01.06 - Lecture 6
LECTURE VI. THE SUBJECTS OF BAPTISM continued.
WE have seen that Baptism is directly related to the constitution of the visible Church. It is the ordinance in which membership in the visible Church is visibly recognised. So that the question as to the Subjects of Baptism resolves itself into a question as to the constitution of the visible Church. And in order to learn what the Scriptures teach for that is, and has been, our great concern through out the whole course of this investigation, not what this man says, or what that man says, or what the other man says, but what the Scriptures say in order to learn what the Scriptures teach in regard to the constitution of the visible Church we go away back to the time when the visible Church began to take shape as a distinct community, having in it the promise and the potency of continuity and development, and when the great Charter, under which the visible Church began and continued, and continues to be, was formally granted and formally accepted; that is to say, we go away back to the time of Abraham and of the Abrahamic Covenant. It may be said that any argument drawn from the Abrahamic Covenant is far-fetched, and should, therefore, be regarded with some degree of suspicion, but, as we shall find in a little, the Apostles Peter and Paul did not think an argument drawn from the Abrahamic Covenant was either far-fetched or questionable, and so long as we have the company and the countenance of the Apostles, and so long as our method of procedure is distinctly and demonstrably Apostolic, we shall even bear with the disapproval of those who do not agree with us, and who do not agree with the Apostles.
Beginning, then, with the Abrahamic Covenant, it will be pertinent to observe at the outset that that Covenant concerns itself, not merely with the material welfare of a single nation, but with the spiritual well-being of the whole human race. No doubt privileges and blessings were conveyed to Abraham and to his descendants, but the ultimate object contemplated was the conveyance of blessing through Abraham and his descendants to all the families of the earth. It was not for his own sake merely, and it was not for the sake of his descendants merely, that God called Abraham and entered into covenant relation ship with him. It was in order that He might reach away out through him and them to the race at large, and bless all men everywhere with the blessing of His salvation. The promise was not only “ I will be a God unto thee and to thy seed after thee “ (Genesis 17:7), but also “ In thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed “ (Genesis 12:3). The Covenant was dominated by a great spiritual purpose, in pursuance of which it sought to convey the greatest possible blessing to the greatest possible number. Everything else was subordinate to that. The descendants of Abraham were to be as numerous as the stars of heaven, and the Land of Canaan was to be given to them for a possession. But the earthly inheritance promised and secured by the Covenant, however largely it might bulk in the view of those who did not appreciate aright the perspective of grace, was a very secondary consideration. The great thing aimed at was the bringing of men into a right relation to God and into a Tightness of life corresponding to that rightness of relation. In the words that introduce the record of the Covenant transaction we are told that God appeared to Abraham and said to him, “I am God Almighty; walk before Me and be thou perfect “ (Genesis 17:1). This shows us that the immediate object in view when the Covenant was formulated and ratified was to lift men up into a life of godliness and rectitude, and so help them to attain to the height of their possibilities. And to this end God pledged Himself in the Covenant to be a God to Abraham and to his seed, and to bless all men through him and them. These considerations are sufficient to show that the predominant element in the Covenant was spiritual, and that it sought to promote inward enrichment rather than outward enlargement. The promise of blessing to all the families of the earth included the coming and work of Christ, and all that has been done and is to be done by His Church, under the inspiration and guidance of His Spirit, for the uplifting and betterment of human kind. All that was potentially embraced in the Covenant. Hence we read in Galatians 3:8, of “ the Gospel “ that was preached beforehand unto Abraham, saying: “In thee shall all the nations be blessed.” In
Unto you first, God, having raised up His Servant, sent Him to bless you in turning away every one of you from your iniquities.” According to this testimony, the Abrahamic Covenant had reference to Christ, in whom the promise of universal blessing is fulfilled, and the blessing which He has rendered available operates in turning men away from sin.
