Let's go ahead and begin today. I'm going to begin by reading a portion of Colossians chapter 2 and hopefully the reason for that will be abundantly clear as we continue our discussion of household baptisms. Let's go ahead and read today verses 6 through 15 just to get the whole section We will be drawing our special attention to verses 11 and 12. Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus, the Lord, so walk in him rooted and built up in him and established in the faith just as you were taught abounding in Thanksgiving. See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit. According to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world and not according to Christ. For in him the whole fullness of the deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him who is the head of all rule and authority. In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, putting off the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ. having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. And you who are dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven all our trespasses. by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them in him or perhaps in it. That is, if it's it, it refers to the cross particularly. Well, thus far, the reading of God's word this morning. Let us begin with a word of prayer. Almighty and glorious God we thank you for the privilege of entering into your presence this morning. We thank you for gathering us in your name as your people and we bless you that you have visited your people for centuries that you are the same today yesterday and forever that you are the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has purchased us with the blood of your son and filled us with the power of the spirit. We come to you, O Father, and we ask that you would magnify Christ in our hearts this day, that the Spirit would illumine our minds in light of scripture, and that you would change and transform us as we gather as your people. We pray that you would bless our continued discussion today of the proper subjects of baptism, that you would strengthen us and renew our minds as we search the scriptures together. And we ask it in Christ's name. Amen. We are considering a gradual and cumulative case for what I've referred to as household baptism. And again, the idea of a household baptism is all who are included within the household receive the baptism. Some have asked the question, what about a family that is converted, say, with teenagers who are unwilling to come and to receive baptism at that stage. And I think we would need to say that if a member of the household outright refuses, then that would be an exception to the rule. And we will not baptize people against their wills, even though we do baptize people because they are members of the household. And so we do need to recognize both of those. When I say we built a cumulative case, This is more than what we've considered directly with respect to the question of baptizing the children of believers, but it has included really our entire treatment of the nature of the sacrament, the sacrament stressing the promise of God first, and then requiring our subsequent profession of faith, both for adults and for infants, as well as the many other things we've considered. Let me just state briefly where we are. I'm not going to rehash everything we've discussed, but the first primary point is that the covenant of grace is in essence the same in both the Old Testament and the New Testament. The second thing that we have considered together last week, very closely related, is that the Church of God is essentially the same. in the Old Testament and the New Testament, meaning that the terms of membership and the subjects of membership are identical in both cases. Not that there are no differences changing to the New Testament. So here what we have is the same Church of Jesus Christ under the same covenant of grace in two different time periods. before Christ and after Christ. And so that's where we are thus far. What we've seen, especially last time, and this is where we're going to pick up, is with the Abrahamic covenant, his children received the sign of circumcision because they belong to the visible church and because They belong to that external administration of the covenant of grace. They may or may not, I should say, have had the internal reality yet, or like Ishmael or like Esau, may never have the internal reality and then are essentially cut off. But the terms of membership at that stage were being born to believing parents, and they received the sign accordingly. What we're going to establish today is not simply that they received the sign of circumcision in the Old Covenant, but that circumcision is really replaced by baptism in the New Covenant. And if baptism replaces circumcision, and it's essentially a sign of the same covenant, the same covenant of grace, the overarching principle in Scripture, then the subjects of baptism are going to be identical to the subjects of circumcision. So all who were circumcised in the old covenant will now be baptized in the new covenant because it is a new sign of the same covenant of grace in its New Testament administration. So there's