5UYBvqNC7qU

1:11If you have some questions for the QA session at the end, you can turn those in at the 10-minute break. And please specify whether the question is directed to both of the persons here or just to one of them. And we will review those. Pick the best ones. So make it good. So, if there is nothing else, then I'll just open us up with a little bit of prayer and then we'll begin with Tim. Okay? Let's bow. Father, thank you for this opportunity to delve into your word and to try to understand what you would have us do better. Lord, we know that even the apostles sometimes had to put their heads together and think about these things and come to some conclusions. We thank you for the opportunity to be able to speak to each other in love. And thank you for the respect that we all have for each other. Thank you for the Christian love that's exhibited here. And help us to all be able to learn something this evening. In Christ's name, amen.

2:45Could you angle up this one just a little bit for me? Good evening. I as well am blown away. Feel free to start that one ever. Thank you. Thank you all. For being here, as Trey said, for showing interest. Thank you, especially to Pastor Jones, Matt, whatever I'm supposed to refer to you as. I'll probably mix it up as we go. So thank you to you. Bear with me at times. I'm a softie. Thank you to you for the conversations we've already had, but also for all of your work in making this happen. And to Emmanuel Baptist Church, I don't know if it was a few or a ton that made this possible, but thank you to all of you here for hosting, because that's a whole candle.

3:58That's a whole thing that I didn't have to deal with. So thank you, truly, thank you. And I'm glad there's already a little bit of a light-hearted feel. I was pondering the idea of some sort of joke about a Lutheran and a Baptist pastor walking into a coffee shop. I'm not actually a very good joke teller, so I'm just going to move on and jump into why we are here, our content. The question that was put before you, can infants be baptized? I'm going to start off with a very direct answer. You probably know where I'm coming from, but yes, infants can and should be baptized within the Christian church. In my opening time here, I'm going to make two overarching arguments.

4:43Two overarching arguments, both of which come from the scriptures, from the Bible, God's Word. And I pray that as we are, as was prayed for, that we are mutually built up tonight. I do also pray that God's Word convinces you of what I believe it to tell us. So the first overarching argument that I have is going to be a little bit shorter because it is the direct application that I see in the scriptures and that I'm going to highlight to you all. The direct application of baptism to little children, including infants. That is going to be the first overarching argument. The second one will be lengthier because this second argument will be in direct support, again from the scriptures, as we consider the amazing work that God does in baptism. An argument for God doing his work through baptism. So first, direct application. A direct application of baptism to little children, including infants. It starts with the familiar passage to many of you, maybe not all of you, and that's okay, Matthew chapter 28. Verses 19 and 20. The Great Commission, as we know it. Jesus' words, Go therefore and make disciples of all nations for what it's worth. I will primarily be reading from the ESV English Standard Version. I am very agreeable and amenable to a number of other translations. This is just the one that I use the most. I do have issues with some translations. But just so you know what I'm reading from, go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And of course, the wonderful promise, Behold, I am with you always to the end of the age. All nations.

6:41Go therefore and make disciples of all nations. Jesus here tells his disciples as he is about to ascend into heaven to go and make disciples of all nations, all people, all ages, infants. Jesus desires for anyone of any age to be his disciple. We see this in Mark chapter 10, where Jesus says, Let the little children come to me. For to them belongs the kingdom of God. And so Jesus here is telling his disciples to go and make disciples of all nations, including little ones, by, and yes, that's my word added, by baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Now when I say my Word added, I mean that's my translation. I'll support that later if there's time and if it's needed.

7:37But baptizing is the way, baptizing and teaching is the way that God tells his disciples, at least here, to go and make disciples, to make more disciples. Baptizing and teaching. This includes infants. Acts chapter 2 is then the next appropriation of this. We see after the Holy Spirit comes on the apostles at Pentecost. We see at the end of Peter's sermon, Acts chapter 2, looking at verses 38 and 39 in particular. This is after 37 says that the hearers were cut to the heart. Brothers, what shall we do? Verse 38, and Peter said to them, Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise, the promise of the Holy Spirit, is for you and for your children and for all who are far off. Everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.

8:41Repent and be baptized, every one of you, and you will receive the promise. Receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. This promise is for you and for your children. Lastly, then, for this first overarching argument, it comes from Acts chapter 16, where then we see what Jesus has commanded and what the disciples. Have already begun to preach, we see it enacted. We see it played out. Now, you and I probably know that there's a lot of preaching and teaching and baptizing throughout the book of Acts. Acts chapter 16, there's two examples that are more pertinent, in my opinion, to our conversation today.

9:20Acts chapter 16, verses 11 through 15. This is the conversion of the woman by the name of Lydia. Paul and Silas have made their way to the city of Philippi. They are speaking to some women gathered, and then in verse 14 and 15, this is what, again, the scriptures say: One who heard us was a woman named Lydia from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods who was a worshipper of God. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul. And after she was baptized, and her household as well, she urged us, saying, If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house instead. Did you catch that? After she was baptized, and her household as well.

10:08Why would we assume that this does not include infants, children, people of any age? There's no distinction made here or anywhere else. This household presumably includes her children. It's not long after this, then. The same city, actually. Paul, still in Philippi, then, is thrown in jail, Paul and Satan. Silas, they are set free by the Lord himself, as the shackles are broken free. The jailer comes back in in the middle of the night, notices that everyone has been broken free, and yet then they say, wait, wait, wait. You don't have to do anything to harm yourself. This is, again, my paraphrase as we get then to verse 29, still in Acts chapter 16, 29 and following. The jailer called for lights and rushed in. Trembling with fear, he fell down before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them out and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, you and your household. And they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their wounds, and he was baptized at once, he and all his family.

11:28Now, I'll acknowledge right away, family there is a word that's inserted into the ESP, into the translation. The literal says, he and all of his. But I would argue it's a very clear reference to who all of his are, because in the two verses preceding, his house and his household were named explicitly. So again, two instances where there is baptism that takes place of an individual and his or her household. It includes infants. So just as, to some My first argument. Just as Jesus commands the disciples to go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing people of any and all age, then we see this explicitly mentioned in Acts chapter 2 at the end of Peter's Pentecost sermon, and we see this played out later in Acts. This is for all.

12:36My second overarching argument when it comes to the baptism and menitence is what baptism is or does. Better said, as I said earlier, what God does in and through baptism. And that, in and of itself, may be a very different point for many of you to consider, and that's okay. But I want to make an argument for you today that baptism is primarily, if not exclusively, not something that I or we do, but something that God does.

13:10This is because there are a number of instances, and I'm going to bombard you a little bit with some scriptures, where baptism is explicitly connected to things that only God does. The first and the most direct, although I know my friend may disagree, is from 1 Peter chapter 3. Peter says, 1 Peter 3, verse 21. Baptism now saves you. That's something only God does. Now, the full line there, for transparency, baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you. Not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And we'll actually come to that part later.

13:57What it corresponds to, what Paul is talking about in the previous verses, is the flood, where God saved Noah and his family, eight souls in all. And now, in and through Jesus Christ, now in the New Testament, because of God's command through his Son, who has all authority in heaven and on earth and has instituted baptism, now this very thing, baptism, brings you and me salvation. This, baptism, this is God's work in and through this incredible thing that we call baptism. Acts chapter 2 again, I read it for you, but I returned to it because there's even more that we didn't touch on. I first talked about Acts 2 because of the direct connection, the direct application of baptism to children and infants. But there's a whole lot more that Peter speaks about here. We touched on very briefly the Holy Spirit being. Poured out, being promised, and connected here in baptism. Again, for the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are off. What is this promise? It's exactly what Peter was talking about in his sermon in verse 33: the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured this out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing. There, a reference to it being poured out on Jesus, but now the same promise of the Spirit being poured out on you. Where? In baptism, Acts chapter 2 adds a whole nother aspect to baptism, though forgiveness.