Similarly, in Acts 13:32-33, Paul says: “And we bring you good tidings of the promise made unto the fathers how that God hath fulfilled the same unto our children in that He raised up Jesus.” And again in Acts 26:6-7 : “ And now I stand here to be judged for the hope of the promise made of God unto our fathers, unto which promise our twelve tribes, earnestly serving God night and day, hope to attain.” In Romans 15:8-9, we read: “ Christ hath been made a minister of the Circumcision for the truth of God that He might confirm the promises given unto the fathers, and that the Gentiles might glorify God for His mercy.” And in Galatians 3:29 : “And if ye are Christ s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, heirs according to promise.” In these passages “ the promise “ referred to is the promise made to Abraham and fulfilled in Christ. These Scriptures and others that might be quoted in this connection will help us to appreciate the reach and scope of the Abrahamic Covenant. It was beyond all question the Covenant of Grace, or a revelation of the Covenant of Grace in relation to Abraham and to those whom he represented. So that the Covenant is still in force, and in that Covenant God still pledges Himself to be a God to His people and to their seed. It is the Covenant on which the visible Church was founded at the first, and it is the Covenant on which the visible Church still stands. The promise of the Abrahamic Covenant is still fulfilling itself in the Dispensation of the Spirit, as men are reached and helped by the Gospel of Christ and brought into the fellowship of His Church and made partakers of the blessings He bestows. The Abrahamic Covenant is the title deed of the Church in all ages. THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE COVENANT. This brings us to consider the administration of the Covenant. If the blessings of the Covenant were to find their way into the unnumbered lives they were intended to reach and rectify and renew, it was necessary that they should be received and transmitted by human agency and through a human organization. It has pleased God to ordain that men shall be blessed through their fellowmen. And so the formulating of the Covenant was accompanied by the founding of an appropriate community, by which the Covenant blessings should be received and disseminated and transmitted. That community was related to the Covenant, and owed its existence to the Covenant, and was held together by the Covenant, and every member of it accepted the Covenant and received the sign and seal of the Covenant. That visible community was the visible Church. It was made up of those who, under the Covenant, had taken God to be their God either personally or representatively. Membership in this Church was recognised by the rite of Circumcision, the sign and seal of the Covenant. Now, Circumcision had reference to the whole Covenant and not to a part of it only.
It could not otherwise have been the seal of the Covenant. Sometimes it is said there were two Covenants, one national and the other spiritual, and that Circumcision had reference to the national Covenant but not to the spiritual. There is no foundation in Scripture for such a division. It may at times be convenient to speak of the national aspect of the Covenant as distinguished from its spiritual aspect, but, whatever provisional distinctions of this kind we may draw, the Covenant was one and the seal was one.
Dr. Carson speaks of “ the letter of the Covenant “and “ the spirit of the Covenant.” But it is obvious that the Covenant includes both the letter and the spirit. These and similar devices have been resorted to by those who wish to eliminate all spiritual significance from the rite of Circumcision.
All such attempts have failed and must fail.
Circumcision was not a mark of carnal descent, inasmuch as it was administered to proselytes, and they were not descended from Abraham. Neither was it a sign of the national aspect of the Covenant to the exclusion of the spiritual aspect, because it was administered for hundreds of years before the giving of the law on Mount Sinai, when the Israelitish people attained to the status of nation hood. The Covenant, as we have seen, was essentially spiritual, and, as a matter of fact, Circumcision had primary reference to the spiritual aspect of it. No one could be circumcised with exclusive reference to the national aspect of the Covenant. In the act of submitting to Circumcision he took God to be his God, and pledged himself to be one of God’s people that is to say, lie made a profession of faith and obedience. And a similar profession was made by the parent on behalf of every child to whom the ordinance was administered. Circumcision had a spiritual import. Like Baptism, it was a symbol of purification. It signified the removal of defilement. In Colossians 2:11, the Apostle describes the Circumcision of the Spirit, of which ordinary Circumcision was a symbol, as “ the putting oil of the body of the flesh.” In Romans 3:11, we read, “ Arid he received the sign of Circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while he was in uncircumcision.” In Deuteronomy 10:16, Deuteronomy 30:6, and Jeremiah 4:4, we read of the Circumcision of the heart, by which the people were inwardly renewed, and enabled to live in the fear of God and keep His commandments.
