Hosts dissect Baptist versus Particular Baptist covenant theology, arguing that while children of believers are external church members receiving baptism as a sign, they lack automatic salvation rights. Citing Hebrews 8 and the AD 70 temple destruction as proof the Old Covenant ended, they reject Federal Vision blurring visible and invisible churches. Emphasizing that 90% of conversions happen in Christian homes, they urge parents to baptize children only after personal faith professions rather than at infancy, concluding that God's sovereign grace operates through family worship and catechism. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, WAV2VEC2_ASR_BASE_960H, sat-12l-sm, script v26.04.01, and large-v3-turbo
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Covenant of Grace Explained00:15:17
One of the greatest and most frequent requests in our prayers should be for God to graciously save our children.
No child, by virtue of pedigree or status, is born with a right to salvation, and each child must choose for himself to place personal faith and trust in Jesus.
However, in an effort to maintain the importance of a personal decision to trust in Jesus, some Baptists run the risk of overcorrecting and negating the promises of the gospel that are given to parents and children.
For example, 1 Corinthians 7 14.
Baptists can and should affirm the holiness and special nature of their covenant children with a good conscience while still waiting to baptize their children upon a profession of faith.
Tune in now as we discuss covenant theology and why the children of Baptists and Presbyterians, but especially Baptists, are holy.
All right.
Well, welcome back.
Good to be here.
We're going to be discussing baptism and especially covenant theology today.
So, if you've been interested in covenant theology, like most of us, if you grew up in the U.S., you probably grew up in a dispensational home.
And so, I remember coming to covenant theology and I read a chapter of a book, I'll put it down and be like, what did I just read?
It can take some time to get used to that type of framework as compared to dispensationalism.
Where's the plan for the temple, the Third Temple Mount?
What about these red heifers?
What do we do with them?
Do these guys even love Jesus or what?
Yeah, yep.
So, we'll talk about Baptist covenant theology.
I'm going to go ahead and start.
So, I'm going to put some definitions on the screen.
I'll read them out for anyone who may be listening, not watching the video.
But I've got some definitions here that I think are going to be helpful to kind of set the stage.
So, when we talk about covenant, we're really talking about something very solemn.
Some guys would maybe say that there are covenants that are building, for example, or a mortgage covenant.
Those are probably closer to promises or contracts.
When we talk about covenants, we're talking about something really solemn, something really serious.
All of the covenants that we have as examples in the Old Testament, Especially when administered by God on behalf of the individual and contracted with them, they're of the utmost serious.
It says in Deuteronomy that I call today heaven and earth as witness against you.
That is as if all of creation is watching as Israel recounts the terms of the covenant that they're agreeing with with God.
And so covenants are a solemn bond and they're often sealed in blood.
So where this really comes from is in the ancient Near East, kings would sometimes conquer or they would take over the stewardship of a people.
And They would agree to protect them.
And because this was important, I mean, like, this is the king that's going to come protect me.
He's going to protect my walls, my borders.
I'm required to render to him allegiance because it was serious.
They would do a covenant.
And what they would do often in the covenant is they would take animals and they would cut them in half.
They would set them on two sides to create a walking path.
And both parties would walk through the middle of that covenant.
And what they were symbolizing is, so be it unto me if I break the terms of this covenant.
Let me be drawn in court.
Let me be cut in half.
If I'm the king and I don't come to the defense of the people that I covenanted to protect, or if I'm The vassal, and I don't render the allegiance that I promised to the king, let me be like those.
It's even called cutting a covenant.
That's where the word comes from.
So, covenant theology the definition of a covenant is a solemn bond.
The purpose of a covenant is blessings and curses.
So, we see God does this with Israel.
He offers to them blessings.
He says, This is how I'm going to bless you if you keep these terms that I lay out.
This is how I'll curse you if you fail to keep them.
Covenants also carry with them because we're not always at, for example, the altar in a marriage covenant or at the scene where we would make a covenant with a king.
Covenants also come with signs and symbols.
These aren't the covenant in and of themselves, but they're intended to point us to the covenant by means of remembrance.
One of the best examples, practically, is my wedding ring.
My wedding ring, if you put it on, you would not be married to my wife.
It is not as if this was destroyed, that my marriage would be annulled.
It's a symbol and it's calling to mind.
Even if you put it in there, I'd get another one.
But it's a symbol.
It's calling to mind the vows I made to my wife.
It's circular, so it indicates the never ending nature.
Of our love.
It's made not of rubber or not of, I don't know, like they make those cardboard straws that dissolve in water in three seconds.
It's made of tungsten.
It's made of steel to be durable and to be strong.
This wedding ring symbolizes the covenant.
And so when God especially administers covenants, what he does is he uses signs and seals to confirm them and to bring them to remembrance of his people.
So we see this in the Old Covenant as he makes a covenant with Israel, he gives them signs and seals.
We're going to talk about paid baptism, the logic behind it in a minute.
Anything to add on the covenant piece?
No, it's really good.
It's just the only thing that made me think was Genesis 15.
You know, that both parties would, you know, walk through these sliced and diced animals.
You know, so be it to me if I failed to keep the covenant, that I would be cut and drawn and quartered and sliced and severed.
So, this is serious.
It's solemn, like you said.
And there are severe curses, consequences to breaking the covenant.
And yet, Genesis 15, it's not that it's not serious.
It's just as serious, if not infinitely more, but it is particular in the sense that God alone walks through these cut in half animals, symbolizing that when it comes to the new covenant, That he is going to take upon himself the responsibility to uphold both ends of the deal.
He's going to take it upon himself to uphold single handedly the covenant.
And that's why, part of the reason why we're Baptist, in the sense that we believe that the new covenant is not just bigger, but it's better.
It's not just wider in its scope, but deeper in its promises.
Namely, one of those deeper, better promises is that there are no one who's going to be kicked out of the covenant.
That once in, you will always be in the covenant because God has taken it upon himself to uphold both ends of the deal.
There are no covenant breakers in the new covenant.
Yeah.
Part of the reason for that, I think, is at least when it comes to the covenants that God establishes with mankind.
This is not, Wes, you mentioned a king and a kingdom.
That is an example of a greater and a lesser in hierarchy.
Yes.
But there were covenants between people in the Old Testament who were equals.
But when it comes to the covenants with God, He in the Old Testament is always the one who initiates the covenant.
Because he is the greater party.
He has no obligation to us.
We can't come to him and bind him to our covenant.
He's greater than we are.
He is the one who condescends and demonstrates his grace and his mercy by covenant to which he binds himself.
And even that covenant, binding himself, passing through in Genesis 15, is an act of grace because he has no obligation previous to that covenant to do that for us.
Any of humanity, right?
God was under no obligation to offer the promise of redemption or to bind Himself to the new covenant, prophesying it in Genesis 15.
He didn't have to do that.
And so, even the fact that God condescends to covenant is in itself an act of grace.
It makes it a covenant of grace of sorts.
Yes.
Although that said, I do think that both the Westminster and 1689 language, just for the sake of clarity, is helpful in speaking of a covenant of grace and a Covenant of works, the initial covenant established with Adam.
I understand the language of a creational covenant or a covenant of life because Adam would have lived if he obeyed the covenant.
And if he had obeyed the covenant, he would have done it by grace through faith in the technical sense.
He would have done it by trusting in what God said.
He'd have to have faith in the word of God and he would have done it by everything that God provided graciously because for God to provide anything, he's under no obligation to provide anything, even for a being that's never sinned against him.
God, even just because this creature hasn't yet.
Committed treason against God does not morally obligate God to protect and provide for it.
So, everything that God was doing with Adam in a prelapsarian world before the fall was gracious, and Adam was sustained, albeit not very long, but he was for the short time, he was sustained by grace, living by grace, and doing it all, everything that he did well, doing it through faith, belief in God's command and his promise and the threat of judgment.