something new and there's something old as we come to this. Now, I've selected Colossians chapter 2, especially verses 11 and 12, hopefully for obvious reasons at this stage. If nothing else, you can see on the surface that both sacraments are mentioned in one breath. Paul describes circumcision and what it means in verse 11, then baptism and what it means in verse 12. And I'm going to argue that Paul is showing that the two mean the same thing. And we draw an inference that the reason why circumcision does not continue as a sign of the covenant under the new covenant is because baptism has taken its place and baptism now fulfills the function that circumcision once fulfilled. And that's why the circumcision cannot continue and does not continue as a sign of the covenant. And so, we're going to build that gradually. Before we look at the terms of this text, let me just point out a couple of things we've already discussed about circumcision, which is very important to remember at this stage. Remember, in Romans chapter 4, verse 11, the fundamental significance of circumcision is that it is a sign and seal of the righteousness that comes through faith and in the context of that chapter, really through faith in Christ. Remember, this is this is Paul's way of describing the same thing Jesus says in John eight, when Jesus says Abraham rejoiced to see my day and he saw it and was glad. What does Jesus mean? He doesn't mean that Abraham somehow lingered along and lived for several thousand years until Christ came in human flesh and then lived for joy because now he's here. He's saying in Abraham's circumstances, in his historical time period, he looked to the Christ who was to come, his seed in whom all the nations of the earth would be blessed. And he saw Christ's day coming. And when he saw it, he rejoiced and he was glad. because he knew that Christ would be the Messiah of his people. So see, Abraham is justified by faith alone, in Christ alone, by the grace of God alone. And that is the whole point of Romans chapter 4. And then, in the middle of it, Paul makes that statement about circumcision. He was an adult believer. He professed with his mouth what he believed in his heart. And God gave him an external sign of circumcision. He received adult believers circumcision. And it was a seal of the righteousness that he had received through faith. And again, that's a gospel promise. We remember Genesis 17. Circumcision is the covenant. It's not the covenant in the true and ultimate sense of the term. But it embodies the covenant. And just like Peter says in the New Testament, baptism now saves us without importing any magical qualities into the baptism. He associates the sign and the thing that it points to in one breath and speaks of the one as though it's the other. We see the identical thing with circumcision. Circumcision is the covenant of grace in Jesus Christ in its Old Testament form. It's the sign and the seal of the covenant. So he receives adult believer circumcision, and his children receive the sign from their infancy, and particularly there on the eighth day. You see, here's the elements of circumcision. There's an external sign and an internal reality. We can go innumerable places to add to this picture, to see this. And what I'm stressing here is to get you to walk away with the unavoidable conclusion that circumcision is primarily spiritual in its meaning. Circumcision is not an external sign of an external covenant. It is an external sign of the spiritual covenant of grace in union with Jesus Christ. That is what it meant in the Old Testament. That's what it means in the New Testament as it's described. And we'll see then that that's exactly what baptism means as well and why baptism replaced it. Let me just give one or two more examples. One of the promises of God's covenant blessing, I believe in Deuteronomy either 10 or 11, But again, in Deuteronomy 32, in Moses' parting words to the people, God promises them if they seek his face and they rest upon his promises and they repent of their sins and obey his commandments, he who circumcised their hearts would circumcise the hearts of their children after them. So in other words, you're born again. I've changed your heart. You've been born of the spirit. The circumcision of the heart is the Old Testament way of saying you must be born from above. And then I'll circumcise the hearts of your children as well. I'll take the external sign and I'll make it an internal reality in your children. And we'll come back to that promise and how that affects us later. We know, of course, that that doesn't always happen and the people constantly turn to apostasy, forsake the ways of the Lord and the general plan of God along family lines is not realized. But that's not God's fault. That's not a defect in the promise. That's our fault at the end of the day. So that's just one thing in the background. The other text that I think is very striking is Jeremiah, chapter four. I'm not going to turn there at the moment, but I think it's towards the end of the chapter. The prophet essentially tells Israel this. You are uncircumcised in your hearts. You're circumcised in your flesh, but you're uncircumcised in your hearts. So what does that