A Small Case For Infant Baptism

As we consider Baptism we are reminded that the Church does not extend Baptism on the basis of our ability to see with certainty that all who receive the sign of Baptism receive the thing signified. With adults whom we baptize we have no certainty that their confession is legitimate … still we baptize adults on the basis of God’s command and promise. Those who want absolute certainty can never dispense any sacrament to anybody. We likewise baptize our children on the basis of God’s command and promise and not on the basis of our ability to do what only God can do and that is to know with certainty the elect vs. unelect status of the one coming for Baptism.

Still, having said that we are likewise confident that those who receive the sign of Baptism and never repudiate, by word or action in a sustained direction, God’s covenantal seal, are saved because of God’s faithfulness to His covenant.

Having said that by way of introductory comments let us examine some of what the Scripture teaches on Baptism.

1.) First of all, we need to overcome our astonishment over the fact that the New Testament nowhere explicitly mentions infant baptism. In point of fact it would be unusual if infant baptism would have been explicitly mentioned in the NT since the ancient frame of mind was covenantal. People seldom make a point of droning on and on about that which is obvious and which everyone knows and in the ancient world everyone knew that God dealt with families covenantally — God’s household had always included children. The astonishment does not lie in the fact that the NT nowhere explicitly mentions infant baptism. The astonishment should lie in the fact that the NT nowhere explicitly mentions that the children are no longer partakers of the covenant and recipients of God’s promises until reaching some magic but undetermined age of discretion.

Another reality we must take into consideration here is that with the NT we have the age of the collection and expansion of the Church come of age. Jesus told his disciples to disciple the Nations and we would expect to find that in that first generation those who would be first discipled and Baptized would be adults, and so of course it is adults that we find first mentioned as Baptized, yet still with hints about the inclusion of children.

There is another astonishment factor here and that is if the current popular view is correct we should be astonished that there is no record in the NT of adult children of previously baptized adults being Baptized.

2.) In the OT the sign of the covenant was circumcision. According to Colossians 2:11-13 this circumcision, having fulfilled its function as a bloody rite that was indicative of Christ’s bloody sacrifice, gives way to Baptism as the non bloody sign of the covenant. In Colossians 2 St. Paul is not mixing his metaphors when he seamlessly glides between circumcision and Baptism.

11 In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ:12 Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead.13 And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses;

St. Paul seamlessly glides between these two because he understands that there is a relation between the two of them as there is a relation between shadow and fulfillment. Circumcision was the shadow covenant sign that, with its bloody rite, pointed towards Christ but Christ having come, the bloody rite gives way to a water rite that points back to the cleansing Christ accomplished via the spilling of His blood. It was the Lord Christ Himself who ordained Baptism as the covenantal rite of membership.

Because of St. Pauls language here, as well as the way the rest of the NT speaks, we see it as legitimate to speak of Baptism as God’s means by which He cures us of sin. Men are born sinners, bent on insisting that he is the creator of meaning and that all reality must orbit with him as the center. Men, apart from Christ, are bent. They are rebellious and selfish. God offers Baptism as the cure to this wound in man that will bring man back to his senses. Such a statement is not meant to diminish the importance of regeneration, faith, and conversion, it is merely to note the Baptism is the objective marker which proclaims these elements of the ordo salutis. When we Baptize our children we are proclaiming that we agree with God that they are sinners. When we baptize our children we are agreeing with God that our children can only find the cure for sin in God’s provision.

3.) Note in the Colossians passage that there is an objective subjective nexus which we often speak of here. Objectively the cure for our sins is the cutting off (Circumcision) of Christ. When Christ was cut off God’s elect were saved. However, that salvation was made existential to them when they were baptized and so that salvation provided for them, in the death of Christ, is applied to them in Baptism and so they are saved. It is fascinating that here the “forgiveness of sins” is connected both to Christ’s Objective work on the Cross AND to a Baptism conveyed in space and time to each one of the saints. Because this is true, for the rest of our lives, we look back through our Baptism in order to see our death and resurrection with Christ. When we are beset with temptation we remember our Baptism. When we desire to grow in Christlikeness we talk about “improving our Baptism.” When we attend a Baptism service we are reminded again that we have been marked as the people of God eager for good works. When we see the consecrated water we are reminded that we were regenerated by the washing of the Word.

Baptism communicates Christ. It is not merely so much water and a mental recalling of what Christ has done. It is, in God’s ineffable ordination, the work of Christ come to us for the washing away of sin.

4.) Because in the Colossians passage there is such a seamless gliding between OT circumcision and NT Baptism we become convinced that those who received the sign of the covenant in the OT ought to be the same who receive the sign of the covenant in the NT. In the OT children were recipients of the sign of the covenant — circumcision. In the NT likewise it should be the case that children are included in the household of God.

Paul uses this phrase, “The Household of God” in Ephesians and we would only note that God’s household in the OT was always busy with children and there is nothing that would indicate that God’s household in the NT is now bereft of children.

