Category: Theology

Ephesians 2:10

10 “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.”

1.) The word “workmanship” is from the Greek word where we get our word “poetry.” We (the Church) are God’s poetry. We are His craftsmanship. We are his workmanship.

2.) The fact that we are created in Christ Jesus indicates to us that the workmanship (poetry) that we are is in relation to Redemption. As such the “created” that is being referred to here is not the created, as in being born, but the created as being re-born. The Church has been placed in the realm of the new creation. (Indeed, we are so part of the re-creation that St. Paul will soon say that God’s workmanship is already sharing in Christ’s ascension as we are now seated in the Heavenly places.) The thrust here is, because of God’s work in Christ, that the Church is now living in the already inaugurated “age to come.” That is the age of which we are now His workmanship.

3.) As now living in this “age to come” reality we now walk in a “age to come” fashion. The works that are produced in us and that we thus produce are consistent with the “age to come” we are living in.

4.) We were re-created for the end of good works. A Christian who has been re-created, who has been placed into the age to come, who has been seated in the heavenlies with Christ, can no more not produce good works then an apple orchard can not produce apples.

5.) Of course when St. Paul talks about our living in this current age of renewal he fixes Christ front and center. Christ, being the firstborn from among the dead, is the one in whom the age to come finds its existence. So, if we are in this age to come it is only because we are first in Christ Jesus, who is Himself the “age to come.” The King is tightly associated with His Land and His Rule.

6.) Note the tie between God’s eternal decrees (“Which God hath before ordained”), the completed work of Christ as being the instrument of the “new creation,, in which we now reside (“In Christ Jesus”), and our existential every day walk as Christians (“that we should walk in them”). There is a seamless web spun here by the inspired Apostle between Redemption planned, Redemption Accomplished, and Redemption applied.

All this to say that the idea of a Church that is conformed to this world is one of the greatest grotesqueries that could ever be conceived. Such a worldly church is the very opposite of what Paul is screaming at us in this passage. Having been united to Christ we are now living in a new age, with a new disposition and a new ethic. God ordained for us our Christ, our re-creation, and our walk.

Chit Chat on Justification, And Sanctification with Federal Vision

The following is a discussion with a good friend who is influenced by Federal Vision categories, even if he came by these categories quite apart from the Federal Vision movement.

HI writes,

“In any discussion about justification the phrase “faith alone” will generally be used to describe the idea that justification takes place without any contribution by the person being justified. That is, the idea of faith alone excludes any possibility of a works program that somehow earns privileges with God. St. Paul lays out this concept in his letter to the Romans.

However, there are some people — and I am one of them — who choose not to use the words faith alone to describe the idea that justification is God’s work without any additional activities from man to complete the process. Salvation is God’s grace alone. It is a ‘gift of God, lest any man should boast.'”

Bret responds,

1.) Note the seeming confusion here. The author roundly affirms that Salvation is God’s grace alone but he is uncomfortable with the idea that this Grace alone salvation should be characterized by a Justification that is by faith alone. Is it possible to have a grace alone salvation that doesn’t include a justification by faith alone? Are we to believe that grace alone Salvation is possible without a faith alone justification?

2.) That word “However” leading off the second paragraph is huge. With that “However” the author has informed us that he is going to take exception to the idea of “justification by faith alone.” Now, it is true enough that the author will insist that what he is offering instead is also gracious but keep in mind that every theology that excuses itself from “justification by faith alone,” also insists that their theology is gracious. I grew up and studied in the Arminian scheme of theology and they will tell you that their soteriology (doctrine of salvation) is gracious. They will speak of salvation by grace alone but when they finish defining their salvation by grace alone it is synergistic through and through. The same is true of Lutherans, Reformed Baptists, Roman Catholics and unfortunately even some Reformed folks. For all of them there is a point of synergism in their soteriology.

HI

When you read the Scriptures you only find the words faith alone together in one place, and that’s in the book of James (2:24): “You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.” Here you see the phrase is used negatively: you are not saved by faith alone.”

