The Meaning of Baptism - Part 2
We are taking two weeks and considering the Biblical meaning of baptism. We said last time that baptism was first and foremost an objective sign from God. The water of baptism in one sense represents the waters of judgment Christ underwent in our place. When the water is poured on us it is a sign that Christ's death is our death; that was my sins he paid for.
The waters also represent the benefits that flow to us from Christ upon His resurrection, including the washing away of our sins, being filled with the Spirit of Christ, and being sealed by God as His own child forever.
We said that baptism was the sign answering the question, "Who is my brother?" Only God can read the heart. Since He has not given us that capability, He has given us an objective sign as to who our brother is. The sign is administered by the church authorities who have examined the profession of the recipient of baptism, or in the case of infants, of their parent(s).
We also said that throughout the Bible whenever God establishes a relationship with adults their children are included in that relationship. Thus infants of believers are baptized as members of the church. We saw that God thinks of covenant children differently than non-covenant children. Jesus places His name on all of them. And we saw how in Ezekiel the Lord calls the babies in the OT church "My children."
That is why we are confident that babies of believers that die in the womb or in infancy are in heaven. Turn to II Samuel chapter 12. David's infant son, the son born to him by Bathsheba, had just died. Consider David's words in v. 23 "But now he is dead; why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me."
How can David speak with such presumption that he will see his son again? Because God is a God to our children. God's children go to heaven, do they not? At your funeral I will announce that you are in heaven also.
God is certainly able to regenerate a child's heart in the womb, for John the Baptist was filled with the Spirit in the womb. In Psalm 22, David says, "You made me trust while on my mother's breasts...from my mother's womb you have been my God."
It is also true that God can regenerate the heart of babies not born to Christian parents. So when non-covenantal infants die we are silent as to their destiny. The Bible does not speak on these things, thus we should not either.
But we should always speak to our covenant children as Christians. That is why we do not attempt to get our kids to say a prayer to accept Christ. Instead we catechize (instruct) our children in the faith that is already theirs.
Now we also said that the only way to understand baptism without falling into the Roman Catholic error is to understand the Biblical idea of the visible church. God establishes relationships both individually and corporately. The visible church is in covenant with God; the Lord has set it apart as His own possession. That is why Paul can say in I Cor 7 that the child of even one Christian parent is holy; not holy in the sense of morally pure, but covenantally holy; set apart for God.
This explains why the Reformed and Presbyterian churches since the Reformation have accepted Catholic baptisms. It's not as if we are saying that the Roman Catholic Church is preaching the correct gospel. Nor is it denying that they have elevated baptism beyond its biblical meaning.
The Reformed and Presbyterian churches since the Reformation have recognized Catholic baptism because of what we confess in the Apostles' Creed, that we believe in the Holy Catholic Church. The word "catholic" there of course means "universal," or as we might say, "the visible church God has established on earth."
For the best analogy, consider Israel in the time of Christ. What were the religious leaders teaching? Well, they had all but buried the true gospel under a gospel of works, similar to the Roman church. Jesus seriously rebuked the religious leaders for this and warned them to repent. If we did any less to the Catholic Church we would not be like Christ.
But even though the leaders of Israel had raised the commandments of men to the level of the commandments of God, (not unique in Catholicism by the way), was not their circumcision still a meaningful sign? Israel was still the covenant community, and their circumcisions were still legitimate. That is why Jesus placed his hands on those Jewish babies. Those circumcisions still meant something to the Lord.
So as long as ordained men in the Catholic Church baptize in the name of the Father Son and Spirit, and as long as you can still hear about Christ from the Word, we accept their baptisms as valid, regardless of the piety of the priest or if their gospel is shrouded in legalism. I'm sure you realize that many Protestant churches have gospels shrouded in legalism also. We don't reject their baptisms either.
But if our baptized brother is in error, we rebuke them in love. The rebuke aspect is not popular today, but faithful brothers must rebuke one another when necessary for moral and doctrinal sins.
Now remember, the Bible is written to the church. You cannot take on all these responsibilities on your own. Rebuke should most often come in the form of preaching and left to the elders. It is not for you to see yourself as the great confronter who challenges every believer who disagrees with you.
When I am out of town on the Lord's day and there is no like-minded church near by, I worship in a Baptist or Lutheran church, and I try to be as respectful and pleasant as can be.