15:44Repent and be baptized, Peter said in verse 38, every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. I am confident to say that at least between me and my Baptist brother, and if I'm wrong, you can always please, please correct me. Forgiveness is something that only God does. That's the thing I'm pretty sure we agree on. So, how can baptism be for forgiveness if it is not something that God does upon you and me? Add to this Acts chapter 22, verse 16, where Paul is recounting his own conversion experience, and Ananias says, Rise and be baptized and wash away your sins. Another scriptural example that connects baptism. And the washing of sins, the forgiveness of sins. Romans chapter 6, I want to spend a minute here because this one is also quite significant. Romans chapter 6, verses 3 through 5 in particular. Let me read first. Do you not know that all of us, this is Paul writing to the Romans, do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried, therefore, with him by baptism into death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

17:08Burial is not something I do to myself, and certainly not resurrection. Here, by baptism, explicitly, we are buried with Christ and we are raised with him. Baptism incorporates us into Jesus' death and resurrection. It's one of the most beautiful things in my mind that connects about baptism is because it connects us to something that happened years and years millennia ago. It's a tangible thing here and now. Not that I've chosen to mean something, but God in His Word has chosen to mean something. It connects us. We are buried with Him by baptism into Jesus' death. Certainly not physically. I'm standing before you. So there's a spiritual reality at play here.

18:00Now and then, for now, the resurrection, being that we walk in a newness of life. As a Christian, we walk differently. But notice then, verse 5: For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. This has physical implications as well. When Christ comes again, we who have been baptized into Jesus Christ, we have been baptized into his death and resurrection. And that has eternal implications. This is God's work in and through baptism. Colossians chapter 2.

18:42Colossians chapter 2 has a lot of the same principles in it as Romans chapter 6. I'm going to pick up verses 11 through 13 in particular. Paul says there, in him, referring to Jesus Christ, in him, Jesus, also, you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God who raised him from the dead. Now notice there, if you're wondering about faith, I also am one who believe that we are justified. By faith and faith alone, baptism is nothing apart from faith.

19:37It is only in and through faith that we receive the benefits that God has attached to baptism. Apart from faith, our baptism does nothing for us. But faith also is a gift from God. Having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith, in the powerful working of God who raised him from the dead, and you who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses. And he continues on, but I'm going to stop there. Again, in baptism we are buried and raised with Christ. I mentioned faith being critical for the reception of these and all of the benefits of baptism. And here again, another instance where Paul wraps forgiveness of sins into this baptism package.

20:33These passages that I've mentioned so far, 1 Peter 3, Acts 2, Romans 6, Colossians 2, and the points that we've made from them, all are explicit baptism passages, explicitly using the word baptize or baptism. There's even more. But because I'm low on time, I'm going to briefly mention some and not read them all. So, passages that also, I would say, clearly allude to baptism. Ephesians chapter 5, verses 25 through 27. Titus chapter 3, verses 4 through 7. 1 Corinthians 6, verse 11. Each of these talk about baptism is a washing. Again, the word baptism isn't used, but it refers to us being washed. Again, not washing ourselves, but God washing us with His Word, where we are cleansed, we are made holy. Ephesians 5. Titus 3, we are washed, regeneration. The Holy Spirit, again, mentioned, connecting back to Acts chapter 2 and the promise of the Holy Spirit. There also in Titus 3, how we are justified by grace. This is purely by God's grace, not by our works. 1 Corinthians 6, washed, sanctified, justified.

21:49So I want to conclude with the timer paused. So I'm just going to... I was like, man, I am really good. The sun stood still. Yeah, right? Try over here. The sun stood still. So, knowing that I was already close to my time, I'm going to wrap up and just remind you of what we've heard so far. Baptism. In and through baptism, it is simple water. There's nothing special about the water. But God's powerful word. Again, Ephesians 3. Chapter 5, God's powerful word and the promises that he has connected to baptism are what tell us that God does some amazing and incredible and gracious work.

22:50In baptism, he saves, he pours out his Holy Spirit, he forgives, he buries and raises us with Christ, he washes us clean. And I argue that the scriptures do not limit or restrict these beautiful gifts to anybody. Jesus said, this is for all nations, all people, all ages, including infants. Thank you. Thank you, Tim. Okay. And first, I would also like to give my thanks and in like kind say thank you to Tim and Bethel. I clicked on my notes and showed it to him. I slipped up and said Bethel Baptist.

23:48But hey, y'all turned it out in a great way. And by the way, since I have the chance, and you know this is coming from an unbiased position, Tim has single-handedly. Endeared me in large part to the Lutheran Church in a great many ways. So you all have a treasure in him, and I just want that to be known. I also must, of course, give thanks to EBC and the elders, especially, and Pastor Tom above all, for being my mentors and helping to grow me as an individual and as a pastor. And I will, with that, say that virtually everything I'm going to say tonight has been vetted through them. However, I am not in any way trying to represent all of baptism.

24:44Whatever you hear is from me and my position, and you are free as such to disagree to your heart's content. Now, my first point I'd like to make is that baptism is a word, which I think we all agree in, which means my first point, I win. And with this, I did a little bit of research because I like studying words. The first, and it's an English word, and we should not forget this, baptism is an English word as we are using it. And it is first attested to have been used by the Martyr's Mirror, written in 1660. This is an Anabaptist tract paper. And as such, I take it as gospel, and it claims that John Wycliffe was the first person in 1370 to use the word baptism in the English language in his, quote, certain article declared to militate against infant baptism, end quote. But with that, I don't say that just as a joke. It is important. Words have boundaries. Words have meanings. They refer to specific things. And that which they refer to is what it is, and it doesn't refer to something else. It doesn't change. The word baptism, while we are using it in English, does come from our scriptures. And the scriptures do not change. So whatever it refers to is a set thing. And if we can understand what it is, then that is what it is for all people, all times. And that's exactly what I hope to look at tonight. What is baptism definitionally? As such, I'd like to look at the three entities, if you will, involved in baptism. And you already set some of the groundwork. First, Christ baptizes us. The church does the baptizing. And then there's the individual baptized. And also, we should note with all this, Mark chapter 1, verse 8, I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with water. You with the Holy Spirit. And you also see parallel accounts in Matthew 3, 11 and John 1.33 and Acts 11.16. So we should note that baptism has two uses in Scripture, water and the Holy Spirit. You cannot separate them entirely. Luther made this point very well, and you reinforced it. Water, in the larger catechism, if you take water and take the word out of it and the word to separate it from it, then, quote, the water is the same as that which the servant cooks and may indeed be called a bathkeeper's baptism. So no, it cannot be entirely separated, but they are distinguishable. We can speak of them and distinguish these things. And our interest tonight is water baptism. And a great many of our scriptures are going to talk about what the Holy Spirit is doing in regenerating our lives. I contend to you, and our purposes, let's keep focused on our tradition of water baptism and what that is and to whom it applies and what is being done. So first, Christ baptizes us.

28:08I find it very fascinating and pivotal. John chapter 1, verse 25. John the Baptist is baptizing. And as he does so, the Pharisees come up to him and they are challenging him. And they say, they asked him, then why are you baptizing? If you are neither the Christian, Nor Elijah, nor the prophet. Note here that the Pharisees recognize what John the Baptist is doing is not one of the usual practices that was normal for the Jewish populace then. The water baptism, the physical thing he was doing, was something new and different. Not only was it new and different, and they recognized it as such, but it is something of which was expected by the Messiah, by Christ himself. They knew enough of the Old Testament to know that somewhere in the Old Testament, the Messiah was said to come baptizing.

