Faith is not resignation

In his commentary on 1-2 Kings, Peter Leithart provides some very helpful pastoral insights concerning the prophecy of Ahijah against Jeroboam’s son in 1 Kings 14. He writes:

Faith is often confused with resignation. The prophetic word comes, cutting like a double-edged sword, and we respond with tight-lipped silence. This is not faith. Faith responds to God’s word, not with silent submission, but with confession, praise, earnest and anguished petition. Faith responds with the desperate cries of a Job, the “my God, my God” of David and Jesus, the “how long, O Lord?” of the Psalms. God’s word is not the end of a conversation, but an invitation to renew conversation. God does not judge and condemn to send us slinking away in resigned silence. God judges and condemns so that we can give our “amen” to his judgment, humble ourselves, and be saved. Ultimately, the issues go to theology proper: the Triune God, the God whose life is an eternal conversation, does not create a world as a stage where he performs soliloquies before a respectfully hushed audience. God creates the world and humanity to enter into a dialogue. Ahijah delivers a devastating oracle to Jeroboam, but that is an invitation to repentance, as is Elijah’s oracle to Ahab (1 Kgs. 21). The text gives us a hint, if only a hint, that the end is not set out by the beginning, that there is yet hope for Israel.

Commenting on the way passages like this speak to Christians today, he concludes:

Jesus’s death, unlike the death of Jeroboam’s good son, does not spell the end of things, but the beginning of things, because Jesus’s death is followed by his resurrection. Jesus’s death is not an inverted Passover that leads to destruction, but a true Passover that liberates the people of God. Through Jesus, the guilt that plagues us from the past is forgiven, and through forgiveness and the renewing power of the Spirit the world is opened—Israel is opened—to a future for which none had dared to hope. This simply is the gospel, the good news that ends are not straight-line extrapolations from beginnings; this is the gospel, that the end reverses the beginning, as tears are washed away, the curse removed, the dead raised. The world is not condemned by its beginnings to a certain ending, for there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

That is the gospel we celebrate at the Lord’s Table: this is the blood of the new covenant, Jesus says, which is shed for you and for many for the remission of sins. At the table, we are renewed in covenant, freshly forgiven, so that the past can be put behind us. At the table, we celebrate the opening of a new future, for Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.2

1.  Leithart, P. J. (2006). 1 & 2 Kings (p. 107). Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press.

2.  Ibid., p. 109

Wisdom prepares a feast

Commenting on Proverbs 9:1-6, Saint Ambrose of Milan teaches an interesting connection between the feast which "Wisdom" prepares in her house and the feast which the Church of Christ prepares in her house:

You wish to eat, you wish to drink. Come to the feast of Wisdom which invites all men by a great proclamation, saying: 'Come, eat my bread and drink my wine that I have mingled.' Do not fear that in the Feast of the Church you will lack either pleasant perfumes, or agreeable food, or varied drink, or fitting servants. There you will gather myrrh, that is to say, the burial of Christ, in such a way that, buried with Him by Baptism, you also will arise from the dead as He Himself is arisen. There you will eat the bread that strengthens the heart of man, you will drink the wine so that you may grow to the full stature of Christ.1

1.  Jean Danielou, S.J., The Bible and the Liturgy [Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press; reprint 2011] p. 158

Calvin & Baptism of the Roman Church

In Peter Lillback's insightful and challenging book, The Binding of God: Calvin's Role in the Development of Covenant Theology, he notes a unique illustration which John Calvin used to connect the covenant-sign of baptism with "general election," along with it's consequential idea of falling away from such "general election" because of covenant-breaking. Calvin's illustration is of those baptized into the Roman Catholic church. He writes:

The same thing that the Prophet brought against the Israelites may be also brought against the Papists; for as soon as infants are born among them, the Lord signs them with the sacred symbol of baptism; they are therefore in some sense the people of God. We see, at the same time, how gross and abominable are the superstitions which prevail among them: there are none more stupid than they are. Even the Turks and the Saracenes are wise when compared with them. How great, then, and how shameful is this baseness, that the Papists, who boast themselves to be the people of God, should go astray after their own mad follies!1

1.  Peter A. Lillback, The Binding of God: Calvin's Role in the Development of Covenant Theology [Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2001] p. 224, f.n. 53. Italics mine.

