Infants and Sacraments

My recent post on the role of the church in Christian education (link) brought to mind a post from several years ago in which I argued that only baptized persons can be "participants" in corporate worship:

...elders administer discipline to their sons, the visible flock over which they shepherd. If infants are never members of the visible church, then they are never disciplined by elders. You might discipline your son, but just because his friend is around when you do doesn't mean his friend is a "participant" in that discipline. To the extent one wants to speak of someone as a participant in worship and yet without discipline, I think such a person would be an illegitimate child rather than a son (Hebrews 12:7-8). (link)

To develop this further, unbaptized persons are onlookers. They are spectators rather than participants in liturgy. They are not, during corporate worship, authoritatively led, represented, instructed, or disciplined by elders. Just as elders guard the Lord's Supper, so too does baptism fence off participation in worship. Just as the Lord's Supper communicates covenant blessing or judgment, baptism analogously initiates one into either covenant blessing or curse. Sacraments are neither ex opere operato nor ex opere operantis. 

In this way do we see how sacramentology is tied to ecclesiology. Liturgical participants draw near to God. Those who do so in an unworthy manner will be judged more severely than those who do not draw near at all. Judgment begins at the house of God, after all. In a sense, it is for their own protection that unbaptized persons are not counted as participants, although it is obviously not good that they should remain as they are. Insofar as the Lord's Supper is proleptic of the marriage supper of the Lamb, everyone will have to reckon with the [Sabbath] day of the Lord sooner or later.

If Baptists agree - as they should - that unbaptized persons are not, in public worship, authoritatively led, represented, instructed, or disciplined by elders, that has significant implications. If one denies this by affirming that an elder, in his authoritative capacity as an elder, ought, in public worship, to instruct and discipline the unbaptized, I will only say that such a denial appears either 1) misconstrues liturgical duties of an elder or 2) trades on semantic ambiguity: some teaching, admonishment, etc. is proper or particular to an elder, whereas some teaching or admonishment is informal and not exclusive to that which only an elder can offer. 

Considering the second point first, we can say that in one sense, a Baptist elder can "teach" or "admonish" persons who are not members of the visible church (or even the invisible church). But to the extent that all men are needful of spiritual and physical nourishment, all Christians are capable of "teaching" or "admonishing" others by being living testimonies of the light of the gospel. In living such lives, through the work of the Spirit, some needs of all men may be met. Of course, that one has these needs met does not suggest that all his needs are met.

Case in point, what is being spoken of here is not proper or particular to an elder. I would argue that some of man’s spiritual needs can only be met by being members in the visible church. That is, I am not questioning whether Baptist elders are capable of meeting some needs of persons who are not in the visible church, needs that can also be met by laity in non-liturgical settings. Rather, I question whether Baptist elders are capable of meeting specific needs of unbaptized persons, particularly in the context of worship. 

I think a consistent Baptist would agree that Baptist elders can no more meet certain needs of unbaptized persons than a Presbyterian elder could - until the persons in question are baptized. Recognizing this would avoid the semantic ambiguity alluded to above and confirm a distinction in belief regarding ecclesial scope of authority, as Presbyterians baptize infants whom Baptists would not.

Now, given Baptistic thought that believing parents of infants have no obligation to incorporate said infants into the visible church (quite the contrary, in fact), it looks to be a straightforward inference that these infants are not, during worship, authoritatively led, represented, instructed, or disciplined by Baptist elders. And if a Baptist elder would say that he does not authoritatively lead, represent, instruct, or discipline unbaptized persons – if he attempts to be, as I see it, relatively consistent with Baptistic thought – then while one can certainly tell infants (or, for that matter, any unbaptized persons) that they need full, spiritual nourishment, while they remain unbaptized, a Baptist elder cannot be said authority or responsible for their spiritual nourishment.

This leads to another consideration: it seems Baptist elders should leave the extent to which unbaptized, infants are exposed to "teaching," "admonition," "discipline," etc. that is proper and particular to elders to parental discretion. In other words, if parents decided not to bring their infants to public worship until or unless they have made a credible profession, on what grounds could a Baptist elder voice a legitimate problem with that?

I find that most Christian parents want their infants (or unbaptized) children to be present for worship of God. However, the question is whether this intuition can be backed such that a Baptist elder could, consistent with Baptistic principles, morally obligate parents to bring their infants to worship by and in the midst of a visible, covenant community to which the infants do not, on Baptist grounds, "belong." Worship is a time particularly intended for the visible church to draw near to God, whereas the infant is implicitly told by Baptists that he does not belong as a worshipping member to the visible church. 

That I've met with resistance from Baptists on this question indicates to me some tension between Baptistic principles and Baptistic practice. Indeed, one wonders about the implications of the London Baptist Confession XXII.6 when it states, "God is to be worshipped everywhere in spirit and in truth; as in private families daily..." If infants can be counted as worshippers in private families, why not in the visible church? Or if they cannot be so counted as worshippers in private families, are they then not members of the private family worshipping? The tensions compound.

Turning to another argument for infant baptism, on Baptistic thought, ecclesiology and sacramentology don't mirror soteriology. Soteriologically, Reformed Baptists and Presbyterians agree that the Father monergistically elected and regenerates men, both of which [logically] precede the faith of these men - even dispositional faith (on how this importantly relates to infants, see here). Yet ecclesiologically and sacramentally, Baptists invert the order such that mature articulation of faith ought to precede [a holy parent or parents choosing the] baptism of [their] infants. This is odd, as baptism signifies regeneration.

I find Baptistic ecclesiology, sacramentology, and argumentation to be more unfortunately tied to pragmatism. Interestingly, some Baptistic arguments against infant baptism intentionally highlight this inverted order of events as experienced by members of the invisible church compared to those experienced by members in the visible church, arguing on pragmatic grounds that since infants can't remember their baptisms, the baptisms are of no use. Perhaps this is why some Baptists have historically gone further in expecting an articulation of a memorable conversion experience before admittance into the visible church.

In any case, this is like arguing that because one doesn't remember being named at the time of his naming, there is no use in the naming. On the contrary, those who belong in the midst of the visible covenant community just are those who have been named in baptism (Matthew 28:19). Both in the case of my personal naming and in my baptismal naming, testimonial evidence is sufficient for my "knowing" my own name (at least in an externalist sense); I don't need video evidence or to have been conscious during the namings for the namings to have had and continue to have significance. Not only are such pragmatic objections weak, they function to show how Presbyterian ecclesiology and sacramentology align with Presbyterian soteriology and anthropology. On further ways in which "-ologies of places and people at least tend to mirror one another," see here, here, here, and here. 

