The New Covenant and Paedobaptism (Sam Waldron)

Introduction: The Reformed Baptist Manifesto and the New Covenant

0:00 Before we commence the exposition of the Word of God, let us pray together. Father, we thank you that once again on the appointed day, in the appointed place, with your own inspired Word before us, we are called to listen to, to think seriously about your Word. We ask that we all together might be willing to give that effort, that mental diligence that's necessary to search your Scriptures, because in them is eternal life, to search them for hid treasures, that we might find those treasures and be spiritually enriched thereby. And so, Lord, we ask for your people these blessings, and we ask for those without, that your own Spirit might come upon them, and rivet their hearts and minds upon that Word, and show them that... ...the application that it has to their very real needs.

1:00 We come and ask these things in the name of Him who is the last and second Adam, the one who died as our representative, as our head, and as that was raised again from the dead, and who ever lives to make intercession, and one day to make all things new. We thank you for this. We give these prayers to you in Jesus' name. Amen.

1:25 Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

1:37 Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

1:38 Amen. In the first three expositions of the new covenant constitution of the church, I have been announcing to you, whether you knew it or not, a manifesto or agenda for what it means to be a reformed church. And we saw first that a church reformed in accordance to God's holy word is one which rejects the dispensationalism of the church. In the second place, a reformed church, we saw, believes that the moral law, as summarized in the Ten Commandments, is the perpetual rule for the conduct, of God's people.

2:42 A biblically reformed church, therefore, does not separate law and grace, and rejects antinomianism, or anti-lawism, as unbiblical. In our third message, two weeks ago, Sunday morning, we saw that the origination, or building, of the church of Christ is owed to the sovereignty, of God alone. The church of Christ is not built, ultimately, on the grounds of free will. It is built on the power and grace of a sovereign and almighty God.

3:24 And the reformed church, therefore, rejects Arminianism in its totality.

3:33 But this morning, we move from accenting that word reformed on our wall out there, and soon to be on our sign, to that, that word baptist, which is on our outside wall and soon to be on our sign. And we move to saying that it is crucial that we be a church reformed according to the provisions of the New Covenant, and therefore, that it is necessary for us to be a Baptist church if we would be a thoroughly New Covenant church. And so I am asserting, I am asserting that the New Covenant is the constitution of Christ's church, and that that constitution requires that the church be what we would call in the 20th century a Baptist church. Now, as with each of the other messages, I will be developing this truth in specific contrast to a false ism. Though not exclusively, yet primarily the ism with which I will be interacting today is to that the Bible says baptism is that he is the Father, this is a perfect example of baptism. I am not called a Baptist, but I am called a Christian that is the Father.

Addressing Paedobaptist Arguments and the Unity/Discontinuity of Covenants

4:50 So I am squirrel, that is a the revision in the New Covenant. This is the vision of baptism in Looks like this. It says, Peter the Baptist said, Peter, I'm the one who is the son of the Father. And Peter, I am the son of the Son, and I am the son of the Son.

5:05 And Peter the Baptist said, I am the Son, the Son of the Father, and the Son of the Son, I am the Son of the Son, the Son of the Son, and the Son of the Son, that I have raised the prejudices and perhaps even the hostility of some. Let me ask, therefore, any who may be in such a class here this morning to do me a very simple favor. All I desire is a fair hearing for the Word of God. I have no intention of doing anything this morning but expounding and applying the Word of God.

5:44 And, my dear brother or sister, no Christian has anything to fear from the Word of God.

5:54 Let me also say this.

5:57 Pedobaptism, I acknowledge, has been taught by many revered fathers in the Christian faith. Yea, it has been taught by many whom I would acknowledge as my own teachers in the things of God. And in attacking this doctrine, I am not attacking the characters or the stature of such men. In pointing out the serious practical dangers associated with pedobaptism, I am not accusing them of knowingly making the church vulnerable to such dangers.

6:30 I acknowledge, let me make it very plain, many pedobaptists as beloved brethren in the Lord. But now that having been said, there's another necessary word of introduction. Many Christians today are Baptist. Probably the majority of evangelical Christians in the United States of America are Baptist.

6:55 It's a very unusual situation historically. But many Christians today, in our country at least, are Baptist. But they are Baptist in much ignorance. They have never been acquainted with the way in which some Bible-believing Christians argue for the practice of baptizing babies.

7:14 They may even assume, like, I think some people did in the church I grew up in, that all baby baptizers hold with the Roman Catholic Church that baptism regenerates a person and that we practice it because of the authoritative tradition of the church. Well, let me make it very plain to you that such an assumption is simply wrong. Let me therefore acquaint you with the way in which some attempt to argue from the Bible. For the practice of baptizing babies.

7:52 Now, it's interesting that many, if not most, pedobaptists openly admit that there is no clear New Testament example of an infant being baptized. They do not, at any rate, rest the burden of their case on the New Testament at all. Rather, they argue on the basis of the right of circumcision. They say that since babies, were circumcised in the Old Testament, babies should be baptized in the New Testament.

8:26 And since we are not to sever the Old Testament from the New Testament, since as Reformed Christians we believe that the Bible is one book, babies should be, after the example of the Old Testament is real, baptized into Christ's church. In other words, since babies were circumcised members of God's Israel, in the Old Testament, they should be baptized members of the new Israel in the New Testament. Now, to one familiar with the Bible, such arguments may have a certain plausibility, an apparently biblical appeal. But what is the proper response, therefore, to such arguments? Well, let me tell you first what the proper response is not. The response must not be to deny all that we said in the first message about the unity of the church in Israel, the unity of the Old Testament and the New Testament. That would be dispensationalism, and any informed and instructed Reformed Christian will properly dismiss such a dispensational response to the argument for paedobaptism.

