Well, what a special day it is today. We've got, we're here on the Lord's day, worshiping our great God. And we've got a couple of children, covenant children to be baptized. And that is a joy to us all. I want you to turn with me to Romans chapter four, Romans chapter four. Romans chapter four, and I want you to hold that open on your laps. I'm getting old and I need the bigger Bible to read from these days, so I need a bigger desk. This morning is a special one, as I've said. It is the Lord's Day, and it is a day that we are going to baptize two covenant children. I realize though that for some of you, this may be a day of questions. The language that we're going to use today may be a bit strange. For example, I've already used one word that you may be asking yourself, what in the world does that mean? Covenant children. You all know what children are, but what is a covenant child? And for some of you, the idea that a baptism is what makes a day special, maybe a bit anticlimactic. Why in the world would pouring a little water on the head of a child be all that special? Now, I could say to you something like this, well, don't you understand, it's the sign and the seal of the covenant of grace, and that's why it's so special. And you might say to me, like Reagan said to Carter, there you go again. You're using strange language in order to explain this strange practice. You've used covenant on me, sign on me, seal on me. And so you may have a tendency to say something like, well, so what? All that means literally nothing to me. Well, today, what I want to do, at least what I'm going to strive to do, whether or not I'm successful at it, you'll have to tell me, but what I want to do is help you to understand what it is that we're about to do today. I'm eager for you to follow along and so participate with us in this joyful occasion. So let's begin with a reading from God's word. But prior to doing that, shall we pray together? Father in heaven, we are so thankful to gather together in this place. We're thankful for many things. We're thankful for family and friends. We're thankful for the church family gathered here and elsewhere. But all of these things trace back to the Lord Jesus Christ. And we are so thankful for him and the riches of salvation that we have in him. Father, as we contemplate some of those riches this morning, it's our prayer that you will indeed bless us. We pray that you will meet each one of us where we are. and minister to us there. Father, we pray that you will now turn our hearts toward your word, and that we'll hear it, because it's the living word, and it's taken up by your spirit, and it intrudes into our lives, and thankfully so. So make it intrude upon us this morning, for we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. Brothers and sisters, this is the word of God. It is God's authoritative word, and therefore we should listen to it. It is God's inerrant word and his infallible word. Please give your ear to it. Romans chapter four, Romans chapter four, I'll start our reading in verse one. Listen to God's word. What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather, according to the flesh has found? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the scripture say? Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. Now to the one who works his wages, his wages not credited as a favor, but as what is due. but to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness. Just as David also speaks of the blessing on the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works. Blessed are those whose lawless deeds have been forgiven and whose sins have been covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will not take into account. Is this the blessing then on the circumcised or on the uncircumcised also? For we say faith was credited to Abraham as righteousness. How then was it credited? While he was circumcised or uncircumcised? not while he was circumcised, but while uncircumcised. And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while uncircumcised, so that he might be the father of all who believe without being circumcised. That righteousness might be credited to them, and the father of circumcision, to those who not only are of the circumcision, but who also follow in the steps of the faith of our father Abraham, which he had while uncircumcised. Well, I realized that if you were listening to me you likely already have a problem with me. Here it is. I might as well just throw it on the table. If you were listening to me, you heard me talk about, read about a text pertaining to circumcision. And that being a sign and a seal. And so you might be thinking something like this, wait a minute. I thought this pastor was going to talk to us about baptism this morning, and instead he read a text about circumcision. This guy's already off to a bad start. Well, that's a fair question. And so before going any further, And in order to answer that question, I need to say something to you about the Bible, and then I'll answer the question, okay? So let me say something about the Bible, and then answer the question. Oftentimes, people think about the Bible as 66 disconnected books. They read the book of Numbers, and they just can't figure out how in the world this has anything to do with Ezekiel, and don't get me started on Ezekiel, that sort of thing. That sort of mentality. And that's the common way of thinking about the Bible. But you need to remember something this morning. You need to remember that though the Bible does have various human authors, the Bible has one primary author. And that one primary author is God himself. The third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, inspired men to write exactly what God would have them to write. He carried them along, he inspired them, and whatever other language you would like to use. And if God is the primary author of Scripture, then the Bible has a unified message. It all works together. But here's the difficult thing. This is the thing that I think trips people up. This message is progressively exfoliated. It's unfolding with each book and each page. And we need to bear that in mind because that's sometimes what trips people up. For example, the Old Testament, you read in the Old Testament all of these different sacrifices, but this is an easy one. You know that all of those different sacrifices point ahead, carry us forward, they're types, they're