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Hello and welcome to Doctrine Matters, a weekly podcast exploring the rich theology of the Christian faith. Each week we want to take hold of one aspect of our faith and try to understand theological concepts that sometimes have been debated, controversial, or maybe just hard to understand. And hopefully we can look at them in a way that is clear, concise and accessible. The goal is that believers would be encouraged and edified and that God would be glorified so we can love him more, know him more, enjoy him forever. I'm Kevin DeYoung, your host and teacher, and this is Doctrine Matters. We continue working our way through ecclesiology, the doctrine of the church. This week we come to baptism. There is so much to say about baptism and the Lord's Supper, but we really just have time for this week on Baptism, next week on the Lord's Supper. This is obviously going to be one area where many good Bible believing Christians disagree. I'm a pastor in a Presbyterian church, grew up in Dutch Reformed tradition and was baptized as an infant. I understand that many of my Baptist friends do not consider that to be an infant in actual baptism, but I do and have administered the sacrament of baptism for, I don't know, hundreds of infants over my 20 plus years of pastoral ministry. So you're going to get an explanation and an argument, a friendly argument from a pedobaptist perspective. Pedo there that prefix means infant or child, the belief that baptism is a sign and seal given to believers and to their children. But let's start more broadly. What does baptism mean? I agree here we can start where there's agreement between Credo Baptist, as they're sometimes called. Credo means, I believe so those who practice baptism only for professing believers. In Paedo Baptist, there is an agreement on the basic meaning you have. Water symbolizes washing away forgiveness of sins. We know that Jesus, the Great Commission, commanded the disciples to baptize in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We can likewise agree that union with Christ is one of the big ideas. To be baptized in that language of in or into signifies incorporation, identification. Baptism saves us, Titus says, not by removing physical dirt, but by an appeal to God for a good conscience through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. So baptism is a sign and seal of the forgiveness of sins. That's what I think Titus means when it saves us. It is that sign of the salvation that comes through the work of Christ. There's also an element of warning in the symbolism of water. Meredith Klein, the reformed Old Testament theologian, brought this out and I think he's right. That water that saves the righteous is also water that overwhelms the wicked. Noah and his family were brought safely through a water ordeal, so they're saved through water, and the world perished in water. Circumcision. Circumcision points to the cutting away of the foreskin of the heart, to regeneration, to new life. And there is a warning that if you prove to be a covenant breaker, you will be cut off. The Old Testament practice of circumcision does help us understand the practice of baptism. Now here we're getting into the arguments that will lead us, at least lead me, maybe some of you, to pedo baptism. There's obviously some discontinuity as we move from shadows to substance, but the symbolism is largely the same. So we see circumcision and Passover can be ascribed to the New Testament Church, First Corinthians 5, Colossians 2. And baptism and Lord's Supper can be ascribed to the Old Testament Church. In 1 Corinthians 10, circumcision pointed positively to forgiveness and renewal, cutting away the flesh negatively to punishment of being cut off. So baptism signifies the same two realities in the major key. Baptism, like circumcision, is a sign and seal of the righteousness that comes by faith. We saw that Romans 4:11. That's what circumcision was. Paul says very clearly it pointed to righteousness that comes by faith. Justification, union with Christ, forgiveness, salvation. That's what it pointed to. There's large agreement on these points. But what about the recipients of baptism? As the Gospel spreads in the Book of Acts, we often see baptism linked to faith in Christ. Those unbaptized persons who come to saving faith in Christ ought to be baptized. So baptism is for believers. Absolutely. And for their children. That's the controversial part. It's what distinguishes pedo from Credo Baptists. Here's the argument in miniature. God marked the covenant people with the sign of circumcision. That cutting away of physical flesh was a symbol of the cutting away of the fleshiness of the heart. That sign was administered to adult followers of the Lord and their children. We see it as people come into the Israelite camp. Strangers sometimes come in people in your household, they are circumcised. We see it later, when the covenant has been forgotten and needs to be renewed with a new generation. When they cross into the promised land, there is circumcision. So for those who had not yet received this sign in their life of incorporation and inclusion, in the same way, baptism, the washing away of sinful flesh, is administered to adult followers of Jesus and their children. And just as with circumcision, Paul says Romans 4, it's a sign of righteousness, and Abraham had it by faith. He gives it to his children, not all of whom prove to be covenant keepers, not all of whom believe. Let's talk about several other passages or considerations. Mark 10:14. If Christ lays his hands on children, blesses them partakers of the covenant, he welcomes them as citizens in the kingdom, why would we not apply that sign, the sign rather, that signifies all of that to children? So Jesus says, let the little children come to me. In fact, early baptismal formulas sometimes use that language of do not hinder. Now, Jesus, granted, he is not taking up children in his arms and baptizing them, but he blesses them. And he says, for to such as these belong the kingdom. Surely he does not mean to such as these. But obviously not any of these. No, he means these children. Nursing infants is the Greek word. To these little ones, they have to be little. He's carrying them in his arms. They also are partakers of the kingdom. But what sign could we give to someone who is a partaker of the kingdom, who ought to be blessed? Remember, when Jesus blesses, he's not just saying, hey, hey, good luck, guys. This is covenantal language. You are being literally folded in his arms into the covenant community in the kingdom of blessing. Peter uses covenant language for to you and for your children. The Abrahamic covenant had not been annulled. We know that from Galatians 3. The New Covenant replaces the Old covenant. The Old covenant is demonstrably, explicitly the Mosaic covenant. Paul makes this point. The Abrahamic covenant has not been abrogated. Romans 4 talked about this circumcision, all those spiritual realities linked to justification by faith. Baptism points to belonging, discipleship, covenant obligations, and it's given to our children. Ephesians 6 Children, obey your parents in the Lord. Why is that