So, if Adam had succeeded in this probationary period and then been held out.
From the fruit of the tree of life and been transferred to an immutable status of no longer able to fall, all that would have been, in a technical sense, a salvation by grace through faith alone.
But although all that's true, as I've just demonstrated, it takes an unnecessary amount of time to convey.
And we all know what we're talking about.
It's helpful, therefore, just to say covenant of works, Adam had to obey, and covenant of grace, Jesus' obedience, received by faith.
And all human beings, by virtue of being born and by having been given by God breath of life and being sustained, owe him a covenantal allegiance.
And that's what all of us are covenant breakers in Adam.
That covenant of works, whereby do this and live, was failed by Adam and then passed down to us.
And then we ourselves fail to render the duty required of us as creatures sustained by God to him.
We'll maybe have to discuss that another time.
Each of us, by our own sin, ratifies Adam's covenant breaking steps.
Yes, right.
Yep, exactly.
So, what we're going to do in this first segment, the remainder of it, I'm going to just steel man the Pado Baptist positions.
We want to talk about why Baptists, your children, are holy.
They have a special providential status that you should not neglect or think of them as strangers, but you should think of them as holy children given to you specifically.
But to get there, I want to draw the contrast with the Pado Baptist position.
So, I'm going to read this is the definition of John Murray.
He's a Pado Baptist.
This is his book, Christian Baptism.
It's well regarded as the gold standard.
There's lots of guys, and there will be some different formulations.
So, I may read this, and you may say, well, I would view it this way or I would think of it this way.
That's fine.
There's different views on it.
Even as a Pado Baptist, you'd have to recognize within the camp, there's differences of opinion.
Same way there are with Baptists.
We would have different, maybe, views of what baptism is under the broad banner of being Reformed Baptist.
A lot of guys like Greg Strawbridge, for instance, more modern guy.
John Murray in Christian Baptism says this The basic premise of the Pado Baptist argument for infant baptism is that the New Testament economy is the unfolding and fulfillment of the covenant made with Abraham and that the necessary implication is the unity of.
And the continuity of the church.
I have a graph here that I think is helpful.
This was put out in the book, The Distinctiveness of 17th Century Particular Baptism, Pascal de Nolt, a great book for a survey.
So he gave me this idea for the graph.
I wish I was this creative.
The way the Pado Baptists would understand the covenant is they would understand that the old covenant, so we speak of the covenant made with Abraham, ratified again in Moses, even with David, there's some renewal, that that old covenant is an administration of the covenant of grace.
So, you talked about how the covenant of grace would empower obedience, and that's certainly true for the Pado Baptist.
I'm not talking about Tasco right now.
You're talking about Murray.
Talking about Murray.
Yeah.
Okay.
So, you have this administration of the covenant of grace.
Right.
Then you come to the new covenant, and it is the same covenant of grace administered with different signs and seals.
Right.
What the Pado Baptist sees is a continuity between the old and the new.
So, for Abraham, he was given circumcision, and then later on with Israel, Passover.
These were signs and seals and constant remembrance.
Of the terms of the covenant.
And so they see a continuity in the way that was applied to the families, to the children of specifically males and circumcision, the children of believers in the old covenant, to now the new covenant, where baptism and the Lord's Supper are those signs and seals and remembrances of the covenant, that there's a continuity.
The same way those are applied to children in the old covenant should also be applied to children in the new.
Anything to add on that?
Yeah, no, that's really good.
The only thing I would add is also, I've heard some guys, and I think this is helpful in steel manning the position, they would add to that.
Administration piece, they would say that not only is it administrated with new signs and seals from circumcision and Passover under the old administration, but also, and then in the new, it's baptism and the Lord's Supper, but also that change in administration doesn't just, don't think of it as simply administering something, the seals and blessings and curses being administered,
but think of that administration in the way that we would think of a government.
So, like right now, we're under the Biden administration.
Administration and Lord willing, we will have a new administration.
You know, dear God, please.
I mean that, dear God, please.
That we would have a new administration come this year and that it would be a better administration.
So, not just that it would administer better laws or provisions or penalties for breaking the law, but it actually would be new people in charge.
And so, Moses was, it was Moses's administration.
Kind of like Moses was the president, the commander in chief under the old administration, and then Jesus, who is the better Moses.
So it's not just administering something new, but a new administration, speaking of the federal head.
Yep, Christ.
Anything to add, Michael?
No, that's good.
Great.
What this results in so in the old covenant, so in Israel, the children were then given the sign of circumcision and they were allowed to partake in the Passover, which was done annually.
To remember when God passed over on account of the blood of the lamb over the mantle.
So, in that old covenant, those children received that by virtue of being born to covenant parents.
So, then the logic would follow that in the same way in the new covenant, which is not an altogether new covenant in this system, but a new administration, as you just laid out, that children born to believing parents receive the signs and seals of this new covenant.
There is some.
One covenant, just for the listener, one covenant with two administrations.
The old administration, but the one covenant being the covenant of grace.
Right.
Yes.
The one covenant of grace with the old administration.
And then Moses, and that being circumcision and Passover meal, and then the new administration, Jesus, the better Moses, with baptism and the Lord's Supper.
Exactly.
And the Old Covenant, it certainly they would recognize had some elements meant to pass away.
So the ceremonial law, for instance, was a part of this Old Covenant administration, but it was temporary.
It was intended to give way to the fullness of the New Covenant.
There's some disagreement on this, but largely in the Pado Baptist view, then, the administration of those signs and seals.
Federal Vision Distinctions00:10:09
Unites the child with the new covenant.
So I've asked a couple of Pado Baptist parents, like, is your child in the new covenant?
And they would say generally, yes.
The Wilson says this that all those who have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
So they're in the new covenant and God will sort them out at the end because there are children who are baptized as infants, even to believing parents, that go on to apostatize.
The view here is that they are, generally speaking, there may be some exceptions for the Pado Baptist, that child is, by virtue of being born to believing parents, in the new covenant and thus receives.
The signs and the seals that are appropriate to that new covenant.
Yeah, the external, there would be an external member of the new covenant receiving those external signs, visible signs and seals, baptism and the Lord's Supper, as well as a lot of other, you know, the ordinary means of grace of being in the visible church and receiving the preached word and addressing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs and all these different things.
But in the end, Christ will separate the sheep from the goats and there will be some who genuinely were new covenant members.
In the external sense, but not the decretal sense.
So they would have these two subsections.
So they would say, there's a new covenant member.
And the children of believers, we're not like those Baptists who despise their own children.
We believe that the children, that the new covenant is not less than the old covenant, it's more.
So if the old covenant was for the parents and their children, the new covenant is for the parents and their children and all those who are far off.
And so it's better.
The Baptists is making it worse.
Whereas they're saying it's bigger, not necessarily better.
Because what they would say is, our children are new covenant members.
However, here's the quiet part the quiet part is that there are actually two subcategories of.
New covenant members, and one of them is the category where you are an external member of the new covenant, but not the decretal new covenant member, which essentially means that you belong to the visible church, but you are not regenerate, you are not among God's decretal elect, and you will go to hell.
In fact, you will go to a worse portion of hell.
I've seen some greater curses for new covenant members who were new covenant breakers, and you can be a new covenant breaker within the Pado Baptist scheme.
I've seen some using language that almost seems to just expand it and do away with that visible, invisible, even though they would recognize that there's a decretal elect.
Les Lanisphere, for instance, he would be a Presbyterian.
And Doug Wilson kind of gets that way.
This is what happened with Federal Vision.
Right.
As he was saying, if you're baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, you're in the new covenant.
Right.
That's his historic debate with James White on Catholic baptism.
Right.
Is that good?
Are we good?
Right.
And Doug would say, did they say Father, Son, and Holy Spirit?