mean? He says, therefore, you will perish with those who are uncircumcised in flesh. You see, he's essentially saying, if you're not born from above and born of the spirit and your heart is not changed, your circumcision is just as worthless as the nations who have never been circumcised and never heard of my covenant. So you see, you're circumcised in flesh, but uncircumcised in heart. So you see this, this meaning that Paul is attaching to circumcision is not a New Testament idea that is somehow imposed back on the Old Testament. This is an Old Testament idea that has always been the significance of circumcision. Well, then, of course, I'll just state this briefly. We've already talked about baptism in general. Baptism signifies the fact that believers are washed and cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ. We are identified with the Lord Jesus Christ in our baptism, just as the baptism into Moses in 1 Corinthians 10 refers to the people's identification with Moses as their leader. We see the baptism of John doing the same thing. He's baptizing. He's making disciples by baptism. And then we see the Great Commission itself to go and to make disciples baptizing them. The baptism does not make someone a Christian, but it is part of this discipleship process, much like circumcision was in the Old Testament. And even if we did not have Colossians 2, 11 and 12 in the Bible, I believe the case would still be abundantly clear that baptism means the exact same thing that circumcision meant. It signifies the washing of regeneration, Titus 3. It signifies the righteousness that comes through faith, again Titus 3 in the same passage. It signifies union with Christ. and all the benefits that come through Christ. Well, again, that's Romans 4 and other places. And so they mean the same thing. Very naturally, you have two sacraments that mean the same thing. You can't have both at the same time. Both are the initiatory rite of coming into the visible church. Whereas, say, the Lord's Supper and the Passover are, as it's often been said, food for the journey. The one brings you into this visible relationship to the covenant, external relationship to the church. The other is continued spiritual communion based upon that initial relationship. So now we have Colossians chapter two. Verse 11, in him you were circumcised, that is in Christ, with a circumcision made without hands. See the Old Testament language, a circumcision of the heart, a circumcision that goes deeper than the external sign that's been given to you. And by putting off the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ. The phrase the circumcision of Christ is probably more difficult to explain than I'll end up having time for today. But the question is, what is the circumcision of Christ? Does this refer to Christ's physical circumcision as an infant, and somehow he's done that on behalf of his people? Well, there is a sense in which that's true. Everything Jesus did, keeping every jot and tittle of the Old Testament law, was for us, and fulfilling all righteousness on our behalf, including his circumcision. But remember when we looked at baptism in general and we dealt with 1 Peter chapter 3 and that's the passage with the phrase baptism which now saves us. Baptism was a sign to everybody involved in the passage but in two radically different ways. To Noah and his descendants the which is a type and shadow, Peter says, of baptism which now saves us, pointed to redemption in Jesus Christ. And just as they were saved through the ark above the floodwaters, so were saved from the wrath of God in Jesus Christ. That's the one side of the baptism. The other side, it was a sign of judgment and condemnation to those who were outside. The same waters that saved Noah and his family in the ark condemned the world. And so we see that baptism, according to Peter, has the same function. It's a testimony to us of the grace of God, but it is also a testimony against those who reject the grace of God and who turn apart from the Lord Jesus Christ and so on. And so we need to remember the same thing with circumcision. The circumcision was designed to point to the internal change of heart, the righteousness received by faith and the internal blessings of the covenant of grace. If people did not experience those internal blessings, circumcision stood as a witness against them. Because they rejected the covenant and they bore the sign of the covenant in their flesh. You see, it's a two-edged sword in that sense. It's pointing to blessing, that's his primary purpose, and it points to judgment. By the way, the sacraments here, in any sacrament, circumcision, Passover, baptism, Lord's Supper, whatever we're talking about, has this two-edged character. The reason why is because the gospel has that two-edged character. Remember that the purpose of the gospel, as Jesus says about himself, I did not come to condemn the world. But that the world through me might be saved. So what happens when somebody goes forth preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ to a lost and dying world, is everybody saved? No. So how does Paul describe this very positive ministry? which Jesus says is not meant to condemn but to save. The