Finally, there is the objection that anyone who is baptized also should be allowed to partake of the Lord's Supper. In this way, Baptists actually agree with those of the Federal Vision movement like James B. Jordan, the latter of whose arguments for paedocommunion I find more challenging than pragmatic, Baptistic arguments against infant baptism. Jordan's ecclesiology and sacramentology are connected to his understanding of biblical theology. Take the following, which I cannot recall if I found through Jordan himself:

It is well known that the words of the nineteenth Psalm (1-4), mainly on the strength of St. Paul's adaptation of them (Rom. x. 18), have constantly received a spiritual application. The Church is the firmament which shews the handywork of God; in which day transmits to day and night to night in unbroken succession to the end of time, and to all the world, the wondrous story of the glory and grace of God. (Richard Chenevix Trench, Sacred Latin Poetry, pg. 206, link)

Jordan also argues that this symbolism is biblical (link). One enters the firmament-church through baptism just as entrance into the holy place of the tabernacle required passing by the bronze sea and through the veil. Once in the holy place or firmament, there is, before the priest, bread and wine. Bread is food that enables work, whereas wine signifies rest. Bread is protological and wine is eschatological. Thus, an OT tabernacle priest could eat bread but could not drink wine or sit down, for his work was never finished. 

Jordan further argues that bread and wine throughout the Old Testament tends to stand for a contrast between priestly infancy and kingly maturity. The OT was a time during which the people of God could participate in priestly rites but not kingly rest in the throne room; hence, only the high priest entered the holy of holies, he did so only entered once per year, and even then, his work was never finished such that he could enjoy rest. 

For priests to have drank wine at this point in redemptive history would have implied an over-realized eschatology. An over-realized eschatology is an eschatology which counts as having already happened cosmological events which we ought to still anticipate, such as the return of Christ (thus, Jordan argues against hyper-preterism). 

Before Christ, we were collectively as children and required guardians and tutors (Galatians 3-4). Christ, having completed the groundwork for our salvation and eschatological telos, has enabled His priestly people to move forward in redemptive history as we follow the directive of our enthroned King and drink the wine (signifying His blood) that the priests of the OT could not. Each Lord's day, we can enjoy anticipation of consummated, kingly rest in Him, our perfect sacrifice and High Priest. 

Even if we do not agree with Jordan in all the particulars, there does seem to be something to all this. There is a sort of macroecclesiastic, corporate, redemptive-historical progression the church had to experience before members of the church could drink wine. The whole of that which is invisible to us - the elect, the invisible church - are progressively being individually and visibly gathered into one (WCF XXV.I). As this has been and still is being realized in history, there has also been covenantal progression which, in turn, mirrors the sorts of progressions seen, for instance, on the anthropological, physical, or biological level - i.e. children eat bread long before they drink wine. 

In this way, Presbyterians avoid an over-realized ecclesiology, an ecclesiology which counts as having already happened ecclesiological events which we ought to still anticipate. Whereas now, the visible church has been given new privileges in administering sacraments which were not able to be administered under the older administrations of the covenant of grace, there is still more ingathering, maturing, and progressing to do before the members of the visible church are co-extensive with the invisible church, at which point we will enjoy the privilege of feasting with Christ face to face (Matthew 26:29).

Allowing all this, however, I suggest Jordan misses mirrors at the microecclesiastic, individual, soteriological level. We've just spoken of how the visible body collectively progresses and some analogues to it. At the same time, the whole grows only as the individual members who comprise the whole themselves grow. There must be recognized an individual progression in sanctification toward glorification as individuals put to death the deeds of their bodies (Romans 8:13). 

Just as we want to avoid an over-realized eschatology and over-realized ecclesiology, so too we want to avoid an over-realized soteriology, a soteriology which counts as having already happened soteriological events which we ought to still anticipate - such as the complete eradication of the subjective presence of sin. Jordan recognizes this much and argues against perfectionism (link).

...we must hold that indwelling sin remains and cannot be eradicated until the resurrection. Only the penalty of sin has been removed, and no matter what one does, he cannot reach a sinless state of pure fellowship. Whether he perceives it or not, sin is always present. Confession is important, but it is not magical. Certainly God wants man to confess his sin, but not to manipulate or penetrate the secret will of God. To think that confession can accomplish such things implies perfectionism. 

Rather than take this observation and consider analogues which might be found on this level, however, he follows: 

Today, Chafer’s book has tremendous influence in evangelicalism. Campus Crusade for Christ has popularized what Chafer taught in its Holy Spirit booklet, calling it “spiritual breathing.” Many other groups show the effect of this book in their emphasis on introspection. If confession of sin is emphasized apart from the objective worship of the people of God, it is individualized and internalized. Historically, the Christian Church has practiced objective and corporate confession of sin. It helps to prevent that kind of subjective introspection. It should not be overlooked, however, that Chafer’s theology is essentially Anabaptistic and has extended Anabaptist thought. It separates the objective from the subject in the same way Platonic thought did, and is in the final analysis an internalized subjective theology. 

Any retreat into the inner, personal, and subjective world of man takes him away from God’s righteous objective law. Even the scripture memory of the Pharisees and the Antonians obscured the Scripture itself because it was performed in the context of bad theology and practice. A subjective emphasis carries one away from objectivity. Once this happens, man begins to see his sin in terms of himself. As a result his sin disappears because of his own self deception. In other words, he thinks he is perfect, when he may in fact be in deep sin. Putting it another way, break the mirror and the shame disappears. The knowledge of sin comes via the law. All of the perfectionistic movements of history have rejected both a knowledge of the law and the knowledge of sin.

This is strange. Jordan seems to understand that progression is not merely a corporate phenomenon but a subjective, individual one as well, yet he seems to refuse to admit that dimension has a place in one's doctrine of worship. 

For example, Jordan understands that an over-realized physiology is a physiology which counts as having already happened physiological events which we ought to still anticipate, such as unrealistic physical expectations of those whose bodies have not yet sufficiently developed. As such, Jordan argues that youths should not play football:

...we have to agree with the opinion of physicians that football is unhealthy for young men. The Bible tells us, as does medical science, that our physical frames are not fully set and mature until we are around thirty years old. Up until that time, severe physical stress can do considerable damage to our young, developing bones and cartilege. Thus, God said that the Levites had to be between thirty and fifty years old in order to carry the heavy golden furniture of the Tabernacle (Numbers 4; this is also symbolic, since a man should be at least thirty years old before taking church office upon his shoulders.) Physicians complain that football is too risky for high school and college age youth. Many Christian schools have taken this advice seriously, and have turned to other, less dangerous sports. (link).

Likewise, can we not acknowledge subjective, relevant distinctions in worshippers? In fact, mustn't we acknowledge such distinctions in, say, considering who is qualified to function as an elder? I think Jordan conflates macroecclesial and microecclesial levels, leading him to an over-realized sacramentology, a sacramentology which counts as having already happened sacramental events which some ought to still anticipate - such as setting unrealistic spiritual expectations on ones who have not yet sufficiently developed to examine himself and discern the body (1 Corinthians 11:28-29). Jordan's understanding of this passage flattens it to such an extent that the subjectively diverse experiences mentioned in verse 30 become unintelligible.

When Jordan argues for paedocommunion, I think he misses that a progressive dimension exists in sacramentology just as in most other -ologies. He treats as what is now available to the visible covenant community - due to redemptive-historical progression - as being available to each member of the said community. In short, a fallacy of division.

Much more could be said regarding arguments against paedocommunion (or, for that matter, arguments for infant baptism). Here, I've only tried to organize some thoughts I haven't seen discussed much elsewhere. For those interested, I recommend this book and this series, the first video of which provides further biblical-theological reasons against paedocommunion.