Right.
If it's a baptism into the triune name, then it's good enough, even if it's by.
A religious institution that denies the gospel, like Rome does.
And James White was, you know, had that typical James White face, like, are you kidding me?
And this is one of the instances where I had the same face.
And I love Doug Wilson, but I was like, I'm with James.
Right.
That's what it logically results in is that, because then what happened with the federal vision was the intent to give people assurance.
Right.
So by a federal vision, I appreciated that.
Federal means covenant.
They were administered the external signs of it.
And so his point was to say, you're in it if you don't apostatize.
So, worrying about assurance of salvation.
Well, you've been baptized into the covenant, you've participated in the signs and seals, you are saved.
You haven't definitively, clearly, consciously apostatized from it.
So, you belong to the new covenant and you're saved.
Stop worrying about your salvation in a good sense, in that Christ's work was for you.
Like, none of us, for the record, are federal vision guys.
No.
We're not even, you know, we're not even Pado Baptist Westminster covenantal guys.
So, we're certainly not, you know, think of it like this.
You know, Baptist, there's Disby Baptist, you know, way over here, and then, you know, and then there's covenantal.
You know, kind of 1689 reform, typical Baptist.
Then there's me, probably a little bit further than that, but still Credo Baptist.
Then there's your Westminster covenantalism, your typical Presbyterian.
Then there's federal vision, and that's somewhere in between Westminster and Rome.
And that's the worst that can be said of federal vision is that it's dangerously close to Rome, in my opinion.
The best that can be said of it is what you just said, Wes, that I think in their heart, now granted, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, but in their heart, To be fair, to their defense, I think their intentions were at some level to combat the radical subjectivism and constant, never ending introspection that came with Protestantism.
That Protestantism, I'm a Protestant, so I think overall it's a W, it's a win.
But let's just be honest Rome is easy.
It's easy in the sense that all you have to do, I mean, if you're baptized as a baby in the Roman church, you get married in the Roman church.
Yeah, confirmation in the Roman Church.
You take your first communion, your first Eucharist.
And even with that, you don't have to take it 52 times.
You could show up, honestly, you could show up like five times a year.
Purgatory will be a little longer.
Right, it'll be longer.
Yep.
But take the Eucharist five times a year, show up to church five times, as long as you were baptized as a baby, confirm, and then show up five times a year, take the Eucharist, maybe go to confession once every few years.
If you commit a mortal sin?
Only, yeah, only if you commit a mortal sin does it become really, really necessary.
Sure, you could do it more, but you don't have to.
And then get married in the Catholic Church, make sure your kids are baptized, and then have the last rites.
Last rites.
And here's the whole point.
And the Catholic who does that, the beauty, now here's the thing it's a thin, Facade of beauty because it's not real.
But the beauty is assurance.
The beauty is the objectivity of Rome.
You don't have a lot of Catholics arguing about which Catholics are actually Catholics.
Exactly.
And they probably should be having more as the President of the United States is engaging in the behavior.
You know if you're in or out.
Whereas you think of your typical Protestant and it's like every day, you know, reevaluating, like, does God love me?
Am I in the Covenant?
Did I behave well enough for this?
Am I really saved?
And because a lot of it, what it goes back to is instead of the object of our faith, it comes to the sincerity of our faith.
Did I really mean it?
Did I really invite Jesus into my heart?
Did I have true faith?
One more time, couldn't hurt.
Pray the prayer.
And so the best, my point is just to, you know, I know we're steel manning the Pado Baptists, but, you know, we might as well steel man the federal vision guys too.
And my attempt to do that is to say that the best that could be said of the federal vision guys is.
That they were sick and tired, especially if you look at these last 50 years, they were sick and tired of the radical subjectivism of evangelicalism that has virtually, honestly, virtually zero assurance of salvation.
And they were saying, that's enough.
We'll go to a quick break just to 60 seconds to explain Rome's position to and how it differs from our Pado Baptist brothers.
In Rome's system, baptism was what cleanses original sins.
We're talking about the sin that's inherited in Adam, it's baptism that cleanses it.
And then these other sacraments are the ones that infuse grace, would reduce your time to purgatory in that system.
The Pado Baptist does not say that baptism mechanically cures you of original sin, does not mechanically save you.
It's not mechanically saved you.
It's not mechanically saved you.
Exactly.
So Rome says it cleanses original sin.
Then these sacraments, trusted in the church, are what you use to infuse grace through your life.
You shouldn't fall from a state of grace through mortal sin.
That's a Catholic position.
The Pado Baptist is not saying that.
They're saying those are signs and seals of the covenant that our children have been born in.
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Law Written on Hearts00:14:40
All right, so to draw then the distinction of the Baptist versus the Pado Baptist.
So here's the second of my two charts, again, inspired by Pascal Denault's book.
The difference of the Baptist is that the Baptist says, absolutely, there's an element of the covenant of grace that eventually becomes the new covenant in Christ's blood present in the Old Testament.
There certainly is a unity between Old Covenant Israel and the new covenant, the true people of Israel, spiritual Israel.
But the form that it's in is not a different administration, but it's in the form of seed.
And promise.
So in the Old Covenant, there is an Abrahamic mosaic structure that is intended to point and to remind and to look forward to Christ by faith.
That's that Old Covenant structure.
And Israel specifically is offered blessings in that Old Covenant for faithfulness in the land.
And of course, there's continuity because it's shadow and it points to substance.
Yep.
So there's continuity there, but it's a temporary Old Covenant.
Right.
God, the two groups, the tribes of Israel, they go up to mountains.
And they recite the blessings for the covenant and the curses.
And for the record, those curses came upon them.
They're not just everlasting, they came upon them in 70 AD.
When you read through Deuteronomy 28, they're actually recounting what happens to them at their final rejection of the terms of the covenant.
They say, Let us be dispossessed from the land, be starving, have the foreigner invade us.
That's what happened in AD 70 after two exiles and then finally rejection of their Messiah.
They finally and completely broke the terms of the old covenant.
The Hebrew says, What is growing old is ready to pass away.
And it passed away.
The axe is laid at the root of the tree.
The axe is laid at the root of the tree.
But the substance of the new covenant is there in promise and seed form.
And so if you look at the cross, you see the covenant of grace promised.
The Mosaic covenant of works is the structure.
You can almost think of it as a guardrail.
And it's anticipating, it's pointing the viewer, it's pointing the observer.
Yom Kippur, the day of atonement.
It's pointing the observer to Christ, who is not yet there in substance.
But upon his death and upon his resurrection, Jesus at the Last Supper, this cup is the new covenant in my blood.
He inaugurates and seals a better covenant, a new covenant.
And that is the only covenant that is in place now.
I love it.
I'm just, the whole time you're talking, I'm just picturing R.C. Sprola Green with us in heaven.
He's a Baptist now.
He's a Baptist now, exactly.
Calvin's having me.
He's like, man, this is so good.
If only I had heard this, you know, when I was still on earth.
Go ahead.
Yeah, so it's two separate covenants.
And this is the crucial distinction I want to draw.
You'll see in Galatians, Paul describes, for example, Hagar and Sarah, and he does say they are two covenants.
But what would be the point?
And there are many other arguments, but I think this is the one I want to focus on.
What would be the point of the book of Hebrews that recounts at painstaking length?
How much better Jesus, yes, but especially the new covenant in Hebrews chapter 8 is.
This was the promise in Jeremiah and Ezekiel because the kids kept breaking the covenant.
They kept going into exile because the children would worship idols.
They kept being enslaved.
They kept being conquered.
And so, over and over, Old Testament Israel, they're not looking for, as best I can tell, a new administration.
Like, man, this covenant just really isn't holding.
What we really need is a new president in office.
Right.
It's a great covenant.
It's all, you know, they're not saying, If we could only try democracy harder, they're not saying, you know, classical liberalism is great.
