One of the most important things you need to know about the ordinances is that they are visible. They are visible symbols. They are objects to be seen, felt, and in the case of the Lord’s Supper, tasted.
This post, though, is only about the first ordinance, baptism. I say first not because it is more important, but because baptism marks one’s entrance into the visible church. Something most Christians, regardless of their views on the proper subjects of baptism, would agree on.
The credobaptist position states that baptism is an ordinance reserved for believers. Note the Baptist Faith and Message (2000):
Christian baptism is the immersion of a believer in water in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. It is an act of obedience symbolizing the believer’s faith in a crucified, buried, and risen Saviour, the believer’s death to sin, the burial of the old life, and the resurrection to walk in newness of life in Christ Jesus. It is a testimony to his faith in the final resurrection of the dead. Being a church ordinance, it is prerequisite to the privileges of church membership and to the Lord’s Supper.
Samuel Renihan notes, “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 (Romans 6:3-5). And on the other hand, it is the individual’s profession of faith in those very promises (1 Pt. 3:21-22).”[1]
Not For Infants
The argument between credo and paedobaptists over the subjects and mode of baptism goes much deeper than water. Phillip Griffiths comments on the baptism debate that being a Baptist should mean more than just “the mode of baptism…Reformed Baptists need to rediscover their rich heritage.”[2] Part of that heritage is understanding Baptist covenant theology. Volumes have been written on the subject, so there is not space here to treat it in any sort of fullness.
However, it needs to be said that, historically, Baptists have understood only believers as being in God’s covenant of grace. Both paedobaptists and dispensationalists, ironically, want to assign unregenerate people as being part of the people of God. Reformed Baptists reject this and assign only those born again as comprising the one body of Christ (cf. Eph. 4:4).
So, in the Old Testament, infants were circumcised in the Abrahamic and Mosaic Covenants, ultimately under a covenant of works.[3] This circumcision, though certainly in some senses a gracious sign, did not bring someone into God’s covenant of grace. If circumcision was not kept, the children would be cut off from the physical people of God (Gen. 17:14). Circumcision was another work that’s essential point was to remind the physical people of God that they stood in desperate need of One who could fulfill God’s Law and then be cut off for the sake of those who would put their faith in Him (cf. Isaiah 53:4-5).
The argument between credo and paedobaptists over the subjects and mode of baptism goes much deeper than water.
The true Israel of both the Old and New Testaments has always and only been believers (cf. Romans 9:6-7). And the only way anyone can savingly believe the promises of God is by being born again. So, yes, even members of the covenant of grace in the Old Testament were born again.
Though there are similarities between baptism and circumcision in some ways, Griffiths writes, “Baptism…is both a sign and a seal, marking one as belonging to the spiritual seed of Abraham; sealing the fact that he is united to Christ. The one prerequisite for baptism is that the individual repent and believe. These different criteria hardly suggest parity between these two rites [of circumcision and baptism].”[4] The members of the covenant of grace, then, have always and only been regenerate people, not of a mixed nature. That is, the covenant of grace has never consisted of believers and unbelievers.
New Testament Baptism
The New Covenant, ratified in the blood of Christ, has established water baptism as the outward sign and symbol of the inward reality of the Spirit’s application of Christ’s work to the Christian. The signification of baptism is clearly only for those who have already been born again. Even 19th century paedobaptist, James Bannerman, writes, “The immersion in water of the persons of those who are baptized is set forth as their burial with Christ in His grave because of sin; and their being raised again out of the water is their resurrection with Christ in His rising again from the dead because of their justification.”[5]
Bannerman goes on to say of the signage of baptism that
[T]heir [those baptized] burial in water, when dying with Christ was the washing away of the corruptness of the old man beneath the water; and their coming forth from the water in the image of His resurrection was their leaving behind them the old man with his sins and emerging into newness of life. Their immersion beneath the water, and their emerging again, were the putting off the corruption of nature and rising again into holiness, or their sanctification.[6]
Similarly, Louis Berkhof, also a paedobaptist, writing about Christ’s Great Commission in Matthew 28:19, says that “They who accepted Christ by faith were to be baptized in the name of the triune God, as a sign and seal of the fact that they had entered into a new relation to God and as such were obliged to live according to the laws of the Kingdom of God.”[7]
The New Covenant, ratified in the blood of Christ, has established water baptism as the outward sign and symbol of the inward reality of the Spirit’s application of Christ’s work to the Christian.
Though writing centuries before Berkhof and Bannerman, 17th Century Baptist, John Spilsbery, pulls no punches in responding to this type of faulty paedobaptist argumentation when he writes,
to Baptize Infants, makes the holy ordinance of God a lying sign, because none of those things can be expected in an Infant which the said ordinance holds forth or signifies in the administration thereof, which is the parties Regeneration and spiritual new birth; a dying and burying with Christ in respect of sin, and a rising with him in a new life to God, and a confirmation of faith in the death and resurrection of Christ, and a free remission of sin by the same; as 1 Cor. 15:29. Rom. 6:3, 4. Col. 2:12. 1 Pet. 3:21. Act. 2:38. none of all which can be expected in an Infant.[8]
There is an incontrovertible connection between the ordinance of baptism and regeneration. The latter is inward and performed by the sovereign work of the Holy Spirit. The former is performed by the local church only to those born again as a sign and symbol of what has happened to the new believer. That is, New Testament water baptism is not an “anticipation” of what might happen to a child in later years. It is specifically designed by the wisdom of God to signify what has already happened!
Do we have to have “regeneration goggles” then in order to know who to Baptize?[9] Of course not. The local church ought to do her best in only baptizing believers by examining the confession and life of those wishing to be baptized. Sadly, in a fallen world, sometimes local churches can “baptize” unbelievers.
But, do I Have to Be Baptized?
Jeff 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 (Acts 2:38). Baptism is a public confession of Christ (Matt. 10:32-33) 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.[10]
Baptism is for those who have already received the Holy Spirit, and it is not what effects or brings about our regeneration. Rather, baptism is something that the regenerate do. Those already born again desire to follow the Lord in believer’s baptism[11] because baptism, in the words of Sam Waldron, “says he or she is in union with Christ, is forgiven and has a cleansed heart.”[12]
Baptism is not what brings the Holy Spirit’s work of effectual calling and regeneration about, but it is a physical symbol of the inward spiritual realities that have already taken place. So, baptism is an ordinance only for those already born again. It does not have the power to bring about a change of heart.
When Jesus talks about being born of the water and the Spirit (John 3:5), He doesn’t mean baptism and the Spirit mixed together creates a saving formula. Rather, being “born of the water” is the inward renewal and cleansing we need as prophesied in Ezekiel 36:25-27 and mentioned again in Titus 3:5.
This is also a reason we should be cautious about baptizing young children. I do think young children can be born again. It takes the same grace to save a 4-year-old as it does a 44-year-old. But the biblical issue is the church being sure of what has taken place and in our society, I think a lot of people have unfortunately been baptized when they were very young but have since walked away because they had never actually been born again.
The symbolism in baptism matters. This is why we should not sprinkle or pour water over baptismal candidates but instead immerse the person fully in water in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Baptism shows how the person has already been spiritually cleansed and is symbolically buried with Christ and raised again to the newness of life. And has now been publicly and visibly marked as a follower of King Jesus.