29:05Most of the scholars would agree the primary place to look and where they would have noticed this is Ezekiel 36, 24 through 27. I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleanness. And from all your idols, I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I'll remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. This is the words of what the Messiah was going to do. Something that is seen nowhere else and applied in no other way in the law, in the ritual.

30:00That they have. Of this, I'd like to bring your attention. Yes, even then, in the Old Testament, I'll take you from the nations. Reminds you of what we've already looked at tonight in Matthew 28:19, the Great Commission, of the nations. That is the starting place. And I will cause you to walk in my statutes. Again, like the Great Commission, I will make you disciples. And the disciples of whom? Of Christ. And I will cause you to walk. God is doing 100% of the work. But what is the work He is doing? What is He accomplishing in this baptism that He is accomplishing in us? He is accomplishing a change and causing us to be new people. There is something we see. God is 100%, absolutely. I affirm God is 100% initiating and affecting the work. But He is not doing the work on a stone. In fact, He is making us into flesh. He is softening us and doing something with us. And we see this even more because this particular reference points us again to a place in the law, Numbers 19:17 through 20, and I read: For the unclean, they shall take some of the ashes of the burnt sin offering. The fresh water shall be added in a vessel. Then a clean person shall take hyssop and dip it in the water and sprinkle it on the tent and on all the furnishings and on the persons. Who were there, and whoever touched the bone, or the slain, or the dead, or the grave. And the clean person shall sprinkle it on the unclean on the third day and on the seventh day. Thus, on the seventh day, he shall cleanse him. And then he shall wash his clothes and bathe himself in water, and at evening he shall be clean. And this is the picture of what the Messiah is going to do. Now you have the ritual and the law. This is something they would do. If I touched something unclean, I would have to be ritually cleansed. But then we have Jesus coming in, and he does it once for all, a cleansing that will stick. But notice here again the image that it comes from. The person who is cleansed will wash their clothes and bathe themselves in water. The work is done by God. But the one who is being cleansed is also in the change responding to that cleansing. And we have this also, quote, from the formula of Concord, also what Dr. Luther has written, namely, that man's will in his conversion is pure passive, that is, does nothing whatever. When God's Spirit, through the word heard or the use of the holy sacraments, lays hold upon man's will and works a new birth and conversion. For when the Holy Ghost has wrought and accomplished this, and man's will has been changed and renewed by his divine power and working alone, then the new will. Of man is an instrument and organ of God, the Holy Ghost, so that he not only accepts grace, but also cooperates with the Holy Ghost in the works which follow. So you have here, and we can keep pointing to this, we are vessels prepared for a purpose, Romans chapter 9, through faith given by Christ alone, we respond in the salvation. The water baptism is a sign of that salvation in which we are also active participants. By allowing, another quote for us by Luther, by allowing the water to be poured upon you, you have not yet received baptism in a way that benefits you at all, but it becomes beneficial to you if you have given yourself baptized in this thought. This is in accordance with God's command and ordinance from the large catechism. Allowing baptism. Acts 2.38, as we already talked, be baptized. This is something you see over and over in Scripture. Be, of course, in the King James, which is just so fun to quote, be ye baptized. You could say, if we were to use a different verb in the place of baptized, be ye punched in the face. Am I punching myself in the face? No, but you're submitting to it. It's this very idea, be baptized. We see it over and over and over. And I would submit to you, an infant cannot consent to water baptism, cannot actively participate in water baptism. And since this is definition, The work of God and what we see in Scripture. This is not possible for infants. Next, the church baptizes or has a role in the baptism. The baptism of John, by the way, I would point to as our paradigm, not a separate proto-baptistic practice. I show you, for example, in John 3:22 through 23, after this, Jesus and his disciples went into the Judean countryside, and he remained there with them and was baptizing. John also was baptizing. It's a word. Words mean something and they point to something. The same word to Jesus and John the Baptist, both baptizing. The same thing. John the Baptist goes and makes the way. Jesus follows, and they're both doing the same thing in the same way we are to follow. So, what does John show us? Well, in Matthew chapter 3, verses 6 through 7. And they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, and I'll pause there for a second, when he saw them coming to his baptism, grammatically and contextually, the force of the passage suggests they're there to willingly participate in the baptism, not just to watch, to be baptized. But if we continue in verse 7 of Matthew chapter 3, it continues, You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. He refused. them baptism. He is a demonstration to us, I would suggest, that the church is the gatekeeper for who should be baptized. We do not just go and baptize any heathen individual. We are going to, in fact, pay attention and make decisions, as John the Baptist did. It is based on repentance, and we can only know repentance through works. Galatians 5, 16, and following the fruit of the Spirit. This is how we know who is, in fact, a member of the church and worthy of baptism. By the way, this is not the only lone example. We see Peter in Acts chapter 10, verse 47, and again in chapter 11, verses 15 through 17. He has to justify to the others in the church why he chose to baptize the household of Cornelius. And he did that based on the work of the Spirit. He challenged, he observed, and based on his observation, he baptized. And the church challenged, why did you choose to do this baptism? And he told the reasons. He had reasons. He evaluated before the baptism. Philip in Acts 8 and Paul in Acts 18 asked doctrinal questions before being willing to baptize. We, the church, cannot judge infants by their actions nor discern their doctrine. Per the scriptural precedent, since this is the role of the church, we cannot, my brothers and sisters, fall into the error of baptizing them.

37:28And by the way, we're Have meaning. They have boundaries. Yes, this is adults. But there's not a separate baptism for adults and children. It's the same word applied to both. What's good for one is good for the other. Finally, converts are baptized. Faith is repentance of non-faith. Faith is confession of the truth. We can go on and on trying to define exactly what faith is. Many have done so, and it is truly inexhaustible, really. But in any case, we have to at least make some things known and noticed from Scripture. We say sola fide, but we can still read sections of scripture, like Romans 10, 9, which says, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. With your mouth. I affirm sola fide. Thank you for that gift, by the way, in the Lutheran tradition.

38:41However, here it says, if you confess with your mouth. How can I say with faith alone if it says I'm supposed to say something with my lips? What's going on? Maybe I need to do this work called speaking and that's going to save me. No, that's not what is going on here. Confession is faith. If I have faith, My confession will be to admit who my Lord is because I believe him as my Lord. I can do no other, as Martin Luther would say, through Scripture alone. 1 John 4, 3, every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. As may be expected, baptism, the sign of faith, is tied to confession. In Mark chapter 1, verse 5, all of the country of Judea and all Jerusalem were going out to him, being John the Baptist, and being baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. Not because something about moving my lips saves me, but because my faith drives me to do so.

39:45Matt Mayers gives an example of three men. If you're at Pentecost and they hear the sermon of Peter, and you have three men respond. One truly repents, believes, gets in line, and is baptized. We can all say, he's saved. One truly repents, believes, gets in line, has a heart attack before he gets to the tank of water or the river, and that's the end. Can we all agree that most likely in this case, it's not the baptism that's going to matter. The third repents and believes, gets in line, but when he gets up to The river to be baptized, refuses, and walks away. To quote Matt Meyer, to refuse baptism in this case was to refuse Christ, a bit like the parable of the soils in Matthew chapter 13. An infant cannot confess something we see that goes with faith and with the water baptism in particular. They cannot confess with their mouth, actions, or otherwise. They cannot actively obey as Christians are called to do, like the one washed in Numbers 19, not cleansed by their actions, but submitting to the cleansing. As such, we cannot baptize infants.