5.) We would note there that the seamlessness between circumcision and Baptism is not the only indicator that children as members of the covenant should be given the sign of the covenant. We need to remember that the covenant is the means by which God in space and time connects the invisible elect to the visible Church. The covenant has always been the means by which God collects His elect into the Church and God does so in a very concrete and organic way. This covenant that God has ordained to be the means by which the elect are gathered into the visible Church has never been established by means of collecting a set of abstracted individuals. Throughout time God has collected His Church through the channels of family. As the family belonged to God, so the children of that family belonged to God. The covenant embraced children not just for the sake of their person as isolated, but instead as connected to their families as considered historically as “the people of God.” When we delimit Baptism as belonging only to atomistic individuals we delimit the organic interconnectedness of the one people of God in their generations throughout time and space. When we delimit Baptism as belonging only to atomistic individuals we testify against the faithfulness of God to a thousand generations.

On this score Dutch theologian Bavinck could offer,

“Specifically the children are regarded in their connection with their larger family. There is a kind of communion of parents and children in sin and misery. But over against this, God has also established a communion of parents and children in grace and blessing. Children are a blessing and heritage from the Lord (Ps. 127:3). They are always counted along with their parents and included with them. Together they prosper (Exod. 20:6; Deut. 1:36, 39; 4:40; 5:29; 12:25, 28). Together they serve the Lord (Deut. 6:2; 30:2; 31:12–13; Josh. 24:15; Jer. 32:39; Ezek. 37:25; Zech. 10:9). The parents must pass on to the children the acts and ordinances of God (Exod. 10:2; 12:24, 26; Deut. 4:9–10, 40; 6:7; 11:19; 29:29; Josh. 4:6, 21; 22:24–27). The covenant of God with its benefits and blessings perpetuates itself from child to child and from generation to generation (Gen. 9:12; 17:7, 9; Exod. 3:15; 12:17; 16:32; Deut. 7:9; Ps. 105:8; and so forth). While grace is not automatically inherited, as a rule it is bestowed along the line of generations. “For the infants of believers their first and foremost access of salvation is the very fact of their being born of believing parents.”

6.) The idea of Baptism for children is given credence by the way that Jesus speaks of and interacts with children. Despite the fact that Israel is rejecting Christ, the Lord Christ continues to speak of the children of the children of Israel as belonging to the covenant (Matt. 18:2ff.; 19:13ff.; 21:15–16.; Mark 10:13ff.; Luke 9:48; 18:15ff.). The Lord Christ calls the children to himself, embraces them, blesses them, lays hands on them, tells them that theirs is the Kingdom of heaven, insists that adults must become like children to enter into the Kingdom, warns adults of the consequences of offending his little children, tells us that their angels watch over them, and receives the Hosannas of the Herald children as fulfillment of prophecy. The Lord Christ connects children to the covenant in all of this and yet we are to believe that children should be abused by not giving them the sign of the covenant?

Now couple that observation with the observation that in the book of Acts the Jews complain bitterly about Gentiles coming into the Kingdom without Circumcision and yet we hear not a peep in the book of Acts from anybody complaining about the idea that their children, who for generations received the sign of the covenant and so were members of the covenant, are no longer to be regarded as members of the community of God. Never has a argument from silence screamed so loudly.

7.) Reading the NT corpus we understand that the covenant of Grace established with Israel remains in essence the same though its outworking is altered slightly with the reality come in Christ. The Church has superseded Israel as the people of God with God as their Father. Here we find the theme of organism again. The Church is Temple, it is a body, it is a household. And here we pause briefly at the idea of household.

Repeatedly in the NT we find the fact that Households were baptized (There are specific references to household baptisms in the New Testament. See Acts 10; 16:15, 33; 1 Cor. 1:16). We readily concede that children are NOT specifically mentioned in those Baptisms, but even in the light of that concession we still glow about how the household Baptisms scream for inclusion of God’s children. As long as household baptisms were pursued it really is irrelevant whether or not children were present in those Baptisms since what Household Baptisms communicates is that on the principle of household Baptism if children had been present they would certainly have been concluded. Even with the Lord Christ we find Zacchaeus believing and our Lord saying, “that salvation has come to his house (Luke 19:9).” Note … not just to Zacchaeus but to his house.

When we consider all this we now can hear Acts 2:39 with different ears. “The promise is to you and to your children and to all who are afar off whom the Lord our God shall call.”

Pentecost Sunday

These verses have to do with the festival of Pentecost. Pentecost means simply, “fiftieth”. It gains this name because it falls on the fiftieth day after Passover. It was a one-day celebration and it was a thanksgiving for God’s gracious provision. It came at the end of the harvest season. It gave thanks to God for His providence. And there was an offering to God of animal sacrifices, cereal gifts and drink offerings. Our modern Thanksgiving is modeled after Pentecost.