purpose of the gospel is to save sinners. Paul says, when I preach this gospel in 2 Corinthians 2, I am a saver of life to those who live, to those who believe and receive Christ, but the stench of death to those who are perishing. And it adds to their judgment. That which is meant to bring life brings judgment. I believe this is probably what Paul is speaking of with the circumcision of Christ. It is a circumcision that Christ underwent on behalf of his people. And I don't think he's talking simply about the physical external circumcision of his flesh. I think he's got this two edged sword of the sacrament in view in the background. The sacrament is a sign of blessing. The sacrament is a sign of judgment to those who do not believe what he's essentially saying here is on the cross. Jesus Christ was the covenant breaker. On the cross, Jesus Christ was credited with every breach of the covenant and every sin and every wicked act that any of his people had ever committed for all time and ever would. And so the circumcision of Christ is really referring here not to circumcision, ironically, as a sign of blessing, but of judgment, the judgment and penalty that Christ received on the cross. But notice how it goes both ways. You've been circumcised with the circumcision of Christ. What does that mean? Well, that means Christ underwent the curse that circumcision pointed to so that you can have the blessing that it pointed to. Because that was your curse on Christ. That was God's wrath for you. And therefore, you experience the circumcision of the heart, the blessings that come through union with Christ and fellowship with God. I think that seems to be the best explanation of what he means here, because he's pointing to a circumcision made without hands by putting off the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ. The body of the flesh here probably refers to the sinful nature in that sense. In other words, what's Paul saying? By the circumcision of Christ, the judgment that he underwent for you, you have received a circumcision not made with hands. He's changed your heart. He's removed the wrath of God. He's put you into a new relationship with God. And the putting off of the body of the flesh is essentially the same thing he says in Romans, ironically, about baptism. When he says that you've died to sin. You've died to its guilt. You've died to its power. And here, Paul calls this a circumcision. And Christians have experienced this. In other words, what he's really saying is, as Christians, you've received the internal reality of circumcision. And then without batting an eye or without taking a breath, Paul in verse 12 says, having been buried with him in baptism. He's essentially saying. Baptism means the same thing. You've put off the body of the flesh in your your circumcision, in your hearts, you're identified with Christ. in judgment and in blessing. And therefore, you receive this death to the deeds of the flesh. And therefore, he picks up the language directly from Romans six, having been buried with him in baptism in which you were also raised with him through the faith in the powerful working of God who raised him from the dead. Notice the two things union with Christ in his death, the circumcision of Christ, And then in his resurrection, victory over sin. And then again with baptism, you have being buried with him, union with Christ in his death. And then again, being raised with him from the dead. And though he doesn't spell it out explicitly, the way he develops that theme in connection to baptism is again, walking in newness of life. You see, he's describing both things. Identification with Christ in his death and his resurrection applies to circumcision and to baptism. So why don't we circumcise our infants on the eighth day anymore? Because we baptize them instead. Because baptism has taken its place. Baptism has come in its room as the sign of the covenant of grace, meaning the same thing. I can expand this a little bit because, again, as I've said all along, We're not going to have a direct statement in the New Testament that says baptize your infants. What we are going to have is this. God deals with households in the same way in the New Testament as he did in the Old Testament. The same covenant of grace which included believers and their children. And the terms of that covenant has not changed. The same church which included believers and their children. A sign in both cases that means the same thing. And so what we're doing here is saying If the children were in the covenant and part of the church, and because of this, received the external sign, then in the new covenant, if it's the same covenant and the same church, essentially, the children still receive the sign, because they're essentially in the same relationship to the covenant that they were before. Remember, the reason why they received the sign of the covenant is because they were part of the covenant. If children no longer receive the sign of the covenant, children are not part of the covenant. You can't have the one without the other. And that's what we need to recognize. I know our Baptist brothers don't mean this, but not baptizing a covenant child is to declare them under the judgment