Lutheranism 101: Partaking in a worthy manner

I recently came across a book distributed by a pastor of a local LCMS1 church in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The book is titled Lutheranism 101, and it's a fairly basic book even though it fills almost three hundred 8"x10" pages with "official" Lutheran dogma (which I think is a fairly large sized book of basic "essentials"). I was especially caught off guard by a few "official" doctrines in the book, not that I had never heard of them before. It's just that I never heard contemporary answers to basic questions answered this, well, basically. For instance, in the section on the Lord's Supper, the question is asked, "Who Is Worthy?" with regard to participants in the sacred meal itself. The answer to that question is as follows:

Being worthy and well prepared to receive the Lord's Supper involves believing the words "given and shed." What is given and shed? Jesus' body and blood. In other words, worthiness involves believing that you are receiving Jesus' very2 body and blood. In the previous chapter, we mentioned that some believe that they receive only bread and wine, not Jesus' body and blood. To believe this is to contradict what Jesus Himself says in the Words of Institution; and that makes one unprepared for the Sacrament.3

Here are a few of my thoughts on this matter. First of all, I find it interesting that the author inserts the parallel phrase, worthy and well prepared, as he defines worthiness. Clearly, the author did not consider Paul's own words to be clear enough -- words which only warn Christians to not partake "in an unworthy manner" (I Cor. 11:27).  This author felt the need to add to what Paul actually said and to emphasize that additional concept. After all, neither Jesus or Paul made any mention of being "well prepared." In the last sentence of this definition, the author again mentions being "unprepared" for the Sacrament. And so, being "unworthy" is doctrinally and conceptually synonymous with being "unprepared." 

But what is another oddity of this view (besides adding terminology to what Paul actually said)? One other oddity is that Paul is the only one who mentions worthiness. Jesus doesn't mention that at all. Now, I realize that the doctrine of plenary inspiration necessitates Paul's canonical words to be the authorized words of God, and since Jesus is God, Paul's words are the authoritative words of Jesus. However, isn't it a bit odd that the author insists that Christian beliefs should not contradict what Jesus Himself really says, yet the author doesn't even reference the actual words of Jesus regarding "worthiness"? Let's not forget that he adds to Paul's terminology as well. 

But this operating definition looks even more suspicious when viewed much closer. The author says that receiving the Lord's Supper involves "believing the words 'given and shed.'" Well, I certainly believe that the meaning of Jesus' words "given" and "shed" were in some sense involved in receiving the Supper. But the author of Lutheranism 101 simply takes for granted what that sense is without clarifying that Jesus' statements don't necessarily share the same assumptions as this Lutheran author. It's a subtle maneuver, but it's definitely there; and this traditional Lutheran assumption is arbitrary as well. Let's see how this plays out practically.

Notice carefully that this author sneaks in two ideas while assuming that they both share a literal one-to-one correspondence in meaning. The author doesn't prove it. It is assumed in advance and taken for granted. On the one hand he says that worthiness "involves believing the words 'given and shed,'" but on the other hand he says that worthiness "involves believing that you are receiving Jesus' very (i.e. real or genuine) body and blood"; which is to say that if you don't believe you are receiving Jesus' real or genuine body and blood, you are not believing the words "given and shed." Did you catch that slight-of-hand too? He is assuming that the meaning of Jesus' words must share a literal one-to-one correspondence, but he's not telling you that the Words of Institution can mean something else, only one of which is that Jesus mysteriously amalgamated the real bread and wine with his real body "given" and his real "shed" blood. There are, in fact, other potential meanings to Jesus' Words of Institution. One does not need to adopt this traditional Lutheran assumption, especially if the Scriptures themselves do not infer that such assumptions are necessary to partake worthily or unworthily. 