When Jesus ascended into heaven He instructed his disciples to remain in Jerusalem until they should receive power from on high. As a group of 120 were praying in an upper room in Jerusalem fifty days after his death, the Holy Spirit descended upon them with the sound of a great wind and with tongues of fire which settled upon each one of them. They began to speak with other languages and to preach boldly in the name of Christ, with the result that three thousand were converted. In rebuttal to criticism by devout Jews, Peter stood up and, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, gave a wonderful sermon. After the sermon Luke wrote in verses 41 and 42. Then read Acts 2:41-42

This incredible manifestation of divine power marked the beginning of the church which has ever since regarded Pentecost as its birthday.

Pentecost, then, is the anniversary of the coming of the Holy Spirit in order to give birth to the Church come of age.

This day was not the beginning of a denomination. It was the beginning of the one church: The One True Church.
The Church that is bought with the blood of Christ.

The Church that is united by the indwelling Spirit.
The Church that is taught with the inspired Word.
The world did not know what happened at Pentecost.
The world did not know that God had come to live with His people forever.

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I.) Pentecost as God’s Harvest

It was the culmination of the “feast of weeks” (Ex. 24:22; Deut. 16:10), which began on the third day after the Passover with the presentation of the first harvest sheaves to God, and which concluded with the offering of two loaves of unleavened bread, representing the first products of the harvest (Lev. 23:17, 20; Deut. 16:9-10).

Of course the Parallel on the Day of Pentecost is that God is Harvesting His elect into the Church. They are rightly seen as the first produce of the Harvest. The book of Acts then records this continued Harvesting of the Church.

Note here that this Pentecost is a single event in God’s Redemptive work. In Pentecost God was putting His imprimatur upon the work of Christ. We should no more look for more Pentecosts today in terms of all the Phenomena then we would look for more Crucifixions, more Resurrections, or more Ascensions. These are all one time Redemptive Historical events. We certainly look forward to the continued Harvest of God as He gathers in His elect from every tribe, tongue, and nation, but we do not demand that every convert has to have this same Pentecost experience of speaking in tongues.

In as much as God is Harvesting a New Church this is testimony that He is done with the nation-State Israel as an entity tied to His Redemptive-Historical outworking in History. Naturally, Hebrews are included into the Church as they look to Christ but the idea that Israel, as a collective Nation State, is still important to God’s macro Redemptive time-table is seen as void by the fact that He creates this New Israel of God.

II.) Pentecost as God’s doing something New

Rabbinic scholars believe that it was on this day that God visited His people after their exodus from Egypt and through Moses, brought the Law down from Mount Sinai. This earthshaking day of visitation, trembling, and betrothal is the birthday of the nation of Israel. Moses brings down the Torah or Law for the nation.

God has made it clear that He is done with disobedient Israel. He is finished with that Nation that He had created at Mt. Sinai.

40 When therefore the Lord of the vineyard shall come, what will he do to those husbandmen?
41 They said unto him, He will [aa]cruelly destroy those wicked men, and will let out his vineyard unto other husbandmen, which shall deliver him the fruits in their seasons.
42 Jesus said unto them, Read ye never in the Scriptures, The stone which the [ab]builders refused, the same is [ac]made the [ad]head of the corner? [ae]This was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes.
43 Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and shall be given to a nation, which shall bring forth the [af]fruits thereof.

On this greater Pentecost He creates a New Royal People and Holy Nation. Now there are many many continuities between the Old and the New but the Scripture can even call what is happening a “New and Better” covenant. We would say that it is New in the Sense that it is the fulfillment of all that was promissory before. The Old Israel was promissory of the New Israel. And on the Pentecost following Christ’s death, God creates a New and Improved Israel comprised of Jew and Gentile as one Spiritual Nation.

Of course what we need to see here is the continuity in Scripture. It is true that God is fulfilling all His promises so that a New and Better covenant is coming to the fore, but note the continuities with the Old Covenant. God does this New and Better covenant in the context of the previous covenant. The creation of His Old Covenant people was on Pentecost. The creation of His New Covenant people is on Pentecost. The Creation of His Old Covenant people was for the purpose that they might be a light to the Nations. The creation of the His New Covenant people is that they might be His witnesses to all the Nations. The creation of the Old Covenant people was attended by Fire. The Creation of the Church is attended by cloven tongues of fire. On the First Pentecost 3000 people die because of their sin of rejecting God. On The Pentecost 3000 are saved because of their God given acceptance of their sin covering who is Christ. On the Sinai Pentecost children are part of the Covenant. In the fulfillment Pentecost it is communicated that children are part of the covenant (Acts 2:38)

In the Old Testament (Lev. 23:15-23), Pentecost was considered the primary harvest celebration. In the OT economy Firstfruits celebrated the barley harvest (3 days after Passover), but Pentecost celebrated the wheat harvest—the main staple. In the New and Better Covenant Christ is crucified on the Passover, resurrected on the festival of first fruits (Barley) and then on Pentecost the Church is resurrected from dead Israel.

III.) Pentecost as Revelatory of God’s Intent

God’s intent was to build His Church. Pentecost was revelatory of that purpose.

1.) God would build His Church as a Nation of Nations.