9:40 For my part, I have no desire or need to deny that the church is the new Israel of God, or that there are certain parallels between circumcision and baptism. Now, the proper response to the traditional Reformed argument for infant baptism is this. It is to say that just as there is a basic unity between the old Israel and the new Israel and the old and new covenants, so also there is in the same way an important difference between them. Unity is not the whole story.

10:23 Continuity between the old covenant and the new covenant is not the whole story. Similarity is not the whole story. And therefore, paedobaptism cannot simply rest its case on the unity of the Bible and of the divine covenants. As there are similarities, so also there are crucial dissimilarities between God's covenants.

10:53 As there is continuity, so also there is discontinuity between these two covenants. And it is intensely significant that in the only passage in the Old Testament which explicitly compares the old and new covenants, the emphasis is not on their unity and their sameness. It is upon their differences and their contrast. That passage you know by now is Jeremiah chapter 31.

11:29 Please turn there. Jeremiah chapter 31 and follow as I read verses 31 through 34, the terms, as here stated, of the new covenant. Behold, days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. My covenant which they broke although I was a husband to them, declares the Lord. But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord. I will put my law within them and on their heart I will write it and I will be their God and they shall be my people.

The Emphasized Dissimilarity of the New Covenant

12:46 And they shall not teach again each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity and their sin I will remember no more. Now in opening up this, the New Covenant Constitution of the Church, we will notice three things of significance for the identity of the Church and the question of paedobaptism. And so we're coming to under part two of our studies of the New Covenant Constitution of the Church to Roman numeral three, the New Covenant and the membership of the Church and we have three points under that Roman numeral three. The emphasized, dissimilarity of the New Covenant, the precise superiority of the New Covenant and the ultimate fulfillment of the New Covenant. First of all, A, then, is the emphasized dissimilarity of the New Covenant. When one reads the standard paedobaptist arguments for infant baptism, for example, those of A. A. Hodge

14:08 or Louis Burckhoff, one quickly notices that they lay all the stress on the oneness or the similarity of the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. They are identical, we are told. They simply substitute, their word, for baptism in place of circumcision. And in those arguments for paedobaptism, the differences between these two covenants are minimized to the vanishing point.

14:40 But in striking contrast, Jeremiah 31 emphasizes the contrast, the difference, the dissimilarity of the two covenants. That's emphasized in verse 31 when God says the days are coming when I will make a new covenant with my people. And verse 32, that's emphasized when it is said, not like the Old Covenant, the Old Covenant. And that's emphasized as well in Hebrews chapter 8.

15:15 Look at verses 7 and 8 in this New Testament comment upon Jeremiah 31. Hebrews 8, verse 7 and verse 8. And then I want you to look as well at verse 13. Notice how the difference and the contrast between the two covenants is the point of the author.

15:42 For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion sought for a second for finding fault with them, he says, and then we have the quotation of Jeremiah 31. And then verse 13, when he said a new covenant, he has made the first obsolete, but whatever is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to disappear. Now language could not make more evident the fact that both Jeremiah and the author of the epistle to the Hebrews are emphasizing the differences and contrast between the Old and New Covenant. Yes, underneath and assumed in those differences and contrasts are certain points of continuity and similarity. But surely it's evident that the first covenant is here described as faulty, and the second covenant is here described as faultless. Surely it's evident that the first covenant is passing away to give way to a second covenant different than itself.

16:53 Surely at least that much is evident. You see already, this clear and obvious dimension of Jeremiah 31 raises profound suspicions that Peter Baptist are guilty of an imbalance and extreme stress on the unity of the covenant of grace at the expense of the differences between the divine covenants and particularly at the expense of what the Bible plainly teaches about the superiority of the new covenant. And that brings us to our second point, b, the precise superiority of the new covenant. Jeremiah 31's summary of the new covenant does not, thankfully, stop with a general assertion that the new covenant is different. It goes on to tell us specifically how the new covenant is better or superior as compared to the old. But now here we confront a difficulty.

The Precise Superiority of the New Covenant: 'They Shall All Know Me'

18:09 Because at first glance when we look at Jeremiah 31, at those things that are said to be new about the new covenant, there seems to be nothing new at all. Each of the three distinctive blessings mentioned in verses 33 and 34 are blessings which saints in the Old Testament and under the old covenant possessed. The law, it is said, in this new covenant will be written in the hearts of my people. That is what this new covenant will consist in.

18:48 No longer written in stone, but now in the hearts of my people. But the problem is that the Old Testament asserts very plainly that certain believers under the Old Testament did indeed have God's law written in their hearts. Look at Psalm 37. Psalm 37 and verse 31.

19:07 Here, speaking of the righteous man of whom there were a number around, no doubt, in the land of Israel at that day, we read, the mouth of the righteous, verse 30, utters wisdom and his tongue speaks justice. And why does that happen? Why is it that from out of the mouth there is this wisdom and this righteousness? Well, it's because out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks, verse 31 of Psalm 37, the law of his God is in his heart, his steps do not slip.

19:51 You see, the text is teaching what we saw in our second message, that God has put his law where it can control the affections and convictions of these people and therefore their steps don't slip and therefore what they say is different from the unrighteous people around them. The law was written in the hearts of Old Covenant saints. At least that does not seem to be new about the New Covenant. But Jeremiah 31 goes on to say that they shall not teach again every man his neighbor saying, know the Lord, for they shall all know me.

