Monthly Archives: December 2011

The Lord’s Supper

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The Lord’s Supper

by Bob Burridge ©2011
(Westminster Shorter Catechism Questions 96-97)
(watch our video & see Westminster Shorter Catechism Q96-97)
Another article: “When Should the Lord’s Supper be Celebrated?“

Taking part in the Lord’s Supper is a high privilege given by God to his children. By it God blesses them, and by it they declare how our Creator redeemed his people out of the fallen human race. The practice of this important Sacrament has often been confused. It has become divorced from the covenant of which it is a part. Some attribute magical powers to the elements used. Others reduce it to little more than an object lesson. It is worth our time and effort to restore this part of worship to what God ordained it to be.

The Lord’s Supper is a Sacrament.

Westminster Shorter Catechism Question 96, “What is the Lord’s Supper?”
Answer: The Lord’s Supper is a sacrament, wherein, by giving and receiving bread and wine, according to Christ’s appointment, his death is showed forth; and the worthy receivers are, not after a corporal and carnal manner, but by faith, made partakers of his body and blood, with all his benefits, to their spiritual nourishment, and growth in grace.

Westminster Confession of Faith 29:I. Our Lord Jesus, in the night wherein he was betrayed, instituted the sacrament of his body and blood, called the Lord’s Supper, to be observed in his church, unto the end of the world, for the perpetual remembrance of the sacrifice of himself in his death; the sealing all benefits thereof unto true believers, their spiritual nourishment and growth in him, their further engagement in and to all duties which they owe unto him; and, to be a bond and pledge of their communion with him, and with each other, as members of his mystical body.

The Lord’s Supper was directly instituted by Jesus Christ as a continuing practice for the church during this era between his death and the final Judgment (Matthew 26:26-29, Mark 14:22-25, Luke 22:19-20, and 1 Corinthians 11:23-25). This has been the universal understanding and practice of Bible-based churches.

It is the covenant meal which fulfills the promises signified in the feast of Passover. Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper while he partook of the Passover meal with his disciples on the night before his own sacrifice on the cross. He identified the bread as his body which was to be crucified on the cross the next day for the sins of his people. He also explained that the cup of wine represented the blood of the covenant in his own blood which was soon to be shed for them. Jesus is called “our Passover” (1 Corinthians 5:7), and “the Lamb of God” (John 1:29).

The Mosaic Passover was prophetic in nature. The New Testament sacrament is not in every way the same as Passover. It fulfills what the covenant meal prefigured. Not all the particulars of it should be expected to apply to the fulfillment. Many of the details had to do with things that symbolized the coming of the Messiah as our sin bearer. Only what is specified by our Lord for the church applies to the Lord’s Supper. For example, we no longer celebrate this covenant meal in our own homes led by the head of the family unit just once each year. We don’t sacrifice a lamb. There is a requirement that all who partake now must discern the body of Christ, etc.

As a Sacrament, the Lord’s Supper is a sign and seal of the covenant of grace. It is a means by which true believers grow spiritually and are nourished when the elements are received in faith, and in the way God has specified in his covenant promises.

The benefits are not attached to the elements themselves apart from their proper use. When we rightly partake of this covenant meal we both receive God’s promised blessings and attest to our common commitments as believers and as members of Christ’s body, the church.

By partaking of the elements we come into union with Christ as a united covenant people. For this reason the Lord’s Supper is often called “Communion”.

1 Corinthians 10:16-17, “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? For we, though many, are one bread and one body; for we all partake of that one bread.”

It is not an offering up of Christ as a sacrifice.

Westminster Confession of Faith 29:II. In this sacrament, Christ is not offered up to his Father; nor any real sacrifice made at all, for remission of sins of the quick or dead; but only a commemoration of that one offering up of himself, by himself, upon the cross, once for all: and a spiritual oblation of all possible praise unto God, for the same: so that the popish sacrifice of the mass (as they call it) is most abominably injurious to Christ’s one, only sacrifice, the alone propitiation for all the sins of his elect.

A common confusion arises from the Roman Catholic understanding of the Lord’s Supper as the “Mass”. Contrary to that teaching, the Bible does not present this sacrament as a re-sacrificing of Jesus Christ. His once-for-all sacrifice is not to be repeated ritually. It is a sacramental practice to commemorate what has already been accomplished, and to seal its blessings upon proper recipients.

Its Appointed Administration

Westminster Confession of Faith 29:III. The Lord Jesus hath, in this ordinance, appointed his ministers to declare his word of institution to the people; to pray, and bless the elements of bread and wine, and thereby to set them apart from a common to an holy use; and to take and break the bread, to take the cup, and (they communicating also themselves) to give both to the communicants; but to none who are not then present in the congregation.
IV. Private masses, or receiving this sacrament by a priest, or any other, alone; as likewise, the denial of the cup to the people, worshiping the elements, the lifting them up, or carrying them about, for adoration, and the reserving them for any pretended religious use; are all contrary to the nature of this sacrament, and to the institution of Christ.

The sacraments are to be administered only by those given the authority to do so by ordination to serve as shepherds of the people. The Elders are held responsible in Scripture for the right administration of all the elements of worship. They are the only ones recognized by God’s word to properly represent the gathered congregation before God in its times of convocational worship. Among the Elders, only those examined for their thorough understanding of the Biblical issues involved should lead in the Lord’s Supper. We commonly designate such Elders as Pastors or Teaching Elders. Most churches require them to complete seminary level training.

According to the institution given both by our Lord and the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 11, certain things should always be present in the celebration of the Lord’s Supper. Prayer should be offered. The word of God is to be expounded. The elements are to be clearly set apart for this special use. The words of Jesus (usually those in 1 Corinthians 11:23-26) are recited. The elements are distributed to and partaken of by the members of Christ’s true church.

Since this is a communion of the church as a body of Christ, and since it is to be accompanied by the teaching of the word and the words of Christ, this sacrament should not be administered outside the called worship of the church under the oversight of its Elders. It should never be distributed later to those not present in the worship time.

The practice of taking the Lord’s Supper to people in private settings, or the administering of it to only the bride and groom at weddings, are in direct violation of this biblical principle. It is therefore contrary to the teachings of the Westminster Confession of Faith and most importantly to the word of God in Scripture. This practice reflects either a superstitious view of the elements as if they have some power or quality infused into them, or a diminishing of their sacramental use as if they are mere object lessons, endearing ceremonial trappings, or signs, but not seals, of God’s Covenant of Grace.

The administration of the Lord’s Supper to shut-ins, or to those unable for physical reasons to attend the convocations of the church, should always include all the biblical elements of the Sacrament. To honor God’s word Pastors and the Elders of the church will sometimes call a worship time at the bedside of those who are disabled. The word is taught, other believers are present as a congregation, and all the things required for its rightful administration are included in the presence of those partaking. The details of this are far beyond the scope if this present lesson, and get into the portions of the Bible that teach about those God calls to minister to his people during this present era.

Other abuses of this sacrament such as limiting the cup to only those administering it, or the carrying around or venerating of the elements, are pure inventions of men and are contrary to the biblical practice instituted by our Lord and reported by the Apostles in Scripture. They are usually attached because of an improper understanding of how the elements of bread and wine convey the blessings promised in the Covenant.