The dividing wall that kept the Gentile from all the spiritual promises would be torn down (Eph. 2:14) All men from every tribe tongue and Nation are now commanded to Repent. And when they are given repentance they are placed into the one body of Christ the Church.

As we see at Pentecost though that Church is comprised of Nations. At Pentecost God baptizes Babel, which is to say that God still insists upon distinct Nations just as He did at Babel but now He calls all those Nations to bow to Christ. We know this because, as the text teaches, all those present heard the Gospel in their own ethnic tongues,

8 [f]How then hear we every man our own language, wherein we were born? 9 Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the inhabitants of Mesopotamia, and of Judea, and of Cappadocia, of Pontus, and Asia, 10 And of Phrygia, and Pamphylia, of Egypt, and of the parts of Libya, which is beside Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, and [g]Jews, and Proselytes,11 Cretes, and Arabians: we heard them speak in our own tongues the wonderful works of God.

If God intended to build a Church that was not diverse all would have heard the Gospel in one language. This is why we can say that at Pentecost God Baptized Babel. His intent is to provide a Spiritual unity in the context of diversity thus reinforcing the idea of the One and the Many as found in the Trinity.

So God intends to build a Universal Church that is a Nation of Nations. All the ends of the earth would see the salvation of God” was seen on the day of Pentecost and in the book of Acts as the Gospel comes upon people of diverse tongues and then covers the known world via the Missionary effort.

Unity in diversity. The Unity seen in that all in the Church can call one another “Brothers.” Diversity seen in the promise that it is people from every “Tribe, tongue, and Nation” in their Tribes, Tongues, and Nations, that make up the Church (Rev. 21:24f).

This is what Calvin Seminary Scholar of yesteryear Wyngaarden was getting at when he wrote in another context,

“Thus the highest description of Jehovah’s covenant people is applied to Egypt, — “my people,” — showing that the Gentiles will share the covenant blessings, not less than Israel. Yet the several nationalities are here kept distinct, even when Gentiles share, in the covenant blessing, on a level of equality with Israel. Egypt, Assyria and Israel are not nationally merged. And the same principles, that nationalities are not obliterated, by membership in the covenant, applies, of course, also in the New Testament dispensation.”

Wyngaarden, pp. 101-102.

2.) God would build His Church by the Power of the Holy Spirit working in the lives of His Witnesses

Ten days after the Ascension of the Lord Christ, He, with the Father, sent forth the Holy Spirit as the Agent to empower the Church to accomplish what in His Authority had deigned and ordained to be accomplished. That which He has ordained is the triumph of the Gospel over all the Earth. Over the lands of the Usurper Allah. Over the lands of the Usurper Jew god, over the lands of the Usurper Hindu gods. Over all lands. The Holy Spirit empowers us to the end of working towards triumph in light of the Triumph of the Lord Christ over all the Kings who would put off His chains.

Immediately upon Pentecost the Spirit filled Church fans out, eventually across the known world, to take the Gospel outwards. It is one of the most fascinating aspects of History that a tiny tiny oppressed minority ended up conquering the World. And yet that is exactly what happened.

We need to be reminded of this today when we are increasingly becoming an oppressed minority. Numbers are irrelevant if the Church is operates in terms of being filled by the Spirit of Christ. We shall continue to be His witnesses and He will express the Dominion He currently has through His Spirit filled, Gospel wielding Church.

IV.) Pentecost as God’s Methodology (Word & Sacrament)

Notice that the really big news of Pentecost is not so much the attendant display of Phenomena as it is the fact that a Sermon is preached and a Sacrament distributed. The sermon was focused on Christ. It recited the Historical facts. It was hardly a “wowzer” in terms of pulpiteering ability but it was Spirit filled and it found its target.

Luther said,

“Take me, for example. I opposed indulgences and all papists, but never by force. I simply taught, preached, wrote God’s Word: otherwise I did nothing. And then, while I slept or drank Wittenberg beer with my Philip of Amsdorf the Word so greatly weakened the papacy that never a prince or emperor did such damage to it. I did nothing: the Word did it all. Had I wanted to start trouble…. I could have started such a little game at Worms that even the emperor wouldn’t have been safe. But what would it have been? A mug’s game. I did nothing: I left it to the Word.”

One of the major problems with the current Church is that it has lost its ability to

1.) Know the Word
2.) Trust the Word to accomplish what needs to be accomplished.

Instead we try to jazz things up. But like Luther we need to “leave it to the Word.”

The Word creates what it calls for. The Spirit filled Word is God’s agency to overcome the hardest hearts. We spend time planning, marketing, polling, but if we would just trust the Word God would do it all.

The Sovereign God

While sitting in a Dentist’s office I picked up one of the magazines and read,

“More problematic … are the disturbing images of God we find in parts of the Old Testament. At times, the Old Testament portrays a God who seems judgmental, vengeful, and capricious, sanctioning or even instigating excessive violence. One has only to think of the conquest recorded in Joshua and God’s command to “utterly destroy” the Canaanite nations (Deut. 7:2; 20:17). Or descriptions of God unleashing disease and death among his own people (Num. 21:6; 2 Sam. 6:7; Jer. 21:3-7). Or the psalmists’ prayers to God as the great Avenger who curses our enemies and heaps evil upon those who seek our downfall (Ps. 69:22-28; 109:8-15).”