20:31 Is it that the knowledge of God is the new thing about the New Covenant? But again we confront this difficulty because in the Old Testament the people of God knew the Lord. They had the knowledge of Jehovah. This is implied in a text like Psalm 9 and verse 10.

20:53 It's also implied, I might tell you, in the text upon which one of our hymns was based. God is known among his people, Psalm 76, 1. But it's also implied here in Psalm 9 and verse 10. And those who know thy name, just another way of speaking about knowing God, will put their trust in thee for thou knowest and thou, O Lord, hast not forsaken those who seek thee.

21:22 There are those in the Old Covenant who knew the Lord. That knowledge of God was there in Judah as Psalm 76, 1 implies. And of course, this is plainly taught in such a text as 1 Samuel chapters 2 and 3. I want you to turn back there.

21:37 1 Samuel chapters 2 and 3. I want you to look first of all at chapter 2 and verse 12. Now the sons of Israel and Eli were worthless men. They did not know the Lord.

22:05 Now if you take the idea that, well, nobody knew the Lord under the Old Covenant, how is that a proof that these two guys were worthless men when nobody knew the Lord? You see, it makes ridiculous this text. It's plain that people did know the Lord under the Old Covenant, that this knowledge of the Lord was associated with being worthwhile people, with being holy people, with being righteous people, and that these two sons of Eli were sons of Belial. And the reason was they did not know the Lord.

22:33 In contrast, Samuel in his life, through God's revelation of himself to him, came to know the Lord. Look at 1 Samuel chapter 3 and verse 7. Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord, nor had the word of the Lord yet been revealed to him. You see, Samuel himself, like Eli, there was a stage in his life, like the sons of Eli, that he did not know the Lord.

23:14 As a little boy, before God appeared to him there in the temple, children, he didn't know the Lord either. But when God appeared to him, he not only began to know something about the Lord, there was an experience of salvation in his heart so that he knew God, he knew what it was to pray to God, he knew what it was to trust in God, he knew what it was to seek God. Samuel, though he didn't as a little child, later on came to know the Lord. And so Old Covenant saints had the knowledge of Jehovah.

23:45 But then some have denied in our day that Old Covenant saints were forgiven. Somehow it's been taught that their sins were just suspended or the guilt of their sins was just suspended until Christ died and then again it was forgiven. But again, that is not the case. Look at Psalm 32.

24:04 Psalm 32 and verses 1 and 2. How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. How blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity and in whose spirit there is no deceit. And you can study the Hebrew till you're 85 and you're going to find that the words forgiveness and the covering of sins still means just that, to forgive and to cover sin. And then when you read Romans 4, you're going to find out that Paul cites this text as an example of what New Covenant saints come to experience in justification by faith alone and he asserts that both Abraham and David were justified and had their sins forgiven. So there's no question about the fact that Old Covenant saints had their sins forgiven. Now, because of such text, many interpreters have concluded that there is really nothing new about the New Covenant.

25:29 They will tell you that really what you have here is only a quantitative difference and not a qualitative difference between the two covenants. You know what the difference between quantitative difference and quantitative and qualitative is? I had a perfect illustration of this when I preached this series of messages in Scotland. Notwithstanding that they're called the United Kingdom, there are still some differences between those different nationalities over there in the British Isles.

25:57 And there are these emphatic national differences between Scotsmen and Englishmen. And a difference, an illustration for these people of a quantitative difference would be the difference between a wee Scotsman and a great or large Scotsman. That's simply a difference in quantity. You have a small Scotsman and a large Scotsman.

26:25 That's a difference in quantity. But now if you take a Scotsman and an Englishman, that's a difference in quality. And you can apply the same thing to Irishmen and Welshmen, okay? You get the point?

26:38 They are saying that there is this quantitative difference and not a qualitative difference. Well, you see, there's a problem with that. Let me give you an example of someone who does that. It's no less a commentator than Matthew Poole.

26:56 And amidst many excellent and sensible comments on Jeremiah 31, verses 31 through 34, he says this, Neither is it called the new covenant, because it was as to the substance new. For it was made with Abraham, Genesis 17, 7, and with the Jews, Deuteronomy 26, 17, and 18. And then later on, he goes on to say, commenting on the phrase, They all shall know me, he adds, It is only an expression signifying the increase of knowledge. It's a quantitative thing.

27:33 It's the increase of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord that should be after the pouring out of the Spirit. And if you read John Calvin, he'll pick up the same thing. He'll pick up the same kind of comments and interpretations of Jeremiah 31. Now, I think you can see the problem with such interpretations.

27:54 After all is said and done, they end up saying that the new covenant is just like the old covenant. Well, the text says that the new covenant is not like the old covenant. That's the problem. The text says that the new covenant is new and that it is faultless and that the old covenant is obsolete and that it's faulty.

28:15 And yet these commentators end up saying what is almost exactly the opposite in their comments on this text. Now, there's something wrong with that. But though we can understand why they end up doing that, nonetheless, the text says what the text says. And so we must search more deeply into Jeremiah 31 and verses 31 through 34.

28:41 And I want you to do that with me by turning back there and looking more closely at verse 34. And they shall not teach again each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, Know the Lord. For they shall all know me from the least of them to the greatest of them, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity and their sin I will remember no more. Now, what I want you to notice in this text is that it does not say that the new thing about the new covenant is that more people know the Lord or that people know the Lord in the new covenant and they didn't in the old covenant. What it says is that they will no more teach again every man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, Know the Lord. And the reason they're not going to do that is because these people in the new covenant will already know the Lord.

29:55 That's the reason. It's not because they don't need teachers anymore. It's because the people in the new covenant all know me. That's the point.

30:05 And the phrase that we need to see is that explanatory phrase, For they shall all know me from the least of them see the emphasis to the greatest of them they shall all know me. That's what's new about the new covenant. This phrase contains very plainly the major thrust of verse 34. And what is the point of its emphasis?

30:37 It is clearly this. While assuredly as we have seen some knew the Lord among God's old covenant people, many did not. The sons of Eli got circumcised the same way Samuel did. But the sons of Eli never knew the Lord.

30:56 And Samuel came to know the Lord. But they had both gotten circumcised the same way. Eli had just as much a right to circumcise his kids as the father of Samuel had to circumcise him. They were both properly circumcised members of old covenant Israel.

31:18 But two of them didn't know the Lord. One came to know him. They did not all know the Lord. Witness the sons of Eli.

31:30 Because the covenant was made with the physical seed of Abraham, because the physical nation Israel was constituted by people being circumcised into it at the early age of eight days, many with whom God was actually in covenant in the Old Testament and under the terms of the Old Covenant, many of them did not savingly or spiritually know the Lord. There were both Samuels and sons of Eli in the Old Covenant. There were both Jonathans and Abners legally and properly getting circumcised in Israel. There were both Davids and Joabs living alongside of each other in God's Old Covenant nation. And the point of verse 34 is that in the New Covenant this situation would no longer obtain that that would be different. Rather, you see, speaking of his New Covenant people, his new Israel, Jehovah says, they shall all know me.

32:47 Now that this is the case, that this is the new thing about the New Covenant is confirmed by what we saw several weeks ago about the unbreakable character of the New Covenant. In the Old Covenant, we saw God's law was written on stone. Consequently, it could be broken. And Moses, when he came down from the mountain and saw the people violating the second commandment and many of the others shattered the tables of the law in symbol that they did and had broken the Old Covenant.

33:18 But now in the New Covenant, the law is written on the heart. And because it is written there in that place which controls a man's convictions, in that place which controls a man's affections, in that place which controls what he says and controls what he does, therefore, you see, the New Covenant is unbreakable. People continue to fear the Lord. They continue to walk in His ways.

33:42 They don't apostatize if they're genuinely participants in the blessing of the New Covenant. In the Old Covenant, God's law was written on stone and consequently, it could be broken. In the New Covenant, the law is written on the heart guaranteeing that no member of God's New Covenant people will ever break the New Covenant. Now, you see, right there, there's a problem for paedobaptists.

New Covenant Membership: Spiritual, Not Physical

34:09 Paedobaptists, and you just need to listen to them for a little while, sympathetically, often speak of baptizing their children because they're in the Covenant. They baptize their children because they're in the Covenant. But later on, they have no problem speaking of the distinct possibility that those very children who are in the Covenant will opt out of or break the Covenant when they come to years. Now, what Covenant are they talking about?

34:35 It isn't the New Covenant, that's for sure, because people don't do that with the New Covenant, according to this text. What Covenant is it they're talking about then? And they also admit, many of them at least, that the baptism of their children does not imply that they're saved. Oh, no, we don't believe that our children are saved, many of them at least will say, because we baptize them.

34:56 The mass of Presbyterians will talk this. We don't believe that they're saved, they're just saved in this external Covenant with God. Well, again, where is Jeremiah in Jeremiah 31? Is this external Covenant of which they're speaking?

35:08 It's not to be found there. Such assertions are nonsense when they are made of the New Covenant. The dictum of Scripture is that the New Covenant cannot be broken and that only genuine Christians, those who know the Lord, are in it. Now, the fact that men must know the Lord, have God's Word, have God's law written in their hearts and have their sins forgiven in order to claim a part in the Covenant of Christ, in order to claim a part in the New Covenant, that fact is written large across the face of the New Testament.

35:48 It's written large across the face of the New Testament so that he who runs may read. Please turn to several passages. John chapter 1 and verses 12 and 13. We only miss the significance of these passages and their obvious implications because we are so far removed from the New Testament situation in our culture.

36:16 But once we try to put ourselves back into it, you will see how obvious and plain the implication is, I think. Verse 11 says of our Lord Jesus Christ, He came to His own. Now think of that. How does the Bible describe these people?

36:35 They were His own. His own things, His own people, His own nation. They were His own. In what sense?

36:44 How did they become His own? They had become His own because they were in covenant with God. That's how. Now notice what is asserted of these who are described as His own.

36:53 He came to His own and those who were His own, those who were His own, did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God. Even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will, literally, of an adult male or a husband, as the word is often translated in the New Testament, nor of the will of a husband, but of God. Now what is that text saying? It is saying that in the old covenant there were all these people who belonged to God, who were His own people, and when the Messiah came, they rejected Him. They were in covenant with God and they rejected Him. And when that happened, and when that epical period of time transpired, God said, that's enough of the old covenant.

38:00 Here's the new covenant. People could be sons of God. Out of Egypt I have called My Son in the old covenant. They could be sons of God and not be saved, no longer.

38:10 New covenant sonship is not conferred because you have the right parents and the right bloodlines and the right daddy and the right flesh. No, it's not conferred that way. It's conferred by your receiving Jesus Christ, by your accepting Him. That's how it's conferred.

38:26 It's to be conferred by believing in His name. It's conferred by believing commitment to Jesus Christ. And it is conferred ultimately because you're born not of the right human father who happens to have the right to get you circumcised the eighth day. It's conferred because God Himself does something in you.

38:47 That is in what the new covenant consists. That is how you get new covenant sonship. And this, of course, was the whole point of the message of John the Baptist. Turn to Matthew chapter 3.

