Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand.— Romans 14:4 —
On the backside of a Sharp Top Mountain in Southwest Virginia lies the wreckage of World War II vintage air craft. On a training mission in February 1943, five airmen lost their lives as they flew a “low-level nighttime navigational” mission, a mission that ended with tragedy and the debris of a B-25 littered throughout the wooded hillside.
Today, if you leave the trail on Sharp Top and look for the fuselage, engine, wings, and other parts of the crash site, you will find a plaque memorializing the event. On an otherwise unmarked hillside, this memorial is the only sign explaining the mangled metal left standing in the woods. Yet my point in bringing up this piece of atlas obscura is not to focus on the plane crash, but to liken it to the state of our religious liberty today. Today, we can find scattered pieces of religious freedom in our country, but by and large most Christians do not know how they got there, how to assemble them, or how to make them fly. For instance, the recent TGC article undermining the sincerely held beliefs of Christians is a prime example.
In that article, Christian lawyer, John Melcon, explains “Why Your Employer Can Deny Your ‘Religious’ Vaccine Exemption.” In the article, he explained the way “religious exemption laws” work and cited three bad arguments for seeking a religious exemption: (1) personal autonomy, (2) my body is my temple, and (3) abortion complicity. In his estimation, the abortion argument “is perhaps the strongest case,” but by comparison to the welcome use of other drugs (e.g., “Tylenol, Claritin, or their favorite anti-aging skin cream“), he insists that this argument is most likely an example of great inconsistency. (N.B. For a quick response to the Tylenol retort, see this Liberty Counsel post).
In his other two arguments, however, the claim is not inconsistency, but denying that personal autonomy or bodily choice is a truly religious reason for seeking a religious exemption. For Melcon, this leads him to reserve religious exemptions for later, greater threats to the Christian faith. It is this argument that I want to address. Instead of addressing his three examples, which are presented with a striking likeness to someone headed for the Emerald City, I want to consider whether waiting for some later crisis is the best strategy. Even more, I will argue that the increasing statism of our country is coupled with a religious fervor that does not call for patient endurance, but bold witness to the truth.
This Really Is a Religious Liberty Issue
As I have written recently, the presidential mandate for Covid vaccines is one motivated by religious interests. With a religious belief in science, those in power are using the force of the state, the threat of job loss, and the fear of disenfranchisement to coerce public and private employer and employees to get the vaccine. Instead of convincing the public of the vaccines beneficial effects, the state is taking a page from Nike’s playbook coercing people to “just do it.” And sadly, Christians thought leaders are playing right along.
Last week, John Piper made the argument that Christian freedom should lead those who are fearful of getting the vaccine to get the vaccine. But ironically, that fear focused not on the anxiety caused by the adverse effects of the vaccine, or the medical concerns, or the uncertain side effects or long terms effects. The fear focused on those who feel pressured to not get the vaccine. But what group of people is putting fear into the heart of Christians not to get the vaccine? I am sure there could be some, but those individuals do not have the force of the federal government behind them.
In this case, I think Piper is misreading the field. The pressure mounting upon Christians is going in the other directions. And Piper’s article is only, if unintentionally, contributing to that pressure. Still, his article is benign compared to that of John Melcon who calls to question the arguments some are putting forward in an attempt to seek a religious exemption.  Indeed, Melcon’s article is one of many Christian hit pieces putting pressure (read: binding consciences ) on those who conscience is bound to not get the vaccine. With sophisticated legal speech, Melcon gives cover for employers and the powers that tax them, as it persuades Christians that it is fool’s errand to seek a religious exemption. But is it? Is it really out of bounds to seek a religious exemption for the Covid mandate? And should we strategize to hold off on seeking a religious exemption now, in order to seek it later?
I wouldn’t be writing this article, unless I disagreed. And I am not the only one. In a short string of tweets, lawyer, professor, and ERLC legal fellow Sam Webb had a few things to say in response to Melcon’s article. Stripping out the Twitter formatting, here’s what he said in response:
Article XVI of the New Hampshire Confession—a Baptist confession used 150+ years—states: “We believe that civil government is of divine appointment, for the interests and good order of human society, and that magistrates are to be prayed for, conscientiously honored, and obeyed, except only in things opposed to the will of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the only Lord of the conscience, and the Prince of the kings of the earth.”
If a Christian who holds no settled convictions against this Confession … cannot in good conscience—or, put differently, in good faith—submit to a government-mandated, employer-enforced vaccination because that Christian believes such mandate, action, or vaccination is “opposed to the will of our Lord Jesus Christ”for any number of reasons, then such objection is, in fact, a sincerely held religious belief and an exemption is warranted.
To cause such Christian to act contrary to conscience—even if ill-formed conscience!—is to claim lordship over the conscience which is further violation of that Christian’s sincerely held religious belief that “Jesus Christ…is the only Lord of the conscience.” Even more, what cannot be done in good faith is sin (Rom. 14:23) and so to force vaccination against conscience is to cause sin.