Let's keep in mind what Jesus actually said in his Words of Institution:

This is my body given for you, do this in remembrance of me. ...This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is shed for you. (Luke 22:19-20)

Let's now think of some alternatives. One possible meaning could be that Jesus mysteriously turned the bread and wine into his literal human flesh and blood. That is to say, those who partake of the bread and wine don't really partake of real bread and wine at all. They partake of something which appears to be bread and wine, but really is Jesus' flesh and blood. This, to me, seems to be an exaggerated claim. It assumes all sorts of things, one of which is that eating literal human flesh and blood would be lawful in God's sight, even though God strictly prohibits drinking sacrificial blood (Gen. 9:1-6; Lev. 17:10-14). Likewise, the Bible illustrates cannibalism in a handful of places, but it never condones it (Lev. 26:29; Deut. 28:53-57; 2 Kng. 6:28-29; Jer. 19:9; Lam. 2:20; Ezek. 5:10); rather it treats eating human flesh as a curse from God, which is probably why the Jews were abhorred by Jesus' words in John 6:52. They thought Jesus was speaking literally when he spoke of eating his flesh and blood; and so they thought, "How can this man [Jesus] give us his flesh to eat?"

Another possible meaning could be that Jesus mysteriously turned the bread and wine into his real body and blood, but only for his twelve apostles. That's at least possible. After all, he does say "this is my body...for you ...This cup is ...for you." And who was that particular "you"? It was the twelve apostles! Of course, because that seems to conflict with Paul's address to the Corinthian church, which included more participants in the Lord's Supper than just the twelve apostles, it's reasonable to conclude that such an interpretation would be completely arbitrary. Now, if there was a worldwide tradition which held that view, would you believe it just because it's traditional? I would hope not. Scripture itself should be the final authority for the Christian, not tradition.

Now let's consider the traditional Lutheran view again, only in more detail. The traditional Lutheran view is that Jesus' statement, "this is my body," was literally and mystically united with the bread in it's physical essence. I will admit, this is a possible interpretation. After all, when referencing the bread, Jesus does say "this is my body." Martin Luther himself is famous for this belief. There is even a famous incident at a meeting in Marburg, Saxony (modern day Germany) where various church leaders could not come to an agreement about Jesus' Words of Institution, and in the midst of the dialogue Luther began to pound his fist on the table, saying over and over again, "Hoc est corpus meum, hoc est corpus meum." ("This is my body, This is my body.")  In contrast with this famous incident, I find it very interesting that Luther did not insist in a literal interpretation of the phrase, "this cup is the new covenant in my blood." Luther interpreted the first statement as literal, but the second statement as representative and figurative. In other words, Luther assumed that the first statement was literal, and excused himself from needing to interpret the second statement as literal too, even though Jesus uses the exact same words to consecrate both elements. Jesus said "This [bread] is my body" and "This cup is the new covenant." 

Moreover, if Lutherans who hold to these traditional assumptions were consistent, they would need to argue that Jesus mysteriously united his real (physical & spiritual, human and divine) body and handed it (his real body) to his disciples in the form of bread, and that he did the same thing with the cup too. That is to say, with the cup, they would need to argue that Jesus mysteriously united the physical cup of wine in his hand as the literal new covenant itself. No other physical substance, other than the "cup" of wine, could possibly become mysteriously united with the new covenant. Jesus must have meant that the cup of wine would become the new covenant every time Christians partook of his blood "in a worthy manner." But what would it actually mean to literally unite a physical/non-spiritual cup of wine with a non-physical/spiritual covenant? Lutheranism 101 doesn't give an answer to that question, and I suspect that the traditional answer (if there even is one) would be arbitrarily based upon mere Lutheran tradition. Furthermore, why would anyone insist that such a distinction is essential to partaking worthily? One might expect Jesus or the Apostle Paul to have been a bit clearer in their presentation of the facts. (Were they clear enough?)

But let's get back on track with how serious the meaning of these Words of Institution are. Are these meanings the only viable options? The author of Lutheranism 101 is aware of at least one other optional tradition. He insists that,

...some [Christians] believe that they receive only bread and wine, not Jesus' body and blood. 

He then asserts with great confidence that, 

To believe this is to contradict what Jesus Himself says in the Words of Institution. 