of God. It declares that they're cut off from the people. that they're not heirs of the promises, that everything that was true for Abraham's children and circumcising his heart and the heart of his children after him is no longer true in the new covenant. And as I mentioned before, that means that in some sense, the people of God, if that the Baptist view were true, the people of God had a greater advantage under the old covenant than the new. Because they had greater promises for their children than we have. And that's pretty sad for us, I suppose. That in this richer, more glorious New Covenant, our children are worse off than the weak, impoverished Old Covenant. Personally, I can't see that fitting with Scripture whatsoever in any sense of the term. Go ahead, Trevor. With our Baptist brothers and sisters, they would say, one, they dedicate their children And then as well, back in Joshua 6, when he begins to circumcise all the people of Israel again, which again shows the household circumcision, there at some point must have been a ceasing of circumcision. Questions and comments as I go through the answer for the sake of those in cyberspace. With the Joshua example where the second generation was circumcised, if I could start there and work my way back, who were their parents? People who disobeyed and died in the wilderness for their sins. Those people did not inherit the land promises because that whole generation was cut out of the covenant. What God was showing with the new generation, and very interestingly, Jonathan Edwards in his history of the work of redemption says that when you look at the generation that took the land of Canaan in the book of Joshua, there are fewer negative comments and more positive comments said about them than any other generation in the Old Testament. And I think the significance of the circumcision there is here, yes, in this case, are essentially adult believers who want to be faithful, who are seeking to trust in the Lord. Their fathers had apostatized and part of their apostasy, one of the signs of their apostasy, by the way, was not circumcising their infants because essentially they weren't being faithful to God in any respect. They didn't even give the sign to the children. And so now, as adults, this whole generation is receiving adult believer circumcision, and it's as though God is saying, with this generation, I'm starting over. You're coming, and you're receiving a sign, and so on. In some sense, that wasn't their fault. That was the previous generation's fault for disobedience. And then God is showing that he will accept those who repent of their sins and who trust in him, as that generation did. So in that sense, the covenant is being renewed with a new generation and going forth from there. As far as the other aspects, you mentioned the baptism of Jesus. What was the other part of this? Dedication. Here's something to think about with the idea of baby dedication. And by the way, let me preface this. I'm not picking on Baptists here. I have a different view than Baptists do, and I'm trying to express why that's the case, and hopefully show you in the process why that is biblical to have a different view. But there's no disrespect meant towards those on the other side in the process. They're good brothers and sisters in the Lord, and this is not an issue that determines where we go for eternity. But it is an issue that affects our practice, our families, and really has a lot of practical implications for how we view our children and how we deal with our children. So I'll come back to the practical aspects later. But just as far as the comments there, I think it's interesting. Usually when somebody says, well, we don't baptize our children, but we dedicate them to God, and sometimes the comment is made, even by Presbyterians and other Reformed people, that essentially a baby dedication is a baptism without water. And they're recognizing the need to have that aspect, even though they don't practice infant baptism. I actually think that's quite wrong. The reason why I say that is in a Baptist baby dedication, they're dedicating the child to God. In an infant baptism, God is dedicating the child to himself. Which one's better in that sense? I'd rather have God dedicate my children than me dedicate them in that particular sense. Now, of course, when God sets apart my children by baptism, He's laying all kinds of obligations on me as well. And I think one of the vows we take with respect to our children, it just puts it so well. Do you trust in God for the salvation of your child just as you do for your own? What's that saying? Essentially saying without the grace of God at work in your heart for your salvation, you're completely hopeless and hopeless. And without God fulfilling the promise signified in this baptism, you're completely hopeless and helpless with respect to your child. So it's a matter of faith and believing the promises of God and resting in the promises of God to work in our children and to do for them what we can't. And so we take courage from the fact that God has set it set them apart from infancy and to plead with God according to those promises, and as long as there's life, even for children that go astray at