Responding to Gavin Ortlunds Baptismy takes

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
But I did meet one neighbor. Interesting story, you know
that this guy just moved in, you know, next door
to me. So I'm always one to meet the neighbors.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
You like to chat with the neighbors.

Speaker 1 (00:12):
Yeah, because you know. So I went over to the
gay knocked on the door next door to where I live,
and I say to the guy, I said, hey, I'm
your new neighbor, you know. And I said, good to
see you, you know, nice to nice to run into you,
you know, welcome to the neighborhood, you know. And so
the guy said, I said, what do you do for
a living there, sir? You know, if you don't mind
me asking, you know, what do you do for a living?

(00:34):
I'm a I'm a nightclub comic, I tell the guy.
So he says to me, he says, i'm a I
worked out at the University of Science there. He says,
i'm a. I'm a that's a good school, by the way,
I can't remember the exact place, but he says, I
I'm a professor of logic. So he says. The guy

(00:56):
says logic. Now, what the hell is that? I never
heard tell of that? He says, oh, oh, well, he
says it's a kind of a pattern, of a syllogistic Well,
he says, it's hard to explain.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
He says, why.

Speaker 1 (01:09):
Don't I give you an example? So I said, fair enough,
why don't you do that? So the guy says, well,
he says, let me ask you a question. He says,
do you own a doghouse? So I go, yes, I do.
He says, well, then that means you probably have a dog.
I said yes. He says, well, that means you're likely
you have a family if you have a dog. I

(01:29):
said yes, I do. He said, well, then that means
you got kids, you're married. I said yes, yes I am.
He says, well, then you're a heterosexual man. I said, yes, sir,
I am. He says, well, you see that's logic there.
I asked, if simply from finding out you had a doghouse,
I made this series of inferences, and I've found that

(01:52):
you're a heterosexual man simply from the fact you had
a dog house. Well, I said, good God, isn't that
something okay? So I said, well, I won't waste any
more of your time there, neighbor, And I said, I'll
see you, see you see. I walked down to the
bus stop, and I still thinking about this thing that
happened to me. And I'm standing at the bus and

(02:13):
no bus coming at all, you know, and five or
six of a standing around, and one guy lights up
a cigarette there and he goes, he goes, as soon
as you light up a cigarette, the bus comes and
he smokes the whole damn cigarette. No bus comets. So
I said to the guy, well that theory really worked.

(02:33):
And the guy goes, well, sometimes it works anyways. The
guy goes, what's new with you? I go, well, I
had an interesting thing happened to me today. I said,
I met my neighbor. And he goes, oh, yeah, I go,
he had a hell of an interesting job. I said.
He's a professor of logic now at the University of Science.
And so the guy says, is that So he says

(02:56):
professor of logic. He goes, what the hell is that logic?
I said, well, it's a series of Scilla something or
other night, right, I said, I can't remember exactly, but
I said, I'll give you an example if you want
to hear an example. So the guy goes, all right, good,
fair enough. So I said, let me ask you this.
I said, uh, do you let me ask you a question.

(03:19):
Do you own a dog house? And the guy goes, no,
I don't own a doghouse, So I says, The guy says, oh, yeah,
you're one of them gays.

Speaker 2 (03:34):
Here will work.

Speaker 3 (03:43):
I want to know.

Speaker 4 (03:46):
For anyone who can't get enough focus, Chip and the
rest of us are are here to play along. That
is that is such a great joke. We didn't talk
about that last time. I had the same clip we
played into the last dream, but enormous, just such a legend.
Have you guys seen that clip before?

Speaker 5 (04:00):
Well I've been it twice now, Well yes.

Speaker 4 (04:02):
At least yeah, Yeah, it's it's solid. I mean so
I used to back when I was traveling a lot
for my consulting gig, I would fall asleep to Nor McDonald.
I would just throw on just find YouTube clips compilations
of Norm doing his appearances on various talk shows, or
just his US and olbits. And so there is very

(04:24):
rare that I find a clip of Norm McDonald on
the Internet that I haven't already seen. But he's fantastic
every single time.

Speaker 5 (04:32):
Are you a Norm historian?

Speaker 4 (04:36):
Just about there? There are there are even nerdier Norm
fans than me, But but they're rare. Well, thank you
for setting this up, John last minute, and thanks everyone
for joining us. I reached out to down earlier today
because I was watching the Gavin ortlund A video that
he put out on baptism, and I thought that would

(04:58):
be very apropos and it's fun to talk about some
topical and Gavin's videos are just so great and well
reason so I thought that was worth going through. It
is a forty minute video. I don't know if we'll
try to speed up the clip. I don't have tons
of points to make on it, but I think there
are several key points that he makes that that he

(05:18):
didn't really address. The what I think is the is
the proper rebuttal. So yeah, that's kind of the plan.
But first of all, Chris, how are you doing tonight?

Speaker 6 (05:29):
Good man?

Speaker 3 (05:29):
Good?

Speaker 6 (05:29):
How about you?

Speaker 4 (05:31):
I'm doing great? Man? Yeah? What are you drinking?

Speaker 3 (05:34):
Water?

Speaker 6 (05:35):
Water tonight?

Speaker 4 (05:37):
All right? John? How you doing?

Speaker 5 (05:41):
I'm doing good.

Speaker 7 (05:41):
I'm about halfway done with the pre workout. I wasn't
expecting a second stream tonight, fully, so we'll just we'll
just be chilling here, got the little jitters.

Speaker 5 (05:49):
I have the ants crawling in my skin, so I
think we're doing well.

Speaker 6 (05:52):
Well.

Speaker 4 (05:52):
Your first stream was only an hour and a half long.

Speaker 5 (05:55):
Slight weight, it was compared to.

Speaker 3 (05:58):
Exactly.

Speaker 4 (05:59):
Yeah, it's easy, easy, all right, fair enough, Well, I'm
doing well. I'm drinking. I was drinking some glam Rangie.
I finished that. I'll probably switch to some fool proof
benchmark bourban I'm finishing off a land shark here at
the moment, but staying well lubricated over here. Alrighty, So yeah,

(06:20):
before we dive in, we've got two PAIDA Baptists on
the stream. John, I think I asked you this every
single time, but just I.

Speaker 7 (06:30):
Know, I'm like the odd guy out because I don't
like I was raised Baptist. Okay, so that's my background.
So bat Baptists are credo Baptist. I don't hold to
all of the the Baptist creeds or whatnot. But I
was raised Baptist. So I wasn't baptized till I was
like fourteen years old, right, But where.

Speaker 4 (06:48):
Do you stand on the question of baptism.

Speaker 5 (06:51):
So I again, I was raised Baptist.

Speaker 7 (06:54):
But when it comes to paido Baptist, I think you
can argue it from both a biblical perspective and a
historic perspective. So we've kind of talked about it before,
but I don't get the hate from it from a like,
you know, seventeen hundreds Baptists trying to read back throughout
the last sixteenth centuries of Christianity and being like, actually,

(07:15):
you were all wrong, and I am correct. That doesn't
seem kosher to me, if that makes.

Speaker 4 (07:20):
Sense fair enough. Yeah, And it's worth talking about the
history of Baptists for just one second before we dive
into this, because essentially, I mean, in terms of it's legitimacy,
it could certainly be. I mean, I think it is
part of the legitimate canon of Christian thought, Credo Baptism.
That is, because it comes out of the Reformation, when

(07:44):
a lot of doctions were up for grabs from a
solar solar scripture or perspective, and the idea the tradition
of infant baptism was questioned by many people in the
what we call the Congregationalist group. So moving from the Reformation,
you had Presbyterians, you had Lutherans, and then you had

(08:05):
the Anabaptists. Now, the Anabaptists are not the forefathers of
modern day Baptists. In a real sense, they're more like cousins.
So the Anabaptists came about, and they did believe in
credo Baptism, but they had a bunch of other beliefs
that were pretty shunned, and the Anabaptist got a really
bad name. And then later from the paida Baptist primarily

(08:29):
in the Zwinglian camp of the On the reform side,
they're in the Congregationalists group, so they wanted Congregational church government,
they didn't want Presbyterian church government. Those some people within
those Congregationalist groups started to be convicted in a Credo
Baptist way, and that's where you get the modern day

(08:51):
Baptist coming from them. So it's like you have the
Reformers and then the Anabaptists sort of coming pretty early
with the Reformers, and then you have from the non
Anabaptist group, you've the Congregationalists and the Presbyterians. The Congregationalists,
some of the Congregationalists started to be convicted about Baptism,
and then the Presbyterians continued on to today, and so
that's where you get Baptist ecclesiology and Baptist church polity

(09:17):
is almost always congregational in nature, meaning the congregation is
the largest unit within.

Speaker 7 (09:24):
I mean, there are some conventions like the Southern Baptist
Conventions and a few other ones like my local Baptist
church left their convention because of some of the gayops
going on within the upper leadership of it. So, but
it is, it's so decentralized. One Baptist church might as
well be non denominational if you're trying to compare it

(09:45):
to another Baptist church, like who actually knows what they preach?

Speaker 4 (09:49):
Right, And non denominational churches are almost always well the Baptist. Yeah,
they're usually Baptists in their in their doctrine, and they
are the congregational by nature of being non denominational. So
they're just kind of a continuation of that same trend.
And if you're curious about the creeds, all the kind
of core reform creeds come out of the Westminster Confession.

(10:11):
That's kind of a there are a bunch of continental
creeds and there's a bunch of creeds kind of leading
up to the formation of the Westminster Confession of Faith
and the other standards that came around at the same time,
and those were formed in England and those are a
great condensation of all this creedal thought that had been
simmering in the continent in Europe, that is and England,
and then was condensed in the sixteen fifties ish into

(10:32):
the Westminster Confession of Faith. From there you have the
Savoy Declaration, and that's going to be a little bit later,
and that's going to be congregationalist in nature. And then
later you have the London Baptist Confession in the same century,
but a little bit later, and that's going to be
those Baptists breaking off from the Savoy.

Speaker 5 (10:49):
Folks.

Speaker 4 (10:50):
So that just a little bit historical background. I think
that helps because a lot of people don't really know
how Baptists fit into like anti Baptists and the rest.

Speaker 5 (10:57):
Of the right. It's like it's the same name, so
the same or something.

Speaker 4 (11:00):
Yeah it sound similar, right, mm hmm.

Speaker 7 (11:02):
Well yeah, So as a logan is pointing out chat
and other gentlemen, I mean, I feel like Baptists and
by by proxy nondenoms also are the most susceptible to
modern errors, whether it be dispensationalism, outride Zionism, or.

Speaker 5 (11:16):
Any of these things. Like that's what I grew up.

Speaker 4 (11:18):
With all right, fair enough, I still think you dodged
the question of where you actually stand on the question
of paida baptism versus infant baptism.

Speaker 7 (11:28):
Well so it because I I don't have a hard
answer for you. So for instance, my children are not baptized,
then they probably wouldn't even be able to be baptized
in my church, Okay, And I've never had a.

Speaker 5 (11:44):
True so that's that's the thing where it's I.

Speaker 7 (11:45):
Am thinking through this, So I don't actually have a
hard answer on it, right, But I would say that
there is scriptural basis and obviously historical basis to back
up pata baptism.