That's quite an assertion. One would think that arbitrarily interpreting the bread as becoming his literal body, but the cup of wine not literally becoming the new covenant, would be a more blatant contradiction. And as far as I can tell, it's not contradictory at all to interpret both the bread and the cup of wine as representing Jesus body and blood. That, actually, would be very consistent and reasonable because the bread would represent his "given" body and the cup of wine would represent his "shed" blood. Neither the bread nor the cup of wine become anything other than sanctified bread and wine. Nothing mystical or supernatural invades or transforms the elements themselves. 

Moreover, if the bread and the wine of the new covenant represent the broken body and shed blood of Jesus which was given for us, then there would also be no need to strain the meaning of Jesus' words beyond what was actually spoken by Jesus and reiterated by the Apostle Paul. We wouldn't need to conjure up some rationale for Jesus uniting his "real" body and blood with a "real" loaf of bread and a "real" cup. We also wouldn't need to conjure up some strange "spiritual" extension of his dual-nature (as though the Scriptures allude to some extension, addition, or subtraction from his human & divine essence). And so, one very rational and reasonable meaning of the Words of Institution is actually what the author of Lutheranism 101 falsely claims to be contradictory, namely that the bread which Jesus broke represented Jesus' broken body, and that his blood shed on the cross was represented by a cup of red wine, and because of that participants in the Lord's Supper receive real bread and wine, not Jesus' real body and blood. Paul certainly seems to have interpreted it this way when he concludes, saying:

For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.4

Notice, Paul does not even come close to hinting in agreement with this claim of Lutheranism 101. Paul doesn't spend any time distinguishing between those who receive the real body and blood, and those who merely receive real bread and wine. Instead, what he says is that by eating the bread and drinking the cup of the Lord's Supper, they proclaim --they show forth-- their Lord's death. They don't receive the "real" body and blood of the Lord who died. They proclaim the Lord's death. They commemorate the unique covenantal meal in which Jesus and his disciples participated the night he was betrayed, leading to his death. In other words, when the Christian church eats the bread and drinks the cup, they don't proclaim the death of a literal Passover lamb, thereby renewing the old covenant. Instead, they proclaim their Lord's death over and over again as often as they do that together. They proclaim what the Passover lamb represented and what the old covenant anticipated. They ratify their covenant --the new covenant-- with Jesus. They receive a real covenantal meal, with real bread and wine, and they proclaim the real sacrifice for their sins -- Jesus Christ. One might even get the acute feeling that through faith, the Spirit of our risen Lord is present in the midst of his people as they feast on bread and wine together, uniting them in one love, one faith, and one baptism. If so, then thanks be to God.

1.  LCMS stands for Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod
2.  "Very" means real or genuine.
3.  Scot A. Kinnaman [General Editor] Lutheranism 101 [St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House, 2010] p. 155
4.  I Corinthians 11:26

God's Atonement Supper

In his classic work, Jesus the Son of God: The Gospel Narratives as Message, Jakob Van Bruggen writes:

  [Jesus] is the lamb of God, sent to bring about the amnesty that had been promised. Jesus himself presented his ministry in terms of his readiness to give his life as a ransom for many--the pardon would be achieved through his death. Now the disciples must learn to accept this rejected and dying Master as the price paid for their lives. This is what it came down to when Jesus instituted the supper of his body and blood on the night before his betrayal. 

  He had already let his disciples know, in strong statements, that he had come down from heaven so that "his flesh" might serve as food for the world (John 6:51). After the multiplication of the loaves and fishes he invites the disciples to "eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood." Only by doing so can they have life (John 6:53). These drastic formulations already pointed to the fact that it would be by dying that he would become food for humankind, and that people therefore would learn to accept and love him as the Rejected and Dying One. ...At the last Passover he celebrated with his disciples, Jesus distributed bread and wine as symbols of his body and blood. ...The disciples must accept this offering of Jesus' life as food for their own lives. ...The event becomes a supper of atonement with God. 