different points. I've known parents that continue to beg God according to those promises. My experience, of course, is going to be limited. I don't know all the Christians all over the face of the earth, but in my limited experience, I've seen the Lord honor that pleading over and over and over again. and remember those promises and bring the erring ones back. And so there's great encouragement from the fact that I'm not dedicating the child. God is dedicating the child and I plead with him to do in that child what I can't. So I think that's a difference in stress. The fact of imitating the baptism of Jesus, I actually have heard that many times. I fail to understand it in many respects, and this is why. No one, Baptist, Presbyterian, or otherwise, rejects adult believers' baptism. It bypasses the question. To show that an adult, including Jesus, was baptized doesn't mean much to me. Because so was Simon the sorcerer and so were others when they repented as adults and Gentiles coming into the church were baptized as adults. How else do you expect it to happen. Then then an adult receiving the sign. Also remember Jesus is in a transitional time. Circumcision is the sign of the old covenant which he did receive as an infant. His baptism associates himself with John's baptism. I'm not going to rehash all of this, but I think there are some differences between John's baptism and Christian baptism. John's baptism is not Christian baptism. It's a precursor to it. There's continuity with it and discontinuity. It's not the New Testament sacrament, which Jesus Christ inaugurated in the Great Commission in particular. So there are going to be differences. I mean, on that note, I mean, I know there's a special impetus placed upon imitating the Lord Jesus Christ, but we also need to recognize when we talk about imitating Christ, we're talking about his character. We're not talking about everything that he ever did in his life. For instance, the practice of Lent in the church today is based on the fact that Jesus fasted for 40 days and 40 nights in the wilderness? Are we really meant to imitate that? If we are, our modern day practice of Lent sure does a poor job of it. Are we fasting for 40 days and 40 nights? Give up chocolate or something ridiculous like that? Well, again, I don't think everything in the life of Jesus is designed to be imitated. He's doing things for us. Can we imitate him on the cross? Can we die for sinners? Can we rise from the dead for others? I mean, there are aspects of what he does that I don't think naturally carry over. So that's why I say when I've heard that argument about imitating Jesus being baptized as an adult, to be blunt, my thought is, so what? Jesus did a lot of things that I may or may not imitate and what's going to determine that is not the example in itself. But what does the law of God say? And in my mind, as I've been trying to argue, the law of God says that believers and their children receive the sign of the covenant. And so unless God has repealed that practice, which he went through for thousands of years, believers and their children still receive the sign of the covenant. Does that help in getting at some of what you asked, maybe more than what you asked? John's baptism, just to put it simply, it's not exactly Christian baptism in that really it is an Old Testament ritual. It's not a New Testament ritual. It's still a preceding Christ, a looking forward to Christ. The kingdom is about to come. Whereas Christian baptism as well as the Lord's Supper look back upon the consummated work of Christ and the finished new covenant. Yeah, largely comes out of the Old Testament background of the cleansing, ceremonial cleansing. And there are other aspects there of the connection as Fesco again brings out so well in his book on baptism. of water, word and spirit. And you see those elements of water, word and spirit, a creation and all through the Old Testament and then all the way up to John's baptism and into the new covenant. And so there's this constant symbolism there as well. But remember, I think it's been said very appropriately, John was the last and the greatest of the Old Testament prophets. We don't think of him that way because we read about him in the New Testament, not the Old Testament. But this is why Jesus says that the law and the prophets were until John. A greater prophet has not been born of women than John the Baptist, but he who is least in the kingdom is greater than he. In other words, John is right at the end of one thing that is about to give birth to something better. So he's a transitional figure, the last Old Testament prophet. paving the way for the new covenant. Let me add one piece to this, and I'm not going to go over this very much because I have gone over this probably six or seven times in different stages, but I would be remiss to leave out our Acts chapter 2 passage as we think about this. Remember everything that I've said. And especially, okay, you're not going to remember everything. Let me rephrase that. In light of everything I've said, I want to extract one piece of it. You've got Genesis 17. Abraham receives adult believer circumcision. And I'll be your God, the God of your children after