Let’s end the crusade of binding the consciences of brothers and sisters in Christ on disputable matters and let’s love our neighbor by advocating for the freedom of conscience—even if we disagree with the exercise of such conscience.
This is the exactly right! As I have counseled and signed off on multiple religious exemptions, I have not necessarily agreed with every one of the arguments being made, but I have, after listening to the formulation of the believer’s argument, perceived what their sincerely held, biblically-informed belief is. And because of that recognition of sincerely held beliefs, I have supported those Christians who have put their livelihoods in jeopardy in order to follow their Lord. I have urged them to count the cost, but I have not tried to shame them or bind their conscience. This, after all, is what Romans 14:4 calls us to do, and this is what John Melcon has failed to do.
Let’s end the crusade of binding the consciences of brothers and sisters in Christ on disputable matters and let’s love our neighbor by advocating for the freedom of conscience—even if we disagree with the exercise of such conscience.
With no appreciation for how Romans 14 works or any concern that he might be binding his brother’s conscience, Melcon’s argument results in a pressuring Christians to drop their sincerely held beliefs, because after all, it hurts the rest of us. Unfortunately, this is the same logic that governments are rolling out in this country and across the world (think Australia): “You need to think of the collective good and stop resisting on personal grounds. After all, there is no religious reason not to get the vaccine. It’s just medicine.”
For those who are most sensitive to the issues of religious liberty, however, all coercive arguments will fail. And should fail. As Lutheran writer Matthew Cochrane has observed, “Our government has forgone convincing us and has instead resorted to bullying, censorship, abuse, and coercion. But threats and propaganda do not absolve us of the God-given responsibility to make our best judgment based on the information available to us—even the information government bureaucrats, Big Tech, and corporate interests hide because it casts reasonable doubt on the vaccines.” And unfortunately, many Christian leaders are not far behind them in their tactics or persuasion. And this, I believe, is because they don’t see the bigger picture.
The Bigger Picture: Our Secular State Is Not Irreligious  
What’s the bigger picture? Namely, the way that the vaccine mandate—not the vaccine qua vaccine, i.e., the vaccine as a medical prophylactic—is a religious sacrament and a by-product of America’s growing statism.
For the last decade, Charles Taylor’s magnum opus, A Secular Age, has been a constant reference for understanding the “immanent frame” of our world. The Gospel Coalition even published a book in Taylor’s honor, and for good reason. Taylor, in his terminology, has explained how the secular world has lost its sense of divine transcendence and God’s place in our world. Accordingly, the modern secularism has made it is easier to disbelieve than to believe. Whereas Christendom explained the world in spiritual terms and religious practices, the five hundred year project which resulted in today’s secularism has left a vacuum where God once stood.
Christians know that God is not absent. As Francis Schaeffer put it, he is there and he is not silent, but in today’s naked public square, arguments for God are not permitted and this partially explains why religious exemptions are not appreciated. It was a different day when the language of the first amendment was penned. At that point, religion still possessed honor as a civic good. Today, however, religion, and especially Christianity, is seen as a nuisance and a source of bad behavior. This is why the Equality Act and SOGI policies are on a collision course with Christianity. Sexual liberty has become the new religion and that means that religious protections are now being transferred from people of faith to their secular offspring.
If we are to enjoy any religious liberty going forward, we cannot take a strategy that waits for worse cases to arise.
This is also why Melcon makes the case the way he does. He thinks that by playing our religious exemption card later in the game we will be better off. But what he doesn’t consider—in addition to binding consciences—is the fact that the government is not a religiously neutral or interested in well-timed religious liberty. Rather, it is actively carrying out a religious crusade, albeit one that speaks with scientific and not sacred speech. This is the point that needs to accompany Taylor’s observations. Our world has not only adopted a secular worldview, but in the absence of Christianity, and its secular offspring (i.e., civil religion), secular individuals have deified the state to celebrate and support their hedonistic desires. As Zygmunt Bauman has noted in his book Liquid Life, modernity is not only “presented as a time of secularization (‘everything sacred was profaned,’ as young Marx and Engels memorably put it) and disenchantment.” It is also a time where the enlarging state has adopted and enforced religious values. He continues,
What is less often mentioned, however, though it should be, is that modernity also deified and enchanted the “nation,” the new authority—and so by proxy the man-made institutions that claimed to speak and act in its name. “The sacred” was not so much disavowed as made the target of an “unfriendly takeover”: moved under different management and put in the service of the emergent nation-state. (Bauman, Liquid Life, 44; cited in Peter Leithart, 1 and 2 Kings, 64)
This is what most of our Christian leaders have not sufficiently appreciated. With the election of Joseph Biden, we have seen an unending array of executive orders and economic decisions that have further tied the citizens to the state (think: government bailouts) and forced the state on the citizens (think: all the policies of the CDC). Topping the list of government intrusions is the vaccine mandate. And because this mandate have come with all the trappings of a religion, we now have a state that is forcing its religion on its citizens.
No Religious Liberty Without Liberty of Conscience