Of What Advantage is Baptism [for Infants]?

Much in every way. Firstly, I think a good way to frame the question is in terms of advantages and privileges, for baptism does not always communicate or indicate grace. No one ought to question that the world aside from Noah's family, Pharaoh's army, or unbelievers at the parousia were or will be fearfully judged, for example. Baptism can point to this eschatological reality as well as to blessed salvation. Likewise, one baptized into the visible body of the covenant community is privileged to be a member of it - properly able to be instructed and disciplined by elders-fathers, as I will return to below - though not without warning should they rebel and fall away (Hebrews 6:4-8, 10:26-31).

Anthropologically, soteriologically, and ecclesiologically, we are (or can be) newly born into households. Only those born into these houses are, properly speaking, discipled and disciplined by the fathers of said houses. Only sons and daughters consistently receive fatherly instruction, training, and correction. The potential blessings should be obvious. But this too means judgment must begin at the house of God - since, a fortiori, it is obvious what judgment befalls those who are not members of the house (1 Peter 4:17-18). Now, we know sons and daughters can rebel against fatherly authority. But such cases, as heartbreaking as they are, does not mean there is no reason for sons and daughters to have been in a position to receive instruction and discipline in the first place. At the very least, it must cause sober reflection upon our own relative births and positions into the various, divinely appointed households. But we must remember that all things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose, not all without exception.

Or, to put the point another way. In addition to the anthropological, ecclesiological, and soteriological households, we can consider the cosmological household of God of which we are all a part, believer and unbeliever alike. Nature has a way of instructing and disciplining men (Romans 1:18-32), because we are all God's offspring (Acts 17:29), His image, in His macrocosmic house of creation (Genesis 1). This too comes with its own advantages and privileges, for life is good.

However, it might be a bit difficult to understand, from a bird-eye view of the reprobate, how he has been divinely favored by the rain and sunshine God sends and makes (Matthew 5:45). That is, should we view such as grace? Gordon Clark thought we could:

One theologian argues that the gospel is both a savor of life unto life and also a savor of death unto death. To the reprobate the preaching of the gospel is no favor because as it increases their knowledge, it increases their responsibility and condemnation. Better if they had never heard the gospel. One can reply, nonetheless, that in some cases the preaching of the gospel may restrain an evil man from some of his evil ways. Since therefore sins are not all equal, and since some are punished with many stripes, but others with few, the preaching of the gospel results in the lessening of the punishment. Thus preaching would be a small favor, a modicum of grace. (link)

I am less sure. We could regard it as an advantage or privilege for anyone who already exists and sins to not be immediately cut off from his sinful life, and to that extent what Clark says above can hold true. It is, likewise, certainly a privilege to have once been enlightened, tasted the heavenly gift, have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come. Perhaps this restrains one from committing as much evil as he would otherwise have done. Yet it seems to me that the privileges of these new births which even reprobates can experience must be balanced against the strong language of, for example, Mark 14:21 - spoken of one who was a disciple of Christ (how much more advantage or privilege towards a sinner can one conceived?) - and that baptism can be unto fearful judgment. To whom much is given, much is expected (Luke 12:47-48). If one tramples underfoot the advantages and privileges of God, it would be better for that man if he had not been born.

Nevertheless, this bird's eye view is not available to us. We can only speak in regards to what we know, and what we know is that one is advantaged or privileged to hear the gospel, for one can only please God and be at peace with Him through justification by faith, and faith can only come by hearing the gospel. We cannot know, in this lifetime, who will hear and reject the gospel, and it is far beyond our purview to presume upon who will or won't heed its call. Much less are we able to determine whether, even if it is rejected, it may yet be beneficial to the extent that those who hear and reject it sin less and are punished less severely as a result. Similarly, we may consider the case of baptism to be a privilege and advantage, if not necessarily a means of grace, even in the case that it leads to negative judgment.

Suppose instead that our infants are only welcome to church meetings to the extent that other unbelievers are. In the first place, we should probably think harder than we do before inviting open unbelievers to what is supposed to be a family communion with and worship of God rather than an evangelistic outreach. What is the goal? Unbelievers should normally find our worship strange and alien because in it, we draw near to God (precisely where they usually don't want to be).

But is this normally how our infants grow to view our assembling to worship? They may, of course, have questions of the worship service (Exodus 12:24-27), but do they normally shrink back as we draw near to God and He to His church? Are not our children participants in corporate worship? If not, I do not see how church can even be considered a foster home to unbaptized children. Rather, it looks as though these children get (have?) to visit a family not their own once a week without participating in the corporate life of it then and there, much less throughout the rest of the week.

On the other hand, if they are participants, fathers discipline sons. Likewise, elders administer discipline to their sons, the visible flock over which they shepherd. If infants are never members of the visible church, then they are never disciplined by elders. You might discipline your son, but just because his friend is around when you do doesn't mean his friend is a "participant" in that discipline. To the extent one wants to speak of someone as a participant in worship and yet without discipline, I think such a person would be an illegitimate child rather than a son (Hebrews 12:7-8).

The same could be said regarding instruction. Fathers are to instruct their children (Ephesians 6:4). The elder instructs his sons, the visible flock, in worship. But if infants are never members of the visible church, then they are never instructed by elders. You might instruct your son, but just because his friend is around when you do doesn't mean his friend is a "participant" in that instruction.

Whether or not your son rebels against your discipline and instruction is a separate question. But it is without question he is a legitimate son of yours because of how you behave towards him. Likewise in regards to God towards His elect sons and the elders towards their sons-flocks.

One final question that bears pastoral reflection: if infants are not treated as sons, how will they come to think about the church? Frankly, as a child, I would have felt awkward and out of place in the presence of my friend being instructed or disciplined by his father. I would be viewing an internal family matter as an outsider. To say in the first place that infants cannot be participants in worship - that they are presumed to be outsiders - then, would naturally seem to lead them to doubt, uncertainty, or anguish. Being cognizant of the manner in which we, as the visible church, treat our children from birth as well as how they grow to perceive themselves in virtue of our treatment is easier said than done, especially if some of us actually view them as looking in from the outside of God's visible household.

Podcast Update, Genesis 1:1-5, and a Small Tribute to Steve Hays

For those who follow, my friends and I will be starting our podcast again - completed episodes of which you can find here - on Peter Leithart's A House for My Name. Additionally, I would like to dedicate the following notes for a men's Bible study of Genesis 1:1-5 at my church to Steve Hays, Triablogue contributor who recently passed away. He did a great service not only for "the" faith but also my faith. I had mainly kept my blog bookmarked so I could continue to read his thoughts, which were always written at a machine-like pace with machine-like precision. Despite that comparison, he was always very kind to me, and I thank God for his willingness to encourage young men in particular. One light in this world has gone out, and let those who knew or benefited from God's work through him endeavor to carry on shining all the more brightly for what Steve did.

