Sorry about misunderstanding you. I am trying to get reading done for class, so barely have time to do this much, let alone read the world’s longest blog discussion (do I exaggerate?)! Anyway, I assumed that you would take a similar position to that of Ligon Duncan, the Presbyterian I am most familiar with (I’m a big fan). Perhaps I will read what you all have here and give it some thought as to how it would be possible. Several difficulties are passing through my head, but I should read you first.

We should set something up.

I think your last comment might show some other readers what I was talking about in my comment on the Fighting article. You misunderstand my (our?) position. We would start a church with you. If you take the time to read through both posts and all the comments, you’d notice that there is a distinct unity exhibited that chooses to honor the greatest command over all petty differences. If you are honest in your statement that you would not call us unbelievers, then it seems at best illogical that you would choose not to join with us to further the cause of Christ. How many separately maintained and named causes does He have?

Well, I need to hop back to my Amazon tab and order the one copy they have left of Jewett’s book before it’s gone. I’m going to read it, though this comment from a customer seems to confirm what I think I’m going to find: “The reason for Dr. Jewett’s approach is clearly that he has made his decision from the beginning. This book reads like he has already made his decision, and whatever it takes, he is GOING to push the round peg into a square hole.”

And my comment was not condescending, or, at least, was not intended to be. It was a joke. I assumed that you would take it in good humor. Perhaps I was wrong. I miss you, Nathan. I would love to see you again.

I think you’re right that we can’t be purely objective in our study, but I find it curious that I originally started studying infant baptism to disprove it. My previous study had led me to a Covenant position, yet Baptist practice was so ingrained in me that I felt I loyally needed to defend it. Imagine my surprise to realize credo-baptism is pretty indefensible from a Covenant position. I have heard seemingly good arguments from credo-covenant Baptists (Bob Hayton, for example), but have discovered major holes upon closer examination.

I am not opposed to reading the book you mentioned. In fact, I’m going to order it right now so I can discover your position. My concern was with the [perceivedly] flippant way you scanned the first (and not as thorough, I might add) half of an important discussion and could only come up with a condescending comment and link to a book. I followed an unrelated discussion on another blog recently that spanned 20 pages of comments. There were many commenters on there that seemed to have read a couple comments here and there and hadn’t even read the original post, yet thought themselves qualified to jump in and “save the day.” I believe this is not the case with you, but it seemed that way at first perusal.

I hope I have not offended and wish that such topics wouldn’t divide Christians and friends like they tend to. As I mentioned in the Fighting comments, paedo-baptism shouldn’t be a dividing issue, but for those of us related to or affiliated with Baptists, it gets more attention than it should. Alas.

I certainly want to affirm that I intended no offense at all. I can see in retrospect that my labeling myself “an un-seminaried intellectual low-life” could have been perceived as a sarcastic attack on seminary students, but I want to assure you that I did not intend it in that way at all. I have nothing but respect for the intense and serious searching of scriptures that is undertaken in such milieus, and I think we should all learn from that example, and be more careful and ardent students of the bible regardless of where we are at. I would be interested in hearing what Jewitt has to say (some of the most influential teachers I’ve had have been on paper alone, so I’m not trying to negate the legitimacy of studying the writings of godly scholars in this generation and generations past), hence the confession of my ignorance of the book you recommend. It was simply an awkward groping after further information. (Thanks for the link to the book in your later comment — I’ll try to peruse it in my spare time.)

As far as the rest — please accept my apology and understand that I was only trying to offer helpful information (however inaptly it came across). I thought you may like to know that the same conversation had been carried on for a few weeks longer, therefore the update on my newer post; and I thought you may be interested in the underlying hermeneutical debate because of your addressal, “you covenant men,” by which I inferred that you were including us in a group sharing an interpretive grid foundational to the eventual outcome of the baptism issue, and at the same time excluding yourself. The misunderstanding is no doubt due to my tendency to assume too much information from a simple comment, and respond to that perceived information without taking time to elaborate my reasons for doing so (as well as a faulty assumption of the nature of the Jewitt book, I might add).

At any rate, I am truly thankful for the helpful pointer to a book of which I had been ignorant, and I would welcome any further discussion on this post or any other. I appreciate your pursuit and dissemination of the knowledge of Christ, and pray that our Father will bless you richly in that end.

With love in our Savior, Nathan

I would commend to all of you that you can neither approach the Bible as objectively as you purport, but, even if you could, I would hope that would interact with those who have gone through these issues before you. Those who have gone before us in the Church of Jesus Christ are not authoritative in telling us what the Scripture says, but certainly helpful in interpreting it, even if you completely disagree with them.

If you ordered the book on-line (with the helpful link I supplied!), you would (feasibly) not have to leave your chair.

Anyway, if Nathan P meant nothing by it, then no harm done here. I will try to “keep it real” (whatever that means).

I read your first negative Star Wars reference and wasn’t sure of your intention with it, so I didn’t reply until you clarified more in your second comment. Please try to keep it real and don’t take offense where none exists.

I understand my words have been much more curt than Pitchford’s and may cause offense. Please consider this more “sharpening iron” then criticism and also realize that most of the commenters on here are much less curt than I.

Somewhat related to this, please read the recent post When Will All The Fighting End?.

I am not sure how to take your remark about being a non-seminarian intellectual low-life. I am getting the feeling, though, that I am being given a bit of a cold welcome. Perhaps I am misreading you. I will at this point hope so.

I do need to inform you that your comment arrives late by several weeks. The discussion has been continued under a more recent post, Credo-Baptism: A Retraction. If you wish to follow the ongoing dialogue, you may do so there.

If you have any discussion related directly to the covenant/dispensational issue, and not merely to the issue as it comes to bear on the question of baptism, several other posts would be more aptly accomodating (e.g. Dispensationalism Archive).

Nathan

Have any of you covenant men read Jewitt’s book yet?

1. I did not use Galatians 3 to indicate that children were members of the New Covenant, but that New Testament believers are members of the Abrahamic Covenant. Yes, it is true that only those who have genuine faith own the essential realities of the new dispensation of the Abrahamic Covenant. But likewise in the old dispensation, only those who had genuine faith partook of essential covenant realities. That did not, however, exclude them from being given the covenant signs, which would later serve as the basis for their condemnation – in fact (as you also pointed out), such non-regenerate personas as Ishmael were commanded to be given the covenant sign. Therefore, the point is, if it was not inappropriate for certain unregenerate persons to be included in a formal sense in the covenant that unilaterally promised God’s blessing and presence under the old dispensation, then it is not out of hand unthinkable for certain unregenerate persons to be formally included in the new dispensation of that same unilateral covenant. More to the point: the old dispensation clearly said that only regenerate persons were included, e.g. when God said without qualification, I will establish my covenant…for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto you, and to your seed after you” (Genesis 17:7). However, immediately after that statement which clearly qualified only the regenerate as members of the covenant, God commands that Ishmael, who would not be included in the previous unilateral statement, be given the sign of this unilateral covenant (Genesis 17:10,11). Therefore, in the new dispensation, exlicit statements that those in the covenant will have their sins forgiven, or that they do believe, etc., do not necessarily rule out the legitimacy of those who do not have those essential covenant realities partking of the sign of the covenant blessings. It would be quite consistent with God’s prior covenant dealings, even in an earlier administration of the very same covenant, to subsume only the regenerate as partakers of the covenant blessings and at the same time command that those who are not partakers of the essential covenant blessings be given the sign of those blessings that they will never truly have.

2. The point in Romans 4:9-12 is similar. There, Paul clearly says that circumcision (the sign of the old administration of the covenant, see Genesis 17:10,11) was a sign and seal of Abraham’s faith. And yet God commanded it to be given to infants. Therefore, no New Testament passage that says that baptism is an expression or sign of faith (Colossians 2, I Peter 3, etc.) can ipso facto rule out the legitimacy of baptism being given to infants. Circumcision was an expression of faith, and yet it was appropriately given to infants.

The previous has just been to discount your positive arguments for credo-baptism, and not to add anything positive to the argument for paedo-baptism. A positive argument would still have to be construed along the lines of my previous syllogism. Let me add some clarifications to that.

1. Luke 18:16,17 does not say that infants were baptized. That is not the point. The point is, that it includes infants of those who believe in Jesus in the set of those who can be said formally (whether or not actually is beside the point) to possess the realities that only those in the New Covenant possess. Any survey of the concept of possessing the kingdom of heaven in the gospels would lead one to the position that such a possession presupposes the new birth (John 3), the forgiveness of sins, the meekness evidencing a new heart, the status as members of the new covenant(cf. also Matthew 5:3,10). In other words, Luke 18 emphatically necessitates that a certain set of infant children of believing parents were indeed new covenant members, i.e. those to whom belongs the kingdom of heaven. Adults who were presently excluded could indeed become members of the same by being given a nature that credulously accepts the realities of the New Covenant as those children who were raised up in its teaching credulously accept them from their childhood. This does not necessitate the regeneration of every New Covenant infant, but at least it establishes a class of infants who are members in the New Covenant, and who may be expected by God’s grace to grow up with a heart of true faith. Anyone else who would join the ranks of the New Covenant people would have to experience a change of heart so that he could be said to hare in common with these infants the trait of credulous acceptance of kingdom truths.

A few more random observations:

1. Chantry’s position on I Corinthians 7 seemed untenable to me; if Paul was simply saying that children of mixed marriages were not bastards, one would have to assert with equal certainty that, in the case of desertion by the unbelieving spouse, the children would become bastards. The reference to the unbelieving spouse being sanctified does not necessitate a view that he/she is thereby included in the New Covenant, but simply that he/she is sanctified with respect to the status of the children. I think you will find that this is the major issue being dealt with. In other words, the presence of a believing spouse sanctifies the marriage union itself so that the children are considered holy covenant children.

2. You say that circumcision is never expressly abrogated: however, circumcision as a sign of the covenant is indeed abrogated. If one wants to be circumcised today for hygenic reasons, to avoid offense in a foreign country, etc., fine. But as soon as he starts to see circumcision as incorporating him into the covenant of grace, we must say with Paul, “If you be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing” (Galatians 5:2).

3. In dealing with the warning passages, you left untouched the passage that seemed the most clear and irrefutable to me: Romans 11.

In conclusion, I don’t see how you have dealt sufficiently with the syllogism I am still grappling with. Children of believing parents are said to be possessors of realities that are to be found only in the New Covenant (e.g. the kingdom of heaven); God commands that those who possess realities that come only in the New Covenant be given the sign of the New Covenant (e.g., Peter’s statement (paraphrased), Because they have received the Holy Spirit (Who comes only within the New Covenant) it is an impossibility to deny them the sign of the New Covenant, i.e. baptism. (Acts 10:47). And Colossians 2 makes manifest that baptism is indeed the sign of the New Covenant.

As you suggested, I am still not ready to commit myself with 100% certainty to the paedo-baptist view; however, I do not feel that the import of the previously mentioned syllogism has been sufficiently dealt with to deny its legitimacy. Further interaction would still be welcome. Thanks again for your thoughts.

Nathan

No Baptist begins to seek an answer to the question “Who should be baptized?” by studying the Bible’s doctrine of the covenants. Rather, he begins with New Testament texts which deal directly with the term “baptize.” In a later study of Covenant Theology, he finds confirmation and undergirding of his conclusions.

This is precisely where Dispensationalists and most Baptists have gone wrong. I commend Pitchford for his commitment to searching the whole of Scripture. Mr. Chantry has admitted that he is taking notions from the New Testament and basing his beliefs strictly on that, and then reading into Covenant Theology support for his claims. This is a rather backwards hermeneutic.

1. What is the olive tree that we are grafted into and can be broken out of if it is not covenant relationship with God? This is not a hypothetical situation. The tares in the wheat analogy cannot apply here, and we know that true believers cannot lose their salvation. What else can this passage mean than that there are covenant partakers who are not regenerate?

2. You seem to focus a lot on the fact that infant baptism is never explicitly commanded, but this is not really the issue here.

Another tidbit I thought of is, how do you substantiate this claim: “You must deal with the fact brought up by the article I link to at the top, that adult sons and servants are required to participate in the old covenant sign, but clearly not required to participate under the new covenant.” I don’t see why these people would not be included in the New Testament provisions of baptizing the household. It may not be common practice, but where are they ever excluded?

Before reading on to read my comments I insist that you read the following succinct article that I believe captures the heart of the previous discussion and concludes on the credo-baptist side (I confess I am unashamedly following Matt Fitzsimmons’ lead in letting others–more qualified than I –present the case so that it may be presented in the most convincing and articulate way).

Some other points I would like to briefly bring up:

1) You (Nathan) use Gen. 17 to add light to Gal. 3 to prove that children are included in the New Covenant, as they were in the old (positing that a class of recipients of the new covenant receive real blessings in the new covenant but are not full partakers thereof). However, what about the fact that Ishamael is expressly excluded from the spiritual blessings of the old covenant in Gen. 17:21 before the first actual circumcisions (of Ishamael also) were performed in vs. 23. Also, Gen. 25:23 in this light has God informing Rebeccah (& Isaac) that one of the sons would not be included in the spiritual provisions of the covenant. Both of these passages are expressly used by Paul in Rom. 9:7-13 to say that there is a personal election relating to faith within the coorporate election relating to external blessings and identification with the covenant people.

2) Further, note that the Abrahamic covenant is expressly defined in the New Testament. Those who are included in the Abrahamic covenant today (“sons of Abraham”) are expressly said to be those who are “of faith” (Gal. 3:7). Rom. 9:8 makes a distinction between the “children of (Abraham’s) flesh” and the “children of the promise”. Now since the covenants clearly have continuity this verse can be seen as defining a reality that has existed since the provision of the Abrahamic covenant (and it is expressly presented as such with the quotes from Gen. and Malachi to prove the present reality under the New Covenant–the era in which Paul penned Romans). This seems to argue against the simplistic view of all old covenant members including unbeleiving children receiving the sign of the old covenant is equal to all new covenant members including children receiving the sign of the new covenant when it is expressly stated that the new covenant corresponds only to part of the participants of the old covenant. From Rom. 9 there are two types of participants in the old covenant, those of flesh, and those of promise/ie. faith. But Rom. 4 (and Gal. 3 and others) expressly state that the new covenant members/those included in Abraham’s covenant are the children of faith/those of faith.

3) Further, notice that Gal. 3:22 concludes with “so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe“! Not to those who believe and their children who presumably will believe sooner or later. Also, I may be wrong but I see an interesting connection between Gal. 3:26 and 27. V. 26 states “you are sons of God through faith…” and v. 27 elaborates, “for all of you who were baptized…have clothed yourselves with Christ”. I see this clearly intimating that faith precedes baptism. Also it is saying something like this: “you all are new covenant members/saved by faith. This is made clear in that each one of you who has been baptized has become part of Christ’s body/identified with Christ as a full heir (the Greek ceremony of being robed when one became a full heir–placed as a son/adopted). But those of you I am writing to who have not yet been baptized have not yet put on Christ.” This is made clear further by the term “all of you” or “every one” so their are no baptized ones who have not fully owned Christ/fully become a partaker of Christ, because all who are baptized are claiming to be fully a partaker of Christ, not merely the adult converts.

4) Also, is not their a difference in the nature of circumcision and the nature of baptism? Circumcision is more presented as something parents do to children, but baptism is never expressly stated as such a rite. Rather baptism is expressly limited to people who profess faith (Acts 8:37 if you admit the TR to be correct there) and Acts 2 and the order in Matt. 28 among other places. Never is circumcision so expressly limited to those who have faith at the time of the act, but rather is specifically limited to those who want merely to identify with the laws and national identity of Israel. Also, baptism is expressly unpacked as far as its spiritual significance. However, often circumcision is contrasted with spiritual circumcision. The act does have symbolic significance but much practical and external significance for the old covenant, but what practical and external significance is there expressly stated for baptism in the new covenant? Also there are passages which come so far as to almost seem to say too much for baptism in identifying it with what it symbolizes. Acts 22:16, Acts 2:38, 1 Pet. 3:20-21, and others could be given which have caused many a Church of Christ convert to be confused as to the symbolic nature of baptism. Such emphatic statements are not to be found concerning circumcision.

Just a few more points and I close.

5) I wanted to briefly comment on the household baptisms, since Matt had brought that up. It is expressly stated that all of Cornelius’ household received the gift of the Spirit signified by tongues prior to baptism. The Phillippian jailor and his household heard the word preached (Acts 16:32) and rejoiced upon conversion (v. 34). The household of Stephanus were labeled the “first converts” (1 Cor. 16:15), and had “dedicated” or “addicted” themselves to ministry (1 Cor. 16:15). These considerations seem to add further weight to the Baptist view of these passages. Also, Lydia is presented as a merchant, and in her culture a married woman would rarely be one. It could be assumed she was unmarried and as is the norm, childless (at least with no infants) and that household refers to her servants. But with the 3 other household conversion testimonies seen to be presented as being composed of people who heard the word, rejoiced, and had evidence of the spirit, converted, and addicted themselves to ministry, this one non-explicit (or rather not so explicit) example could be interpreted by the other examples. Granted this would be an argument from example not from precept and has much less weight, however as Matt has alluded earlier, many paedo-baptists find great comfort in these examples hoping to find Biblical warrant for their beliefs, perhaps.

6) We must also keep in mind as has been mentioned before the clear statements of the New Testament (which most explicitly lays out what the new covenant looks like) on the connection of faith and baptism. Col. 2:12 seems so abundantly clear: “buried…in baptism, in which you were…raised up…through faith in the working of God”. 1 Pet. 3:21 seems to affirm that baptism saves in its being an “appeal to God for a good conscience”/ie. an act of faith as one of the means whereby God completes the salvation of His elect. Also the clear statements in Acts 2:38 and Acts 22:16. Also if joining the covenant community thru baptism is so all important, and making sure believer’s children are, why does Paul make a point that he came to preach the gospel and not baptize in 1 Cor. 1:17?

7) Concerning your unassailable syllogims… (tongue in cheek of course!) Luke 18:17 expressly states that anyone who is to participate in the kingdom must receive it like children receive the kingdom! Acts 2 states what happened, “those who had received his word were baptized”. Also the promise in v. 39 is limited by the phrase “as many as the Lord our God will call”. V. 42 further seems to say all baptized continued in all the visible aspects of church life. Also, in the article I linked to above, the guy makes a very strong point concerning 1 Cor. 7:14. If the unbelieving children are claimed as covenant participants thru the word “holy”, then the unbelieving spouse should be a covenant participant too, thru the word “sanctified” (same word in Greek used as a verb instead of an adjective). Again baptism and church membership are not expressly present in this text. Left with Gal. 3 tied to Gen. 17 and in light of my previous arguments in point 1 above, I think the support for you first point of the syllogism is scanty. I understand the weight of your counter-argument concerning faith with the sign. However, faith is never explicitly required in the provisions of the ordinance of circumcision, whereas faith is explicitly required in the provisions for the ordinance of baptism.

You must deal with the fact brought up by the article I link to at the top, that adult sons and servants are required to participate in the old covenant sign, but clearly not required to participate under the new covenant. Why is it that only infant sons are to be baptized under the new covenant. If servants and adult sons of older adult converts are now not required to partake of baptism, than there is a big discontinuity in the administration/accidence of the signs. Onesimus would be a clear example of a household where a believing master did not see his slave as a partaker of the covenant and thus almost assuredly did not have him baptized. The commands to Masters never state treat your servant as a covenant memeber and make sure he is baptized!

9) As for warning passages… Some commentators do see the Hebrews warning passages as warnings to covenant participants who are not necessarily converted. However, there are very able arguments put forth for at least three other positions which do not necessitate this view. One is that the warnings in Hebrews particularly relate with a situation where members of the old covenant were meeting with those of the new covenant but had not yet thrown off all the ceremonies of the old covenant and had their hope in it. This would be a historically singular point in time which ended when the temple was destroyed, at which time the ease with which Jews could intermingle with Christians and still maintain Jewish worship would be removed. (Could this not account for the fact that James was concerned that some who were in some sense a part of the Jerusalem church would want to have Paul killed, when Paul came to Jerusalem for the last time.) I know this argument seems very close to the argument Matt posits concerning this referring to covenant participants who are not yet regenerate. But there are some other views as well. One is that the warnings are hypothetical and are used as means of grace to help true believers persevere. Another similar argument, is that these are real warnings (of the nature of the warnings Peter gives in his epistles, and Paul gives abundantly in his epistles, about the need to not make shipwreck of faith, not become a castaway, not forsake the faith, etc.) used by the Spirit to sustain endurance in the elect but used as stumblingblocks to seal the fate of those not regenerate, but who are the tares grown up with the wheat. I do not see this argument as necessitating a view that these people experienced benfits of the covenant directly. This is just the reality which will remain until the full fulfillment of Jer. 31 when all of those claiming to be God’s people will be genuinely regenerated. But this reality is in sharp contrast to the old covenant reality of the majority of the covenant community being clearly non-regenerate.

Here are a couple of thoughts that I have not thought through completely.

10) First, what is the significance of Paul’s argument in Rom. 4:9-12 in relation to the paedo-baptistic assertion that all new covenant members are taking the sign of baptism to directly correlate with Abraham’s sign of circumcision.

11) Second, why is it that circumcision is never expressly abrogated? Acts 21:20b thru 22 teaches that many Jews beleived and yet kept the law to such an extent that if Paul had taught Jews to stop circumcizing (as these people thought he did) that they would be outraged. James does not mention that this outrage would be unjust, but seems to imply that he did not think that Paul had so taught. This is after Galatians was written by any conservative account. Gal. 5:2-6 is directed to Gentiles but seems to imply that circumcision is null and void for all after Christ’s death. What is interesting in this is that Acts 21 is possibly 30 years removed from Pentecost, and yet still many Jews are insisting on maintaining both covenant signs! If new testament infant baptism so naturally flows from old covenant infant circumcision, why does such a large factor of believers insist on partaking of both signs for 30 years or more after the proclamation of the apostle’s gospel??? If it be further argued, that Hebrews’ arguments concerning the putting away of the old covenant for the new and “better” covenant of Christ would be seen as to imply that circumcision too should be done away, then that puts us back to argueing that circumcision should be seen as part of the old covenant particularly, or to say it the other way, the old covenant is seen to include the external elements of the Abrahamic covenant as well as the Mosaic covenant. Col. 3:11 is dogmatic, national distinctions do not matter now, we are one in Christ. That would seem to argue that the spiritual reality always in some sense embodied by the Messianic and spiritual promises included in both the Abrahamic and Mosaic covenants is the primary correlation to the new covenant, and that the new covenant should not be seen as having a defined and clear external element to it as the old Abrahamic and Mosaic covenants did.

I believe I have gone on long enough. Sorry to tax the ears (or eyes!) of you who have already thought through most of this. But for me, this seems like many reasons not to abandon credo-baptism for paedo-baptism. I do want to be open to having God lead me to accept the truth, no matter what it is. I do welcome any clarifying questions or premise-shattering arguments. Thanks.

That’s a good question: obviously, if we’re actually reading things into the scripture at all, that can be dangerous. Hopefully, no matter where we stand on the issue, we’re doing our best to empty our minds of preconceived notions so that the scriptures alone are forming our opinions. In other words, although no one does this perfectly, we should avoid reading into the scriptures anything at all.

But that’s a little different from saying we should never come to embrace a truth from scriptures unless we have one or more texts which, in themselves, clearly teach that truth. It is a necessary part of bible study to compare scripture with scripture: to say, “Because this verse says one thing (a) and this verse says another thing (b) I can arrive at a biblical teaching (c) which no one verse explicitly says. For example, there are verses that say that adultery is a sin (a); and there are verses where Jesus says that if a man lusts after a woman, he has commited adultery with her in his heart (b); conflating the two, we can arrive at the scripturally certain truth, to lust after a woman is a sin (c), even if we can find no clear passages that say this explicitly. Coming to an understanding that conflates scriptures in this manner is an indispensable part of theology: it is where we get the orthodox formulation of the Trinity, how we arrive at the permissibility of women partaking in the Lord’s Supper, and so on. Just because we have no clear NT examples of women partaking of the Lord’s supper does not mean that this practice is illegitimate. Just because we have no verse saying there is one God who eternally exists in three persons does not mean that this is untrue. So the question is, “Do we have legitimate reasons to compare scripture with scripture and arrive at infant baptism, in spite of the absence of clear NT examples?” Initially, I was thinking, “No.” However, this dialogue is starting to convince me of some biblical truths that, when conflated, do indeed lead to that practice (for those truths, see my last comment).

As far as the other question, “What [are] the benefits or blessings…to infant baptism?”. we certainly would agree that no saving grace is conferred upon the child by the baptism. The main reason for doing it would be that God commands that the members of the covenant be given the sign of the covenant, but not to try to merit favor, necessitate salvation, or anything like that.

The basic Reformed teaching is that the ordinances (sacraments) of the covenant (baptism and the Lord’s Supper in the New Testament) are signs and seals of God’s covenant grace. When God promises covenant blessings, he is pleased to give us a picture of what those blessings are, something tangible that we can look to and “see” covenant realities that cannot actually be seen. Hence they are a sign. They are also a seal; they are like God putting his authentic signature on the promises he has given us, confirming them indisputably. For example, God promised he would not destroy the earth with a flood, then, to confirm his word he gave us the sign of that promise in the rainbow. Every time we see a rainbow in the sky, we can assure ourselves that God has inviolably sealed this blessing as ours. The rainbow, and also baptism and the Lord’s supper, are like the signatures on the check of covenant blessings God has given to us. Therefore, they serve to build up and confirm our faith. When these covenant signs are not met with true faith, they do not convey covenant blessings by themselves — many baptized men will go to hell — but for true believers, their faith is made more sure and they are enabled to persevere when they remember that they have indeed partaken of the covenant realities, when they experience the covenant signs, God’s inviolable seals of grace to them.

I hope this explains a little more fully some of the “understood elements” of our discussion — things we hadn’t brought up because both parties were assuming the same basic point of view on the parts of one another. Thanks for your comments and questions. If you have anymore questions, or if the Spirit brings anything to your mind from scriptures that we have not yet considered, please continue the dialogue.

Love in our Savior, Nathan