39:03 Now in those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea saying, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. For this is the one referred to by Isaiah the prophet, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, make ready the way of the Lord, make His path straight. Now John himself had a garment of camel's hair and a leather belt about his waist and his food was locust and wild honey. And then Jerusalem was going out to him and all Judea and all the district around the Jordan and they were being baptized by him in the Jordan River as they confessed their sins. But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Therefore bring forth fruit in keeping with repentance and do not suppose that you can say to yourselves, We have Abraham for a father for I say to you that God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. And the axe is already laid at the root of the trees and every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

40:23 As for me, I baptize you with water for repentance but he who is coming after me is mightier than I and I am not fit to remove his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire and his winnowing fork is in his hand and he will thoroughly clear his threshing floor and he will gather his wheat into the barn but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. This was the message of John the Baptist that saw God is about to do things that he has not done before. When he came, he preached not to Gentiles that they should be baptized and repent, he came preaching to Israel that Israel needed to repent and Israel needed to be baptized and repent.

41:01 And when the Jewish leaders came, he practically drove them away with a stick. What's the point? One man has said that in preaching repentance and baptism to Israel, in fact, he excommunicated the whole Jewish nation and said, God is starting over. God's now going to only receive those who bear good fruit, who repent and only if you repent and bear good fruit, not if you've had the right to circumcision, not if you can even get your own children circumcised do you have the right to my baptism.

41:30 Bring forth what's in keeping for repentance. And then, and only then, you may be baptized. Then and only then you have a right to the sign of the new covenant. Then and only then do you have the blessings which God says in Jeremiah 31 constitute a right to the new covenant, make you a part of the new covenant and give you a right to its signs and seals.

41:52 Only then. Turn to Philippians chapter 3 and verse 3. You see the question, the fundamental question in this whole issue of baptism, in this whole issue of in what consists the right to the new covenant is who in the new covenant are God's circumcision. The term circumcision used in this text and throughout the New Testament is a way of referring to God's covenant people.

42:33 And now Paul proceeds to tell us who in the new covenant now in the times of the Messiah is really a member of God's true circumcision and he says it very plainly in verse 3. For we are the true circumcision and then he gives three marks of them who worship in the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh. The marks of being God's people under the new covenant are spiritual not physical. They worship spiritually.

43:09 They glory in the Messiah. They put no confidence in the flesh. And then when he uses that term flesh you'll notice as you read on he's not talking about the flesh as something that's sinful. The flesh here is not something that's per se sinful.

43:24 It's something that you can have in this world without being regenerate. Paul had lots of things that weren't necessarily sinful but that didn't mean he was regenerate. Although I myself might have confidence even in the flesh if anyone else has a mind to put confidence in the flesh I far more. Circumcised the eighth day of the nation of Israel of the tribe of Benjamin a Hebrew of the Hebrews as to the law of Pharisee.

43:45 All of these things you see had conferred the right upon him to be a member of the old covenant people of God. But his point is that now after Jesus has come after the Messiah has come after the new covenant has been instituted they no longer confer such a right. He puts no confidence in the flesh. But now some of you may be saying you know you're making this big distinction pastor between old covenant sonship being in covenant with God in the Old Testament which you could have without being saved and new covenant sonship which you can't have without being saved for which you have to receive Christ.

44:20 Does the Bible really make it that plain? Yes. Turn to Romans chapter 9. Romans chapter 9.

44:36 I want you to notice verses 3 and 4. Paul says verse 2 I have great sorrow and unceasing grief in my heart and we ask Paul why? He goes on to tell us for I could wish that I myself were accursed separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren my kinsmen according to the flesh. You see he doesn't regard the mass of his countrymen as saved.

45:12 He would like to be accursed himself so that they might be saved. That's the whole point. That's the whole point of chapters 9 through 11 of Romans. But now notice what he goes on to say in verse 4.

45:23 Who are Israelites to whom belongs the adoption as sons and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the law and the service and the promises? Whose are the fathers and from whom is the Christ according to the flesh who is over all God blessed forever. Amen. But you see what he says?

45:43 In one breath he says these people they're so lost I could wish that I could be accursed so that they might be saved. And in the next breath he says to them belongs the adoption as sons. They were adopted and lost. They were lost and still in the old covenant sense of the word to them belonged the adoption.

46:04 Now, Paul uses the same word adoption and talks about sonship back in Romans chapter 8. And you tell me if he could ever say that these people are lost. Romans chapter 8 verses 14 and 15. For all who are being led by the Spirit of God these are sons of God.

46:24 For you have not received the spirit of slavery leading to fear again but you have received the spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out Abba Father. He says you people are sons of God. How do I know that? Because you have the spirit of adoption whereby you cry Abba Father.

46:42 And there is this intimate communion between you and God that's conferred by the spirit of adoption. But he uses the same word that he uses in Romans chapter 9. The people in Romans 9 had the adoption of the old covenant. They had become sons of God through the old covenant and they were lost and accursed.

47:01 Paul would never say that about these people these sons of God are the new covenant sons of God and to be a new covenant son of God you have to be saved you have to be spiritually joined to Christ you have to know the Lord and therefore you have the spirit of adoption and you don't need to worry about ever experiencing God's curse. You see the difference? It's plain. Now how does all this relate to the question of baptism and especially to paedobaptism?

Condemnation of Paedobaptism and Critique of Presumptive Regeneration

47:38 Well I hope you see it already. Baptism is the sign of membership the badge of participation in the new covenant. Yet membership in the new covenant is according to these texts in contrast to the old covenant restricted to those who possess its characteristic blessings. The only ground upon which one has a right to the ordinances and signs of the new covenant is the ground that one knows the Lord.

48:10 Until therefore there is reason biblical reason to believe that a man or woman knows the Lord. Until a person credibly professes such knowledge there is no biblical ground to baptize them. Baptism in the absence of any saving knowledge of Jehovah runs contrary to the explicit terms of the new covenant. So on these grounds every form of paedobaptism which admits that it's baptizing babies who are not saved or says that they baptize them but it doesn't mean that they're saved every form of paedobaptism like that is condemned. But there are however if you'll permit me to go a little bit further here some paedobaptists who have a theory which at first glance seems to meet this objection. They assert something like this the Bible they say would have us presume that the children of at least one believing parent are regenerate. They admit that occasionally in some cases this presumption isn't true but nonetheless God wants us to assume that it's true until the children show differently at a later age.

49:31 And it's on the basis of this presumptive regeneration this presumably regenerate condition that we are to baptize our children. So they say we baptize our children because the Bible wants us to assume that seems to meet the problem. And this theory would appear then to conform to the requirements of the new covenant. We baptize our babies such people say on the grounds that they are presumably regenerate.

50:02 Well I want to say that there are a multitude of problems with that whole idea. That theory becomes plagued with any number of problems. The first one is very practical. Experience shows that the children of believers are very seldom if ever regenerate when they are born.

50:22 I have had five children and let me tell you that none of them were regenerate when they were born. And many of you have had children and some of you were pedo-baptist when you did. And you know for sure that they weren't regenerate many of them too don't you? Somebody says you're just a baptist that's why your children weren't regenerate.

50:48 But I don't know any pedo-baptists that are doing that. You see, to teach that the Bible would have us presume something to be true that is plainly false in the vast majority of the cases is to teach paid nonsense. And there's no better word for that no matter how great the man was who taught it. But there's a second problem with this theory.

51:11 We must ask these pedo-baptists where the Bible teaches this great presumption that our children are regenerate. Where does the Bible teach that our children are regenerate? Well one way in which they respond is to say well they circumcised them in the Old Covenant. You see, they must have been regenerate.

51:30 Hey, just a second. What have we just been seeing? Being circumcised and a member of the Old Covenant nation didn't mean that you were regenerate. That's the whole point of Jeremiah 31 to say that we know our children are regenerate because the Old Covenant Israel circumcised them contradicts everything we've just been seeing.

51:50 You can't say that. If Jeremiah 31 says that they were regenerate in the Old Covenant they're not regenerate but on the ground that they were the physical seed of Abraham. Now another way in which pedo-baptists may respond is by saying well God promises in His word to bless the means of godly parenting onto the salvation of the children of believers. Don't you know that Pastor Waldron?

52:14 God promises to bless faithful parenting. Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not just promise to use his means and to bless and save at least in general the seed of godly parents. But that doesn't solve the problem and it doesn't solve the problem for several different reasons. First, this promise is not a promise to save every child of godly parents without exception.

52:40 I defy you to prove that from the Bible. Second, pedo-baptists bestow baptism not on the children only of godly parents but on the children of all believers. And third, even if God saved all the children of believers and used godly parenting to save them that still wouldn't satisfy the new covenant because the new covenant says that you are a member of it not because God is going to save you sometime in the future after he blesses faithful parenting when you are 15 years old or when you are 8 years old. The new covenant says that you have to know the Lord to be baptized.

53:14 And so this whole promise that God is going to bless the means and is going to save our kids is a great promise but it doesn't meet the problem because you can't in prospect of their being saved but because Jeremiah 31 says they already know the Lord. Now I don't think that you believe that God is going to so bless your godly parenting by 8 days that your children are going to be regenerate for the most part. And so baptism is not to be bestowed because someone will be saved but because someone already knows the Lord and has God's law written in their hearts. But now I must leave off trying to chase our dear friends the pedo-baptists out of all the foxholes and shelters they've taken from the barrage of Jeremiah 31 and come to my last point. The last point has to do with the ultimate fulfillment of the new covenant. The ultimate fulfillment of the new covenant. One of the most crucial issues with reference to the church is this.

The Ultimate Fulfillment of the New Covenant: The New Jerusalem as Model

54:27 Where shall we go for our model for the church? Where shall we go to find a picture of what this church and other local churches should be like? Where should we go? Well, the pedo-baptist literature suggests very plainly where they go for their model of the church at least when it comes to baptism.

54:55 What should the church be like especially in its practice of baptism? The pedo-baptist answers it should be very much like Old Testament Israel. And what should baptism be like? It should be very much like circumcision was in Israel.

55:10 Well, that's plainly their answer. Now, I want to assert something distinctly different from that. The constitution of the church, the new covenant, points us to a very different model for the church. It does not point us back.

55:26 It points us forward for our model for the church and for baptism. It points us in an opposite direction to find this model. The new covenant holds out a different blueprint for the church than that utilized by pedo-baptist. You see, what you need to see here is that the prophecy of Jeremiah 31 about all knowing the Lord is not an isolated prophecy in the Old Testament.

55:54 There are many prophecies like it and I want you to look at some of them. Turn please to Isaiah 11 9. We will confine our turning to the book of Isaiah. Isaiah 11 9 where we read this prophecy.

56:08 Isaiah 11 9 They will not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. You see the similar language to Jeremiah 31-34 which is the word of God in the book of Isaiah. Turn please to Isaiah 52 1. Awake, clothe yourself in your strength O Zion, clothe yourself in your beautiful garments O Jerusalem the holy city for the uncircumcised and the unclean will no more into you. Turn over to Isaiah 54 and verse 13.