New Creations: Our Identities as Followers of Christ

Genesis 1:1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 

2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 

4 And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. 

5 God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day...

26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” 

I may have mentioned this to a few of you over the years, but to give a little background about myself for those who may not know me as well, I grew up in a diverse Protestant background. When I was young, I went to a Methodist church, then a non-denominational church, and all the while I was going to a Baptist school. What I find interesting looking back at those times - and there could be many reasons for what I am about to say, most of them due to my own faults - but it probably wasn’t until my late teens to early twenties that I can remember understanding that the stories in the Old Testament were actually much richer than I had realized, and that they happened and were revealed for good reason and according to God’s wisdom. 

When I was a kid, I knew of events in the Old Testament like creation and the fall of Adam and Eve, Noah and the flood, Moses and Egypt, David and Goliath, and Daniel and the Lion’s Den. These and a few others were really popular in Sunday school. But we mostly read the stories of Jesus from the New Testament, and I just thought of Old Testament stories as completely separate from each other, almost like a random collection of stories that all just had common morale along the lines of, “You had better side with God if you want to turn out all right.”

Of course, that is a really important truth to know, especially for young children. But as I grew older, and especially after I started college, I began to hear others ask some hard questions about Christianity. I’m honestly grateful for that time, because I think it was God’s providence that led me to ask my own questions, by which His grace has caused me to grow in knowledge and assurance of His trustworthy promises.

All of that is a bit of a prelude to why I wanted to share some of my thoughts on the very beginnings of the Bible, one of those stories I mentioned that I was told as a kid but now realize has layers to it that always causes me to go back and appreciate the weightiness and freshness of God’s word and plan in history.

One of the hard questions I encountered was the idea of why God created things the way He did. I think we all know that God didn’t need to create, although there is nothing wrong with His decision to create since it pleased Him to do so. But given that He chose to create, I’ve had coworkers or friends ask me why I think God decided to create the way He did, because it seems He could have created many other ways. And while we could always just say, “well this is what pleased Him,” and on some level all questions of why God does what He does bottoms out with this answer, I think there is something else we can say to those people who ask us this.

For instance, a part of my answer to the question of why God created the way He did was that I think God was setting a pattern for imitation and life for the images of Himself that He knew that He would create: we men and women. Now obviously, we can’t create out of nothing, and we don’t have life in ourselves, but there are analogous actions and life we can have that mimic God’s, and I’ll mention a few of them shortly.

Before I do that, I want us to start by thinking about what creation itself is to God: what was the intention for creating the heavens and the earth in the beginning? And a reason I want to do that is that God Himself describes how He thinks of or treats His own creation of heaven and earth, so it will be useful to consider why God reveals these truths to us. So let’s turn to a few Scriptures:

In Isaiah 40:21-22, we read: Do you not know? Do you not hear? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to dwell in.

Later, in Isaiah 66:1-2: Thus says the Lord: “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool; what is the house that you would build for me, and what is the place of my rest? All these things my hand has made, and so all these things came to be, declares the Lord.

Now, when I think about the house of the Lord in the Old Testament, I usually think about the temple, as that is the place where God dwelled among the Israelites. In 2 Samuel 7, for instance, the Lord communicates to the prophet Nathan His desire that a house be built for Him to dwell in, since He had been moving about in the tabernacle for His dwelling. Later, in 2 Chronicles 3:1, we see the fulfillment of God’s desire when the Chronicler writes, “Solomon began to build the house of the Lord in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah.” This house refers to the temple that God’s glory filled once it was completed, just as His glory filled the completed tabernacle in Exodus 40. In other words, God moved into His house.

So we have an idea that creation is God’s house, and also an idea that the tabernacle and temple, at least in the Old Testament, were God’s house. Reverend Michael Morales, who I believe some of you know, wrote the following about this connection between creation in Genesis 1 and the tabernacle and temple:

Approaching the biblical account of creation, there are various indications that such a parallel between cosmos and temple (or tabernacle) is in view. For example, the Spirit or “Wind of God’ as a phrase appears in Genesis 1:2 for the construction of the cosmos and in Exodus 31:3 and 35:31 for the construction of the tabernacle. Moreover, the Spirit’s endowment of Bezalel, the chief artisan of the tabernacle, is described in terms of wisdom, understanding and knowledge (Exodus 31:3), the same attributes by which God is said to have fashioned the cosmos (Proverbs 3:19-20). Other creation terminology shared with the tabernacle includes the word light or lamp in Genesis 1:14-15, which always in the Pentateuch designates the lamps of the tabernacle...

Elsewhere in the Bible, creation is likened to a tent pitched by God (Psalm 104; Job 9:8, Isaiah 40:22) or to a house God has established, with pillars, windows and doors (Job 26:11; Genesis 7:11; Psalm 78:23)…” Reverend Morales concludes that “there is an analogical relationship between creation and tabernacle: again, the cosmos is a large temple; the temple is a small cosmos.

Indeed, as Psalm 78:69 says, “He built his sanctuary like the high heavens, like the earth, which he has founded forever.” 

There are a lot of implications that we can draw from this connection between creation as God’s house and the temple as God’s house. I’ll just mention three things that I think we can learn from the first few verses of Genesis. The first is that God baptizes His house. The second is that the church is also considered God’s house. And the last is that as His house, we are to be lights in and of God’s house.

Baptism

The first point is that God baptizes His house. Let’s turn back to Genesis 1:2, where we see that the earth is formless, and the Spirit hovers over the face of the waters. Likewise, in Deuteronomy 32:10-11, several Reformed authors have noted that Moses uses the same relatively rare terminology to describe the Spirit as hovering like an eagle over the Israelites while leading them out of formless wilderness of Egypt (cf. Ezekiel 20:36) during the exodus. Paul later identifies this exodus through the Red Sea as a type of baptism (1 Corinthians 10:1-2). Similarly, a dove hovered over the flood in the time of Noah, and the Holy Spirit hovered in its descent as a dove on the Christ during His baptism. This leads Reformed author J. V. Fesko notes that “the origins of baptism lie in Genesis 1:2…” Thus, after creating His house, the first revealed act of the God is the baptism of His house. And as images of God and imitators of Christ, we too baptize our houses.

Only after God baptizes His house does He begins a process of newly creating it. He created the heavens and the earth as formless, void, and dark, but after baptism, we see God newly creating it in light, making divisions within His house, and then filling it. And this is why our baptism symbolizes us as new creations: because it recalls historical events in which God took His house and made it new.

Now, when we say that we should baptize our houses, we don’t actually mean our physical homes that we move into and physically dwell but rather our families. “House” is sometimes a double-entendre in Scripture – it can refer to a person’s dwelling place, or it can refer to his family – like when the Lord says in Hosea that He will have mercy on the house of Judah – and sometimes both a dwelling place and family are intended with just one word. There’s a good reason for this, and I will talk about that in a minute. But to give an example of what I mean, in 2 Samuel 7, the Lord reveals to David, “I will build you a house.” God was not only talking about the temple, the dwelling place of the Lord, but also the house of David, his family dynasty (2 Chronicles 21:7), including Solomon who we already noted built later built the temple-house of God.

What does all of this lead to? My first point was that because God baptized His creation house in the beginning, we should too, and that our baptism symbolizes our being new creations just as God newly created His house after baptizing it. But this also leads into my second point: when we say God baptizes His house, we see that God baptizes – not only creation, not only the tabernacle, and not only the temple – but also His family (His Son and the church), too.

