The Church and Infant Baptism, Part 3

Prayer and Introduction to the Fourth Unit of Thought

0:00 This adult Sunday school class was held on January 29, 1984, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. Now, let's once again pray and ask for the Lord's blessing as we study His Word this morning.

0:19 Our Father, as once again we come into Your presence to study Your Holy Word, we pray that Your blessing would rest upon us. We pray that You would not leave us to ourselves, our folly and ignorance. We pray that Your Word would shine light into our hearts. We pray also, Lord, that as we deal with specifically polemical issues this morning, that You would keep us from anything in our spirit which would be a spirit of rancor, anything that would be contrary to the spirit of love and meekness which was found in Your beloved Son when He was here upon the earth.

1:01 We pray, O God. We pray, O God, that You would give us light, but also give us grace, that we may glorify You in everything that is said this morning. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.

1:18 Now, we are in the midst of considering the fourth unit of thought with reference to the general concern of the matter of infant baptism. And in particular, we are considering the assertion of our Pado-Baptist brethren and friends that infants are to be included in the ordinance of baptism because infants are included in the Church and people of God. And we looked at their argument, and then also we began last week to consider the scriptural material. And we saw that infant inclusion in New Covenant Israel or the Church of Jesus Christ is incompatible with the biblical description of the growth of the Church, and also with the biblical descriptions in the New Testament of the membership of the Church. And hopefully, we will see sometime in the near future that it is also inconsistent with the biblical descriptions of the spiritual experience of the Church. Now, what I would like to do then this morning is to complete, if I can, I hope to, our consideration of Roman numeral II. That is, my assertion that infant inclusion in the Church is incompatible with the biblical descriptions of the membership of the Church.

Incompatibility of Infant Inclusion with Biblical Church Membership

2:39 And we saw, first of all, that there is such a thing in the Bible, in the New Testament, as a definite membership in the Church of Jesus Christ. And we saw that this was established from the fact that the members of the Church were numbered, that the members of the Church were specified as being under pastoral oversight, and also that the members of the Church were liable and subject to church service. to church service. Now, these things could not be true if there were not a definite membership in the Church of Jesus Christ.

3:12 And then we went through those passages in the Acts and Epistles and Gospels in which the members of the Church are described with reference to their distinguishing traits or characteristics. Now, you know what distinguishing traits are. Those are those peculiar traits of a given thing which set it off from other things and distinguish it and make it unique. And the distinguishing traits of the Church members are that they are subject to discipline, they're described as those who are being saved, those who believe as disciples of the Lord, as brethren, saints, as those who call on his name, as those who are of the way, those who turn to the Lord, and they're called Christians.

3:54 Now, these are the descriptions, and these are the only descriptions.

3:59 So that the exclusive distinguishing trait of Church members is that they have experienced the application of redemption. And I assert to you that this is incompatible with the Paedo-Baptist position that those who are distinguished, not by having experienced the application of redemption, but who are distinguished by physical descent from disciples of Christ, have the right to membership in the Church. And this is incompatible unless we can assert that our physical descent, that all the children have had redemption applied to them, and that our physical children are also distinguished by the fact that they are saved, that they believe, that they are disciples, brethren, saints, that they call on his name and turn to the Lord. If that distinguishes them, then, of course, it's a different story, and then their membership in the Church is not incompatible with the biblical descriptions of Church members. But until we are prepared to assert that, then having them as members in the Church is incompatible. Now, if we can assert and presume that our children are saved, believers, disciples, Christians, then the whole problem is resolved.