I would suggest here that there is nothing disturbing in the slightest about the images of God we find in parts of the Old Testament when we begin with the premise that because of man’s sin, no man deserved anything but the wrath of God against sin. The shock really isn’t that God was demonstrably wrathful in the Old Testament to the point of excessive violence upon some people. The shock is that God wasn’t demonstrably wrathful in the Old Testament to the point of excessive violence upon all people. From Genesis to Revelation the wages of sin has always been death and God does no one wrong in the slightest when He gives what is deserved. It strikes me that often the character of God in the Old Testament is complained about most when people wrongly believe that somehow they deserve something better from God then violence, destruction, and death.

We must consider that all that blood flowing in the sacrificial system of the Old Testament flowed, in part, to demonstrate what the one bringing the sacrifice deserved. The question is not then, “why did God kill people in the Old Testament.” The question rather is, “Why didn’t God kill everybody in the Old Testament.” We should not be surprised by justice. We should be surprised by mercy and grace.

Keep also in mind that God was long-suffering towards the Canaanites that He eventually visited with just judgment. In Genesis 15, God speaks to Abraham and tells him that His people will go into captivity for 400 years. In Gen. 15:16 we read,

16 But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.

What is suggested here is that those God would eventually visit just judgment upon were a people God was yet being long-suffering towards. They had not reached the point yet where they were ripe in their sin and rebellion against God and God was being patient in the face of their iniquity. The curiosity then of this aspect of the Old Testament character of God is not that He eventually visited just penalty against Canaan but rather the curiosity lies in the incredible patience, long-suffering, and forbearance of God.

Before our outrage swells to high at the thought of God’s just judgment against Canaan let us keep in mind what a wicked place Canaan was. They were a people who burned their children in honor of their gods (Lev. 18:21), and practiced sodomy, bestiality, and all sorts of loathsome vice (Lev. 18:23, 24, 20:3). As a result the land itself began to “vomit” them out as the body heaves under the load of internal poisons (Lev. 18:25, 27-30). Talking about how mean God is in light of this is really an objection to the highest manifestation of the grace of God in keeping the infection of sin from spreading to His people. After all, Canaan is justly judged so as to prevent Israel and the rest of the world from being corrupted (Deut. 20:16-18). Allow me to suggest that only if God had not visited the just wage of sin upon the Canaanites could we talk about the scandalous character of the Old Testament God.

We should also note here that the just visitation of God’s judgment against His enemies is also intended to be read as a warning to the greater judgment of God against His enemies in God’s visiting the unrepentant with eternal punishment. So Canaan serves as a type that is answered in the anti-type of Hell, the subject of which is on Jesus lips more than any other New Testament figure.

In terms of God visiting His own people with wrath, again this is consistent with the New Testament where we learn that judgment begins in the household of God (I Peter 4:17). It could be said of Ananias and Sapphira that they were part of the Covenant people who in the NT God visited with justice. In terms of the God of the Old Testament being a “great avenger who curses our enemies and heaps evil upon those who seek our downfall, we read in the New Testament in Romans 12:9 in the context of speaking to Christians that “vengeance is mine; I will repay, said the Lord.”

Also we find the theme of vengeance struck in 2 Thessalonians 1:6-9

6 For it is a righteous thing with God, to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you,
7 And to you which are troubled, rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall show himself from heaven with his mighty Angels, 8 In flaming fire, rendering vengeance unto them, that do not know God, and which obey not unto the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, 9 Which shall be punished with everlasting perdition from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power

And finally the desire for vengeance is articulated righteously in Revelation 6:10 where we find the martyred saints crying with a loud voice, saying, How long, Lord, which art holy and true! dost not thou judge and avenge our blood on them, that dwell on the earth?

What we see here then is that the Character of God is consistent from the Old to the New Testament. When people find problems with the Old Testament God the problem generally is, is that they believe that somehow God is unjust for giving people what they have earned.

Another aspect we need to consider here is that while it is our moral duty to follow God’s revealed law, God Himself is not under the same moral duty we are. God does not issue commands to Himself and so He has no moral duties to us to fulfill. The point here is that while we are responsible to God and so must follow His Law God is not responsible to us. He does not answer to us.

As an example, God tells me that “Thou Shalt Not Murder” and so I may not take a judicially innocent life and to do so would be murder. But God has no such prohibition upon Himself. He can give and take life as He chooses. We recognize this at every funeral when we say, “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away … blessed be the name of the Lord.” We all recognize this when we accuse some authority who presumes to take life as “playing God.” Human authorities arrogate to themselves rights which belong only to God. God is under no obligation whatsoever to extend my life for another second. If He wanted to strike me dead right now, that’s His prerogative.