The outward elements remain
unchanged in substance and nature

Westminster Confession of Faith 29:V. The outward elements in this sacrament, duly set apart to the uses ordained by Christ, have such relation to him crucified, as that, truly, yet sacramentally only, they are sometimes called by the name of the things they represent, to wit, the body and blood of Christ; albeit, in substance and nature, they still remain truly and only bread and wine, as they were before.
VI. That doctrine which maintains a change of the substance of bread and wine, into the substance of Christ’s body and blood (commonly called transubstantiation) by consecration of a priest, or by any other way, is repugnant, not to Scripture alone, but even to common sense, and reason; overthroweth the nature of the sacrament, and hath been, and is, the cause of manifold superstitions; yea, of gross idolatries.
VII. Worthy receivers, outwardly partaking of the visible elements, in this sacrament, do then also, inwardly by faith, really and indeed, yet not carnally and corporally but spiritually, receive, and feed upon, Christ crucified, and all benefits of his death: the body and blood of Christ being then, not corporally or carnally, in, with, or under the bread and wine; yet, as really, but spiritually, present to the faith of believers in that ordinance, as the elements themselves are to their outward senses.

The physical elements of a Sacrament convey blessings due to the promise attached to them, rather than by any power or change in the actual elements themselves. They ought to be rightly received and administered, while leaving the blessing part to God who alone is the author of our every spiritual benefit.

When Jesus administered the bread and wine at his last Passover supper with his apostles, he explained that the bread was his body and the wine was the new covenant in his blood. There could have been no confusion in the minds of those present. In that context, nothing indicates that he was speaking of a physical transformation which would mean that what he called bread was no longer bread as they understood it, nor that what he gave them as wine was anything other than what God’s laws of Passover required it to be. There is nothing to make us expect that his command to continue the sacrament implied that the elements would be any different after his resurrection.

The medieval doctrine of transubstantiation teaches that the whole substance of the bread is changed into the literal physical body of Jesus, and that the wine is changed in substance into the literal blood of Jesus. This view protects itself from the obvious objections by saying that they continue to have the outward characteristics of bread and wine, but they are no longer what they appear to be.

This view was taken up by the Roman church. It led to superstitions about the power and efficacy of the elements themselves. The bread is sometimes paraded around invoking followers to worship it and to expect actual blessings to flow from its mere presence. Extreme measures have been taken to keep the leftovers of the consecrated bread or wine from being treated with disrespect, since they are believed to remain the body and blood of Jesus even outside the context of the administration of the sacrament. The administration of the elements have been guarded so that no crumbs of the sacred body or drops of our Savior’s true blood would fall accidentally. A special wafer was designed to replace the bread so that it would be laid intact into the mouth of the participant and could not produce crumbs.

The Lutheran view was a modified form of the Roman doctrine. Their view is often called consubstantiation. Though they also believed that in consecration the actual physical body and blood of our Lord became present in, with, and under the elements, nevertheless the real bread and wine remain also.

Most of the confusion which led to these extreme positions has to do with a basic misunderstanding of the concept of the sacramental relationship which unites the outward forms with that which they represent. Those who hold to those views put a very unnatural reading upon the words of Jesus when he said, “this is my body”. Throughout Scripture figures of speech are used where the thing representing something is spoken of in terms of the thing it represents. Though Jesus calls his disciples the light of the world and the salt of the earth, they are not transformed into photons or Sodium Chloride crystals. There are many classical discussions of this issue and we will not try to reproduce all the details of the arguments here.

In response to these abuses some have taken a view often called Memorialism. It reduces the entire Sacrament to an object lesson denying that the body and blood of Christ are received in any real sense at all.

The position of the Reformed churches differs from these other schools of theology. The classic Reformed symbols indicate that there is a real presence of Christ in the elements, but it is not a physical presence. By virtue of God’s promise we partake of Christ’s body and blood spiritually, receiving the benefits of his covenantal presence when those rightly partaking trust in God’s assurance that blessing will accompany this means of grace.

Unworthy Partakers

Westminster Shorter Catechism Question 97: What is required for the worthy receiving of the Lord’s Supper?
Answer: It is required of them that would worthily partake of the Lord’s Supper, that they examine themselves of their knowledge to discern the Lord’s body, of their faith to feed upon him, of their repentance, love, and new obedience; lest, coming unworthily, they eat and drink judgment to themselves.

Westminster Confession of Faith 29:VIII. Although ignorant and wicked men receive the outward elements in this sacrament; yet, they receive not the thing signified thereby; but, by their unworthy coming thereunto, are guilty of the body and blood of the Lord, to their own damnation. Wherefore, all ignorant and ungodly persons, as they are unfit to enjoy communion with him, so are they unworthy of the Lord’s table; and cannot, without great sin against Christ, while they remain such, partake of these holy mysteries, or be admitted thereunto.

Those who receive the elements of the Lord’s Supper in ignorance or with a wicked intent cannot receive the blessing promised. God looks upon the heart and blesses only those who come as he specifies in his word.

Paul carefully instructed the church at Corinth about the right reception of the Lord’s Supper. In 1 Corinthians 11 he wrote,

23 For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread;
24 and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.”
25 In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.”
26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes.
27 Therefore whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.
28 But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup.
29 For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body.
30 For this reason many are weak and sick among you, and many sleep.
31 For if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged.
32 But when we are judged, we are chastened by the Lord, that we may not be condemned with the world.
33 Therefore, my brethren, when you come together to eat, wait for one another.
34 But if anyone is hungry, let him eat at home, lest you come together for judgment. And the rest I will set in order when I come.

Those who receive the elements without faith in, or awareness of what they represent, and of the church gathered as the body of Christ, are unworthy receivers. They bring condemnation upon themselves rather than blessing. For this reason most Reformed churches require communicants to be qualified by the examination of the Elders in order to be admitted to the Lord’s table. Children and new members must show that they are acting with understanding and a credible faith in Christ before they are welcomed to this Sacrament.

Some admit all baptized children on the basis of their covenantal union in the body of Christ. The admitting of children is called Paedo-Communion. Study committees in most Reformed bodies have not been convinced by the arguments offered to support this concept, but it is a worthy issue for study, and challenges us to improve our understanding of the Sacraments and of their Covenant nature.

The many detailed practices of the ancient celebration of the Passover are not brought over into the New Testament era without change. Most believe that the caution Paul presents in 1 Corinthians 11:27-29 shows one of the ways in which the prefiguring of the Lord’s Supper changed as it came into its fulfilled form.

Since the Lord’s Supper is a means by which God extends his work of grace in the believer, those admitted to the Sacrament should not abstain from it. It is a good time for confessing sin and renewing commitments to the Lord. The idea that one must first have made full restitution for the effects of all his sins is neither biblical nor reasonable. Passages relating to the Levitical sacrificial system and its demands for outward purity should not be transposed into the New Testament era in a way that keeps a truly repentant believer from taking advantage of this important means of grace.

There are many issues which have engaged the church in the study of this Sacrament. Some say fermented wine should always be used, while others insist on the use of unfermented grape juice. Some demand that the bread be unleavened, while others prefer the ordinary leavened bread in common use. Some receive the elements while remaining seated as a congregation. Others come to the front of the church and kneel while receiving it. Some eat and drink each element as it is received while others wait until all have been served then partake as a congregation. Some administer the sacrament every Sunday, others monthly, some quarterly.

These are fascinating areas of discussion and have been used by God to provoke his people into studies that explore the depths of his word for answers. Great caution should be exercised regarding these differences lest things not directly addressed in God’s word should be used by the enemy of our faith to divide us and derail our joint efforts to preserve true biblical worship, individual spiritual maturity, and the declaration of the gospel to the world. The members of local churches should submit to the judgment of the Elders of the church in such matters as these, unless they find sound biblical cause to do otherwise.

