Hi, this is the Him We Proclaim podcast. These are the messages of John Fawnville. Today we start a short series called Little Ones to Him Belong. You might recognize that phrase from the children's hymn, Jesus Loves Me, This I Know. Today John is answering questions about why there are things like whole house baptism in Scripture and why we baptize children of believers.
Well, baptism is a picture of the gospel and a central teaching hereon Him We Proclaim. Let's dive into what Scripture has for us with Part 1 of Little Ones to Him Belong. After Jesus had risen victorious from the grave, he said to his disciples these words of institution, he says, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations. And here it is, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.
And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. And so it is in obedience to this command that the visible church baptizes believers and their children.
So let's hear God's promises, which are confirmed in baptism. The Lord in Genesis 17, 7 made this great promise to Abraham. He said to Abraham, I will establish my covenant between me and you. and your descendants after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant. And here it is, the promise, to be God to you and to your descendants after you.
And so the Lord's covenant promise to Abraham is echoed throughout redemptive history from this initial promise to fulfillment to the consummation in the book of Revelation as we hear this.
So, over 400 years after the Lord made this promise to Abraham's biological descendants. When he brought them out of slavery in Egypt, he made this promise, and he says, I will take you. This is Exodus 6:7. He says, I will take you for my people, and I will be your God. And he says, And you shall know that I am the Lord your God who brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.
In later years, though Israel was unfaithful to the Mosaic covenant. The Lord renewed his promise, his ancient promise, through the prophet Jeremiah. And he promised a new covenant. And he says this: He says, I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. This is the Mosaic Old Covenant.
He says, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them, declares the Lord. This is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord. He says, This, I will put my law within them. And I will write it upon their hearts. And here is Genesis 17, 7.
And I will be their God. and they shall be my people. And he says, For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more. And then in the fullness of time, God came in Jesus Christ to give pardon and peace through the blood of the cross as Jesus became this bloody circumcision, fulfilling the Abrahamic covenant. And he says that the blood of the covenant Which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.
And then after Jesus had risen from the dead, the Apostle Peter repeats the promise of Abraham at the feast of Pentecost. And this is what he proclaims. He says to them, repent and be baptized. He says, every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you shall receive the Holy Spirit. And then he closed Genesis 17, verse 7.
He says, for the promise. is to you. and your children. And to all that are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him. And so, in fulfillment of the Lord's promise to Abraham, Paul applies God's promise to Abraham to believers, both Jew and Gentile, and the new covenant church.
And he applies it to the Corinthian believers in 2 Corinthians chapter 6. And he says to them, What agreement has the temple of God with idols? The church, the visible church, is the temple of God. It is the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit. What agreement has the temple of God with idols?
For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said, why are we the temple of the living God? Because this is God's promise. He says, I will dwell in them and walk among them. And here is Genesis 17, 7.
I will be their God. and they shall be my people. And finally, we hear the consummation of the Lord's promise to Abraham in the closing chapters of Revelation, which records John's vision of the new heaven and the new earth, the hope of the gospel. And John says this, he says, Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people.
God Himself will be with them, and He will be their God. That's Genesis 17:7. That's from promise to fulfillment. to confirmation. the promise of Abraham.
to his people. These are the unfailing promises of our Lord to those who are baptized. I want us to recall what the teaching of Scripture is concerning the sacrament of baptism, specifically infant or what we call household baptism.
So over these next six weeks, I'm going to share with you some of the principal parts of baptism from the scriptures. But before we look specifically at what the scriptures teach concerning baptism, specifically infant baptism. I want to make a few introductory remarks about infant baptism and what it is not. Infant baptism is not a Roman Catholic leftover. This does not account for the actual history of the Reformed Church.