Bret

1.) Romans 4:5 teaches that faith alone justifies the person. James 2:24, in context, is teaching that works justifies a person’s claim to faith. St. Paul teaches that a living faith, that reveals it’s aliveness by resting in “Christ alone,” is the kind of faith that justifies. St. James teaches that a living faith, that reveals it’s aliveness by working out salvation in fear and trembling, is the kind of faith the demonstrates the presence of a living faith that has justified. What is not being taught by James is that our justification is contingent or dependent upon our meritorious or our non-meritorious works.

2.) It is interesting to note that all non Reformed people immediately run to the James passage to prove that “justification by faith alone” is not true. And that passage does prove that “justification by faith alone” is not true as long as you take it out of the context of Jame’s reasoning in that passage.

HI

“For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified.”

Bret

Here is Calvin’s treatment of Romans 2:13 cited above,

13. For the hearers of the law, etc. This anticipates an objection which the Jews might have adduced. As they had heard that the law was the rule of righteousness, (Deuteronomy 4:1,) they gloried in the mere knowledge of it: to obviate this mistake, he declares that the hearing of the law or any knowledge of it is of no such consequence, that any one should on that account lay claim to righteousness, but that works must be produced, according to this saying, “He who will do these shall live in them.” The import then of this verse is the following, — “That if righteousness be sought from the law, the law must be fulfilled; for the righteousness of the law consists in the perfection of works.” They who pervert this passage for the purpose of building up justification by works, deserve most fully to be laughed at even by children. It is therefore improper and beyond what is needful, to introduce here a long discussion on the subject, with the view of exposing so futile a sophistry: for the Apostle only urges here on the Jews what he had mentioned, the decision of the law, — That by the law they could not be justified, except they fulfilled the law, that if they transgressed it, a curse was instantly pronounced on them. Now we do not deny but that perfect righteousness is prescribed in the law: but as all are convicted of transgression, we say that another righteousness must be sought. Still more, we can prove from this passage that no one is justified by works; for if they alone are justified by the law who fulfill the law, it follows that no one is justified; for no one can be found who can boast of having fulfilled the law

HI

In his disagreement with the Roman Catholic Church, Luther correctly saw that there was a problem with its view of justification. Selling indulges was just a crass, money-making program that effectively promised easy salvation as a consequence of doing very little. But it was a works-based system that required man’s active cooperation with God to make salvation complete. It had an implicit view that somehow sin would be forgiven because of the payment of money. Luther made sure the whole world knew this was a wrong view of what the Bible taught.

In his efforts to hold to the what he would later call “passive righteousness,” Luther was adamant the essence of man’s sin was the idea that he was somehow capable of saving himself, even if he did need a little help occasionally from God to make good. Luther would allow no contribution to the graciousness of God. All glory to him alone, and that glory could not be shared.

Now this is what most Christians say they accept as what the Bible teaches , but not all Christians agree on the best way to describe this theological position. Luther added the word alone following the word “justification” to his German translation of Rom. 3:28., but later it was withdrawn. By adding the word alone, Luther turned his translation at this point from a direct word-to-word (dynamic) translation to what is now called a “dynamic equivalent.” That is, the translation is an explanation of the text rather than a direct translation. Now that’s fine so long as you know the difference. The demand for a dynamic translation, however, required the word alone to be taken out of the text because it was never a part of the original language.

1.) It is true that not all Christians agree on the best way to describe the graciousness of grace. As one example, theologies that insist that Christ died for all men without exception, will talk about the graciousness of grace but the minute the question arises as to why Christ’s death is effective for some men’s justification and not effective unto justification for other men then suddenly we discover their understanding of grace is not so gracious.

2.) It makes no matter to me if one wants to say we are justified by faith alone, or if one wants to say we are justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law. Saying either is to say much the same.

HI

But this poses an important question. If St. Paul in writing his letter to the Romans (chapter 3) never used the word alone, what word did he use? Read his text and see what he does. Follow Paul’s argument very closely:

21 But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it 22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. 26 It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. 27 Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. 28 For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.