We just need, you know, we just need a better president.
They're not saying, you know, my constitution, let's just get back to it.
No, Israel is saying, like, the prophets at least are saying, like, yeah, the prophets are saying, we need something different.
Yep.
This is not good enough because of our sin.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Jeremiah 31.
The days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new.
Covenant with the house of Israel, with the house of Judah, not according to the covenant I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand.
My covenant, which they broke.
Though I was a husband to them, says the Lord, this is the covenant.
And he goes on to describe the benefits of which are regeneration.
He gives a new heart in the place of a heart of flesh.
He writes his law on their heart.
He causes obedience.
So the whole covenant is also Ezekiel 36.
Exactly.
Right.
It lists the benefits of the new covenant.
One of them is I will cause them to walk in my ways.
So not just I will call them to walk in my ways and we'll see if they do or they don't.
No, I will cause them to walk in my ways.
It also says I will put the fear of myself within them.
Yeah.
And so it's, you know, because if it was just right, the law on their hearts, well, there is a sense, and this is perfectly biblical and clear there is a sense in which all image bearers of the living God, whether they're regenerate or not, have the law of God written on their hearts.
That's Romans 2.
That's natural law.
And so, you know, the unbeliever who's even been lying and suppressing the truth and deeds of unrighteousness in his heart of hearts, even as an unregenerate pagan, he knows that murder is wrong.
Why?
Because.
He knows there is a God in heaven that is a moral God and that he's sinning against him.
So every person actually has the law of God written on their hearts.
So it's not just like, oh, you know, the law of God was written on tablets of stone and now it's written on tablets of human hearts.
That's true.
And that's good language and I know it and I've used it and it's true.
But it's more than just that.
It's not just, now the law will be written on your hearts.
Well, the law of God is written on the heart of the pagan.
It's that, but what the pagan doesn't have is they do actually have the law of God written on their hearts, but what they don't have is God putting the fear of himself within them or causing, not just calling, Because the law beckons, it calls, but God causing them to walk in his statutes.
That is unique.
The pagan doesn't have that.
The old covenant doesn't have that.
Only the new covenant has that.
Yeah, let me read just Hebrews.
This is Hebrews chapter 8, verse 6.
And for the record, the whole point of Hebrews is it's building up to and just showing all the ways that Jesus is better.
So Hebrews chapter 1 Jesus is better than the angels, Jesus is better than Moses, Jesus is better than the high priest, Jesus is better than Melchizedek.
Don't neglect him.
So he's saying, like, don't go back to Judaism.
Don't go back to these old things.
Every single one of these things that you think is glorious.
Paul says in 2 Corinthians that even the ministry of condemnation had a glory.
He's saying, even though these things are glorious, even though the thing Moses built and the temple and all of this, Jesus is better.
And he lands the plane, so to speak, in a sense, in Hebrews 8.
In Hebrews 8, verse 6, starting, he says, But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant that he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises.
For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second.
Then he goes in and he actually.
Recounts Jeremiah 31.
I want you to expand on that for a minute, Wes, because I think that many Christians are going to be totally fine saying, Yeah, Jesus is better.
Right.
Right.
But you're saying that the point of Hebrews is that, Yes, Jesus is better, but the covenant, the covenant of my blood that he initiated, is a better covenant.
And I wonder if you, I know you kind of explained it, but just tease that out for a little bit for us.
Right.
He mediates this covenant by his blood.
Yes.
Which that's also a peculiar thing.
That you would have new covenant members, but who aren't actually the decretal elect, which means that they inevitably will go apostate, and that in the final analysis, they were genuinely new covenant members.
This is the Westminster scheme, but they didn't actually have internal union with Christ.
But the new covenant is mediated by Christ's blood.
And so within the Westminster scheme, there is a sense in which the blood of Christ by which the new covenant is mediated is not efficacious, the blood of Christ fails.
Right?
I mean, even, who was it?
DC Talk or somebody?
Jesus' blood never fails me.
Delirious.
I remember listening to that when I was in middle school.
So, delirious, according to the Westminster Confession, is absolutely wrong.
And I'm going to go with delirious over the Westminster Divines.
I know.
Okay, that could obviously be worded better.
Wes, why don't you take it away?
Well, I think, right, you mentioned the blood of Jesus.
What was happening in the Old Covenant, so you have the author draws a parallel.
The blood of Abel cried out for vengeance.
So, it was spilled on the ground, and that blood didn't cry out for forgiveness, it didn't purchase a new way into the throne of God, into the heavenly places.
It cried out for vengeance upon the person who spilled it.
In the same way, blood of bulls and goats, it didn't cry out for you as a substitute, as a human being, for appeasement or propitiation on the part of God.
So, all this blood is being spilled as a part of the old covenant.
I mean, when they inaugurate Solomon's temple, thousands upon thousands upon thousands of cattle and lambs, the old covenant is bloody.
Make it rain.
Make it rain.
And one of the things it's doing is it's forestalling God's judgment.
God is angry with humanity and he sets up as a structure the old covenant so that mankind can actually live in proximity to him.
That he could be in a temple and he requires a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot of blood.
Right.
That doesn't even, in the final analysis, take away sin.
And then Hebrews.
It only temporarily satiates the wrath of God.
It doesn't even satiate the wrath of God.
It allows God to put his just wrath on layaway, as it were.
Right.
Because, yeah, the blood of bulls and goats can never take away sin.
And so that doesn't satiate the wrath of God.
It just holds God over so that at the proper time, says Hebrews.
Yes.
Then God could send a substitute.
At the right time, Christ died forever.
A substitute, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
And the point is, the author of Hebrews, he knows all of this.
He knows the frustration with the high priest who was a sinner and the sacrifices that never worked.
And so he finally builds up to this is probably a sermon from Paul.
I would take that position.
Yep.
Sermon from Paul.
And he builds up and he says, Jesus enacts a new covenant and a better covenant.
And listen to what he says.
This is Hebrews 8 13.
And speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete.
And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.
That old covenant, that structure that anticipated Christ, is crumbling in the first century.
It's ripe for destruction.
And that's what happens in 70 AD.
And the old is gone.
The new covenant is fully inaugurated.
And that is the church age.
And everyone has faith in Jesus, is united to him through the covenant of grace.
He bore covenant curses on your behalf.
And now you experience covenant blessings.
And it's vital also, you keep mentioning it, but to understand the literal, physical, and local judgment that came in 8070.
In part because it really does help in understanding Hebrews 6 and Hebrews 10, you know, because I could just, you know, my Westminster.
Well, I'll touch on them for a minute quick.
Yeah.
Listening, they're like, yeah, you're really leaning heavy on, you know, Hebrews 8.
What about, you know, it's flanked with 6 and 10, try those on for size.
And for the record, if anybody wants to, you know, I talked through the entire book of Hebrews and I didn't speed up, I slowed down on Hebrews 6 and 10 and took my time.
And there's more that can be said than this, but part of what you have to understand with Hebrews 6 and 10 is the partial preterist hermeneutic.
Yeah.
That this is written, we believe, by the Apostle Paul, but whether it was Apollos or Paul or whoever, we believe that it was written pre AD 70.
And I believe that Hebrews was one of the later New Testament books, so on the heels, right before AD 70.
And so when he says that nothing remains, so he's talking about the Old Covenant, he's talking about Judaism as opposed to the New Covenant and Christianity, but he's also talking about the physical implications and geographic implications of these two covenants, saying that if you're going to stick with Moses, Instead of Christ, and you're going to stick with the old covenant instead of the new, Judaism instead of Christianity.
Well, here's one of, there are many, but here's one of the cons of Judaism and the Old Covenant as opposed to the pros of the New Covenant Christianity.
One of the, just practically speaking, one of the pros of the New Covenant is that it is not bound to any physical locale.