[1] The Mystery of Christ, 204.
[2] Phillip D.R. Griffiths, Covenant Theology: A Reformed Baptist Perspective, (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2016), 4.
[3] Reformed Baptists have different views on this. Some see the Abrahamic Covenant as dichotomous in nature. Some early Baptists saw it as two covenants.
[4] Covenant Theology: A Reformed Baptist Perspective, 68.
[5] James Bannerman, The Church of Christ: A Treatise on the Nature, Powers, Ordinances, Discipline, and Government of the Christian Church, (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth Trust, 2016), 557.
[6] Bannerman, The Church of Christ, 557.
[7] L. Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans publishing co., 1938), 624. Berkhof goes on to write, “there is no explicit command in the Bible to baptize children, and that there is not a single instance in which we are plainly told that children were baptized”, 632.
[8] John Spilsbery, A Treatise Concerning the Lawfull Subject of Baptism, Second Edition Corrected and Enlarged. (London: Henry Hills, 1652), 41.
[9] “Regeneration Goggles” is a phrase some Paedobaptists have used on social media to accuse Baptists of needing to see the invisible church before being willing to admit someone to the ordinance of baptism.
[10] Jeffrey D. Johnson, The Church: Her Nature, Authority, Purpose, and Worship, (New Albany, MS Media Gratiae, 2020), 206.
[11] I do not mean to imply that convinced paedobaptists are not born again! Though they are wrong about a very important matter.
[12] A Modern Exposition of the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith, 407-408.