Paedo-Baptist Attempts to Evade the Tension: Presumptive Regeneration

5:24 But since we dare not affirm that, apart from credible profession of faith, we dare not number our dear children with the disciples until we can biblically affirm them to be such. Now, of course, our Paedo-Baptist brethren are not fools, and they're not ignorant of the biblical data, and they are not ignorant of the tension which I have just attempted to describe to you that we looked at last week. And there are basically, among evangelical and Reformed Paedo-Baptists, two routes that are taken to seek to evade and to avoid the tension which I have described. Now, I'm going to use names, and when I use names, of course, I always run the risk of people saying, you misrepresented me. But I'm going to use names of basic schools among evangelical Paedo-Baptists, the two that we've worked with before, Dutch Calvinism and Presbyterianism. And although what I'm going to say would not be true of everyone in the stream of Dutch Calvinism or everyone in the stream of Presbyterianism, yet I believe that there's enough truth and that these are general characteristics that I'm not misrepresenting people. Now, the way that, generally, Dutch Calvinism has attempted to avoid this is with the doctrine of presumptive regeneration.

6:51 You know what that is? That is simply being prepared to say, yes, our children are Christian children. Yes, our children are disciples of the Lord. Yes, our children believe.

7:04 Yes, our children are covered in the blood of Christ. Yes, they are described as saints. And therefore, the tension is resolved. We are to treat our children like believers, treat them like Christians, regard them as Christians, until they give us positive evidence to the contrary.

7:22 Unless they begin to propound, expound heretical doctrines and begin to live in a godless way, then we must regard them as Christians. Unless they go out and live in absolute moral wickedness and debauchery, and unless they teach heresy, as long as they're orthodox and decent, we must regard them as Christians, as those who believe, as those who we can number with the saints and with the disciples of the Lord. And so it is assumed from birth that the children are Christians. They are called Christian children and they are treated as such.

8:05 Now that is one route which is used, and I say that's characteristic of the school of Dutch Calvinism, that is one route which is used to evade and avoid the tension. If you're prepared to assert that your children are Christians, if you're prepared to assert that they're believers and to treat them as such, then you have no problem with including them with a group whose distinguishing trait is that they're saved, that they're disciples, that they're believers, and so the tension is resolved. Now, everyone is not prepared to go to that, to go to that extreme or length in order to avoid the tension. There is another approach which is commonly taken, and that other approach is taken in the school of what I've called Presbyterianism.

Paedo-Baptist Attempts to Evade the Tension: Incompatible Definitions of the Church

8:48 The Presbyterians, the godly, evangelical, and reformed Presbyterians, rather than being prepared to assert that their children are believers, disciples, and treating them as such, instead what they do is they operate with two different and incompatible definitions of the church at the same time. They operate with two different and incompatible definitions of the church at the same time. You say, well, what are those two definitions of the church? All right, let me quote to you from James Bannerman.

9:27 Now, James Bannerman, in his systematic work called The Church of Christ, has done great service to the church of the Lord Jesus Christ by writing this book. The book is so helpful and useful that we use it as our textbook in the academy. Now, Bannerman, in the early pages of his book, begins by treating the matter, the church defined in Scripture. And amazing how Bannerman approaches this subject.

9:57 He approaches it with a word study of the term ecclesia, just like we did. And when Bannerman takes this approach, he finds several things. Five usages of church. Now, of Bannerman's five, we can find perhaps three.

10:14 But in any event, these are Bannerman's five usages of ecclesia in the New Testament. There are five different, he says, quoting from page six of volume one, five different but closely allied meanings of the term church to be gathered from Scripture. Number one, the word church. The word church signifies the whole body of the faithful, whether in heaven or on earth, who have been or shall be spiritually united to Christ as their Savior.

10:48 And he describes that group as the invisible church. Secondly, the term church is made use of in Scripture to denote the whole body throughout the world of those that outwardly profess the faith of Christ. The whole body throughout the world of those who outwardly profess the faith of Christ, and that is described as the universal or Catholic visible church. So in one, you have the entire company of the elect, heaven or earth, that's the invisible church.

11:24 Then you have all of those on earth who profess faith in Christ. That is the visible church. And then thirdly, the term church is frequently employed in Scripture to denote the body of believers in any particular place associated together in the worship of God. That's the local visible church.