Thus it will be seen that Circumcision was a spiritual ordinance; spiritual in its reference and spiritual in its significance, just as the correspending ordinance of Baptism is in the New Testament Church. It may be said that it did not, in every case, secure or attest the spiritual efficacy which it is held to signify. That is true. And it is true, at the same time, that it did not, in every case, secure or attest the secular efficacy that, according to the Baptists, exhausts its significance, for many of those to whom it was administered were not permitted to have any share in the Land of Canaan. We may add that Baptism, even when administered by immersion, does not, in every case, secure or attest the spiritual efficacy which it signifies. The visible Church under the Old Dispensation, like the visible Church under the present Dispensation, was somewhat less than ideal.
Then, as now, Church members were not, in many cases, what they professed to be. All were not Israel who were of Israel. There was the distinction between Israel after the flesh and Israel after the Spirit. But that distinction could not be drawn by any human hand, and could not be indicated by any process of human exclusion. It is impossible to have in this world any Church which shall consist exclusively of those who are the true people of God. God has not seen fit to bestow upon even the choicest of His saints such a gift of spiritual discrimination as would qualify them to draw an unerring line of separation between the false and the true. We are bound to regard and to treat as members of the visible Church many who may not be members of the body of Christ. And so in the olden time many were, by Divine command, regarded and treated as members of the visible Church who were not circumcised in heart, and in whom there did not dwell a right spirit.
CHILDREN IN THE COVENANT AND IN THE CHURCH.
We do not need to dwell on the fact that children were included in the Abrahamic Covenant, for that cannot be denied, and we do not need to occupy your time in proving that children were in the membership of the Old Testament Church, and that their Church-membership was recognised by the rite of Circumcision, for that cannot be disputed. But before passing on I should like to ask your attention to two passages of Scripture in which children are distinctly specified as having a place in the Church. When the people of Israel came to the border of the Promised Land, which they were at last about to enter, they renewed their Covenant engagements with their Covenant God, and we find the old leader who had led them for many a weary year through the weary wilderness, and who was about to be their leader no longer, we find Moses addressing them in the words of Deuteronomy 29:10-13, “ You stand this day all of you before the Lord your God, your heads, your tribes, your elders, and your officers, even all the men of Israel, your little ones, your wives, and thy stranger that is in the midst of thy camps, from the hewer of thy wood unto the drawer of thy water: that thou shouldest enter into the Covenant of the Lord thy God, and into His oath, which the Lord thy God maketh with thee this day: that He may establish thee this day unto Himself for a people, and that He may be unto thee a God, as He spake unto thee, and as He sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.” There you see the “ little ones “ had a recognised place in the Congregation, or the Church “ the Church in the wilderness “(Acts 7:38) and a recognised place in the Covenant. The other passage is found in Joel 2:15-16, “ Blow the trumpet in Zion, sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly: gather the people, sanctify the Congregation, assemble the old men, gather the children, and those that suck the breasts.” Here infants are expressly mentioned as having a place in the Congregation, and as being among the number of God’s covenanted people. It will hardly be contended that this “ solemn assembly “ this sanctified Congregation, which was convened, by Divine command, for the special purpose of uniting the hearts of the people under the leadership of “ the priests, the ministers of the Lord,” in earnest supplication to Almighty God, and in which the so-called “ unconscious babes “ formed an element that was deemed important enough to be accorded specific mention under the urgent imperatives of convocation it will hardly be contended that this assembly met under circumstances of the most intense solemnity for the purpose of offering a prayer for mercy that expressed the supreme desire of every worshipper it will hardly be contended that the presence of the infants in that assembly deprived it of all spiritual character and all spiritual purpose, and degraded it to the level of a political convention designed to foster and to further “ carnal “ ends. There is a very general impression that the presence of infants usually operates in the opposite direction, and evokes all that is best in human nature. There is no need to say another word in reference to this point. It is perfectly plain that the infants of those who professed to be God’s people were in the Church, and were by Divine command recognised as members of the Church from the days of Abraham down to the close of the Old Economy. THE APOSTOLIC COMMISSION. This 1 (rings us to the Apostolic Commission, in which, as we have seen, the ordinance of Christian Baptism was instituted. In accordance with the terms of that Commission, the Apostles were to “ make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I commanded you “ (Matthew 28:19-20). Considered by itself, the grammatical construction of the Commission would lead us to infer that disciples are to be made by Baptism and teaching. It is well to note this fact, because some of the Baptists, in their anxiety to get hold of some thing somewhere that will have the semblance of argument, tell us that, according to the construction, the order is Make disciples, then baptize the disciples that have been made, and then teach the disciples that have been made and baptized. All we have to say in reference to this contention is that it is grammatically untenable. The construction is Make disciples, baptizing them and teaching them, that is, by baptizing them and teaching them.