Right.
It's not bound to the temple.
It's not bound to Jerusalem.
It's not bound to the cherubim statues and the Ark of the Covenant and all that, you know.
And so part of what he's saying is that if you stick with Moses and the Old Covenant, by way of consequence, you are necessarily, by sticking with the Old Covenant, you're sticking with Jerusalem.
You're sticking with this geographic region.
And you know what remains?
Fire.
It's like, oh, that's a metaphor.
No, no, no, no.
Literally.
And who knows?
Hebrews could have literally been written in 8069.
I think it was 8067 at the latest or earliest.
I think within one, two, three years of 8070.
So I think there is the spiritual and logical sense, but there's also the quite literal, impending, right around the corner, physical.
Local judgment that's coming that literally ended in fire, literal fire, when, you know, with Emperor Titus, it wasn't Emperor yet, but Titus and destroying the city.
And there were billows of smoke.
They crucified so many Jews, they ran out of wood.
It was such a cataclysmic day.
There were women during the siege that ate their own children.
They were starving for the world.
That's exactly what the Old Testament prophets were talking about.
They're talking about this terrible day.
And that's not in our future, for the record.
All the dispy evangelicals are like, well, I'm not going to get married and have kids because Jesus is coming back next Thursday.
That.
That is terrible theology.
No, they were talking about that.
It really did happen.
God didn't fail to send his promises or his judgments.
It's not something that isn't going to happen.
It's something that did happen, but it already happened.
It happened in 8070.
It was on Israel.
And yeah, women were eating their own children.
Jews were being crucified.
There were ash and fire and billows of smoke.
Josephus even interviewed dozens of eyewitnesses, dozens, who said they saw.
In these billows of smoke and the smoke representing judgment, just like Joel 2, you know, clouds and billows of smoke.
It's not, you know, chubby little baby angels on the clouds playing harps.
No, these aren't pretty clouds, heaven clouds.
These are judgment clouds, smoke, ash, war.
And all these people who were interviewed by the late great historian Josephus, they bore testimony saying that in these, through the smoke and the ash in the sky as Jerusalem was.
On fire, literal fire, the thing that the author of Hebrews said, leave Judaism, aka leave Jerusalem, because fire is coming, literal fire.
These guys said that through the clouds they saw silhouettes rushing back and forth of like the shadows and silhouettes of chariots, kind of like what was seen with Elijah, the chariots of fire.
Visible Church and Blood00:07:30
And they understood because it was the same generation.
It was literally in Jewish terms, it was a 40 year, one generation from what Jesus said in Matthew 24, all of that discourse.
And then 80 70 was approximately 40 years.
And there were many.
Who heard Jesus, one of the greatest prophecies ever made, where Jesus said, I tell you truly, again, not just as a metaphor, but in a literal sense, not one stone of this temple will be left upon another, and that all this is going to happen before this generation passes away.
Not just this kind of generation.
Do you know how we know every stone was taken apart, too?
The gold from the temple ran down through the cracks, and so the Romans disassembled every single stone out of the temple foundation to make sure they got all the gold.
So Jesus prophesied.
Every single stone they're going to take apart, and literally, we can be sure to make sure they got the gold.
The Romans pulled every single stone out of that foundation and did so.
Every stone was taken apart because we know that the Romans wanted that.
Would not leave an ounce of gold.
No, seriously, I wouldn't have left it.
No, no, I would have taken it.
I'd be there digging.
So, all that being said, you know, Jesus said, this generation won't pass away.
40 years later, at the very end of that generation, there were the same people he was talking to in Matthew 24, the Olivet Discourse.
Many of those same people, now very old, but still alive, just like Jesus said.
And before their eyes, the temple is literally destroyed.
Not one stone left upon another.
The greatest local, physical, literal judgment that ever came to Israel.
And then they look in the clouds of ash, not heaven, spiritual clouds, but literal.
Clouds of judgment and ash and fire from being destroyed, and they see silhouettes of chariots going back and forth.
And they know that Christ, who is the God man forever in flesh now, incarnate in the literal physical sense, is seated at the right hand of God the Father.
But that there was a parousia, a second coming that Christ spiritually, it was a second spiritual coming in AD 70, and that spiritually Christ did come to Jerusalem and he came not for a secret rapture.
But to judge Israel according to the flesh for their rejection of him.
And he told the high priest at his trial, You will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven.
So maybe that was when the high priest died.
That's what it was.
Or maybe the high priest was there in Jerusalem and saw Jesus visiting in judgment.
And all that to be said back to Hebrews is to say Hebrews 6 and Hebrews 10, part.
I'm not going to say it's all of it.
Again, we'll talk about it.
I'm sure you'll mention it, Wes, but in part.
But if you want a more full explanation, check out the series that I did on the book of Hebrews.
But Hebrews 6 and Hebrews 10 that says, You know, That nothing remains except for a fiery judgment, these kinds of things.
And you need to get out of Dodge and leave the old covenant, leave Judaism, leave.
Part of it is explained by this, part of it's explained by post millennialism, a partial preterist post millennialism.
Social personal preterism, yeah.
An understanding of the judgment that was coming in AD 70.
And so the Westminster guys, who I love, these guys are not only brothers, but friends.
But they would say, you know, Your Baptist covenant theology makes sense of Hebrews 8, but it fails to make sense of Hebrews 6 and 10.
And I would say it's Baptist covenant theology plus partial progress post millennialism that helps me to understand Hebrews 8 and 6 and 10.
We'll go to a break, but let me make a quick distinction here in Hebrews 10, too, because it reads How much worse punishment do you think will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified?
So, you read that and you're like, oh, that's a gotcha.
See, gotcha Baptist, this individual trampled the blood.
He's a covenant breaker.
Right.
And he was sanctified by it.
He was in the covenant.
Sanctified.
That word, Pascal Dodault makes a strong case, can be translated it.
So, the blood of the covenant by which it was sanctified.
So, there was a new covenant offered to the Jews in first century Israel, and they profaned it.
They rejected it.
We want nothing to do with the Son of God, the covenant, exactly.
So, they weren't sanctified by that blood.
The covenant was sanctified.
The covenant was sanctified by the blood.
They rejected it.
How much more worse of a judgment do you think is coming on those not that were in the covenant, sanctified by blood partially, and then went on to reject it?
By those who were no, they rejected the covenant, which was sanctified and purchased by Jesus' blood.
But the writer of Hebrews has in mind people who have made a profession to the new covenant, probably been baptized, right?
And are being pulled back into Judaism, right?
Yep, there's that instance too.
Um, but they were never sanctified, correct?
I would agree, I would agree, and we would say, in the outer sense, yes, there is such a thing, the Baptist scheme.
Baptist, you know, Reformed Baptist 1689 covenantal scheme absolutely has the, you know, the invisible and visible church distinctions.
So, we still have, as Baptists, a visible church.
The difference is it's this simple.
All right.
So, Westminster, they're going to say new covenant, and that's both visible and invisible church.
Baptists, we're going to say new covenant, that's invisible church.
And then, visible church, that's, you know, that includes unbelievers, people who are unregenerate, people who eventually end up going apostate, but they're not a part of the new covenant.
So, it's like for the Baptists, you've got invisible church.
And then, as a smaller circle, if you can picture it in your mind's eye, so you've got this like a target.
You've got the center circle, that's your invisible church.
And that is also synonymous with the elect, also synonymous with the new covenant.
And then outside of that, a wider circle is the visible church.
But the visible church is not synonymous with the new covenant.
The invisible church, that smaller circle, is synonymous with the new covenant.
For the Pado Baptist, the Westminster guy, it's just the reverse.
They're going to still have two circles, just like us, but they're going to say this wider outer circle, which is the visible church.
That's made up of both believers and unbelievers, that's synonymous with the New Covenant.