If you don’t see how the secular state is instantiating its religious point of view, I encourage to open your eyes. Again, I have outlined this point in a previous article. For now, let me simply connect the dots from religious liberty to liberty of conscience.
Returning to the wreckage on Sharp Top Mountain, we should consider that it would be impossible to know what it was or why it was there without a memorial explaining the crash. Such is the case with religious liberty as well. Many can see the fuselage, the wings, and the engines of religious liberty scattered throughout our country. But very few can put all the pieces together and understand how it works and how it got here.
How many who have read the Bill of Rights, if they have read the Bill of Rights, know what it took for James Madison and the Founding Fathers to make a place for religious liberty? How many critique a religious exemption understand the connection to Romans 14? Evidence for our inability to understand Romans 14 has been seen for the last year. Too many evangelicals have interpreted Romans 13 as a divine imperative to do whatever the government tells you, without considering first who gives the government their authority. Then, interpretations of Romans 14 continue in confusion, because Christians are not trying to protect their brothers freedom. In Melcon’s case, he is (unintentionally) siding with the state to bind other’s freedom. And why? Because now is not the time to raise religious concerns.
All in all, we have lived off the rations of religious liberty for nearly two and half centuries, and it is time to relearn how all the pieces got there and how to reassemble them so that that religious liberty might fly again. Unfortunately, arguments like the one offered by John Melcon and John Piper and countless other Johns demonstrate that even the most lucid among us still don’t quite know how this thing flies.
If we are to enjoy any religious liberty going forward, we cannot take a strategy that waits for worse cases to arise. Rather, we need to reintroduce, rewaken, and reinforce the arguments for religious liberty. This must be done in the public square and in countless conversations with Christians and their neighbors. In fact, this is one of the growing benefits of the religious exemptions. In our local church alone, I can report countless opportunities Christians have taken to share the gospel and their religious convictions about the vaccine.
And you know what? It has had effect, not just on other Christians, but on atheists, and agnostics who have seen the merit of personal liberty of conscience and the demerit of forcing people to get a vaccine against their will. This is what it will take for religious liberty to gain a hearing in public, as well as Christians being willing to suffer for their beliefs. This is what turned James Madison’s heart, when he saw the six Baptist pastors jailed for their faith. And this is likely what will turn other hearts today, witnessing people willing to suffer for the sake of conscience.
Yet, such conversations and suffering will not come if we continue to bind the consciences of other Christians. And this is the other place we need to talk about religious liberty: in the church.
In the church, we need to encourage Christians to form their consciences around God’s Word. But we must also permit Christians to form their consciences differently. When we fail to do that, however, we fail to follow Romans 14, and we further fracture the witness of the church, not to mention hurting individual members who are trying their best to follow God with all their heart.
We must make biblical arguments on the subject, learning afresh how Christians have resisted tyranny, so that we can recognize and resist tyranny in the present.
In such cases, the path of another might not be your path, but it is the path that some servants of the Lord have taken and will take. And in that time, we should as Sam Webb put it, “end the crusade of binding the consciences of brothers and sisters in Christ on disputable matters and let’s love our neighbor by advocating for the freedom of conscience—even if we disagree with the exercise of such conscience.”
This is what Melcon’s argument does not do. It may understand the legal ramifications of religious exemptions and it purports to know what will happen if people seek them. But it does not demonstrate an appreciation for liberty of conscience itself. And the point I am making is that if we are going to see religious liberty in public, it will require the church in America to grow up in its understanding of liberty of conscience among its own members. This means pastors teaching on the subject, Christians standing firm for the truth, and other Christians—whether they share the same conviction about Covid vaccines or not—supporting others who are willing to suffer for their beliefs. Indeed, there have been many Christians in church history who have held different beliefs on different Christians practices. But one thing that has benefitted the Church in America has been the freedom to exercise their religion without the coercion of the state.
Today, with the state taking on its own religious practices, we are not in a place where we can wait for a better time to exercise what remains of our religious liberty. No, teaching the church and our neighbors how to recognize the scraps of religious liberty is where we must begin. We must make biblical arguments on the subject, learning afresh how Christians have resisted tyranny, so that we can recognize and resist tyranny in the present. Indeed, now is the time for us to connect religious liberty with liberty of conscience, and to stop making arguments that aid the state by leading Christians to sin as they ignore their consciences.
If we fail to do that now, we will have little hope of standing later. And for that reason, for those who are standing up and submitting religious exemptions, we need to pray for them and promise them that we will hold them up as they follow their Lord and our Lord—whether or not they are doing it in the same ways that we would. Such is the way of liberty of conscience and the way Christians need to truly affirm the faith of their brothers and sisters.
Soli Deo Gloria.