Did you notice what he said in v. 27? “What becomes of our boasting?” What boasting is he talking about? The boasting that attributes justification to some worthwhile act of the justified person. In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul claims, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”[1]

And so what you see in his letter to the Romans, Paul is eliminating self-aggrandizement in justification not by using the word alone, but by explaining the real meaning of the law, the Torah. The real Torah is a Torah of faith, not a Torah of works. Stern’s translation (Complete Jewish Bible) makes this clear when he translates “law of works” as “a law that has to do with legalistic observance of rules.” The alternative? “A Torah that has to do with trusting.”

Bret

1.) The solution offered here is merely semantic, or it might be called equivocation or redefinition. All that has been done is change the name, or redefined what it is that man must obey “in order to” gain justification. There is synergism here as there is no justification apart from the action of man. Even if that action required is labeled as “non-meritorious” the very fact that justification doesn’t happen without that act means in point of fact that there is something in our acting that is causative of justification. As such there is also here a tacit denial of depravity. Men who are dead in sin and trespasses do not fulfill any requisite law whether it be a Torah of works or a Torah of faith.

2.) What looks like to be happening here is that faith is being turned into a work. Is there a misunderstanding that faith, in justification, is totally receptive and not contributory in any sense? Is there a misunderstanding that we only have faith because that faith was won for those Christ justified in His Cross work 2000 years ago? Is there a misunderstanding that men are only justified in the present because justification was accomplished in the past and that that past justification was accomplished for elect sinners completely apart from their keeping the Torah of Faith? The point is that men trust (have faith) not in order to gain an otherwise uncertain justification but rather that men trust (have faith) because of a certain justification accomplished.

HI

A lot of people then — and now — held the view that if a person kept the Torah he would be justified on this basis. But Paul here, and in his letter to the Galatians, shuts the door on this possibility. In Galatians he says the Torah, given years after the promise, did not annul the promise. Salvation was on the basis of God’s sovereign promises, not on how well a person kept the law.

17. This is what I mean: the law, which came years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to make the promise void. 18 For if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise; but God gave it to Abraham by a promise.[2]

Now how does Paul explain the real meaning of the Torah in his Romans letter? In answer to the question, “what becomes of our boasting,” he replied, “It is excluded.” Paul is adamant: there is no possibility that there are cracks in the idea of justification to allow boasting. It is excluded. How? Paul asks, “What kind of ‘law’ excludes boasting?” Does a “law of works” prohibit boasting? He does not even pause to answer that question. He jumps straight to his answer, that boasting is excluded by “the law of faith.”

Only now is he ready to make his grand conclusion: “For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.” Works of the law are out when it comes to justification. This is why there is no boasting. It is because justification is by faith.

1.) If I keep the “law of faith” that yields a non-meritorious contribution to my justification can I then boast in the keeping of that law? If the response to that question is that, “no you cannot boast because you only were able to keep the law of faith by grace,” my retort is that such a answer indicates that justification is being based on the renewal that happens within me as opposed to God’s declaration in heaven’s courts of my righteousness as imputed due to the finished work of the faith of Jesus Christ. It is because I have been justified, I am being sanctified. The arrangement that is being advocated by HI looks an awful lot like because I am being sanctified I will be justified.

2.) Works of the law are out when it comes to Justification but the works of faith are in when it comes to Justification?

HI

The initial recipients of St. Paul’s letter could now breathe a sigh of relief. Because earlier in his letter he had written, “For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified.”[3] What is that? Doers of the law justified? Does this mean Paul thought that works were a necessary component of being justification? If so, that would mean actions could somehow be “meritorious” and allow “boasting”. It would allow the sinner to say that if not all, at least a part of his justification was based on his own activities.

But now you can see how St. Paul shut the door on a works-based salvation. He did it not by saying “faith alone” but with his explanation of the law, contrasting the law of works with the law of faith. One of these Torahs allowed boasting; the other didn’t. One of these was the true Torah of God, the other wasn’t. Both Torahs required obedience because they were Torah — law. But one of them was drastically different when it came to justification.

In other words, St. Paul is saying “Only doers of the law will be justified” . . . but it is doers of the law of faith who will be justified, not doers of the law of works, because justification is by faith, not works. And faith, he is saying, includes the Torah of faith, that is obedience to the law of faith that allows no boasting.