  It is precisely by this conferring of the forgiving power of his death to the believing disciples that Jesus unequivocally distinguishes himself from every other person in history who has ever offered him or herself up for faith or nation. No hero or martyr first instituted a supper in order to distribute his death as food. At a later point, others may have gratefully remembered the suffering and death of other martyrs and profited from the consequences. But Jesus does not ask his disciples to simply think of him sometime in the future--he turns his death beforehand into the food and joyous drink meant for his own disciples. He is not the hero or the martyr who is prepared to give up his life in the interest of others. He distributes his death as a positive fact. He is not taken, nor does he allow himself to be taken; rather he gives his body and blood. His death does not create new chances for others, but his sacrifice as such is the new chance and eternal life. The disciples do not offer a toast for a good conclusion after Good Friday; rather they celebrate the meal of Good Friday. As the Exodus from Egypt, celebrated in the Passover, was a redeeming act of God, so will this exodus to the cross be the definitive redeeming act of God's Son. The Lamb of God gives himself as a ransom to the believers. 

  It is possible to describe the bread and wine in the night of the betrayal as a sacrificial meal. Those present participate in the redemptive power of the sacrifice. Yet there is a difference. At sacrificial meals, people ate the animal that they themselves had brought and sacrificed. At the meal Jesus arranged during this last night, the focus is on a sacrifice that the participants did not bring themselves and that, at that moment, they did not want to be brought at all. 

  It is at this meal that the meaning of Jesus' dying is revealed as unique and unlike any other death on earth. Disciples who refuse to accept what will happen are served beforehand with symbols of that which they are not yet willing to embrace.1

1.  Jakob Van Bruggen, Jesus the Son of God: The Gospel as Message [Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books; 1999] pp. 169-171

Maundy Thursday Night: The Night of the Lord's Supper

In his book, Christ on Earth: The Gospel Narratives as History, Dr. Jakob Van Bruggen has provided an excellent biblical and historical explanation of the night in which Jesus instituted his Supper.1 His conclusion is that on the night in which the Lord instituted his Supper, the Jews removed all leavened bread from their homes and served the first evening meal of the lamb, and that was the night of Maundy Thursday. 

Because the entire argument within his book is quite extensive, and the subject so controversial, I will only quote a brief portion of his thoughts, trusting that others are already aware of the alleged "chronology contradiction" or "problem" within all four gospels. Van Bruggen writes:

  After the Wednesday of the final discourses comes the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Matt. 26:17). This is when the Passover lamb is sacrificed (Mark 14:2; Luke 22:7). The days of Unleavened Bread are counted from 15 to 21 Nisan (cf. Josephus, Antiquities 3.10.5 Sec. 249), the seven days during which the Passover offerings are sacrificed in the Temple (Num. 28:16-25). Sometimes, however, 14 Nisan is also included. This is a day of preparation during which people remove all leavened bread from their homes and serve the lamb at the evening meal. In that case there are eight days of Unleavened Bread (cf. Josephus, Antiquities 2.15.1 Sec. 317). The first three evangelists (i.e. Matthew, Mark, and Luke) clearly follow the latter approach when they write about the dawn of the Thursday on which the Passover must be slaughtered (Matt. 26:17; Mark 14:12; Luke 22:7). In other words, they consider this Thursday the fourteenth day of Nisan.  

  The terminology used in connection with the Passover and the feast of Unleavened Bread is complicated. The fourteenth day of Nisan is the day of preparation: all leavened bread is removed from the houses, the lambs are slaughtered, and during the evening the Passover meal is eaten. Because of this evening meal, 14 Nisan is sometimes called the Passover Feast (Lev. 23:5; Josephus, Jewish War 6.9.3 Sec. 423; Antiquities 2.14.6 Sec. 313). 

  The fifteenth of Nisan is the beginning of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. This feast lasts seven days, during which large sacrifices are brought into the temple (Lev. 23:6; Num. 28:17-25; cf. Josephus, Antiquities 3.10.5 Sec. 249; 9.13.3 Sec. 271; 11.4.8 Sec. 110). The fifteenth day of Nisan is then counted as the first day (16 Nisan is the second day, see Josephus, Antiquities 3.10.5 Sec. 250). The fifteenth of Nisan is actually the day of Israel's liberation (Josephus, Antiquities 2.15.2 Sec. 318). The Jews also refer to the feast of Unleavened Bread (15-21 Nisan) as Passover (cf. Luke 22:1; Josephus, Jewish War 2.1.3 Sec. 10; Antiquities 10.4.5 Sec. 70; 14.2.1 Sec. 21; 17.9.3 Sec. 213; 18.2.2 Sec. 29; 20.5.3 Sec. 106). 