The New Covenant encompasses that whole visible church.
And then within that, there's the invisible church.
And that invisible church, that's synonymous not with the New Covenant, because the New Covenant is the visible church, but the invisible church, that tighter inner circle, that's synonymous with the decretal elect, the New Covenant, but inner New Covenant subcategory, New Covenant members who are actually New Covenant, but then the other guys are still New Covenant.
But only externally and not internally, and so they have been sanctified, but they haven't been sanctified.
And Jesus mediates the new covenant to these unregenerate people who belong in the new covenant by his blood, but in this case, the blood of Jesus fails.
And it's just, I think it's, um, I think that Baptist covenant theology makes more sense of scripture.
What I was trying to say actually agrees with what you guys were saying because it seems like what the author is saying is when Wes, you pointed out the distinction that, um, The word means it, not necessarily.
It could mean it, not necessarily.
And so, what I was saying is those who came and made a profession into the new covenant and then went back to Judaism, what they are abandoning is not just a blood that supposedly had made them holy, but what they're abandoning is a blood that made the entire covenant holy.
Baptists Hear This Warning00:02:30
Exactly.
Greater abandonment, even than a blood that may have sanctified or forgiven them individually.
There was a greater trampling, even than just their own personal.
Baptism or their own personal conversion that proved to be false.
There was an abandonment and a betrayal of the entire system.
And in that sense, that is taking the name of the Lord in vain.
That's taking the whole system of the new covenant onto themselves.
The blood made that system holy.
And then they abandoned that and went back to Judaism.
Well said.
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Parenting and God's Grace00:14:58
All right.
So, landing the plane, I'm going to go ahead and read 1 Corinthians 7 14 because this is a key passage.
And Baptists need to hear this.
They need to hear this.
Get rid of the Pado Baptists where we think they're wrong now.
Let's pick on our own.
And for the record, there are good arguments to come back.
We are not the first person to say, like, oh, it's a new covenant.
That means there's two of them.
There's good arguments on both sides.
Right.
But I still think that's true.
It's just, it is a new and a better covenant.
All right.
1 Corinthians 7 14.
I'm going to start at 13.
If any woman have a husband who is an unbeliever and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him.
For the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband.
Otherwise, your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy.
Some Baptists, John Gill, I think, took this position, as well as you would see it in the early church.
It's heartbreaking.
Don't say it.
John Gill took this position.
That's my understanding.
This would be a rare John Gill L.
But go ahead.
But the beautiful thing is theology, it doesn't evolve as in the truth evolves, but we gain better and better understanding.
So it's great to be able to look back at all the good stuff he's done and say, hey, on this specific issue, I think there's a better way to talk about it.
So historically, it's been understood as the children are made holy in that the marriage is legitimate and it gives rise to legitimate offspring.
The marriage is legitimate.
You mean they're not bastards.
Exactly.
Exactly.
They're not bastards.
That's the sort of legitimacy.
Which that framework almost assumes then that unbelievers, a man, biological man, and a biological woman that are married that have children, If they're not believers that that union and the children that come from that are not holy.
Right, exactly.
According to this, you would have to believe that marriage is only possible for Christians.
Yeah, and that God didn't give it to humanity, He gave it exclusively to the church.
So if there's a Muslim husband and wife that are in a monogamous, lifelong marriage, their children are all illegitimate.
They're all bastards.
But I'm sure Gil would not have said, let's take the children of the Jews away and give them to Christian families.
Right, because they're.
And that's the logical contradiction within that.
But a lot of Baptists hold this view.
And didn't you say some guys, some pedo guys who weren't credo Baptists, they still also held this view?
Some of the early church fathers.
Some of the early church fathers would have, yeah, as I understand it, that's who Gill relies on when he says some of the early church testimony was that it was merely referring to legitimate offspring.
But Paul seems to be describing an ongoing state.
So if I have two children, those children are legitimate, they're the children of me and my wife.
And then, by virtue of me being a believer, my wife being a believer, they're made holy.
If that just is a one and done, then if for some reason I apostatize or my wife and the other spouse was still believing and left in it, Paul's command for them is to still stay in the marriage.
So, if for some reason your husband is not a believer, maybe he never was, maybe he apostatized, he's still commanding to stay in the marriage, he says, because you sanctify the husband or the husband, the wife, and your children are made holy.
So, I don't think it can be simply that the children, upon conception and then birth, Are because at least one of the parents is Christian, just that birth is legitimate as a single act, so to speak, in a single moment in time.
Right.
So you're saying it cannot be that as long as one of the spouses, either husband or wife, is a Christian or at least a professing Christian at the moment of conception andor birth, then that in a once and for all fashion for all time makes the children holy.
But it seems to be.
Because that means if it's a Christian family, if both parents apostatize, Now, the children are bastards in some way?
Well, if we're going with holy means valid, holy means legitimate.
That's what I'm saying.
Wes is saying there's a process there, which shows that it means more than just a legitimate process.
It's a continual argument.
Paul wants the believing spouse to stay in the marriage.
He says, stay in it.
Now, he does say, if the other spouse leaves, don't literally chase them down, lock yourself in the apartment with them.
He understands you're commanded to live at peace.
But he says, in so much as you can, live at peace with them because you are sanctifying of the husband.
And sanctifying of the children.
Leave the wife.
Leave the wife.
Peace with them, or sometimes the only way peace is achieved is to let them go if they insist on going and refuse to stay.
It's not up to you.
You are not guilty if the spouse left.
So instead of then thinking of our children as a relationship of covenant with the new covenant.
So, me as a Christian, my wife as a Christian, our children, our children do not necessarily yet, until profession of faith, have, as far as we can tell, A covenantal union to the new covenant.
The new covenant is all of those who have faith in Jesus.
Now, children can have faith.
The Holy Spirit in unborn infants or those that would be mentally incapable of responding to the word, the Holy Spirit works in a way to regenerate them.
But normally speaking, God will work in time and space.
And in time, our children will then profess faith as they're taught it.
They'll be baptized, they'll receive communion, et cetera.
And what you said earlier, just to clarify, that we don't believe our children have new covenant status until, not a profession of faith in the technical sense, they have new covenant status.
Not at the moment of a profession, but at the moment of regeneration.
But as far as we can, right, God alone looks at the heart, man looks at the outward appearance.
So as far as it relies on us, we are waiting for a profession of faith, not because the profession of faith is the actual moment of salvation.
We believe that the profession of faith is what will naturally, ordinarily follow and usually quickly follow that inward miracle, work of the Spirit, regeneration, except for in some rare cases where a profession of faith is not possible.
Someone who is mentally incapacitated or an infant.
And the London Baptist Confession says this.
The Spirit is capable of regenerating those who are unable to respond.
Yep.
I'll be honest, not my favorite.
I like John 3, but I'll be honest.
Sometimes I'll look at the references and they're like, You don't like that?
I like it.
They're like, Elect infants.
They're regenerate and they're saved.
And then I'm like, Oh, man, I love that.
Where's that in the Bible?
And I go to the references, The Spirit blows where He wants, bro.
John 3.
Spirit gets to do what He wants.
No explanation or exegesis.
It's just John 3, Spirit blows where He wants.
I love that explanation.
But so the point is, our children, not a covenantal relationship, but a relationship of providence.
And this is where Baptists get it wrong a lot.
All unbelievers are not on the same footing necessarily when it comes to maybe engagement is not the right word, but relationship to grace.
The Puritans spoke a lot of preparatory grace, grace that prepares the heart, that makes the gospel reasonable, that makes them understand the precepts of it, not as yet saving grace, but a grace that begins to prepare the heart for eventually the work of the Holy Spirit of regeneration.
So our children are not in the new covenant until they've been regenerated, which then would be followed by a profession of faith, which would be followed by the covenant signs and seals.