11:53 And then a couple of other meanings which he finds. The word church is applied in the New Testament to a number of congregations associated together under a common government. And he attempts to, yes, he attempts to prove that this was the case with the church in Jerusalem. And he says that there's no way that all of those people could have constituted one congregation, that they must have been a number of different congregations under the same government.

12:25 But that's questionable. But in any event, he hasn't basically changed the idea of visible church. He's just saying that that church in Jerusalem consisted of various visible churches. And then fifthly, the word church is applied in the New Testament to the body of professing believers in any place as represented by their rulers and office bearers.

12:46 And it's from this that, of course, the whole concept of the presbytery and the general assembly is adduced. Now, it's interesting that he doesn't have any texts listed under this one either. But nevertheless, he finds five meanings of the word church. Now, so he has this.

13:07 Let me write on the board. Invisible and visible. And this equals all elect in heaven and earth. This equals professing universally.

13:36 And I won't deal with the five, but these are the ones that we're really interested in anyway. Can you see that? Now, that's his definition. And he arrives at that definition, all the elect versus professing Christians, the visible and the invisible church.

13:54 He arrives at that definition from studying the term ecclesia. Now, if he stopped there, he'd be a Reformed Baptist. He would. That's right.

14:04 But he doesn't stop there. He has another definition of the church as well. He has another definition of the visible church. And this is definition one.

14:18 And now we're going to look at Vanderman's definition two. Now, on pages eight through 11, he's establishing definition one. And the amazing thing is that he has definition one and definition two totally confounded. He seems not to realize that he's dealing with two separate and incompatible definitions.

14:39 After trying to prove that this particular body can have hypocrites in it, he then makes the following quotation from the Westminster Confession. Those, on the other hand, who are united to the Savior by an external union of outward profession and outward privileges, known and seen of men, numbering among them the true believers in Christ, but not exclusively made up of true believers, constitute the visible church. So you say, well, it's probably then true believers plus hypocrites, which we would agree that that does constitute, let's call it the visible church. Many quotes from the Confession of Faith. Quote, The visible church, says the Confession of Faith, which is also Catholic or universal under the Gospel, consists of all those throughout the world that profess the true religion together with their children, and is the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, the house and family of God, out of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation. So what's definition two?

15:55 Well, definition two is this, professing Christians plus their children. And where did he get that definition from? Well, he did not get it from the study of Ecclesia. He got it from the Westminster Confession.

The Problem of Incompatible Definitions and Approaches to Definition

16:16 He does the same thing throughout the book. He goes back and forth between these two definitions. And if you read Bannerman, if you read other godly Presbyterians as well, they do the same thing. They vacillate continually back and forth between two different and incompatible definitions.

16:38 Compatible definitions of the visible church. When they study the scriptures, they study Ecclesia, they find out exactly what we found out, that the church consists of believers, and yet still embedded in their minds is this other definition that the visible church is professing Christians and their children. And they use them both. They use them both as though they were compatible, but the point is they're incompatible.

17:05 They are not compatible. This one is derived from the scripture. This one has no support in the scripture. And as I've studied the writings, I have not seen that study of Ecclesia has ever been the groundwork from which this second definition is derived.

17:25 So that what Bannerman has is he has two incompatible definitions and he also has two, and here's the important point, he has two incompatible approaches to definition. Two incompatible approaches to definition. His first approach is a biblical approach. You study the biblical usage of the term and you arrive at the meaning from the biblical usage.

17:50 The second is a dogmatic approach in which, based upon his theological reasoning and his continuity with Westminster Confession, he then arrives at his second definition. And these two definitions go together. So through the book he uses the first on pages 8 and 32 and et cetera. He uses the second on pages 11 and 29 and et cetera.

18:15 And he weaves them in and out. And it is very difficult, it's very difficult to nail the thing down and to know what he's dealing with at a separate or specific point in time. It's, to use an illustration, trying to put your thumb on precisely the error of the Paedo-Baptist Presbyterian at this point is very difficult. It's like trying to put your thumb on a little piece of mercury that came out of your thermometer.