But, without dwelling on this point, we pass on to consider the bearing of the Commission on the Church-membership of infants. And first of all let us think of the way in which a Jew would under stand it, because it was addressed to Jews, men who were familiar with Jewish observances, who were accustomed to Jewish ways of thinking, and who naturally looked at things from a Jewish stand point, and it is to be noted that they were never cautioned against being misled by their Jewish predilections. It was virtually a command to these Jews to go forth and make proselytes of all the nations. At any rate, that is the idea that would naturally arise in the minds of the Apostles in connection with the command to make disciples.
Now, when a proselyte went over to Judaism and was received into the Church, as it then was, he took his infant children with him, where there were such, and they were, by Divine command, recognised as being in the membership of the Church. In these circumstances it would not have occurred to the Apostles to ignore the infant children of those who were received into the fellowship of the Church. Nothing short of a specific command would have justified such a momentous departure from the Divinely-appointed usage in this matter. The infant children of Church members were in the membership of the Church down to the very moment the Apostles were furnished with their Commission. Were they to understand that this command in itself initiated a new policy of restriction in regard to Church-membership?
There was no restriction anywhere else. There had been sufficient restriction in the past. The restriction of the Dispensation that had just passed away was not to be still more restricted. The dominant note of the New Dispensation was universality. All the nations were to be discipled.
“ Make disciples of all the nations,” not “ Make disciples from among all the nations,” but “ Make disciples of all the nations.” I do not know how all the nations were to be discipled if the children were overlooked. The children have a place in the nation. The children are an important part of the nation. It would be a somewhat imperfect process of discipling that would set itself to lay hold of the old and the middle-aged and those who are just entering upon manhood and womanhood while taking no note of the young children and the infants, for whom life still waits with its vast and unbroken store of potentialities and possibilities, and who are most susceptible to the influences that Christianity can command. Why, even from the standpoint of worldly prudence, the children are the most important element to be considered, especially the children of parents who have embraced the Christian faith. When we think of what the children under Christian influences may become arid of what they may do, even as children, for Christ and His cause, it is easy to see that it would be an unpardonable mistake not to take possession of them from the very first in Christ’s name and enlist them in the ranks of His disciples, and recognise their place in His Church, and train them for Him and for His service.
If the Church that entered upon a new career when the Apostolic Commission was issued was to be the Church of the future, it was necessary that the children should be recognised, that their rights under the Abrahamic Covenant, which Christ came not to destroy but to fulfil, should be preserved, and that they should have at least as good a place in the Church of the New Dispensation as they had in the Church of the Dispensation that had passed away. To impoverish the membership of the Church by a wholesale excommunication of the children, to mutilate the Church by a ruthless excision of the most vital part of the body-corporate, and to under mine the constitution of the Church by draining it of its richest blood, would not be suggestive of a great forward movement, and would not occur to most people in connection with the inauguration of a magnificent enterprise for the discipling of the nations. Are we to suppose that there was to be a suicidal restriction in one direction side by side with a vigorous expansion in all other directions? Are we to suppose that one promise of the Abraharnic Covenant was to become inoperative just at the time when another promise of that Covenant was entering upon a glorious fulfilment? Are we to suppose that the promise “ I will be a God to thee and to thy seed,” as understood and fulfilled in the past, ceased to have validity just when the promise “In Thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed,” was about to have its validity vindicated as it had never been vindicated before?