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Job 36:19-37:24

As Elihu winds down his theodicy presented to the destitute Job, he condenses his presentation to two truths. We find these in verses 22 and 23: “Behold, God is exalted in power; … and who has said, ‘You have done wrong?’” God is all powerful and nothing can hinder his accomplishing his will. God is perfectly just, so that the will he accomplishes is an expression of justice. In verses 19-21, Elihu mentions three refuges that sinners seek in order to avoid reconciliation with God’s holy wrath. These attempts at refuge from divine judgment show their disdain for the ransom God provided.

One of these hiding places to which men look is riches. Do riches have strength to give final fulfillment to life? Can they guard them from the coming of righteous judgment? They need to hear the warning of James: “Come now, you rich, and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. Your riches have rotted and your garments are motheaten” (James 5:1, 2).

Others simply yearn for death as an escape from earthly troubles. “Do not long for the night,” says Elihu. People vanish from their place but their life before God does not end. Earlier, Job simply wished not to be (Job 3:1-19). But death, early or late, does not eliminate the appointment we have with God: “It is appointed unto man once to die and after that the judgment” (Hebrews 9:27).

Others simply throw aside any sense of personal responsibility before God and move toward deeper indulgence in evil (21). They reason that unbounded pursuit of pleasure will anesthetize the pain of judgment. They forfeit the lesson that God’s affliction is bringing them.

One of the often under-discussed principles of the Reformation was that of simplicity.

Mere men in any of these conditions either of power or privilege should not exalt themselves but remember that God alone is exalted and he alone judges and reveals truth (22-23). God is the omnipotent one and there is no manifestation of power in the world but that it is derived from him (John 19:10, 11). God knows all things and acts always according to his purposes, so we may ask with Elihu, “Who is a teacher like him?” God knows, not through investigation or logic, but through invention. All things that exist and their relations with all other things are the products of his making. He made all things that are not himself and he continues to uphold all of these very things. Nothing exists that he does not know and maintain in being perfectly, and all he says about anything is true. “Who is a teacher like him?”

God works all things after the counsel of his own will (Ephesians 1: 11), so no one may question his operation of the world or of their own lives. Is anyone above him or does anyone give directions to the eternal, all-wise, all powerful one? “Who has appointed him his way?” (23a). He is the thrice holy, all righteous One. He makes no mistakes and there is no moral flaw in him. What he determines for the testing, sanctifying, and judging of men all is in accord with a perfect righteousness that is endemic to his very nature. “Who has said, ‘You have done wrong?’”

Elihu then points to the evidence that clouds, rain, and lightning give of the power and moral purpose of God. Lightning is unpredictable, terrorizing, and impressively beautiful, and all is in the hand of God to accomplish his precise purpose (36:32; 37:2-5, 11-13). With the mystery that such everyday phenomena pose before human observation, who can place a limit on the wisdom, power, or being of God? The curling, color, and movement of the clouds, along with their distillation into rain or snow for terror or for life-giving sustenance (36:31; 37:5-10), show that God does not bend his power or his sovereign purpose to the control of man.