St. Paul sees one of these Torahs he refers to as a Torah of merit, and the other a non-meritorious Torah. The non-meritorious Torah excludes boasting, but it still required: ”For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified.”

Now that’s how St. Paul explains himself. And we are on very safe grounds if we stick with St. Paul’s argument.

1.) We are not on safe ground because what is being advocated here (via confusing and slippery language) is that our non meritorious works are contributory to our Justification. Now if our non meritorious works are contributory to our Justification then if those non meritorious works are not present then we can not be Justified and if we can not be Justified without our non meritorious works then Justification is synergistic and we are involved in self- justification.

2.) See above for Calvin’s treatment on Romans 2:13

3.) Do not miss that when HI says, “Both Torahs required obedience because they were Torah — law,” he is saying that our obedience is required in and for Justification. The only difference in HI’s mind is that the obedience required and rendered is an obedience that is of the non-boasting variety. Apparently, this kind of requisite obedience is like organic foods vs. processed foods. This kind of requisite obedience unto Justification is good for you because it doesn’t have that nasty food additive of “boasting.”

IH

Sanctification by Faith

But we are not finished with this concept of “faith alone.” For Protestantism, to escape the idea of a works-based justification, has used the word sanctification as an explanation of the ongoing life of the believer.

Now here the same question arises. Are we sanctified by keeping the law, and therefore sanctified to variable degrees based on how well we keep the law, or is sanctification really by faith alone?

Bret

1.) We are sanctified as the Spirit of God works in us to conform to Him who was the incarnation of God’s law. Sanctification is all of grace, and that grace is a grace that works in the believing elect to esteem God’s Law-Word as a guide to life. Regardless of how sanctified God is pleased to work in me, when all that sanctification is finally completed I will say, “I am a unprofitable servant who only did what I ought.”

2.) Note here the creeping conflation of Justification and Sanctification so that very little distinction between the two is allowed. There is a danger in the Church today as we are being pulled, pillar to post, between two camps who have it very wrong. One camp seemingly wants to conflate Justification with Sanctification so that we are unable to distinguish them. The other camp seemingly wants to divorce Justification from Sanctification so that we are unable to see the intimate relationship between the two.

HI

If we are not careful, we add into the Scripture a “law of works,” a law that allows boasting, thereby denying the law of faith, the law that denies boasting. Some people prefer to use the phrase “good works” rather than “law.” Is there a difference? Accepting the idea of “good works” is quite OK, but now we must ask, are our good works “good” because of how well we did them, or are they good because of of faith? In other words, are our “good works” meritorious or are they non-meritorious?

Bret

1.) Our good works in Sanctification are obviously not meritorious because there is nothing left to merit in terms of being right with God. Our good works in Sanctification are not a necessary condition for Justification but a necessary consequent to Justification.

2.) R. L. Dabney reminds us that “all the defects in evangelical obedience are covered by the Saviors righteousness, so that, through Him the inadequate works receive a recompense.” So, yes, we agree that since works are the consequence to justification they are normatively required for salvation, but we still insist that our good works are only good because they themselves are imputed with the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

HI

The Heidelberg Catechism (Q. 91) asks, “What are good works?” then supplies the answer. Good works are “Only those which proceed from a true faith, are performed according to the law of God, and to his glory; and not such as are founded on our imaginations, or the institutions of men.”

“Good” works only proceed from faith, according to the law of God. Are these works meritorious, like some kind of heavenly rewards program? No, and the framers of the Catechism had a consistent use of the phrase “good works.” Earlier in the catechism (Q.87), the door is shut on the idea that works can be meritorious.

This means that the “good works” required of the Christian are non-meritorious good works. Everywhere the Scripture shuts the door on merit and opens the door of grace, unmerited favor.

And this is the faith that has been handed down through the ages.

Bret

This is not the faith that has been handed down through the ages but instead is a advocacy, by use of confused language, and muddled categories of thought, of a faith that is of fairly recent vintage.