Now we left off last week seeing baptism as an objective declaration God makes. But baptism is also a consecration on man's part, both of the adult baptized and the children they present for baptism. Turn back to our passage in Gen 17. When the Lord makes the promise of the gospel to Abraham, in v. 9 He instructs Abraham to keep this covenant. How was Abraham to keep a covenant that God promises to fulfill Himself?
V. 10: "This is my covenant you shall keep, every male child shall be circumcised and (v. 11) you shall be circumcised." Now it is clear the Lord is not saying that circumcision saves you, or that Abraham will be saved if he circumcises his son. But trusting in what circumcision represented would save him. To keep covenant with God is to believe in what that bloody sign was pointing to; the death of Christ for our sins. The Jews said to Jesus in John 6, "What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?" Jesus answered, "This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent."
So in receiving circumcision Abraham was publicly declaring that he had believed in the promise of Christ. The same is true in baptism. When Abraham circumcised his sons, he was giving them to God, for they are God's covenant children. What does it mean to present our children to God in baptism? Turn if you will to our New Testament passage, Eph 6:1-3.
The first thing we notice in Eph 6 is that the Apostle speaks directly to children in the church and addresses them as Christians. In chapter 5 he instructed the husbands of their responsibilities, and the wives, and now he speaks to the children of their Christian responsibilities. He obviously expected the children who were able to be listening when the Word is read and preached, for he addresses them directly.
Paul quotes the fifth commandment, but then changes a word in v. 3. The Ten Commandments say that the children of Israel would live long in the land if they honored their parents. But Paul says that they will live long on the earth if they obey their parents. It is no small thing to change one of the Ten Commandments.
Now there are two options as to what to do with this verse. It has been argued that Paul is simply giving a general principle that applies to Christians all over the world. This interpretation takes the Apostle to be saying that if children obey their parents they are more likely to have a long and prosperous life. This of course would not always be true, children can die young; but this is a general truth.
But is this really Paul's point here? We must keep in mind how the Apostle has been speaking throughout this letter. In chapter 1 Paul had already spoken of our inheritance. We were blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.
In. v. 11 he wrote that in Christ we have obtained an inheritance, and in v. 14 the Holy Spirit seals believers as a guarantee of their inheritance. Paul borrows the OT language of inheritance in Canaan and applies it to heaven.
In the OT Canaan typologically represented our eternal inheritance. So when Paul speaks of living long on the earth in Eph 6:3, he is doing what he had already done many times in the letter. He is referring to our eternal inheritance, not a general probability that the obedient child will live to see old age. Paul says the fifth commandment was the first commandment with the promise, the promise referring to the promise to Abraham that he would receive an eternal inheritance.
Paul is teaching that children will enter their eternal inheritance if they obey their parents. This of course raises an obvious question. Is Paul saying that children are saved by works; that if they obey their parents they will be saved? Surely he isn't contradicting what he already declared in chapter 2, that we saved by grace through faith, and not of works.
V. 4 will help us discern the Apostle's thought. Fathers are not to provoke their children to wrath. They are not to use force or fear to ensure their children believe as they do. Instead they are to bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.
In other words, parental instruction in the gospel is the means of grace by which their children will know the Lord. Paul isn't really speaking about the commands to take out the trash, though in a secondary manner there is a connection. Paul is saying to children, "children, believe in the God of your parents, follow their teaching about Christ, and you will live forever in heaven."
For children under Christian parents, obedience to their instruction about the Lord is the means by which their faith in Christ is gradually nurtured. As the children grow older, their faith will take on a maturity of its own apart from their parents.
Covenant children possess direct promises because of the God-ordained connection between faithful covenant nurture and the children being raised to believe. Children who are still under the authority of their parents are promised the eternal inheritance if they submit "in the Lord" to the gospel instruction of their parents, or in the case of a single Christian parent, of that parent.
We know that young children will believe what their parents teach them. If the parents teach faith in Christ, the children will believe in Christ. The question is, is that faith legitimate or illegitimate? Is it accepted by God, or do we not take it seriously because after all, they are only believing what their parents taught them?
It is legitimate faith. God delights in those prayers of your two-year-old. He bids our young children to come to Him, and to address Him as their heavenly Father. We should be careful not to question our children's faith, unless they are purposefully walking in rebellion and unbelief. What if I came to you every time you sinned and said, "Are you sure you are a Christian?" As with all in the church, we treat our baptized children as believers until they prove themselves otherwise. Christ is theirs, don't keep them at a distance from Him.