What that implies is that God has the right to take the lives of the Canaanites when He sees fit. How long they live and when they die is up to Him. This is the right of ownership. God as Creator owns everything and everything is at His disposal to do with as He pleases. When He does so, it is not for us to question God (Romans 9:20).

So the problem isn’t that God ended the Canaanites’ lives. Some might contend that the problem is that God commanded the Hebrew soldiers to end them. Isn’t that like commanding someone to commit murder? No, it’s not. Rather, since our moral duties are determined by God’s commands, it is commanding someone to do something which, in the absence of a divine command, would have been murder. The act was morally obligatory for the Hebrew soldiers in virtue of God’s command, even though, had they undertaken it on their on initiative, it would have been wrong.

On divine command theory, then, God has the right to command an act, which, in the absence of a divine command, would have been sin, but which is now morally obligatory in virtue of that command.

Predestination From Beginning To End … To God Alone Be The Glory

“When Paul was forbidden by the Holy Spirit to preach the Gospel in the province of Asia, and was given the vision of a man in Europe calling across the waters, ‘Come over into Macedonia, and help us,’ one section of the world was sovereignly excluded from, and another section was sovereignly given, the privileges of the Gospel. Had the divinely directed call been rather from the shores of India, Europe and America might today have been less civilized than the natives of Tibet. It was the sovereign choice of God which brought the Gospel to the people of Europe and later to America, while the people of the east, and north, and south were left in darkness. We can assign no reason, for instance, why it should have been Abraham’s seed, and not the Egyptians or the Assyrians, who were chosen; or why Great Britain and America, which at the time of Christ’s appearance on earth were in a state of such complete ignorance, should today possess so largely for themselves, and be disseminating so widely to others, these most important spiritual privileges. The diversities in regard to religious privileges in the different nations is to be ascribed to nothing less than the good pleasure of God.”

~ Loraine Boettner,
“The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination”

Note here, then, that God both sovereignly prepares a people as the receptive soil and then delivers the seed of the Gospel to land upon that soil that He had sovereignly prepared. All of this is of God’s predestinating Grace. Why should we think that God predestinates the casting of the seed without realizing that God has predestinated the receptivity of the soil even to the point of predestinating the very genetic makeup of those who would be receptive? It is still all of Grace and it is still the case that God alone gets the Glory. As Boettner writes above the discrimination between those who receive the Gospel and those who do not is — in every spiritual and corporeal detail — all of grace. If Macedonians as Macedonians were more favorable to the reception of the Gospel it is only because God predestined them in their whole being to be more receptive to the Gospel.

“Apart from this election of individuals to life, there has been what we may call a national election, or a divine predestination of nations and communities to a knowledge of true religion and to the external privileges of the Gospel. God undoubtedly does choose some nations to receive much greater spiritual and temporal blessings than others. This form of election has been well illustrated in the Jewish nation, in certain European nations and communities, and in America. The contrast is very striking when we compare these with other nations such as China, Japan, India, etc.”

~ Loraine Boettner
“The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination” (1932)

Let me just mention something interesting about this book as it pertains to race. When Boettner discusses race, which he does freely and fully, he does not stutter or blush as he writes. He also has the most annoying habit of referring constantly to “the white race” as if that were a real and meaningful idea instead of what all Cultural Marxists know it to be, namely a contrived pseudo-scientific neologism that serves only as a social construct designed for systematic theft and murder. Unconsciously, Boettner as a white man, will talk about the blessings of Christianity and the privileges of election in hearing the gospel, then will default to describing white culture and European settings. We see one example of that in Boettner’s first quote where he falls into talking about how Tibetans are less civilized because the Gospel did not take root in Tibet, whereas it did in Europe and America. (Remember though Boettner was writing in 1932.)

“A third form of election taught in Scripture is that of individuals to the external means of grace, such as hearing and reading the Gospel, association with the people of God, and sharing the benefits of the civilization which has arisen where the Gospel has gone. No one ever had the chance to say at what particular time in the world’s history, or in what country, he would be born, whether or not he would a member of the white race, or of some other. One child is born with health, wealth, and honor, in a favored land, in a Christian home, and grows up with all the blessings which attend the full light of the Gospel. Another is born in poverty and dishonor, of sinful and dissipated parents, and destitute of Christian influences. All of these things are sovereignly decided for them…”

Lorraine Boettner
The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination

God chooses the Elect from the inside (otherwise known as genetics), AND from the outside (otherwise known as the environment), and then chooses to send His Spirit to open their eyes to see what they never could see apart from the Spirit and as depending only upon the fallen basis of both genetics and environment (nurture and nature).

Hat Tip — Ed Waverly

Characteristics of Revolutionary Humanism

We noted last week that during this season of the Church Calendar that what is emphasized is Doctrine and ministry. The idea was that Doctrine would be taught alongside with how that Doctrine could be implemented via some kind of ministry in a person’s life.

This week we want to briefly consider the Christian doctrine of Anthropology.