As we exalt his work, we are led to exalt him (36:24, 26; 37:1). Considering, however, the magnitude of his work and how little of it we know, surely we must acknowledge that he is truly incomprehensible. “Do you know about the layers of the thick clouds, the wonders of one perfect in knowledge?” (37:16). His infinity in all that is excellent combined with his eternity of being defy any finite being—all his creatures—from laying claim to any kind of knowledge that would justify complaint against him (37:14-20). His power is uncontrollable and reflects his “awesome majesty” (37:22). As his might is illimitable and an absolute expression of his nature, so his justice and righteousness ride on the wings of his power in absolute purity (37:23).

God works all things after the counsel of his own will, so no one may question his operation of the world or of their own lives.

Given this combination of power and good, we must concede that there is no such thing as innocent suffering except in the one case of the One who suffered the “just for the unjust.” (1 Peter 3:18). When we proportion temporal suffering to apparent temporal evil, we might be puzzled as to why the apparently good suffer and the apparently less-good prosper; but this sense of disproportion finds plausibility only because of our limited and dull reflections on divine holiness. If our knowledge of the moral character of a fallen world and fallen human beings were truly commensurate with the reality, we would immediately concede the justice of God in any infliction of punishment or sanctifying discipline.

We must not forget that God’s granting of pleasure in this life should drive us to see the bountiful nature of his goodness and mercy. Any interruption of our pleasure in this life, whether mild or severe, is designed to bring us to a knowledge of sin and the need for a mediator that can restore righteousness, for God will not be finally reconciled to us apart from true and complete righteousness. “We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous; and he is the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 2:1, 2).

Elihu has played the role of John the Baptist. He has been the voice of one crying in the wilderness to prepare the way of the Lord. Now the Lord shows up to speak to Job.

In Romans 6:1-14, the Apostle Paul gives Christians, among other things, one of the purposes of believer’s baptism. This blessed ordinance of our Lord Jesus Christ is a beautiful picture worth a thousand words! While much ink has been spilled over the mode, subject, and purpose of baptism, let me give you three simple, yet profound pictures, that this ordinance gives the church. 

First, it displays for us an:

Overwhelming Covenant  

In Romans 6:14 we see that believers are not under law, but grace. Consider those two words there: “law” and “grace.” 

The Apostle Paul is one of my favorite Baptists. And what we see him articulating for us here are the two great covenants of the Bible: The covenant of works and the covenant of grace. 

This is how your Bible is divided. Old Testament and New Testament. This comes from the Latin Testamentum and just means covenant. Literally your Bible is divided into two sections known as Old Covenant and New Covenant, or, Law and Grace. 

Now, this doesn’t mean there’s only law in the Old Testament and only Grace in the New Testament. Of course, that’s not true at all. But what it does help us see is that these two covenants, Law and Grace, help set the framework for the whole Bible. 

In fact, I would go so far as to say that without understanding these covenants well, we do not read our Bibles well. Listen to how Spurgeon put it: 

The doctrine of the divine covenant lies at the root of all true theology. It has been said that he who well understands the distinction between the covenant of works and the covenant of grace is a master of divinity. I am persuaded that most of the mistakes which men make concerning the doctrines of Scripture are based upon fundamental errors with regard to the covenants of law and of grace.

The Covenant of Works

So, in our text we have law and grace. All persons born in Adam are born into law, that is, under a covenant of works, a covenant that has been broken because of Adam’s sin (cf. Romans 5:12).

Adam is what we call our legal representative. He is the federal head of the human race. And in Adam, all die. We are born under a broken covenant of works and held guilty due to Adam’s sin all the while the moment we are able we choose volitionally to sin and rebel against our holy God.

It is our nature to sin and run away from God. We have nothing left within us willing or able to do any spiritual good before God. 

Being under the law as a covenant of works, leaves us in a hopeless condition. It shows us the perfection God demands but only moves us to rebel (see Romans 7) and is unable to remedy our situation. What then is left for us to do? Well, all we can do, and all we want to do, only heaps up more condemnation. 

The Covenant of Grace

This brings us to the overwhelming covenant and by that, I mean the covenant of grace. 

