How good it is to know that when God looks at you in Christ, he doesn’t see your shabby catalogue of sins and failures—he sees the pristine life of his beloved Son. He doesn’t see your bad temper, but Christ’s perfect patience and love. He doesn’t see your lusts and fantasies but Christ’s perfect purity and chastity. He doesn’t hear your cruel words, but his Son’s sinless speech.

J. Gresham Machen (1881-1937) was one of the great theologians of the twentieth century. He served as a Professor of New Testament first at Princeton Seminary from 1906 until 1929 when he founded Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia in response to the incursion of modernist theology at Princeton. He travelled widely, preaching and teaching all over the world, exercising an international influence for orthodoxy. He wrote many books and scholarly articles expounding and defending Biblical Christianity. And yet, as he lay dying on New Year’s Eve, 1936, he wasn’t thinking about any of his many and considerable achievements throughout his life. He dictated a telegram to his colleague John Murray in which his last words are recorded, ‘I’m so thankful for [the] active obedience of Christ. No hope without it.’
What did he mean by this? Simply this: that Jesus Christ saves us by living the life of perfect obedience to the law of God that fallen human beings cannot ever live. Of course, he must do more than this—he must also die the death that we deserve to take the punishment for all our sins. It’s not one or the other—both are essential if we are to be saved from hell and gain entrance into heaven. Theologians distinguish between the two by referring to Christ’s keeping the law in our place as his ‘active obedience’ and his dying to atone for our sins as his ‘passive obedience.’
If a J.G. Machen, at the end of a life of godliness, brilliance and faithfulness couldn’t rest on his own righteousness to secure his place in heaven, how much less can you or I. We need a Saviour who has lived the life we cannot live. There is no hope without it.
Just pause and think of what it meant for the Lord Jesus to obey for us, in our place. For thirty years he never once said or did anything wrong. More than that, at every single moment he positively said and did exactly the right thing, in the right way, to the right degree! More than that, his obedience didn’t just extend to his outward actions and words—his inner life was perfect in line with the law of God. In his thoughts, his feelings, his will, his desires, his reactions, his attitudes, motives and disposition—not once, not for so much as a millisecond, was there even an infinitesimal lapse.
Remember, too, that Jesus wasn’t living closeted away from the corrupting influence of sinful people. He was plunged into the middle of the world, surrounded by and in close contact with sinners. He experienced the weaknesses of a human nature that give temptation extra power. He knew what it was to be tired—weary to the point of exhaustion. (So weary, indeed, that he was able to sleep through a windstorm at sea when the boat he was in threatened to capsize!). How often we give in to temptation when we’re tired and our guard is down. Jesus never did.
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The New Puritans is a passionate and erudite exposé of the modern-day social-justice movement. With clarity and precision, Doyle exposes its countless flaws and hypocrisies. His book is an essential guide for anyone looking to understand why the culture war has grown so hot.

The New Puritans: How the Religion of Social Justice Captured the Western World, by Andrew Doyle (Constable, 336 pp., $28.99)
We often hear that cancel culture does not exist, that it’s a myth concocted by right-wing conspiracy theorists to provoke a culture war. With some irony, the purveyors of this falsehood tend to call themselves free-speech advocates. They use various methods of coercion, including gaslighting, to sow doubt. How many times have free-speech absolutists been met with the “yes, but” argument? Sure, I believe in free speech, but there must be limits. You can’t just say anything you want.
Jerry Sadowitz recently learned this pattern all too well. During the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the magician-cum-comic saw his scheduled performance at the Pleasance Theatre canceled for “offensive content,” which the theater alleged consisted of “racism, sexism, homophobia and misogyny.” The theater’s director, Anthony Alderson, released a statement that exemplified doublespeak. “The Pleasance is a venue that champions freedom of speech and we do not censor comedians’ material,” it read. And then came the “but.” “This type of material has no place on the festival and the Pleasance will not be presenting [Sadowitz’s] second and final show.”
Or you could have obscenities yelled at you in public. That’s what happened to the political satirist and writer Andrew Doyle. While he was enjoying a drink with friends in a Soho bar, a man called him “a f—ing Nazi c—t.” The man was enraged at Doyle for voting for Brexit and, writing as his alter-ego Titania McGrath, for satirizing left-wing ideas on Twitter. It turns out that this man was no stranger, but the son of a close friend. Doyle, in fact, is his godfather.
What is happening? Why do public figures, comics not least among them, live in fear of losing their livelihoods? Doyle recalls the above incident in the prologue to his book, The New Puritans, which he wrote as an attempt to answer these questions.

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While the debate about whether to baptize infants or not has raged for five centuries, we can and should seek unity as brothers and sisters in Christ.  Baptism actually unites us by identifying us as part of the visible people of God, so let the world see our unity rather than division as we approach any differences with love, humility, and submission to Scripture.

Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.”Acts 2:37-39, ESV
Who should be baptized?  This question has sparked intense debate amongst Reformed Christians ever since the early days of the Reformation.  As someone who has attended baptistic churches until I recently joined a pedobaptist church (where infants are baptized).  In order to become a deacon I needed to be able to accept the Westminster Confession of Faith which meant accepting the pedobaptist position.  I entered that study believing that the Presbyterian version of pedobaptism—referred to as covenant baptism—was valid and biblical while believer’s baptism was preferrable.  I came out of that study with a reversed position: believer’s baptism is a valid and biblical position but covenant baptism better aligns with what the whole of Scripture teaches.  My purpose in this post is not to convince Baptists to begin baptizing their infants but to explain simply what covenant baptism is, why it is biblical, and how we can maintain unity in the Body of Christ regarding this topic.
What Covenant Baptism Is and Isn’t
First, it is important to define the actual question we are addressing.  The question is not whether to baptize believers or infants, since Scripture is very clear that we are to baptize believers.  Every example of baptism we see in Scripture is of new converts, so a church must baptize them and require of them a profession of faith in order to be biblical.  The question is not whether to baptize infants or believers but whether or not to baptize the infants of believers.  Scripture gives no clear examples of infants being baptized or being excluded from baptism, so there is room for genuine Christians to differ on this and still practice baptism biblically.  To paraphrase Romans 14, the church that baptizes infants does so in honor of the Lord and the church that refrains does so in honor of the Lord.  Let not the one who baptizes infants look down on the one who refrains, and let not the one who refrains cast judgment on the one who baptizes infants, for God has welcomed both!  So contrary to the perception of some Baptists, pedobaptists do not reject the baptism of converts following a profession of faith.
Another major difficulty Baptists have with pedobaptists is the assumption that baptism is considered part of salvation or a guarantee of salvation.  They would be correct in this regarding the Catholic and Lutheran pedobaptist views (baptismal regeneration), but not covenant baptism.  It is absolutely vital to differentiate between the two.  Covenant baptism of infants is not part of salvation and is not seen as a guarantee of salvation.  Instead, covenant baptism refers to the view that both believers and their children should receive baptism as the new covenant sign of entrance into the visible people of God.  It largely mirrors circumcision as the sign of entrance into the visible church and is therefore separate from actual regeneration.  Churches that faithfully practice covenant baptism make this distinction very clear in their baptism liturgies.  In these ways, covenant baptism answers two of the biggest Baptist objections to pedobaptism.
Why Covenant Baptism is Biblical
But is covenant baptism biblical?  Baptists often fail to see pedobaptism as biblical because pedobaptists often do a poor job of proving it from Scripture.  They often point to examples of entire households being baptized—of Cornelius (Acts 10:48), Lydia (Acts 16:14), the Philippian jailer (Acts 15:33), Crispus (Acts 18:8), and Stephanas (1 Corinthians 1:16)—which would include any infants.  But this argument is unsatisfying since the text does not mention infants in any of these households.  Pedobaptists then point to passages about the inclusion of children, such as Jesus calling little children to Himself and saying that the Kingdom belongs to them (Matthew 19:14, Mark 10:14, Luke 18:16) or Peter at Pentecost saying the promise “is for you and your children” (Acts 2:39).  They also point out the similarities between baptism and circumcision, but Baptists often have difficulty seeing a strong enough connection to justify pedobaptism.  All of these individual bricks are therefore easy for the Baptist to topple, giving the appearance that pedobaptists are grasping at straws for anything in the Bible to support their position. This is because pedobaptists have failed to establish the foundation on which all of these bricks rest to form a biblically-sound structure.
That foundation is covenant theology, which we have examined in recent posts.  We saw that all of the covenants are corporate in nature and included children.  We then saw the nature of shared responsibility and how that relates to the generational nature of the covenants and the role of representation.  Last time we saw how those the Bible calls worthless were members of the covenant people of Israel but were ultimately unregenerate.  From all of this, we see that families—as the central focus of God’s work—have always entered into the covenants, with parents (specifically fathers) representing their children, so they were all considered to be part of the people of God.  Some of them were faithful while others were not.  For the faithful, the covenant sign signified their inclusion in the invisible church, being united with Christ and therefore guaranteed to inherit the blessings of the covenant.  For the unfaithful, the covenant sign signified that they were not part of the invisible church, being separate from Christ and therefore guaranteed to inherit the curses of the covenant.  This was the context into which the New Covenant came, so it should come as no surprise that we see similar language in the New Testament.  From the earliest days of the Church, the covenant was for those who placed their faith and trust in Jesus Christ and their children (Acts 2:39).  In both Testaments, we see households joined the people of God.  Throughout the Old Testament we see the visible people of God containing those who are faithful and those who fall away: righteous Seth vs. unrighteous Cain, Shem vs. Canaan, Isaac vs. Ishmael, Jacob vs. Esau, etc.  During the exodus, we see the whole nation entering into the covenant, but many fell away:
For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness.1 Corinthians 10:1-5, ESV
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