Speaker 4 (11:58):
Okay, great, yeah, that's good kind of I think we
can go ahead and start the video.

Speaker 3 (12:02):
Recently, I did a video on the history of infant baptism.
You can see the thumbnail on screen there. That video
had a historical focus. I was just a narration of
the early church. Basically, I didn't get into the arguments
for infantat.

Speaker 7 (12:15):
So before we get into it, this is a forty
minute long video. Do you want to go at one
and a quarter time speed or how fast you want one?

Speaker 4 (12:21):
Requires gaid?

Speaker 3 (12:22):
Okay, baptism people have asked about this. So this video
is going to be sort of a follow up addressing
one particular argument for infant baptism, and that's the parallel
with circumcision in the Old Testament. I'll explain that argument
in just a moment. And this is just one argument
for infant baptism. So if you hold to infan baptism
for different reasons, then this video won't apply to you.

(12:42):
That's fine, just addressing this argument, especially common in the
Reform tradition. Though not only there. Let me reiterate again.
Maybe I went over the top and the last video
saying this, but it really is in my heart. This
is not a gospel issue. It's related to the gospel,
but we can have unity in the Gospel despite our
differences about it. Phyto Baptists are my brothers and sisters
in Christ. There godly and wonderful Christians. If I could
have this conversation in person, I'd give you a big

(13:03):
hug after we have the conversation. It's not personal, it's
not from a skirt of rank or something like that.
It's to promote peaceable understanding amidst our differences. I'm really
proud to be a part of a church that's broadly
reformed but allows for diversity. On an issue like this,
we practice dual practice. I'll do another video on that
sometime as well, but this hopefully could help someone understand
why some of us look at the scriptures and come
to a.

Speaker 7 (13:21):
Co Before we move on, I do kind of want
to get your take on this, because when I heard
this that his church practices the dual side, so right
there they have cred to Baptists and paid a Baptist
within their congregation. Do you think that these two beliefs
can or should coexist?

Speaker 4 (13:38):
Well? Should is an interesting question because I'm not a
huge fan of non denominationalism in general, which I think
would be a difference between Gavin and myself. I am
a fan of denominationalism, meaning the idea that we can
be part of the unified body that's really nice, cat
unified Body of Christ while practicing and holding different doctors

(14:00):
and practicing different practices and still be in communion with
each other, and when we have doctrines, rather than that differ,
rather than letting those doctrines impede our ability to worship
together and actually become points of strife, just physically separating
ourselves in terms of location and where we worship, so
that we can worship in a way that's not distracted
by those differences, but still be part of the unified body.

(14:21):
That's denominationalism. I'm a big fan of that, which would
put me squarely in the evangelical camp. That's basically what
evangelicalism is. And then non denominationalism is a little bit different,
that is more kendigist. It's the extreme of congregationalism that
I'm not a huge fan. So in terms of the should,
I'm not a huge fan of that. However, as someone

(14:42):
who is of the paida Baptist perspective, I guess if
you're going to be non denominational, i'd rather you allow
for infant infants to be baptized within your church than not.
So that I like.

Speaker 3 (14:55):
Credo Baptist view, which is the position that we did
lay baptism until a person makes a credible fession of faith.
Let's dive in. I'll have five sections. First, we'll explain
the title Baptist argument from continuity with circumcision. Second, i'll
describe the typical Credo Baptist response to that argument. Third,
I'll offer an additional my own credo Baptist argument, which

(15:17):
is somewhat new, I think, not totally new. And then fourth,
i'll anticipate two possible replies. Fifth, I'll give some historical precedent.
That section may surprise some people. It definitely surprised me
when I uncovered this many years ago. Thanks to Brandon
Adams for helping me on this. A few others helped
me back in the day on this.

Speaker 4 (15:31):
So first, basically second is an important comment. This is
kind of the reason I like dual practice is because
it avoids what this comment's talking about, the rebaptism. And
that's the thing that the really strict Baptist churches will
will force is if you were baptizing in Anthact and

(15:53):
their theology says that it's not valid, then they will
ask you to be rebaptized. And it consists with the theology,
I understand it. If they feel like it wasn't invalid baptism,
then I understand why they would, you know, want you
to follow Christ's commandment to be baptized.

Speaker 5 (16:09):
The It just it's.

Speaker 4 (16:11):
Really historically icky territory because this was a big deal
back in the Anabaptist rebellion when you had that was
one of the big issues with the Anabaptist coming up,
is this issue of rebaptism, and it got so contested
and so heated that the Reformed camp were actually drowning

(16:33):
the Anabaptists as sort of a way of mocking their
practice of rebaptism. So it's it's icky history.

Speaker 5 (16:40):
Yeah, that's hardcore bro.

Speaker 4 (16:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (16:42):
Well, I know, like in Baptist churches, I've had a
lot of people or seen a lot of people growing
up that like they were baptized as children, right and
they were either Catholic or whatever sort of paid o
Baptist community, and then they we get rebaptized at like
thirty or forty years old, yeah, right after coming back
to the church basically.

Speaker 4 (17:01):
And that's the thing with a Credo Baptist perspective. I
think practically, Gavin makes a practical case for why sort
of a Pascal's wagers how he frames it, for why
Creedo baptism is sort of the safer approach, and I
take the opposite approach, where I think that that infant
baptism is the safer approach just on a purely practical basis.
We can get into that.

Speaker 3 (17:19):
Later connection continuity. Even some will say equation between circumcision
and the Old Covenant and baptism and the New Covenant.
Among many Reformed theologians making this argument, and some outside
the Reform tradition as well, here's a great statement from
BB Warfield. It's long. It's the only I'm trying to
reduce the long quotes. It's the only long one, and
it gets at it so succinctly and so eloquently. So

(17:41):
we've got to go through this. He says it so well.
I forgot quotation marks on this. Hopefully we'll put zef
and I put quotation marks on this. It's Warfield's word,
it's not mine, he says. The argument in a nutshell
is simply this God established his church in the days
of Abraham and put children into it. They must remain
there until he puts them out. He has nowhere put
them out. They are still then members of his church,
and ask such entitle to its ordinances. Among these ordinances, baptism,
which standing in a similar place in the New dispensation

(18:03):
to circumcision in the old, is like it to be
given to children the words I am bolden. They're standing
in a similar place. That's what we're going to get
into right now and say, well, that's not similar exactly.

Speaker 4 (18:12):
And so that quote is from an article by B. B.
Warfield web. Warfield was a Princeton theologian, really important thinker,
someone who I probably model a lot of my theology after.
Just just a great theologian, very profitable to read this stuff.
But that article is called The Polemics of Infant Baptism.
It's a pretty short read and it goes through, point

(18:34):
by point some of the main arguments for and against
infant baptism and his response in very short form. It's
not fully fleshed out, but it provides a lot of
great bullet points for anyone who's wrestling with this issue.
And I highly recommend. It's available for free and audio
form on LibriVox, LibriVox l ib ri i box. You

(18:58):
can buy it for free online as well. Great great article, totally.

Speaker 3 (19:01):
Worth three.

Speaker 4 (19:05):
Well.

Speaker 7 (19:05):
I mean, I think the paido baptism is kind of
an interesting one. So the ultimate question about baptism is
do you need to be baptized to be forgiven for
your sins by God? There are always exceptions to the rule,
but it is one of the one of the commandments
that you must be baptized. So like, for instance, the
thief on the cross was not baptized at his death,

(19:26):
but through the mysterious extra powers of God, he's able
to save who he wants basically, right, So there are always.

Speaker 4 (19:34):
A yeah, the Catholics call that particular one could that
baptism of blood. I believe, Sorry, go ahead, Chris.

Speaker 6 (19:45):
Yeah, yeah, I was. I was going to go into that. Yeah.

Speaker 8 (19:47):
With a thief on the cross example, one could argue
that the thief on the cross was cleansed of all
his sins through the pain and pretty much the purification
of his crucifixion because he was such going through this.

Speaker 7 (20:00):
But even that is an extra baptismal sanctification, right, So
it's like a different method of sanctification.

Speaker 5 (20:06):
So there are.

Speaker 7 (20:09):
Different ways to I guess, achieve the same thing, even
if you're arguing it from that perspective, I mean, and
even in like I believe, I just watched a video
on this today about Orthodox baptism. It's essentially like, if
you're a child who has not been baptized, while the
legally it's like, well, you wouldn't be saved, but there's
like this extra mysterious way that God works in which

(20:29):
to say people who aren't baptized, and there's like theories
and stuff about it like that, but it's not everything
is settled.

Speaker 4 (20:36):
System is one of the most mysterious doctrines, which is
why I get uncomfortable with Baptist theology in any ways,
and Catholic theology as well, where it really seems to
try to explain too much more than we have warrant for.
And of course the Catholics would go and any Orthodox
would go to tradition to give warrant for their explanations.
But in terms of just on a scriptural basis, there's

(20:59):
a lot of mystery around what baptism does, what it
really means, how it should be administered. So and that
as a solo scripture guy, I look at scripture and
I think that that there's still a lot of mystery here.
We can only act sort of within safe guidelines. But
I think that any any approach that tries to oversimplify
it is bound to have error.

Speaker 7 (21:21):
Right, Yeah, I mean, because there's so many different quotes
about it. It's a baptism for remission of sins. Jesus
himself was baptized and then the Holy Spirit descends upon him.

Speaker 5 (21:29):
So, I mean it's.

Speaker 7 (21:32):
There, there's a lot of work, and it's a It's
one of those areas where I'm not really even comfortable
talking about it all that much because of how like
mysterious the inner workings of everything are. And like if
somebody would say, well, does it actually like physically save you?

Speaker 5 (21:45):
Is just the act in and of itself?

Speaker 7 (21:48):
Like it's not the like it's obviously not the water
in and of itself, but like it is the act
of a contrite harder of all the other complexities you
can get into.

Speaker 4 (21:57):
Yeah, I mean the question isn't baptism symbolic burial mix
with bath? I think the big question is how much
of baptism is just symbolism and how much of it
is efficient ritual?

Speaker 3 (22:13):
Right?

Speaker 4 (22:13):
How much of it is a ritual that we do
that has an effect by the simple administration of the ritual.
And the same question is key when it comes to
how you're understanding of the lord's suburb So, I mean
kind of where I fall and where Gavin falls. Is
this kind of middle ground of it's not you know,
God can can, God does the act, He is not

(22:37):
bound to do the act because of the ritual that's performed,
but he does command the ritual, and he does seem
to connect the ritual and the act, but it's ultimately
coming from God. So Gavin and I wouldn't fall under
baptismal regeneration. But it is important that it's done. I
don't know where Gavin sans of this, but for me,
it is important that it is done physically, Like it

(22:58):
is a physical ritual that we must perform in the body.
It matters that we do it physically. We can't just
like symbolically baptized. It's still God working. But the fact
that we we are incarnate creatures, we are high loomorphic creatures.
We're spirit and body mixed into one, and we have
to actually do things. We can't just sort of think

(23:19):
things and and sort of spiritually do things without actually
living them out. You know. We we do not as Christians,
hold to a platonic view of reality, and so we
have to understand that our theology is going to have
a real carnal aspects to it. And that's that's I
think one of the things that comes in to play

(23:40):
when when you're talking about baptism. But again, exactly how
that works is complicated.

