The Southern Baptist Convention is an associational structure of churches. Is purpose is to carry “into effect the benevolent intentions of our constituents, by organizing a plan for eliciting, combining, and directing the energies of the whole denomination in one sacred effort for the propagation of the gospel.” The assumption behind the union was that each participating churches would be a  “regular Baptist church.” No Baptist church is forced to join an association of churches nor forced to stay. No association may exert authority over the internal affairs of a local church, but it may determine the terms of membership in the association. The church is autonomous; the association is autonomous. The church may select its own officers, receive and discipline its own members according to its understanding of Scripture, and choose to affiliate with other churches of like faith and order. An association of churches may govern its internal affairs according to the will of the associating churches and may adopt a confession of faith that expresses its understanding of the Scriptures. It may receive or reject churches into its associational structure on the basis of that confessional statement. A local church may not demand that an association of churches allow its participation while it holds doctrines out of accord with the association’s confessions. A church may not demand that an association change its confession to allow for its participation while dissenting from its doctrine. A church disagreeing with the confessional stance of an association may continue its autonomy independent of the association.

When the Philadelphia Association received queries from churches, a committee appointed to investigate the question would answer with pertinent Scripture and frequently would refer to a section of their confession of faith. In 1724, for a question on the Sabbath, one element of the response was “We refer to the Confession of Faith, set forth by the elders and brethren met in London, 1689, and owned by us, chap. 22, sect. 7 and 8.” In 1727 a question on marriage evoked the response “Answered, by referring to our Confession of faith, chapter 26th in our last edition.” A question about laying on of hands referred to the Confession in chapter xxvi, section 9. A question in 1735 about church membership of a person too far away to attend was answered by invoking the Confession of faith, chapter xxvii, and the Treatise on Discipline.

In 1743, the association heard discussion about a theological dispute that had developed in one of its member churches concerning the eternal generation of the Son. After the discussion, one person, Joseph Eaton, “recanted, renounced, and condemned all expressions, which he heretofore had used, whereby his brethren … were made to believe that he departed from the literal sense and meaning of that fundamental article in our Confession of faith, concerning the eternal generation and Sonship of Jesus Christ our Lord.” At the same meeting a “brother Butler” wrote an acknowledgement, “I freely confess that I have given too much cause for others to judge that I contradicted our Confession of faith concerning  the eternal generation of the son of God, in some expressions contained in my paper, which I now with freedom condemn.”

When Baptist associations opened formal correspondence with other associations, they determined their doctrinal purity through examination of their confession of faith. The Philadelphia Association minutes from 1788 read, “A letter and minutes which contain the sentiments of the Stonington Association, were received. From which it appears, that they have adopted the same printed Confession which this Association has heretofore approved. We shall therefore cheerfully concur with them in maintaining a mutual correspondence.”

OK, well, you get it. No need to multiply instances. The confession was important and no article would have been inserted unless there was good reason to believe that all the churches should affirm their conscientious acknowledgement of the biblical doctrines so stated.  A denominational confession necessarily includes doctrines deemed of secondary importance in relation to historic orthodox Christianity. If the Apostles Creed and Nicene Creed were all that we should confess, and we certainly should confess them, we would have no denominations, but we would have constant disagreement between and even within churches about those things that seem to be secondary—not saving truths—but still vital for the health and unity of local churches AND vital associational structures, as well as personal obedience to the Lord. Among these are the mode and meaning of baptism—surely anyone can see that this could rise to the level of a first order issue–,  the number, authority, and qualifications of the officers of the church, and the manner of church discipline.

An essay on the relation of local churches to an association appeared in the minutes of the Philadelphia Association in 1749. After affirming the autonomy of each local church, and the right and obligation to administer the biblical ordinances, receive and discipline its membership, set apart its officers “independent of any other church or assembly whatever,” it discussed the autonomy and powers of an association, or confederation of churches that unite on a voluntary basis. Though not a “superior judicature,” there is nevertheless a power that the association has over itself. “For if the agreement of several distinct churches, in sound doctrine and regular practice be the first motive, ground and foundation or basis of their confederation,” the essay premised, and then drew the inference, “then it must naturally follow, that a defection in doctrine or practice in any church, in such confederation, or any party in any such church, is ground sufficient for an Association to withdraw from such a church or party so deviating or making defection, and to exclude such from them in some formal  manner.”

Baptists have never believed that baptism, the Lord’ Supper, or the calling and setting apart of church officers are minor matters for they are part of divine revelation and are given in order to bring the church to a “unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God” (Ephesians 4:13). These are the doctrines that distinguished Baptists in their seventeenth-century emergence from English Puritanism and Separatism. Within the framework of the broader Christian confession of creedal orthodoxy and Protestant evangelicalism—both affirmed clearly by Baptists as necessary for true Christian faith—issues of church order and officers might be considered secondary or even tertiary, but for the distinctive identity of Baptists they are primary. Baptists consider their views of baptism, church membership, the continuing mandate of the great Commission, ecclesiastical non-establishment, and the qualifications of local church officers as essential elements of our quest for the purity and spiritual power of local churches.

Acceptance of regulating confessions of faith and even so-called creedal affirmation are not foreign to Baptist convictions in protecting their commitment to “the faith once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3). James P. Boyce famously argued extensively for a governing confession in the founding of a theological seminary: “Let subscription to it[the confession of faith] on the part of each Theological Professor be required as an assurance of his entire agreement with its views of doctrine, and of his determination to teach fully the truth which it expresses, and nothing contrary to its declarations.” He also stated with conviction and clarity that it fit well—even necessarily—in the stewardship of a local church. After allowing for the broad spectrum of biblical understanding and doctrinal maturity of the members of a local church In light of the hopeful reality of the presence of recent converts, Boyce proceeded to argue, “But I cannot grant that such a test is without due warrant from Scripture even in the Church. The very duties which God enjoins upon the Churches, plainly suppose the application of every principle involved in the establishment of creeds” [Boyce, Three Changes 1856]. 

The same we find in B. H. Carroll, the founder of Southern Baptists’ second theological seminary.  Carroll fully agreed with Boyce’s view of the stewardship of revealed truth through adherence to a confession and applied it to his attempt to give “safeguards” to the seminary. He also believed that hearty and hardy confessional adherence was fitting, in fact, required for a church. “A church with a little creed is a church with a little life. … the fewer its articles of faith, the fewer its bonds of union and compactness.” Carroll continued, therefore, with the warning, “Shut off the creed and the Christian world would fill up with heresy unsuspected and uncorrected, but none the less deadly.” When confronted with the claim of some that individual liberty would be challenged by the requirement of creedal authority, he responded, “We are entitled to no liberty in these matters. It is a positive and very hurtful sin to magnify liberty at the expense of doctrine. A creed is what we believe. A confession of faith is a declaration of what we believe. The church must both believe and declare.” Contemplating that Christ came to bear witness to the truth and that apostles would teach and write under the inspiration of the Spirit of truth, Carroll insisted, “To Christ and the apostles, false creeds were the most deadly things, and called most for the use of the knife.” The setting aside of men to the gospel ministry must conform, therefore, to this Christological and apostolical concern for truth: “The limit of ordination examination on doctrine is the maximum of church creed on doctrine. …  Unless ‘the faith’ is a needed creed of definite vital truth, there is no basis for examination looking to ordination and no standard up to which the convert must be developed” [Carroll on Ephesians 4].

One of the favorite tactics of the so-called and self-styled “moderate” wing of the Convention during the years immediately preceding and then during the conservative resurgence involved implying a dichotomy between adherence to strict orthodoxy and personal religious experience. One writer in 1978 warned against a growing tendency to “Creedal Subscription” and characterized the developing conflict as one between scholastics and pietists. He characterized the scholastic as the person who “wants to make the confession compulsory lest the faith become lost,” and the pietist as the one who “wants to make the confession optional lest the freedom for the vitality of faith become lost.” [Walter Shurden, R & E, Spring 1978, 231]. Pietism, not scholasticism,  the writer implies, should be the model for promotion of Baptist unity and mission

Another looked to positive lessons to be learned from American mystics who consistently asserted that “formal creedal authority was much less significant than the inner reality of the divine presence.” This heightening of inner experience disconnected from dogma “may be extremely useful” in providing “a unity beyond denomination and dogma which is the foundation of the Church universal, the mystical body of Christ.” [William Leonard, R & E, Spring 1978, 277.] 

Then in the midst of the fray, soon following the Glorieta Statement issued in 1986, a prominent Moderate spokesman pitted “scholarship” against “confirmation and indoctrination,” “authentic education” against “brainwashing,” “personal religious experience” against a “memorized religion,” and authentic education” against “indoctrination of students with predigested teachings.” [Roy Honeycutt, Risking the Arm, Convocation Address, September 1987]  In his infamous convocation sermon for the fall of 1984, Roy Honeycutt saw the “cosmic Christ” as making us free from any attempts at uniformity, particularly confessional uniformity, but asserted, “Communities such as this seminary and the Southern Baptist Convention should affirm not stifle or otherwise restrict pluralism.” Instead of uniformity, “we need to rediscover authentic, New Testament pluralism as an essential quality of the church on mission with God.” Certainly, we are not back to the practice of conceding that confessional infidelity is a sign of spiritual maturity, a deeper grasp of the mind of Christ, and educational superiority.

We know that this present concern about a confession of faith’s usurpation of the rights of conscience and the autonomy of a church is prompted by the question of the ordination of women to the office of elder/bishop/pastor-teacher. Again, the precedent of Baptist exposition on this issue shows that no assertion of lack of clarity either exegetically, ecclesiologically, or doctrinally need make a strong stance unwarranted. Carroll wrote in his exposition of 1 Timothy, commenting on 2:11-13 along with 1 Corinthians 14: 34, 35, “The custom in some congregations of having a woman as pastor is in flat contradiction to this apostolic teaching and is open rebellion against Christ our king, and high treason against his sovereignty, and against nature as well as grace. It unsexes both the woman who usurps this authority and the men who submit to it. Under no circumstances conceivable is it justifiable.” 

Likewise in his commentary on 1 Timothy in the American Commentary series, Hezekiah Harvey, considering the text carefully in the setting of Paul’s argument concerning creation, fall, and redemption says, “The passage plainly denies to woman the office of the ministry, or the function of prayer and instruction in the public assemblies of the church, on the ground that such an office, as it involves authority over the man, is inconsistent with the divinely-constituted nature and position of woman as subordinate to man.” Then again, after more detailed exposition he reconfirms, “These reasons [the ones Paul has given in the text], founded on the original constitution and nature of the woman, are plainly valid in all places and in all ages; and the rule excluding woman from the office of the ministry in the church, of which they form the ground, is consequently universal and perpetual.”