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The book of Ruth shows that even amid a dark period of unthinkable wickedness and rebellion, God is still working to accomplish His purpose of redemption. This book is also a reminder that even when it seems an entire nation has rejected the Lord, His faithful remnant remains.

With everything we face in our world today, it is a great relief to look at God’s faithful, covenant love in the first two chapters of this book. God’s covenant love triumphs over everything against His people so that we persevere in hope. Paul writes in Romans 8:35: “Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?” In Ruth 1-2, we see a number of these things trying to separate God’s people from His love. Yet, these chapters are a living illustration of the truth of Romans 8:35-39 and God’s enduring, unbreakable love for His people. 

There are three things from Ruth 1-2 that enable us to persevere in hope on the firm foundation of God’s covenant love. 

First, to persevere in hope, we need to recognize the reality of adversity.

The story of redemption in Ruth is born in the cradle of adversity. In just this chapter, Naomi undergoes five severe experiences of difficulty. 

As the story opens, we meet a family of four, who are confronted with famine in Israel. This famine was such a severe trial that it prompted Elimelech, Ruth’s future father-in-law, to uproot his family to Moab. 

This family then faces the adversity of living among unfriendly foreigners outside the land that God gave to Israel. Moab had long opposed Israel and their military conquests.

Naomi’s third trial occurs when her husband died, and she now was burdened by being a widow in a foreign land. Her sons were probably not very old, so they would have been of limited help. 

God’s covenant love triumphs over everything against His people so that we persevere in hope.

After Naomi’s sons married foreign women, they died as well, extinguishing Naomi’s family line. She is bereft not only of her family, but also of any legal help or protection. 

Naomi eventually learns that the Lord has brought the famine to an end and decides to move back home. It was extremely dangerous for a woman to travel alone, but Naomi’s options at this point are to remain in Moab as an unprotected widow or to take a chance on the journey and hope some distant relative back home might assist her.

When Naomi arrives home, the intensity of the adversity she has faced is not lost on her. She recognizes the difficulties she has experienced, and she has been, at least in her understanding, irrevocably changed because of her trials. Naomi left a woman who was full of joy, with a family and high hopes. She came back destitute and hopeless. 

The language of this opening chapter is reminiscent of the book of Job. Naomi loses everything she values in her life. Her trials seem to happen in rapid succession, without a respite from the adversity. Also, like Job, she recognizes everything comes from the Lord’s hand and providence. Whether Naomi is proven right about what God is doing is yet to be seen, but the reality is that God is the one who has moved her through it all.

If we’re encountering adversity, remember God is working in and through our lives. Our trials have not taken God by surprise. Adversity is providence. 

Second, to persevere with hope, we need to respond to adversity in faith.

When Naomi decided to leave Moab, her two daughters-in-law desired to follow. She encouraged them to return to their mother’s house. Eventually, Orpah was persuaded to go home, but Ruth would not be persuaded. 

Ruth is determined to follow Naomi, wanting to convert to become an Israelite. In doing so, she understands she must forsake her gods and worship only the God of Israel; unexpectedly, especially given the context of Judges, she freely volunteers her unwavering loyalty to Israel’s God! Here we have this foreigner, excluded from the Lord’s assembly by her nationality, committing herself to the Lord until death. What a picture: Ruth the Moabitess is utterly loyal to the God of Israel, while Israel itself continually forsakes Him. 

If we’re encountering adversity, remember God is working in and through our lives. Our trials have not taken God by surprise.

This conversion appears to be genuine. Ruth does not say Naomi’s gods will be her gods; instead, she specifically names Israel’s God. Moreover, Boaz later recognizes Ruth came to take refuge under the Lord’s protection. Through Ruth’s relationship with her Israelite family, she saw the futility of the Moabite gods and the glory of the God of Israel – and she would not be parted from Him. 

What was it about the God of Israel that Ruth found so attractive? Ruth’s first exposure to Him was a God whose people were suffering from famine. Then, her father-in-law is dead, and her husband and brother-in-law passed away. She was a barren widow. She and her mother-in-law became embittered and impoverished.

Despite all that had happened, Ruth wanted to follow the Lord because she had found truth. Once Ruth had recognized truth, it didn’t matter the cost or the external trappings, nor did it matter that the lie looked more promising in the short run. The God of Israel was the true God, and she would not relinquish Him.

Most importantly, though, this woman responds to adversity with faith. She doesn’t make her decision based on emotion or external circumstances. Instead, she makes her decision based on God’s truth.