Certainly not; especially when we find the Apostle Peter a few days afterwards referring to both these promises in the passages already quoted (
Baptist writers try to maintain that “ the promise “referred to (“ To you is the promise and to your children”) in Acts 2:39, is not the promise made to Abraham, but the promise of the Holy Spirit given in the book of Joel. But the two promises are perfectly consistent with each other. The promise made to Abraham was finding fulfilment in the gift of the Holy Spirit. The identity of “ To you and to your children “ with “ To thee and to thy seed “ is undeniable, and settles the matter in favour of the earlier promise. Peter himself is entitled to a vote on this question, and his vote is recorded in favour of the Abrahamic reference in Acts 3:25. The Apostles were constantly harking back to “ the promise “; that is, as they explain, the promise made to Abraham. In the face of these facts we cannot and we dare not for a moment entertain the idea that the Apostolic Commission, with its world wide comprehensiveness, is to be understood as driving the children outside the Church with a Baptist “ scourge of cords.”
CHILDREN MAY BE DISCIPLES. But we are told that the idea of discipleship excludes that of infancy, and that an infant can not be a disciple. If the term disciple is to be interpreted by the “jargon of the schools,” if by disciple we are to understand one who, after the manner of the Greeks, attached himself to a particular philosopher and set himself to master a particular system of philosophy, then, obviously, an infant could not be a disciple. But that is not our understanding of discipleship in the school of Christ. The disciple of Christ has not to master a system of philosophy. A disciple is a learner, and the disciple of Christ has to learn to be Christ-like. That is the kind of scholarship he acquires, and that is a kind of scholarship that may begin, and, as a matter of fact, does often begin, in the days of infancy. Indeed, that is the time it must begin if it is to make the most rapid progress, and if it is to rise to the highest stage of attainment.
Many of the most distinguished servants of the Master have commenced their discipleship sooner than they can remember. They cannot remember the time when Christian influences came upon them and took possession of them and began to mould them after the pattern of Christ. They can never think of a time when their life did not tend Christward. They have grown up toward Christ as naturally as the plant grows up toward the light. And that should be the normal condition of things in every Christian home. Of course that is not what we always find, because we who are parents are not always what we ought to be. Whatever else children and infant children may or may not be able to learn, they can learn from the very be ginning to be like Christ if they find themselves in a Christian atmosphere and under the formative power of Christian influence.
Thus we see that the discipling of the nations does not rule the infant children of Church members outside the pale of the Church. The discipling of infants is not only a feasible thing, but is about the most hopeful form of Christian work that any follower of the Master can put his hand to. Given Christian parents who will surrender themselves in downright earnest to the duty of discipling their infant child, and who will surround him from the first, and continuously, with the beneficent influence of Christian example, and who will subject him from the first and continuously to the beneficent discipline of Christian training, and I will build more on the Christian future of that infant than on the Christian future of the adult who has not had the advantage of Baptism in infancy, and who has not had the advantage of that distinctive parental devotion that the baptismal service is calculated and intended to secure. We come to the conclusion that there is room for infants inside the Apostolic Commission that the Commission, considered by itself and apart from everything else, not only does not exclude infants from the ranks of discipleship, but actually provides a place for them in the school of Christ, and that the Commission, when studied in the light of the Abrahamic Covenant, which leads up to it and to which it is directly related, necessitates the continuance, under the Gospel Dispensation, of the Church membership of the infant children of Church members and of the recognition of that member ship in the ordinance of Baptism.