What we have in Romans 3 is God’s pronouncement on the nature of man. Fallen man is utterly sinful. Even man as Redeemed by Christ realizes that he contends against a nature that is not yet perfected. He confesses his sins weekly and is taught in his catechism to recite to the question,

Q. 82. Is any man able perfectly to keep the commandments of God?

A. No mere man since the fall is able in this life perfectly to keep the commandments of God, but doth daily break them in thought, word and deed.

The Heidelberg echoes this when it teaches,

“even the holiest men, while in this life, have only a small beginning of this obedience (to God’s Law).

Christianity has always taught that man has a sin nature and that the sin nature is not finally put off completely until we put off this mortal coil. So thoroughly has Christianity taught this that the Gospels make it clear that Jesus did not have this sin nature that He might be a pure sacrifice for our sins.

This is so simple and basic but if we get this wrong in our doctrine there is no help of getting anything else correct. And we live in a culture where the idea that man is sinful is

1.) Man is basically good

“I know in my heart that man is good…” — Ronald Reagan

Man left to himself, apart from evil influence, will choose what is good. This is articulated by Cultural Marxist Psychologist Eric Fromm when he writes,

“As far as I know we just don’t have any intrinsic instincts for evil. If you think in terms of basic needs; instincts, at least at the outset are all good — or perhaps we should be technical about it and call them ‘pre-moral’ neither good or evil.”

Another Psychologist Wendell W. Watters writes,

“The true Christian is running furiously on a treadmill to get away from whole segments of his or her human nature which he or she is taught to fear or about which he or she is taught to feel guilty. The Christian is brainwashed to believe that he or she was born wicked … ”

Of course all this denies the plain words of Scripture. If man were basically good and his nature was good then the whole idea of Christianity, and the Church would be irrelevant. Christianity and the Church might exist but if it did exist it would exist as a place where people would attend in order to meet other nice people, hear some uptempo music, listen to sermons about how good they are, how to influence other people, and how to get on in life with people who do not yet know how good they are. If man were basically good then the demand would be for Christianity and the Church to meet felt needs and perhaps be a place where social justice can be pursued. If it were true that men were basically good then there would be no need to hear about a Christ who takes away sin. If it were true that men were basically good then Christianity and the Church would become just about what it currently already is today — currently is that because “man is basically good” is what most of the Church believes today.

But Biblical Christianity does not believe that so when you come to Church you hear God’s law and because as Christians we break God’s law every day in word, thought, or deed, we confess our sins and then hear God’s forgiveness for the sake of Christ.

As we continue to consider Romans 3 we understand that we sin because of our nature. The problem is not primarily with the environment that lies outside of us, but rather what lies inside of us. James underscores this when he writes,

14 But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away by his own lust, and is enticed.

You see both St. Paul and St. James agrees that the problem is within us.

But our culture does not agree with this assessment. Contrary to Biblical Christianity we are constantly inundated with messages that the environment is the problem.

2.) Man’s environment accounts for evil

Psychologist Abraham Maslow has directly said,

“Sick people are made by a sick culture, healthy people are made possible by a healthy culture.”

This means that if man is to discover his goodness, what needs to happen is a change of environment. This accounts for the belief in social engineering. Because this is true, man’s lack of goodness is explained in terms of his family, culture, or social environment. If man is to be changed, man’s environment must be changed.

Anti-Christian doctrine teaches that if man is to be saved, man’s environment must be changed. Change comes from the outside in. Christian doctrine teaches that if man’s environment is to be changed, man must be changed. Change comes from the inside and radiates outward as we are renewed by the Spirit of the living God because of the finished work of Christ on the Cross for His people.

The idea that sick people are made by a sick culture has been around forever. Writing in 1908 Dutch Theologian Herman Bavinck could complain about this kind of thinking,

“Under the influence of the supposition that at this point human beings have already traveled wonderfully far along the path of evolution, people surrender to the illusion that human being can still do infinitely more, and that we can make human beings into whatever we want. If only full use were made of the results that have been and will be obtained by scientific investigation, then nurture would not only furnish outward formation and intellectual development, but it would also improve the human person morally, eliminating the brutish inclinations still at work internally, renewing his heart, and bringing sin and crime to an end, not all at once but gradually.

Complaining about the same tendency in another area Bavinck could say again, “They all suffer from the illusion that by means of external measures, by means of abolishing old laws and implementing new laws, they can change human nature or convert the wicked heart.”

Before Bavinck in the 1840’s the founders of the common school movement were inspiringly optimistic about the power of education. These common-school reformers, beginning with Horace Mann, saw universal public education as a solution to a host of social problems. In their view, public schools would transform children into moral, literate, and productive citizens; and eliminate poverty and crime.

And this form of thought is still with us today as the coin of the realm. I stumbled across this comment about the recent incident where a NBA team owner was caught talking about black people,

“Many Americans were in love with Nazism, one popular example is the architect Phillip Johnson. So the idea of Nazism permeated American society and in 1933 it was current and relevant, one would not be unreasonable in assuming that the parents of Sterling caressed the idea and whispered to little Sterling. That is my point, we cannot rule out the possibility that Sterling’s most impressionable years were in a time of Nazism.”