Ruth’s response is so instructive. When we struggle with adversity, does truth drive our response? Or does the flesh lead to despair rather than hope? When we tell others the gospel of Christ, are we confident that the power is in the truth, not in our presentation? We need to remind ourselves repeatedly that Scripture is the truth, and our God is the true God against all the world’s lies. 

Third, to persevere with hope, rest in God’s faithfulness through adversity.

Chapter two of Ruth shows God’s faithfulness to Ruth and Naomi. 

When she settles in her new home, Ruth takes the initiative to provide food. The field that Ruth discovers to glean belongs to a man named Boaz, who was related to Naomi’s late husband. When Boaz finds out Ruth’s identity, he instructed his workers to ensure she is provided for and protected. Boaz also tells Ruth he has provided for her because of her godly reputation.

Scripture is the truth, and our God is the true God against all the world’s lies.

In the end, God’s provision to Naomi and Ruth is more than abundant – not only of food, but also of physical protection, something two widows would have severely needed in their culture. Moreover, it appears that a budding romance is beginning between Boaz and Ruth. 

As we look at this chapter, God’s provision for Naomi and Ruth is unmistakable. God provides for the ladies in their distress in more ways than initially Ruth even was seeking. This is how God works. He regularly provides for His people even during adversity. We can rest in His care and love even if the entire world around us has been turned upside down.

Here we see two women who were able to persevere in hope because of God’s faithfulness. Without God, they would have had no hope – and neither does anyone apart from faith in Christ. It’s amazing to consider that Ruth was part of a population that God said were never allowed in His people. And yet Ruth was received by God because she trusted in Him. Jesus turns away no one who comes to Him in faith. What a marvelous and reassuring promise of hope and salvation!