  Because the leavened bread is removed on 14 Nisan, the day is referred to as "the Day of Unleavened Bread" (Josephus, Jewish War 5.3.1 Sec. 99). If this day (14 Nisan) is counted with the feast (15-21 Nisan), one can also speak of a "period of unleavened bread" for eight days (Josephus, Antiquities 2.15.1 Sec. 317; cf. Mark 14:12; Luke 22:1).2

1.  Jakob Van Bruggen, Christ on Earth: The Gospel Narratives as History [Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books; 1998] pp. 212-219
2.  Ibid. p. 212-213.

Why Baptize Jadon?

My son, Jadon, is going to be baptized this upcoming Lord’s Day, November 18th, 2012, at the age of 11 weeks. About a month ago, a friend asked my wife why we are baptizing him, since she knew we are not Roman Catholic. I wasn't surprised by this question. Infant baptism is a common practice throughout the Roman Catholic Church. The reason why they baptize babies is because they believe the ceremony itself mysteriously, but literally, “washes away” sin, thereby granting the baby a "ticket to heaven." In the Roman Catholic view, the person baptized doesn’t necessarily have a choice either. One does not have to believe in order to be baptized. One gets baptized into the Roman Catholic Church, and then receives a one-way ticket to heaven (or purgatory, which eventually leads to heaven anyway).

So then, why are we baptizing our son? Doesn't Jadon have to make that decision for himself? Isn’t it better to give him that choice, and to avoid the mistaken view that baptism is an automatic ticket to heaven?

To understand why we are choosing to baptize our child, and why historically it has most certainly been considered orthodox to baptize a child, I will be focusing upon two theological issues, and only two issues:

1)    God always saves people by means of a covenant1 – His covenant. Unfortunately, 21^st century Christians generally don’t seem to view God’s plan of salvation in terms of a covenant. Instead, the modern trend among evangelicals appears to view salvation merely in terms of some activity by the Holy Spirit. Some evangelicals even claim that a mere profession of belief that "Jesus is Lord" is evidence of the Holy Spirit’s saving activity, and a one way ticket to heaven. Biblically, as well as historically, God’s people have not been identified merely as people in whom the Holy Spirit operates. God’s people have been identified primarily as people chosen by God through some objective sign and seal of his covenant.

2)    Nowhere in the Bible do we find people who initiate a relationship with God. God is the one who seeks out a people for Himself. He reveals Himself to them, and invites them to know Him, serve Him, and glorify Him. And there are two, and only two, circumstances in which the Lord seeks out people to be in a covenant with Him: people who are already outside of God’s covenant, and people who are born into the world. These two circumstances are normative in Scripture. All other circumstances are extra-ordinary circumstances in history.

All throughout the epistles of the New Testament, gentiles are learning about Jesus and are choosing to be baptized because they were previously identified as “foreigners” and outsiders of God’s covenant (Ephesians 2:12, 19). They believed in God and then chose to be baptized as acceptance that God sought them out graciously, and chose them for himself. In other words, they chose to be baptized because they no longer wanted to remain outside of God’s covenant. But what about the second type of person whom the Lord seeks out? What about children born into this world? Some children are born into the world as outsiders of God’s covenant; that is, in fact, how the gentile converts of Scripture were born and raised. But it’s obvious that not all children enter God’s world this way. Some children are born into a family that does, in fact, believe in God, and has been given the terms of God’s covenant. God Himself promises to be faithful in showing covenant loyalty to the generations that love Him and keep His commandments (Ex. 20:6; Deut. 5:10). In other words, the Bible reveals from cover to cover that God works within the context of families already in covenant with Him through faith, not just with outsiders who know nothing of or about God. This promise of God working through families is so important, and yet often neglected by modern evangelicals, that I feel the need to discuss it in greater detail.