significant? Because Paul is addressing them as those who have the Lord Jesus. We do want our children. Every time I baptize a child, I say, and it is our prayer, that they will make all of these promises their own, and they will follow the Lord Jesus all the days of their life. Do not presume regeneration. Neither do we presume that the Lord is doing nothing in their hearts. Rather, we have good scriptural warren for addressing the children of believers as having Jesus as Lord, do you have to worry? Can I really teach my kids to sing Jesus loves me? What if they're. What do I know? Jesus really loves them. Well, yes, they are part of this covenant community. They are part of this family. And so Paul addresses them not as strangers and aliens, not as Amalekites and Moabites, but as Israelites. And they have Jesus as their Lord. Colossians 2, 11, 12. In one sentence, Paul moves seamlessly from circumcision to baptism. You can look it up. Hebrews 10:16 and 26:31 talks about the blood of the covenant being trampled upon. And he's obviously talking about the New Covenant. He means not all who start out with the church really belong to the church. First John 2:19. You can have an external, formal relationship to the New Covenant and prove to be one who tramples upon the blood of that new covenant, which is what Hebrews tells us. We could also think about the nature of baptism versus the Lord's Supper. God gives these two signs. One is active, to be repeated. One is passive and signifies initial incorporation. So the, the very act of eating and drinking requires some age. You must discern the body. There's a mental component to it. And just like a meal, you frequently eat a meal because you need to be nourished, you need to be fed, you need to eat and drink. That's why the Lord's Supper is that meal of covenant renewal. You are active. Think about baptism. What happens in baptism? You are given a name. Baptize them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. How often are you given a name? Once. You're given a name once, and you are passive in that. You didn't choose your name. Your parents named you, they identified you. You were born into this family. And so in baptism, it is right to think of ourselves as recipients passively, of a name. Now, our whole life, Christians, of course, is not to be lived out passively. But baptism is an inclusion ceremony, an incorporation ceremony, a naming ceremony, where someone else gives to you your family name. One is passive, one is active. Real quickly, what about the mode of baptism? Because this is often connected. My Baptist friends, many of them would say, well, the very word baptizo in Greek means to immerse. That's what it is. It's to be buried with him in baptism, raised with him in newness of life. And the mode itself speaks to what baptism is. And you must be immersed, because that's what the, the word means. You haven't been baptized if you haven't been immersed. Well, we could be convinced that baptito means immerse, and immerse infants. They do that in the Greek Orthodox Church. So that's one way that's not an argument itself against paedobaptism. But I would argue that the Bible uses these words not so definitively. That is to say, there are shades and varieties and overlapping themes with these baptism words in both the Old and the New Testament. So, for example, Hebrews 9:10, referencing various ceremonial washings, Diaphoros Baptismois mentions the sprinkled blood of bulls and goats as one of the baptisms. So sprinkling in most reformed churches, that's how it's done. Sprinkling has much more Old Testament precedence than immersion. You were sprinkled with the blood as a covenant people. The horns of the ulcer were sprinkled. There often was a sprinkling. You could talk about the ways that the word bapto, now we'll come to baptizo. It's not the identical word, but bapto ace, that way of talking in the Old Testament is used, for example of a bird. That is bapto ace is baptized in its own blood, which means to be dipped into the blood of a dead bird. You can't be fully immersed in your own blood or the blood of a another animal like yours. Think about the examples we have in the New Testament of baptism. We read of 3,000 believers being baptized in Jerusalem on Pentecost, and yet there is no large body of water near the Old City. Baptism here was almost certainly by some means besides immersion. There was no body of water sufficient that 3,000 people could be immersed. Acts 9:18. Ananias baptizes Paul seemingly on the spot after which Paul took food and was strengthened. There's no indication they went looking for a body of water to be immersed in. Likewise in Acts 10:47. Can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people suggest that water. Withhold water suggests water was being brought to them, not the Gentiles being brought to a large body of water. Now the best case for baptism by immersion is Acts 8. Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch. We read, quote, both went down into the water. But even here, the case for immersion, I would argue, is not strong. It says both men go down into the water. So the language of going down into the water must not itself be baptism, because Philip is not baptizing himself. It says they both went down into the water, and then they both came out of the water. Philip did not immerse himself along with the Ethiopian eunuch. It's better to think they both walked down into water. And then Philip baptized by sprinkling, by pouring. And then both men walked up out of the water and you say, well, but the immersion going down and up, doesn't that capture the symbolism of death and resurrection? Well, maybe the imagery of Romans 6 is about union with Christ more than about literally going up and down. And remember, Jesus was not buried down technically, but sideways in a tomb, not underground. Baptism, I would argue. Here's the point. It's about identification. First Corinthians 10:2 the Israelites Baptizo they were baptized into Moses. They were not literally immersed. The Word speaks of a spiritual reality more than a specific physical right we read that Jesus had not first washed himself before dinner. Same at Baptista. Now did he immerse himself? Was it a full body immersion or does it refer to some kind of cleansing or washing his hands? In short, baptism does not have to be by immersion. Washing with water is the important part. Hebrews 9 For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, even the sprinkled blood of Christ, for believers and their children? You've been listening to Doctrine Matters with me, Kevin DeYoung, your host and teacher. If you'd like to learn more about the topics we talked about today, you can check out my book Daily Doctrine. It's available in print or all audio from Crossway.org and you may want to talk to your pastor or a trusted friend who can recommend other good resources. The Doctrine Matters podcast is produced by Crossway, a non profit ministry that exists solely for the purpose of proclaiming the truth of God's Word through publishing gospel centered content. To learn more, visit Crossway.org until next week. I'm Kevin DeYoung, and this has been Doctrine Matters. Thanks for joining us.