41:19In conclusion, Scripture is clear, and I'll add here, by the way, and I could have started with this, perhaps just ended the debate immediately, because it says John the Baptist, not John the Lutheran. But in conclusion, I'll call on all of you to follow solo scripture, the precedent, the examples, the patterns we see here, not tradition. Not good traditions, even, if it seems that way to you. The biblical example is clear, I maintain. To quote B. B. Warfield, a Presbyterian, that there is no express command to baptize infants in the New Testament, no express record of the baptism of infants, and no passages so stringently implying it that we must infer from them that infants were baptized. I agree with this statement. You gave us the Reformation in the Lutheran tradition. Don't stop short. Purge the practices and follow on with the Reformation.

43:03Okay. There we go. Okay, we'll have a 10-minute break. If you have any questions, you can just bring them up to this checkered cloth table for me, if you don't mind. And we'll get started, I guess, in about 10 minutes. Great turnout. Yeah, that's great. You've got ten minutes. It's just incredibly good. It's just so entertaining, and it's the part. The whole story part is just so good. Just sort of like ten minutes. I don't want to say it, but I think there is something that overtones all that seems to be large.

44:27Like, I'm going to go to the next one. Yes, sir. Can you read that? Okay, so I think that's how you get the best. Apparently, some folks were a little bit confused. If you have questions to submit or help the checker table questions, go here. Do you have anything? Blank cards left. Are we asking you here on questions? Remember when you guys were playing stuff and they came back to the remember the guys. Yeah, most of the ground is this.

55:02All right. Thank you for the questions. They're very insightful. The next part will be a back and forth discussion. So they I understand that they have prepared everything, so more of like a sparring demonstration or something. So the first will be ten minutes for Tim to respond to the opening statement. Then it will be 15 minutes by Matt, and then another ten minutes from Tim, and then another five minutes for Matt to conclude, and then after that, we'll address some of these questions.

55:52This is the loosely, roughly prepared part, but I don't know about you, brother, but not prepared like the first section. But that's also the fun of the debate, right? So, for the sake of time, I'm just going to jump right in. As I listen to my brother Matt and the things he has to say regarding advocating for baptism that does not include infants, one of the first challenges I ran into was your description of John's baptism and the connection to Christian baptism. If I heard you correctly, these are either one-for-one or equated and held, John's baptism, yes, John the Baptist, held up as the same as Christian baptism. And I would make a strong argument against that. First of all, the very passage that you cited. In Ezekiel chapter 36, making the case that what John was doing was different, but John also noted that he is not the Messiah, and so his baptism is different. As you noted, Mark chapter 1, I baptized with water, he baptizes with the Holy Spirit, making that distinction.

57:19Still, obviously, Christian baptism is with water, but there is a difference. John's baptism nowhere conveys the Holy Spirit, but rather, as Ezekiel 36 said, it does actually highlight this, what the Messiah will do, and I forget at what verse you stopped reading, but this is Ezekiel 36 again, verses 25, including 26 and 27. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleanness, and from all your idols I will cleanse you, and I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you, and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh, and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and be careful to obey my rules. Does this not sound like what I was describing in God doing something in the waters of baptism? Because this is not John's baptism, this is the Messiah's. This is the baptism by the Messiah through his people, through his church, agreed, but it does something.

58:28Also, then, Making Acts chapter, the end of chapter 18 and the beginning of 19 make a very clear distinction between John's baptism and Christian baptism. In the end of Acts chapter 18, verse 25 in particular, Apollos, Paul meets Apollos. I'm sorry, he doesn't meet Apollos there. Priscilla and Aquila meet Apollos. And let me just read. He had been instructed, this is Apollos, in the way of the Lord, and being fervent in spirit, he spoke and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus, though he knew only the baptism of John. Priscilla and Aquila correct him. This seems to probably then be the lead into Acts chapter 19, where Paul himself arrives at Ephesus as well, comes upon some disciples. This is 19, the end of verse 1 and following. There, he, Paul, found some disciples. He said to them, Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? And they said, No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit. And he said, Into what then were you baptized? They said, into John's baptism. And Paul said, John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him, that is Jesus. On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. I don't call this a re-baptism. I call this Christian baptism, distinguished from John's baptism. Second argument with what you were putting forward, Matt, in one instance, You said baptism is a sign of salvation. In another instance, you said baptism is a sign of faith. So, this idea that baptism is a sign of something else, I would argue that is nowhere to be found in Scripture.

1:00:13In the midst of this, your quotes of the formula of Concord and the large catechism, I'm sorry, but I believe those were taken out of context. The formula of Concord quote that you gave, you did read this part, but it highlights that the individual cooperates with the Holy Spirit in works that follow faith and baptism. So, this is not a cooperation or an active participation in baptism. There, in the formula of concord, this is a Lutheran confessional document, is highlighting what takes place after. I believe the section is called New Obedience. Also, Luther's quote that may seem to be alluding to a person participating. That whole section actually, Luther is making the point that faith needs something to cling to. Faith has to grab a hold of something.

1:01:13And so, baptism is one of those things that God tangibly gives us to cling to, that gives faith to cling to. So, there in that section, Luther is making the point that the necessity of faith to receive the benefits of baptism. So, again, Baptism is not a sign of salvation or a sign of faith. This is actually the language that Paul uses in Romans chapter 4 about circumcision. It was a sign of the covenant between Abraham and the people of Israel and God.

1:01:45But that language of sign is nowhere used with baptism. This is because baptism is different from circumcision. Yes, there are parallels. Again, in Colossians chapter 2, you see Paul using some of that language of a circumcision made without hands. But baptism is different from circumcision. It is not a sign. It does something. That's why later in Romans chapter 6, when Paul gets to baptism, again, we see it doing something significant. Did I lose some of my time or has it been going? Okay, okay.

1:02:19Third and final response or counter-argument. This idea of having some sort of validation of faith or salvation before baptizing an individual. I don't want you to hear me wrongly. I am all for confessing. Confessing our sins, as that word is used in the scriptures. Confessing the faith or confessing that Christ is Lord. Absolutely all over the New Testament. There's two slightly different Greek words that are used there. Similar words, but slightly different. Nowhere is Confession of faith and baptism connected. Yes, John was baptizing, a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, Mark and Luke's gospel regarding John's baptism. Matthew does not mention the forgiveness of sins piece, but when we look at John's baptism, there's even some forgiveness of sins language there. Adds to the complexity, fair enough.

1:03:28And yes, the confession where they are coming confessing their sins. Repentance, absolutely. But we've already noted, John's baptism is different, first of all, from Christian baptism. And so the interplay of repentance and baptism, we could talk about, but nowhere is the language of confession used in close connection with baptism. So, again, I want to be clear, I'm very much all for confessing, but actually having some sort of confession or clear repentance or some sort of mark of enough fruits in someone's life so that you can say this person has faith, that has some very challenging practical implications.

1:04:15I'm going to attempt to propose a few here in the final minute and a half that I have. On the confessing side, what about an individual who is not able to speak a confession? What about someone who is Mute, or more significantly, Down syndrome, dementia, you name it. Where does that put them then in terms of baptism and the hopeful assurance that comes with being baptized? Where does that put the church, what position does that put the church in then, if that needs to happen first?