shadows of what's coming in fullness in Jesus Christ. And that's just one example, an easy one. But there are so many others. So many other things in the Old Testament that progressively are unfolded by God so that they, in the end, point to Jesus Christ. And that's just one example. Now, circumcision was an Old Testament practice which pointed a person forward in the Old Testament community. and it actually pointed forward to their relationship with Jesus Christ. And the reason why I can talk about baptism from a text that talks about circumcision is because both of those signs point to one and the same thing. They both point to Jesus Christ. Now, I know what you're saying. You're probably thinking something like this. Yeah, right. Smokescreen. Pastor's just trying to buy a little time. Well, wait a minute. If I'm right, if I'm right, then we would expect to find evidence of what I'm saying in the Bible. And we can find evidence of that in the Bible. So if you'd like to just jot these down, you can look at them later. If you'd like to turn with me, that's fine as well. But I want to look, for instance, at Philippians three, three Philippians three, three. And there Paul says to New Testament believers that just listen to what he says. We are the true circumcision. Who worship in the spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in flesh. Clearly circumcision pointed to what the Old Testament believer possessed in Christ and therefore Paul could quite easily say we are the true circumcision. We have that to which circumcision was always pointing, Jesus Christ. What about the reverse? Well, turn to Galatians 3.27 and following. There, Paul writes these words, Galatians 3.27 and following. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. Therefore, sorry, there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's descendants, heirs according to the promise. Once again, Paul's clear. Those who are baptized are heirs to what was promised and signified in circumcision in the covenant given to Abraham. And consequently, the signs of circumcision and baptism can be used interchangeably and are used that way because they both mean essentially the same thing. Both point to Christ in such a way that they can be used that way. Now, our immediate concern, I think, has an answer. I'm able to speak about baptism as a sign and a seal of the covenant using a text that speaks about circumcision as a sign and a seal of the covenant because both circumcision and baptism point essentially to the same thing. Both point to Jesus Christ. Now, Having that important point clarified, let's get some questions. Let's get to some questions that are basic questions. But I think in asking these basic questions, you will be helped along the way this morning to understand what it is that we're doing here. And so some basic questions. The first basic question is this, what is it? What is baptism? That's a basic question, but it's a pretty important question, isn't it? What in the world is this baptism that you're talking about? Well, we find the answer to that in our text, in Romans chapter four. Paul says in verse 11 that Abraham received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness. Now, here we have an answer to the question, what is it? Baptism, like circumcision, is both a sign and a seal. Now I realize this is where sometimes people get lost. So let's ask the next logical question. What in the world do those words mean? What are we saying, what are we saying when we talk about baptism as being a sign and a seal? Well, let me say that we oftentimes tend to make the simple difficult and the difficult, hopefully simple. But in this case, I think it's the other way around. We have a tendency to make the simple difficult. I want you to know something this morning, and I think I can say this with a great deal of confidence. God did not intend to hide the meaning of circumcision and baptism behind the words sign and seal. He was not trying to hide something from us by describing it this way. He meant for us to understand what exactly this thing is. So what do those words mean? Well, let's look at the words. What does it mean that baptism is a sign? Well, I want you to think about it like this. We ought to think about a sign, and in this case, a sign as a perpetual witness, a perpetual pointer, an everlasting pointer. Now, here's the question. To what does it witness? To what does baptism as a pointer, as a witness, witness? To what does it point? A witness must be a witness of something. So what does baptism point to? What does it witness? The answer's in our text. It is a witness to the fact that the righteousness of God that Abraham received by faith is acceptable to God as the only means of salvation. In shorthand, we might say it like this. It's a sign pointing to Christ and all of his benefits. One of those benefits is faith, because faith flows from a relationship that we have with Jesus Christ. It doesn't precede it. Faith flows from being in Christ. And so we could say that it points to Christ and to all of the benefits that are in Christ. So when you look at this dish of water up here that we're going to use to baptize these children, you need to understand this is a sign, a perpetual pointer, pointing to Christ and all of his benefits. Okay? Second, I want us to think about baptism as a seal. Baptism as a seal is an abiding pledge that what is signified in baptism, God will always treat as such. I want you to think for a minute about a college seal. I hope I'm right about this, but if I'm not, just hold tight to the illustration. If you have a college degree with an authentic seal on it and your college goes out of business, the state will honor your degree. It's a legitimate degree because it has the seal upon it. Let me put it like this, baptism as a sign is a perpetual witness from God testifying that Christ is offered to all who lay hold of him by faith. And as a seal, God authenticates the truth of that testimony. So we might put it like this. The seal of baptism authenticates the sign or the testimony of baptism, which is exactly what the Westminster Confession says. The Westminster Confession calls baptism a confirming ordinance. Now here we might get a little confused. So let me put it like this, because this is important. We need to think rightly about this sign and seal. This is, I think, sometimes where we get off track. Baptism is not our sign to God of our testimony and the seal of our authentic faith. As if baptism were our gift to God. Or we might say it like this. Baptism is not a sign and seal of our faith for God and all to see. No. Baptism is God's gift to us. It is His witness and His seal to the recipient. That's the right way to think about baptism. Now, I want you to think about this because this is important. The natural implication of that is what we find in the text. Abraham's faith was present prior to his circumcision and the righteousness that he laid hold of was present prior to his circumcision. In other words, circumcision was given to Abraham as God's witness to Abraham, that the righteousness he possessed by faith was both true and authentic. So what is baptism? Well, it's the same as that of circumcision. It's God's witness and God's seal to us. It's God's testimony to us. Now, this raises another question. This is the second question I want to deal with. What does it do? Boy, that's an important question. It's a logical one, but it's an important one. Why is it important for us? Well, because we're Americans. Worth is centralized in function. What does that thing do, right? And here's the answer. You need to understand that what we've been saying so far is that baptism confirms an already present faith. You need to understand that baptism confirms an already present faith that has laid hold of the righteousness that is found only in Christ. Baptism testifies to that. So baptism, as we said, can only confirm what we possess. It does not impart what it signifies. I want to quote a theologian here on this point by the name of Herman Boving. It won't be a difficult quote, but it's an important one. Just listen to it. Faith alone apart from any sacrament, communicates and causes believers to enjoy all the benefits of salvation. Now, if this is still the quote, now, if baptism presupposes this faith, there is no other remaining benefit that could be imparted to believers by baptism. That's the end of the quote. In other words, faith alone in Christ alone is the only way of salvation that the Bible knows. Baptism cannot impart anything further. However, the sign for the believer is not an empty sign. The sacraments, in this case the sacrament of baptism, helps believers to understand and be assured of God's promises and benefits that are to be found in Christ alone. Think of just a few of those benefits that come from the text. Our text says that Abraham, who was justified prior to his circumcision, received the sign and the seal of circumcision as a testimony and confirmation that he was justified before God. That's not an empty sign. It's not an empty authentication. And what is more, since God is the God of the living and gives life to the dead, as Paul says in verses 16 and 17, baptism is the sign and seal of dying to the old and rising to the new life. And that's explained to us more in chapter six. And finally, we see the baptism as a testimony and a pledge to our union with Jesus Christ and our fellowship with his people. wonderful benefits, privileges. But if what I've said is true and what I've quoted from Babak is true, then baptism doesn't impart any of those. Now, I want you to understand something. If that's true, then that raises some serious implications. And at this point, I gotta be a little polemical. It means this. It means that the ability to communicate the benefits of baptism, even the confirmation of them, does not reside in me. My human hands are ancillary to the whole baptismal process. In other words, I don't possess any power in and of my office to call, to summon, demand that the Holy Spirit come down and sort of hover over those waters, dwell in those waters in such a way to make them anything but what they already are, water. Tell you what it also means. It also means the water does not possess anything redemptive in it. In other words, this water is not going to become the blood of Jesus Christ. You see, those things are present in what we might call broader Christendom. The Roman Catholic Church, for instance, believes that the priest is given the power to call the Holy Spirit down upon the water. That's language from the Roman Catholic catechism, so that, So that, and here are the words of the Roman Catholic Catechism, by baptism all sins are forgiven, original sin and all personal sins as well as all punishment for sin. That's the end of the quote. It is by baptism then that sins are forgiven. The Roman Catholic Catechism goes on to say that the principal effects of baptism are regeneration and the forgiveness of sin. You see what that does. That locates the power of the sacrament in the priest's authority to call down the spirit upon the water so that the water becomes, it doesn't transmute itself into something different than water, but it gives it the power of an agent, the power to do what only the blood of Christ can do, to wash away sins and to regenerate. But I want you to know something. That power only resides in the blood of Jesus Christ, of which this is a sign and a seal. This is not a cleansing agent. We do not, we cannot invest a power in that water that only resides in God and him alone. So what is baptism? Well, baptism is a witness and a pledge of all that's offered in Christ. What does it do? It confirms to the believer what God has already accomplished, but this leads to a final question that I wanna deal with this morning. Who should receive the sign and the seal of the covenant? We have two infants here this morning, three maybe. Yep, we have three, at least. Two that are going to be baptized. My guess is that they've been sleeping through everything I've said thus far. But you haven't been sleeping. And so you are asking an obvious question, and here it is. Let's just get it out on the table. If baptism is a confirming ordinance, in other words, if Abraham received the sign and the seal after he had received the thing signified by them, that being salvation in Christ and all the accompanying benefits, then how can you, pastor, administer that water to an infant? Let me take an opportunity to answer that question for you this morning. The first thing that you need to understand is this. I'm gonna give you a covenantal answer. I'm gonna give you three types of answers. First one is a covenantal answer. The first is a covenantal answer. When God gave Abraham the sign and the seal of circumcision, it wasn't only given to him. If you remember, and