Having established a church in Philippi (Acts 16) where there was no synagogue, Paul now, having suffered in Philippi at the hands of Romans (16:19-24), goes to Thessalonica and uses the synagogue on three Sabbath days to reason with the Jews and “devout” Greeks from the Scripture (Acts 17:1-4). We are told that his method consisted of “explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, and saying, ‘This Jesus whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ.’” Many of those who heard his biblical exposition believed his message. Some Jews were offended and jealous (Acts 17:5) of Paul’s ability in expository reasoning. They resisted strongly the idea that the Messiah had come and they were not privy to this most historically pivotal event. How is this “Jesus” qualified as Messiah and why are Gentiles received as his people? This Paul is an imposter speaking of behalf of another imposter and deserves to be driven from the city. They appealed to the city authorities under the hypocritical guise of loyalty to Caesar. The entire controversy centered on the validity of Paul’s understanding of the Scripture and whether he was qualified to discern that Jesus was the Christ. Paul’s correspondence with the church at Thessalonica, therefore, had much material about the word of God vis a vis the authority of the apostle.
His preached word he and they believed was the Word of God. When they heard Paul preach, they accepted it, not simply as a man’s interpretation of verses compared to events, but as the “word of God.” Paul affirmed their conviction as the truth (1 Th 2:13). “Our gospel,” Paul recalled, came in the power of the Holy Spirit and brought them to be among the believers of Macedonia (1 Th 1:4, 5). He reminded them that, though pummeled in Philippi because of his preaching, he did not change the message. His “exhortation does not come from error” and is neither impure nor deceitful, but arises from one who was “approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel” (2:2-4). He was an “apostle of Christ,” and consequently a man of authority but used this authority only to “impart to you … the gospel of God.” Paul never wavered, even in the face of hostility and persecution, from his claim before the world that he was appointed by the risen Christ as an apostle. He never amended any teaching given in the context of that calling as possibly misperceived or as a matter of speculation or only informed opinion. This is one of the stubborn facts that must be considered when we ask if we have a word of truth about God and eternity. Has God spoken? In conjunction with the Hebrew prophets, Paul gives an unequivocal “Yes.”
When he gave further instruction on individual doctrines he wrote with confidence of God’s revelation: “For this we say to you by the word of the Lord that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will not precede those who have fallen asleep, etc” (1 Th. 4:15-18). An articulation of the relation of the living to the dead in the context of the return of Jesus who “died and rose again,” events surrounding his return, and the manner of his gathering his people to himself, and the certainty of living in his glorious presence for eternity—these things are not manufactured by imagination but are soberly reported as propositions of revelation.
Also, when he gave instruction concerning the moral implications of gospel truth, he assumed the position as a spokesman from God: “We request and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that just as you received instruction, …for you know what commandments we gave you through the Lord Jesus, … he who rejects this is not rejecting men but the God who gives his Holy Spirit to you” (4:1-8). These clear exhortations to sexual purity as one dominant aspect of sanctification went against the prevailing conduct of the culture and put the Pauline instruction at the level of divine mandate by revelation. Even so, when describing how they should work for self-sufficiency and peaceful relations Paul put his words in the sphere of absolute authority, “just as we commanded you” (4:11). In the second letter to these Christians, Paul reiterated this authority by expressing his confidence that they will “do what we command” (3:4). He follows that by introducing an element of church life that perhaps they had not practiced or seen clearly by saying, “Now we command you, brethren, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from every brother who leads an unruly life and not according to the tradition which you received from us” (3:6). Whereas the “tradition” of the elders, or the “tradition” of the Pharisees, or the “tradition” of men of empty philosophy (Colossians 2:8) was handed down from generations past, or “turned over” to contemporaries from historically-trusted sources, Paul’s instructions that he handed down, his traditions, that which he turned over to them were from God. This tradition was not handed down from hallowed halls of venerated historical sources but came from the mind and mouth of the eternal God. Again, when he learned that some were not working, he reminded them that he “used to give them this order,” and now again to these loafers he would “command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to work in quiet fashion” (3:12).
This conviction so ever-present in this correspondence is confirmed by pervasive New Testament testimony and conviction. In 1 Corinthians 2:10, Paul claimed that eternal things, things of divine grace, “God has revealed to us through the Spirit;” in 2 Corinthians 13:3, he zealously affirmed in a tense setting that “Christ is speaking in me.” In Galatians 1:12 as prelude to his extended argument for the exclusive claim to truthfulness of his gospel, he wrote, “I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.” In Ephesians 3:4, 5, Paul laid claim to “insight into the mystery of Christ” from its having been “revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit.” The writer of Hebrews 2:3, 4 warned of dire consequences for rejecting the message presented by the Lord himself that was “attested to us by those who heard,” to whom God bore witness by “signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.” In 1 John 4:6 the beloved disciple wrote that the “spirit of truth and the spirit of error” was to be defined in terms of hearing and obeying the message of the apostles: “We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us” Peter claims that the word of the prophets receives its expected clarification through those who were eyewitness of the majesty of Christ and that their writings, like those of the prophets were the product of the inspiration of the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:16-21). That is why he can say that his readers should “remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandments of the Lord and Savior through your apostles.” He then can go on to commend Paul, even in the most difficult of his writings, as a producer of Scripture as free from error (2 Peter 3:2, 15-18).