18:43 The minute you put your thumb on it, it goes around. And you just get it and it squiggles away. And the reason is because there are two incompatible definitions and they weave back and forth and in and out. And it requires very careful, painstaking analysis because they're not going to tell you when you read their writings which definition they're working with at a given point.

19:03 And so you have to carefully ask yourself which definition of the Church are they using here? Which definition of the Church are they using here? And they make at points, and Bannerman makes at points, wonderful statements about the Church of Christ. Statements which are tremendous.

The Two Visible Churches and the Line of Demarcation

19:20 He has great insights and he uses this definition when he does. And then, of course, he switches back to this definition to support infant baptism. So you see two definitions at the same time. And with these two approaches our brain, our precious experience, our and our minds all go agem to to the the new very very very Democrat who can to An external church and an internal visible church. Not one visible church, but two different visible churches.

20:21 Here you have the baptized church, and here you have the communicant church.

20:32 And this equals professed believers, and this equals professing Christians plus their children. These are the visible church, and they're both the visible church at the same time. So you need to constantly ask yourself, which is it? That's why I said before, these Presbyterians really have a Reformed Baptist church inside of a Paedo-Baptist church.

21:06 And a Paedo-Baptist church is really a Reformed Baptist church on the inside, and then it's a Presbyterian church on the outside. And as long as this line of demarcation is kept clear, a Presbyterian church can be healthy. But when that...

21:28 When that line of demarcation is broken down through the unbiblical practice of confirmation and toddler communion and other things like that, when that line of demarcation is broken down, that's when the Paedo-Baptist church goes on its road to formalism and eventual apostasy. So as long as this line is kept clear, and as long as no one is allowed into the professing visible church except those who truly show signs of conversion, and being united to Christ, you can have a healthy Paedo-Baptist church. See that? And once that line of demarcation is broken down, as the system tends to do,

22:12 and people resist it in spite of the logical driving force to do that and to break this line down, as soon as it's broken down, formalism and eventual apostasy result.

Anticipating and Answering Objections: Arguing from Inference

22:26 Now, then what I would like to do in the time that remains, having set this matter out before you,

22:34 is to attempt to answer certain objections that might be raised to what I've said this morning and also last week. An attempt to anticipate and answer objections. Now, I admit that all of these things have not been found in books that have been written by Paedo-Baptists. So a Paedo-Baptist might sit here at points and say, you're going after a straw man.

23:00 Well, I admit that some of these things may not have been... Uh...

23:04 Uh... derived from Paedo-Baptists.

23:06 I'm attempting to anticipate objections that could be raised at points. Some of them actually have been. Some of them I'm not aware that they have been. So, if any Paedo-Baptists listen to this, please don't say that I'm attributing these things to you because I'm not.

23:21 But these are objections that may be raised to what is being said. Now, first of all, some people could object to the fact that I've been arguing from inference in respect to the usage...

23:34 of these passages in the Book of Acts. They could say that we really cannot argue from inference. We must have either an explicit statement from the Word of God or an explicit example from the Word of God, but we cannot argue from inference. Arguing from inference is arguing from silence.

23:55 Well, I would say, first of all, that there is a difference between inference and silence. There's a difference between inference and silence.

24:06 The Scriptures are our authority, not only in what they say explicitly, and not only in the examples, explicit examples, which they contain, which we ought to imitate, but also they are our authority when good and necessary inferences may be drawn from what is said in them. And the crucial words there are good and necessary. It's possible to draw inferences which are not good, and it's possible to draw inferences which are necessary. And not necessary, which do not necessarily follow.