you can jot this down, we're not gonna go back to it, but if you remember back to Genesis 17, the Lord told him to apply the sign, not only to himself and all the males in his house, but to those males who were eight days old and older. Now, do you understand what that means? It means that the sign and the seal were to be applied to those who may well have not possessed the thing signified by the sign. In other words, whereas Abraham was given the sign and the seal as a confirmation that he was in possession of Christ, now he was to circumcise infants. Abraham was to give the sign and the seal to infants. Now there are two very important things that I want to say about this. These are just the sub points under your sub points. First, we may never argue on principle, as do our dear Baptist brothers, that a person cannot receive the sign before receiving the thing signified by the sign. Why? Because it argues too much. Actually, it argues against God himself. There's a second thing that this reminds us of. This is God's gift, God's witness, God's testimony to us, and not the other way around. The sign and the seal is God's offer of Christ and all Christ's benefits to us. As a sign and a seal, it's God's witness to us and not a testimony of our faith to God. Let me put it like this, whether it was given to adult Abe, 12 year old Ishmael, or little tiny Isaac. It was God's testimony to them. It was God holding out Christ to them. And this leads to the second thing that I want to say. This is the gospel answer. That first one was the covenant answer. This second one is the gospel answer. And here's what I mean. I mean, if God gave it to Abraham as a confirmation of the gospel he possessed, why turn it around and give it to infants who supposedly can't possess it? Well, we need to understand the answer according to the Bible's understanding of salvation. Circumcision and baptism, as God's sign and seal to us, signify Christ held out to us. And if it is Christ held out to us, then it's all about God's doing for us. I just love the way B.B. Warfield puts it. Listen to the way he says this. Every time we baptize an infant, we bear witness that salvation is from God, that we cannot do any good thing to secure it, that we receive it from His hands as a sheer gift of His grace, and that we all enter the kingdom of heaven, therefore, as little children who do not do, but are done for. Big Abraham. Little Isaac. Christ held out. Isaac didn't do for himself that faith by which he laid hold of the righteousness of Christ was not his. At least it didn't originate with him. God enabled him to elicit that response. And it's the same for a little infant. There is no power that resides in Abe or Isaac. that they could summon up and lay hold of Christ. If they did lay hold of Christ, it was because God enabled them both. He did for them what they could not do for themselves. There's a third reason why we baptize them. It's the kingdom answer. It's the kingdom answer. The kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these. It's because of the kingdom of heaven, and it belongs to such as these. Do you remember that statement? It's Jesus' statement. Mark 10, 14. People were bringing children to Him, and when the disciples interfered, He said, the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Let me put it like this. The kingdom of God belongs to these children and all of those who belong to the same category as these children. Now this raises an obvious question, doesn't it? What's the category to which these children belong? That's obvious when you look at the text, isn't it? The answer is these children belong to the category of children whose parents are bringing them to the Lord Jesus. Our children fit that category. These children are the littlest disciples among us. In what sense? In this sense, they have access to all the kingdom's promises and privileges. They have access to the throne of God when they utter their little prayers. They have the privilege of calling God Father when they do pray. They have the right and the privilege of possessing the sign and the seal of the covenant. Now, you may say something like this to me. Are you saying that my children don't need to be born again? Is that what you're saying to me? Absolutely not. Everyone who enters the kingdom of God must be born again. But parents, you'll remember, Paul says, are to teach their baptized children to be faithful. And so we shouldn't be surprised when they exercise an age-appropriate faith and call God Father and pray and desire. I mean, look at the kids when we practice communion. They're wanting to participate. Not just because they can eat a little bread. They can do that at any time. They want to participate in the life of the community. Well then, does that mean that my children don't need to repent and believe? Is that what you're saying? Of course not! The reason I repent is because I do belong. to the kingdom of God. Mom and dad, it's because you do belong to the kingdom that you repent and the same is true of your children. Aren't you to teach them to believe and repent of their sins? Of course you are. These children are going to grow up repenting and believing and thereby laying hold of a kingdom that has been set before them in Jesus Christ and a kingdom that has been theirs ever since they could remember. Why? Because their parents, you, have been bringing them to Jesus through faith and repentance so that they'll grow up never knowing a time when they didn't love him and desire to believe more of him and to be sorry before him more and more. What a privilege. What a joy. And may it be that you teach them to always love the Lord, that they might look with eagerness and earnestness to his coming. Father in heaven, we are thankful for the day. We are thankful for this day because it is your day. Father, as you well know, you have added to the blessing of this day by giving us two baptisms, So Father, we pray and we ask that you will bless this day to us, not because it is something magical that we do, but because what we are applying to these children is the sign and the seal of the covenant. And that means raising them in a certain way, pattern of belief and repentance. that they might always look to your son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and never know a time when they did not love him earnestly. Father, bless us, we pray, for we ask it in Jesus' name, amen.