House of God

In other words, the second implication of creation being the Lord’s house is that as we too are baptized, new creations of God’s handiwork, that means we too are God’s house. And because we also are God’s house, we too are God’s dwelling place. I think this explains what I mentioned a moment earlier about why “house” in Scripture can sometimes refers to physical dwelling places, sometimes families, and sometimes both. As we live our lives analogically patterned after God’s life and actions, we can see that our dwelling is not only our physical place of existence but also our family. In God’s case, He not only intended to dwell in and enjoy Sabbath rest in His new creation in the sense of the cosmos but also in His images, us as new creations.

I believe this is why New Testament Scriptures explicitly reveal us to be temples for the Holy Spirit and houses of God, both individually and corporately as Christ’s body. I’ll note a few Scriptures:

2 Corinthians 6:15-20 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, “The two will become one flesh.” But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

Ephesians 2:19-22 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

Hebrews 3:6 Christ is faithful over God's house as a son. And we are his house, if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope.

1 Corinthians 3:9-11, 16-17 For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building. According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ… Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him. For God's temple is holy, and you are that temple.

2 Corinthians 5:1-4, 17 For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life... Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

I’ll briefly note that this last passage touches on eschatology. Peter writes in his epistle that all will be baptized by fire upon Christ’s return (1 Peter 1:7, 2 Peter 3:5-7), with some whose faith in Christ will be shown to be genuine and lead to a new and glorified life, and some whose unbelief leads to them and their sinful works being burned up in destruction. Likewise, Paul tells us to look forward to the return of Christ for new and glorified tent-bodies, if indeed we are new creations in Christ.

The final thing I will mention here is that not only are we houses and dwelling places for God as His new creation, but also, Christ is our new dwelling place. If we recall John 2, Christ mentioned that the temple of His body would be resurrected the third day after His crucifixion. We also may remember in Matthew 27 that the temple veil was torn when the temple of Christ’s body was crucified, enabling access for anyone who is united with Him to dwell, pray, and worship in the presence of the Father and heavenly hosts that are mentioned in Hebrews 12.

In other words, Christ is the true temple in that in Him dwells the fullness of the Father and Spirit, which is why He was able to reveal them to us. As Paul says, “he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.” So when the Spirit unites us to the Christ our Lord, a few things happen: we dwell in Christ, the true temple, and He then dwells in us, and we become temples. There is then a perichoresis or mutual indwelling of God in us and us in God that mimics the life of the Trinity, the source of all created life.

Light in God’s House

The third and last implication I want to draw out in the remaining time we have here is what we now are to do, knowing that we do that we are baptized new creations and the house of God. And to that point, let us return back to Genesis 1:

Genesis 1:2-5 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

Think about what any of us do when we enter our houses. The first thing we do is to turn on the lights. We don’t stumble around blindly in darkness. Instead, we turn on the lights so we can see, evaluate, or judge the state of our house to make sure that everything inside set right. That’s exactly what God does here at the beginning of time. God, after baptizing His creation anew, says “Let there be light” and then evaluates His work as good, by which He then proceeds to continue to make covenantal divisions within His house, each of which He then covenantally fills, especially in multiplying His image.

Now for all we know, God could have created everything in light since the beginning, but He instead chose to create a formless and void creation in darkness. The Spirit then hovers over the face of the waters, baptizing it into the light of the word of God. Light is the means by which work is evaluated, which is why the first good work of God in newly creating His house is to turn on the light. This is also the beginning of a good work God will bring to completion at the day of the Lord, the Sabbath day. God Himself is the true light who came into a dark world to give it light, the true morning that follows the evening.

What we may not realize – or, at least, for I long time I didn’t realize – is that as we live the Christian life as we are supposed to do, we’re imitating a pattern God set since the beginning of time. Due to sin, we are born formless and void, creations in darkness (Ephesians 5:8). To make us new creations, the Spirit hovers over our faces, baptizing us into the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 4:6), who is the Word of God (John 1:1). Light is the means by which work is evaluated (John 3:19-21), which is why the first good work of God in newly creating us as His house (Hebrews 3:6) is also to turn on the light in it, and in His light we see and are light (Psalm 36:9). This is the beginning of a good work in us that God will also bring to completion at the day of Jesus Christ (Philippians 1:6), the one who gives us rest (Matthew 11:28). Christ is the true light who came into a dark world to give light (John 1:9), the true morning that follows the evening. He is the light by whom blind men are able to see (2 Corinthians 4:4), and in His light we will rest forever as we walk in it (Revelation 21:23-25). I won’t go through all of the Scriptures that support this comparison, but to name a few:

John 1:1-5, 9 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it… The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.

2 Corinthians 4:3-6 And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

I think John ties all of the themes I have brought up in Revelation 21 in his description of the new heaven and new earth with its the holy city, the new Jerusalem. In this chapter, God declares He is making all things new, and that His dwelling place is with man. There will be no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, and its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there.

All this is to say that what I’ve discovered is that the story in Genesis is the story of the rest of the Bible. It isn’t put there just because it is a record of the beginning of time, although it is that. As God brought forth light from darkness in Genesis, John 1 describes the Son of God as the life that is the light of all mankind, the true light gives light to everyone, the light that the darkness has not and will not overcome. This light exposes darkness, either converting it to light or judging it for trying to hide from it. To believers, God has given the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of the light. And having been enlightened, so to speak, we are to be lights in and to the world, means of witness by which the Father gives that light to others just as it was given to us:

Matthew 5:14-16 You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

Ephesians 5:8 at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light.

Being enlightened new creations by God’s handiwork, and we can know with assurance that God looks at and judges His work in us as good, just as He did in Genesis. That is our confidence that, as Paul says:

Philippians 1:6 I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

Following the heavenly pattern of God’s revealed actions and life is our impetus as new creations to live out godly lives on earth. Baptize our house, be God’s house, and shine as lights of His house so that we can, by God’s grace, reach those who are, like we were, in darkness. That is how we are a part of the answer to our prayer that the Father’s “will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” And with that, I will close with the following blessing from the apostle Paul from his letter to the Galatian church:

Galatians 6:15-16, 18 …neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. And as for all who walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel of God. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers. Amen.

Clark's Lectures 3

Here are a few quotes I found to be interesting from Clark's Today’s Evangelism: Counterfeit or Genuine? Though some of the points are particularly well argued, because I don't necessarily agree with everything written, so I've refrained from commenting on anything.

Commands, Emotions, Faith, and Volition

Pages 20-21: “Does the Bible indicate that God is subject to sudden, involuntary, non-intellectual upheavals in his usually calm state of mind? Well, hardly. The Westminster Confession, the best summary of the contents of the Bible, says that God is without parts or passions. Parts refers to bodily organs. Bodies have parts, minds do not. But God is also without passions. The word passion, in more modern terminology affection, is wider than the term emotion but includes the latter. A passion or affection is the result of being affected by some external force. A dog is affected by a whipping; a student is affected, sometimes, by the possibility of a good grade. There are modern psychology books written about “the affective consciousness.” But God is not affected by anything. Of, in another translation of the Greek term, God does not “suffer” anything.