1:04:55What about someone who confesses that they believe in Christ, they are baptized, and then at some point walk away from the faith? 1 Timothy 1, verse 19 lists to individuals who have shipwrecked their faith. Maybe that's a separate argument, a separate debate, the steadfastness of faith or falling away from. I would argue that someone can fall away from their faith. And then, if that's the case, if baptism has, by the church, has validated, so to speak, someone's faith or salvation, but someone falls away or they stop showing fruit, what does that mean, not only for that individual, but more importantly, what does that mean for the rest of the church? What does your baptism mean to you then if the church potentially got it wrong?

1:05:47I'm done. Okay? All right. All right, so first to address his counterpoints very quickly before making my own. So he made three primary challenges to my position. First, my connection of John's baptism to our modern-day practice. He challenged Ezekiel on the basis of Ezekiel 36 that John was not doing this, and I would agree, this is referring to the Messiah. He was not the Messiah. And they accused him of being that, and he denied all allegations. He came to point to the Messiah and what the Messiah would do. And this is, in fact, what Jesus does. So the connection stands, and that has no merits or bearing on John's baptism or our take of that baptism. He mentioned that John's baptism did not bestow the Holy Spirit. Well, first of all, I would say I think my position is somewhat clear on this, although not the majority topic of tonight. I don't believe baptism ever bestows the Holy Spirit. I personally believe that happens at the time of salvation, which is separate, regeneration being separate from water baptism. Remember, we got the baptism of the Spirit, the baptism of water. But I'll also further point out that this has no bearing or merit on the baptism of John and what it has to do with us today. Remember that John was baptizing at a time before Pentecost. The Holy Spirit. Not come because it could not come until Jesus departed. Nonetheless, that does not change the mode and method, the means by which we are demonstrated through what he did, which Jesus and more accurately his disciples did, as I pointed out. And then he says that John's baptism does something. Amen. Or baptism does something. Yes, it does, but not salvation. Baptism can do a great many things. Baptism is the entrance by which we join the church. It is, without which we are not part of the church properly. I like to use the analogy, I believe I used with my young adults here recently. When I say I do at a wedding, and the paper is signed, am I married? Yes, I am. But there's something extra special with the consummation. Also, for that matter, if we want to back it up a little further, at the moment I say, I do, am I married? Yes. What about the signature? Like, you have steps, you have progression there. That doesn't make you any less merry from the get-go when the pastor says so, and you, before the sight of God and man, have said so. And we apply it here with this case as well. Then he points to Acts chapter 18 and 19.

1:08:57Those who have received the baptism of John. I would also agree wholeheartedly, this is not an example of re-baptism, and I, in fact, do not believe in re-baptism, although I have all the love in the world for my Anabaptist forbears. I believe there's only one baptism. Everything and anything else before that is, as Luther said, the cook's baptism. There's only one true baptism, that's the one through the word that is bestowed by God Himself that we already talked about. In the case of this, however, in Acts chapter 18, Marmot Apollos, he was a Christian, he had some doctrinal issues, he was corrected, no problem moving on. In the case of 19, when they were asked if they knew about the Holy Spirit, they said no, which is fine, because the idea of the Holy Spirit did not originate with Jesus in Jesus' preaching. In fact, John the Baptist was preaching it, and the Old Testament was preaching it, it's all over the Bible, throughout, everywhere. The idea here that I agree with the likes of MacArthur and Wearsby, these are not Christians who received a baptism under one title and then were re-baptized by another. These were non-Christians who misunderstood the ministry. So, again, none of this has any, in my mind, any implications on John's baptism.

1:10:19The second case he makes is a sign that there is nowhere said that baptism is a sign. Well, I would very Much like to contend with that. In 1 Peter 3, verse 21, already brought up tonight. There is a noun there, an appeal. Baptism is there referred to as an appeal, noun, a thing, almost like you're submitting a request. And what is the request for? A good conscience. You're asking God through an appeal for a good conscience. Now, question, conscience. Is that from within or from without? It is from without. I cannot give myself good conscience. And we know this instinctively, even outside of Scripture. Jiminy Cricket, let your conscience be your guide. We have to have somebody else speaking in. That's probably a bad example, but you get the idea. A conscience has to be a witness spoken to you from outside, an external witness. You're asking God for that witness. And how do you get it? You get it. Through baptism in many ways. And we can go much deeper. There's much more to say there, but for sake of time, moving on, that's the ultimate example of the sign. Also, he said that speaking of the sign, that baptism is not circumcision. Again, amen. It is not. It is absolutely not.

1:11:42And here we can agree against our Presbyterian brothers and sisters. No, it is not. We're not going backwards. We are going forwards. Baptism is the completion. It is the promise made in the old covenant, completed in the new. And we'll talk about this promise in completing. Completion in just a second. Keep that in mind. His last point was the validation that the church is not, in fact, anywhere in Scripture told to validate the confession of individuals. Here I simply just have to disagree based on the very force of the examples he brought up. The baptism of repentance brought up with John the Baptist, which I still believe and affirm to you as our type of how baptism today should be. Mark chapter 1, verse 5, which I brought up in my opening remarks, Acts chapter 2, verse 38. Repent and be baptized. It goes together. They're one, two peas in a pot. With this, he brought up some implications which I can't allow to go without at least speaking to. I personally, and there's many different opinions on this, but I personally believe, yes, infants can be saved. It is not normative, and I know of no examples I could point to of such a thing, but I believe it is within a just and good God's capability, as with Down syndrome or any other. However, we're not talking about salvation explicitly. We are speaking of water baptism, the practice of that. And with that, if I cannot confirm, I cannot baptize. The same with what if I baptize somebody in shipwrecked faith? Well, it's a call to do a better job. And you have this in Matthew chapter 18, you have the example of what to do if you have a brother who goes astray after you have gone through. Through all the church discipline, how are you to treat them? You're to treat them as an outsider, as an outcast, not a member of the church, not saved. Why? Because we make that judgment call. And that is the role of the church, to make that call on who is and isn't saved. It doesn't mean we save or that we revoke salvation. We simply recognize the work that God has done. With the rest of my time, now I'll go on to make a few of my own observations. So he made two primary arguments: first direct, the second indirect. In his direct appeal, first he went to Matthew chapter 28, verse 19. Here I point out, first of all, make disciples. What is a disciple? A disciple is a follower.

1:14:12Infants have short legs. They don't follow really well. So I think there's an implication here. A lot can be said about this. Mark chapter 10, verse 38-39, a use of the word baptism, which is perhaps not very often invoked in these conversations, but it's nonetheless fun because, especially in the Greek, but even in English, you will be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized, is how it goes. And it's just the only use of the word three times right in a row there. And what is this saying? It's a total lifestyle dunking, if you will. You're going to go through everything I go through. And this is the idea of the image of a true disciple said to his disciples in this case.

1:14:56And these disciples are, there's a number. Of different ways we can look at the Great Commission in particular. But even if I interpret it as making disciples by means of baptism, which is not by any stretch the universal interpretation, even if I go that route, nonetheless, you're going to the nations and you are baptizing them into the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Into has movement. And you're making disciples of the nations, meaning that you're going to the nations. When you get done with them, they're not nations anymore. They're one of you. There's a movement there. And this idea, yes, absolutely. You're going to be turning them into Christians if you will, converting the God is, but through you he will accomplish this work. But this does not imply that it need be the infants.

1:15:54Acts 2:38, the second place he goes, I would point out here, read the next verse. We'll read all of 39. And I've turned away from it. Okay. So 38, then Peter said to them, Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you'll receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39. For the promise is to you and your children, and to all who are far up. Question. What is the promise? Look at verse 33. Therefore, being expressed. Exalted at the right hand of God and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit. If you keep looking within context of the scriptures, look at Romans 4, 13, Romans 9, 8, and Hebrews 9.15. The promise of the Holy Spirit is throughout and directly tied to the Old Covenant. Also, evidence of why in Acts 19 they should have known about the Holy Spirit. It's the Old Covenant, as we see in these places. The Holy Spirit is promised, and who is the Holy Spirit promised to? The Holy Spirit is promised to all people and all nations will be blessed.