There is a lack of understanding here that in terms of Salvation, taken as a whole, works are a sufficient condition, but not an efficient cause, or as I said earlier, works are the necessary consequence of a Justification that finds Sanctification present.

HI

There are, of course, many well-meaning Christians who have trouble with the idea of non-meritorious works. But the Catechism is adamant that “good works” are necessary For some, it is “oxymoronic” to suggest that works can be necessary but not meritorious. For another, “if you don’t see works as meritorious it is you that have misrepresented yourself.” In other words, according to this view, works can only be meritorious and nothing else.

Yet that is the very notion taught in the Heidelberg Catechism on sanctification. And if “non-meritorious works” is valid in sanctification, it is just a valid in the idea of justification as well. How do we know? Because that is exactly what Paul is arguing in Romans chapters 2-3.

What has not been handed down is the “one explanation only” of this truth, the use of the words “faith alone” and it is quite appropriate to speak of “non meritorious works” just as it is appropriate to use the phrase “meritorious works.” What we cannot ever say is that our salvation or any part of it, justification or sanctification, is in any way based on meritorious acts of the believer. But in both justification and sanctification, works — keeping the Law, or Torah — are essential components.

Bret

Since justification happens outside of us and is about Christ’s work for us and His keeping of the law for us any performance on our part cannot and does not enter into the equation in any way when we are discoursing about Justification. Sanctification, on the other hand, is God’s renewal work within us wherein by the Holy Spirit He works in us what we work out by fear and trembling. This is why as Reformed people we NEVER EVER say that as “non-meritorious works” are valid in sanctification, they are just as valid in the idea of justification as well.

Such language, even though well intended, effects the shifting of our eyes from Christ’s meritorious works in our stead to our own non-meritorious works on our own behalf. In justification, even if the works that we do are non-meritorious, the outcome of such a “theology” that finds our own non-meritorious works necessary for right standing with God, is to take our eyes off of Jesus, the Author and FINISHER of our faith.

Public Opinion Polls, Historicism and Psychological Warriors

“Bernard Berelson was trained as a librarian but by the late 40’s was considered an expert in public relations and the manipulation of public opinion. One year after the publication of Blanshard’s book on Catholic power, Berelson co-edited ‘Public Opinion and Communication’ with Morris Jankowitz, one of the seminal works of communications theory, and a good indication of how the psychological warfare techniques refined during World War II were now going to be turned on the American public as a way of controlling them through the manipulation of the new media, i.e., radio and TV. Berelson establishes the book’s major premise in his introduction:

‘Growing secularization has meant that more and more areas of life are open to opinion rather than to divine law and to communication rather than to revelation. Growing industrialization has not only extended literacy; in addition, it has provided the technical facilities for mass communication.’

The goal of secularization was the reduction of all of life’s imperatives to ‘opinions,’ which is to say not the expression of moral absolutes or divine law. Once this ‘secularization’ occurred, the people who controlled ‘opinions’ controlled the country. Berelson is equally frank about where the new science of public opinion originated:

‘Research in the field was accelerated during WW II by demands for studies on the effect of communications upon military personnel, adjustment to army life and attitudes toward military leaders, enemy propaganda, and civilian morale. After the war this growing interest led to the establishment of additional university centers for the study of public opinion and communication by the methods of social science. Together with the continuing activities of industry and government, they now represent a large scale research enterprise.’

…. Berleson wrote also in 1950 that,

‘ there is a virtual pro-religious monopoly on communication available to large audiences in America today.”

Religious belief meant ipso facto the opposite of opinion, and therefore ideas not subject to the manipulation of the people who controlled the communications media. What needed to be done then was to move large areas of thought from the realm of religion to the realm of opinion if any significant breakthroughs in political control through manipulation of the media were to take place. Sexual morality was the most important area of religious thinking that needed to be moved into the realm of ‘opinion’ where it would be then under the control of psychological warriors like Berelson and those who paid his salary, namely, the Rockefellers.