On the contrary, not only the Westminster Confession, but all or nearly all the historic creeds says that God is immutable. He does not change. Emotion, however, is a sudden, involuntary change. To have emotions would be inconsistent with God’s eternal state of blessedness.

Now, someone may say that God loves and that love is an emotion. But with respect to love, two points must be made. First, God’s love is eternal, therefore not a sudden change, therefore not an emotion. Second, God commands us to love him. A command requires voluntary obedience. Therefore the love God commands is volitional, not emotional. Doubtless God commands the impossible. He commands us to keep his law perfectly. This we cannot do because of sin. The impossibility arises from us; it does not arise from any irrationality in the commands. God commands the impossible, but he does not command the absurd.”

The Trinity and Absolute Divine Simplicity

Page 28: “The doctrine of the Trinity is found only in the Biblical revelation. No one would ever have thought of it, no one ever did think of it, apart from the Bible. True, some philosophers had three-fold sets of principles. Plato had the world of Ideas, the Demiurge, and chaotic Space. But this is not a tri-personal divine being. Plotinus has something similar. He spoke of the One, the Ideas, and the Soul. But he also had a Logos and a lower world. The whole was continuous. There is no tri-personal supreme being. Plotinus’s One does not think and cannot know. Neo-Platonism is not at all similar to Trinitarian Christianity.”

Propitiation

Pages 49-50: “Even the covenant with Noah, which the dispensationalists try to reduce to politics, and in which they see no reference to the Atonement, speaks of placating an angry God. This idea is obscured in the King James version, and the American version as well. These translations say that God smelled a sweet odor. But the Koehler-Baumgartner lexicon (the latest lexicon at this writing) gives just one meaning to the Hebrew word transliterated niychoach: appeasement (Beschwichtigung). The “smell of appeasement” then means the placating odor. See also the verbal usage in Ezekiel 5:13, “I will appease my anger.” Hence the correct translation of Genesis 8:20-21 is, “And Noah builded an altar unto the Lord… and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And the Lord smelled the placating odor.” Thus anticipations of Christ’s sacrifice in the Old Testament and explanations of his sacrifice in the New agree that he was the propitiation for our sins. He turned aside God’s wrath and anger which we deserved.”

Scripture and Inerrancy, Science and Operationalism

Pages 57-58: “It seems to me that a misunderstanding of science at this point has led the author into a misunderstanding of the Bible. If the Bible contradicts itself, as clearly as the wave theory contradicts the corpuscular theory, we will be forced to abandon the Bible. No one in his right mind can believe contradictions. In fact, if the antinomy is as he says it is, God himself is faced with an insoluble puzzle. And if something is insoluble for God, then God cannot be trusted. Packer tells us that God has given us this antinomy and if he has given it to us, is that not enough? Cannot we trust God? The answer is that we cannot trust contradictions and insoluble antinomies, no matter who gives them to us. If someone told me to believe that the number two was both even and odd, I would conclude that this someone was not God. God, anyone I could not think of as God, does not talk nonsense, and insoluble antinomies are nonsense. They are just as much nonsense as it would be to say that the path of a point equidistant from a given point has three right angles along it.

But if we see what modern science can do with its two theories of light, and if we pay just a little attention to sovereignty and responsibility, these unfortunate consequences never arise. The laws of science should not be considered as intended descriptions of natural motions. They should not be considered as directions for operating in a physics laboratory. They are methods for producing desired results. This in brief is The Philosophy of Science and Belief in God. It is always possible to use either of two mutually exclusive methods for producing the same desired result. To cure milk fever in cows, one may use the antiseptic lugol, or one may use compressed air. Both work satisfactorily. Hence, in manipulating light, a physicist may use either one; or if for a particular purpose the two are not equally satisfactory, for lugol cannot do everything compressed air can do and vice versa, the physicist can use for one purpose and the other for another.”

Language and Internal Relations

Page 66: “There are many who in that day will say to Christ, Lord, Lord. And he will profess, I never knew you. Thus, clearly, a verbal profession of Lord is not saving faith. One must understand what the term Lord means. Further, as has already been pointed out, the name Jesus must be correctly apprehended. Confess that the Jesus of Strauss, Renan, or Schweitzer is Lord, and you will go to hell.”

The Cause of Faith

Page 77: “How God gives a man faith is very easily explained. God gives a dead sinner faith just the way Jesus made dead Lazarus come out of the tomb. Just as God said, Let there be light, and there was light. That is all the how there is. It is an act of omnipotence: the exceeding greatness of his might power which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead.”

The Nature of Faith:

Choice and Assent; Volitional, Decisional, Obedient

Page 76: “Faith certainly involves an act of will. It is the decision to believe what one understands.”

Page 79:”But often evidence, witnesses, and historical documents are mistaken. Shall I believe them in this case? The evidence does not compel belief, but I may choose to believe, or I may choose not to believe.”

Page 81: “What is needed for saving faith is God’s gracious act of giving him the power to will. When God gives him this power, he will assent, believe, and exercise faith. Faith indubitably is the gift of God. It is the gift of voluntary assent. That an unregenerate man cannot believe does not contradict any of this.”

Page 83: “I regret Calvin, a giant among pygmies, said that assent comes from the heart and not the head. This distinction is unscriptural; the Bible nowhere opposes heart to head, for it does not mention this “head.” Naturally assent comes from the heart because all psychological actions of a person come from the heart. There is nothing else for them to come from.

Aside from this unfortunate slip, Calvin proceeds to say that assent is the obedience of faith. Clearly obedience is a matter of volition. Assent then is an act of will. No pious additions are necessary, for the assent itself is already pious.”

Page 85: “Even the intellectual work of coming to understand a sentence requires assent and volition. It does not require assent to the truth of the sentence in question; but it requires a voluntary act of attention, and assent to the truth of other propositions by which its meaning is uncovered. One of the important points to keep in mind is the object of assent in different contexts. The person who does not assent to the Gospel, the persecutor Saul for example, must assent to propositions regarding the Hebrew or Greek usage of the word Lord, if he is to understand “Jesus is Lord,” and react with a persecutor’s zeal.”

Page 86: “Hodge, however, continues, “But if the question be, What is the act or state of mind which is required in the Gospel, when we are commanded to believe, the answer is very difficult.”

How can it be very different? If faith generically is intelligent assent, every species of faith must be also.”

Assurance

Page 91: “Just because a person believes that he is saved is an insufficient reason for thinking that he is saved. It may be suggested for sober consideration whether or not those who are most easily assured of salvation are least likely to be saved.

Nevertheless, in spite of all hypocrisy and self-deception, it is possible to have assurance.”

Page 94: “Without minimizing the other items in this list, it is well to emphasize knowledge. If one wishes assurance, he will try to increase his knowledge. Knowledge is mentioned trice in the section. Therefore, if one wishes assurance that he is regenerated, let him ask himself, Do I study the Scripture? How much of it do I know? Some people know so very little; some people believe so very little; some evangelists must have so very little assurance.”

The Mode of Baptism

Page 106: “In Daniel 4:33, i.e, LXX 4:30, one of the Greek words used to say that Nebuchadnezzar was wet with dew is baptizo. I can hardly think that this was immersion. Mark 7:4 says that couches were baptized. It seems to me that this means they were washed. In Hebrews 9:10, 13, 19, 21, the several baptisms (King James, washings) were done by sprinkling. In I Corinthians 10:2 the Israelites were baptized, but the Egyptians were immersed. Similarly in I Peter 3:21, Noah was baptized, but the wicked were immersed.”

Transmission

Page 108: “A scribe might make a few mistakes in copying the Word of God, but we would still have substantially the Word of God. The difference is between a correct copy of error and a slightly incorrect copy of truth. I cannot agree that the latter is useless.”

The Theological Necessity of A Priori Divine Revelation

Page 108: “I begin with a question, the basic question. Is there a God? If there is, can I know Him? My answer to this question, If there is a God, I cannot know it unless He tells me about Himself. I can study His doing, Nature; but what shall my conclusion about God be? That He is kind and benevolent? Or that Nature is vicious and careless? I think it is obvious that whatever I see in Nature, and whichever I emphasize, will be for reasons of personal experience and inclination.”

Pages 111-112: “It would seem from several things you say that there are a number of statements in the Bible that contradict your world-view. In fact, you immediately suggest that you would not accept this or that if it contradicted your total experience. Hence, in answer to my question in my last letter, How do you decide to accept some of the Bible’s statements and reject others? You answer that you test the Bible by your experience; you do not accept something as true, just because the Bible says it. But you develop a criterion from experience and measure the Bible by that criterion.

In your total experience you are reading the Bible. You say, “It tells me there is a God… It tells me God revealed himself… It tells me of a Resurrection.” But if you do not accept the truth of propositions on the basis of the Bible’s assertion, you cannot accept these points without confirmation from experience.”

Recognition of the Scope of the Canon

Page 113: “But if there is a revelation, there can be no criterion for it. God cannot swear by a greater; therefore he has sworn by himself. One cannot ask one’s own experience to judge God and determine whether God tells the truth or not. Consider Abraham. How could Abraham be sure that God commanded him to sacrifice Isaac? Maybe this suggestion was of the devil; maybe it was a queer auto-suggestion. There is no higher answer to this question than God himself. The final criterion is merely God’s statement. It cannot be tested by any superior truth.”

Science and the Importance of Opinion

I've noted before that opinion is important because it can, for instance, function as a means by which "problems with various epistemologies or one's own epistemology may be introduced [to oneself]." As it so happens, opinion also very nearly plays as important a role in practical theology as does knowledge.

Gordon Clark and Scripturalists in general are more well-known for refutations of false views of the role of science than for a positive presentation of what the role of science in a Christian world-view really is. To be fair, Clark promoted what he called Operationalism in his Philosophy of Science and Belief in God, in which he wrote that science ought to be regarded as "an attempt to utilize nature for our needs and wants" rather than "a way to any knowledge."

In my latest post, I in part tried to establish that whether or not a work is good hinges upon one's intentions. Intentions with respect to what? What one opines - not necessarily knows - is the case. How does one come to opine what is the case? By God's ultimate, determinative purpose, to be sure, but the means through which ideas are mediated may vary.

Example: to know the meaning of a sign of the covenant we must know Scripture, but the point at which the application of the sign enters into the equation, it is at that point that we must simply believe that it is being administered properly. That is something we opine, not know. I think I saw water and felt sprinkled on me by an ordained minister according to the Trinitarian forumla, but I would not water down the philosophical definition of knowledge as I would have to just so I could say I know such was the case. Regardless, that we do not know it does not mean our belief in the idea it was validly administered can be an instance of disobedience.

As we think, so we are. God has determined our thoughts - our opinions and our knowledge; our responsibility is to intentionally act on those thoughts in a godly manner, and such does not depend on the possibility of empirical knowledge. I may by science come to believe something upon which I must accordingly choose. What is important in the realm of practical theology is the intention of the choice [made on the basis of my belief], not whether or not my belief is true.

Some notes on Jesus' baptism

Purpose

Against the backdrop of John’s baptism for repentance, it does seem so strange that he should have asked Jesus why He should be baptized by him. I can recall from years ago having been asked why Jesus’ baptism was “the fitting way for [John and Jesus] to fulfill all righteousness,” and unfortunately, my answer was superficial. By wishing little more than to defend the truth that Jesus had nothing of which to repent, I gave what I believed was an answer which sufficiently defended that and in so doing no doubt left the questioner with a feeling of something to be desired. This post and ones which may follow it are products recent study on the subject of baptism and attempt to rectify that deficient answer as well as serve as an indication, for future reference, that baptism is inseparable from [biblical] history.

Comments by Kline

Christ’s baptism is one of those topics in which the problem is too much rather than too little information – to see the significance of Christ’s baptism requires not only a knowledge of redemptive history but also insight as to the way in which it is interwoven. In essence, the problem is knowing where to begin. As much as I dislike quoting authors, since I would rather show that I understand the content of their works by using my own words, in this case, I think I must make an exception. Therefore, I begin by citing Meredith Kline’s By Oath Consigned (pgs. 58-62), wherein he very ably strings together some observations regarding Christ’s baptism and covenant judgment worth mentioning:

//…As covenant Servant, Jesus submitted in symbol to the judgment of the God of the covenant in the waters of baptism. But for Jesus, as the Lamb of God, to submit to the symbol of judgment was to offer himself up to the curse of the covenant. By his baptism Jesus was consecrating himself unto his sacrificial death in the judicial ordeal of the cross. Such an understanding of his baptism is reflected in Jesus’ own reference to his coming passion as a baptism: “I have a baptism to be baptized with” (Lk. 12:50; cf. Mk. 10:38). Jesus’ symbolic baptism unto judgment appropriately concluded with a divine verdict, the verdict of justification expressed by the heavenly voice and sealed by the Spirit’s anointing, Messiah’s earnest of the kingdom inheritance (Matt. 3:16, 17; Mk. 1:10, 11; Lk. 3:22; cf. Jn. 1:32, 33; Ps. 2:7f.). This verdict of sonship was contested by Satan, and that led to the ordeal by combat between Jesus and Satan, beginning with the wilderness temptation immediately after Jesus’ baptism and culminating in the crucifixion and resurrection-vindication of the victorious Christ, the prelude to his reception of all the kingdoms of the world (the issue under dispute in the ordeal; cf. esp. Matt. 4:8ff.; Lk. 4:5ff.).

Further background for Jesus’ conceptualizing of his sufferings as a water ordeal (and at the same time an additional antecedent for John’s introduction of a water rite symbolic of judicial ordeal) is found in those supplicatory Psalms in which the righteous servant pleads for deliverance from overwhelming waters. Of particular interest is Psalm 69, from which the New Testament draws so deeply in its explication of the judicial sufferings of Christ: “I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me.... Let not the waterflood overflow me, neither let the deep swallow me up” (vv. 2b, iSa; cf. vv. 1, 2a, 14)... The suppliant Jonah found it possible to make literal use of this terminology of water ordeal in his appeal from the depths, and Jesus saw in Jonah’s trial by water the sign of his own judgment ordeal in the heart of the earth (Jon. 2:2ff. [1ff.]; Matt. 12:39, 40)…

Conclusions: John the Baptist was sent as a messenger of the Old Covenant to its final generation. His concern was not to prepare the world at large for the coming of Christ but to summon Israel unto the Lord to whom they had sworn allegiance at Sinai, ere his wrath broke upon them and the Mosaic kingdom was terminated in the flames of messianic judgment. The demand which John brought to Israel was focused in his call to baptism. This baptism was not an ordinance to be observed by Israel in their generations but a special sign for that terminal generation epitomizing the particular crisis in covenant history represented by the mission of John as messenger of the Lord’s ultimatum.