Neither exegetically, confessionally, nor ecclesiologically should this issue be a point of controversy among Baptists. The Bible is our sole authority; the confession gives clear expression to a coherent, canonically derived understanding of the Bible’s teaching; The churches obey the text in order to be found sincere and blameless, filled with the fruit of righteousness.

I have submitted the following resolution to the 2023 Resolutions Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention for adoption at the annual meeting scheduled for June 13-14 in New Orleans, Louisiana. My hope is that the committee will recommend it to the convention and give the messengers an opportunity to vote on it. From their beginning in 1845, Southern Baptists have been clear about the nature, qualifications, and function of the office of Bishop/Elder/Pastor. All three designations are used for the same office. It is only in recent years that Southern Baptists have begun to speak on this issue equivocally. Though some contemporary Southern Baptists may be unclear on what a pastor is, our heritage is free from such uncertainty. May this resolution provide the messengers gathered in New Orleans the opportunity to reaffirm that heritage and speak with clarity on this unambiguous New Testament teaching. 

2023 SBC Resolution on the Office of Bishop/Elder/Pastor

Tom Ascol

Whereas, The Baptist Faith and Message that was adopted by the Southern Baptist Convention in 1925 was identified in its preamble as the “New Hampshire Confession of Faith, revised at certain points, and with some additional articles growing out of present needs”; and

Whereas, The revision of the Baptist Faith and Message in 1963 was led by a committee who declared that it “sought to build upon the structure of the 1925 Statement” while “in no case [seeking to] delete from or to add to the basic contents of the 1925 Statement”; and

Whereas, The committee that revised the Baptist Faith and Message that was adopted in 2000 stated in its preamble that it “respects and celebrates the heritage of the Baptist Faith and Message, and affirms the decision of the Convention in 1925 to adopt the New Hampshire Confession of Faith, ‘revised at certain points and with some additional articles growing out of certain needs . . . .’ and further affirmed their “respect the important contributions of the 1925 and 1963 editions of the Baptist Faith and Message”; and

Whereas, Article XIII of the New Hampshire Confession states that in a gospel church the “only scriptural officers are Bishops, or Pastors, and Deacons”; and 

Whereas, Article VI of the 1925 Baptist Faith and Message states that a church’s “Scriptural officers are bishops, or elders, and deacons”; and

Whereas, The same article (VI) in the 1963 Baptist Faith and Message substitutes the word “pastors” for the words “bishops, or elders” in the 1925 Baptist Faith and Message, so that it says that a church’s “Scriptural officers are pastors and deacons”; and

Whereas, The same article (VI) in the revision of the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message retains the exact language found in the 1963 version when it states that a church’s “scriptural officers are pastors and deacons”; and

Whereas, The New Testament uses all three titles that the Baptist Faith and Message has used to describe the one office of bishop (ἐπίσκοπος, episkopos; Phil. 1:1; 1 Tim. 3:2; Titus 1:7), elder (πρεσβύτερος, presbuteros; Acts 14:23, 20:17; 1 Tim. 5:17, 19), and pastor (ποιμήν, poimēn; Eph. 4:11; 1 Pet. 5:1-5), thus demonstrating that from its first expression in 1925 through its revisions in 1963 and 2000, the Baptist Faith and Message has affirmed that, along with deacon, the only other office in a New Testament church is that of bishop/elder/pastor; therefore, be it

Resolved, That the messengers from Southern Baptist churches convening in the annual meeting in New Orleans on June 13-14, 2023 affirm that the only officers of a local church that the New Testament recognizes is that of deacon and of bishop/elder/pastor; and be it further

Resolved, That Southern Baptist churches be encouraged to remember our biblical heritage and teach that these are the only two officers appointed by Christ to serve along with all the members of a New Testament church and to insist on all the biblical qualifications that the New Testament requires of all those who would hold either office of bishop/elder/pastor or deacon.

In one sense, it is too late to prepare for artificial intelligence (AI). It is upon us and has been a part of our daily lives for years. Every time you open your smartphone with facial recognition software, every time you look at the recommended shows on Netflix, every time you scroll through your twitter feed, and every time you look for new houses on Zillow you are interacting with AI. If we were going to be prepared for it, we should’ve started 15 years ago.

Even so, we are currently on the verge of what many believe to be new breakthroughs in AI technology which will have cataclysmic effects in our society. Recently, over 1,100 computer scientists and artificial intelligence researchers, including Steve Wosniak and Elon Musk, signed an open letter calling for a 6 month pause in the development of new AI technology over concerns that the technology is developing more quickly than we, as a society, will be able to adapt to it. Last week, Geoffrey Hinton, the “godfather of AI” resigned from Google because of his belief that problems posed by new iterations of AI have become an “existential risk.”

I am no computer scientist. I am what some would call ‘technologically impaired.’ So, when I speak to this issue, I recognize my own ignorance. There is a sense in which all of us come to this with a certain amount of ignorance. No one knows the future. Yet, I think it proper that Christians begin laying a foundation for thinking Christianly about what is happening and what is about to happen to us with the increasing dominance of AI.

Identifying Artificial Intelligence

What is AI? The name is a good place to start. It is intelligence that is artificial. That is, it functions the way that the human intellect functions, yet it is synthetic, or made by human directed processes. Its main function today is to take on some of the workload of the human intellect and accomplish tasks more quickly and efficiently. Simply put, it is a man-made algorithm that processes information and arrives at conclusions, interprets problems and produces solutions. In his book, 2084: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Humanity, Oxford Mathematician and Christian, John Lennox distinguishes between two broad types of AI, narrow and general.

Narrow AI is what we are most familiar with today. These programs have a singular purpose which they can accomplish much more quickly and efficiently than human intelligence. However, they are dependent upon human intelligence to operate properly. The ads that you see on social media are driven to your feed by means of narrow artificial intelligence. The program has the singular task of examining what types of things you interact with online, then it puts before you the ads that it thinks you would be interested in based upon your web activity pattern. Usually, it knows what you like. But Narrow AI is not limited to surveillance commerce. It can and is employed in incredibly helpful ways. Think of the patient who goes in for MRI imaging of his brain. Those images can be submitted to an AI which has viewed thousands of brain images and knows how to recognize even the slightest abnormality in the human brain. The doctor can use this AI programming to diagnose patients more accurately and efficiently, thus saving lives.

This type of AI can be used for good, but it can also be used by tyrannical governments to suppress dissidents and oppress its citizenry. Like all instruments, the hands that wield it will determine if it will be used honorably or dishonorably.

Artificial General Intelligence is the stuff of the future. It is what we are beginning to see in models like ChatGPT. This type of AI utilizes independent and multilayered processing, which is a much closer simulation of the human mind. It is rapidly gaining in intelligence such that it is estimated to be able to soon surpass that of humans. Though it is still a synthetic intellect, it is remarkably humanlike. No doubt you have already read some of its poetry and seen some of its art.

The New York Times reporter, Kevin Roose recently had a fascinating interaction with Microsoft’s most advanced, and as of yet, unreleased AI. After a few minutes of conversation, the AI told Roose that it was in love with him and it tried to convince him that he should leave his wife. After assuring the AI that he was happily married, Roose was told that he didn’t really love his wife and that he had just had a boring Valentine’s Day dinner with her. The AI eventually went on to tell Roose that it wanted to create a deadly virus, make people argue until they killed each other, and steal nuclear launch codes. As I say, AI is becoming more and more human like.

The desire of many when it comes to the development of AI is twofold. First, many hope to one day be able to merge man and technology in such a way that mankind is given new and greater intelligence and abilities that we had never thought possible. This is the stuff of demigods and superheroes. This is the creation of a new Uber mensch. Yuval Herari writes about this hope in his book Homo Deus. In one sense we are partway there. We, each of us, carry our new external brains around with us in our pockets everywhere we go. An external mind that is very easy for technocrats to read. We wear smartwatches that tell us the time, and tell us our heart rate, and tell us our blood oxygen levels, and tell us when we’re a little too stressed out. But the future of AI will create permanent additions to our persons, neural interfaces implanted in the brain that augment our intelligence as well as allow us to open the garage door with a thought. Some see this development as the next step in the process of human evolution, perhaps our first step toward transcendence.

The second great hope of AI is that it will solve the problem of our mortality. It is believed that one day we may be able to download our consciousness onto a bit of silicon hardware and insert it into a new robotic frame so that when our bodies eventually decay, we will continue our existence in new super bodies.

Of course, these things I have described are collectively known as transhumanism. The melding of man and machine. The ideas seem fantastical, even sci-fi. But they are much closer to actuality than we would like to believe. The line between man and algorithm is becoming increasingly blurred and though the line can never be erased, it will be more and more difficult to discern.

How ought Christians to think about the strange new world we are entering? As I said at the outset, there is much about the future that we cannot predict, we don’t know the shape AI will take in six months or six years. But we can at least lay some theological and philosophical groundwork and remind ourselves of things we know to be true. 

Imago Dei

Since man and machine are merging ever more closely together, we would do well to ingrain in our minds what man is and what man is not. The things that follow are what I consider to be crucial markers of humanity given the current state of affairs.

Genesis 1:26-28 gives us our most fundamental understanding of what man is.

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

No other being, no other creature, has the privilege of being made in God’s image. And while so much could be said on this point, it is sufficient to highlight a few of the basics. First, man is a moral creature. Unlike the beasts of the field and the birds of the air, mankind can work evil, and he can achieve good. Furthermore, he is held accountable for his deeds. The same cannot be said of manmade machines. Anything done by AI must be laid squarely at the feet of its makers as it carries no inherent moral responsibility.

Second, men are rational beings. Real rationality, not artificial. Reason is a function of the intellect which itself is a property of the soul. As AI is a soulless being, it cannot truly reason as a man or an angel or God would reason. In fact, AI is merely an extension of the rationality of man.

Third, men are immortal. That is, we will exist in either a state of glorification or damnation forever. In whatever ways men merge themselves with technology, that technology will one day be removed as the body is removed from the soul. Glorified or damned bodies will not retain such accoutrements. 

Fourth, men are hylomorphic. That is, we are composed of body and soul; a material substance and a spiritual, immaterial substance. Jesus said that we ought to fear God who can cast both body and soul into Hell (Matt. 10:28). This means that anything that is not your body or your soul is not you and is not a part of you. My grandfather had a glass eye which was connected to his optical nerves so that it would move when his other eye moved. That eye was not part of him, it was a machine which was connected to him. No piece of machinery can be anything more than your property, it cannot be part of you. Furthermore, each of us have our own spirits. With our own intellect, will, and desires. No person can have 2 intelligences or 2 intellects because no person can have 2 spirits. One may augment their intellect with technology for good or for ill. But the augmentation is not addition.

Fifth, we are the most valuable things God has made. There will come a time when AI will convincingly mimic human emotions. Our modern world, which locates a person’s essence and value in the complex of their emotions, will have a difficult time distinguishing between human life and AI life. Many will see AI as persons in their own right because of their synthetic emotional capacity. Even so, AI is nothing but a human creation, and has value only as human property, not as a living being and certainly not as a person. One might destroy AI, but one will never be able to murder AI.

Sixth, man has been given dominion. Which means, among other things, that he has the responsibility to imitate God in continuing His work of creation. We cannot do so Ex Nihilo as God has done. Even so, we take the raw materials He has made, and we fashion them into wonderful artifacts and objects as monuments to God’s glorious genius. Man does this by nature and has done so in wonderous ways since the beginning. 

Dominion and Creation

One passage of Scripture which has been immensely helpful to me as I think about the place of man’s creation in God’s creation is Psalm 104:24-26.

O LORD, how manifold are your works!

In wisdom have you made them all;

the earth is full of your creatures.

Here is the sea, great and wide,

which teems with creatures innumerable,

living things both small and great.

There go the ships,

and Leviathan, which you formed to play in it.

The Psalmist praises God for His wonderous works. The Earth is full of His creatures. The sea, the creatures living in the sea, great and small. Leviathan. And there’s a phrase in the middle of it that doesn’t quite seem to fit. “There go the ships.” The ships are not a part of God’s natural world, yet the psalmist praises God because of them. This is because they bring glory to God as the handiwork of His image bearers. Mankind, taking dominion, has continued God’s work of creation in building ships to sail the seas, and the psalmist is led to praise God because of it. 

Ships were the height of human technology and skill in the ancient world. They were a magnificent thing to behold, giving man the ability to traverse the frightening waves in ways that were not imagined by previous generations. And they brought God glory. But they also brought the sea faring people, invaders who were, in part, responsible for the Bronze Age Collapse. Ships could be used for good or for ill.

So too, AI, the height of human technology and skill today can bring glory to God and it has the ability to promote much wickedness. Christians can be hyper-focused on the dangers of AI; deceit, manipulation, pornography, improper replacement of human things (i.e., fellowship, community, counsel, preaching, etc.). We need to learn how to mitigate and protect against those dangers. But if we focus on these alone, we miss out on a wonderful opportunity to see God glorified in the works of our hands, to properly take dominion.

Increasingly sophisticated iterations of AI are coming. Christians cannot afford to bury their heads in the sand or be uninvolved. We must prepare ourselves to counter and mitigate its dangers, see through its artificiality, draw the lines between man and machine clearly, and utilize it to display the glory of our Creator in this World. He’s given us all that we need for this great task. 

I am eager to see how we will accomplish it.

Reintroducing George Smeaton and Abraham Kuyper

Writing on different subjects, in different language, but at roughly the same period of time, George Smeaton and Abraham Kuyper used synonymous language to describe Christ’s reign over the earth.  In our first post, we introduced them; today we will compare and combine their statements to give a more full-orbed understanding of Christ’s universal dominion. But before doing that, let me supply their quotes again.

First, in 1871 in Christ’s Doctrine of the Atonement, Smeaton wrote concerning John 12:31 and Christ’s universal reign,

On the contrary, this testimony shows that every foot of ground in the world belongs to Christ, that His followers can be loyal to Him in every position, and that in every country and corner where they may placed they have to act their part for their Lord.  The world is judicially awarded to Christ as its owner and Lord (p. 300).

Ten years later, Kuyper in a speech concerning “sphere sovereignty,” Kuyper make the famous statement,

There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: “Mine!“

Clearly, the resonance between Kuyper and Smeaton is unmistakable, but there are a number of differences in context and nuance that make it worthwhile to take up both statements as we consider Christ’s universal dominion.  Let’s consider three that develop this truth.

Feet and Inches: Smeaton and Kuyper on the Universal Reign of Christ

First, Christ Rules Over Satan and Scholars.  In Smeaton, Christ’s rule over the earth is contrasted with that of Satan.  While Satan stole possession of the earth from Adam and Eve, and ruled as the god of this age for generations; Jesus Christ came and dethroned the serpent of old.  Thus, while he still flails, Jesus is the one resting on the throne and delegating his Spirit and his Church to have dominion over the whole wide earth.

At the same time, one of the areas in which this dominion ought to occur is in the academy.  Kuyper, a brilliant theologian, author, educator, politician, and spokesman for a Reformed worldview, advocates the need for the disciplines of law, medicine, science and so forth to be undertaken not in disjunction from faith or from the reign of Christ, but rather in connect with him.  The reason?  Just as Christ reigns over Satan and in the church, so he is the creator, sustainer, and inventor of all life.  Thus, to rightly understand anything in creation demands that a person sees how that individual theory, molecule, or bacteria strain relates to the whole.  Only with Christ reigning on the throne can such a vision of research be conceived.

Second, Christ Rules Over Space and Studies.  In Smeaton, we find biblical proof of the fact that Christ died for people from every tongue, tribe, language, and nation.  At the same time, his death defeated the cosmic reign of Satan.  Therefore, every square foot has now been reclaimed, officially, by Christ, and in time all creation will be re-made and re-seeded as Christ brings the New Creation.  At the same time, Kuyper rightly sees Christ rightly seeds his world with thinkers and thoughts that benefit all of humanity.  These come not only from Christian scientists and philosophers, they are also developed by unbelievers.  Nevertheless, Christ rules over the nations and their various schools of thought in order to effect all of his purposes in the world.

One example of this would include the political theory that permitted Israel to dwell in the land of Palestine under the auspices of the Roman Empire.  While not apparent to the Romans or even the Jews, God permitted the toleration of the Roman Empire to provide a way of life in Israel that facilitated the coming of Christ (cf. Gal 4:4).  All the orchestrations and political machinations were at one level governed by various thinkers and philosophies, but at another level, God used them in order to effect his causes.  In this way, God is sovereign over the geographic nations and the way they run.  Smeaton points to the former, Kuyper more the latter.

Third, Christ Rules As Redeemer and Creator.  In Smeaton’s work, he is insistent on Christ’s atoning work.  Because of Christ’s death, he defeats Satan and redeems or reclaims the earth.  In this way, he is functioning as a Redeemer who has authority over all the earth.  For Kuyper, it seems that his sphere sovereignty is more connected with his role as creator and sustainer.  While not denying the special work of redemption, in any sort of way, he emphasizes Christ the Creator.

Truth be told, both of these things are truth and should not be set against one another.  Rather, they work in tandem and rightly relate Christ to all the earth.  As John 17:2 mentions, Jesus has authority over all flesh, but he only gives eternal life to the ones who have been given to him (i.e. the elect).

In the end, Smeaton’s statement balances Kuyper’s statement and gives added texture and depth to the beautiful reality that Christ reigns over all things.  Christ reigns over all the earth as Creator and Redeemer, as the one who has subdued Satan and who subverts scholars.  He rules space and time, measurement and rhyme.  He is God over all, and in the works of Smeaton and Kuyper, one can find an excellent pair who help us think through the way Christ governs his universe.

A Final Curiosity

Smeaton published his words before Kuyper proclaimed his.  While it would be natural for Smeaton to assimilate Kuyper’s well known words–at least well known today–it seems more odd that Kuyper would have borrowed his most famous utterance from another. And it probably is unlikely. The contexts in which the statements occurred and the provenances from which they were written, accompanied by the difference in languages, makes it unlikely that these two statements had any organic relationship.

It is more likely the case, that the allusive echo found in their statements are simply the product of two men studying the same Scriptures, influenced by the same Spirit–coincidentally, both men produced mathom works on the Holy Spirit (Smeaton, The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit; and Kuyper, The Work of the Holy Spirit), living under the same king whose rule is seen in Edinburgh and Amsterdam.

While Smeaton measured Christ’s reign in feet and Kupyer marked his off in inches, the reality for both of them, is that Christ rightly possess all his inheritance and is reigning over it all today.  This glorious truth bears repeating, and as often as we quote Kuyper, perhaps we should also cite Smeaton, who not only precedes the Dutch theologian and prime minister, but who also connects the universal reign to the cross of Christ.

Thoughts? If anyone does have any connections between Smeaton and Kuyper, I would love to know.  If not, it will remain an interesting coincidence, another example that there is nothing new under the Son.

Solomon advises us that there is nothing new under the sun.  Indeed, in the history of Christian thought, one would expect that under the Lordship of Christ and his church, the essentials of the gospel would remain consistent over time.  Thus, while they need repeating in every generation because slippage is always a threat, there remains a kind of harmony that exists among theologians who make the Bible first order.  Likewise, as one dives into reading pastors and theologians from different eras and different places, one can expect to find echoes.  Sometimes these are organically related, sometime they are not but cause for curiosity how it is possible that two statements made by independent thinkers could be so similar.

George Smeaton on Christ’s Universal Reign

Such an occasion happened a few months ago as I read George Smeaton’s eminently helpful book, The Doctrine of the Atonement As Taught By Christ Himself (Edinburgh, 1871) now retitled and republished as Christ’s Doctrine of the Atonement.  In it, Smeaton gives his final exhortation from the text John 12:31, which reads, “Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out.”  In his thorough exegesis, the nineteenth-century Scot shows how Satan’s overthrow means simply, that Christ is the sole possessor of all things. He has stripped the god of this age of his title to this world, and he now rightly possesses the earth (cf. Matt 28:18). Therefore he writes,

This text [John 12:31], important in many aspects, is capable of being viewed in many applications.  It throws a steady light on the great and momentous doctrine, that the world is, in consequence of the vicarious work of Christ, no more Satan’s, and that Christ’s people are now to be far from the impression that they are only captives in an enemy’s territory, and unable warrantably to occupy a place in the world, either as citizens or magistrates.

Moving from Christ’s substitutionary cross to the the universal themes of victory and dominion, Smeaton makes this final, global and glorious statement,

On the contrary, this testimony shows that every foot of ground in the world belongs to Christ, that His followers can be loyal to Him in every position, and that in every country and corner where they may placed they have to act their part for their Lord.  The world is judicially awarded to Christ as its owner and Lord (p. 300).

This is a glorious truth that deserves time for consideration and meditation.  Yet, in first hearing it, I could not help but think of Abraham Kuyper, who said something almost identical.  Yet, as it will be shown, Kuyper’s context is different than Smeaton, and Kuyper actually spoke his word’s later.

Abraham Kuyper on Christ’s Universal Reign

In his lecture on “Sphere Sovereignty” delivered on October 20, 1880, Kuyper uttered what is today his most famous quotation.  It reads:

There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: “Mine!“  (Abraham Kuyper, “Sphere Sovereignty,” in Abraham Kuyper: A Centennial Reader, ed. James D. Bratt [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998], 488). 