you. Therefore, you receive the sign on your profession of faith, your repentance of sin, that then your whole household, including your 13-year-old-ish male, is circumcised. and receives the sign of the covenant, which signifies the righteousness received by faith. Yishmael doesn't have and never ends up having. And then there's provisions, especially in Exodus and Deuteronomy, about the stranger dwelling in the midst. No one can be a permanent resident in Israel unless he is circumcised and his house and comes under the covenant of grace. If if he's not circumcised in his house then the stranger is not permitted to stay and is sent out. And so you see you've got this this idea of the foreigner joining themselves. I need to add to that by the way any foreigner any stranger even even women who in some sense are not the regular heads of household in the Old Testament like Rahab who was a prostitute. In the land of Canaan, which is supposed to be annihilated and no survivors. And she goes straight into the direct ancestry of Jesus Christ. Why? Because when Rahab came into Israel, obviously she wasn't circumcised, but she came into the covenant and she was a Jew. She wasn't a second class citizen or a lower form of church member. She was a Jew in the full sense of the word. even though she wasn't descended physically from Abraham because of the covenant. And so you see, the Old Testament idea, I circumcise you and your household. And the stranger who wants to come and worship the God of Israel and come into covenant with him, all that in view, Acts chapter two, you come to, I didn't mean for that to rhyme, but now when verse 37, When they heard this, that is an entirely 100% full-bodied Jewish audience who is steeped in the Abrahamic covenant, who rests all their hope upon everything we just talked about from Genesis 17. When they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and to the rest of the Apostles, Brothers, what shall we do? Peter said, Repent and be baptized. Every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit for the promises to you and to your children and for all who are far off. Everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself. If you're a Jewish person hearing this, And all of your hope is banking on the covenant God made with Abraham, which is to be God to you and to your children and the stranger in your midst. And you all receive the sign of the covenant to signify the great things God's doing in your midst. How do you think they heard this? Repent and be baptized. Well, who? Who's baptized? Promises to you. OK, I'll be baptized. And to your children. OK, they'll be baptized, too. And to the stranger, to as many as are far off, whom the Lord our God will call. They'll be baptized too then, when they come into this covenant community. And I always say this, and I know I've said this before, so forgive me for the repetition, but if Peter intended a Jewish audience to be Baptist and not bring their children, he stated this in the worst way he possibly could have. I mean, you would have had to have an explicit command from Peter promises to you and to your children, but don't bring them for the sacrament. I know you brought them for circumcision, and I know I've quoted the Abrahamic covenant to you, but this is different. This is change. Your children aren't part of the promise anymore and aren't part of the covenant. Well, without explicitly saying baptize your children. He really doesn't have to. Now let me just throw out this one last piece of the puzzle. The household baptisms in the book of Acts. We all know about them. There's two of them that appear in Chapter 16 with Lydia and the Philippian jailer. And our Baptist brothers again will try to say well the whole house believed every time and that's why the whole household was baptized. Well, maybe. We do have an example in the end of John 4 where a whole house believes, explicitly comes to faith in Jesus Christ, and presumably that could happen in the book of Acts as well. The whole house believes, the whole house is baptized. With Lydia, all it says is she believed and her household was baptized. That's all it says. We read of Paul. Interestingly, when he's talking about baptism in 1 Corinthians chapter 1, He doesn't mention a single individual baptism. I take that back. He might as one of two individuals. But the model that he builds on is this. I baptized the household of Stephanas. I baptized this household. And this goes back to this model with Lydia. And again, Lydia's position is much like the Rahab coming from the outside and now becoming a native Jew. And so Lydia is the head of her household. Presumably she was a widow or something like this. And so her whole household is baptized because she believed on the Lord Jesus Christ and she came. Now it's convenient to say, and from the Baptist position you have to say, the only reason the household was baptized is because every single member of that household believed. Therefore we presuppose that there must not have been infants in the household. That's what it comes down to. We presuppose. Why? Because you're going to read those household baptisms in terms of the theology that you're taking elsewhere. If you're a Baptist, of course