But they have a relationship of providence in that, and you've said this many times, I think it's a great point.
They've been given to us.
Our children have been given not to our neighbor.
My neighbors are Muslim across the street.
He didn't give my children to them, he gave them to me.
And in my home, they are going to hear the gospel on a daily basis.
They are going to be prayed for from before they were born.
They're going to be taken to church and sit under over 2,000 hours of faithful teaching and preaching.
They're going to sing songs, they're going to be catechized.
All of these things for the intention of, I believe, In God's grace, I am not owed it for the intention of saving my children.
Amen.
Preparatory grace.
To give an analogy, God intends very little wheat to grow in a field that is never plowed, that is overrun by weeds, and that only has two or three little seeds of wheat thrown onto it.
He intends much wheat.
And in fact, it's the normal expectation.
A farmer expects a crop when he goes out there and plows, gets rid of weeds, sows.
God intends for much wheat to grow in that field.
Yes.
And to understand this concept, this principle under the banner of grace.
Yes.
Because that's something that I struggled with.
So, for the listener, if you're struggling with, but it sounds like what you guys are saying is tit for tat.
Right.
It sounds like, guys, I got to shoot you.
I like what you're saying, but it sounds like what you're saying is that the salvation of my children is the product of good parenting.
And so, to explain that for the listener, because what we're saying is it's the principle of sowing and reaping, which is an undeniable biblical principle that does apply to salvation.
But to understand that and to reconcile that with sovereign grace, unconditional election, is that what we have to keep in mind is that God, who is sovereign over the ends, namely who ends up being saved, there are many ends, but that being one of the ends of salvation, individual salvation, the same God who is sovereign over the ends of salvation is also sovereign over the means of grace, the means of bringing about that salvation.
And it's all grace.
So when we say, by God's first, My children were given to me instead of my Muslim neighbor.
And me and my wife happen to both be believers.
That's first.
Second, as believers, it's not just that we did a Billy Graham, attended a Billy Graham crusade and signed a document and went down the aisle once upon a time.
No, as believers.
And then just abandoned it, didn't follow the church or anything.
As believers, we are regularly, Lord's Day in and Lord's Day out, in a local Bible preaching church.
We also are doing family worship in the home.
And it's like, and I can hear the listener again saying, Joel, but.
You're just saying the same thing.
That's works earning that you think that by your good parenting, you're working the God of the universe into your debt, that He owes you now the salvation of your children.
No, no, no.
You're missing it.
What I'm saying is that the ends of grace, God saving my kids, is grace.
But the means of grace, me being a good parent, taking my kids to church, keeping my wedding vows, being a Christian myself, and leading them in family worship day in and day out, catechizing them, not putting them in a public school, but putting them in a Christian school or a Christian home school.
All of that is grace too.
Because if I do that, it will not be Joel's hard work merits God's grace.
Because if my work merits grace, then it's not grace, it's a wage.
No, no, it's God's grace through Joel will eventually blossom and lead to the end result and fruition of God's grace in my kids.
God's grace through me will, because here's the deal.
If I lead my family in family worship three, four, five times consistently a week for 25 years for all of my kids to go through the home, you know what will have been the ultimate?
There are the secondary causes, right?
But you know what will be the primary?
Original, highest, ultimate cause of bringing that about, God's sovereign grace.
I'll have only accomplished that by the grace of God.
So then here's the question Did God pour out his grace through the means of using me as an instrument of gospel saturation in my home?
Did God do that with the end purpose of heaping up greater judgment and wrath for my kids who ultimately reject the gospel and go to hell?
That is, there is a biblical category for that.
That is possible.
But I would argue that that is both biblically and in terms of church history and experience, that is not normative.
It is possible, but that is not normative.
So Christians, even Baptist Christians, I think can hold to covenant succession, which, last thing I'll say real quick, the definition of covenant succession, none of it is inherently Westminster or Pado Baptist.
The definition of covenant succession is this.
It is the eager expectation of Christian parents that their children would succeed them in the Christian faith by virtue of covenant nurture, not nature, not elect DNA, but covenant nurture, meaning Christian nurture, Christian parenting is a means of grace that ultimately God is the one who brings about.
And ordinarily, God, who gives the means of grace of Christian parenting, does so for the purpose of the end of grace, namely.
Because he's doing that to save the kids.
And so, my expectation, not God owes me and not 100% guarantee, but my whole bent, my wife and I, our whole bent is we are assuming that ordinarily, meaning far more often than not, if God is day in and day out supplying grace for us to parent Christianly, it is because he plans to make our kids Christian.
And anything less than that is not credo Baptist.
Anything less than that is just not Christian.
It's silly.
There's a straw man that is presented of Calvinism, which is that Calvinism teaches that Christians don't need to evangelize because God is just going to save whom He's going to save.
And the irony is the people who would be making the case that you're arguing it against are actually falling into that straw man, saying, well, there's no bearing, there's no difference at all if I preach the gospel faithfully to my kids or not.
Yep.
Yep.
And there are Baptists who do that, sadly.
They say it doesn't make a difference because I don't have a promise for my kids to succeed me.
But they don't believe that because Baptists, by and large, believe in sharing the gospel.
They're very evangelical.
Of course they do.
Baptists, by and large, they may deny covenant succession in terms of their doctrine, in terms of word.
But indeed, they're like, yeah, I think I should probably pull my kids out of public school.
Yeah.
Yeah, I think we should catechize our kids in the home.
Yeah, my kids.
Kids need to, I need to take them to church.
Yeah.
Like, so, so they don't actually live like that and praise God.
Yeah.
And then on the pedo side, they speak as though it's covenantal.
It's not just the mechanics of nurture, even though that is the technical definition.
But then they'll start saying, well, but it's just really about federal headship.
And so, as for me and my house, by virtue of my covenant member status, that ensures that the children are covered.
But then, the same thing in terms of how the pedo Baptist lives, because we've got lots of pedo Baptist friends, they're not living as though it's just this 17th dimension spiritual covenantal reality.
They're very much aware that it's means of grace bring about ends of grace because day in, day out, they're catechizing their kids and they're not using public schools either.
Unconditional Salvation Truths00:08:46
So it's funny that, like, the Reformed Baptist now I'm not speaking for you know, because when we say Baptist, I mean, that includes other Baptists, yeah, that includes you know, a bunch of people who may not even be saved.
I mean, everyone is a Baptist, you know, there are more Baptists than there are Christians at this point.
Um, so you know, but when we're saying is, but for our Reformed Baptist brothers and sisters and our Presbyterian Westminster brothers and sisters, um.
We have two different statements, but we really have very similar lives in terms of how we're living it out.
The Pado Baptist says, My kids are good, but they're living diligently on the hour to hour, day to day basis of ensuring my kids are good by the means of grace.
And the Baptist is saying, I have no promise whatsoever that my kids are good.
And we're saying, That's dumb.
You do have promises, but they're living saying, I have no assurance that my kids are good, but they don't.
In terms of their actions, treat it as a crapshoot.
In terms of their actions, day in and day out, hour by hour, they're trying to immerse their children with the means of grace.
Why?
Because they actually do think that more means of grace works towards a better end.
I mean, you could say it however you want to say it, but at the end of the day, they don't just think it's obedience to God.
I need to immerse my kids with the means of grace, preaching the word catechism, because it's obedience to God.
Of course it is.
I'm not saying it's anything less than that.
But the typical Reformed Baptists, they may say just because of obedience to God, but they don't really believe that.
They believe it is nothing less than that.
It is simply because God commands me.
But it's also because I want to see my children saved.
And I believe that more means of grace is better toward that end than less means of grace.
Right.
Of course, you believe that.
You believe it with evangelism with strangers, and you believe it with parenting with your children.
Yep.
Anything I might like to say about that?