Speaker 5 (23:47):
Well, so Gideon's as well.

Speaker 7 (23:48):
It's it's it's a it's a means of grace, right,
And I think as Protestants we get way too far
away from the actual, like real aspects of like the
rituals and the liturgy and stuff like that, where we
we desensitize everything to the point where it's like, well,
it's all symbolic, it doesn't actually do anything, and it
is just you know, you know, we'll say things like, oh, well,

(24:12):
it's just like incense at an Orthodox or a Catholic
mass that means nothing while a smoke machine is blaring
above us. Right, It's like, I don't know's I think
that Protestants fall into that way too much, of getting
rid of every like all of the historical liturgies and
all of the actual like means of grace, right, that
these aren't just empty gestures that we do.

Speaker 3 (24:42):
Typically Reformed Tito Baptists describe this as a relationship of
identity or near identity. John Calvin said, whatever belongs to
circumcision pertains likewise to baptism. Baptism has taken the place
of circumcision to fulfill the same office among us. John
Murray spoke of an essential identit entity of meaning between
circumcision and baptism. Jeffrey Bromiley used the word equation to

(25:05):
describe the relationship between these two rights. As you can
see on the screen, I've done a lot of reading.
I grew up in the Reform tradition. I'm so thankful
for that tradition. That's what I'm trying to speak, respectfully. I'm
so thankful for all that I benefited from in this tradition.
Truly praise God for Presbyterians who taught me so well,
who loved me in Christ. So I read a lot
of these. I'm not giving you, I'm giving you representative statements.
These are from the heavyweights in that tradition. Now, this

(25:25):
idea that circumcision and baptism have this kind of relationship
of identity or near identity is grounded in the historical
interpretation that one has replaced the other. I'll put up
two statements to this effect, from the Heidelberg Catechism and
the Belgian Confession. Think, you know, it's like Steve Young
is replacing Joe Montana. They're both still quarterbacks. One is
coming in for the other. Okay, you have this kind
of you know, from point A to point B. Circumcision

(25:47):
is here and a baptism comes along and takes its place.
Now as a result of that reform title, Baptists tend
to think that the baptism of infants is established by
the mere fact that it's never been abrogated to have
infants included in the covenant community. So Pierre Marcel, another
huge figure in these conversations, what a really influential book says,
if children have to be debarred from the birthright which

(26:07):
they enjoyed ever since there was a church on earth
for thousands of years, in fact, there is need for
a positive commandment which enjoins their excluosit there Louis Birkhoffs.

Speaker 4 (26:16):
So that is the same arguam that Warfield was making,
and that is the idea of where does the burden
of proof follow a fall? Is the burden proof on
the people that want to exclude children from the people
of God or the people that want to continue to
include children and the people of God. In the Old
Testament children were included. Is that one of the things
that in the New Testament, in this new dispensation of

(26:37):
the same one covenant of grace is in this New Testament,
in this new dispensation, are we to exclude children from
the people of God in the same way that now
we baptize rather than circumcising. Is that one of the
things that's changed, And that's the point that Warfield is
making is the burden of proof is on the people
that want to make that change, and so you can

(26:58):
argue for it. But if you can't, are you convincingly
enough to uh cause everyone to see necessarily that we
should make the change? Even if you make valid arguments
they have, it's a higher standard of proof. So I
think that that that's key. Burden Burden of proof arguments
are always a little bit confusing because people will just
sort of state them like, oh, your side has the

(27:19):
burden proof, my side is my side doesn't have the
burden proof, and then not really back that up. But
I do find this to be rather convincing that if
you're going to make a statement like children should be
excluded from the from the visible community of believers then
of presumed believers, then that that does seem like it
would require some kind of an explicit statement scripture. Whereas

(27:40):
with the change from circumcision to baptism, you do have
an explicit commandment, but you don't have that kind of
explicit command in scripture.

Speaker 6 (27:48):
M hm.

Speaker 7 (27:49):
Well, and I guess this is a thing that would
make me really comfortable with paido baptism, right, this sort
of argumentation where it's it has been practiced for thousands
of years, there's biblical inference that there was paid a baptism,
and it's like, well, if it is replacing circumcision, why
would you cut out children from the body of Christ,
the visible body of Christ? Right, Because I mean in

(28:13):
the old comment it was they were circumcised at eight days.
I think it's different in Catholicism when they baptized, but
an Orthodoxy it's I think forty days is when they
when they baptize you as an infant. And I don't
think there's like a hard and fast rule like oh,
if it's not a days, you're outBut or something like that.
But I think that's like, that's that's the when it's
supposed to happen.

Speaker 6 (28:31):
I think then the first few weeks after birth for Catholics.

Speaker 4 (28:36):
And he'll get into it, but it does come down,
I mean the Baptist response, and it's it's a it's
a valid response, but it basically they see in this
new dispensation, they see basically the people of God as
being people who positively affirm their belief. Right, we call
them believers for a reason.

Speaker 5 (28:57):
Well, but I suppose that gets down to original sin.

Speaker 6 (29:00):
Though.

Speaker 7 (29:00):
It's whether you believe but like children are automatically cut
out of the Kingdom of God or whether they're automatically
added to the Kingdom of God. Right, So if you're
a Calvinist and like a hard Predeterminist or a double Predeterminist, right,
and do you believe that some of them are some
of them aren't. I mean, I think that's that's different
whereas Orthodoxy just don't believe in original sin, whereas they

(29:22):
believe in the consequences of original sin. And I believe
Roman Catholics have kind of softened their views over the
years because I believe it used to be a very
traditional like original sin, we've all sin fall short of.

Speaker 5 (29:32):
Goal of God.

Speaker 7 (29:33):
And then they've kind of I don't want to say change,
but softened on it or like a reworded it over
the last few years.

Speaker 4 (29:42):
I would hesitate to say that I don't have to
do original sin is is crucial and it comes to
how you understand baptism. In terms of how you explain baptism,
it's not as important in the debate of whether to
do baptism at infancy or adulthood or coming of age.

(30:03):
It's more important in terms of how you justify why
you do it in one case or the other. And
that's where Baptists will get on Presbyterians for the way
they practice infant baptism is justified in a different way
than Catholics justify infant baptism. And that's a valid criticism,
is that we have different reasons or justifications for why
we do one or the other. But that alone doesn't

(30:27):
The fact that we don't understand a practice perfectly or
didn't understand a practice perfectly in history, which is what
Presbyterians would say, doesn't necessarily negate the validity of that practice.

Speaker 5 (30:49):
Oh sorry, it's sloading for me. I don't know if
I cut out.

Speaker 6 (30:52):
No, you're good?

Speaker 5 (30:56):
Hello? Am I still here?

Speaker 4 (30:57):
We can hear you? Yeah, video is not playing now,
can you guys hear me?

Speaker 7 (31:03):
Why can't I? I apologize? I have to leaven come
back for a second because I don't know what happened.
If my internet cut out or what, But I'll be
right back.

Speaker 4 (31:10):
No worry, We'll go to the chat. You've forgot any
comments here?

Speaker 5 (31:13):
Oh I think my browser crashed?

Speaker 6 (31:14):
Uh oh.

Speaker 5 (31:17):
Okay, stream Yards is the chat says they.

Speaker 6 (31:21):
Hear you, but can't hear us.

Speaker 8 (31:30):
Technical difficulty, folks, there's.

Speaker 4 (31:35):
Always at least one every stream that's right, normally me.

Speaker 5 (31:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (31:41):
How is your day?

Speaker 1 (31:42):
Where?

Speaker 4 (31:43):
Just normal day at the office.

Speaker 3 (31:44):
What do you do for work?

Speaker 4 (31:45):
If you don't want me asking, if you don't want
to say, that's okay.

Speaker 8 (31:48):
Oh no, it's fine. I am an automation technician. I
work on a robotics line. I maintain all the robotics.

Speaker 6 (31:55):
Nice. Yeah, it.

Speaker 4 (31:58):
Sounds like a nice combination of technical and practical engineering skills. Engineer.

Speaker 8 (32:04):
Yeah, no, I'm not, even though engineering is in my title.
So a bit of a quasi engineer, I suppose.

Speaker 5 (32:11):
Cool.

Speaker 6 (32:12):
Cool.

Speaker 4 (32:12):
How'd you get into that?

Speaker 8 (32:14):
Just the military experience kind of threw me into the trade. Yeah, yeah,
a lot of technical background.

Speaker 3 (32:21):
Awesome.

Speaker 6 (32:22):
But yeah, we'll see how long that lasts.

Speaker 4 (32:28):
Hello, my apologies, you can hears okay, yes, right?

Speaker 6 (32:34):
Not having a.

Speaker 7 (32:35):
Degree, Well, I don't know what it is, either stream
Yards or Brave Browser, but it does crash like every
two two and a half hour might be. And so
I I could not hear you, guys, but apparently you
guys hear me. It's which is all my settings around.

Speaker 4 (32:50):
M No, you're good, all.

Speaker 5 (32:52):
Right, shall we continue, Let's do it.

Speaker 3 (32:55):
In fact, there is need for a positive commandment which
enjoins their exclusion. Louie birk Off says this. For twenty
centuries children have been formally initiated into the church, and
the New Testament does not say that this must now cease.
Some go so far as to say that any argument
against infant baptism is necessarily an argument against infant circumcision.
So I am not trying to straw man here. I'm
actually trying to steal man. I'm trying to show the

(33:16):
nature of the reasoning here. There's a very strong identity
between circumcision and baptism. What we're getting into here is
the doctrine of the church or ecclesiology. That's I think
the decisive point in this conversation, and it's in particular
the relationship between Israel and the Church and basically continuity
and discontinuity, because this is what I think is determinative
for the question of Tito Baptism versus Credo Baptism, because
baptism is the entrance into the Church. Therefore, as our

(33:38):
doctrine of the church goes, our doctrine of baptism will follow.
And so moving into the second section, we could sum
up the Credo Baptist's response that is typically given with
the three words I'll put on the screen, and that
is too much continuity, okay, and this isn't because now,
by the way, so so in other words, Tito Baptists
are saying, look, these are essentially the same and one
has replaced the other, and Credo Baptist come along its say, no,

(34:00):
not so much, that's true. That's that's flattening out the
movement a bit. That they're not. That's that's emphasizing continuity
too much and not having enough discontinuity. Just to be
clear about this, this is not a Credo Baptist or
not so far in the opposite direction like dispensationalists who
really want to push against any continuity with the Church
and Israel. Okay, some contemporary Credo Baptists, of course believe that.

(34:20):
But historically Credo Baptists, like historic Baptists, like Miamiah Cox
for example in the seventeenth century. Check this book out,
really good book. That The argument he's making is on
the basis of covenant theology, and the basic appeal is, yes,
there is overarching continuity from the Abraham Covenant to the
New Covenant, but there's also some development and some crescendo
within that unity such that the meaning of circumcision can't
just be carried over a wholesale to the meaning of baptism.

(34:42):
They're not They're they're similar, but they're not identical. Here's
how Carl Bart put in recognition of the unity between
the Old and New Covenants does not include an immediate
transfer of what is the Second Covenant Old Testament circumcision.

Speaker 5 (34:54):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (34:55):
This quote is concerning for a couple of reasons. One
because part is always uh tricky when it comes to
talking about Bart, because he has some very interesting ideas,
many of which are actually heretical. But also I'm not
sure in this in the brackets here where it says
between the Old and New Covenants, I don't know if
Gavin added that or if that is a fair bracketed

(35:15):
statement from what Bart is saying. But talking about the
Old Testament and the New Testament realities as being different
covenants is already a major break from traditional covenant theology,
which thinks of all time after the Fall as being
part of one covenant of grace. So I'm not sure
exactly what he's trying to say there, Yeah.

Speaker 5 (35:38):
Just hm hmm.

Speaker 4 (35:41):
It's it's interesting quote. I'm not sure exactly where's he's
taken this.

Speaker 5 (35:45):
So what are some of some of this guy's other
ideas that make him heretical?

Speaker 4 (35:48):
So Carl Bart it basically he is a reaction to liberalism,
to liberalism in a in a Christian technical sense. Right,
So there's this whole concept of Christian liberalism which takes
basically the ideas of Kant and postmodernism thinking that came

(36:11):
after Kant and says that we can't. It basically posits
a double theory of truth, saying that yes, we know
everything is material here, but it kind of helps us
to think spiritually and that it's beneficial to be in
touch with our spirituality, even though it's not real, even

(36:32):
though when we die we just get buried and eaten
by bugs and nothing happens, but it's helpful to kind
of think of there being a Heaven, and so liberalism
is just is not Christianity, right. Machen wrote a famous
book called Christianity and Liberalism, basically saying that the two
are not the same thing. You have Christianity on one side,
and you have liberalism the other. There's no such thing
as Christian liberalism. It just doesn't exist, or it doesn't

(36:53):
doesn't work. It's a set of concepts and beliefs that
are incompatible with Christianity. So Bart is very much he
was trained in this liberalist thinking and then reacted to that,
coming back to a semblance of orthodoxy, realizing that no
God is real and there is actual reality here even

(37:14):
though we can't know it. So he bought into Kantian
philosophy very seriously and saw the epistemological gap between what
we can know and reality. But he took that to
an extreme that basically said we can't know God literally

(37:34):
at all because of his transcendence. He didn't have much
of a sense of God's imminence, at least in my
view of Bart. Bart was very paradoxical in terms of
how he would talk, but he didn't seem to recognize
the imminence of God as opposed to the transcendency of
the transcendence of God is just is so much. You know,
he's outside of this whole system, so we can't really

(37:56):
understand him. But God covenantally, this recovenant theology is key.
God covenantally speaks into the world and tells us things
about himself, reveals to us things about himself that we
can understand in the context of his covenance with us.
And that's essentially what coven theology is all about. It's
about trying to reconcile the transcendence of God and the

(38:16):
imminence of God. And Bart seemed to emphasize too strongly
the transcendence and so his when it comes to scripture,
he doesn't really hold to a very high view of scripture.
It's higher than liberals would have, but it's still his
view of scripture is scripture is inspired inasmuch as its

(38:42):
inspiration its inspiration as being inspired is in its becoming inspired.
In other words, as you read scripture, you get inspired
by the Holy Spirit in your reading of scripture, and
so then your thoughts on scripture or are in some
sense inspired. And that's where scripture becomes inspired, is in

(39:04):
the in the conce the being is in the becoming. Right,
that's a key phrase when it comes to bartis being
in becoming. And that was a key view that he
had on scripture and in terms of the trinity in God.
And he had some poretical views. I can't think of
a specific one off the top of my head. He

(39:25):
tends to be universalist. He doesn't ever come out explicitly
saying that he is a universalist that everyone goes to Heaven,
but he definitely says things that make one think that
he is, and he usually gets put into the universalist
camp pretty legitimately. It seems like, so that's one way
heresy is basically denying the existence of Hell, or at

(39:46):
least the permanent existence of people being in Hell.

Speaker 7 (39:49):
Yeah, well, do you think that a universalism kind of
lends to credo baptism, Because if it's just a display
of your public confession of faith rather than something an
actual like means of grace, that that's a self ethic action, right,
Because if you're a universalist, then it doesn't actually matter.

(40:10):
If that makes sense, that kind of leads to a
credo baptist, not saying that one leads to the other,
but that there's like an attachment there of some means.

Speaker 4 (40:19):
I don't know. It seems a little bit beside the
point to me.

Speaker 5 (40:22):
I'm just curious about it. There's the tangle with there, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (40:26):
To what must be said about New Testament baptism, as
though the definitions and meaning of the two were simply interchangeable.
This is where what this book is doing. Paul Jewett
telet Fuller seminary for many years. This is a remarkable book.
This is basically what he's saying. He's saying there's an
essential continuity throughout the Biblical covenants. But he's saying Tito
baptism reformed pyto baptism, that is, tends to stretch this
out and flatten out the developments. So it's not just

(40:47):
nothing other than continuity. There is some crescendos, some movement,
some typological fulfillment, and so on and so forth. And
he says, basically, the relationship between circumcision and baptism is
similar to the relationship between Old and New Testament. More
generally there's but there's also a movement, and so he says,
for that reason, circumcision is neither unlike baptism, so it
is similar, nor is it identical with it. I took

(41:08):
a picture with my phone about ten minutes ago of
page two thirty nine of this book. I'll put that
picture up. You can see these three figures, not figure one.
That's two dispensation.

Speaker 4 (41:16):
Yeah, so he's saying that this figure three, and I
basically agree, and I think that the performers would basically
agree to They might expand the circle of baptism a
little bit in this then diagram representation. Yes, Kevin, just
like Kamala Harris like spin diagrams.

Speaker 5 (41:30):
So explain this to me. Says circumcision and baptism around
the same circle.

Speaker 4 (41:34):
So basically he's saying, it's not total dissimilarity, which we
figure one. It's not total identity, which we figure two.
It's figure three where baptism is similar to circumcision but
not identical. Now, whether you put baptism on the outside
or on the inside, I guess because baptism came later,
it makes sense to put on the inside. Certainly within
the Baptist context, it makes sense put in the inside.

(41:54):
You could also put them as two separate circles with
some overlap. I don't know that would quite work as well.
But the key point that I'm taking from this is
the idea that they are they're similar but not identical.
And I think the key thing that Gavin is perhaps missing,
or at least in his explanation is, as I understand
the reformers, the presumption is towards similarity, but they're not

(42:20):
claiming identity. So they would basically claim that there is
a similarity unless otherwise stated in scripture, and so they
presume similar unless they can be shown clearly in scripture
that it is to be practiced in a different way,
again going back to the fact that the actual practice
of circumcision and baptism are clearly different. So that's one
big dissimilarity that all Christians would affirm. But the idea

(42:44):
that the presumption is towards similarity would lend itself to
a to a paido Baptist perspective, where because scripture doesn't
clearly say not to practice this thing towards children, then
we are going to practice baptism towards children, just like
we would circumcision towards children. But he is claiming more

(43:06):
or less that figure three only applies to Baptist that
the reformers would have held to a figure two perspective
where they basically saw a virtual identity between circumcision and baptism,
and I think that's just he's overstating the case a
little bit.

Speaker 7 (43:23):
And then Figure one, where they're completely separate, meaning like
non continuous, like not a replacement for one.

Speaker 4 (43:28):
Yeah, that would basically be like a dispensational perspective.

Speaker 3 (43:34):
Yeah, but it's also not Figure two where circumcision and
baptism are the exact same. That's two Presbyterian for Jewet's standpoint.
Now he's saying, it's more like Figure three. There's some movement,
there's some honing in, there's some tightening, there's some clarification,
there's some fulfillment from the type to the anti type
and so forth. That's his case. There's lots of cases
like this. David Kingdon. This book on Screen is another
book that makes this kind of argument. So, in other words,

(43:55):
the Credo Baptist is coming along and saying, yes, amen
to Covenant theology, amen to continuity, a similarity between circumcision
and baptism, but it's not identical. That flattens it out
too much. From a Credo Baptist perspective, you have essential continuity,
but also movement, just like you have between the Passover
meal and the Lord's Supper. They're similar, one does indeed

(44:15):
fulfill the other, but they're not so identical that you
can just say, well, children got the Old Covenant meal,
therefore children get the New Covenant meal. Voila tido communion,
and that's it. So that's how it's commonly put. Okay,
all this is, by the way, just background information. This
is just background context, so I can set up my
own argument, which is going to go a little further. So,
this way of construing continuity and discontinuity from a Credo
Baptist perspective is how you're going to go with the

(44:38):
entire people of God, not just the right of initiation,
but the entire people of God. And a Credo Baptist
view basically would say that the church is the children
of Abraham, defined in a literal sense in the Old Covenant,
as you can see Genesis seventeen here, and then defined
in a typeologically fulfilled way in the New Covenant, which
is basically, the children of Abraham are the people who
have faith in Jesus. So no longer is the New
Covenant community. There is some change that is explicit and

(45:01):
Jeremiah thirty one, it's like it's like the prophet is saying,
this Covenant is not going to be like that covenant.
And there's some changes. And here's one of the changes.
No longer are you going to have one person teaching
another to know the Lord, for they will all know
the Lord. Everybody in the New Covenant knows knows the Lord,
has faith. That that's the Credo Baptist's vision, a movement
and a fulfillment, a clarification, a honing in the church
is more like the remnant of Israel than just all

(45:21):
of Israel as such. So that's all backdrop. You don't
have to agree or disagree with anything. The Catholics who
are watching, I'm not attacking you. I'm always kind of
trying to, you know, word things off here. So this
is a conversation but happening between like you know, congregate
some of the Congregationalists and the Baptists on the one hand,
and like the Presbyterians and some of the other Continental
Reform on the others. Is within the Reform tradition, the
Tito Baptist, the Credo Baptists. Okay, that's background context. Now

(45:42):
third section of the video. Here's the new argument I
want to throw onto the table. I hope it could
have some broader relevance and just be interesting maybe to
the Lutherans watching, even if it's not really retargeting them,
just just for this discussion. Because other argument. Other traditions too,
will talk about circumcision a little bit, they just don't
put as much emphasis on it as the reform tradition.
So this is an argument I've developed over the use.
It's published in the theology journal, the Melios Great Journal.

(46:03):
If anyone interested, I'll leave a link in the video description.
You can see a picture of it on screen. Now
my argument, this is something I've developed ever since I
wrestled with this so acutely in my own ordination process
back in two thousand and six, two thousand and seven.
In that time period, I'm getting old, twenty years amazing.
This is consistent with what Bart and Jewett are saying.
This is consistent with the too much continuity appeal. Okay,
it's agreeing with them that basically figure three is better

(46:25):
than figure two. Circumcision and baptism, from this perspective, are similar,
They're just not totally identical. Okay. But it goes one
step further, and it wants to make this appeal that essentially,
even if we did want to identify circumcision and baptism,
the result would not be title baptism as it's practiced
in the majority of reform title Baptist churches today. In

(46:46):
other words, the problem is not just with the equation
here between baptism and circumcision, but with how circumcision has
been construed in the first place. Okay, let me here's
the argument in a nutshell. In Genesis seventeen, the proper
subjects of circumcision are identified as you. That's Abraham and
your offspring or seed or descendants. That's the word in
purple after you, throughout their generations or for the generations

(47:10):
to come. Okay, the purple word there is the Hebrew
word zara, meaning seed. That's the King James offspring, that's
the ESV or descendants that's NIV, nasb RSV, and a
few others. These are the intergenerational descendants of Abraham that
will come to comprise the nation of Israel. Hence the
qualifying phrase for the generations plural to come, or the

(47:31):
phrase a little bit later in Genesis seventeen twelve, every
male throughout your generations. Okay, the recipients of circumcision are
this national and intergenerational body of people. So when we
go back to what comes up here, then is a
worry about an equivocation on the word children. To go
back to Warfield's quote, God establish his church and put
children into it. Okay, now we have to ask, well,

(47:53):
which children. There's not all children in the world. The
children who are in view and explicitly identified as the
recipients of circumcision in Gen. Seventeen are the seed of Abraham,
and that is quite distinct from the child of one
or more believing parents in the New Covenant community. Throughout
the Old Covenant, the lines of Covenant were never established
around particular believing households within Israel, like moms and dads

(48:15):
and their kids and servants in that time, but rather
around the national family of Abraham that comprised an intergenerational people.
To put it simply, people did not get circumcised because
mom or dad made a credible profession of faith, as
happens today with baptism. And so what I'm trying to
draw attention to here is ecclesiology for the doctor of
the church. I'm trying to say, these are different systems.
Children of Abraham on the one hand, children of believers

(48:36):
on the other. They seem to me to be different ecclesiologies,
different systems that result in different definitions of the word children. Okay,
though the Hebrew word zara doesn't mean children in the
sense of one generation like mom and dad have a child.
And this raises the question if that's the basis for
infant baptism then and that was practiced intergenerationally, then why
not practice baptism intergenerationally? In other words, I shouldn't the

(49:00):
grandchildren of believers be considered eligible for baptism. Here's a
following scenario. John Senior is a devout saint in a
particular title Baptist church. John Junior, his son attends the
church on Christmas and Easter nominally, but he has never
personally professed faith and is not a member of the church.
John the third, his child is one week old. Okay,

(49:23):
question is should John the third be considered a member
of the church and a proper candidate for baptism. Most
contemporary Pito Baptists say no to this. Historically they mostly
said yes, as I will document in section five of
this video, though that changed over time, but initially, but
if the argument for baptizing infants arises from continuity with circumcision,
why not baptize John the third and for that matter,
John the fourth and so on and down the line.

(49:44):
If we're truly arguing from continuity with circumcision, on what
basis can we distinguish the covenantal status of John Junior
and John the third? And what this highlights is that
even if we accepted the premise of covenantal phyto baptism,
namely this kind of equation between baptism and circumcision, it
wouldn't actually result in contemporary po Baptist practice, where the
church is defined as those who believe in their children

(50:05):
one generation.

Speaker 4 (50:06):
I have a response with them, but I want to
let him make his full point.

Speaker 5 (50:09):
Okay, yeah, because this is going on. I don't know
if people are following. It's very very dense on this.

Speaker 4 (50:15):
Okay, let me let me break it down. Then, So
essentially he's saying, so why not baptize grandchildren because most
paid a Baptists today do not, at least in the
in the Presbyterian cerles and who he's mainly talking against
he's not really talking to Catholics, but most Presbyterians would
would only baptize children of believing parents. And in other words,

(50:40):
they're trying to baptize people that are within a community
of believers, and they're presuming that they are of the
people of God. Right, That's what it comes down to,
a presumption of inclusion in the people of God versus
a presumption of exclusion. And the the traditional view is

(51:00):
to be much more charitable in that presumption, whereas the
Baptist tendency is to be much more exclusive. They tend
to want a purer church. They tend to want the
people who are members of the church in any sense
to be real, professing believers, whereas the traditional view is

(51:21):
much more charitable. I think Catholics will pretty much accept
anyone to be baptized, assuming that that they have people
that are bringing them to be baptized. I think if
even if the parents aren't particularly pious, they'll they'll still
baptize them. They don't really interrogate the parents to make
sure that they have a true faith. And so it

(51:41):
comes down to a perspective of do you be charitable
in that presumption or do you try to seek a
pure church? And in terms of the distinction between the
visible church and the invisible church, right, the visible church,
we know that they are going to be unbelievers within
the visible church, but in the invisible church, those are
only going to be made up of the people that
actually believe. There's always going to be discontinuity between those

(52:03):
two groups. But are you more charitable in your view
of the visible church or are you less charitable? And
the whole concept of a pure church is you see
a lot of the same tendencies in the Anabaptist sex
and there are modern day Anabaptist sex right Mennonites are
very much i mean directly descendant from certain Anabaptist groups,

(52:25):
and there are other modern day Anabaptists breakoffs, and they
tend to be very active in the like the shunning concept,
where if someone does leave their group, even just in
terms of practice, right, they don't leave the faith. They're
still believing in Christ, but they decide to start wearing
lipstick and pretty clothes, and now all of a sudden
they get shunned by all their close relatives, and anyone

(52:48):
who associates that with them would also be shunn you,
we have some second degrees shunning, and so they're very
very careful about trying to maintain the purity of the
visible Church. They don't want any one to be in
the visible church that's not also in the invisible church,
and that can just have some problems. I think that
it is it seems more prudent to be charitable in

(53:13):
that regard, since we are called to judge not we
are called to not make that call in terms of
whether other people are saved or not saved, and so
the presumption for people that are within the community of believers,
which children of professing Christians, would seem to be that
we should presume that they really are Christians. I mean,
I grew up never having not known Christ, and so
I didn't have to be baptized to know Christ. I

(53:36):
always knew Christ. And you would hope that the children
of believers grow up in that same kind of situation,
and so it makes sense for the church to presume
that of them. Now when it comes to grandchildren. He's right.
Traditionally there were a lot of groups that would I
mean Calvin specifically wrote this, and he gets to this
in the video. Calvin advised John Knox to allow grandchildren

(54:01):
to be baptized even if their direct parents didn't believe.
And this was a whole debate in the In the US,
when you basically had a break, you had much more
congregational denominations in the US. They were they were in
really denominations. You had a lot of congregationalism within the

(54:22):
US because they had broken from the Church of England
and they had to figure out they had to debate
as well whether or not to allow grandchildren to be baptized.
And they called it the halfway Covenant. So it's a
famous conflict in the early US theological conversation. And so
it was the halfway covenant in the sense that you know,
the the children were fully in the covenant, but then

(54:44):
the grandchildren, if the children rejected God to the grandchildren
were sort of like halfway in the covenant, and so
you still baptize them as a part of the halfway covenant.
And that that did tend to be problematic. The response
to what Gavin is saying is that in a very
communal society, when everyone is when children, even children being

(55:07):
raised by unbelieving parents, are also being poured into by
their grandparents and by the community around them, where the
overall community is Christian in nature, then just because their
parents are out of staff with that community doesn't necessarily
mean we should presume that those children are also going
to be outside of that community. And so that's why

(55:28):
it would make sense in that kind of context to
baptized grandchildren and even great grandchildren if there's still part
of this overall community that is believing and encouraging them
to believe. Just one you break in that generation isn't
necessarily enough to presume them outside of the community of
visible believers. However, in the modern atomistic American society and

(55:52):
just the situation that you find across the world mostly today,
that doesn't really hold anymore. We don't have this kind
of communal society where you can count on a Christian
community to raise or help raise your kids in Christian doctrines.
So basically, if the parents don't believe you kind of
you gotta presume that they're probably not going to believe

(56:14):
either unless you evangelize them and bring them into the community.
So it makes more sense in a modern secular society
to presume that the children of unbelieving parents are outside
the community rather than inside whereas at one point it
made more sense even if the parents were unbelieving in
the larger context to assume that they were inside the community.

(56:36):
That's a lot of words, but does that broadly make sense?
That that is essentially the retort to what he's this
this sort of novel argument that he's making. It's not
that novel, but it is a good point. And I
think that this is the key to rebutting that point,
is that it made sense that in a more communal context.

Speaker 7 (56:55):
Well, yeah, no, I totally get that. And there are
plenty of parents who they are they've fallen away or whatnot,
but they are not opposed to their children like so
like their grandparents or their aunts or their uncles going
to services, you know, even in like my contexts like vacation,
Bible school, whatever, it is being part of a church,
even if they aren't practicing attendants. So the grandchildren can

(57:16):
totally be like So that that that's a great argument
for paida baptism. So I don't, I don't even in
today's standards.

Speaker 5 (57:23):
So I don't know. I mean, I'm getting more and
more convinced about paida bent.

Speaker 4 (57:28):
To Baptist.

Speaker 3 (57:33):
Continuity. Here is actually its own kind of change. All right,
fourth section this, I've had a lot of conversations about this.
Oh man, do I remember, you know, going off for
a drink in Saint Louis with my Presbyterian friends and
just hang hammering this out. And so I've heard, you know,
I've I've had a lot of these conversations. So I've
I've come to anticipate how some will experience this. So
let's anticipate two possible replies to consider. Number one is

(57:55):
someone might say, well, look, the children of Abraham and
the children of believers are identical because un faithful Israelites
were excommunicated. So in other words, they're going to just
deny that there is any discontinuity here. And they're going
to say, look, there was excommunication throughout the Old Covenant era,
and that's true in fact, and there's also gentiles who
can be engrafted in and then their children would be circumcised.

(58:16):
So that's true. However, it's very difficult to see eligibility
for circumcision as conditional on the faithfulness of one's parents,
even if there is excommunication for some very high handed
since first thing to observe is I don't think that's
the traditional reform view Calvin. If you read Calvin's commentary
on Genesis seventeen, for example, he's repeatedly emphasizing that the
outward right symbolizes the inward reality, but it is not

(58:37):
conditional on whether that inward reality has been received. So
the sign of circumcision is a perpetual ordinance, rumbling on
from generation to generation. And that's Calvin's you, and he's
I think he's right because the text doesn't say circumcision
is for you and your seed after you, for the
generations to come whose parents also believe. It says it's
for your seed after you, and that is what Calvin
is saying.

Speaker 4 (58:58):
I think would have been um to be within the
people of God. Right, the argument doesn't really carry over,
or if it does carry over, it carries over in
you have to take the context into account, and all
people within the people of Israel, the people of God
were presumed to be within the people of God, even
if a particular parent was excommunicated or out right.

Speaker 5 (59:19):
So that's what I think.

Speaker 7 (59:21):
He's interpreting this through a super modernist lens and like
a you know, like a Northern California preppy route where
like five percent of your community maybe goes to church, right,
and so they're so divorced from any sort of church
going habits that it seems strange to take a child
who has no concept of Christ or will not because

(59:42):
of his parents or family or whatnot, and.

Speaker 5 (59:44):
Then baptize them.

Speaker 7 (59:44):
But that's just not the historical norm.

Speaker 4 (59:49):
Yeah, which is why you see different practices. And he
gets this again, but this is why you see different
practices in the churches or the nations where they have
like a national church, they tend to be much more
charitable in terms of baptisms. They don't require a strict
profession of faith from the parents because supposedly, you know,

(01:00:09):
at least in name, the whole country is Christian, and
so they're presuming that the children will be raised in
that Christian context. Now you get problems when it comes
to like, I mean, England is still technically a Christian country,
but it is in name only. They are I think
they still are required to teach the Bible in schools,
but if you hear first hand accounts of what that's like,

(01:00:33):
it's totally secular nature. They'll teach the Bible, but the
professors don't believe it. The children are raised to be
extremely cynical about it. They don't see it as being
true at all. They hate the classes, and so it's
a Christian nation without Christianity. And this is really this
is what happens when liberalism takes over and everyone just
becomes extremely cynical and adopts this kind of Either they

(01:00:57):
adopt this double theory of truth where yeah, it's true
virtually but not really, or they just reject the spiritual
nature of it at all and become completely materialistic and
just sort of grin and barrett when they have to
take the classes.

Speaker 7 (01:01:13):
I mean, talking about England, it's an interesting case, but
they are actually one of the countries that has church
attendance on the rise.

Speaker 5 (01:01:19):
Which is a very very recent change.

Speaker 7 (01:01:23):
And we're to kind of seeing that trend due to
world factors that are driving people to seek something more
than just their secular worldview, because I mean, we've seen
the end goal of liberalism.

Speaker 4 (01:01:37):
Yeah yeah, I mean, I sure hope that the next
generation is starting to realize that you've got to have
some meaning in your life. You can't just be endlessly cynical.
I think gen Z is still really cynical, but there's
there are enough people that are realizing there has to
be something outside of us. Hopefully that continues.

Speaker 3 (01:02:00):
Throughout the Old Testament. In Joshua five, for example, where
you have the entire nation circumcised on certain events, it's
just for everybody, it's for the whole nation. You don't
have to make a profession of faith in order to
become eligible for circumcision if you're a part of the
nation of Israel, and I would say that it rumbles
on so much apart from faith that you can even
have times where later on you're going to find the
prophets saying almost everybody is uncircumcised in heart, even if

(01:02:20):
they've been physically circumcised. Here's Hownamaia Cox, the Baptist seventeenth
century theologian put it, the right of the remotest generation
was as much derived from Abraham and the covenant made
with him as was that of his immediate seed, and
did not at all depend on the faithfulness of their
immediate parents. Now this is not to say that there
was no ex communication or that there was no engrafting
of gentiles. That's true, but excommunication typically happened in response

(01:02:41):
to very specific and high handed sins like witchcraft and
sorcery and blasphemy, particularly egrecious forms of idolatry and so forth.
So I don't think we can infer that everybody who's
not excommunicated had personal faith. Membership in the nation of
Israel had cultural and national and economic and social dimensions,
and huge numbers of Israelites remained Israelites without any evidence

(01:03:03):
of personal faith, with about any articulation of personal faith.
Just think of all the kings.

Speaker 4 (01:03:07):
That actually goes to one of the explicit changes that
takes place in the scripture. In the Old Testament, you
were presumed merely by the fact of being a member
of the people of Israel to be a member within
the visible people of God. But in the New Testament
it was explicitly shown that you don't have to just

(01:03:28):
be circumcised in body, you have to be circumcised in
the heart. And so that is a explicit change from
just sort of physically going through the motions to now
you actually have to buy into it mentally in terms
of even having that presumption, or at least now I'm

(01:03:49):
starting to sound like a Baptist. But the point is,
the presumption was that everyone in the Old Testament was
if you were an Israelite, you were in the people
of God, whereas in the New Testament it's restricted to believers.
And then we presume that the children of believers will
also be believers. Right we understand that below you know,

(01:04:12):
a certain age when they don't even haven't developt rationality,
they might not be believers, but they have to show
themselves to be not believers before we're going to assume
that they're not believers, rather than assuming they're not believers
until they show themselves to be believers, which is more
the Baptists perspective. So it still is a we still
do even as paido Baptists expect a profession of faith.

(01:04:35):
We do expect belief. That's how we view ecclesiology. But
we presume, out of a heightened sense of charity, that
children are believers or will be believers once they come
into their rationality, if they're being raised properly in a
community of believers.

Speaker 3 (01:04:57):
Kings, for example, who remained God's kings over God's people
despite total rejection of God's loss. Another response could be
to say, but the children of Abraham entails the children
of believers, even if it's not identical with it. So
here's some might respond by admitting that having parents who
did not possess faith did not qualify, disqualify in this
real life from covenant status. But there's still enough overlap

(01:05:20):
between the children of Abraham intergenerationally and the children of
believers one generation to establish some kind of precedent for
pito baptism. But I just would say, it's hard for
me to know how you get from point A to
point B there. Why would it entail that specifically? Why
not two generations when not three generations? This does seem
to be a deviation from the standard Phypo Baptists claim

(01:05:41):
that I've tried to document where you have. You know,
people are saying things like you know, for twenty centuries
it's been this way, so you need a commandment against
it to if you're not going to baptize infants and
so forth. And this seems to go against, you know,
with those statements from Warfield and Calvin and others, and
again you just wonder, why stop it one generation? The
issue here is, Okay, if it entails something, why do

(01:06:01):
we get this particular ecclesiology those who believe in their
children you're not going to baptize your grandchild or.

Speaker 4 (01:06:07):
The answer is purely contextual a lot of basis.

Speaker 3 (01:06:09):
There's a lot of infantry.

Speaker 4 (01:06:10):
Society, right as as society becomes more atomized, and you
know where the only people that you can really presume
are going to be raised in Christian teachings are the
direct descendants. If you live in a society where that
was not the presumption, then yeah, you might baptize grandchildren
just like Alvin recommended. Yeah, and so that is basically
his argument. Yeah, if you want, I mean, we we

(01:06:34):
could if you guys are good to keep going through it.
I'm happy to keep going through it. If if this
is a little too heavy or you feel like we've
kind of beating it down, we could jump ahead to
sort of his closing remarks where it makes kind of
a practical case.

Speaker 7 (01:06:49):
Uh so skipping the two historical context conclusion, go to
the conclusion and yeah, if you go to the okay, yeah, yeah,
his wager's section is kind of interesting.

Speaker 3 (01:07:00):
As well, and so hopefully you can see. You know,
the question I'm trying to put forward here to my
Pito Baptist friends who find this argument persuasive, is why
not grandchildren? I don't think it's a dumb question because
it's exactly what Calvin and Rutherford and others are saying.
The debate does rumble forward. Okay, you get to the
Congregationalist churches in Puritan New England, and in my article
I discussed the halfway covenant, and I discussed how this

(01:07:22):
discussion plays out. Eventually, the intergenerational view falls out of favor,
and today it's so scarce that there seems to be
less awareness of it even among those who are making
the otherwise the exact same appeal as Calvin and Knox
and Rutherford and sofa. So my point is, if this
historical survey gives legitimacy to my question of why not grandchildren?
I don't think that's a bizarre or unwarranted question. I

(01:07:43):
think it springs from the logic of covenental pito baptism.
If the rationale for infant baptism lies in its continuity
with infant circumcision, what is the justification for its limitation
only to the first generation of the children of believers?
If children, why not grandchildren? Okay, that's the video, stop
it there, But I'll say one other thing. This is offscript,
so this might not be as quick you can feel

(01:08:03):
free to click out of the video that that's based
in my argument, respectfully submitted for one of the reasons
why I'm just not persuaded of a title Baptist ecclesiology. Again,
it just looks like to me like the church in
the New Covenant era is the children of Abraham. I
eat Coalationian three seven. Now, let me address somebody who's
maybe watching this, and maybe a lot of my videos
are trying to address eclesial angst and uncertainty, and people

(01:08:24):
are trying to Unless someone might be listening to this,
I've been doing this long enough to anticipate this. Someone's
gonna say, how am I supposed to know this? Maybe
someone's watching this in their fifty to fifty or they're
kind of can see either way, and there's I'm not
sure I sympathize with that, because this is complicated and
they're smart people on both sides. Let me finish by
sharing a sort of Pascalian wager that I have used
in my own life rugard to my own children on
this issue. So I have five children, the three eldest

(01:08:47):
have been baptized. It's a little vulnerable to share this
because people are gonna judge me. Ah, oh well, whatever,
hope it helps the two youngest have not. And let
me just share how I thought about this. So Pascal's
wager is about the existence of God, but he's basically saying,
look down the road in both directions and see if
you're wrong, and what are the stakes in either direction.
So if I do that with respect to this issue,
and I say, okay, what if I practice credo baptism

(01:09:07):
with respect to my children and I'm wrong, what is
the great harm? And because I don't hold to a
super duper high view of the necessity of baptism and
baptism or regeneration, those issues I've addressed in other videos,
even my video recently on High Church versus Low Church
for the latter half, I get into that a lot,
and I explain why I don't believe in re baptism
or regeneration as just baptism makes someone a believer, because

(01:09:29):
I know, you know, some Lutherans and Catholics and others
are going to watch this video. They're going to say, yeah,
totally agree with you. Ecclesiology the New Covenant is all believers,
and that's why we baptize children because then that makes
them a believer and if you just put water on in.

Speaker 4 (01:09:40):
If you are curious about the different views on baptism
and its relation to salvation, BB Warfield has another great article.
I'm trying to remember what it's called. It's also on LibriVox,
and it goes through it's a survey of all the

(01:10:02):
different views on baptism and how the thinking has adapted
and developed around basically the state of infants in terms
of their salvation. So if you look at like the
Westminster Confession of Faith in the sixteen mid sixteen hundreds,
it says all infants, all elect infants dine in infancy

(01:10:28):
are saved. And that's really carefully worded so that you
could take that to mean that all infants dine in
infancy are of the elect and therefore saved, right because
it's a calvinistic document, Or you could dig that to
say only the elect infants dine in infancy are saved,
and that could be just the elect events that get baptized,

(01:10:50):
or that could be just the elect events that are
you know, happen to be elect or not elect. Doesn't
matter whether they're baptized or not, but they just if
they fall into the elect camp, then they're saved. If not,
they're not saved. And so that doesn't really solve the question,
but it does sort of show, even just a careful
warden of that shows the different debates around what infants
get saved. Is it just the infants that make it

(01:11:10):
to baptism. Is it just the infans that were like
in the Catholic view where there's an intent to baptize them,
or is it any infants? And I don't know exactly
where the Catholics can currently fall in this question, but
my view, and this is a developed reformed view, this
is where BB Warfield ended up following he was pretty
optimistic on this, on this view, But is that all infants?

(01:11:32):
You know, all all the aborted infants, whether they were
children of believers or unbelievers, And you kind of presume
that they were unbelievers if they're being aborted, that they
end up going to heaven, they don't get sent to
sort of a middle place or a place of limbo.
And you really had these views throughout the church history.
I mean, Augustin was very he kind of gets thrown

(01:11:54):
under the bus a little bit, perhaps justly because he
was very harsh on infants that weren't baptists. I' pretty
sure he thought anyone who wasn't baptized couldn't be saved
at all. And Catholics don't go quite that far today.
But so you'll see some some very harsh positions and
then you'll see some sort of some some shifting where
it's like, well, maybe infants just go to a place

(01:12:15):
of like limbo where they give up the be a
tifit vision, but they still they aren't being you know,
raped by the devil. Uh to be crass about it,
but you know they're they're not being tormented in the
way that that people that have come to an age
of reason are.

Speaker 7 (01:12:32):
Right age reason, age of accountability I think invincible, invincible ignorance.

Speaker 4 (01:12:39):
Yeah, yeah, it kind of goes along with that concept.
So anyways, that that article is great. I would just
recommend that to anyone who's who's trying to struggling through
that It's it's not a particularly important doctrine until it
is right, until you have a child that ties and
you're trying to figure out what happens to them? Can
I have any assurance of their salvation? And then all

(01:13:01):
of a sudden it becomes very important. It does also
an important apologetic position because it's one of those things
that atheists will kind of harp on, be like, do
you believe that that you know, babies that die have
brain cancer when they're one year old? Do they go
to heaven or hell? So it is it is good
to know your position, you know, Like I said, it's
more important when you actually have to to personally experience

(01:13:23):
something like that. But but it is. Yeah. His article
is great and it goes through, uh, basically the history
of the development leading up to a position that that
is widely accepted even in reform circles, although not universally accepted,
but that that all infants do actually go to heaven.
And that's I don't know, I think that's a cool development.

Speaker 5 (01:13:45):
Mmmm.

Speaker 7 (01:13:46):
Well, and I think that's the the safest bed especially,
I mean, because I don't know how you would try
to argue to somebody with you and being like, you
know that's hey, my one year old died, and that
you know they're they're pressing you on this, trying to
take an apologetic stance. You just look them dead in
the eyes and say, sorry, that baby is burning in hell.
I just I don't think that works, Bro, I don't

(01:14:08):
think that that works both.

Speaker 3 (01:14:13):
In the name of the Trinity. It causes faith infant faith.
Some say that, or they'll say it regenerates. So I'm
not addressing that argument here. I'm just saying I've addressed
that elsewhere. But I'm just saying, as I do my
Pascalian wager, and I think through, what if I'm wrong
about Credo baptism. I'm not persuaded that my children are
cut off from salvation until they get baptized. I've explained
why in that and that and other videos why I'm

(01:14:34):
not persuaded of that. So I see what is the downside?

Speaker 6 (01:14:36):
You know?

Speaker 3 (01:14:36):
For my three eldest children, I led them to Christ,
and then I just taught them about baptism for about
three years, and then we just built built up and
prepared and prepared but tons of work into it, treat
them like Cindahumans, and then and then they were baptized.
And I don't see a ton of harm in that.
I don't you know, if I'm wrong, If I'm doing
a Pascalian wager and I'm wrong, I don't think they're
being hugely deprived by their baptist.

Speaker 7 (01:14:58):
But his Pascalian wager is based upon it being more
of a symbolic gesture rather than a actual regeneration.

Speaker 4 (01:15:04):
Right, Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 7 (01:15:06):
Yeah, I mean that's that's like taking a Pascalion wager,
but without hell, it's like, well, that's no longer a
Pascalian wager.

Speaker 4 (01:15:13):
In terms of the efficacy of baptism. Yeah, he started
starting from an assumption. I mean, and I share that
assumption that baptism is not essential to salvation, but it does.
When you're going to use the term does.

Speaker 5 (01:15:27):
Essential essential is the term there? I don't know if it.

Speaker 7 (01:15:29):
I don't know if I would because yeah, because there's
extra means of grace, right than just baptism, but it
is a means of grace. Yeah, I would say it
does something. It is not just symbolic.

Speaker 4 (01:15:41):
John, I just posted in the private chat a link
to that bb Warfield article. Can you share in the
in the main chat?

Speaker 7 (01:15:47):
Yeah, no, I can copy that and I will paste
it over here in one of my twelve tabs, And
that is the link to the article.

Speaker 5 (01:15:54):
And that is pinned perfect to.

Speaker 3 (01:16:01):
Some being delayed by a series of years and because
they're still going to get baptized, and the benefit is
now they can remember that experience and have been a
willing participant in it. In the other direction, I think
it's unfortunate.

Speaker 6 (01:16:12):
Now.

Speaker 3 (01:16:12):
You know, let's say I baptized my children when they
were one week old, and let's say, just again, for
the sake of argument, lets say I'm wrong there. That
is unfortunate because now they're not getting baptism at all
as it's intended. You see, a delayed baptism is still
a real baptism.

Speaker 4 (01:16:27):
But now that doesn't make sense to me, because Baptists
do believe in re baptism generally speaking. I mean, if
they're consistent, they believe that it was an invalid baptism
if they were baptizing their babies, and so they just
be rebaptized. And so in his example, even I presume
if his children, if he converted to the Credo Baptist

(01:16:48):
perspective after he had baptized the children, I think he
would rebaptize his children. So no harm enough out If
they grew up and were persuaded by the Credo Baptist view,
then they would just get rebaptized. And you know, as
someone doesn't like rebaptism, it just it is kind of
icky to me. Yeah, but it still seems like at
least in terms of his presuppositions, then that should be okay.

(01:17:09):
It's not like those people can't get rebaptized just because
they were baptized as as as children. So I don't
really understand the Pascalian wager. From that perspective, seems much
more reasonable to uh, you know, baptize and his infants
and then hey, if it if it's invalid, at least
you know, they just got a little bath or whatever
it's it's a little bit of water on the head,
and then you baptism as adults. That seems much more

(01:17:30):
safe from even from a ritualistic perspective trying to understand,
you know, not even accounting for for what baptism actually does.
That just it seems safer.

Speaker 7 (01:17:40):
Well right, but I mean, if he's he's taking out
the consequences of not being baptized.

Speaker 5 (01:17:45):
So it's like, if you baptize as.

Speaker 7 (01:17:48):
A child, then you believe in a regeneration, then you
are you're you're taking the safer out. But if you're
a Creeda Baptist and you don't believe in baptism or
in regeneration, then what does it matter whether it's because
you can still do the whole Katequisas type thing for
three years and developing your children without the baptism at
the end, you can do. I mean churches do like

(01:18:08):
declarations of faith, they do all sorts of other little
ceremonies and whatnot rather than just baptism. Right, So I mean,
I don't I guess he's making a distinction without a difference.

Speaker 4 (01:18:22):
Yeah, yeah, it does. It does feel like he's kind
of starting from the wrong presupposition to make the argument
that he's making. Jake, in the chat, I want to
understand what your position is, he says, I'm baptist and
I don't believe in rebaptism because I believe in election.
So you think that people that were baptized as infants,

(01:18:44):
even though their baptism is invalid, they are elect or
they're not elect and they just should never you know,
they can never hope to be.

Speaker 7 (01:18:52):
Well, that's the question I have about election. If you're
if you're elect, does it even matter if you're a Calvinist, right,
if if.

Speaker 6 (01:19:01):
What do you get?

Speaker 5 (01:19:03):
What are you going to do about it?

Speaker 4 (01:19:04):
Yes, it does matter, that's the answer. But I can't.

Speaker 7 (01:19:08):
But then where they actually elect No, I know, it's
it's it's it's very complicated.

Speaker 3 (01:19:12):
Okay, is this and I'll do another video sometime. And
I've talked about before the validity of infant baptisms from
a Credo Baptist perspective, very difficult question. But whatever view
you take, you can recognize this is an irregular baptism.
This is this is a problem. This is I just
you know, I hope it's not too silly to put
it this way. It's a little sentimental, but I would
just like for my kids to have that experience. I
would like for them to remember what it feels like

(01:19:33):
to get wet in the water. So when Luther's dictum
remember your baptism, you know, say, they can actually remember
their baptism. I think that's a good thing to experience
it and to be aware of what's happening and not
just need to be told about it later. Circumcision is
a little different there because the permanent mark on the body,
but baptism, once you dry off, you know, you just
have to let people tell you that it happened. So
I guess what I'm trying to say is, you know,
on a complicated question like this, I think the safer bet. Now.

(01:19:55):
I know that those who hold the real high view
of sacramental efficacy and the necessity of baptism, and they're
some who will say, your children will not be saved
if they die before their baptism. So I don't believe that.
So that plays into my reasoning here, But I don't
think as much downside in just waiting a little bit. Okay,
So that's I'm trying to explain for those who are
really stuck on this, I would kind of make that

(01:20:16):
appeal a couple other things to say. Now that's that's
from the perspective as all right here, Okay, Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:20:21):
So I don't entirely understand is reasoning there in terms
of just the save t element. The argument at the
end I do understand is the emotional aspect of it is.
It is emotional when you see adults get baptized and
that is a cool thing that they get to remember.
And it kind of speaks to that the age old
issue of when you have someone who is like a
drug dealer or a prostitute who comes in the church

(01:20:44):
and has a total change of life and they've got
this amazing testimony and they get baptized and it's just
like this amazing thing and they have a really cool story,
and so emotionally that seems really cool. And as like
a child who grew up in the church, you're like, man,
I wish I had something like that, but in reality
you don't. Like, it's much better to be raised in
that and have all the blessings of being in the
church throughout your childhood and to never have known what

(01:21:04):
it's like to be in hell, which is what you're
in when you're you know, prior to being saved. I'm
sure there is a huge blessing to have two coming
into the community of believers coming out of hell. That
would feel pretty great. But even still, sin has consequences
and it has lasting consequences, and you know, people, people

(01:21:28):
are damaged in this life. You know, God does work
his redemption even in this life and in this world,
but it is not complete until our ultimate glorification. And
so yeah, I think the emotional argument there, while I
understand it, I think that it ultimately it is just

(01:21:49):
that it's just sort of an emotional argument. But going
back to the practical implications of a credo. Baptist view
of Credo Baptist. The biggest thing for me practically speaking
is this issue of rebaptism and continuous rebaptism, where if
you are a Credo Baptist in your persuasion, a committed

(01:22:12):
Credo Baptist, then what happens when you fall into grave
sin and fall and lose your assurance of salvation. Now, Christian,
this doesn't even apply to you because Catholics don't believe
insurance of salvation. But from a Protestant perspective, this is
a big thing in the Reformation, was this idea of no,

(01:22:34):
we can actually have assurance of salvation. In fact, this
should be the norm. The norm should be that we
as believers are confident in our salvation. Not everyone has
it and and that's okay, but the norm should be
that you do. However, if you are in grave sin,
then you should question your salvation. And the Pato Baptist

(01:22:56):
would say, like Luther said, remember your baptism and start
living into to that reality, recognize the grace of God,
and start living as a believer. They wouldn't start questioning
the validity of their baptism, whereas the Creti Baptist kind
of has to the Creed a Baptist, because assuming you're
Calvinistic and you're not Romenian, assuming that you are coming

(01:23:21):
from a predestination perspective, then you have to think, you know,
once saved, always saved. If I go through this period
of grave sin, was I actually saved before? Because it
didn't seem to keep me out of that sin? And
so it's very tempting to think maybe I wasn't actually
a believer at that point because I started to doubt,

(01:23:41):
and so maybe my baptism wasn't baalid, So now I
should be rebaptized. And so you have someone who's baptized
at fourteen years old, gets rebaptized at twenty years old,
and then rebaptize again at sixty years old, because I think, oh,
I was never actually saved even then, and that just
starts to diminish the meaning of baptism in my view. Again,
if you are of that Baptist persuasion, then I guess

(01:24:03):
there's no harm in continuously getting baptized.

Speaker 5 (01:24:07):
So you baptize yourself every morning if you can get right.

Speaker 4 (01:24:11):
So yeah, I think that you just love the church
every Sunday and you call it good.

Speaker 5 (01:24:16):
You don't even break exactly.

Speaker 4 (01:24:19):
So I think practically it is dangerous. It does lead
to a lot of doubt, and you get people that
push their baptism off unnecessarily because they're worried about discerning
when they can really call themselves elect And that's just

(01:24:40):
not the way that election is supposed to be taught,
or interpreted or understood. Even the Reformers were very clear
about this. Calvin initially put predestination early in his institutes
and then moved it later into the institutes because he
realized that pastorally, this needs to be something that we
teach at a later point. It's not core to our

(01:25:02):
understanding of of of God's love, and in fact, it
can be a stumbling block. I think that's right. Don't
check me on the on the history there. But Calvin
wrote a bunch of different versions of his institutes, and
he did move around the subjects numerous times, and so
you certainly will see that in terms of how the
Reformers would talk about predestination, they were pretty careful, certainly

(01:25:23):
in their in their more mature theology, to talk about
predestination later as a true doctrine that needed to be taught,
but needed to be taught ingratitude of thank you God
for the fact that you have considered me of the
elect but not as sort of when you're evangelizing into someone,
you don't say, hey, you're elect or you're not, Like

(01:25:46):
you can't they can't process it at that stage in
their in their belief.

Speaker 7 (01:26:00):
So the way that I've always kind of heard it
when it comes to rebaptism is if you believe in rebaptism,
it kind of lessens, but it means like you were saying,
but it also is kind of an affront to God
in that you're saying that, oh, that that baptism wasn't enough, right,
So you're you know that, you know, whatever whatever means
of grace or whatever you want to call it was

(01:26:22):
just not enough. I got to I gotta do it again. Right,
So it's like that that grace didn't apply or it
had like a time movement on it. So I'm gonn,
I'm gonna just do it again.

Speaker 4 (01:26:30):
But I think there was arguable a consistent view of
credo baptism without allowing for rebaptism. So and I agree
with you, you haven't done anything, but you have to
allow for rebaptism. So yeah, So I think that's that's
a great point.

Speaker 7 (01:26:43):
Well, And I mean there were some there were some
early church fathers that were were delaying activists almost to
where it's like, you should wait to get baptized until
you're on your deathbed or as long as possible to
wash away as many sins as possible. There were some
early church fathers who kind of argued that, which might
make sense in that sort of context, but also be

(01:27:06):
very dangerous and a silly thing to advocate for most people.

Speaker 4 (01:27:12):
Yeah, it primarily made sense in regard to the confusion
around sin and how much sin could take place after
your baptism and sort of what degree of perfection we
could get in this life. And yeah, so you'll see
that with Augustine delayed his baptism or his mother, who
was a believer, delayed his baptism because he was living

(01:27:39):
a rebellious life and didn't really believe and she wanted
to kind of get that little bit of insurance. She
wanted to wait till he really came to Christ before
he got baptized.

Speaker 1 (01:27:46):
And then.

Speaker 4 (01:27:49):
Constantine waited till his deathbed as well, and that was
a pretty common thing back then.

Speaker 3 (01:27:59):
Now another thing, another layer of this is in the church.
I am so proud. I love my local church so much.
It's a broadly reformed church. People often are very negative
about non denominational churches right now, but a non denominational
church can still be highly theological, highly liturgical, highly historically rooted.
We are a broadly reformed church. But we don't make
baptism a point of division. And I love that because
that's how I feel my heart or a title Baptist,

(01:28:20):
I just think we can come together on the Gospel.
We don't need to divide over this, and so we
make space for that and we just work together. And
so that's at the level of church as opposed to
as a parent, but as a parent, you know, I
would say that just delaying the baptism. And last thing
I'll say is I don't delay it as long as
some Baptists. And so this is another area. Boy, All
these things are tough to talk through because everything's come

(01:28:41):
for so but a lot of historic Baptists have waited
till like eighteen twenty one, twenty even older. And I
would say, as an implication from Christ's words, let the
little children come to me that if a child professes
faith in Christ and is sincere and gives every reason
for you to think they're genuinely a Christian, and if
they want to come baptism, we should not unduly delay

(01:29:01):
that process. And so that's the point where I push
back a little bit on some of the older and
stricter Baptists, because I just I actually think it is
a good application of the words of Christ. Let the
little children come to me to not unduly delay their baptism.
And so that plays into my Pascalian wager here as well,
so that I hope that could be helpless someone who

(01:29:21):
might be thinking about this. This always happens, I go
off script and I ramble. That's why I try not
to do it. But hopefully for those in the middle
or wrestling with this, these final set of comments could
be just more practical and useful to reflect upon in
the midst of it all, Let's try to have peaceable
discussion with each other, and I'll welcome pushback and kind
of arguments, but hopefully the arguments I put forward here,
and I'm not aware that the argument I've made has
really been made in any kind of sustained way. This

(01:29:42):
is what persuaded me from my reading, and I put
it out there. You get glimmers of it, and people
like Neamia Cox, even Paul Jewett. But this is to
some extent an argument I've developed the why not grand
children argument. The last thing I'll say is, if you
are a reformed Pytro Baptist, I would welcome an answer.
I would love to hear you know, do you agree
with Calvin? Is it inter intergenerational? Should that be practiced?
Why not grandchildren? I would be curious to hear your answers.

(01:30:03):
I'll read the comments. Thanks, watching everybody nothing about baptism
for a while, going back to apologetics for the next
couple videos. See you in the next one.

Speaker 4 (01:30:10):
He says that until he has to respond to all
the rebuttals.

Speaker 7 (01:30:13):
Well still, I don't know what this this drama was.
But everybody as soon as this video when I was watching,
was talking about Jordan B. Cooper Right now Gotham needs
me looking forward to the next Jordan B.

Speaker 5 (01:30:22):
Cooper response.

Speaker 7 (01:30:22):
So I don't know if Jordan be Keeper is a
I don't know the lore on this, if he is
just somebody who commonly responds to Gavin orton UND's videos.
Because I know that there are channels that do essentially
that's what they do is respond to other channels.

Speaker 6 (01:30:37):
That's it.

Speaker 5 (01:30:37):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:30:40):
I thought it was a great video and he invited
a response, so I thought it was worth doing.

Speaker 5 (01:30:45):
Sure, Oh, here we go. Yeah.

Speaker 7 (01:30:46):
Yeah, he's done one, two, three, four, five, six seven,
he's done a lot.

Speaker 5 (01:30:53):
He's done a lot with with Kevin who is he?

Speaker 4 (01:30:55):
Is he Lutheran?

Speaker 5 (01:30:56):
So Jordan B.

Speaker 7 (01:30:57):
Cooper my website, Jordan B. Cooop, can I see ordained
Lutheran past here?

Speaker 5 (01:31:03):
Okay?

Speaker 4 (01:31:04):
Interesting, it'd be interesting to watch his response.

Speaker 5 (01:31:07):
Yeah, till the next stream. We're watching Jordan B.

Speaker 7 (01:31:12):
Cooper's response to and then after that response, yeah, and
then after that we'll watch a we'll watch a Catholic
response to the Lutherans.

Speaker 3 (01:31:19):
Response after his response.

Speaker 4 (01:31:21):
So I'm sure Trent Horne will put something out as well.

Speaker 5 (01:31:23):
Yeaheah, it is fun.

Speaker 4 (01:31:25):
I mean, Lutherans, that's an interesting history because I don't
I don't know tons about modern day Lutherans. I know
a decent amount about Luther's theology. But luther Lutheran theology
split in two because you had Malanthan's theology who his
was his key disciple who put together the loci communis
which is basically his systematic theology. As close as Luther

(01:31:46):
ever got to a systematic theology was written by malengthen.
But later in life Malengthen became much more uh synergistic
in his view as opposed to the Luther's monegism song
and started to really approach more of of a Catholic
view on justification. And you had also the so you

(01:32:08):
had people that didn't much like malanngthen, and then you
had the Pietis coming out as well. I think out
of that branch, the non Malanngthans and the Pietus were
very into living godly lives in this life, whereas Luther,
because of his emphasis on justification and the sort of
declarative nature of justification as being you're saved, you know

(01:32:31):
in a moment, and yes you should, you should be sanctified,
and you should live out that salvation and work out
that salvation, but the salvation is still yours, he did
not emphasize the Pietism nearly as much in his teachings,
and so that is almost a rebellion against sort of
the way Luther would talk, if not his theology exactly.

(01:32:52):
So modern day Lutherism, Lutheranism is a bit of a
mystery to me because I'm not sure exactly where they fall.
I think there are different camps. I'm kind of told
that with in Lutheranism you will see all the diversity
that you see in in Protestantism. Just within Lutheranism you'll
you'll have all these different camps. So it would be

(01:33:12):
quite curious. I'd be quite curious to watch a Lutheran's perspective.

Speaker 7 (01:33:18):
Yeah, I mean that could be something we check out
in the future.

Speaker 4 (01:33:22):
So John, when are you going to schedule your kid's baptism?

Speaker 5 (01:33:26):
That's a good question, bro.

Speaker 7 (01:33:28):
Well, yeah, that that is something legitimately as a father,
I need to think about more. Yeah, m m.

Speaker 4 (01:33:35):
No, it's yeah, it's worth thinking about. But there are
there are valid.

Speaker 7 (01:33:41):
Well that's the thing too, is I would I would
probably I probably couldn't even do it in my church.

Speaker 5 (01:33:45):
Yeah, I would probably have to. Yeah, mm hmmm, Well.

Speaker 4 (01:33:50):
There you go. Well, I don't have anything else. I
don't know if there were any star chats or anything
that you guys wanted to cover.

Speaker 7 (01:33:57):
No, I was, I was mixing it up in there.
But unless christ had something specific.

Speaker 6 (01:34:02):
No, I think Jake responded to your where is it somewhere.

Speaker 4 (01:34:11):
That's yeah. I called Jake out so it would be
good to see because at.

Speaker 6 (01:34:14):
Least, yeah, you asked him about being elect.

Speaker 4 (01:34:21):
If you're elect your Christ, he cannot lose you. Sure
I lose him baptized. Therefore, if you're baptized, okay, interesting. Yeah,
I don't know how you square that with just general
crudo Baptist theology, but fair enough. I mean, I'm not
a fan of your baptism, so good on you.

Speaker 7 (01:34:42):
Well I don't think he is either, but yeah, it's
the it's yeah, one hundred and forty characters to explain
your theology is not not quite enough, not quite enough.

Speaker 5 (01:34:52):
Oh yeah, I'm ready to get out of here if
you jentlemin are.

Speaker 4 (01:34:54):
Yeah sounds good. Well, thanks everyone for being with us,
and uh yeah, we'll see. We still got a uh
stream plan for Wednesday. We're going to be reviewing a debate.
We're still picking that debate, but we've got some good
options to choose from, so hope to see there.

Speaker 5 (01:35:09):
Good night, Jones