1:17:08And so we have this promise, but the promise is fulfilled for those who believe. So, yes, the promise is to our infants, but it is not fulfilled in our infants. It is fulfilled in those who believe, who have faith granted by the Father. Next, he looked at households. I will point out simply here, we like to talk about when it includes households and everybody in the households, that the household was baptized, that must include infants. But when it also talks about the households doing other things, we don't include them, for example, speaking in tongues in Acts 10 through 11. We don't include infants when the households are dedicated to service, 1 Corinthians 16, 15. We don't include the infants when the households are sending their greeting in Philippians 4, 22. In 1 Timothy 3, the households include children, sure, but they're children who are to be submissive and care for their living. With mothers. So I would contend that the word household simply does not by necessity include infants. So my challenge for you in all of this as we're looking at these things, I would go back to Matthew 28. We emphasize the baptism. Where is the teaching? Baptism and teaching are both participles, the exact same partisan. There is no separation or daylight between them. Baptize and teach, or baptizing and teaching.

1:18:32If we're going to baptize the infants, are we not going to be teaching the infants? And then my question, how are you planning on teaching the infants? Equal weight should be given to scriptures. And if we are not willing to baptize all infants everywhere at all times as we go to these nations, I would ask why. In part, I actually know, because this is a role given in Lutheran teaching, it's because the church, the church has a role. And if you have somebody who is baptized and they are not two Christian believers, not in a church and otherwise in a bad position, then, as you said, the regeneration can be lost. In which case, I would say this seems to me, and I mean this in the most loving way possible, but this seems to me to take all the power, all the value, and all the meaning of baptism away. If we cannot trust the baptism that we are.

1:19:31In fact, I say we can. When we baptize, we can trust it because it is the appeal that is answered by God. It is the appeal after careful teaching and instruction that shows us as a sign that we are, in fact, saved. It is the means by which we see God's work in our life in a tangible physical way, the spiritual scene physically. None of this seems apt, none of this fits the precedent, none of this is within the pattern of Scripture. So, how do we make sense of this if we are baptizing our companies? I yield to God.

1:20:40Thank you for the next two, and then what do you think of that? No, that's not good. I don't expect to use the whole time, but Matthew 28, my friend Matthew, started with Matthew 28 and even circled back around to there, to the latter point that you make. Baptizing and teaching. Absolutely correct. Two participles that are connected to the main verb in that whole sentence, making disciples, which in and of itself is a challenging imperative because there's no noun disciples listed there. Rather, that whole phrase, make disciples, is a verb in and of itself. So you could attempt to translate it, go and disciple the nations, but that's harder in our English language. Regardless to your point, again, this is for all nations. This is baptizing and teaching. I very much would argue for teaching our infants. It may not look like cognitive teaching like you and I are doing here, but if we are going to use an analogy of any other way, that we teach people starting at any age something. Again, what it looks like, maybe it starts with a slap of the wrist.

1:22:18We begin teaching them how to hear God's word and observe and obey God's word, even if they can't do it cognitively. The discipling, the making of disciples. Begins at infancy with both baptizing and teaching, at least within a Christian household. And I know for many that it doesn't begin at infancy. So at whatever point then the gospel is preached and God works through His Word and His means, including baptism, then and there we begin and continue teaching as well.

1:23:05Sorry, I'm recalling the first point regarding all nations. As I listened to that argument, I didn't make a note to myself of the disagreement, and so I have nothing to respond to there from what I heard you say. Acts chapter 2, I agree. We affirmed a lot of the same things there. That as Peter says in verse 33 of Acts 2, it is clear that the promise that is being talked about is the Holy Spirit. And I would just reiterate that then in verses 38 and 39, Paul connects, Paul, excuse me, Peter connects this promise of the Holy Spirit for you and for your children and for all who are far off to baptism.

1:23:55There's no separation there, especially with the end of verse 38. Speaking about the reception of the gift of the Holy Spirit. And so, this is the promise that is given. Now, for clarity's sake, beyond my friend's argument, is this the only instance where the Holy Spirit is promised? Is this the only way that the Holy Spirit is given? No. Actually, the Holy Spirit was given before Pentecost. John chapter 20. Jesus showed up to his disciples, and what's the first thing he said in John chapter 20? Peace, receive the Holy Spirit.

1:24:32And so, I will very much grant and even argue that baptism is not the only time that the Holy Spirit is promised or poured out, but it is a time that God connects baptism. It is an instance. God in His Word connects baptism and the giving of the Holy Spirit. That was good. Although I don't remember if this was specifically a counter-argument to me or not. 1 Peter 3. Can I speak to that? Yeah. Okay. Since I did bring it up initially, and in our conversations, you rightfully brought it into your arguments.

1:25:31My friend's argument that 1 Peter 3 is speaking of the validation, I really want to be cautious to not make another counter-argument. So I'm going to do my best here. Bear with me, and feel free to then. I want you to have the last word on your arguments. This is not my intention, but since it's a shared passage that we're both looking to, that word conscience that is used there is not only used in verse 21, it's used earlier in verse 16. It's used earlier again in 1 Peter 2, verse 19. The ESV has a different translation of it there, but the NASB does use the word conscience. It's the same Greek word.

1:26:22While I hear and still disagree with your argument regarding validation of a good conscience in 21, I think that there are other uses of that word that would caution that understanding. Instead, what I realize now I failed to come back to in that verse, in my opening argument, so I'll make this as my primary then. The final phrase of 1 Peter 3:21 is, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is not an. Would argue an external validation, but rather the baptism that we have is an assurance, a lifting up of our conscience, you might say, because it saves, as the wording is used, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Again, recall Romans 6 and Colossians 2, where we are buried with Christ and raised with Him. Again, if I have, feel free to respond to that, and I will leave it, obviously, because these are my final minutes.

1:27:54For my conclusion, my final thoughts, first of all, again, let me say thank you to all of you for your attendance, for your attention, for your participation, and I'll say thank you now for what's still to come because I don't know if I'll say thank you afterward. I'm afraid that they're going to be harsher than we are to each other. But as I hope you have heard all of this in and will continue the QA time, and I pray conversations that flow from. Among individuals, I pray that you have heard that this is an upbuilding of one another, a wrestling with God's Word and wrestling with the doctrine and the practices that we choose, isn't the right word, but the things that we do that flow from God's Word. And so I'm thankful for that, and thankful for you being here. I would remind you then to conclude that look at the weight of Scripture, the instances that baptism is talked about, the number of times and ways that the weight that Scripture gives to the weight of baptism doing something.

1:29:18I hear my brother affirm that to a degree. He and I will have to have further conversations on what that means and entails. Our timer has reset, so I'm just going to leave it and I'll take a minute and I'll be done. There are so many scriptures about baptism that speak to it doing something and things that we as humans can't do. And so as my brother and I share, this is 100% God, our salvation, our faith, I would then, based on the scriptures I've given to you, include baptism in that. It is 100% God doing his work according to his promise.

1:30:04We as His people graciously and simply get to be His hands and His mouthpiece. Jesus Himself said these kinds of things would happen. John 14, the one who believes in me, greater things than these will He do. And we see that in the book of Acts, as the disciples are doing greater things than Jesus Himself did. Not because they are greater, but because we have a great God who does great things, who saves us by grace, and who works this in this means that He has chosen. There's very few that the Scripture tells us that He has chosen to use. This is one of them: baptism. And again, if this is something that He has chosen to use, something that He has attached His promise to, let's give that to all nations, all people, including infants, as God's promises to them. Thank you again for your time.

1:31:20Alright, so first, if and when my passion has offended, I want to first say, my brothers and sisters, Of all stripes in this room, thank you for your participation in the family and church of Christ. We may disagree, and we may disagree passionately, but I am glad to fight alongside of you for the kingdom. There are a few of you I noted who are unchurched, but at least you said you were, who came tonight. As such, I'm actually going to burn just a little bit of my time to point to Joshua 24:15. Choose you this day whom you will serve. To quote Charles Spurgeon, don't stand halting between two opinions, but just say, once for all, whom you will serve. If you choose the devil, choose him. Love him. Serve him. And rejoice in your choice.

1:32:24If you choose hell, go there. Rush madly there. It's a fearful dwelling place for eternity, an awful home forever. But if you choose God, beseech you, be in downright earnest about it. If you accept the offer of salvation, and the offer is there, by any mechanism, and we can talk about all the theology behind salvation, regardless, if you accept the offer, then go get baptized. And I guarantee you, both Tim and I are willing to do that.

1:33:07You are welcome into either church present here tonight, and I would rather you accept that offer and be part of that church, either church you choose, than continue on your road to hell. Because that is an awful and scary thing. Amen. With that said, my position tonight I have tried to make as clear as possible, and we'll continue to discuss to some degree. The picture of Scripture and every baptism in Scripture is of adults who have made a response. Adults who, through the role of the church, were verified in their positions and their views, and ultimately, to the best of our ability, working with works, working with fruit, working with the visible things, inside verified to be faithful, a faith given by God. The individual confessing that faith, a confession I hope we will all in unity make tonight. That's one to the rest of you.

1:34:30So, we've got a few questions, and what we'll do is we'll just kind of alternate. Some were directed at Matthew, some were directed at Tim, and then we'll do also some for both. So, I might be enhancing some of the questions a little bit or congealing them together because a lot of them address the same sort of things. This first one for Tim? Do Lutherans baptize adults? And also, would you baptize an adult without a profession of faith?

1:35:05Yes, we absolutely baptize adults. Again, people of all ages. Often in practice, it looks a little bit different for adults because the first thing that an adult usually interacts with when it comes to God's Word is the explicit preaching of the gospel. Certainly, infants hear that too, but then it begins the conversation. And so, profession of faith depends on to what extent you mean that. I know I keep looking at you. I'm sorry, you're a question.

1:35:49In essence, I think the simple and direct answer is: yes, some form of profession of faith, at least an expression of I want to be baptized. with some knowledge of what we're talking about. Again, we're not going to baptize an adult with them having no clue what we're doing because there is that opportunity for the conversation about it first. Okay, Pastor Matt, this is kind of a, well, I'm combining a couple questions here. How can you affirm whether someone has a faith worthy of baptism? If one must have faith, and true faith by definition is bearing fruit, how can you know if someone has done enough or is genuine enough to be baptized? And the first cousin to that question is, what does the phrase age of accountability mean to you?

1:36:51Testing. All right, cool. So first of all, I'll start backwards and just say, I deny the idea of the age of accountability. I believe there is salvation through faith alone. No innocence is going to get you there regardless of your age. God may save infants as I've already said, but if he does so, it's through faith. And so there's that. As far as how do we verify, well, first of all, we're not doing a checklist of every good thing they do. We're verifying: does this person confess Christ? Does this person bear? The hallmarks, yes or no?

1:37:33Are they turning down baptism? And the example I gave from Matt Winware. If you come up to the baptismal waters and you say, I don't want to be baptized, well, that's the very first commandment, right? So that's the first thing. And then, generally speaking, are you going to affirm God? And are you going to affirm the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit? If you're a universalist, or, you know, I don't believe salvation is a checklist of intellectual propositions. It's not. However, the example I often give is of Anna and Simeon who had never met Jesus, but had faith in the Old Testament sense, and when they were confronted with Jesus, immediately recognized and accepted him as such.

1:38:24The facts and intellect follows faith. It's the product thereof. And so we're using to the best of our ability what we can see, their affirmations, and their life, whether or not it's in line with what it tells us a Christian should be. Sometimes we get it wrong, but we do the best we can, and that's the same case with every church. Okay, next question for Tim. This is sort of a compound question, so bear with me. I'm pending and putting together three.

1:39:00So this general idea of faith by proxy. So what is the role of the parent's faith and the faith of the child? Also, if there is a sort of faith by proxy, would that mean that if one was baptized under a household of faith, that if that person that was making the decision on the basis in that household eventually fell away with that invalidate the baptism of the child? And also, could you touch on the paralytic being healed based on the faith of those who were bringing him to Jesus?

1:39:47The third one there, for the time I'm going to leave to the side, because I would have to go look again at what exactly is. I don't know exactly what's being referred to there in connection, I guess. So I don't know if you want to clarify. The friends who dropped the paralytic through the roof, I believe, I don't have the scripture in front of me, but I believe it's sort of like Jesus is healing the person on the basis of the faith of the people bringing him.

1:40:22Healing of the people. I was going to say, so my first thought is that that's not tied to baptism. So, it's not that I don't want to answer the question at all, but I don't see it connected to the baptism conversation in my eyes. When it comes to this idea of faith by proxy, to use, I don't know if that's the language from the card or yours, I am not advocating just to be clear for one individual's faith saving someone else.

1:41:01Rather, I would highlight first and foremost that in my Lutheran biblical understanding of baptism, faith is not necessary for baptism to take place. And actually, in many instances, I would argue that baptism is a means that God uses, the pouring out of the Holy Spirit, to then work faith. So that is why, for me and for us as Lutherans, having a profession of faith by the individual is not necessary. It's not dependent upon that to baptize, but rather it's dependent upon, again, God's command and what is being promised. And so, when does an infant actually have faith? Again, not the intellect, not the check. You know, the checklist that you were talking about. I don't know when a person actually has faith.

1:42:07But what I do know is what I've been commanded to do. So, faith is crucial for that household, because again, I know that's part of the question, so I do want to respond to that. And this is where, in pastoral practice, you will have pastors that are a little more particular about the faith and even maybe the life and the fruits, so to speak, of the parents that are bringing a child to be baptized, not out of withholding baptism from that child, but out of uncertainty of the teaching that is going to follow up. We really do want to hold up both baptizing and teaching. So, I'm not an advocate. Maybe some of you have done this. I'm not an advocate for a grandmother or a preschool teacher or whatever the other situation may be, and you take a little one and you go baptize him in your tub.

1:43:06Now, is that still a valid baptism? Probably. Was it with water and in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? Yeah. Did anyone see that and witness it to be able to help that infant and child know later on that they were baptized? That's part of the church's role, in my opinion. Is the I witnessed this happen. You can be certain, not because you remember your baptism. Baptism, but because I was there and I remember it, and all these other people.

1:43:36And there was another piece there that just escaped me. So again, it's not that the faith of the parents matters for that child's salvation. The salvation is faith of the individual. And baptism is a means that God potentially can bring about faith, water and his word, again, the power of God's word. Okay, Pastor Matt, I believe you guys have both kind of dismissed a connection between circumcision and baptism. Did I hear that? I believe that there's a connection. I would say there is a connection, but they're not the same thing by any means.

1:44:27The first part of this question dealt with that. I'll go to the second part of it. If our Lord's intent in establishing Christian baptism was to exclude infants, why is there no specific command in the New Testament to not baptize infants? Without that specific instruction to change this practice, wouldn't the inclusion of infants be something that everyone in the first century would have taken for granted? On the basis of the previous tradition of circumcision. To clarify?

1:45:02They jumped to a second point. The second point was there was no direct saying don't have to invent. So by itself, to answer your question, we don't get a list of every single thing we cannot possibly ever do. That's I mean, usually that's not possible because the human mind is depraved beyond imagination. We can invent new things to do. Not to say that of infant baptism, but I'm just saying we're not the fact that something, an explicit prohibition is not there, that's it's also not there saying that we should do it. However, where I think that particular question is coming from is, and if any of you are familiar with Doug Wilson, he makes his point quite well.

1:46:00If you have the general practice of circumcision as the sign of the covenant, and this is kind of a Presbyterian way of thinking, and this is the general practice that every infant gets this sign, and then suddenly the new covenant comes along and they're not told not to, why would they just assume it? And my point is, as I kind of draw out a little bit, what are the covenants? The covenant explicitly in the New Testament, the old covenant was primarily, in purpose and in point, a promise, the provision.

1:46:41And it was the provision of what was to come in Christ himself, although not explicitly named as such. That promise is universal, and the sign is passed down to all. But I'll point out there too: Galatians 3, right? The sign was to Abraham and the seed, Jesus Christ. And then we have, we see this, and then this sign of Christ and to Christ then is passed forward to the new covenant, and then the new covenant is fulfilled in Christ to whom it is given, the sign, and then we get a new covenant and a new sign of what that seed, promised all the way back in Genesis through the promise to Eve, is accomplished. It's fulfilled. In Christ, the law is fulfilled. And therefore, because it is fulfilled in Christ, because this promise is accomplished in Christ, because of the promise to all people, then those who realize that promise have a sign a new covenant. Sign of a new covenant accomplished to them specifically. Jeremiah 31, 31. Those in the new covenant are those who know God and His word is in their heart. That's not true of non-believers. It's only true of believers. The new covenant. And therefore, the new covenant sign, there's an agreement there, but in my view, is to them. And so you have somebody who's in the synagogue who is part of the synagogue community in 30 AD, and their brother, born a few years later, suddenly is excluded from the synagogue. Is that how it works? No. Sure, go to the synagogue. Sure. If you want to, circumcision, as Paul says, it's a thing of indifference. You do it if you want to. But that's what would come. All of them, the older brother, the younger brother, everybody who is in the synagogue, when they move into the new covenant faith, received the new sign. It's a new thing. It's alien. At this point, I'm beating a dead horse, but hopefully you all don't get that.

1:49:11All right, next question. So, kind of multi-part as well. Do you think that if you don't baptize infants, you are denying them the gift of the Holy Spirit? And would that be doing them harm or wronging them? I don't. Think you are denying them the gift of the Holy Spirit. I think that you are missing an opportunity. Again, we see a number of other instances. If this was a debate about the Holy Spirit, there's a whole other set of passages that we would have looked at as well.

1:49:50That the essence of my understanding and argument would be that wherever the word goes, the Holy Spirit goes. And so, as the word is proclaimed, as the word is preached, as the gospel goes out, the Holy Spirit works through the word. The word preached, I don't know if the Holy Spirit is brought up explicitly here, but what's coming to my mind is one of the passages you had mentioned in our dialogue, Romans 10: faith comes through hearing and hearing through the word of Christ. This, I would argue, happens by the work of the Holy Spirit as the word of Christ is preached and the Holy Spirit goes and works faith. So, denying baptism or, I mean, even that language is strange to me, but just is a missed opportunity.

1:50:49It's withholding a gift of God from someone. It's, I think the best way I would say it. Did I answer the full question or? I miss something. Okay, I wasn't sure if I forgot a part of it. You're much more concise than I am. That's prayer. Ask my people. This is faith. So there are several different passages that talk about there being some sort of understanding or faith. This could be both of you, actually. Understanding or faith prior to being born, like Jeremiah, you know, knowing the mother's womb, and then John the Baptist in his mother's womb, having some sort of response. So, how would you account for that? Is faith connected to intrinsically understanding of something, or is it a completely separate thing from understanding?

1:51:56Are those special cases? You know, kind of like an anointing for a purpose versus the normative way that salvation occurs. So, go ahead. Yeah, so faith, again, I alluded to this, faith. How do you define it? And we can fight back and forth. Faith, pistis, is the noun form that we get from believe, the verb. If we were to be really wooden about it, it's believe the verb and belief the noun. And okay, well, what's belief?

1:52:35Knowing something. Or, dare I say, knowing someone. Faith is, and I would like to suggest John chapter 3, regeneration through the Holy Spirit. It's a relationship. And this is why I affirm irresistibility, because God comes down in spirit, in the Holy Spirit, communing with our Spirit, introduces himself, and you know him. And there's a relationship. And I believe in him because I see him, talk to him, he's right there. Boom. So that's faith. That's salvation. So no, it's not based on intellect. So to the infant thing, the before birth, I'd be hesitant on exactly how to interpret those or say, but generally speaking, again, if an infant or even in Utera, a child who, by the way, God forms, if he decides to have a relationship and he introduces through his Spirit, then sure, there can be a relationship there. An infant has a relationship with its mother.

1:53:51The relationship doesn't require a certain amount of intellect. I think. Matt and I agree in a lot of ways on this. We don't use irresistibility language often, but in essence, I think we're pretty similar there. So, again, when God works in someone in their heart, in their spirit, in their mind, whatever part of the body you want to attribute it to, whenever God works in someone and gives them faith, there is faith and salvation. I think where I would be much, I think I would speak a little more strongly is when it comes to someone who is an infant who is still in the womb.

1:54:45This is where, again, the word being spoken, being read, being proclaimed, just as an infant can hear their mother and father talking to them, even if they aren't cognitively processing and understanding what's being said, that relationship, I agree with that, is being developed and being formed. And so it is with God and His Word and the relationship with God. And so I am much more inclined pastorally, I can speak much stronger to a woman or a couple who has an infant, someone in the womb, who has been around the Word of God in some form. Whether that be attending church or daily devotions or even things that contain the Word of God, like hymns and prayers and things. Even those can be aspects of the good news of Jesus being communicated. And so when that has been done to someone that's still in the womb, praise the Lord, because they have heard the word. Do I know that that little one has faith? No, I'm not going to make that judgment call. But I'm much more inclined to speak words of comfort to those people, especially, and maybe I'm just assuming that someone has lost someone in the womb. I'm sorry if I'm assuming this example, but because they've been around the Word of God. If someone hasn't, you know, can that little one have faith? Yeah, but God works through means, His Word and sacraments.

1:56:26Okay, so last question, since I just noticed we're over time. So could you each specifically go through every church father and explain the position? That's a joke. Wait, did you give him that one? For the sake of clarity, Matt and I talked back and forth a little bit about church fathers, early church history, church tradition, and obviously some of that was referenced with Luther. and later people. We agreed to avoid that for the purpose of this debate, to focus on scripture.

1:57:08We disagree on what the early church fathers are implying or saying about baptism of infants. And so we said, let's narrow the focus and stay away from those. Next week, I think that was your choice. I might not be here, but you can come. All right, well, thank you so much for coming. Let's close out with a prayer. Father, thank you for this opportunity to think more about your word and to understand each other better. And thank you for giving us what we need to follow you closely and to be faithful to you. Help us to teach your word boldly, both to everyone of every age, and to baptize them in your name. In Christ's name, Father.