What God has revealed is that from the very beginning of human history, in the Garden of Eden, where Adam’s fall affected all his children and their relationship with God, we learn that God’s promise of grace after the fall also affected Adam’s children: “I will put enmity between you [Satan] and the woman and between your seed and her seed” (Gen. 3:15). Clearly God’s grace was going to be given to a child of Eve. Historically we know that child was Seth (Gen. 4:25-26). Moreover, we learn that God continued this pattern after the Flood with Noah. God promised Noah, “I Myself do establish My covenant with you, and with your descendants after you” (Gen. 9:9).

Now, when God reveals something once, that ought to be good enough. When God repeats Himself twice, we had better pause. But when God repeats Himself three or more times, we are without excuse if we neglect what He says. And God said again, only this time to Abraham, “I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your descendants after you” (Gen. 17:7). Likewise, God repeated Himself to Isaac (“…to you and your descendants…” Gen. 26:4) and Jacob this same way (“…to you and your descendants with you…” Gen. 28:4). This is why we find Jesus' apostles baptizing parents and their households, without any further explanation. Further explanation is not needed if salvation is viewed in terms of God's covenant. The apostle Paul illustrates this pattern in Acts 16:31 when he proclaims to the Philippian jailer, "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household." And verse 33 says, "And immediately he and all his family were baptized." Shortly thereafter in Scripture we find a woman named Lydia becoming a believer. But not only was she herself baptized; "her household" was also baptized (Acts 16:14-15). Likewise, on another occasion, Paul mentions that he baptized the "household of Stephannas" (I Cor. 1:16).

So let's step back for a second, zoom out, and take a look at the big picture again. When God looked at Adam and Eve, He spoke of families that would be in covenant with Him and families that would not. When God graciously chose Noah and Abraham and their descendants, he invited and chose families, not just individuals, to be in covenant with Him. The same was true of the Mosaic and Davidic covenants, but I’m hoping this point has been sufficiently made already. This is why Peter, without any further explanation, can proclaim loud and clear at Pentecost:

Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins... For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to Himself. (Acts 2:38-39) 

Now that we understand that God's promise is not only to individuals from outside the covenant, but also to the households of believers, I want to go back to a point I made earlier: God initiates everything. This point can’t be stressed enough. God initiates, as seen in the words of Peter in Acts 2:38-39. God's promise is for "everyone whom the Lord our God calls to Himself." God initiates, which is precisely the outward, visible sign on display when a child is baptized. This is also true of a grown-up stranger and “outsider” of God’s covenant who is baptized. God’s sovereign initiation is on display in baptism. But since no one reading this post is seriously concerned about grown-ups choosing to receive baptism, and this discussion is really about the ramifications of baptizing infants, I want to discuss a little more about children that are born into believing families – families already in covenant with God.

Many Christians today argue that one must believe first in order to be identified among God’s people; that is to say, to be in a covenant relationship with Him. This proposition is offered as a dilemma for those who wish to baptize infants because it's very difficult to identify the expression of faith in an infant who barely expresses anything other than being hungry and wanting a diaper change. But is belief a prerequisite? Is this really the way God reveals membership into His covenant? Even under the Old Covenant, God required participation from Abraham and his children, without the children's consent:

And God said to Abraham, "As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations. This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised." (Gen. 17:9) 

If Abraham was to be faithful to the covenant with God, he and his sons would have to bear the "sign of the covenant" (verse 11), which, at that time, included circumcision for every male. Every male of every age who was not circumcised would be "cut off from his people" because "he has broken My covenant" (Gen. 17:14). As a result, male Israelite children who received the sign and seal of God's covenant (i.e. circumcision) truly became heirs of God's promises, without ever first demonstrating true faith or "making a decision for themselves."

Some Christians still think that this evidence isn't convincing because it isn't practical enough. As a counter argument, they insist that faith in God is a prerequisite for baptism because that way the believer should be held accountable to God based upon his own free choice of entering into that covenant relationship. Allegedly, if an infant is baptized, it would be unfair for that infant to be held accountable because he entered into a covenant with God without his own consent. However, upon further reflection, this really isn't a helpful argument either. Not only does it ignore the very clear teaching of the Scriptures that God chooses parents and their household to be in covenant with Him, but it also assumes that someone should only be held accountable to God if they first agreed to enter into the covenant, which an infant does not do. But what we find in the Scriptures is that God does in fact hold covenant children accountable to Him in order to remain a member of His household. Everyone we find in Scripture who is in covenant with God had to be faithful to Him. That includes children too. They had to repent and they had to believe in the God that set them apart to serve them. The Scriptures overwhelmingly testify to this fact. If a member of any age would later manifest himself or herself as apostate (i.e. rejecting God’s covenant), the result would be a loss of inheritance. Even the Mosaic economy of redemption which God designed was replete with laws pertaining to the inheritance of God's people. The symbolism of such revelation is obvious too: not all members of God’s covenant are regenerate in heart, but all members are set apart with covenant obligations. They must embrace God’s promises and exercise faith, or they would inevitably lose their inheritance with God’s people.