24:40 But when the inference is both good and necessary, then it is binding, and that this method of handling the Scripture is biblical, is seen from the employment of the Word of God made by the Lord Jesus Christ himself when arguing with the Sadducees about the resurrection. He argues from inference concerning, I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the Lord Jesus. Inference infers from that, arguing from the reality that God is not the God of the dead, but of the living, that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are alive. You see, so there is the biblical doctrine of inference, and inference is not silence, but inference is inference.

25:21 So we're not arguing from silence, we're arguing from inference. And the inference is this, it's precisely this, the distinguishing trait of the members of the Church, the unique distinguishing trait, is that redemption has been applied to them. Unless we can assert, with a biblical basis, that redemption has been applied to a person, we have no right to admit them to the Church. Now that's the inference.

25:54 It's not silence, it's inference.

25:57 Now, some may say that some of the inferences that have been drawn are not good and not necessary inferences.

26:07 And, for example, there are passages which speak about the fact that the letter is to be read to the Churches. And there's another passage which speaks about the face of the Churches. Now, are we to infer from those passages that everyone in the Churches could read? Are we to infer from those passages that there were no blind people in the Churches?

26:30 Well, no. Those passages which speak about the fact that the letter is to be read to the Churches, and that the Churches are able of being cognizant of a person's presence, do not imply that everyone could read, and they don't imply that there were no blind people in the Churches. Rather, what they imply is that the Church was able to hear and to listen to what was read, and also they imply that the Church was able to recognize an individual's presence. But they don't say anything about the distinguishing trait of every member of the Church.

27:07 And these passages are different. These passages do distinguish. They describe the distinguishing characteristics of those who were added and the principle by which they were added to the Church. And so, it is a necessary inference, and it is a good inference.

27:25 And then also, I can see someone attempting to undo what I said about the use of the passages defining or describing men and women as being added to the Church. Now, someone could start to unravel me, unravel me this way. And they could, first of all, start by quoting Luke chapter 9. As you remember that I used this passage.

27:53 Luke chapter 9 and verse 14. Beginning in 13, But he said to them, Give ye them to eat. And they said, We have no more than five loaves and two fishes, except we should go buy food for all this people, for they were about five thousand men. Now, you see, if someone were to seek to undermine the argument from inference that I drew, they could do it this way.

28:26 They could say, Well, you see here it says five thousand men. So then we should assume that since it says five thousand men, and the word for adult males is used, therefore there were no women present, therefore there were no children present. You see? There's the inference.

28:43 No women, no children, because five thousand men are mentioned. Now, would that be a good inference? Or a necessary inference? Well, if you turn over to Matthew, you see from Matthew chapter 14, verse 21, They that did eat were about five thousand men, besides women and children.

29:10 So just the fact that he mentioned five thousand men doesn't mean that there were no women and no children present. Therefore, if you sought to use that passage in Luke to say that there were simply men present, you would have been drawing an inference which was not good and not necessary. So you see how it could be argued. Now, let's turn back to the passages in the book of Acts.

29:32 First of all, Acts chapter 4 and verse 4. But many of them that heard the word believed, and the number of the men came to be about five thousand. Now, when I was using that passage, I did not infer from that passage that there were only men present. Point number one.

30:00 That was not what happened. But simply from that passage, that there was a definite number who could be numbered. That's all that passage teaches. And that the only one that are specified quantitatively are the men.

30:18 It doesn't tell you how many women or how many children, or whether there were women or whether there were children. All it tells you is that there were five thousand men. So in this passage, in Acts chapter 4 and verse 4, Luke is speaking quantitatively.

30:39 Just like he's speaking, Acts 4.4, and also in Luke chapter 9, he's speaking quantitatively. And when quantitative terms are used, it is not right to draw inferences which are generic. And that's clear from Luke chapter 9.

31:05 However, in these other passages, which I did use, namely, Acts chapter 5, and verse 14, Acts chapter 8, and verse 12, Acts chapter 8, and verse 3, and 9, and verse 12, it says, But of the rest does no man join himself to the people, howbeit the people magnified them, and believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes of men and women. He is not speaking specifically and quantitatively. He is speaking generically and qualitatively. And there's a difference.