I do have one last thing, and it's a practical thing.
Much ink has been spilt in the last couple of decades.
I remember I worked at an international Christian school in Taiwan, and we had meetings and we read papers.
Why is the church losing its youth?
Why is the church losing its youth?
Why do people go to a Christian school and then, you know, by college, they're totally abandoned the faith?
And while the topic of the faith of the parents being a bit of a controversial topic in this, I think there's something to be said for if a Baptist, this is my application, Joel, when you preach through this in Hebrews,
if a Baptist believes that the means of grace that God has ordained ought to be administered and provided by the parents, that is a type of faith that will lead the parent to do family worship, to teach, and to train.
And I look at the evangelical world, and I think one of the reasons why the children abandon the faith is because of a lack of a belief in the means.
Parents don't believe that if I catechize my children and if I preach the gospel, that is a way of God extending grace to my children.
And when my children becoming a Christian or not in adulthood is just a crap shoot, I have no motivation, no motivation to faithfully parent my children, to provide the gospel day in, day out, or even to take on a serious obligation as a father.
For, in a sense, the souls of my children.
It's Calvinism gone wrong.
I've said it before, but it's unconditional election truncated into essentially meaning arbitrary election.
Unconditional election is true.
But unconditional election does not insist upon arbitrary election.
What I mean by that is God does, he is under no obligation to save anyone.
He does unconditionally elect.
And sometimes he does that within one family unit, that he chooses one child and not the other, like Esau and Jacob.
We are aware of Romans 9.
I've read it.
But God's Unconditional election, which really is sovereign and unconditional, does not equal arbitrary election.
What I mean by that, when I say arbitrary election, is I'm saying God chooses unconditionally, but he does so through means.
His choice isn't hanging in midair.
His choice of who he saves isn't just hanging in midair.
Look at the statistics, look at history, and look at the biblical history.
It may have been in the mind of God before the creation of the world.
Yep.
Right?
That's where the hang up is.
Yes, that's hanging in midair.
If that hangs on anything, it's hanging on the covenant of redemption that God made with his son through the Spirit.
It's hanging on that, and nothing less than that.
That God the Father made a promise to his son, and the Son made a promise to his father, both by the Spirit, to save a people pure and spotless for themselves and for their own glory.
That's the covenant of redemption, and that's just God loves us because he loves us.
That's at the bottom of it.
God loves us because he loves us because he loves us, which also because he loves himself.
And so that's the midair.
If we're going to boil it down to the lowest piece, like the Adam, boom, covenant of redemption.
But outside of that, the lowest common denominator, and that is theologically true, outside of that, God's election is unconditional.
He really gets to choose, but it's not arbitrary, meaning the ends of grace are never severed from the means of grace.
90% of conversions come from people who are raised in a Christian home.
Right?
If it's not, then it's like, well, no, it's just God unconditionally saves.
Okay, but then explain to me.
Explain to me the number of conversions.
Of conversions in deep, staunch Muslim countries, and then the number of conversions in traditionally Christian countries.
If God just chooses at random, how come is God racist?
How come God keeps choosing to trust in white people?
For one, they had lots of kids.
For two, those kids were catechized.
Exactly.
Often without even a Bible in the home.
So God is not choosing nations because He prefers a certain.
Skin pigment or lack thereof.
I was joking for the record about the racist comment.
My point is no, there are much higher, it's not even close, much higher percentages of people being saved in some places rather than others based on those places and their dominant worldviews and religions, which radically affects the parenting, the way children are raised.
And all this means that God's not actually sovereign in election and salvation at the end of the day is really just the product of discipleship and what we do as people.
No.
What it means is that God's salvation really is unconditional, really is not arbitrary means of grace, never severed from ends of grace.
Amen.
And practically speaking, so I wouldn't say if you were baptized as an infant, you need to be rebaptized.
But where this matters is your baptism, Calvin talks about this, it's meant to serve, for one, to remind you of the covenant, but to serve as an assurance of your faith.
So if you're baptized as an infant, you don't remember it.
But if you're baptized upon profession of faith, which could be five, six years old, I personally was baptized at 21.
Now, when I'm tempted to despair or to doubt my salvation, I can look back and say, No, I profess Christ in front of the believing church.
I identified with him in his death, in his burial, but then raised to newness of life.
I am a Christian.
I'm seeing the fruit.
I've been baptized.
All those who've been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
So, practically speaking, you can remember your baptism, Wesley, and you can say, I can remember my baptism.
I can remember it.
And that too is.
And I have courage.
So, practically speaking, for your children, my encouragement from all this doctrine we talked about.
But also, practically speaking, do it upon a profession of faith where they're able then to look back and to say, No, I do belong to Christ.
I, of my own volition, his grace working in me, confessed him, confessed him in front of men.
You confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart.
God has raised him from the dead.
You will be saved.
That's me.
I'm saved.
And they can be encouraged and propelled to greater good works.
So, baptize your children, not your infants.
Baptize your children.
Amen.
For anybody who made it this far, First and foremost, you should give yourself a pat on the back and give yourself a sticker if you have any on hand.
God bless you.
I hope that it's been helpful for you.
The last thing that I'll leave you with is this We are underway.
We're still in the beginning.
New Season Friday Episodes00:03:02
You haven't missed much, but we are underway in season two of the Friday special.
It's every Friday at 4 p.m. Central Time.
It airs first on YouTube and Twitter.
Later, you'll be able to find it on our website, on our app.
You can find it on your favorite podcast platform, Apple, Spotify, whatever it is.
But it's airing promptly at 4 p.m. Central Time.
Every single Friday on YouTube and Twitter.
And this is the season two Friday special with Brian Sauvay and Ben Garrett, who are the co host of Haunted Cosmos.
And so this is our unhinged high strangeness caution to the wind.
We're still holding on to the Bible as our anchor, but we're getting a little weird and it's really fun, really intriguing.
But also at the same time, I know it sounds a little bit surprising.
You're like, is this really actually helpful?
It is very helpful and shockingly applicable, especially for Western scientific.
Postmoderns.
And so tune into that.
We're only a couple weeks in at this point.
And just to whet your appetite, these are just some of the episodes.
We've got a full hour, each episode is an hour long, full hour episode on Atlantis, Poseidon, his 10 sons, which we believe were Nephilim, part fallen angel, and these 10 Nephilim kings who ruled over Atlantis and where Atlantis actually is, exact coordinates, location, all these things.
Hollow Earth and the last living dragons, where they might be hiding today.
Biblical giants, whole episode on that.
Mythological giants.
Hercules, right?
Demigod, part god, part man.
What do you call that?
Nephilim.
You guessed it.
When in doubt, it's a Nephilim.
We've got a whole thing on Bigfoot, got a whole thing on angelology, got a whole thing on witches, mermaids.
Mermaids is one of them.
Witches.
I wanted to go with the title Witches Get Stitches, but we ended up not doing that.
But it's witches and necromancy and other practices of the cult, which is on the rise.
I said some of these are really applicable.
That'll be one of them.
So a lot of great episodes.
Check it out.
It's every Friday, 4 p.m. Central, on YouTube and on Twitter.
But if you want to not wait one week for each episode to drop and you want to do, you know, kind of the modern TV binge watching style that we've all been spoiled by today.
This is better than binge watching Netflix.
That's right.
And you want to do it ad free, like, you know, your favorite streaming program, then you can do that with Right Response Friday Special Season 2.
What you do is you go to patreon.com forward slash Right Response Ministries.
Patreon.com forward slash Right Response Ministries.
Sign up to be a member, even if you just do it for a month and cancel.
It's the lowest tier.
It costs you five bucks to be a silver tier right response Patreon member, and you will get to watch all 10 episodes ad free plus an additional two bonus episodes.
One of them is on DMT and how our political elites literally use pharmaceuticals to commune with demons.