In eternity past the triune Godhead agreed to save an unworthy people for His own glory. This agreement theologians call the covenant of redemption. But this is enacted in time by the promise of grace. We see this in Gen. 3:15 after the Fall: God will send the seed of the woman to crush the serpent’s head.

That same language is used again in Genesis 12: This Redeemer will be the Seed of Abraham and then later the offspring of David. 

These promises, and so many more, point us forward to the covenant of grace which is inaugurated in Christ – Jesus is the One promised of old. He is the one in time, born of the Virgin Mary, fulfilling all righteousness in His life, dying the death of covenant breakers, bearing the wrath of God for His ppl, and rising again in victory over death, hell, and the grave.

The covenant of grace says there is nothing you can do in and of yourself to reconcile you to God. Not your going to church or taking the Lord’s Supper or reciting the Bible or prayers or creeds. 

In and of yourself is only unrighteousness and sin. 

But the Lord Jesus came. He completed the work. Where Adam failed, where Israel failed, where you have failed, He fulfilled all righteousness. He substituted Himself in our place. He bore the wrath of breaking God’s law upon the wooden cross. He rose again in triumph. 

And God’s grace brings us out from under the law and places us within the new covenant, the covenant of grace (Romans 6:14).

Members of the Covenant 

Under the law, the sign of the covenant of works was circumcision. It was a reminder that those who did not keep the whole law would be cut off from God. That is, the children of Abraham were not part of the covenant of grace unless, they, by faith, looked to the coming Messiah. 

The true people of God have always and only been believers. It is only those who by grace alone place their faith alone in Christ alone who are God’s true Israel (cf. Rom. 9:6, Gal. 6:16). Someone’s physical birth or ethnicity does not bring them into the New Covenant. 

In Romans 4:16 we see that Abraham is the true father of only those of faith, whether Jew or Gentile. Only those of faith are the ppl of God. Only those of faith are brought into the New Covenant, the Covenant of Grace.

Those in the Covenant of Grace are no longer under Adam as their representative. Rather, Christ represents them! They have died in Christ and now live again in Him having His righteousness credited to their account by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. 

And, so, what is the sign, then, of this new covenant? This overwhelming covenant of grace? It is believers Baptism as Paul lays our in Romans 6:3-4.

This, of course, teaches us that Biblical Baptism is not for unbelievers. It is not for infants. It is only for those who have been brought into the New Covenant, dying to sin and self and rising again to newness of life as typified in Baptism which serves as a sign for God’s glorious grace upon a person’s life. 

Baptism is a picture worth 1,000 words! Baptism signifies, it is a picture of, our union with Christ. It shows forth our newness of life. It publicly identifies us with the death and resurrection of Christ.  Baptism does not perform these things. It does not create within us a new heart. It does not bring us into union with Christ. 

Rather, it displays on the outside what God, in His sovereign grace, has already performed on the inside. 

This is why we baptize by immersion (cf. Romans 6:3-4). Now, to say we “baptize by immersion” is like saying we “drink a drink.” Baptism and immersion are the same word. Baptism is really a made-up word in the sense that it’s just transliterated, brought straight over form Greek to English.

You can read John Dagg’s work on this Greek word but let me give you one quote from 17th Century Baptist, Henry Lawrence (1600-1664) who says: “the word Βαπτίζω signifies properly…to drowne, or sinke in the water, to dip, to overwhelme…”

You cannot signify the death and resurrection of Christ or the new believer by sprinkling water or by pouring water. Baptists baptize. That is, we immerse believers’ whole body down into the water and back up again. 

Baptism, then, reminds us of an Overwhelming Covenant. 

2ndly, it is a picture of an:

Obligatory Commitment

I love this quote from Sam Renihan: “Baptism is…a two-way declaration. On the one hand, it is God’s visible promise that all who are in His Son are new creations by virtue of their union with Christ in His death and resurrection. And on the other hand, it is the individual’s profession of faith in those very promises.”

Romans 6 shows us that by committing to the ordinance of baptism the new Christian is publicly declaring his or her death to sin and new life in Christ. He or she is declaring a commitment to follow Christ no matter the cost. The old man or woman has passed away and the new one has come being created anew in Christ Jesus by God’s grace. 

In Baptism we have symbolized taking off the old man and putting on the new and now it is our fight every day to continue to do this. Every day we continue to mortify the deeds of the flesh. We continue to look to Christ and seek to walk in newness of life. 