From the angle of repentance and faith, John’s ultimatum could be seen as a gracious invitation to the marriage feast of the Suzerain’s Son; and John’s baptism, as a seal of the remission of sins. Bright with promise in this regard was Jesus’ submission to John’s baptism. For the passing of Jesus through the divine judgment in the water rite in the Jordan meant to John’s baptism what the passing of Yahweh through the curse of the knife rite of Genesis 15 meant to Abraham’s circumcision. In each case the divine action constituted an invitation to all recipients of these covenant signs of consecration to identify themselves by faith with the Lord himself in their passage through the ordeal. So they might be assured of emerging from the overwhelming curse with a blessing. Jesus’ passage through the water ordeal with the others who were baptized in the Jordan was also one in meaning with the Lord’s presence with Israel in the theophany pillar during the passage through the Red Sea, and in the ark of the covenant during their crossing of the Jordan. And the meaning of all these acts of the Lord of the covenant is expressed in the promise: “But now thus saith the Lord that created thee, 0 Jacob, and he that formed thee, 0 Israel, Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine. When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee. For I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour” (Isa. 43:1-3a).

Viewed from a more comprehensive vantage point, John’s baptism was a sign of the ordeal through which Israel must pass to receive a judgment of either curse or blessing…

By his message and baptism John thus proclaimed again to the seed of Abraham the meaning of their circumcision. Circumcision was no guarantee of inviolable privilege. It was a sign of the divine ordeal in which the axe, laid unto the roots of the unfruitful trees cursed by Messiah, would cut them off (Matt. 3:10; Lk. 3:9). John’s baptism was in effect a recircumcising.//

Point of Interest

- John’s choice to baptize in the Jordan River itself has redemptive historical significance, since it is immediately upon crossing it that the Israelites who were baptized through the waters of the Red Sea were required by God to circumcise those who were born in the wilderness wandering, after which God is said to have “rolled away the reproach of Egypt” from them (Joshua 5:1-9). This, I believe, coupled with the facts that Jesus’ death is itself referred to as a baptism and a circumcision (Mark 10:38, Colossians 2:11) and that Christ’s baptism in the Jordan river itself pointed to His crucifixion, as will be shown in what follows, strengthens Kline’s contention that John’s baptism was a re-circumcision.

- Jesus’ death and subsequent resurrection is that to which believers are united by spiritual regeneration, the metonymic reference of baptism and circumcision (Colossians 2:11-12, cf. Deuteronomy 30:6, Romans 6:3-11). A reason Christ’s death is referred to as a baptism and circumcision is that Christ’s baptism was a consecration unto His actual participation in the ordeal, similar to Yahweh’s covenant in Genesis 15 that He would bear the covenant curse (Jeremiah 34:18-20) should He fail to deliver with regards to His promises entailed in the Abrahamic covenant, a covenant ratified in Genesis 17 by the sign of circumcision and confirmed by God’s oath in Genesis 22 (cf. Hebrews 6:13-18).

- One becomes a child of Abraham – not because he has fulfilled the law – but because he has been baptized in Christ’s crucifixion-baptism-circumcision (cf. Galatians 3-4). One is cut off from the covenant community when the sign of the covenant is not applied to him, because to reject that to which the sign refers would require that he bear what Christ bears in the stead of believers: excommunication (Isaiah 53:8, Jeremiah 11:19). One is united to Christ – and, hence, to the rest of the invisible church – in regeneration, so it is only sensible that one is united to the visible church by means of the sign of regeneration – in this period of redemptive history, baptism.

- The crucifixion-baptism of He by whom all things hold together constituted an end of one epoch and the beginning of another. Indeed, one of the realities baptism symbolizes is an epochal shift (cf. 2 Peter 3:5-13) – a new creation, as it were. Such shifts, since the first creation, are accompanied by judgment (e.g. Genesis 9:11, Luke 12:49-51, cf. Psalm 18:4, 16, 42:7, 69:1-2, Isaiah 8:7-8, Jonah 2:3-6) as well as blessing. The signs accompanying these shifts are similar too (Genesis 9:12-17, Ezekiel 1:27-28, Revelation 10:1). The flood-baptism marked the first epochal shift since creation, and was therefore a new creation; the flood cleansed the earth from sin analogous to the way in which God “blots” out one’s iniquities through the washing of regeneration. The fire-baptism marks the last epochal shift, wherein all unbelievers will be burned for their sin as opposed to the sin associated with believers which will be burned, enabling the believer to stand pure and glorified in the midst of the new Eden, the culmination of the new creation. That which ties these epochal shifts together by having ushered in the last days is Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection signified by His baptism.

- Just as Christ received the Holy Spirit in His baptism, He purchased the graces and merits necessary for the salvation of those for whom He died by His crucifixion-baptism, both of which are applied to those people for whom Christ died by the Holy Spirit at the time of the Father’s choosing through regeneration, a signification of our baptism. As such, Christ’s baptism truly pointed to the new creation He would institute upon His resurrection from the death to which He was consecrated by His baptism similar to the way in which an individual’s baptism soterically points to new creation: having been united to Christ through the Spirit, Christ is able to act as our federal head and bear the punishment for our sins and become our righteousness.

- From a previous post:

//Christ’s baptism and allusion to the Holy Spirit as a dove in Luke 4:22 may recall one to the hovering Holy Spirit during creation (Genesis 1:2) and subsequent aerial imagery during typological [re]creations (Genesis 8:11, Exodus 13:21-22, Deuteronomy 32:11). The deluge, which was an undoing of creation, enabled Noah and his family to be saved by water (1 Peter 3:20) as were Moses and the Israelites (1 Corinthians 10:1-2) – that is, by waters which could on the occasion of this destruction effect a completely new creation. Baptism puts to death the old by creating the new, which is seen too in soteriological terms as well (Colossians 2:11-15): being dead in sins, God puts to death the old man by the regenerative grace of the always present Holy Spirit, after which the elect individual is immediately raised with Christ unto faith and righteousness (cf. Romans 6:1-4, Galatians 3:27, Ephesians 2:1-6, 1 Peter 3:21-22). In the same way, Christ’s baptism anticipates that He will put to death the old, Adamic means of attaining righteousness, works, by the creation of new means, grace alone (Romans 8:32), which He will purchase for His people by obeying the covenantal stipulations by His own works.//

I would encourage those who are interested in further exploring baptism and biblical theology to check out Kline's book, Fesko's Word, Water, and Spirit, Horton's Introduction to Covenant Theology, and/or Beale's et. al. Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament.