Systematic Theology - Church

Baptism

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Systematic Theology

Lesson: Government

Genre: Speech

Track: 17

Dictation Name: 17 Baptism

Year: 1960’s – 1970’s

Let’s begin with prayer.

We praise thee, O God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost who of thy grace and mercy has called us to be thy people, has made us a new creation in Jesus Christ, has given us such great and glorious promises concerning all our todays and our tomorrows. We thank thee that we have been called to victory, and we pray, our Father, that as we face the powers of darkness, we may face them as more than conquerors, in the blessed assurance that Jesus Christ is King of kings and Lord of lords, and that of the increase of his government there shall be no end. Our God, we praise thee. In Jesus name. Amen.

Our scripture this morning is from Paul’s letter to Titus 3:1-9, and our subject is baptism. Baptism. Titus 3:1-9. “Put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates, to be ready to every good work, to speak evil of no man, to be no brawlers, but gentle, shewing all meekness unto all men. For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another. But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour; that being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. This is a faithful saying, and these things I will that thou affirm constantly, that they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable unto men. But avoid foolish questions, and genealogies, and contentions, and strivings about the law; for they are unprofitable and vain.”

Baptism is a highly controversial subject, and the controversies about baptism in the church do show a hardening of the arteries, theologically. There are, I should add, many able works on baptism, but virtually all deal with it as the position of the church. They begin with the present view of a particular group, a denomination, and then go to the Bible to vindicate it.

Now, the interesting thing is that in the Bible, baptism appears before the congregation of Israel came into existence, and before the church was brought into existence. Baptism, in its earlier form, and we will come to this in a moment, because one of the greatest Baptist scholars of our time has recognized that there is some connection between circumcision and baptism.

Circumcision in the Old Testament is first established by God before a congregation, the congregation of Israel was first created. It appears as a covenant rite when God makes a covenant with Israel. It appears again as baptism, this covenant act, or rite. When John the Baptist appears to say that the ax is laid to the root of the tree, to the old covenant people, Israel, and that God is going to create a new Israel and the new sign of the covenant is to be baptism, and he began to baptize. Now, with John, it appears very definitely as a sign of the covenant, so that the rite of circumcision appears as a sign of the covenant in the Old Testament and as the sign of the covenant in the New.

I said there was one notable exception to the prevailing temper which attaches baptism to the church, rather than to the covenant. David Kingdon, a brilliant scholar, in his Children of Abraham, gives a Baptistic view of baptism as a covenant act. He sees very clearly its covenantal nature, its relationship to circumcision. He does have a slight dispensational bias, but his work is very important and a ground-breaking study of the subject in our time. Kingdon, although we would not agree with all his conclusions, is right in seeing the doctrine of the covenant as the starting point of any study of baptism. God calls man by an act of grace into a covenantal relationship. He calls man to be a member of the royal family, the family of God. He gives his law to his people. All are therefore, total possessions of the Lord, because he is in covenant with them. He names them, he governs them, his law must be written in the members and on the tables of their hearts in all their members, and all must be dedicated to him.

The firstfruits belong to the Lord. Our income belongs to the Lord. Our children belong to the Lord. This is the meaning of the covenant, and baptism is a covenant rite. There is a familiar hymn by William Walsham How, written in 1864 which is very commonly used as an offertory hymn. However, its meaning is broader because when Howe wrote it, what he was stressing was the covenantal fact that all that we are, all that we have belongs to God. The first two verses of the hymn read:

“We give thee but thine own

What ere the gift may be

All that we have is thine alone

A trust, O Lord, from thee.

May we thy bounties thus

As stewards true receive

And gladly as thou blessest us

To thee our firstfruits give.”

Baptism is, above all else, the sign of the covenant. It is the recognition that we and our children, our income and our possessions are the Lord’s. We are his possession and his property.

The spirit of baptism is that which Hannah revealed in taking her child, Samuel, to Eli and saying, “For this child I prayed, and the Lord hath given me my petition which I asked of him. Therefore, also I have handed him back to the Lord, as long as he liveth, he shall be returned to the Lord.” So spoke Hannah, according to 1 Samuel 1:27-28.

Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 that we are not our own, that we have been bought with a price, the price of our Lord’s blood and therefore, we must serve and glorify God because we are his possession. Paul then goes on to say in 1 Corinthians 7:14 that, because of the covenant, when anyone in a family, husband or wife, is baptized, God sets apart that family unto himself, and the unbelieving spouse, unless they object to the faith and fight against it, is under the blessing of God. They are separated unto him outwardly. The holiness is a separation. It is not yet an inward fact, and therefore, the children also are holy, are separated unto the Lord.

Of course, if all such who are, in terms of 1 Corinthians 7:14, separated unto God by his covenant, reject that covenant and do not, in due time, believe, their judgment is greater because they have known the covenant, they have known its blessings, and they have still refused it. Our Lord said in Matthew 11:20-24, that the sins of the cities of Galilee and Judea would be more fearful in their judgment on Judgment Day than those of Sodom and Gomorrah, because they had been within the covenant and its blessings.

Baptism is not essentially an ecclesiastical act, but a covenantal one, but virtually all the churches are agreed in making it an ecclesiastical, a “churchy” act. In fact, we would have to say that the Protestants are often the worst at this. There are some Protestant groups who insist that there is no valid baptism, or that it is a sin, to conduct a baptismal service in the home, or outside a church building. Well, the Baptists, at least when I was younger, would go to the river in the summer and have baptisms, but you do have many Presbyterian and Reformed groups who are insistent that it is only to be conducted within the four walls of a church. Well, it’s too bad that they were not around to warn the Apostles of that. After all, Paul did baptize the jailer and his household at Philippi, in prison, and poor Phillip, he was so ignorant, he actually baptized the Ethiopian Eunuch in a pool of water by the roadside. It’s sad that those people in Bible times didn’t have some kind of church book of order. They would have been so much better off.

Well, the classic definition of baptism from the ecclesiastical point of view, I think, was given by Calvin, who said, “The baptism is a sign of initiation by which we are admitted into the society of the church in order that being incorporated into Christ, we may be numbered among the children of God.” Now, that is a good definition, but still a defective one, because he limits the society to the society of the church. It does, indeed, admit us into the society of the church, but even more, into the covenant of our God. That’s the basic fact. We are in the society of the church because we are in the society, the family, of God, in the covenant of our God.

Thus, our baptism is into much more than the society of the church. We are given remission of sins, not merely to sit in church, but to serve the Lord with all our heart, mind, and being, so that baptism stands for the remission of sins. Now, this does not mean that everyone who is baptized by man has remission of sins if the baptism is not by the Lord and his grace internally, but it does not mean that the adult affirmation is required. There are as many unregenerate people baptized as infants running around as there are unregenerate adults who were baptized as adults, running around. The adult profession of faith is no more a guarantee of the election of God, because men can profess things because of many reasons. One, very often, because their wife has nagged them about being baptized. Second, because they believe it’s a good thing and they should belong to the church. I know one man who told me, in his company, there were very few who did not attend church and almost none who believed anything.

Now, in our scripture, Paul’s letter to Titus 3:1-9, Paul tells us that we are to live soberly, righteously and godly, in this present world. It is important for us to understand what is meant by that, because when Paul says we are to live righteously, he means justly, and it is a sad fact that too few modern translations pay attention to the fact that the word “righteous,” or righteously, has reference to just, justice, and justly. Justice and righteousness are the same thing. There is no difference in their meaning, but what has happened is that all too many Christians assume that righteousness is some kind of vague, pious feeling, rather than abiding by the word of God, the law-word of God. You cannot be just, or live in justice, if you commit murder, no matter how piously you feel inside, or how much emotional gush you can supply to prove that you are pious. To be righteous, you live in faithfulness to God’s law-word. So, Paul says in this passage, which is a classic text in the study of baptism, that we are called to be subject to authority wherever authority exists, godly authority, to be ready to every good work, to be sober, as he has said previously in 2:12, righteous and godly, and he goes on to say that we are, therefore, to live so because we have been made regenerate by the washing of regeneration, or by the waters of regeneration.

This is an obvious reference to baptism. It tells us what baptism represents. Baptism is the sign that God who, when he calls us, cleanses us, renews us, makes us a new creation. We must not, however, assume that because baptism is so described, that man’s act accomplishes what God alone can do. After all, Hitler and Stalin were both baptized. This does not mean they were regenerate. God’s electing grace is efficacious with adults and with infants. It is God who chooses us, not we him as our Lord makes clear in John 15:16, and he chooses us to bear fruit.

So, Paul says, we are baptized to be ready to every good work. We are saved to serve. He goes on to say we were once rebels, slaves to appetites, given to hatred. Now, we are to speak evil of no man, but to courteous, to be honest, to be faithful workers, careful to maintain every good work.

Then, he says we are to avoid controversy and contention where it is not productive of good works. We are to avoid foolish questions. What are some of these foolish questions? Genealogies, contentions, strivings about the law, for they are unprofitable and vain. What good is accomplished in debating with somebody and winning a debate, if it does not serve a practical purpose? I’ve seen hundreds of debates between people, around a table, and formal debates, and I’ve never seen anybody convinced of the other person’s side. Whether they win or lose the debate, are they changed? You can argue with somebody about anything, including the law of God, but it is foolish, Paul says. It is unprofitable and vain, or futile. We have not been called to argument. We’ve been called to every good work. We are to manifest the works of righteousness, God’s justice, God’s law, in our lives. We are to be courteous. We are to be gracious. We are to manifest what God has called us to be, and we have been called to be heirs by his grace, according to the hope of eternal life.

For all who are regenerated do believe they are justified by grace, they are heirs of eternal life, and they maintain that righteousness, that just living in all their ways, in all their activities.

The baptized one, thus, is the one who has been circumcised from the heart, not by the letter only, Paul tells us. One who is truly regenerate, one who shows it in the totality of his life, who manifests the righteousness, or justice, of God, who reveals in all his ways not a spirit of contention, but of grace. We are then a new creation of his making. We work to make all things new. The waters of regeneration, Paul calls baptism, for when God baptizes us, it is cleansing, it is regeneration, it is renewing, but this does not exhaust the meaning of baptism. Does it only regenerate us? Can we stop there? Must we not apply it to all of life? Must we not say that when we are the baptized of the Lord, when we are the regenerate of the Lord, we must bring all of life and all of the world under the waters of baptism, or God will bring all of the world under the waters of judgment.

There is much more that can be said about baptism, and here, much of the teaching of the church is, of course, very much to the point invalid. What I have been trying to do this morning is to get you to see that the relationship of baptism is to the covenant of our God. Churches’ teachings have been and are important. The error has been to reduce it to an ecclesiastical rather than a covenantal fact. This is why the church has seen the new life in terms of the church, not new life that must now extend to the world, that the waters of baptism in their regenerating implication are for all of life, for the whole of the world.

Baptism thus, is an important fact. It is a fact of world consequence. We must, as Christians, cover with the waters of regeneration education at every level, family life at every level, civil or political life at every level, economic life, scientific life, agricultural, the whole of life must be affected by the waters of regeneration, because God created this world and then established a covenant with man, that man, as his covenant keeper, might be priest, prophet, and king over all the world, and God through Christ calls man back into the covenant, regenerates him to accomplish that purpose. The waters of regeneration must cover the earth, even as the righteousness of God, we are told, is to cover the earth from sea to sea. Let us pray.

O Lord our God, we rejoice in thy calling of us into thy covenant, of the cleansing of the waters of regeneration. Thou hast declared through thy prophet Ezekiel that the waters of regeneration shall go out from thine altar, flow like a mighty stream to cover the earth, to renew the desert and to make it blossom like the rose, to bring life to the dark corners and desert places of the earth. Make us thine instruments, O Lord, that through us, the waters of regeneration may flow, and that all things may be made new, and that we may rejoice in thy creation. Grant us this, we beseech thee, in Jesus name. Amen.

Are there any questions now on our lesson? Yes?

[Audience] So many evangelical Christians, well, Christians of all stripes, share with the socialists and humanists the hatred of property, and also of belonging of anything. They don’t want to belong to each other or to a church, much less belong to God, and yet, they will stand of verses that talk about being bought with a price, that the earth is the Lord and the fullness thereof, and they’ll claim Romans 12:1-2, and all of this. What is a good starting point to speak with such people about the covenant, or about baptism, or about belonging to God as his property, when they hate property?

[Rushdoony] Start off by telling them that, according to Paul, they are property. They’ve been bought, and it’s not up to them to say what they’re going to do with themselves, or their properties, or to despise anything that God has given them. If we despise the property that we have, the money we have, then we are despising the Lord who gave us those things. They are the gifts of God. They are to be used for his purpose. The Bible never says that money is the root of evil, something that I often have quoted to me, but that the love of money is the root of all evil. When money, or property, or possessions take the place of God and become an idol, then they are an evil, but when those things are seen as the blessings of God, and are used, used for his purpose and for his kingdom, then they are blessings. We have all too many people who are very foolish in their use of the material things that God has given them, or who despise them, and that’s not good either. It’s sinful. So just tell them they are sinners. They have despised the good gifts of God. Never try to argue with sin. Just label it.

Any other questions? No more questions? Well then, let us conclude with prayer.

Lord, we thank thee for thy word, that thy word is truth, and thy word is joy and peace to our hearts. We thank thee that thy word promises us victory in Jesus Christ. Make us ever mindful how rich we are in Christ, our Lord. In his name we pray. Amen.

End of tape