Paul claimed revelatory and authoritative status not only for what he preached in his apostolic mission, but for what he wrote to expand or re-emphasize his spoken word. He told the Thessalonians, “I adjure you by the Lord to have this letter read to all the brethren” (1 Thessalonians 5:27). In his second epistle to this same church he wrote, “If anyone does not obey our instruction in this letter, take special note of that person” (2 Thessalonians 3:14). He also made sure they knew that the letter was from him: “I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand, and this is a distinguishing mark in every letter” (3:17). Every letter that he wrote was to be taken as his word of apostolic authority arising from the commission of Christ and the revelation received from the Holy Spirit. His writings reconfirm what he spoke as he indicates in 1 Thessalonians 4:6 and 2 Thessalonians 2:1-5: “just as we told you before; … Do you not remember that while I was with you I was telling you these things?” Also, his writings expand what he spoke in giving further detail: “So then, brethren, stand firm and hold fast to the traditions which you were taught, whether by word of mouth or by letter from us” (2 Th 2:15). In 1 Thessalonians he wrote an expansion of his teaching to them on death, resurrection and the return of Christ (4:13-18).
He wrote in an authoritative apostolic manner to churches where he had never to that point preached. His most expansive exposition of the entire history of salvation was written to a church that he did not directly found and to which he had not been. He felt an apostolic obligation to instruct them and bear fruit among them (Romans 1:8-15). In this letter, both deeply personal and highly instructive doctrinally he gave coherent discussion on the relation between creation and the knowledge of God, the fall of Adam, the call of Abraham, giving of the law to Israel, the eternal issues of justice involved in the death and resurrection of Christ, divine sovereignty in the present based on eternal decrees within the mysterious communicative activities of the triune God, the relation between justification and personal pursuit of holiness, the church, the secular political authorities, his personal missionary ministry, and other related subjects. He expected them to receive this writing: “On some points I have written to you very boldly, because of the grace given me by God to be a minister of the gospel of God …according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept hidden for long ages” that he had received “according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith” (Romans 15:15, 16; 16:25, 26).
Another issue concerning the word of revelation given to Paul as he wrote about it in these letters concerns the necessity of an effectual work of the Spirt to seal the truth in the hearts of hearers. The Spirit revealed these truths, he inspired the proper connections of words to the truth revealed, and he makes that revealed and inspired truth to be loved and trusted by the elect. Its subject matter should be, not only intriguing, but compelling in itself. The gospel that is revealed deals with sin, redemption, heaven and hell. Far outstripping the most coherent and carefully constructed systems of human philosophy, the gospel gives substantial knowledge of God. The person of Christ as communicated in this revelation is the most interesting, excellent, transcendently wise and compassionate, truthful, confident, clear-minded, exalted, humble, and determinatively purposeful person in all literature of all cultures of all ages. It is impossible within a neutral intellectual setting for the person of Christ and his striking and shocking work of redemption not to be the most fascinating subject and desired person of history. So compelling was Christ in every aspect of his person—God and man in one person—and work—completely innocent and positively righteous yet slain for sinners—that Paul can say with perfect rationality and with an approving conscience, “If anyone does not love the Lord he is to be accursed” (1 Corinthians 16:22).
But none who hear of him are in a neutral position.  Too much about God, righteousness, holiness, obedience, and judgment for enemies of truth to embrace him for who he claims to be. He is rejected when left to our natural enmity. Paul looks at this phenomenon in these letters to the Thessalonians. In 1 Th 2:14-16 he outlines Jewish opposition to the Gospel as well as that generated among the Gentiles in Thessalonica. In Thessalonica there was “much opposition” (1 Thessalonians 2:2) which Paul explained in 2 Thessalonians. 2:10 in terms of “the deception of wickedness for those who perish” creating an unwillingness to “receive the love of the truth so as to be saved.” Thus, we find that any willingness of spirit and mind to receive this message is an indication of effectuality under the Spirit’s power. Paul described this phenomenon early in the letters by observing that his preaching (1 Thessalonians 1:5) came “not in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction.” In 1 Thessalonians 2:12, 13, he admonished them to “walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls you into his own kingdom and glory,” for this word “performs its work in you who really believe.” In speaking of the love implied in and commanded in the gospel Paul wrote, (1 Thessalonians 4:9),  “Now as to the love of the brethren, you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another.” By his own power, God himself will “establish your hearts without blame in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all His saints” (1 Thessalonians 3:13). This truth of divine determination and absolute effectuality Paul repeats when he writes, “Now may the God of peace, himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass” (1 Thessalonians 5:23, 24). This is consistent with the character of the new covenant as described in Jeremiah 31:33, 34, reiterated in John 6:45, and in 1 John 2:27 (“They will all be taught by God; … But as his anointing teaches you about everything and is true, and is no lie—just as it has taught you, abide in him.”). In 2 Thessalonians. 2:13, 14, Paul proposes the fitness of God’s prerogative in his pre-mundane love of some resulting in their election to salvation. Election to salvation consummates in each chosen one through the sanctifying influence of the Spirit embedding the natural the function of truth in their mind, heart, and will. This constitutes the call to salvation, as Paul stated it, “through our gospel.” Final salvation is summarized as “the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
The way in which Paul interweaves the truthfulness and revelatory character of Scripture in the Thessalonians letters, should give every Christian an absolute confidence in the Bible. As an extension of that confidence, we should have an intensified focus, a magnifying glass that takes diffused light and pinpoints one white-hot truth to which everything pertains—a focus on the Gospel. All of it is designed to move toward the Messiah’s being God’s salvation, the glory of His people Israel, and a light of revelation to the Gentiles.
Do not seek to employ any other methods than the truth. The Spirit of truth blesses the truth, in particular as truth culminates in and points to the Lord Jesus. The Spirit’s eternal existence consists of his procession from the Father and the Son as fully embodying the love of the Father in the Son and perfect delight in the Son and the Son’s necessarily reciprocal relationship to the Father. As the Spirit eternally proceeds within this essence summarized in eternal love, his peculiar operation in this fallen world is to communicate the revelation of this eternal purpose that is seen most vividly and clearly in the truth of the gospel. Paul exhibited no doubt that this gospel, revealed by God in Christ and then in truthful propositions about Christ, was the gospel he preached.

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