57:33 And all your sons will be taught and the well-being of your sons referring to Jerusalem and the well-being of your sons will be great. And finally Isaiah 60 and verse 21. Isaiah 60 and verse 21. Then all your people will be righteous they will possess the land forever the branch of my planting and you will be talisman of God and God will be glorified. What is the prospect set before us in these passages? What is the view we're given here of the glorious future of God's people? What of a day is coming in the eternal state the new heavens and new Then verily there shall be a perfect church and a perfect world.

58:57 Then verily all your sons will be taught of the Lord. Then truly no uncircumcised thing shall ever enter Jerusalem again. Then finally they all shall know me from the least of them to the greatest of them, for God will have forgiven their iniquities. That is the prospect set before us in these passages and ultimately in Jeremiah 31.

59:27 But you see, that day does not commence, but rather consummates the new covenant. Though the ultimate prospect held before us in Jeremiah 31 reaches out to the new heavens and new earth, it is commenced and inaugurated and initiated, as we've seen, in the present age and fulfilled. Fulfilled, already beginning to be fulfilled in the church. We'd have to go back and deny everything we saw about the seven places where the New Testament refers to the new covenant, to deny that.

59:59 And we'd also have to deny the way Jesus uses Jeremiah 31 in John chapter 6. I want you to turn to that passage.

60:08 John chapter 6 and verse 45.

60:18 He's just given that great assertion, No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. And then he undergirds his assertion with these words. It is written in the prophets, and they shall all be taught of God.

60:41 Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me.

60:48 Plainly, Jesus regards the words of the prophets he here cites as already being fulfilled in that process that it already... It's already begun of those who have been taught of the Father gathering around himself.

61:03 You see that? It's already something being fulfilled. The Father is drawing those. He's teaching men, and they're coming to Jesus Christ.

61:13 But also, very plainly, you will notice that when Jesus cites these words, he does not say it is written in the prophet Isaiah or the prophet Ezekiel or Jeremiah. He says it is written in...

61:27 In the prophets. And then what he does in these words, and they all shall be taught of God, is take Isaiah 54, 13, All your sons shall be taught of the Lord. And Jeremiah 31, 34, They all shall know me. And he combines those two prophecies and says, The prospects set before us in those prophecies are the same.

61:51 It is written in the prophets, and they shall all be taught of God. And so doing, he alludes, both to Jeremiah 31, 34, and to Isaiah 54, 13, and asserts that both of those prophecies are already getting their commencement and inauguration in what was happening in his own lifetime as believers gathered around himself. And thus, Jesus assumes that there is a present fulfillment of these prophecies as well as a future one, that the new covenant is inaugurated in this age and consummated in the age to come. Now, how is all of that relevant for the church of Jesus Christ?

62:33 Well, you see, it's relevant this way. We ought not to derive our model of the church from the mixed multitude of Old Testament Israel, but from the perfected multitude of the New Jerusalem. That is the picture of the church that we are to attempt to reproduce in our churches because that's what the new covenant will mean when it comes to fruition. But now you see, the new covenant has already begun.

62:55 People are already gathering around Jesus Christ. And the new covenant sets before us this picture that is the standard of what the church even now ought legally to be. That is what the church shall be. You see, all shall know me is the banner that shall fly from the flagpole of the New Jerusalem.

63:16 And all shall know me should be the sign written over the entrance to every new covenant local church. You see my point? What will be true in fact then must be the rule for the church now because the new covenant will be the sign of the new covenant. Because the new covenant will be the sign of the new covenant.

Five Applications of Jeremiah 31 for the Church Today

63:28 the new covenant has already been commenced. Only those who know the Lord, who credibly profess to know him, ought to be baptized and in baptism show that they have part and parcel in the new covenant. What a glorious prospect is set before us here. Now I have five brief applications that I want to set before you and before we conclude. And the first one is this. We've dealt with the air of pedo-baptism. I'm going to set that aside now. I want to make five broader applications of Jeremiah 31. First of all, we see the utter folly of placing any confidence and are having been baptized as babies into the church. The utter folly of placing any confidence and are having

64:19 been baptized as babies into the church. Now, of course, even believers' baptism should never have been made the object of anybody's spiritual confidence. We're not saved because we're baptized and we're not saved because we're baptized as babies. And insofar as anyone has made adult baptism a ground of spiritual hope, Jeremiah 31 utterly exposes them. Christ alone and a personal relationship with him is the only ground of confidence before God's holy throne. Nonetheless, the fact is the sad exhibition of experience in this city is that many of us are not safe because we're not saved because we're baptized as babies. have made their baptism as babies the ground of some hope or inside track that they think they have with God? And do you see the utter folly of it? Baby baptism was never ordained of God,

65:18 even as a duty for Christian parents, and it certainly cannot help the soul of an unbeliever. Your baptism, my dear friend, I want to say it as kindly as I can, your baptism means nothing to God. It was not ordained of God, and it means nothing to God. It certainly is not a ground of confidence for you to face God's holy throne in the last day. What utter folly to make a right of human invention not ordained of God any ground of hope for your soul. I acknowledge that many of you have been ordained of God, and I acknowledge that many of you have been ordained of God. I acknowledge that many of you have been ordained of God. I acknowledge that many of you have many pedobaptists don't do that, but some do, and there is confusion. And for that, we must make

66:03 this statement. But secondly, we see the absolute and binding duty of being baptized as a believer.

66:11 The absolute and binding duty of being baptized as a believer, just as certainly as God required circumcision in the old covenant to manifest and as the sign of initiation into the old covenant, just so certainly as baptism required of believers in the new covenant. At that point, there is indeed a parallel. There ought to have been no uncircumcised Israelites in the old covenant, and there ought to be no unbaptized believers in the new covenant. And you need to change it if that's what you are.