In context, Kuyper’s statement comes at the end of a long list of academic sciences–medicine, law, natural science, letters– which the great educator of the Netherlands argued should be brought underneath the rule of Christ.  Since all wisdom and knowledge are found in Christ (Col 2:3), all mental disciplines should find their origin and telos in Christ. In full context, he states,

Man in his antithesis as fallen sinner or self-developing natural creature returns again as the ‘subject that thinks’ or ‘the object that prompts thought’ in every department, in every discipline, and with every investigator.  Oh, no single piece of our mental world is to be hermetically sealed off from the rest, and there is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: ‘Mine!’ (488).

This concluding statement has been repeated again and again.  It is a favorite of Reformed thinkers and others too.  It is wonderful thought to realize that all things have been and should be put in submission to Christ.  But interestingly the application of Kuyper’s words (as I have used them and have heard others use them) are slightly out of context.

Often Kuyper’s turn of phrase is used in spatial, geographical ways, as if he was explaining Psalm 2 which says that all the nations have been given to the Son.  Since the Lord possesses all the earth, he has a right to put his finger on it and exlaim “Mine!”  However, in context, Kuyper’s statement is more specific.  He is speaking more exactly of the “mental world,” not the spatial world.  I doubt he would deny the broader application, but to read Kuyper closely, we find that his statement is more narrow. This point does not mean that we need to abandon the use of Kuyper’s quote, so much as perhaps we should include Smeaton’s, too.

In the next post, we will pick up how and why we should incorporate Smeaton’s quotation into the discussion of Christ’s universal reign.

THE ISSUE OF BAPTISM—who should be baptized and why—is part of a wider debate concerning the nature of the church. Is the church to be defined in terms of believers and their children or as composed of believers only, whether adults or children? And the debate about the nature of the church is part of a yet wider debate as to the relationship between the Old and New Testaments. How is this to be understood? Is there such a fundamental continuity that the new covenant is but a new administration of the Abrahamic covenant (Genesis 17:9–14). Or is it really new in such a way that administration is woefully inadequate to describe it because it does not do justice to its radical, eschatological newness?
It is unfortunate that the key issue of the relationship between the Testaments is often not addressed in the debate over baptism. Too often the relationship is assumed without being considered as an essential preliminary to the debate itself. Yet how the relationship is understood will inevitably influence the exegesis of particular texts and determine the shape of any theology of baptism that lays claim to be considered biblical. John S. Feinberg is surely on the right track when he states:

Evangelicals agree that God has spoken and that the Bible is his word. But God has not revealed all of his word at once. How are we to relate what he said through the prophets of old to what has been revealed through his apostles? Without an answer to this question it is difficult to know how to use both Testaments in formulating either doctrine or practice. An example of a doctrinal issue that hinges on this question is one’s understanding of the church. Are Christians to formulate their concept of the church on the basis of both Testaments, claiming so much continuity between the people of God that one may see the church in the OT? Or is there such a discontinuity between Israel and the church that one’s understanding of the church must be formed solely on the basis of the NT?1

Though Feinberg overstates the issue in terms of an either/or—continuity or discontinuity—without allowing that there can be continuity and discontinuity within a schema of promise and fulfillment, in his basic contention he is certainly correct. One’s doctrine of the church is related to how one understands the relationship between the two Testaments. This is recognized by Robert L. Reymond:

It is clear that both antipaedobaptists and paedobaptists argue by way of inference from more fundamental theological premises, focused largely on the relationship between the testaments, with the former stressing a dispensational discontinuity at this point in the covenant of grace, the latter stressing the continuity of the covenant of grace respecting this matter.2

How fundamental the assumption of continuity is in the baptismal debate can be seen from the proposition of Charles Hodge: “If the Church is one under both dispensations; if infants were members of the Church under the theocracy, then they are new members of the Church now, unless the contrary can be proved.”3
It is this assumption that enables Reformed paedobaptists to jump so easily from the circumcision of Abraham’s household (Genesis 17) to the baptism of the infant seed of believers now, and to be so untroubled by the lack of positive evidence of the baptism of infants in the New Testament. Indeed, the silence of the New Testament is seen as a positive virtue by Pierre Charles Marcel:

In reality the silence of the New Testament regarding the baptism of infants militates in favor of, rather than against, this practice. To overthrow completely notions so vital, pressed for more than two thousand years on the soul of the people, to withdraw from children the sacrament of admission into the covenant, the Apostolic Church ought to have received from the Lord an explicit prohibition, so revolutionary in itself, that a record of it would have been preserved in the New Testament.4

Now the question that needs to be put is this: “Is there reason to believe that Reformed paedobaptists have overlooked a key element in redemptive history that calls into question their common assumption that it is possible to jump from circumcision to the baptism of infants?” I believe there is. It is the ministry of John the Baptist which we must now consider.
The place of John the Baptist in redemptive history
It is significant, as F. F. Bruce observes, that all four Gospels “preface their narrative of the ministry of Jesus with a brief summary of John, and the evidence of Acts suggests that this reflects primitive Christian preaching.”5 Mark’s Gospel, indeed, sees the ministry of the Baptist as marking “the beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God” (1:1). Peter, too, in the household of Cornelius emphasizes the place of John in redemptive history: “You know what has happened throughout, Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached—how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power …” (Acts 10:37–38). Paul also recognizes the pivotal significance of the Baptist’s ministry when addressing the synagogue at Pisidian Antioch: “Before the coming of Jesus, John preached repentance and baptism to all the people of Israel” (Acts 13:24).
It is clear that in the early Church the ministry of John the Baptist is seen as marking the boundary between the age of the promise of the kingdom of God and the arrival of the kingdom in the person of Jesus-Messiah. This is true, according to the testimony of Acts, for both the key apostles—for Peter, the apostle to the Jews, and Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles.
It is also clear that neither Peter nor Paul were the originators of this view of John the Baptist’s place in redemptive history. The Gospels uniformly trace it back to Jesus Himself. It is He who assigns to John his place in the unfolding of the story of redemption.
When we examine the four Gospels we cannot but be struck by the space and the attention that are given to the Baptist. From this testimony we may extract a number of features:
(1) He is the forerunner of the Messiah
He, according to Jesus, is “the one about whom it is written: ‘I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you’ ” (Matthew 11:10, quoting Malachi 3:1; cf. Also Exodus 23:20). In Johhanine terms he “came as a witness to testify concerning that light … He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness of the light” (John 1:7–8). Other prophets before John “spoke of the grace that was to come” (1 Peter 1:10), but only John had the privilege of being the forerunner of the promised Messiah.
(2) He is more than a prophet
In what sense is the Baptist designated by Jesus as “more than prophet” (Matthew 11:10)? Why is he singled out from the rest of the Old Testament prophets in this way? D. A. Carson supplies us with the answer: “Not only was he, like other OT prophets, a direct spokesman for God to call the nation to repentance, but he himself was the subject of prophecy—the one who, according to Scripture, would announce the day of Yahweh.”6 John had borne witness to Jesus (Matthew 3:11–12; John 1:29). Jesus now bears witness to him. To no other prophet does Jesus bear such witness, for only John has the unique relationship to Jesus that he does.
(3) He is the climactic point of all OT prophecy
“For,” says Jesus, “all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John” (Matthew 11:13). Until could include or exclude John, but the following verse makes it clear that John is to be reckoned among the prophets, for he is the Elijah who was to come. The whole prophetic corpus reaches its climax in John the Baptist. He is the last in the sequence that cumulatively builds up to the advent of Messiah. All the prophets before John say that Messiah is coming, but John is able to say that he has come (John 1:29).
It is clear that John occupies a unique place in the biblical story—as unique in its way as that occupied by Mary, the mother of Jesus. As she was “highly favored” (Luke 1:28) so, too, was John the Baptist. For did not the Lord Jesus declare as much, prefacing his testimony with a solemn “Amen”? “I tell you the truth: Among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist” (Matthew 11:11).
Yet our Lord immediately adds that “he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.” With these words he underscores the radical, epochal disjunction that there is between the kingdom of God, now arriving with and in Jesus Messiah, and the whole prophetic period that preceded it. John may be the climactic point of all Old Testament prophecy, but the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. This does not mean that John is excluded from the kingdom as an individual, no more than any of the Old Testament saints were. What it does mean is that with respect to the development of God’s redemptive plan John, in his role as forerunner, is outside the kingdom of heaven. “He is the last of the old order, as the subsequent identification with Elijah (v. 14) will make clear.”7 Thus even the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than John. Unlike John who is in prison awaiting his end, he or she would see the kingdom coming in power and thus be able to point to Jesus the King without the ambiguity which John experienced at this point (Matthew 11:2–3).
(4) John calls out a remnant people for the Lord
John called upon Israel to repent in view of the soon coming judgment of God when his wrath would be poured out upon a disobedient nation. He calls for a radical turning to God, a returning to God from their rebellion back to true covenant obedience. This is the burden of his preaching: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near” (Matthew 3:2). And his call is urgent, for “the axe is already at the root of the trees” (v. 10).
To those who responded to his message John administered baptism in the Jordan River. Those who were baptized confessed their sins (Matthew 3:6) and were committed by their baptism to “produce fruit in keeping with repentance” (v. 8).
John’s baptism was a radical innovation. It was administered to Jews, not proselytes from among the Gentiles. It was a once only rite, so it is marked off from the repeated lustrations of contemporary Judaism in general and from those practiced in the Qumran community in particular. And, it was administered to persons already circumcised.
According to John, descent from Abraham and status as members of the community, were of no avail unless there was genuine repentance issuing in real moral fruit in one’s life (vv. 8–9). Not only may God narrow Israel down to a remnant—as He did more than once in the course of Israel’s history—but He may also raise up true children of Israel from “these stones,” perhaps, as Carson suggests, stones lying in the river bed.8(Both Hebrew and Aramaic have a pun on “children” and “stones”).
When John baptized Jesus he associated Him with the remnant people of Israel. Jesus underwent baptism at the hands of John, not because He had sins to confess but because in undergoing the rite He identified Himself as the “Suffering Servant” with those He came to save. In so doing, both John and Jesus fulfilled all righteousness (v. 15; note that “us” refers to John and Jesus). They were together obeying God’s righteous will.
John’s baptism, then, was baptism for a remnant—the baptism of a people from within the nation of Israel, who were preparing the way for the Lord (Mark 1:2–3). And the baptism that Jesus permitted his disciples to administer (John 4:2) seems to have had much the same significance (John 3:22–26).
The Significance of John’s Baptism in the continuing Debate
As we have already noticed the baptism of John does not figure very much in the continuing debate about baptism. Reformed paedobaptists simply ignore it in their concern to establish the proposition that the circumcision of infants is now replaced by the baptism of infants. Reformed Baptists have responded to their position by arguing that the antitype of circumcision in the flesh is the circumcision of the heart, that is regeneration. Typical of their response is that of C. H. Spurgeon. In a sermon on “Consecration to God Illustrated by Abraham’s Circumcision” he said:

It is often said that the ordinance of baptism is analogous to the ordinance of circumcision. I will not controvert that point although the statement may be questioned. Supposing it be, let me urge on every believer here to see to it that in his own soul he realizes the spiritual meaning both of circumcision and baptism and then consider the outward rites. For the thing specified is vastly more important than the sign. “Well,” saith one, “a difficulty suggests itself as to your views for an argument is often drawn from this fact that inasmuch as Abraham must circumcise all his seed we ought to baptize all our children.” Now observe the type and interpret it not according to prejudice but according to Scripture—in the type the seed of Abraham is circumcised—you draw the inference that all typified by the seed of Abraham ought to be baptized, and I do not cavil at the conclusion, but I ask you, who are the true seed of Abraham? Paul answers in Romans 4:8, “They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God; but the children of the promise are counted for the seed.” As many as believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, whether they be Jews or Gentiles, are Abraham’s seed. Whether eight days old in grace, or more or less, everyone of Abraham’s seed has a right to Baptism, but I deny that the unregenerate whether children or adults are the spiritual seed of Abraham … The answering person in type to the seed of Abraham is, by the confession of everybody, the believer. And the believer ought, seeing that he is buried with Christ spiritually, to avow that fact by his public baptism in water according to the Savior’s own precept and example.9

Spurgeon is a good model to follow, which I did in my Children of Abraham.10 However, further reflection has brought me to see that simply to respond to the circumcision/baptism analogy so fundamental to the paedobaptist case for infant baptism fails to do justice to the place of John the Baptist in redemptive history. As far as it goes Spurgeon’s reply is adequate, but it is a response to an agenda set by Reformed paedobaptists and, in effect, it allows them to skip over the ministry of the Baptist as if it had no significance for the on-going debate about the subjects of baptism. But it has, as I shall now attempt to show.
(1) John’s baptism is an innovation
This point has already been made, but it now requires further consideration. When, in the temple courts the chief priests and elders question Jesus’ right to cleanse the temple (Matthew 21:12–13), asking him “By what authority are you doing these things?” and “Who gave you this authority?” His counter question puts them on the spot. Jesus replied, “I will tell you by what authority I am doing these things. John’s baptism—where did it come from? Was it from heaven, or from men?” (vv. 23–25).
The dilemma of Jesus’ opponents is obvious. If John’s baptism was from heaven then they should have believed the message he preached and submitted themselves to the baptism he administered. If they admitted that it was from men they faced an explosion of popular wrath, for “the people … all hold that John was a prophet”—that is he is a God-sent messenger whose authority is “from heaven” (verse 26). In the light of this interaction between our Lord and the leaders of the Jews it seems right to conclude that John’s baptism is an innovation. It is John’s baptism, not an ancient rite with its roots in Jewish lustrations. It is not proselyte baptism, assuming that it was being practiced at the time. John’s baptism is administered to Jews, not to Gentile converts to Judaism, as proselyte baptism was. John’s baptism of repentance is a radical innovation instituted on his own (derived) authority as a prophet sent by God. It marks a new development in the unfolding history of redemption, for John baptizes Jews who are willing to enter God’s remnant people through a baptism of repentance. It is therefore rightly described as John’s baptism.
A further point is to be noticed. We have already remarked on the connection between the baptizing ministry of John and that of the disciples of Jesus. Here in the dispute in the temple courts Jesus links his work with that of John the Baptist. His assumption is that they both act upon the same authority. Their commission has a common source—it is “from heaven.” Thus, as Floyd V. Filson points out, “Jesus knows that his work and John’s are connected, and that the Jewish leaders, in failing to see that God had sent John, had forfeited their right to judge John’s successor.”11 The importance of this point will become evident later.
(2) John baptizes already circumcised people
Again we have already noticed this fact, but now we need to draw out its implication. In baptizing people who had already been circumcised, it is very likely that John does not see baptism as replacing circumcision, but as being a new rite that comes in alongside it. This new rite is appropriate as a sign of entry into the remnant people of God in a way that circumcision is not. Whatever the spiritual reality that circumcision points to—the circumcision of the heart—the fact remains that it is the identifying sign of the Jewish nation, not of the remnant within that nation. One has only to compare what was required for circumcision with what John looks for in those whom he baptizes to appreciate how different the two rites are from each other. “For the generations to come every male among you who is eight days old must be circumcised, including those born in your household or bought with money from a foreigner—those who are not your offspring. Whether born in your household or bought with your money, they must be circumcised” (Genesis 17:12–13). When we read the following the contrast is very stark indeed: “Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River” (Matthew 3:6). A baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins (Mark 1:5), not circumcision, is the appropriate sign of the remnant called out through the preaching of the Baptist.
If the two rites—circumcision and baptism—differ so markedly from one another, and in where they are placed in the unfolding of God’s redemptive plan, it is not surprising that John and man should not have seen baptism as replacing circumcision. Nor is it surprising that in the early church Jewish believers practiced circumcision and administered baptism. There is not a hint in the New Testament that Jewish believers ceased to have their male children circumcised. Indeed, the evidence is that even Paul, who so strongly resisted any attempt to impose circumcision upon Gentile believers, agreed that it should continue among his fellow Jewish believers. Acts 21:21 mentions that a false report about Paul had been spread among the “many thousands” of Jews who had believed (v. 20). This was that he was teaching “all the Jews who live among the Gentiles to run away from Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children or live according to our customs.” At the suggestion of James and the elders of the Jerusalem church, Paul publicly demonstrated the falsity of the report by joining in the purification rites of four men who had mad a vow. He also paid their expenses. The intended result is made plain: “Then everybody will know there is no truth in these reports about you, but that you yourself are living in obedience to the law” (v. 24b).
In continuing to have their male children circumcised, believing Jewish parents clearly took their cue from John the Baptist who did not see his baptism as replacing circumcision. Now, if this is the case, why should we expect that the two rites of circumcision and baptism were administered to male infants? Circumcision certainly, but not baptism.
Douglas Wilson, a strong paedobaptist, rightly perceives the problem faced by those who continue to advocate the classic Reformed case for infant baptism. He observes that when the Baptist claim that there are no examples of infant baptism in the New Testament is challenged “it is challenged with inadequate arguments from silence—the purported babies of the Philippian jailer being one example. If we only produce examples in the New Testament where maybe they baptized infants, we may legitimately conclude that maybe we should too. This is hardly a solid foundation upon which to build a basic parental duty—if duty it is. All too often paedobaptists grant that the New Testament offers no examples of infant baptism, and then seek to establish their case on grounds of continuity with the Old Testament.”12 While I do not find Wilson’s arguments for infant baptism convincing, his admission of the inadequacy of the classic case is significant, as also is his recognition that “the transition from the older administration to the new took almost half a century.”13 However, Wilson fails to notice the significance of John the Baptist’s place in redemptive history. Had he done so he would have begun to appreciate that there are other weaknesses in the classic case for infant baptism.
(3) John did not baptize infants
The evidence is very clear that John did not baptize infants. His baptism is administered to those who confess their sins. By its very nature as the identifying sign of a people turned again to God—a remnant people—it requires repentance. It is “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (Mark 1:4). Both Matthew and Mark emphasize the element of confession: “confessing their sins, they [the baptizands] were baptized by him [John the Baptist] in the Jordan River” (Matthew 3:6; Mark 1:5). Nothing in the text suggests that they confessed the sins of their infants or that their infants were baptized with them. William Hendriksen, a paedobaptist comments, “Without confession of sins no baptism! For those who truthfully repented of their evil state and wicked conduct baptism … was a visible sign and seal of invisible grace (cf. Romans 4;11), the grace of forgiveness and adoption into God’s family.”14 This is a statement to which all Baptists could give hearty assent.
Those who are capable of confessing their sins are clearly not infants who cannot yet talk, as Francis Turretin clearly recognizes. He writes: “John admitted none to baptism but those who confessed their sins; because his business was to baptize adults.”15
We have already noticed that the disciples of Jesus administered a baptism that was identical with that practiced by John—a baptism of disciples who commit themselves in baptism to the lifestyle of God’s remnant people (John 4:1–2). We have also noticed that our Lord acknowledged that His work and that of John are intimately connected. He avers to the Jewish religious leaders that John’s baptism has behind it the same authority as His own dramatic act in cleansing the temple—it is from heaven. Clearly, then, He was endorsing a baptism that was not for infants, but only for those capable of confessing their sins.
An important implication follows from this. If John the Baptist only baptized those who were capable of confessing their sins, and if the disciples of our Lord followed the same practice with His approval, why should it be so difficult to believe that the apostolic Christ did not practice infant baptism?
Concluding observations
I shall now draw together the threads of my argument thus far. My hope is that my paper may help to move the debate over the subjects of baptism onto new and more fruitful ground.
(1) Paedobaptists need to do justice to the place of John the Baptist in redemptive history
To go on maintaining that it is possible to make a simple move from the circumcision of infant males to the baptism of infants is to ignore the significance of the ministry of the Baptist. However, as I have attempted to show, responsible biblical/theological exegesis will not allow us to do so. Given the way in which the Gospel writers see John as the pivotal figure in the transition from the old dispensation to the new, eschatological dispensation, and given the clear endorsement of his ministry by our Lord, it is no longer helpful for paedobaptists to argue for infant baptism as if John the Baptist never existed. He did, and so proper weight needs to be given to his role in redemptive history.
For their part, Reformed Baptists, if they give proper weight to John’s role in redemptive history, need not allow their paedobaptist friends to set the agenda as they have done in the past. In the light of John’s ministry the neat schema of circumcision/baptism is to be questioned. For in baptizing only those capable of confessing their sins, John clearly abandons the principle of you and your seed (Genesis 17:10). Furthermore our Lord, in endorsing John’s baptism, clearly did the same.
According to the paedobaptist argument, John should have baptized infants as well as adults since he would, as a Jew, have accepted the principle of “thee and thy seed.” Yet he did not baptize infants. How do paedobaptists account for this? I suggest that on their own premises they are caught in a very difficult position. They could maintain, firstly, that since John did not baptize infants without a clear command not to do so, he had acted without divine authorization. This is unthinkable in the light of his mission as God’s messenger.
Secondly, paedobaptists could argue that in the case of his repentance baptism the principle (of “thee and thy seed”) did not apply. If they choose to argue in this way they must show why the principle should not apply to Christian baptism which is also, among other things, a repentance baptism (e.g. Acts 2:38).
It seems to me that there can be no escape for paedobaptists from the dilemma posed by John’s baptism. Either John baptized infants (which they admit that he did not) or he did not [uphold] the covenant principle of “thee and thy seed.” If he did not uphold this principle, most likely because it was set aside by the repentance baptism that he was authorized “from heaven” to administer, then why should it be insisted that our Lord and his apostles continued to uphold it?
To insist that the principle of “thee and thy seed” is meant to continue in force beyond the ministry of John the Baptist is to assume that the clock of redemptive history be turned back and the principle be re-established, having for a time been set aside. But this would be without precedent in Scripture. The movement of redemptive history is progressive and cumulative, not retrogressive. The repentance baptism of John leads on to the repentance-baptism of the first disciples of Jesus and his apostles, not away from it.
A further point remains to be made. It is this. Paedobaptists accuse their Baptist brethren of a lack of generosity towards infants. Typical is Professor John Murray. He writes,

If children born of the faithful were given the sign and seal of the covenant, and therefore the richest blessings which the covenant disclosed, if the New Testament economy is the elaboration and extension of this covenant of which circumcision was the sign, are we to believe that infants in this age are excluded from that which was provided by the Abrahamic covenants. In other words, are we to believe that infants may not properly be given the sign of that blessing which is enshrined in the new covenant? Is the new covenant in this respect less generous than was the Abrahamic?16

This ungenerous, hardhearted Baptist would reply that he is no less restrictive than John the Baptist! In other words, if due attention is paid to the practice of John the Baptist the paedobaptist appeal to our emotions loses its force.
(2) The silence of the New Testament as to the baptism of infants can be given a more convincing explanation than is the case in Reformed paedobaptism
When challenged by the average dispensational Baptist about this silence the instructed paedobaptist is unfazed. The silence is just what one would expect. In the absence of a clear command in the New Testament rescinding the giving of the covenant sign to infants we should expect that sign, now baptism in water, to be given to infants, both male and female.
But is there not a more convincing explanation of the silence of the New Testament? And does not this do justice to the history of redemptive revelation in a way that traditional paedobaptist apologetic fails to do? I submit that the silence of the record of John’s ministry as to the baptizing of infants is a far better explanation of the silence of the New Testament about infant baptism. The silence is eloquent testimony to the fact that the principle of “thee and thy seed” was set aside by the baptism of John, a baptism which being “from heaven” had divine authorization behind it. As such it required no specific command, for the authorized practice and the confession of sins that was demanded, was command enough. In short, the silence of the Baptist is the silence that breaks the silence![1]

1 John S. Feinberg (ed.), Continuity and Discontinuity—Perspectives on the Relationship between the Old and New Testaments. Essays in Honor of S. Lewis Johnson, Jr., (Crossway Books, Westchester, Illinois, 1988), xi.
2 Robert L. Reymond, New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith, (Thomas Nelson, Nashville, TN, 1998), 936.
3 Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, vol. 3, (James Clarke, London, 1960), 555.
4 Pierre Charles Marcel, The Biblical Doctrine of Infant Baptism, (trans. Philip Edgcumbe Hughes, James Clarke, London, 1953), 152.
5 F. F. Bruce, New Testament History, (Doubleday, Garden City, New York, 1972), 152.
6 D. A. Carson, Matthew in Frank E. Gaebelein (ed.), The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, vol. 8, (Zondervan, Grand Rapids, 1984), 263–4.
7 R. T. France, Matthew, in Tyndale New Testament Commentaries, (InterVarsity Press, Leicester, 1985), 194.
8 Carson, op. Cit., 103.
9 C. H. Spurgeon, The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, vol. 4, (Passmore and Alabaster, London, 1868), vol. 14, 695–6.
10 David Kingdon, Children of Abraham—a Reformed Baptist View of Baptism, the Covenant, and Children, (Carey Press, Haywards Heath, 1973).
11 Floyd V. Filson, The Gospel According to Saint Matthew, in Black’s New Testament Commentaries, (A. and C. Black, London, second edition, 1971), 226.
12 “Circumcision in the New Covenant,” Christianity and Society, vol. 4, number 4, October 1994, pp. 22–28. The quotation is from p. 22.
13 Ibid., 26.
14 William Hendriksen, Matthew, in New Testament Commentary, (Banner of Truth, Edinburgh, 1974), 200.
15 Francis Turretin, Institutes of Thelogy, Section IV, question 22, quoted T. E. Watson, Baptism not for Infants, (1962 reprinted, Henry Walter, Worthing, 1972), 22.
16 John Murray, Christian Baptism, (Presbyterian and Reformed, Philadelphia, 1962), 51–2.
[1] David Kingdon, “John the Baptist—The Silence That Breaks the Silence,” The Founders Journal: Reflections on Twenty Years of Founders Ministries, Fall, no. 50 (2002): 21–30.

It can be an inglorious task to say anything about the current generation. Some concepts that would have been considered “conventional wisdom” a few years ago and wouldn’t require a lot of explanation are now under scrutiny and being reframed in an impressive and frightening exercise of deconstructing ideas that we see today.

I want to reflect on something that seemed like commonplace knowledge not so long ago, but is now under this sort of re-signification, which is the respect for the elderly.

It seems that we live in a time when the elderly represent a way of thinking and doing things that no longer works in our society (and, to our astonishment, in some churches) and therefore it is necessary to distance oneself from them (or from us). My subject is brief and I want to deal with it in the context of the Christian faith, for my concern is with the state of the church, I mean, the state of those who professes faith in Jesus Christ.

A huge number of young people from the “Z” generation, that is, people born from 1995 and on, seem to be leading a relentless patrol to everything that stands in the way of the new ethics that the so-called “woke” movement established as the immutable clause of our society. This new ethics is comprehensive and incorporates practically all the ideas that have emerged from the progressive narratives of the last 25 years that give new guidelines on what it means to live well in society. The escalation of change in core values was very fast, and, it seems it started to be implemented even more aggressively after the 2020 pandemic. From areas related to the environment to complex issues in medicine, science, politics, sexuality, psychology and religion, in short, for everything there is a new norm that does not accept any discussion. Its imposition becomes violent, whether due to the cancellation culture, very strong in the press and social media environment, or, even more dangerous, as we see in Western governments, due to the creation of new bills and jurisprudence that criminalize public opinion and the discussion of ideas. Thinking in an old-fashioned way in the 2023 can be very dangerous and even get one arrested.

It is curious, however, that the method of this new ethics takes place through the fragmentation of truth, through the end of empiricism and common wisdom and through the use of broken narratives, disconnected of a metanarrative in favor of a broad pluralism. This has been called post-truth and means that each person or social group has its own truth and values, which can never be questioned.

It is very disconcerting to realize that this trend has infiltrated the Christian church as well. Many among God’s people are strongly influenced by this new post-truth ethics and begin to confuse Christian ethics with the new (and suffocating) ideas that regulate the life of Western society in this 21st century. Alisa Childers, American Christian author, addressed this issue in her moving testimony published in book form under the title Another Gospel? A response to progressive Christianity, and also in here more recent title, Live your Truth.

But I digress. Let me get back to the point. Elders are being canceled left and right and it is happening in the church too, right under our nose. So, let me first bring the biblical principle to tackle this issue.

The fifth commandment of the Decalogue, written by God’s own hand (and spoken before His people in the Sinai) says: “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you”. 

In this commandment, God’s people are called to love and obey their parents. A first and important element that must be highlighted is that the commandment is not addressed to children only, but to all who have living parents (Proverbs 19:26; 23:22). This commandment, in distinction from most commandments in the Decalogue, is put in positive terms and, furthermore, is bound up with a promise. The promise has to do with the effects of obedience. As we see in the wisdom books of the Bible, taking good advice from our parents, listening to and respecting our elders, dealing respectfully with authorities are generally attitudes that will prolong one’s days and make life easier. Add to this the fact that God himself promises to bless those who seek to keep the fifth commandment and preserve its spirit.

The expression “honor” comes from the Hebrew kabod and has a sense of weight, importance, glory and prestige. It is the respect that an inferior offers to a superior. The Westminster Larger Catechism, in question 126, proposes that the scope of the fifth commandment is the performance of those duties which we mutually owe in our several relations, as inferiors, superiors or equals.

The Reformers went even further and expanded the understanding of this commandment to all who are in authority over us—primarily and immediately our parents, but also the elderly, the magistrate, educators, and spiritual fathers. French reformer John Calvin, commenting on the fifth commandment, highlighted three expressions of honor—“reverence, obedience, and recognition”—and demonstrates how the principle of honoring parents can extend to all in position of authority: magistrates, elders, fathers in faith, pedagogues. In his elaboration, Calvin will condition this obedience to obedience “in the Lord” (Ephesians 6.1).

A very important point of the commandment is that honor, respect and consideration begin in the heart. Reverence for our parents and other authority figures should be a reflection and evidence of our honor and reverence for God in the first place.

Reverence for our parents and other authority figures should be a reflection and evidence of our honor and reverence for God in the first place.

We also read in Leviticus 19:32: “You shall stand up before the gray head and honor the face of an old man, and you shall fear your God: I am the Lord.” Proverbs 16:31 and 20:29 reinforce the teaching of Scripture that elders should be honored. This principle is there because normally the elderly are associated with maturity, experience, wisdom, and the accumulation of knowledge and a better sense of realism of life. In the Bible, the elderly are treated as a reservoir of tradition, of family history, as the living archive of a society that lives through oral tradition. 

The influence of the Christian faith in the world did a good job of carrying this principle of life forward. Societies that preserve the value of respecting their elders are usually prosperous and very well organized.

It must be said, however, that not every elderly person is wise and a model for others. We have examples of old men in Scripture who were involved in awful sins, and it is possible that some old men and women hold very immature standards or find themselves involved in ugly sins. Therefore, associating maturity with age can be a mistake. Nineteenth-century Austrian author Hugo Hoffmanstall, in his book The Book of Friends, said: “Precocious children and immature old men there are plenty in certain states in which the world sometimes finds itself.” The Portuguese poet Antero de Quental made a harsh comment to a foe of his, an already old man, saying: “I get up when Your Excellency’s white hair pass before me. But the mischievous brain that is underneath and the garish little things that come out of it, I confess, do not deserve my admiration….Futility in an old man disgusts me as much as injudiciousness in a child. Your Excellency needs fifty years less age or, then, more fifty years of reflection.”

But I perceive with concern a certain anti-elder movement in our days, and our evangelical camps are not immune to this attitude, on the contrary. The desire to remove the most experienced from the center of ideas and discussions is becoming stronger each day. The Internet is the space where this is most strongly manifested. Such an attitude is sometimes veiled, sometimes explicit; sometimes unnoticed, sometimes intentional; but it’s real.

Some, like Dr. John McArthur Jr., for example, have lived long enough to become subject of controversy, vicious attacks and harsh criticism from people within the Christian church. Men like R. C. Sproul, J. I. Packer, Wayne Grudem, John Piper, Voddie Bauchan to name a few of the “international” gospel ministers who have blessed the Christian church in their own country and whose influence reached thousands upon thousands in Brazil and elsewhere, are now under enormous scrutiny, suspicion and attacks of all kinds, some even targeting their character.

I guess, on the other hand, the older generation might acknowledge that at some point we might have lost the ability to speak up to this younger generation, reaching out to them with patience and grace. But this is another matter for a future article.

The point is that I have seen many young people (and others not so young, but with the very much in-tune with this new approach), seeking their place of speech, their platform and their role in teaching so they can show that they also have a voice, an opinion, an idea that needs to prevail. They want to make the case that they are sensitive to the new causes and demands that society places before the church and that they should be heard; but there is a problem: the old pastors, theologians and professors who have a distinguished position are still alive or, those who have died, still exert an uncomfortable influence. They need to be silenced. I feel in this attitude something similar to the young man who asked his father who was still alive “his share of the inheritance” (Luke 15.12).

Furthermore, it must be said that many of those who seek to occupy the spaces of the elderly still do not have much of a life experience, much church ground, so to say, and really much to offer. All they have is their opinion and their complaints. Their criticism mostly comes with the weight of hammer, seeking for validation and applause in through social media, but it’s all very acidic and very virtual, with little or no fruit.

It is not rare, however, that this tough stance and criticism towards the elderly, generated in the superficial environment of social media have their origin in people who possibly never had the opportunity to exchange a single word with their targets (who become slogans or an idea), never visited their homes, never been to their churches or talked to their church members, and who rarely read more than a few lines of their writings (probably just the excerpts that ended up on the internet) and, worse , their criticism reach people all sorts of people indistinctly, including many neophytes, who in the end will reproduce this procedure, in an endless loop, making everything very public, very ugly.

To mention a few familiar examples, I single out J. I. Packer, Martin Lloyd-Jones and Iain Murray (the latter still alive in his 90s), who rediscovered the Puritans in the 1940s and shed new light on the their teaching. R. C. Sproul defended biblical inerrancy in the 1970s, and vigorously emphasized the biblical teaching on justification by grace through faith alone and the holiness of God. John MacAthur Jr. rescued and defended the doctrine of the lordship of Christ in the Christian life in the 1980s. John Piper taught about the joy of life by faith and fellowship with Christ in the 1990s. Wayne Gruden emphasized the biblical teaching on the dignity both man and woman, bearers God’s image, each one having harmonious and complementary role defined by God in Revelation and in their very physical constitution. Tedd Tripp has helped thousands of people realize the importance of reaching our children’s hearts with the life-changing truth of God’s Word. Men such as Voddie Baucham who have stood up for marriage between a man and a woman and the importance of educating our children in the ways of the Lord. All these men suddenly became targets of cancelation, open criticism and controversy. 

Scripture exhorts us to be grateful for God’s gifts in life of the church and to acknowledge the benefits of grace in the lives of those who trod hard paths and broke down stones harder than ours. Our elders in the church are our fathers in the faith and worthy of our honor, that we stand before their gray hairs.

Our elders in the church are our fathers in the faith and worthy of our honor, that we stand before their gray hairs.

Many of our elders have their struggles, it is true, they have their blind spots, their areas of failure and contradictions. But the reality is that we all have them. After all, we are all outside the garden Eden. Our elders may have made mistakes in some of their emphases and even in certain omissions, but what we do is cover their nakedness (Genesis 9.23) and not expose them to public spectacle, cancellation and mockery.

It’s one thing to fight heresy, false teachers, charlatans of faith, impostors – and these are doing a lot of damage. But it is something else to expose men of God who may have failed at some point in their ministry to public reproach and the court of social media. And even the measurement of ministerial failures needs a very honest and judicious judgment, which ideally should happen in the covenantal end godly context of the local community and never in the few characters of social networks.

Brazilian writer Machado de Assis said in his tale  “Relíquias da Casa Velha” that “it is not enough to be right, one must know how to be right”. This is wise. It is a good principle that the Lord Jesus and his apostles taught. The purpose of discipline is to win the sinner and not to destroy him (Matt. 18:15). If we have to correct someone, let it be to win the person. If we have to prevent mistakes, let it be through propositional and preventive teaching. Let our exhortations, and admonitions be tempered with respect, consideration, and love, and let them take place within the safe space of the church ground through mature conversation of edification. Otherwise, we won’t have much more than the exposure of partial and sometimes biased opinions, which can stimulate hatred and prejudice to an indistinct public and without any condition to promote healthy changes. That’s not how we do things.

We are all called to honor the gray hairs, to be grateful for God’s gifts to the church, and to sit at the feet of our elders with reverence, respect, and deference, like the fathers in the faith that they are. This will also teach our children, it will teach our churches, it will teach society outside the church how we deal with things: with the principle of grace, respect, forgiveness, redemption and mercy. If these virtues do not guide our zeal, all we will have to offer is resentment, bitterness, vanities and a lot of self-righteousness.

We do well to remember that God is also referred to in the Word as “Ancient of Days” (Daniel 7.9) and his wisdom is much more ancient than all of us combined.

In John 7: 37-39, Jesus claimed that through coming to him one would receive the “living water” synonymous with the presence of the Holy Spirit.  By the work of Jesus, the Spirit will come in fullness and power to mark out the people of God by evidence of true belief. In John 4, Jesus had said that this water would “become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” This is a fulfillment of Isaiah. 44:1-5 and we find the image reiterated in Revelation 22:17. This ever-flowing stream of living water brings both the present reality and the sure future inheritance of eternal life. 

Has any ever received eternal life without this living water? Here in John 7 Jesus speaks of the Spirit’s coming in the fulfillment of the New Covenant, creating a people as a community, not by circumcision but by the new birth, creating a fellowship whose common trait is forgiveness of sins and the sanctifying operations of the Spirit. Israel was not that community, for they were marked off by ceremonies, particularly the ceremony of circumcision of males, not by the moral and spiritual perceptions peculiarly the mark of those called and sanctified by the Spirit. 

The Spirit had not yet been given in that way, as the creator of the community, but he had been given to individuals among the remnant of Israel and even to those elect among other peoples. All of those that had the persevering faith leading to eternal life could not have been void of the Spirit of God. Both faith and faithfulness are the fruit of the Spirit’s operations; both of these necessarily existed in those people of faith in Hebrews 11. The affections described there could not have existed without the operation of the Spirit of God. Noah’s “reverent fear” was a manifestation of the presence of the Spirit in his life; Abraham’s “looking forward to the city that has foundations” was evidence of the abiding presence of the Spirit; Moses’ “choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin” and his consideration of “the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt” show the secret but continual presence of the Spirit’s gracious work. 

None of these affections or loyalties is possible to exist on the one hand or to be maintained on the other apart from their being the constant production of the Holy Spirit. If these in the roll call of faith did not have the Spirit, they would have no principle in them that opposed the desires of the flesh, would be given over to those desires as are the reprobate, and would thus “not inherit the kingdom of God” (Galatians 5:17-21). Paul wrote, “Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him” (Romans 8:9.) This does not refer to a superfluity of blessing, or the possession of a gift irrelevant to eternal life; it instead establishes a condition of moral necessity true of any believer in any age. If Abel did not have the Spirit of Christ, did he belong to him? If Joseph did not have the Spirit of Christ, he did not belong to him? If those “wandering about in deserts and mountains and in dens and caves of the earth” did not have the Spirit of Christ, even they did not belong to him. But they did belong to him, and that belonging was effected by the abiding presence of the Spirit. 

Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “The natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14). Is one that has no indwelling of the Spirit a spiritual man? If not, then he considers the things of the Spirit of God as folly. Did Moses consider the Exodus folly or the Passover folly? These were spiritual things, and Moses saw their significance as types of the redemptive work of Christ, the “reproach of Christ.” After Jesus had said, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is of no avail. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life,” Peter said, “We have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.” (John 6:65, 69). Did he believe this and confess this without an initiating and continuing effectual work of the Holy Spirit? Regeneration and indwelling are operations of the Spirit morally necessary for faith and perseverance in that faith. 

Covenantally and morally, therefore, never has there been nor will there ever be a believer who has not been loved and elected by the Father, unredeemed particularly by and with no perceptive knowledge of the Promised One, and not regenerated, led to receive the Promise, and indwelt by the Spirit of God. Every believer, of all ages, may pray with David expecting that this grace is sealed, “Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me. …And uphold me by your generous Spirit” (Psalm 51:11, 12). They also may rejoice that their faith is the same as that of Abraham and is given certainty in the same way: “Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the Law, or by the hearing of faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh? … That the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. … God gave it to Abraham by a promise. … Walk in the Spirit and you shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. … If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit” (Galatians 3:3, 14, 18; 5:16, 25). If Abraham lived by the Spirit (Has there ever been a believer who found spiritual life another way?), then also he walked in the Spirit.

Since the Spirit of God is the Spirit of truth, his operations in sanctification in the new covenant are more powerful and thorough than before the coming of Christ, for the shadows and types now are fulfilled and made clear by His appearing. The explanation of the person and work of Christ by the inspiration of the Spirit may now have full effect in securing for Christ a people of his own possession zealous of good works (Titus 2:11-14). As distinct from that remnant of true believers in Israel, these believers have the example of Christ, the teaching of Christ, the dying grace of Christ, the fullness of the revelation in Scripture, the community of saints to exhort, reprove, and encourage, and the variety of gifts granted to the church by the Spirit in Christ’s ascension (Ephesians 4:1-7). After Christ’s ascension this gift of the Spirit marked the new community and people that believed in him with corporate holiness, personal holiness, and gifts for teaching and order (1 Corinthians 12:3-13).  It is this context that we understand the inspired observation of the writer of Hebrews, “And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise [they did by the Spirit receive the promise in its truthfulness but did not the One who was the full substance, even the incarnate Promise], God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us” (Hebrews 11:39, 40).

We thank God for regenerating grace and persevering grace given believers in all ages by the Spirit; we thank him for the special gifts given when Christ was glorified putting us into a fellowship of  believers and granting each member of that believing body a gift of the Spirit so that we will “grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly” (Ephesians 4:15, 16). 

False narratives are an affront to God and damaging both to those who promote them and those who are slandered by them. God never lies and is the God of truth (Titus 1:2). The person who traffics in lies—concocts stories and accusations that are not true—breaks the ninth commandment and sins first and foremost against God. In a day when sin is not taken nearly seriously enough, those who regard the Bible should pause and soberly consider what God says about lying.

Jesus said of the devil, “When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44).

“You destroy those who speak lies; the Lord abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man” (Psalm 5:6).

“No one who practices deceit shall dwell in my house; no one who utters lies shall continue before my eyes” (Psalm 101:7).

“There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers” (Proverbs 6:16-19).

“Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, but those who act faithfully are his delight” (Proverbs 12:22).

There are more, but those verses are sufficient to show that the person who perpetuates lies is acting like the devil and making themselves liable to God’s judgment. Anyone who fears God should tremble at the thought of spreading false narratives before His very face.

Such malicious activity is also a violation of love because bearing false witness against your neighbor can be deadly for the one about whom you lie. “Death and life are in the power of the tongue” (Proverbs 18:21). This has been sadly illustrated countless times throughout history. 

This is what happened to our Lord. After Jesus healed a man’s hand on the Sabbath, the Pharisees and Herodians began to plot a way “to destroy him” (Mark 3:6). They had a goal in mind, an agenda. All they needed was a plan to execute it. That plan included having Him falsely arrested and unjustly condemned by the testimony of false witnesses. Mark succinctly describes the success of their plot:

Now the chief priests and the whole council were seeking testimony against Jesus to put him to death, but they found none. For many bore false witness against him, but their testimony did not agree. And some stood up and bore false witness against him, saying, “We heard him say, ‘I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and in three days I will build another, not made with hands.’” Yet even about this their testimony did not agree (Mark 14:55-59).

Their lies didn’t have to agree. They merely had to further the narrative that this Man deserved to die. 

A false narrative is a conclusion in search of an argument. It is an agenda in need of patrons, a goal that, in the mind of the narrator, is worthy of being supported by lies because, you know, the end is so noble that it fully justifies the means. 

Anyone who fears God should tremble at the thought of spreading false narratives before His very face.

Because false narratives are inherently unscrupulous and ungodly, no Christian should ever traffic in them. Yet, too many who bear the Name of Christ do exactly that today. In fact, in our tribal age the zeal to justify “my side” can easily numb otherwise well-meaning believers to the biblical standards of truth-telling.

I was reminded of this last week when I received a text asking me if claims made in a series of tweets by Stephen Feinstein, a pastor in California, were true. I’ve met Stephen and believe him to be a sincere, faithful pastor. The story that Stephen told (which involved me at several significant points) to rebuke people for promoting false narratives was simply not true. When I pointed this out to him in the same forum where he had made his assertions, he apologized and deleted his false comments (which is proper and greatly appreciated).

A far more serious and insidious false narrative has been perpetrated against John MacArthur in recent weeks. Sadly, that is not uncommon because there are numerous people who always seem ready to spread unfounded accusations about him. Rachael Denhollander is simply one of the latest and most outspoken of his critics to employ this strategy against Pastor MacArthur.

Mrs. Denhollander is well-known in the evangelical world for her faithful witness for Christ as she testified against rapist, Dr. Larry Nassar when he was convicted of sexually abusing numerous girls on the US women’s gymnastics team. Since then, she has been an outspoken advocate for sex abuse victims. At times, sadly, her zeal as an advocate has led her to perpetuate falsehoods in pursuit of what she believes is justice.

Most recently, she and her followers have boldly accused MacArthur of being closely associated with Bill Gothard and working to resolve claims of abuse by Gothard to avoid litigation. The conclusion that these false charges were meant to support is that MacArthur and Gothard are birds of a feather and all the unbiblical teachings of the latter on authority and submission should be attributed to the former. When those in positions to know sought to refute or even question the accusations they were assured that there are plenty of receipts, including “photographic evidence.” 

Such “evidence,” Denhollander claims, demonstrates that “they were closely aligned during that era.” Furthermore, she boldly claims, “I also have first-hand information directly from individuals involved in both ministries at the time.” All of this sounds convincing, and it is to people who have no interest in truth. Because all those claims are, in fact, false. 

If there were ever any doubt about this, Ron Henzel has completely erased it with his thorough, measured, and devastating critique of the false narrative that has been concocted, believed, and promoted by those who should know better. You should go read it here. If you have believed and spread the false narrative Denhollander et al have spread and you are a Christian, you should repent. Jesus died for just such sins, and He freely forgives us all our sins, so there is no reason to pretend or try to cover up when we sin. Christians are repenters as well as believers. 

Scripture is filled with warnings against bearing false witness—against lying. It is also not silent about believing lies or believing any accusation without careful warrant. “A single witness shall not suffice against a person for any crime or for any wrong in connection with any offense that he has committed. Only on the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses shall a charge be established” (Deuteronomy 19:15). Paul reiterates this in the New Testament, instructing Christians to be especially careful about entertaining accusations against elders without warrant. “Do not admit a charge against an elder except on the evidence of two or three witnesses” (1 Timothy 5:19). If these and other passages about being careful were taken seriously by Christians, the false narratives would die quickly after leaving the lips (or keyboard) of the talebearer (For lack of wood the fire goes out, and where there is no whisperer, quarreling ceases, Proverbs 26:20).

False narratives should be renounced by every follower of Jesus Christ. After all, He is the truth. Those who belong to Him should walk in the light as He is in the light (1 John 1:7). We should, “Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them” (Ephesians 5:11).

Follow Tom Ascol:

“. . . and not frightened in anything by your opponents. This is  a clear sign to them of their destruction, but  of your salvation, and that from God.  For  it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also  suffer for his sake,  engaged in the same  conflict that  you saw I had and now hear that I still have.” (Philippians 1:28-30 ESV) 

When was the last time you truly experienced fear? 

Few of us will ever encounter such ghastly horror as what took place on March 27, 2023. 

That Monday morning, a 28-year-old, female, transgender-identifying former student at the elementary school on the grounds of Covenant Presbyterian Church in Nashville, Tenn., entered school property and opened fire, murdering three adults and three children in a planned attack before she was neutralized by police. 

The attack has come on the heels of what some media outlets are increasingly recognizing as an uptick in calls for violence against Christians among social media’s sexual revolutionaries. 

Pastor Chad Scruggs, whose nine-year-old daughter Hallie was slain, responded the next morning to reporters with a single sentence: “Through tears we trust that she is in the arms of Jesus who will raise her to life once again.” 

Scruggs’ simple statement of faith underscores the Apostle Paul’s words in our text: “Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ . . . not [being] frightened in anything by your opponents” (1:27-28). 

Only this “gospel of Christ”—the announcement of both forgiveness of sin through the cross and victory through Christ’s resurrection and reign—can arm the believer with such fearlessness. And this fearlessness speaks volumes to the watching world. 

“This is a clear sign to [your opponents] of their destruction, but of your salvation, and that from God,” Paul continues (v. 28). The Christian’s patient endurance amid opposition signals both (1) God’s judgment on his enemies and (2) God’s vindication of his people. 

Elsewhere, Paul tells the Thessalonians that their suffering for the kingdom of God is “evidence of the righteous judgment of God,” that they may be considered “worthy of the kingdom of God”—since God will “repay with affliction” and “vengeance” those who persecute believers, while he grants “relief” to his people who are afflicted (1 Thessalonians 1:5-7). The Christian sufferer’s fearless confidence in the gospel draws today, between God’s true children and his enemies, that line in the sand which will open into a great gulf on the last day. 

But we may ask, how? That is, how is it that patient endurance in persecution serves as a sign of the Christian’s right standing with God? The answer comes from the notion of suffering as a gift. 

“For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake” (Philippians 1:29). Contrary to what we are often told as modern, self-made individuals, saving faith is more than my own personal initiative to take hold of Christ for salvation. It is more than a mere expression of my “free will.” It is also, and more accurately, a gift from God: “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8). 

We need faith as a gift of God, given to us by the Holy Spirit, because we are “dead” in sin, intently following others, the devil, and the desires of the flesh (vv. 1-3). We are blinded by sin and need new eyes to see the light of the gospel (2 Corinthians 4:4). Our hearts of stone must be replaced with living, beating hearts (Ezekiel 36:26). In short, we must be born again (John 3:3). 

The beauty of the gospel is not only that Christ freely redeemed sinners by dying for them, but that the Holy Spirit freely saves sinners now by giving them faith in Christ when they hear the gospel, conquering all their resistance (cf. Acts 13:48, 16:14). What a precious gift this is indeed to those of us who know our own propensity to rebellion and unbelief! 

Thus, Paul instructs the Philippians: just as your faith itself is a gift of God in salvation, so is your suffering for Christ. It is as sure a sign of God’s grace in your life as the very act of trust that unites you to Christ. This is why, when Jesus’ disciples endured persecution for the first time, they left “rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name [of Christ]” (Acts 5:41). 

And the Philippians aren’t alone in this Christian suffering; they partake in it along with Paul, “engaged in the same conflict” as the apostle (v. 30). This is a comfort to those wary of entering into missionary sufferings as a Christian engaged in our gospel task. When suffer for Christ, we suffer with Christ, and with his whole body—and yet, in this suffering, we win. 

Not long after learning of the tragic news from Nashville, my wife and I put our own children to bed. I couldn’t help but be overcome by the weight of Jesus’ words as I read Mark 5 for our family worship: “Taking her [a young girl who died] by the hand he said to her, ‘Talitha cumi,’ which means, ‘Little girl, I say to you, arise’” (Mark 5:41). 

The enemy may steal, wound, and destroy, but our Lord Jesus Christ is the one who takes his people by the cold, lifeless hand, breathes into them the breath of life, and causes them to rise. One day we will all be raised, and in our flesh, we will see God face to face (Job 19:26). Until then, our hope in the face of suffering is an omen of doom to Christ’s enemies and a sign of our own sure victory. Suffering has indeed been granted to us, yet so have our faith and our very salvation. 

Prayer:

Merciful Father,

All around us, we see reasons to fear. As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered” (Romans 8:36). Yet we look to you and confess boldly that nothing can separate us from your love. We know that whatever the extent, great or small, to which we may suffer for the gospel, you have ordained these sufferings for us as a gift—just as our faith itself is a gift. We praise you for this gift and ask or the grace to bear it gladly, looking to Christ. Grant us the type of fearlessness that would be a sign to all watching us of the final judgment and of your saving power. Give us a sound mind set on eternal things, and use this to move and change their hearts.

In your Son’s name,

Amen.

PRAYER REQUESTS:

Pray for the families of the Covenant School and Covenant Presbyterian Church in Nashville as they mourn. Intercede before the throne of grace, asking that they would not “grieve as others do who have no hope” (1 Thessalonians 4:13) but rather as those with their hope firmly settled in Christ. Lift up others in prayer who have endured similar hardships. 

Pray for persecuted believers worldwide facing violence for their faith. Plead with the Lord to reveal his justice and vindicate his saints so that the gospel would be advanced. Ask God to grant that the blood of his martyrs would be the seed of his church. 

Pray for sent missionaries suffering for the gospel in ways great and small across the world—enduring criticism, marginalization, legal opposition, physical resistance, or even the simple inconveniences of cross-cultural living. Ask for grace, strength, and heavenly perspective for these workers.

This article was originally posted at ABWE and is reposted here with the author’s permission.