It does not account for what the reformers wrote in their writings and their ministries and what they taught. The reformers, Calvin, Luther, Thomas Cranmer, Ulvik Zingli, all of these reformers of the Protestant Reformation were all convinced that believers. That believers, because of the Abrahamic covenant, they're all in the same covenant of grace as Abraham. And that just as God had promised to be God to Abraham and to his children, so too he has promised to be God to believers and their children in the new covenant. This was a scriptural argument, which is a second point.
Infant baptism is not administered on the basis of tradition, it never has been. This point simply follows from the first point. In fact, if you go back and look in the Reformation, you have to understand that those who rejected infant baptism also rejected the Protestant teaching of sola scriptura. One of the major Anabaptist leaders of the 1520s was Thomas Munzer. And he mocked all of the confessional Protestants, Luther, Luther, Calvin, Zwingli.
He mocked all of them for their reliance on sola scriptura.
So it wasn't those who espouse sola scriptura who are baptizing infants out of tradition. Third, infant baptism is not administered out of sentimentality. One of the things that you hear is, well, the liberal mainline Protestant churches, they don't adhere to the scriptures and they just baptize these children because it's so sentimental. You know, it's the custom where parents have the opportunity to dress their children up in little white gowns and laugh and smile, and as they're held before the congregation, everybody takes pictures and they have a family reunion afterwards, and they all go out to eat because it's such a sentimental time. That's not why children are baptized out of sentiment.
Fourth, Infant baptism is not administered out of superstition. Infant baptism is not administered out of the superstitious belief that water in any way washes away sin. If you read our church's confessional doctrinal statement, Our Protestant Reformed confessions of faith, which are just simply summarizing scripture. Rejects what is known as baptismal regeneration. For example, our church is Article 27 in the 39 articles.
It defines baptism as a sign. of regeneration, a sign of new birth, not the cause. Not the instrument. Baptism doesn't save anybody, whether it's the infant, small child, or professing believer. Faith, not baptism, is the instrumental means whereby we receive the righteousness of Christ.
The Heidelberg Catechism, which is again part of our church's confession of faith in question 72, is the outward washing of water itself the washing away of sins? And here's the answer: no. That's pretty clear. Why? Because only the blood of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit cleanse us from all sins.
Why do we baptize children of believers? Here's why. Here's the first answer. Because Abraham is the pattern. That's why.
Infant or household baptism, perhaps you've never heard that term, but that's really the good, the better term, household baptism. It's simply the outworking and practice of what we believe concerning the unfolding story of the redemption from Genesis to Revelation. It's how we read the Bible. The Reformed churches make a distinction that many Baptistic Baptist evangelical churches do not make, and that is this distinction. Abraham is not Moses.
The Abrahamic covenant is not the Mosaic Old Covenant. There are two very distinct covenants. This was Paul's main apologetic against the Judaizers in the book of Galatians. His main argument against the Judaizers was this, Abraham is not Moses. Never forget that important principle.
Abraham is not Moses. You see, Paul's contention was the confusion of the Abrahamic and Mosaic covenants. He said he believed that's what laid at the heart of the Galatian heresy. And this was a charge repeated by the Protestant reformers in the 16th century against the medieval church. Confusing Abraham with Moses gives rise to two antithetical forms of religion.
What do you get when you confuse Abraham with Moses? What you get is this. You get a principle of law that is based on your personal performance to get your righteousness or your righteousness before God. But the Abrahamic The Abrahamic covenant is a principle of pure promise based on inheritance by virtue of another's performance for you. And Paul says, if you confuse these two, then you have two antithetical religions.
And so we understand that Abraham and Moses have different places in the history of redemption. The Abrahamic covenant unifies redemptive history, it's how we read the Bible. The new covenant, what is the new covenant? It is simply the new administration of the Abrahamic covenant. That's all it is.
This is exactly why Paul in Galatians chapter 3, verse 29, can refer to uncircumcised Gentiles. Listen, he calls them Abraham's children, Abraham's offspring, descendants, you and me. We're not biological descendants of Abraham, but we are the sons, children, offspring of Abraham. And so, who is Abraham? The Bible says that Abraham is not an old covenant figure, he is not a person who lived during the Mosaic covenant.
He lived 430 years prior to that. Abraham, who is Abraham? Abraham is the model New Testament believer in the Old Testament. Because the Old Testament is not equal to the Old Covenant, which is in the Old Testament. The Old Covenant is a Mosaic covenant, which is in the Old Testament, but the Abrahamic covenant is not the Mosaic covenant.
Is everybody with me? This is how you read the Bible. Abraham, the Bible says in the New Testament, Paul, Galatians chapter 3, verse 8, listen, and also Romans chapter 4, verses 11 through 12. I want you to listen to these two passages. Paul says that Abraham was an uncircumcised pagan Gentile.
Who is justified by grace through faith in Christ to come alone? In Galatians chapter 3, verse 8, Paul quotes Genesis chapter 12, verse 3, which is the Abrahamic covenant. And he calls the Abrahamic covenant of Genesis 12, verse 3, the gospel. And then he tags it. with an adjective beforehand.
which means the Abrahamic covenant was the gospel. And promise. The scripture, Genesis 12, verse 3, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand and promised to Abraham, saying, All the nations will be blessed in you.
So, when you read Genesis chapter 12, verse 3, you should be thinking: gospel, gospel, gospel. That is the gospel. Also, who is Abraham? He's not only an uncircumcised pagan Gentile justified by grace through faith in Christ alone to come. He's also, listen, a circumcised Jew who is justified by grace through faith in Christ alone, who subsequently received the sign and seal of circumcision.
Listen to Paul confirm this truth in Romans chapter 4, verses 11 through 12. He says that Abraham received the sign of circumcision as a seal, a sign and a seal. That's where we get baptism from, sign and seal. He received the sign and seal of circumcision. Of the righteousness that he had by faith, not circumcision.
While he was still uncircumcised, that is while he was a pagan Gentile. The purpose of that was to make him the father of all who believe. without being circumcised.
so that righteousness would be counted to them, to the pagan Gentiles who were uncircumcised. He says, and as well to make Abraham the father of the circumcised, the father of the Jews. Who are not merely circumcised, but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith. That our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.
So let me just summarize what Paul's saying. He's saying, who was Abraham? Abraham in the Old Testament was the prototypical New Testament church believer who was both a pagan Gentile saved by grace through faith in Christ alone without circumcision, and who was a Jew who was saved by grace through faith in Christ without circumcision, but was later given the sign and seal to confirm that. He's the model New Testament believer. He's not an old covenant believer.
He's not with Moses. Abraham is not Moses. Abraham is the gospel and promise. The only thing that has changed from Abraham to the new covenant are the types and shadows. Circumcision, type and shadow, is replaced with baptism, reality.
With the coming of Christ, circumcision is no longer the appropriate sign of God's covenant of grace. Why? Because Christ fulfilled it. When Isaiah 53, verse 8 uses the language of circumcision and says, quote, that Jesus was cut off, that is, circumcised. He was cut off from the land of the living.
Because Jesus was our bloody circumcision on the cross, the covenant sign of inclusion of God's people has changed from circumcision to baptism, of which Paul makes clear of this equation in Colossians 2, 11 through 12. Listen to what he says. He says, In him you also were circumcised with the circumcision made without hands by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ, that is, Jesus dying on the cross. You have been buried with him in baptism, in which you are also raised with him through faith in the working of God who raised him from the dead. And so, thus, circumcision is no longer the sign of the covenant of grace because Christ has become our circumcision.
Baptism rather than circumcision is now the covenant sign upon initiation into the visible covenant community called the church. And just like baptism, just like circumcision, baptism is a one-time rite. And all you guys are going, thank goodness. You don't get repeatedly baptized. There's no second baptism.
Baptism is one time. It is a one-time initiatory sign and seal of God's covenant promise. It's not the sign and seal of your promise. This is the gospel. And so it marks out an individual as belonging to God's covenant community.
And so the Lord's promise to Abraham and the pattern of administering his promise has never changed. Circumcision was administered to believers and to their children, as we see in Genesis 17:7. Listen. I will establish my covenant between me and you and your descendants, your seed, your offspring, your children after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant to be God to you and to your descendants, your children after you. That's God's promise to his people.
This same promise and the same pattern of administration continues in the New Covenant. Listen, in the New Testament, God still wants to save families. When the Apostle Peter preached the gospel at Pentecost, he did not announce a radical departure from this pattern of administration that God instituted 2,000 years ago prior in the Abrahamic covenant. If he was going to change it, that would have been the time to change it. And he didn't.
But what Peter did was announce the continuation of this covenantal household-family model of administrating God's saving promise. The gospel.
So, listen to what the Apostle Peter proclaimed on the day of Pentecost. He said, this person. Promise, the promise. of Genesis 17, 7. is for you.
and your children. And for all who are far off, the pagan Gentiles, as always promised from the beginning, for all whom the Lord our God will call, so look. Abraham is the pattern. And if Abraham is the pattern, Then Abraham It's the pattern. This is how Reformed theologian Baby Warfield stated it.
He said, The argument for infant or household baptism in a nutshell is simply this: God established His church in the days of Abraham, and He put children into it. They must remain there until he puts them out. He has nowhere put them out. They are still the members of his church and as such entitled to his ordinances. And so the Abrahamic covenant, which is the gospel in the Old Testament, the Mosaic covenant is the law.
In the Old Testament. It is not the gospel. There's not one instance from Genesis to Revelation where any believer ever asked for mercy from the Mosaic covenant, not one time. Even Moses Appealed to the Lord's promise of mercy is called steadfast love. to Abraham.
And so the Abrahamic covenant, the gospel in the Old Testament, tells us that God claims the children of believers as part of his covenant community and should be regarded as heirs of his promise.
Now, again, as we come to our baptismal service, baptism does not save children. It doesn't save professing believers who receive baptism. Faith, not baptism, is the lone instrument that unites me to Christ and all of his saving benefits. And faith is given to me as a gift by the Holy Spirit through the preaching of the gospel. But baptism is God's sacrament of inclusion into his covenant of grace, and by it God promises salvation to all who believe that promise.
And so the doctrine of the Abrahamic covenant helps Christian parents view their children as rightful recipients of this covenant sign and thus God's heirs of his covenant. It helps parents understand more clearly their role as stewards of these children, who, as Paul exhorts in Ephesians 6, verse 4. Fathers, bring up your children in the training and admonition of the Lord. You don't give that kind of exhortation to people who are training up pagan unbelievers. It makes no sense.
And so that's why we baptize children. And here's why we do it. Why do we baptize children of believers? Because of Abraham is the pattern. And if Abraham is the pattern.
Say it with me then Abraham is the pattern. Amen. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for these children that we hear. It's not a distraction.
It's your reminder to us that you said if you don't become like these children, you can't even enter the kingdom of heaven. Jesus loves the little children. He says, Suffer these little children to come unto me. And he laid his hands on them and blessed them. And so we pray this morning, Father, that as we come to your sacrament, that you would be present by the power of your Holy Spirit, and for the whole church, confirm our faith in this visible gospel of all the promises of Christ, that we, through the blood of Christ and through the Holy Spirit, have all our sins.
Past, present, and future, forgiven forever, and that we have been received into your family. We have been granted an estate on the basis of a promise, a great inheritance, not because of our performance, but because of Jesus' performance on our behalf. Seal and confirm, we pray now through this visible sign and seal of the gospel. All your promises to us. We pray this in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen. Thanks for listening to the Hymn We Proclaim podcast with John Fawnville. Hymn We Proclaim is a ministry of John Fawnville of Faramount Church in Jacksonville, Florida. You can check out his church at Paramountchurch.com. We look forward to next time.
