circumcised, that is, our sinful natures have been cut off, put to death by the circumcision of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Colossians 2.
SPEAKER_00: And it's also both a sign and a seal of God's saving righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: And that's Paul's point in Romans 4.
SPEAKER_00: So Abraham, he could look at this sign, this mark in his body, and be reminded all of his days of God's covenant promise to save him through the righteousness of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Now, why is that relevant?
SPEAKER_00: Well, we mustn't think that Abraham, all the way back then, was somehow in a different world to us.
SPEAKER_00: He's in the same covenant of grace as us, he's our father in the faith.
SPEAKER_00: The New Testament tells us he was not saved by works, he was justified by faith.
SPEAKER_00: He was actually justified by faith in Christ, in the coming Savior.
SPEAKER_00: So John 8 says, uh, this is Jesus, he says, Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day.
SPEAKER_00: So whatever Abraham knew, he had faith in the Saviour who was to come.
SPEAKER_00: And he was given a sign of that and a seal of that.
SPEAKER_00: And when we look at what that sign signified, isn't it so strikingly similar to what the Lord gives us in baptism?
SPEAKER_00: So that's what it signified.
SPEAKER_00: Whom did God command to be circumcised?
SPEAKER_00: Well, you've got your Bibles open still at Genesis 17.
SPEAKER_00: We've just read verse 10.
SPEAKER_00: You shall uh me and you and your offspring after you.
SPEAKER_00: Every male among you shall be circumcised.
SPEAKER_00: Then at the end of uh chapter 17, that's what we read.
SPEAKER_00: Then Abraham actually did.
SPEAKER_00: You know, he obeys the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: When in chapter uh 21, um the Lord graciously, miraculously provides Isaac.
SPEAKER_00: Well, then Isaac is circumcised.
SPEAKER_00: So here's Abraham.
SPEAKER_00: He started off life as a pagan.
SPEAKER_00: Remember that.
SPEAKER_00: There was nothing special about Abraham.
SPEAKER_00: He was a pagan.
SPEAKER_00: Then the Lord called him, he brought him into the covenant, he gave him the gift of faith and of righteousness, and all of that before his circumcision.
SPEAKER_00: And the New Testament says that's actually super important.
SPEAKER_00: The order is really important.
SPEAKER_00: Then consider his offspring.
SPEAKER_00: This gospel sign is put on to his infants and his household.
SPEAKER_00: Then as the generations go on, his seed, his offspring, they were to be brought up under this sign of the righteousness that comes by faith.
SPEAKER_00: They were required to grow up in faith as faithful covenant children, receiving all that their circumcision signified to them.
SPEAKER_00: So that's the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: Turn over back page, just think about the New Testament and the covenant sign of baptism.
SPEAKER_00: It's the same pattern.
SPEAKER_00: So outsiders are brought in with the sign of the covenant, and then their children are raised, having received that sign in infancy, and they are called to believe the God of the covenant.
SPEAKER_00: So on the day of Pentecost, Peter he stands up to this great Jewish crowd, Acts 2, 38, 39, and he says, Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: For the promise is to you and to your children and to all who are far off.
SPEAKER_00: So what are they going to think as they hear that?
SPEAKER_00: They're going to think, I need to repent and be baptized.
SPEAKER_00: And of course, the promise is for my children.
SPEAKER_00: Of course it is.
SPEAKER_00: Because it's always been that way.
SPEAKER_00: And so it's actually no surprise to see household baptisms in Acts.
SPEAKER_00: And in a sense, the question of whether children are included there or not is beside the point.
SPEAKER_00: It's a household baptism.
SPEAKER_00: And we remember too, you know, 1 Corinthians 7.
SPEAKER_00: Children are holy.
SPEAKER_00: Now, sometimes folk will say, repent and be baptized.
SPEAKER_00: That is always the right order.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, repent, then be baptized.
SPEAKER_00: To which the Bible's answer is, well, it depends who you are.
SPEAKER_00: So just stop and think for a minute.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe think about that question we started with, the question and answer from the Westminster Shorter Catechism.
SPEAKER_00: Some people shouldn't be baptized, should they?
SPEAKER_00: So, I don't know, if you're an atheist, you shouldn't be baptized if you don't profess faith in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Hindus shouldn't be baptized until they repent of their idolatry.
SPEAKER_00: A couple who are cohabiting shouldn't get baptized unless they stop living together or marry.
SPEAKER_00: People whose lips or lives contradict the message of baptism shouldn't be baptized.
SPEAKER_00: It's a sign of belonging to the church.
SPEAKER_00: So don't give the sign to those who don't belong until they repent and believe.
SPEAKER_00: So if you're outside of the church, of course you must repent and believe and then be baptized.
SPEAKER_00: But if you're a covenant child, be baptized and then you must grow up repenting and believing.
SPEAKER_00: And what I've tried to show in that little table on the handout is that it's always been the same.
SPEAKER_00: So back in Abraham's day, Abraham, this pagan coming in, he believes and then he's circumcised.
SPEAKER_00: But Abraham's kids, they were to be circumcised, and then they must grow up believing and repenting.
SPEAKER_00: And now when a Gentile, a pagan comes in, well, yes, you must believe and repent and then be baptized.
SPEAKER_00: You then go on and have kids, well, they must be baptized and then believe.
SPEAKER_00: So it's always been the same.
SPEAKER_00: Now, just some implications.
SPEAKER_00: So 3A.
SPEAKER_00: We need to remember that the power of baptism is not tied to the moment wherein it is administered.
SPEAKER_00: In the Bible, we read things like this.
SPEAKER_00: You know, 1 Peter 3, and we we thought about this in week one.
SPEAKER_00: 1 Peter 3, baptism now saves you.
SPEAKER_00: Very strong and striking, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: When, though?
SPEAKER_00: When?
SPEAKER_00: And the answer is, well, when the Holy Spirit wants, he is most free.
SPEAKER_00: The wind blows where it wishes.
SPEAKER_00: It's John 3, 5.
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit is sovereign.
SPEAKER_00: That's true of any person's conversion, of course, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: So imagine a person being baptized.
SPEAKER_00: What is signed to that little boy or girl?
SPEAKER_00: Well, the Holy Spirit, it's in his gift when what is signed is actually applied.
SPEAKER_00: When the Holy Spirit gives the gift of saving faith, that is his choice and work.
SPEAKER_00: Second implication.
SPEAKER_00: Christian baptism entails Christian education.
SPEAKER_00: Someone might say a baby can't understand what this means.
SPEAKER_00: But actually, we speak to our children long before they can understand.
SPEAKER_00: We bring them up with words, don't we?
SPEAKER_00: We speak words over them long before they can understand.
SPEAKER_00: Education, if you like, begins in infancy.
SPEAKER_00: And in baptism, we actually do this with the encouragement and the blessing of our God.
SPEAKER_00: His name has been upon them, and then we begin to teach them what their baptism actually means.
SPEAKER_00: So baptism is the start of discipleship.
SPEAKER_00: So Christian children, they're in the covenant by birth, they've been given the sign of the covenant, and then they're to be raised not as outsiders, but people on the inside.
SPEAKER_00: Now, one practical outworking of that, that's why reformed churches down the centuries have written catechisms, you know, questions and answers, to give Christian children a structured Christian education, the goal of which is to lead them in time to profess their faith to the church and the world.
SPEAKER_00: And that professing of their faith, it's not something separate from their baptism, it's actually what that baptism calls for.
SPEAKER_00: The gospel's been put upon them.
SPEAKER_00: Now, respond in repentance and faith.
SPEAKER_00: It's not that their parents professed faith on their behalf.
SPEAKER_00: What we're talking about here is not what some churches call confirmation.
SPEAKER_00: So this is not an extra third thing on top of baptism and the supper.
SPEAKER_00: It's really just an unpacking of what baptism calls for.
SPEAKER_00: And then a third implication: this is an encouragement for Christian parents.
SPEAKER_00: We had a parent by faith, not by fear.
SPEAKER_00: Now, of course, there is no reason for presumption.
SPEAKER_00: Baptism does not save anyone.
SPEAKER_00: That's true of big people and small people.
SPEAKER_00: We're saved through trusting the Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: There are people in the Bible who warn us against easy believism.
SPEAKER_00: Think of Esau.
SPEAKER_00: Think of Absalom, covenant children who ignored the privileges they had been given.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us know the pain of older children straying.
SPEAKER_00: Don't give up hope.
SPEAKER_00: You don't know the end of the story.
SPEAKER_00: Keep praying.
SPEAKER_00: But the Christian approach to family is summed up in those words in Joshua 24.
SPEAKER_00: As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: So the Lord does actually view our children as being in covenant with him.
SPEAKER_00: And that matters.
SPEAKER_00: It's more than just the privilege of having Christian people in their lives.
SPEAKER_00: And God's desire is for faithful generations, you know, successive generations who love him and keep his commandments and to whom he will show steadfast love.
SPEAKER_00: That's what the Lord loves.
SPEAKER_00: Now we do not know the exact route to faith in Christ that any person will take, and that's the same with our children.
SPEAKER_00: Um, some uh, and this is true for some of us, be aware of a particular time when the faith of your parents becomes your faith.
SPEAKER_00: Some struggle greatly along the way, just like we all struggle with sin and the world and the devil.
SPEAKER_00: Many other Christian children simply grow up in grace.
SPEAKER_00: But as parents, we raise our children in the covenants.
SPEAKER_00: They're not little pagans, you know, they belong in the worship of God.
SPEAKER_00: It's the chief reason, by the way, we have children in worship.
SPEAKER_00: We pray for them, and we long and we prepare for them to confess their faith and win time to the Lord's table.
SPEAKER_00: Why don't we just take some questions if anyone anyone has them?
SPEAKER_00: Maybe just questions of clarification to start with.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: So it is obedience, but it's not symbolism.
SPEAKER_01: But it seems that it is a sign.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but so baptism is a sign, and what we what I was trying to show in from the Bible back in week one is of what is it a sign?
SPEAKER_00: And so some some people, and that's that's an example, some people say it is a sign of our faith, it is a sign of me responding to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And I was trying to say, biblically, that's not right.
SPEAKER_00: Baptism is a sign, is a downward pointing arrow, it is from the Lord to us, it is a sign of um washing and renewal and uh the pouring out of the Holy Spirit, to which we then must respond in faith.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so it's of what is a sign and where does our faith fit in?
SPEAKER_00: Baptism absolutely calls for faith, but it is not faith, it is not a sign of faith.
SPEAKER_00: That's what I was trying to show.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, go on, Carolyn.
SPEAKER_02: Great question, sir.
SPEAKER_02: Um on this diagram, where did someone fit in that they were like met, and was that part of the baby in the Father Son of the Holy Spirit by people outside of the covenant?
SPEAKER_02: So he's received a kind of that baptism, but they've not in the covenant.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Well, assumed he was so someone is uh baptized as an infant by people who are functionally non-Christian parents, where do they fit into that diagram and into the covenant?
SPEAKER_00: Well, assuming they would that they that he was baptized into the triune name with water, you know, valid baptism in a church, albeit a church that was not doing its due diligence, actually, and you know, kind of wanton baptism of anyone who walks through the front door is a kind of a disgrace to the name of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: But notwithstanding that, you know, a covenant mark is still put on that person, uh, you you are a baptized person.
SPEAKER_00: And then you know, wonderfully by the grace of God, you know, becomes converted, and his job then is I guess to you know learn what his baptism means and to you know inhabit that for the rest of his days.
SPEAKER_02: I think you know diff diff different ones of us have talked about it as I guess it's not quite as tidy, maybe, as the back table, because you've got bits of inside and bits of outside almost matched together.
SPEAKER_00: But I guess that I guess the thing is that you know when when the church baptizes a person, that that isn't that is a sign of visible church membership.
SPEAKER_00: It may have been administered wrongly, but it is actually a sign of visible church membership.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Go on, Margaret, and then Vic.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: So that so the person who is baptized at some point strays and wanders from the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Well, different different ones of us will have in this room, I know, will have known that experience.
SPEAKER_00: That's that's my experience at different points in my in my Christian journey.
SPEAKER_00: And I think one of the things that we need to remember about ourselves is you you wander and stray as a baptized person.
SPEAKER_00: And that both increases the culpability of your sin.
SPEAKER_00: It also rather wonderfully, though, gives the Holy Spirit something to grab hold of your conscience.
SPEAKER_00: Again, this is certainly my experience.
SPEAKER_00: You know, you're a straying Christian, Andrew.
SPEAKER_00: What on earth are you doing?
SPEAKER_00: You are never going to be happy far away from Christ.
SPEAKER_00: You know, you're a baptized boy, you're a baptized teenager.
SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, so you've got the sign of baptism applied to you.
SPEAKER_00: What a terrible and a dangerous thing, then to go and live as someone who is not the Lord's.
SPEAKER_00: You know, come back, come back.
SPEAKER_00: And that's the that's always the invitation of the Bible, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: And the Lord wonderfully always receives his people back when we come in repentance in faith.
SPEAKER_03: What if I never come back?
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's the that's that that I guess is but that is between them and the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: That's a terrifying thought, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: That you could go through the rest of your days as someone who's had some kind of connection with Christ and the things of Christ and the church, and you reject it.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, Jesus talks about such people in the Gospels.
SPEAKER_00: He says, you know, it would be it will be better for the people in Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for someone like that.
SPEAKER_00: You know, for someone who um you know saw the things of Christ, you know, who knew the church and says no.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, being outside of Christ on the day of judgment is hell in every sense, but it will be worse.
SPEAKER_00: It's a really fearful thought that actually does connect with what we're preaching in church a little bit later.
SPEAKER_00: Go shortly.
SPEAKER_00: Would you go as far to say, from your understanding that Christian parents are commanded to baptize their children?
SPEAKER_00: I think it's a so Christian parent, I think it is a I think it is a blessing that we ought we ought to give to our children.
SPEAKER_00: You know, the I think the phenomenon of someone who is in the covenant and unbaptized, the Bible doesn't really know that person.
SPEAKER_00: There are obviously glorious exceptions, you know, the thief on the cross, was the thief on the cross baptized?
SPEAKER_00: No, wonderful.
SPEAKER_00: Um, but I think the norm is you're in this particular relation with the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: You want all of the blessings and the goodnesses that come with it, and this is one of them.
SPEAKER_00: You know, here is one of the tools that the Holy Spirit actually can use to do good to a person.
SPEAKER_00: So it's it's not just a one-off thing either, it's you know, it's a it's a it's a thing to give to um a person, which the Lord can then use to bless.
SPEAKER_00: So that would certainly be our strong encouragement.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: And just to carry on from I don't know on um chapter 17, verse 14, then, where it says about um uh any circumcised not circumcised in the question is you're going to be cut off with people who've broken my covenant.
SPEAKER_01: If you think capitalism is the sign of the covenant, sorry to carry on from what you want to say.
SPEAKER_01: Is that a is that that sounds like it's not?
SPEAKER_01: Well, certainly the an un Do you think that's do you think the that that kind of is?
SPEAKER_00: So is there is there is there a sort of a parallel?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I think uh in a sense, yes.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: So again, it's an it's an unnatural thing for covenant people to be to not have the sign of the covenant.
SPEAKER_00: That might seem quite a strange thing to our ears.
SPEAKER_00: We we differ ones of us have had different kind of Christian journeys.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I've had different my particular journey with the Lord, which I think has been over the last 15 years, just coming to see the importance of baptism in the Lord's Supper.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a it's not a small or a secondary thing, it does, it does actually matter.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, principally, because it is a it is a wonderful blessing.
SPEAKER_00: Different ones of us, we are all learning and growing and you know trying to be Bible people, trying to help one another along the way.
SPEAKER_00: Uh let me pray.
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, grab me, ask questions, give me a ring.
SPEAKER_00: So happy to keep uh talking about all of this, but let me pray.
SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, most of all, we thank you for your love and your grace.
SPEAKER_00: We thank you that you reach out to us and give us things that we don't deserve, and you give us yourself.
SPEAKER_00: We pray for ourselves, we pray for the generations of which we find ourselves a part.
SPEAKER_00: We thank you that we stand in a line of faith.
SPEAKER_00: We thank you for our father Abraham.
SPEAKER_00: We pray for ourselves and ask for faithfulness in handing on the baton.
SPEAKER_00: We pray for our children and our young ones that they would grow up in grace and in turn would hand it on to their children.
SPEAKER_00: Uh we face sin and the world and the devil.
SPEAKER_00: Uh we would hate to be those who break faith with you and with uh your covenant.
SPEAKER_00: So give us your mercy and your aid, we pray.
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.