You see … Sterling’s problem with his words is not because of a sinful nature but because of his environment.

Of course this is in contrast to Biblical Christianity which teaches that man’s sin nature accounts for man’s evil institutions.

And we know that only the Gospel of Jesus Christ crucified for sinners in the context of Union with Christ is the solution for Man’s sin nature.

This is why you hear me constantly say that the cure for what is wrong with us as a people is not more and better programs. The cure for what is wrong with us is the preaching of Christ Crucified followed by the discipling of the nations.

Of course in St. Paul’s statement we find that the agency by which men learn their sin nature is by the trumpeting of that Word in the context of the Gospel in the ark of the Church. Those who oppose this message have their own delivery system in order to evangelize. We talk about the necessity of Word and Sacrament. Word and Sacrament is to repeatedly point us to Christ to remind us of that only Christ can heal us via the forgiveness held out in Word and Sacrament.

However those who hold to the idea that man is basically good have their own agencies whereby they proclaim the inherent goodness of man.

3.) The agency whereby man discovers his goodness is Church & State

Just three quotes in order to support the claim that the agencies that hold to a different anthropology then Christians do — who hold that man is basically good — is mediated by agencies of Church and State

“I am convinced that the battle for humankind’s future must be waged and won in the public school classroom by teachers that correctly perceive their role as proselytizers of a new faith: a religion of humanity that recognizes and respects the spark of what theologians call divinity in every human being… The classroom must and will become an arena of conflict between the old and new. These teachers must embody the same selfless dedication as the most rabid fundamentalist preachers, for they will be ministers of another sort, utilizing the classroom instead of a pulpit to convey humanist values in whatever subject they teach, regardless of the educational level – preschool day care or large state universities.”

John Dunphy on the purpose of humanist education.

“Education is thus a most powerful ally of humanism, and every American school is a school of humanism. What can a theistic Sunday school’s meeting for an hour once a week and teaching only a fraction of the children do to stem the tide of the five-day program of humanistic teaching?”

Charles F. Potter, “Humanism: A New Religion” 1930

So, in Churches that practice Biblical Christianity every week, just by the liturgy we teach people that they have a sin nature that only Christ can heal and every week the State teaches that men are basically good and merely need to be educated and informed of their goodness.

The church in Revolutionary Humanism is the government school as controlled by the State. Of course over time the “Christian” church begins to reflect the Government schools as Government school graduates bring their humanism into the Church. Church and State teach basically good man that it is his role to use any means necessary to change the environment in order to serve the “good.”

4.) The abstraction of mathematical equality is applied to men in their social relations.

Revolutionary Humanism leads to egalitarianism and the egalitarianism here is defined in such a way so that no man is allowed to excel above another. All men being equal results in “all men being the same.” So, whether it is 700 million Chinese wearing the Maoist suit or whether it is men and women sharing public bathrooms, equality is now the order of the day.

5.) Man, being absolutized, is his own God

And man being God there is a movement towards Social Order uniformitarianism. All gods have unity in the godhood and so as collective man is god collective man builds social order where there is very little margin for differentiation among the particular men.

6.) All other mediating Institutions (Family, Church, School, Guild, etc.) are eliminated.

Humanism does not allow for pluralistic jurisdictions (See #5). Everything is for the State and nothing is outside the State. We are seeing this increasingly in our culture. Teachers have long been agents for the State. Soon Doctors will be agents for the State with Obamacare. Ministers, are often Defacto ministers of the State.

7.) The insistence that man, via a reason that is untouched by evil, can ascertain “self-evident” truths so as to construct a world apart from any need of Supernatural Revelation.

Man starting from the autonomous self can answer the question, “How Shall We Then Live,” and so build, a better if not indeed, perfect world. This garnering of “self-evident” truths is commonly pursued by means of legal positivism which reduces to “might makes right.” Oliver Wendell Holmes gives us this in microcosm when he said,

“I used to say when I was young, that truth was the majority vote of that nation that could lick all others…. and I think that the statement was correct insofar as it implied that our test of truth is a reference to either a present or an imagined future majority in favor of our view.

In this view of truth reason has no transcendence reference point to which appeal can be made. It is simply a matter of “licking all others.”

8.) Man’s Teleology (end) is the Kingdom of Man as expressed in some kind of paradise.

All legislation that is pursued it pursued in the name of a Utopian world where man is set free from all constraints.

9.) Man as God, thus can be assured of the inevitability of progress

Since God can not fail, Man as God calls whatever is, “progress.”

Alexander Pope gets at this in his poem, “An Essay On Man.”

All nature is but art, unknown to thee;
All chance, direction, which thou canst not see;
All discord, harmony, not understood;
All partial evil, universal good:
And, spite of pride, in erring reason’s spite,
One truth is clear, Whatever is, is right.