And this is precisely what happened…

E. Michael Jones
Libido Dominadi

Notice that there was a designed and concerted effort, funded by the huge tax free Foundations (Ford, Rockefeller, Carnegie, etc.) to drag public thinking away from the residual remains of Christianity in the public square to a thinking that was called “secular.” The problem, of course, is that this was not a case where the public square was being unclothed of religious presuppositions, (secularization) but rather it was a case where the public square was being stripped of what remained of Christian presuppositions in favor of presuppositions consistent with Religious Leftist humanism.

This is seen in Berelson’s drive to get rid of religious absolutes in favor of “opinion.” However, clearly the problem here is that directed and manipulated opinion would now be the new absolute. The new absolute exchanged for the idea of Christian absolutes was the absolute of no absolutes. Any humanist absolute (masquerading as “opinion”) would be accepted in the secularized public square over and above a religious absolute.

Note also in the quote above the ascendancy of public opinion. Public opinion is to moral guidance what Historicism is to Historiography. In both cases, the absolute being evacuated, the only place a transcendent constant can be found is in the immanent subjective realm of space and time. If there is no transcendent constant then in order to shape public policy is to create public opinion through putative scientific public opinion polls and then to reify those subjective numbers into objective transcendent constants so that direction can be given to public policy. This is the same thing that happens in Historicism. As Historicism allows for no fixed transcendent constant by which history can be known and evaluated, therefore History itself must become its own fixed transcendent constant. Public opinion polls serve as absolutes for the immediate just as Historicism serves as absolute in interpreting the past as a guide for the future.

However, in both cases of Public Opinion polls and Historicism the results they yield are only as good as the manipulator the psychological warriors operating them.

Without the God of the Bible, who alone can give us a fixed transcendent constant as well as the certainty that the transcendent has become immanent, (thus assuring that the transcendent isn’t so transcendent that it loses touch with our sitz-im-leben), we only have a word and world of flux where man is a being manipulated and controlled by the Psychological warriors named Ford, Rockefeller, and Carnegie.

Addendum

R2K plays right into this agenda quoted from Jones. R2K allows the public square to be cleansed of what Berelson called religious belief in favor of the manipulations coming from the cultural elites.

Wedding Prayer

Dread Sovereign and Benevolent God, thou who art the creator and preserver of all life, author of salvation and giver of all grace, we beseech thee that thou would look with favor upon thy Church that Christ did Redeem and especially upon this man and woman who are members of thine covenant and who are now entering in the Holy State of matrimony which you have ordained to be a model of Christ’s love for His Church.

Grant them wisdom and devotion in the ordering of the life that you have ordained for them to share that they may each be to the other a strength in need, a counselor in perplexity, a comfort in sorrow, and a companion in joy.

Grant, we beseech thee, that their wills and affections may be so knit together in your will and affections that they may grow steadily in love, thus experiencing the peace and tranquility that you intend for domestic life. Pour out upon them thy Holy Spirit so that they may together with all God’s people grow up in the grace and knowledge of thy Lord and Savior Jesus Christ through all the years that lay before them.

Open their eyes and grant them grace that they may see when they hurt each other, and then cause them to recognize and acknowledge their sin and to seek each other’s forgiveness and yours.

Make their life together a sign of Christ’s love to this sinful and broken world, so that their unity may be evangelism to the world’s estrangement, their acts of forgiveness a testimony to the world’s brokenness, their joy a witness to the world’s despair.

Bestow upon them, if it is your will, the gift and heritage of children, and the grace to bring them up to know you that they and their generations that follow may constitute a Holy Host unto the God of Hosts to be used for your bidding for the advancement of your cause.

Grant them the prayers of thy people attendant here and grant that they may join their own prayers with these, your people, that your name might be seen as to be majestic as it never ceases to be.

Fix them within a community of faith where all can be sharpened to think your thoughts after you. Grant them the fellowship of like-minded believers that together your community may take every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

And then Father, when their days come to an end, and their descendants gather around them to extend their last visitations here, gather Anthony and Rachel to hear thy pronouncement of “Well done thou good and faithful servant, enter now into thy Master’s rest.”

Grant them and all of us to live all our lives before thy face.

In the glorious name of the Resurrected and Triumphant Christ

Amen

A Short Rational For Infant Baptism

We baptize our children in obedience to the great Commission.

In Matthew 28:18-20 Christ commands us to Baptize the nations (the Greek word is ethnos Literally peoples). He who commands all Peoples to be baptized also commands infants to be Baptized; for a command concerning a group includes all those who fall in that group (genus – species). The design of Christ in the Great Commission is to teach the manner of collecting and conserving the Church in the World until the end of time and to prescribe that manner to the apostles and their successors. Now as the Church that the Apostles are being called to collect and conserve consists of infants as well as adults (that is the way it had always consisted and there is absolutely nothing anywhere in any text that reverses this paradigm) so that manner that Christ is teaching them in building the Church has reference to both adults and children, but according to the condition of each: that adults newly entering into the Covenant should be taught before they are Baptized, while infants should be Baptized as covenanted and Christian, and afterwards be taught in their own time.

If an objection is placed here that discipling of the Peoples precedes the Baptizing of Peoples we would observe that Christ speaks of discipling and teaching here first since a primeval Church among Gentiles would by necessity be first a collection of adults, therefore naturally discipling and teaching precedes baptizing, just as those strangers and aliens coming into the Covenant Community in the Old Testament would have been discipled and taught before they were circumcised. The goal then of the Gentiles entering into the Covenant as Covenanted parents wasn’t to get their seed to accept Christianity, rather their goal was to teach their children that they were Christian that they might not reject their covenant identity, conceding that if they fully and finally reject Christianity (a thing that by all rights should be uncommon among those trained in the Covenant) then their children were Gentile seed but not God’s seed (consider Esau).

The distinction and concession underscores the reality that Salvation is always by Grace and not Race while at the same time maintaining that because of Grace, Grace often runs in familial lines (Deuteronomy 7:9).

We believe that in the Great Commission passage when Christ lays the emphasis on All Nations He is doing so to firmly implant in Jewish thinking that the Gospel is not solely a Jewish concern. In this way our Lord makes clear that the Gospel is no longer provincial and in issuing the order unto Baptism we see a new sacramental sign given by our Lord Christ to replace the Old Covenant sign of Circumcision, just as He earlier gave His table as a sign of the New Covenant to replace and fulfill the old covenant sign of the Passover. The Great Commission underscores that the Church is no longer primarily Jewish. This New thing is given a new sacramental sign to replace and fulfill circumcision (a new sign for a new covenant). But the Church is not told to exclude its children and here in Matthew 28 is the place where by all rights that should have been said if it was going to be said.

We notice also in the Great Commission that Jesus, having now all authority in heaven and on earth, institutes a new covenant sign. Jesus commands that Baptism would be the new sign of the covenant. The former sign had been the blood rite of circumcision but now with the shedding of Jesus blood, all blood rites of the old covenant had been fulfilled and the new covenant would be marked by a bloodless rite that pointed to washing away of sins that only the blood of Jesus could effect. Note the continuity between the signs though. Both covenantal signs pointed and point to the establishment of a proper legal standing and relationship with God where sins have been removed and peace has been promised. In the old covenant if you were circumcised you were marked out as belonging to God. In the new covenant if you are Baptized you are marked out as belonging to God. However there are some other continuities we should note here. In the old covenant the sign of the covenant was to be placed upon the infants of the parents who belonged to the covenant.

Genesis 17:7 I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your [f]descendants after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your [g]descendants after you. 8 I will give to you and to your [h]descendants after you, the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.”

9 God said further to Abraham, “Now as for you, you shall keep My covenant, you and your [i]descendants after you throughout their generations. 10 This is My covenant, which you shall keep, between Me and you and your [j]descendants after you: every male among you shall be circumcised. 11 And you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskin, and it shall be the sign of the covenant between Me and you. 12 And every male among you who is eight days old shall be circumcised throughout your generations, a servant who is born in the house or who is bought with money from any foreigner, who is not of your [k]descendants. 13 A servant who is born in your house or who is bought with your money shall surely be circumcised; thus shall My covenant be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant. 14 But an uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that person shall be cut off from his people; he has broken My covenant.”

This requirement that the covenantal sign was to be placed upon the infants of God’s people was never rescinded when we get to the New Testament. In light of the New Covenant we have an alteration of the sign by the one who has all authority in heaven and earth but we do not have a alteration of who are members of the covenant. We do not have an exclusion of infants from the covenant.

In point of fact the circumstantial evidence from the NT points in favor of infant Baptism. Throughout the NT we have repeated references to Household Baptisms.

There are five household (oikos) baptisms in the New Testament(Cornelius’, Acts 10:48; Lydia’s, Acts 16:15; the Philippian jailer’s, Acts 16:31; Crispus’, Acts 18:8; and Stephanus’, 1 Cor. 1:16). These five household baptisms illustrate a principle seen throughout Scripture that, the blessings of Salvation fall upon the entire household when the blessings fall upon the head of the household. This is due to covenantal inclusiveness, a principle that we find throughout Scripture. This principle teaches that the children go with the parents.

Now, it is true that in none of the household Baptisms of the NT do we find an explicit mentioning of infants being baptized. This can not be denied. However, even if we were to concede that no infants were involved in these household Baptisms it would make little difference to the support that Household Baptisms in the NT give to infant Baptism the credibility as that which is consistent with the mind and revelation of God since the Household Baptisms of the NT teach us that if there had been infants in those households they would have been baptized along with all the other members of the household. The Household Baptisms, by definition, were inclusive of all who made up the Household and even if their were no infants in the NT Household Baptism examples, if there had been infants, they would have been baptized as part of the Household.

This idea that in Christianity the children go with the parents brings us to another reason why we Baptize our children.

We have to understand that in a Biblical approach to Christianity God calls and claims not only individuals but families. We believe that Baptism clearly communicates the Scripture’s teaching that our children are born sinners and that they need the promise that Baptism signifies and seals, to wit, the cleansing of sin. We believe that to suggest that our children, only when they become “age accountable sinners” should be baptized is akin to saying that in the OT only alien and strangers could become part of the Covenant community and not the children themselves until they were old enough to think of themselves as being aliens and strangers.

And so we believe with Scripture that whenever God made covenant with man He always included the children of whom He made covenant with in that covenantal arrangement.

We see this in the Great Commission text where the Disciples are told to

Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you [f]always, even to the end of the age.”

We, as Americans, tend to think more in terms of the individual and not the family. But God’s word teaches us to think in terms of families of men. We see this in our evangelism. There was a time when Evangelism sought to convert people group by people group. When Missionaries would go to make disciples of all nations they would seek to gain an audience with a tribal chieftain or a Person of influence and standing. If that person converted then the whole people group would convert. Today, we no longer think that way. We think in terms of the individual and so thinking in terms of the individual we focus on getting individuals saved. We have forgotten that while God does deal with the individual (in the NT account we have two examples of individuals alone be baptized — the Ethiopian eunuch and Saul of Tarsus. ) He also deals with families.

God’s claim is on family units. God is so gracious that He saves us with our children and their children and their children’s children to a thousand generations. And the fact that we actually see so little of that in our families today does not call into question God’s faithfulness to His promises so much as it raises other uncomfortable questions.

God’s claim is on family wholes. The devil, being a pretty good theologian himself and knowing this, attacks the family unit as an assault on God and His truth and His people. Destroy the family, and you will weaken the Christian faith. Destroy the Christian faith and you will weaken the family. One way to do both is to deny the waters of Baptism to children born to Christian parents.

Finally, for this morning’s purpose we would say that God has us Baptize our children for the same reason that we name our children. When we name our children we don’t reason,

“Well, they ought to have some input on what they will be named. After all, they are going to carry this name with them forever. Therefore, we will not name this child until the child reaches an age of name ability and then can agree or disagree to their name.”

No, these children belong to us and so we name them.

In the same way God names us in Baptism and doesn’t wait for us to reach a certain age in order to agree or disagree. This naming that happens in Baptism is God’s work and not ours. In Baptism He marks and names us as His own and He does so with infants because He has somewhere marked and named a whole family line as His own.

He’s God … it is one of the perks of being divine.