Thus when parents present their children for baptism, the parents takes vows to raise their baptized children in the knowledge of Christ.
Now there is an error circulating throughout our churches that states that if you bring up your children rightly then they will always remain in the faith. If they fall away from the faith it is the parent's fault, even if the parent have remained in the faith. This is dangerous teaching for a number of reasons.
First of all, this type of thinking leans toward a Roman Catholic view of the means of grace. A Catholic view of the Supper, for example, is that Christ is communicated whether the recipient of the Supper believes it or not. In other words, the Supper works automatically.
Turn to Hebrews 4:2. We should never say that the means God has given us are automatic. Hebrews 4:2 says this about the children of Israel: "For indeed the gospel was preached to us as well as to them; but the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it."
Was the fault in the one who preached, or the parent that raised him in the church? No, the Word was not united with faith. In the Bible, when a covenant child grows up and abandons the faith, it is that child who is held responsible, not his parents.
This is not to say that our children will not pick up our bad habits and sinful tendencies. Isaac sinned in the likeness of Abraham. All of us as parents grieve when we see our own weaknesses displayed in our children. As adults we see the same weaknesses in as that were in our mother or father. We do not like that either. This alone should motivate us to seek sanctification from God, because how we are affects so many others.
Nevertheless the parents were to bring their children the gospel, and the gospel says that all are sinners, even parents. The gospel is to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation.
You children need to heed this warning. If you grow up and abandon Christ, you will not be able to stand before God and blame your parents. Where did you ever get the idea that they were not sinners? You knew the gospel, you were raised hearing it in church, and you are expected to believe it.
I will mention one more thing in relation to raising covenant children. Turn to I Cor 12:13. There is an aspect of covenant upbringing that is too often underestimated or overlooked altogether. I Cor 12:13 "For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body - whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free - and have all been made to drink into one Spirit, for in fact the body is not one member but many."
It is not only given to parents to raise their kids in the Lord, it is given to the church. When you present your children for baptism, you present them not only to Christ, but as members of the church. There are too many parents who think they do not really need the church; that they have the resources in themselves to bring their children up in the Lord. All Christians need the church.
When your children are baptized, our vow states that you will bring them up by the means God has appointed. Those means not only include parental instruction, but also faithful church attendance, hearing the preached Word, and fellowship with other Christians in the body.
Never underestimate the importance of children growing up in a church where they are loved by more than just their parents. It is crucial to their spiritual lives. Many parental weaknesses will be overcome with a church family that loves one another and the children.
This means that we are all responsible in raising covenant children. There was a time when all the adults in the church were allowed to spank any child in the church who misbehaved. That seems foreign to us now, but they had a concept of a church family. I know you children are glad those days are over.
There is a growing tendency in conservative churches to make an idol out of the family. It is not uncommon to hear that children's S.S. is sinful because it breaks up families; the family is to stay together in everything the church does. Such a thought is new in the history of the church. I would hope that we would come to a point where we would trust one another in the local body of Christ to watch our children for one hour, or to teach them some basic truths of the faith. Such mistrust is not becoming of Christ's church.
Finally I want to answer the question, "What is the meaning of baptism for those who fall away from the faith and prove themselves unbelievers?" This applies both to adult converts or covenant children who grow up and apostatize.
Did that baptism mean anything? The answer is yes. Turn to Hebrews chapter 10. The Bible teaches that baptism is a sealing of a covenant relationship God has established. Consider Hebrews 10, verse 29.
"Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace?"
If you do not have a doctrine of the visible church you will get in much trouble with this verse. The person in this text who falls into God's judgment has been baptized, he has been sanctified in a covenant relationship with God. But he abandoned the faith and spat upon his glorious privileges.
This is not teaching that you can lose your salvation. But if you understand that baptism seals us as God's possession, this warning becomes very real to all of us in the church, adults and children. If we turn from Christ, our baptism will only testify against us on Judgment Day, because he who has been given much, from him much is required.
And so we would not take lightly the two sacraments God has given His church. The Apostle Paul uses the sign of baptism very practically in our fight against sin. When the saints in Rome were tempted to sin and fight with one another, Paul instructs them to remember what their baptism represented, that that they had died with Christ, had been washed clean by the Spirit, they had been set apart to be God's own possession. Therefore present yourselves to Him as servants of righteousness. Adults and children, think often of your baptism. Amen