31:39 There's a difference. In Matthew, the terms men, women, and children are being used generically. And when the words are used generically, then the inference is proper. If they're used quantitatively, the inference is not proper.

31:56 So some people, that may never have bothered. But to some legitimately inquiring minds, that could well be a problem. And I'm not castigating anyone who has or had that particular problem. I'm simply seeking to answer it from the Word of God.

32:14 That there is a difference between speaking quantitatively and generically. And when indeed the words are used quantitatively, no inference is proper. But when they're used generically, the inference is proper. You see the difference?

32:29 Or at least I can see a difference in the usage of terms. Sometimes we speak generically. Sometimes we don't. We specify and are specific.

32:37 And that difference is also found in the Scripture. Someone might also argue that none of these passages are addressed to infants. And therefore any inferences are totally unwarranted. But the point is that when descriptions are given of how the church grows, infants would be included in those even if they were not personally addressed.

33:05 And they're not included. And so these are some of the objections that I can anticipate, which would have been raised due to the arguing from inference. And this is the way that I would seek to answer them. Second objection.

Anticipating and Answering Objections: Unregenerate People in the Church (Parable of the Tares)

33:21 And second objection comes not from the method of arguing from inference. But the second objection comes from the fact that unregenerate people are said to be present in the church. And if the church is characterized by those who believe, those who are disciples, how then can unregenerate people be present in the church? Now Hodge argues this way in systematic theology.

33:46 Remember reading that? Bannerman argues this way. And one of the, on page 10 of this book, and one of the parables that's often used in this respect is found in Matthew chapter 13. And they argue from the parable of the tares.

34:05 And the parable of the tares is set out in Matthew 13, 24 and following. And in particular, the tares are put in the field and then in verse 28, And he said to them, An enemy has done this. And the servants say, Will you then that we go and gather them up? He says, No.

34:40 Lest, happily, while you gather up the tares, you root up the wheat too. Let both grow together until the harvest. And in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, Go, gather first the tares, bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat to my barn. So, they argue this way.

35:01 The tares are the wicked, the wheat is the righteous. He's speaking about the kingdom of God. And God has ordained that both the wicked and the righteous have right together to be in the kingdom of God until such time as the end of the world comes and then they'll be rooted out. Now that's the argument.

35:24 Now I submit to you that this misses the whole point of the parable because the explanation of the parable is found in verse 36. In other words, we have to tolerate the unregenerate in the church. We can't do anything about it. We have to tolerate.

35:41 We have to expect it. And this is used as justification for the inclusion of those whom we may not assert are regenerate, namely our little children. Now verse 36, Then he left the multitudes and went into the house. And the disciples came to him, saying, I mean this parable of the tares of the field.

36:00 And he answered and said, He that sows the good seeds, the son of man, and the field is the world. And the field is the world. The field is not the church. The field is the world.

36:15 Not the church, the world. It's not the church. Yes, it's a description of the kingdom of heaven. But it's a description of the kingdom of heaven as it exists in this present age.

36:28 The field is the world. The field is not the church. The field is the world. And so you are not warranted to conclude from this that unregenerate people have any right in the church.

36:41 What Jesus is teaching is that there will be a distinction between the righteous and the wicked. And both the righteous and the wicked will be in the world until the coming of Christ. The congregation of the righteous is the church. The congregation of the wicked is indeed all of those wicked men throughout the face of the earth who are distinguished from the church.

37:06 And it is the church and the wicked who coexist as long as this world exists. And they will continue to exist until the second coming of Christ at which time the Lord Jesus Christ will come and utterly destroy all of the wicked. At which time the wicked shall be no more. At which time we will enter a new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness and none shall be in it but the righteous.

37:39 And then there will be the utter, absolute, final and irreconcilable severance of the righteous and the wicked. And the wicked and the righteous will be separated forever and ever. And so there's nothing in this. That's the way the kingdom comes.