Today, baptism is the sign that marks the covenant people of God, the worldwide Christian Church. It would take too long for just one blog post to demonstrate the relationship between the old covenant sacraments of baptism and circumcision, and why circumcision no longer remains a sign and seal of God’s covenant, while baptism does remain. (Yes, I said that right. Baptism was an old covenant sacrament, along with circumcision for males.) Perhaps I’ll need to discuss those tedious details in a future post. But the bottom line is that baptism is the sign that marks the covenant people of God under the New Covenant, and that same covenant-keeping God still works within the context of families already in covenant with Him through faith, not just with outsiders who know nothing of or about Him and His covenant.

This means that Christian men and women are required to raise their children as Christians. When God looks at the children of baptized men and women today, He sees children who are in covenant with him because He has promised to be God to His people and to their offspring after them. Baptism simply ratifies the covenant into which the children were born. Like the Israelites before them, children of the New Covenant still have to repent and believe in the God who calls them to be holy like He is holy (I Cor. 7:14). Each child has a choice to be faithful to the living and true God that has graciously saved their parents, and by extension, their household. Until covenant children reject God, they ought to be treated as heirs of God’s promise because God has identified them as heirs of His promise. Notice carefully that the apostle John addresses "little children" as Christians (I Jn. 2:12), and likewise, when Paul addresses "the saints" in Ephesus (Eph. 1:1), he includes children among those saints (Eph. 6:1). In other words, Christian parents have every right to treat their children as Christians, identified as being in a covenant with Him, because God treats them as Christians.

As Jadon grows and matures, he will learn a lot about the God of the Bible. We will teach him that God knew him before he was born, and that God chose him to be our son, knitting him in the womb of a Christian family for the purpose of serving Him and raising up another Godly family in the future to serve Him. Jadon will know that our family worships The Creator, Lord, and only Savior of the world, the triune God revealed in the Scriptures. He will know that God sees him as His child, and that he needs to trust his Heavenly Father in all things. My wife and I will model what it means to repent and confess our sins to God. We will model a life that belongs entirely to God and will teach Jadon that his life also belongs to God, and there is nowhere he can run or hide to escape that reality; and to pretend otherwise, suppressing the truth of God, rejecting His promises, despising His grace, will bring the sure covenant faithfulness of God: the loss of inheritance with the family of God. Instead of treating Jadon as an outsider, Jadon will be loved as a child of God. He will be nurtured and admonished as a child of God. He will receive a happy, worshipful, loving, and Godly environment in which to live as a child of God. At no point in Jadon’s childhood will he be raised to think of himself as anything but a child of God. And unless he proves otherwise, we have every right to embrace God’s promise that he is a true child of God. Jadon will grow up knowing that God graciously chose him, and that any response of faith on his part, is because of God’s grace in choosing him.

So why are we going to baptize our son? In short, we are not. God is going to, because God is the one who always initiates. We’re just embracing His promises by faith, and trusting in His grace.

1.  Different sources will provide different nuances of meaning, but whenever I use the term "Covenant" in this post, I am operating with a definition provided by the philosopher and Christian apologist, Dr. Greg Bahnsen, who stated that the Biblical concept of a covenant is:  "A mutually bonding compact between God and His people sovereignly transacted by the Lord wherein a promise is made by God which calls for trust on the part of His people and entails obligations of submission which are sanctioned by blessings and cursings." -- Greg Bahnsen, PhD, Outline of Systematic Theology,  http://www.cmfnow.com/articles/system.pdf