66:47 You need to. But in the third place, we see the crucial importance of maintaining biblical standards of church membership. We see the crucial importance of maintaining biblical standards of church membership. See, this alone assures us that the church will now in some measure be what it will be in the age to come.

67:14 Only this will give us some semblance, at least, of being that new covenant people which will exist in glorified and perfected multitude in the new heavens and new earth. You see, such standards must be maintained. It's not easy to maintain such standards. They've got to be maintained against parental sentiment. Of course, the parental sentiment, which is the real appeal of much pedo-baptist theory, but also the parental sentiment of Baptists who don't want you to baptize their eight-day-old, they want you to baptize their three-year-old. The same parental sentiment, and just as little ground in most cases for baptizing the child. Such standards must also be maintained against the prevailing easy-believism. It is not enough to walk an aisle and live as you please and come and join the new covenant church. A man must credibly profess. His life must show some indication that God's law is written down in his heart

68:10 where it changes what it says, where it changes what he does, where it changes how he feels, where it changes his convictions, where it changes his affections. A man must have a life that shows that something like that's happened. He must have a life that shows that he knows the Lord. Such standards must be maintained, not only by pastors, but by church members. And in case you've forgotten, let me tell you again, that's the reason we announce every last person who's going to join this church from this pulpit, because you know something that says they're not a believer or raises serious questions about it, and you let them come in, you are violating Jeremiah 31. You are! Not just your pastors, you are! But the fourth application is this. We see the unchanging

69:01 qualifications for biblical church membership. Those qualifications set before us in Jeremiah 31 are still the rule for the church today. The law written in the heart, the knowledge of Jehovah, and the forgiveness of sins. Now let me seriously speak to some of you. Have you ever thought, some of you, that you have no right to join this church?

69:31 You haven't thought about it. But I want you to think about it now. Some of you don't have a right to join this church. I'm not being mean. I'm just telling you what the Bible says. You don't know the Lord. Your sins aren't forgiven. And you don't have God's law in your heart. And when all is said and done, that's the reason why you haven't come forward to join the church, this church or some other one. Because that's true of you. You don't have the qualifications Jeremiah 31 says very plainly you need to have to be a member of the new covenant. And that's why you can't join this church. You haven't wanted to. Sure. I know you haven't even thought about it. Granted. But you can't. And if you came in your present condition, you couldn't. We couldn't allow you upon pain of violating the word of God. You say, well, so what? Well, here's the so what. You see, not only is it true that the church is to be now in some sense what it will become, but this whole situation has future significance for you. The church is the people upon whom the ends of the ages have come.

70:49 And you say, well, it's no big deal. I don't join the church now. I still go out and God's sun still shines and God's rain still comes down. I still eat three meals a day. No problem. My friend. Yes, you can be outside the church now and know the common grace of God. But the day is coming when to be outside the church. Well, I leave only one alternative. It will mean to be cast into outer darkness. It will mean the worm that dies not. It will mean the fire that cannot be quenched.

71:19 Oh, my dear. Friend, the fact that you can't join this church now is not this piddly thing that you never think about. That is what it ultimately means now and what it will certainly mean then. You see why the whole matter of God's church is not a piddly one, the way some have been raised and taught to think. No, no. The right to be a member of the church, the biblical grounds to be a member of the church are identical with those grounds.

71:51 That will give you a right to stand around the throne of God with the perfected church, the church in our glory without spot or wrinkle or any such thing. No one there will not have God's law written in their hearts. No one there will not have the knowledge of Jehovah. No one there will have their sins remembered. No, you see, to be outside the church then is something that your parents and your pastors pray that you will never, never.

72:27 Finally, the glorious blessing of membership in a true church. Oh, yes, this church is not now what it will be. It has many spots and wrinkles and other such things. Well, we know that is too sadly true even here. But we see nonetheless the glorious blessing of membership in a true church. Authentic, legitimate, rightly held membership in a true church.

73:00 Membership held not in the basis of the deception of some pastors or in a church that does not understand them, but rightly held membership in a true church of Christ. Membership held on the ground of the only ground that should be, the grounds of the new covenant. Membership held in that way. Such membership is the sign and seal of a blessed eternity.

73:28 It is a foretaste of glory. It is a foretaste of glory and the marriage feast of the Lamb. You are in your church fellowship anticipating the fellowship of heaven. Now, can we think of this, my dear brothers and sisters? Can we think of that without feeling a sense of constraint to walk worthy in our churches of such a privilege? Can we think of that? Can we think of what the church will one day be and what it should even now be?

74:05 And not feel a sense of constraint, a holy compulsion, a holy dissatisfaction with what we are, a holy dissatisfaction and desire to make the church more what it will be? What a high calling membership in a local church is. Brethren, we must exemplify the love and the holiness of the new Jerusalem if we are to live up to the calling of what God intends us to be. And not help us to make this place more and more in its love and in its holiness and in its truth, a foretaste of the new Jerusalem. Let us pray. Our Father, we thank you for the plainness of your word, for its precepts, yes, and for its promises. And we ask that you would grant that as your word has been taught, as some have had held before them,

75:17 some concrete and present reminders of what their destiny must and will be should they not turn. Oh, Lord, we pray that your word might have power in their hearts. And, Lord, we pray as well that you would grant us who are your people. Oh, Lord, we love thy kingdom, Lord, the house of thine abode, the church our blessed Redeemer bought with his own precious blood.

75:47 We know. We know that the only kind of bride, the only kind of bride befitting your matchless son is a bride without spot or wrinkle or any such thing. To that end, we pray and we ask for grace to labor. Amen.