The Distinction Between Church De Facto and De Jure

37:57 And there's nothing in this parable that justifies tolerating unregenerate people in the church of Christ. Nothing here that justifies any such thing. Now there's another distinction which I think we must make if we are to deal adequately with this assertion of our paedo-baptist brethren. We must admit that there may sometimes be unregenerate people in the church of Jesus Christ.

38:32 We cannot deny that. The Bible, I believe, clearly teaches it. You have the case of Simon Magus who believed, was baptized and yet Peter told him your heart's not right with God. You have the case of Diotrephes.

38:47 Diotrephes was in the church. Diotrephes was in a position of authority in the church and yet John describes him as a wicked man. A wicked man who wouldn't submit to the apostles, who wouldn't receive the apostles and who was wrongly exercising church discipline. He was throwing godly people out of the church because of their Catholic heart and spirit.

39:12 Those that would receive the brethren he forbids and he also casts them out of the church. It's possible for wicked and unregenerate men to enter the church. Paul speaks of perils among false brethren. Some may enter the church deliberately as deceivers.

39:36 Some may enter the church deceiving themselves as well as others. Yet there is the real possibility that false brethren, false disciples will enter the church and will even rise to a position of prominence in the church so that they may be engaged in the ugly practice of wrongly throwing God's people out of the church. Now that's reality. That's the ugly reality of remaining sin among the people of God.

40:10 So we need to make a distinction. And I'm going to use some terminology that probably at least one of you knows what it means. We need to make a distinction between the church and where am I going to write this? If I write it at the bottom nobody will see it so I'll write it at the top.

40:29 The church de facto and the church de jour. The church de facto and the church de jour. Now what's the difference between those two things? Alright, here's the difference.

40:50 The church de facto. That describes what the church is or may be in fact. The church de jour. This describes the church as far as what it ought to be.

41:03 What it ought to be. Now what ought the church to be? It ought to be only those who are truly saved. No hypocrite, no unconverted or unregenerate person has any right whatsoever to be in the membership of the church.

41:23 The church by right, by law let's say, ought to consist only of true believers. But in fact, the church in fact sometimes does consist of those who are not true believers but who are hypocrites as well. And by making this distinction between de jour and de facto, what we are really saying is that the distinction between the invisible and visible church is an ethical distinction. It's a difference between what may be and what ought to be.

42:05 You see, the invisible church as it's been called, that's what the church ought to be. It ought to consist only of those who are truly saved and no one else. But the visible church as it's been called, professing Christians, yes, well whom does it consist of? Well, it consists of true Christians, it may consist of hypocrites, but it certainly consists of true Christians and then others who may not be true Christians.

42:39 Now if you ask me about Trinity Baptist Church, if you ask me, are there hypocrites in Trinity Baptist Church, I wouldn't say yes, because then if you ask me who are they, I'd have a problem, wouldn't I? Because if you say, well, if you know who they are, well, why don't you deal with them? What are they doing here? Let's have a congregational meeting and remove them.

43:05 So I cannot say, yes, there are hypocrites in Trinity Baptist Church. I can't say that. I hope there are none. I tell you there could be, but I hope there are none.

43:19 And I tell you I know of none. And if we did know of any whom we had no biblical grounds to regard as a true Christian because your life was inconsistent with the word of God, I hope that we would have the grace of God to deal with you as the word of God commands. I know of no hypocrites here. I cannot tell you that there are hypocrites here.

43:43 You see the point? What the church ought to be, it ought to consist only of those who are truly saved. What the church may be, it may be a mixture of those who are truly saved. It may be also including at various places and times those who are not truly saved.

44:04 That can happen. It shouldn't happen, but it can. And if it happens here, we're responsible to deal with it biblically. And now that tension is no grounds whatsoever for the inclusion of infants, and it has nothing to do really with it.

The Shared Problem of Ethical Tension and Infant Inclusion

44:22 And the point is that the paedobaptists themselves have exactly the same problem right here in their communicant church. They have exactly the same problem. And when they fence the table, they admit that they have the same problem. Now can they assert that every one of their communicant members is truly saved?

44:43 Are there hypocrites going to the table of those godly paedobaptist churches? Well, there may be. And the problem is not something that really has to do with this issue of infant inclusion. Forget the infant inclusion.

45:00 The same problem exists in their definition of the communicant church. The same problem. They cannot assert that every one who comes to their table is saved. They can't.

45:12 They can't. They cannot assert that there are no hypocrites at their table. And they have the exact same problem that we reformed Baptists have when it comes to the matter of policing the Lord's table. Exact same problem.

45:26 And this is the problem. The problem is not really related to infant inclusion at all. It's related to the reality of tension in the church. The ethical tension.

45:38 The tension of righteousness and sin together. It's the same tension that's found in the heart of every individual Christian. We are sanctified and yet sin remains. And we're being progressively made holy in Christ and yet we will not be free from sin until Jesus Christ comes again.

46:00 And the same thing is true as was true individually. The same thing is true corporately. The church has been sanctified and it does indeed consist of the disciples of the Lord and yet it has remaining sin in it. And part of that may be that people who don't belong in it may wind up getting in it and remaining in it and doing it much damage.

46:25 And that will not be rectified until Jesus Christ comes again in glory. But that is equally as true of the Paedo-Baptist communicant visible church as it is of the Reformed Baptist church. That's an issue which we all have to face. And may God give us the grace to live in that what's called the tension, the overlapping of the ages.

Conclusion: Infants and Hypocrites Don't Belong in the Church De Jure

46:53 The ethical tension of the reality of righteousness and yet the pain and the grief of remaining sin. Remaining sin in us as individuals and remaining sin in the church as a corporate group of Christians. And so, you see, I am not even prepared to say, now listen carefully to this, that Paedo-Baptist churches do not contain infants. They most certainly do.

47:23 What we're speaking about is the church de facto. I am not about to say that Paedo-Baptist churches are not churches and I hope you're not either, number one. Number two, I think that it would be hard to deny the fact that their infants are included in those churches, wouldn't you say? So that the church de facto, in fact, can include, let's take a Paedo-Baptist church, it can include true believers, it can include hypocrites and it can even include infants.

47:55 Now the point is, and here's precisely the point, the church de jure only includes true believers. And so the conclusion would be not that the Paedo-Baptist churches are not churches and not that the infants are not included in the churches, but the conclusion is hypocrites and infants don't belong there. That's the conclusion. You see the point?

48:17 Now that fits that biblical distinction. It's possible for them to do things they should not do. And just as it's possible to admit hypocrites to the church, it's possible to admit infants to the church, but the infants don't belong there any more than the hypocrites do. And we don't have to deny that the Paedo-Baptist churches are churches in order to face that reality.

48:38 And so this distinction between what the church is or may be and what the church ought to be is really the crucial distinction. It's an ethical distinction and it grows out of the fact that sin remains in the churches of Christ and will remain until the Lord Jesus Christ dies. Well, so let's pray and commit our time to the Lord. Lord, as we come before you, we confess our hearts are made sad as we view the reality of sin in the church.

49:17 Sin in the church is infecting not only our thoughts and attitudes, but infecting our very membership, infecting our worship, infecting our evangelism, infecting our government. Lord, sin touches every part of every area of our church life and even the matter of membership is not exempt. And we pray, oh God, that as we continue to consider the sad reality of sin, that you would give us grace, oh Lord, not only to lament our sin but to repent of our sin as individuals and as a church to the end that we may please you and give us the grace, oh God, that whenever we see sin raising its ugly head in our own lives or in the life of the congregation that we may be given the courage and the grace to deal with it, to put it to death, repent of it, mortify it, and put it away, that your holy name may be magnified and honored and praised. We ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen.