The Church and Infant Baptism, Part 5

Acts 9:31-16:5 Baptism

In the fifth part of his series on "The Church and Infant Baptism," Pastor Albert N. Martin continues to argue for the incompatibility of infant baptism with the biblical doctrine of the Church. He focuses on the religious and spiritual experience of the Church, surveying numerous New Testament passages from Acts, 1 Corinthians, and Galatians to demonstrate that the Church is consistently described as a body of converted, believing individuals who have experienced God's grace, received the Holy Spirit, and are characterized by faith, love, and a radical breach with sin. Martin emphasizes that while the Church is composed of genuine believers, it is also a reality marked by indwelling sin, immaturity, and the constant danger of falling into error, necessitating faithful pastoral oversight and vigilance.

1 illustration in this sermon

Illustration: Distinguishing Traits of a Tire

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Distinguishing Traits of a Tire

In this part of the sermon: Martin uses the analogy of identifying a tire by its distinguishing traits (round, hole, black, rubber, mounts on rim, treads) to explain how the Bible's cumulative descriptions…

Martin lists traits (round, hole, black, rubber, mounts on rim, treads) to identify a tire, demonstrating that while some traits might fit other objects (doughnut, bagel, boots), the full set of distinguishing traits uniquely identifies the tire. This illustrates how the cumulative biblical descriptions of the Church uniquely define it as a body of believers, excluding infants.

You know what distinguishing traits are? Well, I hope that you do. But I have a little illustration this morning about distinguishing traits. And what I would like to do is I'd like to list out the distinguishing traits of a given object and then you can tell me what the object is.

4:06 - 4:24 Read in full sermon

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