And this really is Paul’s argument in Romans 6:1-4. What he is encouraging the Roman Christians with is to, essentially, remember their baptism as a way of fighting sin in the present. 

Let me put it to you this way: In many places in America there are people who profess to be Christians. And one of the reasons many say they are Christians is because they have been baptized.

Thus, they look to their baptism as a trophy rather than as a flag. Let me illustrate it like this: In the movie the Patriot, Benjamin Martin’s oldest son, Gabriel Martin, is continually sewing an American Flag . And even in the midst of despair and defeat, that flag is a symbol of what they are fighting for in the American Revolution.

And looking at the flag is what sort of turns the battle at the end of the movie. 

Well, in a similar way, we look to our Baptism to remember what we are fighting for. We have died to sin and risen with Christ! This fight is worth it. Keep pressing on. You are dead to sin and alive in Christ. Christ is King. He is King of your Life. Keep up the fight.

If you look at Baptism as a trophy you just say, “Well, I’ve got my ticket into heaven and it doesn’t matter how I live.” If you remembering your baptism means you just live a life of unchecked rebellion and sin but you’re clinging to your baptism as your hope, you are foolish. This is not the purpose of Baptism. 

But for those who have been born again, our Baptism serves as a reminder of who we are so that we can continue our growth in the Lord Jesus Christ. Being in the New Covenant does not produce passivity or carelessness but commitment to holiness. 

Baptism is an obligatory commitment. It is our commitment before others that we are following Christ no matter the cost. He is worthy!

And by obligatory, I mean what my friend Jeffrey Johnson writes:

Although baptism is not essential to salvation, it is highly unlikely that a person has been truly born again without an eager desire to follow the Lord in this first command that God gives the new Christian. Baptism is a public confession of Christ that evidences to the church and the world that there has been a radical transformation within. Baptism is also a visible sermon. It demonstrates a spiritual reality of one’s death to sin and resurrection to the newness of life in Christ Jesus.

So, Baptism reminds us of an overwhelming covenant. It is an obligatory commitment. And finally, Baptism is an: 

Open Commemoration

In Romans 6:3 Paul uses the phrase “all of us”. Paul is able to speak to the Church at Rome with the common understanding that Baptism was ordinary part of the Christian life. 

That is, “all of us” were baptized. All of who? All Christians. Not that Baptism is what “makes” a Christian, but Baptism is what, in essence, publicly commemorates one as a Christian. 

This is why Baptism is an ordinance of the local church. The local church has the keys of the kingdom from Christ Her Lord (cf. Matthew 16:19). And it is her duty to open the door to Baptism as it were for all who repent and believe the gospel.

So, when a local church baptizes someone, it is saying, in essence, “We receive this man or woman as a brother or sister in Christ.” In Baptism, the church is publicly declaring a person as a Christian. 

Thus, in Baptism, the local church is committing to love this man or woman as a brother or sister in Christ, to watch over him or her in the Lord, to hold this person accountable in the Lord, and to humbly have him or her watch over us and hold fellow church members accountable as well. 

Baptism is an open commemoration. It is not to be done in a secret closet unbeknownst to anyone else. It is not to be done on a whim in someone’s backyard separated from the local church. 

Baptism is a local church ordinance where we perform this great event in the midst of the gathered church. That may be at a lake or in a river or even in a pool, but the point is, it’s properly done when the local church is gathered under the leadership of her pastors. 

Fred Malone reminds us, 

Away with the individualistic ecclesiology plaguing America which minimizes baptism and church membership, leaving Christians the freedom to float around without feeling responsible to a pastor or a church. Such an attitude feeds the antinomian spirit we see growing today. Yet, the whole teaching of the NT is that Christians need the ministry of a committed body of believers (church membership) which baptism calls them to. Church membership is required after baptism and believer’s baptism is required for church membership.

Thus, Baptism is an open commemoration. It is a public ordinance of the church whereby those baptized as well as the local church celebrate Christ together even as they mutually pledge themselves to one another in grace.

Fred Malone also states: “Baptism is the outward sign of entrance into the New Covenant by the inward circumcision of the heart, evidenced by one’s confession of faith in Christ.”

This reminds us that Baptism is a picture worth a thousand words. It cannot save in the sense of effecting regeneration or faith or justification or any such thing. Rather, it points us to Christ and is a picture of new life in Him (cf. Rom. 6:1-4).