you're going to presuppose there were no infants who couldn't believe yet. But let me ask this question. Which view did the household baptisms fit better with? A covenant of grace that has always been made with households? And without exception, the children of believers receive the sign of the covenant because their parents entered into the covenant. Or a circumstance where the exact moment the parents are converted, the children happen to be converted every single time in every single example in the New Testament. I think we know by our experience that doesn't happen. It fits the household model, and that's why I said I don't exactly believe in infant baptism as much as household baptism, because the Old Testament didn't as much teach infant circumcision as household circumcision. The infants on the eighth day became the norm after the household was in covenant with God, if and until they turned away from the Lord and were cut off. In which case, it stops and does not continue. And then the grandchildren, let's say the fathers were unfaithful, if they're going to come back into the covenant, it's going to be by an adult profession of faith and adult believer's baptism and start the chain again. And that's exactly what we see with the people in Joshua's day and the Old Testament as well. You see what I'm trying to do is build a pyramid here and now I'm trying to put the capstone on the end of it to seal the overall picture that we have. This is why Bannerman says, and I'll close with this thought, that if God were going to stop including the children of his people in the covenant in the church, in the new covenant, we'd have to have an express command not to bring them. You see, the burden of proof that the Baptist would place on someone like me is going the wrong direction. Show me one example, one command of what they say is where a child was baptized in the new covenant. And I hope you can see why I might respond at this stage and say, show me one example or one command where the Lord has stopped, including the children of his people in the covenant of grace. That's the issue. And this goes back to the thing I've stressed in almost every lesson. If we begin a theology of baptism in the New Testament and not in the Old Testament, we will always go wrong and always go astray. I think that's the root of the problem and the disagreement. And what I'm saying is, again, we don't go by majorities because the majority can be wrong. But it is telling that, again, in the history of the Christian church, everything that I'm saying here went into the early church in its practice with no debate. They assumed that the children of believers were baptized, because I believe the people in Acts 2 assumed they were baptized, and the apostles never knew any other practice whatsoever until several centuries later when one a heretical group known as the Donatists decided they weren't going to baptize their children anymore. And that was because, it's another story for another day, but they had a faulty view of the church. And then we don't see the view return again until the Anabaptist movement in the Reformation. And then the later Baptists. And by the way, don't tell a Reformed Baptist that they come from the Anabaptists. because they don't. They come from the Puritan Baptists, and there's a huge difference. The Anabaptists largely did not believe the gospel of Jesus Christ. They believed in justification by the works of the law, in an external kingdom of Jesus Christ in this world that was essentially achieved by their own righteousness. They weren't Christians, if I could put it that way, whereas the Baptists were. So we need to dot our I's and cross our T's so that we can be respectful towards others in that case. Let me close with a brief word of prayer and next week I'm going to come back to this subject again. I know I've kind of said everything that I'm going to say, but I know that we've also said a lot. I've said a lot and you've listened to a lot. And so I'm going to take opportunity next week to deal with more questions, perhaps objections that come up typically in this discussion. I know Bannerman has two more points after C here. I've wrapped them all up into one thing today. So we'll go from there. So think about that if you have questions that come up. This is a good time to do this next week. Let's pray. Lord God Almighty, we do thank you and we do praise you that you are ever faithful and true. And we thank you that you do not deal with us as our sins deserve. We thank you that your covenant is forever founded and sure. Your promises are steadfast and you have made them yea and amen in Christ. And we look to him in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. And we ask that you would help us by the power of the Spirit to exalt our Lord and Savior this day, to magnify His name and to worship Him in the beauty of holiness. Forgive us of all of our sins. Humble our hearts as we search the scriptures and hear your voice from them in the preaching of the Word. And we ask, Lord, that you administer to all who come today and that you would bring many in this lost and dying world to saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And we ask it in His name. Amen.