(The Bible quotations in this lesson are from the New King James Version of the Bible unless otherwise noted.)

Index of Lessons in the Westminster Shorter Catechism

No Points for Effort

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Lesson 37: Romans 9:24-33

No Points for Effort

by Bob Burridge ©2011

We like to see people put forth effort in their lives to accomplish noble goals, but effort alone is no virtue. People can be very diligent in accomplishing horrible things. Evil people in history such as Adolph Hitler, the heretic Pelagius, Communist Vladimir Lenin, and others were tirelessly busy and totally committed to things they sincerely believed in. However, we don’t commend them for their efforts. They set evil goals and used means that dishonored God. No godly person thinks of Hitler’s failed attempt at genocide and says, “Well, at least he tired.” Doing a wicked thing is not commended simply because there was a strong effort put forth.

In the not-so-distant past doctors thought they could cure certain diseases by cutting a patient to let out large amounts of blood. Since a fever reflects blood temperature, the process appeared to work. There was a problem though, the patients often died from the loss of blood, infections, or a reduced ability of the body to fight of the disease that was causing the fever. No one today would applaud a doctor’s efforts if he went back to the practice of bleeding his patients. We wouldn’t say, “Well at least he has good intentions, and he tries so hard!” Wrong practices are not justified simply because there is a good goal in mind.

On an even higher scale, the same is true of righteousness. The world’s religions have many varied ideas about how to become “right with God.” Most of them have the same common element, human effort. For some that effort is directed toward doing charitable works and good deeds. Some turn to magical incantations and mystical ceremonies. Others make great personal sacrifices and endure self-inflicted pain. Some trust in the decisions they make or in certain prayers they recite. They all make the same mistake according to what God tells us in his word. Biblically, our efforts, even good efforts, cannot be the cause of our salvation. No one is able to do good until God produces new life in them. Good efforts are the effect of God already making a person right by grace. At the root, each of these false religions makes man out to be god over his own soul. They see human effort as what causes God to treat some with mercy and others with wrath.

That is directly against what we have seen so far in our study of Romans. God grants no points for effort!

In this 9th chapter Paul used Old Testament Scripture to prove directly that we are not saved by any desire of our own hearts, or by the work of our hands. We are chosen for eternal life by God’s eternal good pleasure alone. In verse 11 he wrote about God’s dealing with the sons of Isaac. He chose to redeem only one of them “… that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works but of Him who calls.”

Paul then summarized his point in verse 18, “Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens.”

Here Paul is dealing with the objections of ancient Israel. They mistook their own efforts as the cause of God’s blessing. They had added complex details and customs to the law of God. Their man-made additions made them reject the promise of a Messiah who would satisfy justice for their guilt by his suffering in their place.

They came to rely upon their own Jewishness instead of resting in God’s provision of grace. They looked down upon the Gentiles, and took pride in their own efforts. However, God’s word says that all our efforts are worthless unless they are the fruit of a redeemed heart. The prophet said in Isaiah 64:6, “But we are all like an unclean thing, And all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags …”

The prophets had warned that God would judge the nation for her corruption of the truth. Jesus said that God’s judgment would fall upon Israel while the generation he spoke to was still alive. When the Jewish Rabbi we know as the Apostle Paul become a follower of Christ, he also warned the Jews that their special time of blessing was about over.

God’s plan had not failed. Universal salvation of the Jews was never his plan. Just as he only made one of Abraham’s sons the heir of the promise, and only one of his Grandsons, it was only the chosen of Israel who were the true sons of God’s promise.

The time had come when God was not going to choose his people from Israel alone. Here our study continues in Romans 9:25-33.

God was going to add non-Jews to his covenant family!

Romans 9:25-26, “As He says also in Hosea: ‘I will call them My people, who were not My people, And her beloved, who was not beloved. And it shall come to pass in the place where it was said to them, “You are not My people,” There they shall be called sons of the living God.’ “

Again Paul builds his case by quoting from the Bible. This is his consistent way of reasoning: If it can be shown that God said it, that settles it. So he turned to the book of the prophet Hosea to show that he was not introducing a new idea.

Verse 25 is taken from Hosea 2:23 “… I will have mercy on her who had not obtained mercy; Then I will say to those who were not My people, ‘ You are My people!’ And they shall say, ‘You are my God!’ ”

Verse 26 is from Hosea 1:10, “… where it was said to them, ‘ You are not My people,’ There it shall be said to them, ‘ You are sons of the living God.’ ”

Hosea wrote to warn the Northern Kingdom of Israel about her unfaithfulness to God. She had compromised with unbelief and made alliances with heathen nations. But her strength was outward only. Inwardly she was weak and unfaithful. She had ignored the advice of God’s prophets. Most had abandoned the truth, so God was going to scatter them. He would let them be taken captive, led off into a heathen nation.

The life of Hosea teaches a memorable lesson that has taught us for thousands of years. God told this man to marry a prostitute by the name of Gomer. By her he had 3 children whom God named.

First he had a son and named him Jezreel [Yiz-re-EL (יזרעאל)]. Though Yiz-re-EL sounds similar to “Israel”, it is spelled very differently in Hebrew. The name means “scattered by God” in the sense of casting out seeds when planting so that they are spread out on the field. God said he would, “bring an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel.” (Hosea 1:4)

Next he had a daughter whom God told him to name Lo-Ruhamah [Lo Ru-KHA-mah (לא רחמה)], which means “no compassion”. God said, “for I will no longer have mercy on the house of Israel …”

Then he had another son. God told him to name this son Lo-Ammi [Lo Am-MI (לא עמי)]– which means “not my people. And God said, “for you are not My people and I will not be your God.”

The names represented God’s relationship with his unfaithful nation. Though the Israelis were physical descendents of Abraham, members of his visible covenant family, they were to be scattered without compassion, and no longer to be called God’s people.

Then Hosea was told to seek a woman who had committed adultery. This illustrated how Israel had left her God and committed spiritual adultery. To show God’s mercy in saving some from among the unworthy and apostate nation, Hosea was told to go find this woman, redeem her with a price, and to care for her. The names of his children were used to illustrate God’s grace toward those he redeems. Instead of Lo-Ammi (not my people), he was to say, Ammi (my people). In stead of Lo-Ruhamah (no compassion), he was to say, Ruhamah (compassion).

Throughout the record in Scripture, we see that God divides mankind into categories. There are two main ways of making that division. First, some become members outwardly in God’s Covenant Family, and others do not. Before the time of the Apostles that visible church was the nation of Israel. In the time of the Apostles it took on the form of the Christian Church. The members of that Covenant Family are those out of all of fallen mankind who make a commitment to submit to God’s ways and teachings.

Within that outward form of the church there is a more important division of mankind. Some in this visible form of the church are also redeemed from their guilt and sin, and some are not. The redeemed are those who were eternally chosen by grace alone. We call the whole group of God’s elect the Invisible Church. These are the vessels of mercy chosen to display the glories of Christ (Romans 9:23). God elected them based upon his own pleasure, not based upon their own efforts.

Those left in their sin are justly condemned. It is what we all deserve. They are forever aliens from the true spiritual family of God. They are what Paul called God’s Vessels of Wrath in the last section of this chapter (9:22). They display God’s power and patience in administering justice in his good time.

Hosea wrote to the unfaithful tribes of Israel who had abandoned God’s covenant. This is why this portion of Hosea was so helpful to Paul in making his point. God’s promise to redeem was only made with the remnant he eternally planned to be his own. Salvation is not by effort or inherited advantage, it is by Sovereign Grace alone. Therefore God may bring in Jews who had abandoned the outward form of the church, and he could save Gentiles as well.

Peter used these verses form Hosea similarly in 1 Peter 2:9-10, “But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; who once were not a people but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy.”

God had promised to adopt the unworthy into His Kingdom. To make this election by sovereign grace absolutely clear, the Lord was about to build his church from among the Gentiles, those who were so despised and looked down upon by the Jews. Paul also explained this in Ephesians 2:12-13, “that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.”

God promised to save only a remnant of Israel.

Romans 9:27-29, “Isaiah also cries out concerning Israel: ‘Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, The remnant will be saved. For He will finish the work and cut it short in righteousness, Because the LORD will make a short work upon the earth.’ And as Isaiah said before: ‘Unless the LORD of Sabaoth had left us a seed, We would have become like Sodom, And we would have been made like Gomorrah.’ ”

Paul again turns to the then existing books of the Bible, this time to the Prophet Isaiah. This section of Romans is a perfect lesson in using God’s written word as its own interpreter. In just these 33 verses, Paul quotes from the Old Testament 34 times. He makes eight Old Testament references in just these last nine verses.

The Bible is clear. God’s salvation is only promised to a remnant of those who claim to be his people. Isaiah 10:20-23, “And it shall come to pass in that day That the remnant of Israel, And such as have escaped of the house of Jacob, Will never again depend on him who defeated them, But will depend on the LORD, the Holy One of Israel, in truth. The remnant will return, the remnant of Jacob, To the Mighty God. For though your people, O Israel, be as the sand of the sea, A remnant of them will return; The destruction decreed shall overflow with righteousness. For the Lord GOD of hosts Will make a determined end In the midst of all the land.”

The great nation of Israel was going to be taken away by Assyrian invasion as a judgment of God. There, they will be reduced to a mere remnant. Only that remnant will return to the land in faith. It will be only those who “depend on the LORD, the Holy One of Israel, in truth.” (Isaiah 10:20)

Clearly Paul and Isaiah did not see this as a promise to just a remnant of outward National Israel. The remnant was made up of those changed inwardly by grace and given a true faith. Since only a remnant is returned in faith, the majority of the outward church remained corrupt, even into the time when Jesus was born in the town of Bethlehem hundreds of years after the delivering of Isaiah’s prophesies.

Those who take comfort in the size of their church or in the large numbers who seem to agree should take heed. God does not bless by majorities. He blesses his remnant rescued by grace alone. Popular trends in the churches through all the ages are never a good test of what is pleasing to God. Our trends must be measured by comparison with the honestly and carefully studied word of Scripture.

What of those who are not called by God’s grace to be his remnant? The Lord will quickly, surely, execute His Word. His judgment falls quickly. Paul again turns to the Scriptures for his support. Isaiah 1:9, “Unless the LORD of hosts Had left to us a very small remnant, We would have become like Sodom, We would have been made like Gomorrah.”

Aside from his mercy, the just end of every human is like that of Sodom and Gomorrah, the cities destroyed in terrifying judgment for their sin and unbelief.

On the other hand, God’s true Israel will always be delivered. Even though it will be only a remnant from the visible body of professing believers.

Finally, Paul exposes the error
of putting hope in our own efforts.

Romans 9:30-33, “What shall we say then? That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness of faith; but Israel, pursuing the law of righteousness, has not attained to the law of righteousness. Why? Because they did not seek it by faith, but as it were, by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumbling stone. As it is written: ‘Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and rock of offense, And whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.’ “

“What is this?” the Jews were asking. “Has God given salvation to the unworthy Gentiles?” That’s exactly what he has done. “But, …” they might object, “… they weren’t even pursuing righteousness — and we were!”

So then, why did the Jews not attain salvation since they tried so hard? Paul’s answer hits right at the heart of all false religion, they thought they deserved it. They had so corrupted what Moses said, that they thought the law was a means of salvation. They thought that because they were so zealous in their religion, God would save them. But God gives no points for effort.

No human works are free from corruption. Sin distorts our every goal. Even our best efforts and intentions condemn us all the more as they are done arrogantly for our own glory rather than for the glory of our Creator.

In Galatians 2:21, Paul made it clear that if it was possible to be made right with God by means of our efforts or by keeping the law, then the death of the Messiah would have been unnecessary. “I do not set aside the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain.”

Why send God the Son to suffer and to endure a cruel unjust death, if men were able to earn salvation by their deeds? if it could simply be deserved?

In Scripture Jesus is the Rock, the cornerstone of truth, and foundation of all hope. Upon the solid foundation of his holy life and atoning death his people stand with confidence that their guilt is removed. He is the cornerstone laid down first by the Master builder as a guide to how the rest of the building is to be oriented and constructed. As is says in Isaiah 28:16 “therefore thus says the Lord God, ‘Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a tested stone, a costly cornerstone for the foundation, firmly placed. He who believes in it will not be disturbed.”

Ancient Israel did not like the shape of the building that Christ’s truth marked out. She abused the law thinking it was a way of salvation. God gave his statutes to humble his people to repentance, and to instil in them a trust in his provisions for the soul. His law was the way those redeemed by grace show their gratitude. It was never given as a means of removing sin or earning salvation by our own efforts.

The suffering Messiah exposed that false religion of works. They looked for a different kind of Messiah, a Jewish revolutionary. The cornerstone became for the Jews a stumbling stone that offended them. Isaiah 8:14, “He will be as a sanctuary, But a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense To both the houses of Israel, As a trap and a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.”

Peter used this same Old Testament symbolism when he wrote 1 Peter 2:8, ” ‘A stone of stumbling And a rock of offense.’ They stumble, being disobedient to the word, to which they also were appointed.” In the next verses Peter used the reference from Hosea just as Paul did.

Dr. Haldane says, “A free salvation becomes an offense to men on account of their pride.” They will not admit their corruption due to sin, their guilt, their inability to merit God’s favor. They will not accept a God who is sovereign and just.

Israel in her unbelief stumbled at this. As a nation there was no evidence of a true faith. It exposed the spiritual aliens who lived among the true people of God. They who believe they can earn divine favor without the enablement of their Creator may take on the name of the Savior, but they are not part of the remnant redeemed by grace.

God shattered any glimmer of pride in the Israelite’s heart. He put faith into the hearts of the Gentiles considered by the Jews to be savage, pagan, and cursed. What grander demonstration of Sovereign Grace could be imagined? God saves sinners, not those who think they have earned the right to be called Son’s of God. The Gentiles had put forth no effort to come to Christ, or to discover God’s truth. Yet by grace alone they were grafted into the vine.

The effort we put forth in our lives is not done to merit God’s forgiveness. The cause of our alienation from him is not removed by good things we do or promise. Our efforts are the evidences of a forgiveness already granted. We strive toward holiness by the power of Christ at work in us, not to get him to work in us. By our obedience to God we express gratitude for blessings we know we do not deserve and could never earn.

(The Bible quotations in this lesson are from the New King James Version of the Bible unless otherwise noted.)

Back to the Index of Studies In Paul’s Letter to the Romans

Who Should be Baptized?

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Who Should be Baptized?

by Bob Burridge ©2011
Part Three of the study of the Sacrament of Baptism
(Westminster Shorter Catechism Questions 94-95)
(watch the video)

The Subjects of Baptism


The question of who should be baptized has caused a great deal of debate between some who equally love God’s word and who take it as the only standard in determining what we should believe and do. The differences are not because some are unaware of certain Bible verses. They all cite the same ones. The divergence takes place in the area of interpretation.

Those who have a more extensive understanding of the original languages admit that rigid dictionary definitions of the words, and narrowly interpreted grammatical structures of individual verses are not honest solutions to the problem. It comes down to how each passage fits together with other related passages and teachings of the inspired Scriptures. Scripture must interpret Scripture.

All those who sincerely profess faith in Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord should be baptized into membership in a local congregation.

Historically Reformed Christianity recognizes the children of believers as members of the visible church, and therefore are also proper subjects of baptism. Those who do not baptize infants until they are able to make a credible profession of faith are classified as baptists. The term baptist does not identify particular denominations which may use that word in their name. The term is used here to identify a particular belief system concerning baptism.

The Westminster Standards summarize the understanding of the Reformed branch of Christianity about what the Bible says on this topic.

The Westminster Shorter Catechism
Q. 95. To whom is Baptism to be administered?
A. Baptism is not to be administered to any that are out of the visible church, till they profess their faith in Christ, and obedience to him; but the infants of such as are members of the visible church are to be baptized.

Westminster Confession of Faith 28

IV. Not only those that do actually profess faith in and obedience unto Christ, but also the infants of one, or both, believing parents, are to be baptized.

Theologically conservative Christians all agree that the Bible is God’s infallible and inerrant word. Therefore it alone must be the final and authoritative test of what is to be believed. The primary divergence between the historic Reformed view and that of the Baptist position relates to how they understand changes in the administration of God’s promises to his people following the finished work of Christ. This impacts not only the question of who are the proper subjects of baptism, it also effects the meaning attached to baptism and its presumed efficacy.

The first and primary issue is the unity of God’s covenant with his people. The Baptist Confession of 1689 is largely based upon the Westminster Confession, but it differs in the section about baptism, and about the nature of the church. In chapter 26 it does not include the children of believers as members of a visible church. The explanation given by some falls short of defining the visible church concept accurately. The term “visible church” does not codify the admission of unbelievers into the church as some accuse. It merely admits that the church has the same basic type of composition as the symbolic church embodied in the nation of Israel by God’s own commandment. Some members are not true believers. Jesus himself mandates this same view as illustrated in his parable of the wheat and the tares (Matthew 13:24-30).

We need to determine from Scripture what changes God made in the composition of his church. Does he now exclude infants of believers, and deny them the sign and seal of his covenant which they previously had received? The identifying sign of God’s people during the age from Abraham until the resurrection of Jesus Christ (which was then circumcision) was commanded to be administered to two groups of people.

1. Circumcision was to be performed upon those males outside the covenant community who come to make a credible profession of faith in God’s promises and salvation, and who demonstrate their sincerity by a desire to live by God’s principles and to submit to the God-appointed authority of the church.

2. Circumcision was to be performed upon the children of those already members of the covenant community. This sign was to be administered to all male children at the age of 8 days. This did not mean that they were also necessarily members of the invisible church which is the body of all those God actually regenerates by the promised future work of Christ. The election and regeneration of any person, adults as well as children, cannot be determined by the church, therefore it cannot be what the sign of the covenant represents. The circumcision of children indicates that God considered them to be members of the visible church, otherwise he would not have permitted them to receive its sign and seal.

The changes made in the covenant are well documented in the books of the New Testament. The narrowness of the church before Christ was expanded beyond Israel so that it would include people from all nations. The post-ascension church did not “replace” the pre-ascension church identified as Israel. The Church after the time of Christ is Israel in its fulfilled and completed form as promised by God throughout the Old Testament.

The sign marking members of the covenant was also enlarged so that both males and females were proper recipients. The reason for this change likely involved the symbolic federal headship of the husband and father which was fulfilled by the completion of the work of Christ who is the second Adam, the federal head representing all who believe. This was taken up earlier in this topic where we compared Baptism and Circumcision.

It would be contrary to God’s enlargement of the covenant community if all the children of believers who were not old enough to believe on their own were no longer to be included. Rather than enlarging the church, it would be a diminishing of its scope. Only God can announce changes resulting from the fulfillment of his previous commandments. Considering this, it would be unprecedented and contrary to sound biblical interpretation to presume such a change when nothing is said of it in the Bible. No where in any of the New Testament books is such a change announced, or shown by apostolic example.

Even a casual reading of the Epistles of the New Testament or the history of the early church in the book of Acts shows that the Inspired writers and the Apostles were diligent to advise the church about questions that would naturally arise among the Jewish believers as the covenantal changes took place. It would be astounding that no Jewish family in the decades covered by those books ever raised the question of their children’s inclusion in the covenant community. For thousands of years obedient parents placed the sign of the covenant upon their male children on the 8th day of their lives. If suddenly children were to be excluded, their godly parents would have been informed. That no controversy or issue is recorded for the churches then, or for the churches using the New Testament as their guide in the years to come, it is indicative that no such dramatic change took place. For lack of evidence to the contrary, God’s already revealed word must stand.

On the positive side of the issue, there is abundant evidence in the New Testament that the same practice of God’s people continued regarding the children of believing members of the covenant community, and regarding the families of those who come to believe and who join the church.

The covenant promises which included the children of believers in the Old Testament were directly applied to the New Testament church.

Acts 2:38-39 reports the words of Peter at Pentecost. He applied to the church the ancient promises made to Abraham and his descendants, “Then Peter said to them, ‘Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call.’ ”

It connects the covenant promise made to Abraham and to his seed, with the New Testament church as the proper heirs of the covenant. That promise includes both the forgiveness of sin and the reception of the Holy Spirit. These are both central in the meaning of baptism as we have demonstrated in a previous heading in this lesson.

However, some confuse the Covenantal position by misrepresenting the identity it makes between circumcision and baptism. The Reformed view actually limits this identity between the prefiguring and the fulfillment of it. It recognizes changes clearly explained in the teachings of the New Testament.

For example, the pre-messianic shedding of blood in sacrifices and in circumcision is no longer appropriate after the shedding of our Savior’s blood completed what was signified. Blood is replaced by water, which was also an Old Testament symbol for purification, for the washing away of the pollution of sin.

Also, the sign is no longer limited to the male as representative for his entire family. The death of Jesus as the representative for his church, the bridegroom dying to redeem his bride, is what that male headship representation was about.

The New Testament church and pre-messianic Israel are the same olive tree in Romans 11:16-17. Their unity does not deny basic changes directly explained by God himself. But the removal of children from the covenant community is no where commanded as part of this change.

To see how the New Testament church both understood and carried out the promise mentioned by Peter at Pentecost, we need to examine the examples of baptism in Scripture after the resurrection of Christ. There are only nine examples of baptism recorded in the book of Acts.

The first is the baptism of 3,000 at Pentecost. There are four baptisms where individual men were received into the church but families were not present. This leaves four baptisms where it expressly mentions the baptism of households along with the adult who became a believer. As Dr. Gregg Strawbridge observes, “… virtually every person who had a household had it baptized!”

If a person presumes that only adults who make a credible profession of faith can be members of the church and therefore can be baptized, he must also presume in all these cases that all the members of each household were not only old enough to understand the gospel, but they each also believed, and voluntarily and knowledgeably submitted to baptism at the same moment. This is certainly possible. But it has nothing to do with the issue. We do not know the ages of any children present in these families. We do know that they were received as families without any qualifying comments being made about those families in the biblical record.

If we set aside the presumptions, we would see these passages as a continuation of the practice commanded by God long ago for his covenant people. The including of the children was the common understanding every Jew would already have had. The Apostles who were sent out to baptize, and the families to whom the gospel first came, would have known God’s instruction to mark out their children as members of the covenant community.

At this point the reader is directed to the excellent article by Dr. Gregg Strawbridge, Infant Baptism: Does the Bible Teach It? It would be redundant to reproduce here all the careful work he has done in reviewing the passages and arguments from Scripture that support the continuation of the inclusion of the children of believers in both the visible church, and as proper subjects of the sign and seal of that membership.

The baptism of the infant children of believers does not save them, nor does it contradict the fact that babies are not able to believe before they are baptized. The question does not fall down upon the fact that covenant children are commonly excluded from the Lord’s Table in most Reformed churches. We will take that up in the study of the Lord’s Supper.

The Efficacious Nature of Baptism

Westminster Confession of Faith 28

V. Although it be a great sin to contemn or neglect this ordinance, yet grace and salvation are not so inseparably annexed unto it, as that no person can be regenerated, or saved, without it; or, that all that are baptized are undoubtedly regenerated.
VI. The efficacy of baptism is not tied to that moment of time wherein it is administered; yet, notwithstanding, by the right use of this ordinance, the grace promised is not only offered, but really exhibited, and conferred, by the Holy Ghost, to such (whether of age or infants) as that grace belongeth unto, according to the counsel of God’s own will, in his appointed time.
VII. The sacrament of baptism is but once to be administered unto any person.

It confuses the sign with what it represents if we believe that Baptism itself produces all that it represents and seals upon the recipients. The act of baptizing does not mean that the person receiving the sacrament is actually among the elect and therefore a member of the invisible church. As with circumcision in the time before Christ, it assures for every person being baptized only that he is a member of the visible church, and is subject to the blessings or cursings of God’s promises.

The grace represented is truly granted to those qualified by the work of Christ under God’s covenant. Others receiving the sacrament who prove never to be regenerated by their lack of profession of faith and disobedience to God, receive rightfully all the curses of that same covenant. This applies to adults as well as to infants who are baptized. The Reformed view is therefore completely distinct from the view of Sacerdotalism as held for example by the Roman Catholic Church.

Similarly, if we look upon this act as merely an outward ritual or object lesson, we deny the promises God’s word attaches to Baptism. The Reformed view therefore directly denies the limited symbolic view of the Memorialists.

Since infants may not evidence the work of regeneration until later in life we say that the efficacy of baptism, the actual conveying of the graces signified, may not take place at the moment when the Sacrament is administered.

Since baptism represents the cleansing of sin and engrafting into the covenant body of the church it is rightly administered only once. There is no biblical justification or example of multiple baptisms of the same person. To do so would be a direct rejection of the meaning of Baptism and would obscure what God intends it to reveal about himself and his work of cleansing the guilty sinner of the stains of his sin.

The covenant promises which included the children of believers in the Old Testament are directly applied in Scripture to the New Testament church. Historically Reformed Christianity recognizes the children of believers as members of the visible church, and therefore proper subjects of baptism. Baptism does not regenerate a person. It acts as a sign and seal of God’s Covenant of Grace.

(The Bible quotations in this lesson are from the New King James Version of the Bible unless otherwise noted.)

Index of Lessons in the Westminster Shorter Catechism

summary:
The covenant promises which included the children of believers in the Old Testament are directly applied in Scripture to the New Testament church. Reformed Christianity recognizes the children of believers as members of the visible church, and therefore proper subjects of baptism. Baptism does not regenerate a person. It acts as a sign and seal of God’s Covenant of Grace.

Is God Fair?

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Lesson 36: Romans 9:19-24

Is God Fair?

by Bob Burridge ©2011

We grow up with strong ideas about fairness. From the time we learn to play with other children in our back yard, to the time we become adults, we are taught that there is a set of rules that should apply equally to everybody.

We also learn that not everybody is really equal. Some are more gifted physically. They become great athletes, or tireless skilled laborers. Some are more gifted intellectually and become inventors, or expert professionals. Some have deep compassion and become our encouragers. Some work hard and earn what they have and more to be able to help those truly in need. Others are lazy and become an unnecessary burden to others. Some break the law and forfeit certain rights so that the state can protect others in society. Some are the victims of prejudice, or become victims of life changing tragedies. People have different abilities, experiences, opportunities, and interests.

These realities show that God neither makes us the same to start with, nor wants us to all be the same in every way. It would be a sad, boring and unproductive society if people tried to be identical, and did not believe they needed others with different skills and abilities to survive.

There is a philosophy called egalitarianism that sees all inequality as evil. It is plainly anti-biblical. Egalitarians favor laws that force its own view of equality upon everyone. To make it work out in practice it means passing laws respecting only certain groups of people to remove their advantages. It is a self-contradiction. It results in unequal laws to force upon some what certain individuals in another group perceive as equality. God has obviously not purposed that everyone can be or should be equal in everything.

But there is a right idea of equality that is part of God’s creation. God imposes basic moral principles and civil liberties upon everybody. The 10 commandments show us that we all should respect the property, spouses and lives of others. We should all respect truth, rightful authority, and not covet what God gives to others. Everyone is called upon to worship the one true God in the ways he commands. No one has the right to bypass these standards, or to limit them to just some people.

The idea of human fairness is possible because there are universal principles which apply to us all. God is the one who has given these principles, and obligates us all to respect them.

However, we make a serious mistake if we imagine that God also has laws above him. That is why it is wrong to ask if “God is fair?” However, since that question often comes up naturally in our fallen minds, it is important to answer it biblically. It was a question that was bound to be in people’s minds as Paul wrote to the Romans.

God was about to judge Israel for her corrupted worship and sins. In Romans 9:6 Paul explained that God was not being unfaithful to Israel in judging her. The promise of God had not failed. It explained, “they are not all Israel who are descended of Israel.”

Israel had failed to understand that God’s covenant with Abraham and his seed was never made as a promise to all his descendants. On the physical side, only Isaac, then only his son Jacob were chosen. On the spiritual side, only the children of the promise are actually redeemed. God said he loved Jacob and hated Esau. That was not based upon anything they had done or would do (Romans 9:11). It was God’s sovereign choice alone that set his love upon the undeserving.

In 9:14 Paul showed that God is not unjust in just choosing some and not others. It said, “Is there unrighteousness with God? Certainly not!”

Paul used Scripture to show that on the one hand God does not choose everyone. Clearly the Bible had said that God loved Jacob, but hated Esau. On the other hand, the Bible says that God is not unjust in choosing only some. God shows mercy upon whom he will, and he hardens whom he will. Though we may not see how all this fits together, we must accept what God’s word says.

Now we come to Romans 9:19-24.

Paul anticipates the next question that
naturally comes to the fallen heart

Romans 9:19, “You will say to me then, ‘Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will?’ “

The temptation is to ask, “How can God find fault, and condemn the sinner, if no one can resist his will?” Is God fair to condemn those who are not able to come to him? Was God fair to reject Israel for her unbelief when it is God alone who implants faith?

This question was anticipated as a possible objection to Paul’s teachings. Two facts had already been proven directly from Scripture, and are assumed by this question.
1. God is totally Sovereign over all that comes to pass.
2. God holds the sinner and unbeliever responsible for his sin and unbelief. He finds fault with them.

If either of these was not true, then Paul’s easiest answer to this question would be to say so. But Paul does not answer by saying, “God is not so absolutely Sovereign.” Nor does he say that, “Man is not really held at fault for his moral actions.” And he doesn’t answer by saying, “Sure we can resist the will of God.” He did not answer like that because those answers are simply not true.

The Apostle chose rather to tell the hard truth. God is sovereign, yet he holds individuals responsible for sin. Nothing could be more plain from God’s word than these facts.

The God of Scripture is Lord over all things. For example it says in Psalm 135:6 , “Whatever the LORD pleases He does, In heaven and in earth, In the seas and in all deep places.” And in Ephesians 1:11 the Bible says, “In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will”

Since he is sovereign, no one can resist what God wills. A few sample verses make this point absolutely clear.

Proverbs 21:1, “The king’s heart is in the hand of the LORD, Like the rivers of water; He turns it wherever He wishes.”

Jeremiah 10:23, “O LORD, I know the way of man is not in himself; It is not in man who walks to direct his own steps.”

Philippians 2:13, “for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.”

God’s word also directly states that he finds fault with the sinner for his sins.

Romans 2:5, “But in accordance with your hardness and your impenitent heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God,”

Numbers 32:23, “But if you do not do so, then take note, you have sinned against the LORD; and be sure your sin will find you out.”

These points have already been proven from the Bible. So Paul moves on to the real issue.

Paul’s basic answer is given in one direct statement.

Romans 9:20a, “But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? … “

What right does man have to call into question what God has clearly said is so? Does the mere creature call the Creator into judgment? Does he really think he knows so much that he can say what God cannot be?

Such a question is inexcusably arrogant coming from a mere creature who took thousands of years to figure out that the earth rotates around the sun, who was so proud in his pronouncement that the atom was the smallest thing possible, but he was wrong.

I once owned an encyclopedia that said a human could not survive travelling at speeds over 60 miles per hour for very long. No one can speak all the languages that exist on earth even in just this one brief moment of history. No one can explain completely how planets bend space to produce gravitational fields. No one can describe the exact nature of light, the first thing God created. In mathematical physics no one can solve the most fundamental questions about the universe and the things of which it is made.

No one can even know what the next moment will bring. And no one can account for how all things got to be the way they are. Expert meteorologists are unable to consistently predict tomorrow’s weather accurately. Yet some dare to say that God cannot be both sovereign, yet still be fair in finding fault.

Even a human’s ability to question what might be, is a God given ability. Yet fallen man abuses his God-given faculties in such ways that only condemn him more.

The facts are plain. Sinners are under God’s control and serve his purpose, but they are not released from blame.

How can we reconcile God’s absolute sovereignty and man’s moral responsibility? Our finite and sin-corrupted minds should not expect to comprehend the infinite and complex ways of God. God’s will is not like anything we have experienced or seen.

Unlike our preferences and choices, God does not think in steps. He does not reason from one idea to derive the next. He does not have to gather facts, analyze them, and draw conclusions to decided a course of action. God is eternally unchangeable as he is described in Scripture. He eternally knows all things, and all the means that produce them. He knows the causes of everything. All the causes and circumstances are planned by him. That is too hard for us creatures to even begin to consider. The fallen heart cannot begin to see this aside from the Holy Spirit by grace giving the ability to submit to such a concept.

I remember a tragic account of a plane crash near Martha’s Vineyard. It cost the lives of three people. When I read the report no one knew for sure the cause of that incident. Some experienced pilots were speculating about how disorienting it is to fly with limited visibility. We hear a lot about the merits of flying by instruments over flying by sight. Visual flying is fine under clear conditions and in ordinary circumstances. But when visibility is low, or conditions are difficult, a pilot may easily become confused. Have you ever been parked at a light and when you glance at a car moving forward slowly next to you, you get the sensation that your car is rolling backwards so you push on the brake? Similarly in an air plane your body is not a good indicator of the attitude of the plane. A pilot may have the sensation he is flying level and headed safely toward the horizon when in reality he is flying directly into the water or his plane is at a dangerous angle making him likely to stall. These are conditions about which pilots need to be trained so that they ignore their feelings, and trust what the instruments are telling them.

Similarly we fallen creatures have hearts and minds that can fool us, and confuse reality. We may think something is quite reasonable and logical, when it is not. We may presume things as fact which are really only perceptions and assumptions.

We need to have something more accurate than our own feelings and limited understanding. We have such a guide in God’s word as preserved for us in the Bible. Living by the revealed word is similar to trusting the instruments of a plane. When God says he is Sovereign and yet holds men accountable, we must trust that it is true, just, and fair. We need to resist how we feel about it as mere fallen humans who are easily deceived.

Luther corrected his rival Erasmus telling him he had created: “… a god of your own fancy, who hardens nobody, condemns nobody, pities everyone. You cannot comprehend how a just God can condemn those who are born in sin … the answer is, God is incomprehensible throughout, and therefore his justice, as well as his other attributes, must be incomprehensible.” (Haldane 482)

Then Paul used a biblical example which
all the Jews would already know from Scripture.

Romans 9:20b-21, “… Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, ‘Why have you made me like this?’ Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?”

The example of the potter and the clay was used several times by the Old Testament prophets. Both Isaiah and Jeremiah use it to illustrate God’s Sovereign Lordship. Isaiah 64:8 speaks to Jehovah as “our Father”, and as “our potter.” It says to him, “all we are the work of Your hand.”

Jeremiah was sent by Jehovah to the house of a potter for a lesson: Jeremiah 18:3-6 says, “Then I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was, making something at the wheel. And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter; so he made it again into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to make. Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying: ‘O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter?’ says the LORD. ‘Look, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel!’ ”

The thing made has no right to complain, as if his Creator had made an error.

Isaiah 45:9 , “Woe to him who strives with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth! Shall the clay say to him who forms it, ‘What are you making?’ Or shall your handiwork say, ‘He has no hands’?”

Isaiah 29:16, “Surely you have things turned around! Shall the potter be esteemed as the clay; For shall the thing made say of him who made it, ‘He did not make me’? Or shall the thing formed say of him who formed it, ‘He has no understanding’?”

The rebellious heart questions even God’s right to be God.

Paul here, just like the prophets of ancient Israel, rebukes the attitude that prompted the question. Only a foolishly ignorant and irreverent heart would dare such a complaint.

Our limited minds cannot understand the infinite mind of God. It is hard not to think that God reasons and works one step at a time as we do. But it is not the way his mind works. Every thought and idea of God is eternally there. He never sees sin appear, then decides what to do with it. He does not wait to decide to allow sin until after he considers the consequences of not doing so. Our little human theories fall far short of understanding a mind that is infinite, eternal, and unchangeable.

The clear teaching of these Scripture references shows that the Maker has full authority over the things he formed to do with them whatever he wills. He made each part of his creation to be as it is to serve his eternal purpose.

We are reminded that we are not formed from different things. All are made from the same lump. We do not emerge in this life from a neutral glob of humanity. We are all created by the One True God, and all are fallen in Adam who represented the whole human race in Eden.

Romans 3:22-23, “… For there is no difference; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”

Mankind as a whole race is fallen in Adam. Both those God saves, and those he leaves guilty, are from that same clay. From fallen mankind God sovereignly molds one to honor, and another to dishonor. Therefore, God would be fully just and fair if he threw out all the clay and left all mankind condemned.

The fact that God says so is enough, but Paul goes on to tell us more. He shows us something of why God has formed both kinds of people. In Romans 9:22-23 he writes, “What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had prepared beforehand for glory,”

Paul applied the Potter Principle to God to show the ultimate right of the Potter. The potter’s purpose is what ultimately counts in what he makes. In spite of what the world around us reasons in rejecting this principle, humanity’s highest good is not each person’s own happiness, prosperity, and ease. The thing formed is to fulfill the plan of the one who formed it. This is, from the time he is made, his highest good. It is not required that man understands how everything fits together. He cannot. But it is required of him to accept God’s word, and to promote his Creator’s glory.

God made two groups of humans so that his nature will be more fully known. God leaves some sinners in their deserved guilt. By them God says he makes known his wrath, and his amazing power.

He does not just destroy evil right away. He endures it patiently to supply a continuing lesson in them. He endures them all the way to old age to expose man’s depravity. No greater testimony could be given to the truth of the Bible than to look around at what flows from the heart of our neighbors and our nation’s children. Do you doubt depravity? Then read the daily news, talk about hell with your neighbor, let an unbeliever know that without Christ he is without hope. Until the Holy Spirit redeems someone, they will quickly show their dislike for what our Creator reveals as the truth. By his infinite and all wise power God endures such arrogance for his ultimate glory. How dangerous for anyone to take comfort in God’s longsuffering! How short-sighted of them.

God also makes himself known by those who become the objects of his mercy. In them he shows the riches of his glory, undeserved blessing through a suffering Savior.

Without both vessels of wrath and mercy, these truths about God would remain a secret. Dr. Haldane writes: “the awful ruin of the wicked is necessary for the full display of the riches of Divine mercy in saving the elect.”

The guilty have no right to complain that they are appointed to wrath. Judgment for sin is what all humans deserve. Only by grace is justice met by the Messiah for some. But no one is condemned aside from true personal guilt, for which the sinner is held fully responsible.

So then, how does God condemn those he does not call by grace? Paul does not get into that here. He just states the fact that it is so, and proves it from Scripture. Later, in Chapter 11 we will see more of the ways of God explained. For now, Paul has shown that it is not the will of a person, or his works, that makes him a Christian. It is God’s mercy alone, his undeserved blessing, that makes redeemed children out of lost sinners. God, the Maker, is at perfect liberty to do as he pleases with his fallen creatures.

Of course this is not a popular concept. Fallen man hates to hear about grace unless it is a message of the hope of salvation for everybody. The idea that God is just and holy offends the sinner because it condemns him. Jesus faced the same response when he spoke of election in John 6:65-66, “And He said, ‘Therefore I have said to you that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father.’ From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more.”

It is not as if men want to come to Christ but cannot simply because they are not on some divine list. Unless they are redeemed by grace, they will not want to come to the true Christ of Scripture. It is that conviction and concern in knowing that this is true which shows a heart touched by mercy.

The whole issue is brought back
to the original question

Romans 9:24, “even us whom He called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?”

God’s plan had not failed to redeem all of the physical nation of Israel. That was never his plan. Israel had been called from among the other nations to represent God’s mercy outwardly. From within Israel God called some to be his true children of promise. These were the vessels of mercy chosen to display the glories of Christ.

When Paul wrote this letter to the Romans, the time had come when not only some from Israel, but some from all nations would display that they had been chosen as vessels of mercy. Since all humans are fallen in Adam and deserve God’s eternal wrath, there would be no injustice or unfairness if God left all to be condemned forever. Though we cannot fully understand how this all fits together, we must never dare to question what God has made clear in his word.

Man is not an accidental animal. He is an “on purpose” creation. He is made to display the glories of his Creator — which he does, like it or not. Either he honors God by showing evidences of mercy and grace, or his arrogance honors God as he boldly reveals the truth of his fallen nature and he takes his place as an eternal lesson showing God’s just wrath. Complaining and finding fault against his Creator is an unnatural business for the creature. But fallen man prefers to busy himself with finding fault in God, rather than admitting his own moral depravity, which is so much easier to prove.

Have you remembered to thank God for his undeserved redemption every day? Let this be a strong reminder that it should be our life and breath to live in that gratitude. While we all deserve the eternal terrors our sin justly brings with it, Paul reminded the believers in 1 Thessalonians 5:9-11 that contrary to what we deserve, “… God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with Him. Therefore comfort each other and edify one another, just as you also are doing.”

(The Bible quotations in this lesson are from the New King James Version of the Bible unless otherwise noted.)

Back to the Index of Studies In Paul’s Letter to the Romans

The Significance of Baptism

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The Significance of Baptism

by Bob Burridge ©2011
Part Two of the study of the Sacrament of Baptism
(Westminster Shorter Catechism Questions 94-95)
(watch the video)

The Significance of Christian Baptism

In this era of the history of God’s people, believers in Christ are marked out by Baptism. When people come to believe the gospel, they should be Baptized with water in the name of the Triune God. This is one of the things Jesus commanded his disciples to do in the great commission in Matthew 28:19-20.

The Westminster Shorter Catechism defines baptism in its answer to Question 94:

Baptism is a sacrament, wherein the washing with water in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, doth signify and seal our ingrafting into Christ, and partaking of the benefits of the covenant of grace, and our engagement to be the Lord’s.

God has always marked out his people by an outward sign ever since he constituted them as a covenant people in the time of Abraham. The sign he commanded in that era was circumcision. That practice continued until the Apostolic age when the New Testament church became established as the earthly representative of God’s continuing covenant people. The continuity of God’s church in both eras was dealt with in detail in previous studies. (See our syllabus notes on chapter 7 of the Westminster Confession about God’s Covenant With Man, and chapter 25 of the confession about the nature of The Church.)

The changes that took place in the covenant community after the coming of the Messiah were massive and dramatic. The old symbols of redemption were fulfilled and replaced by a new system of practices that looked back upon the finished work which the earlier system prefigured. The change is well documented in the New Testament so that the church would have an authoritative record of them. God alone has the right to direct his people to stop doing what he had formerly commanded, and then begin doing something different. The new system does not indicate a change in God’s plan of redemption. It reflects a completion of many of the promises made in his continuing covenant.

A major change was how members of the covenant community are to be marked out as belonging to the people of God. Circumcision was no longer to be required. Instead the ancient concept of baptism would be used, but with deeper meaning attached. Yet its root meaning continued the primary symbolism it always carried. The practice of baptism would still illustrate washing and purification from moral impurity.

Obviously such a dramatic change would have to be explained. It is not surprising that the New Testament addresses this issue in several places. It was important that the church in its new form should understand this revised requirement. The change of initiatory practice impacted the life of every family among God’s people.

The change in the sign and seal of the covenant involved fulfillment of what the old sign and seal prefigured. The finished work of Jesus Christ as Savior by his death in the sinner’s place changed the practices that represented God’s dealing with the guilt and pollution of sin. The new sign also shows how the redemptive benefit of the atonement is applied by the coming of the Holy Spirit upon the sinner to regenerate him, to bestow upon him a righteousness that was not his own, and to give him spiritual life where before there was death.

The change from circumcision to baptism is much more than just modifying the outward practice. It represents the change brought about by the ending of the era of symbols where the physical nation of Israel represented the church of Christ. To understand this change it is important to briefly review the significance of circumcision.

1. Circumcision was a sign and seal of membership in the covenant community. It marked out the visible church of God at that time. It did not mean that every person circumcised, or every family member represented in the circumcision of the male head of the home, was chosen for redemption before the foundation of the world. It marked the recipients as part of the visible church, not as part of the invisible church which is made up of (and only of) the elect of God.

2. Circumcision was a bloody ritual representing the cutting away of sin and its pollution in the soul. Before the shedding of the blood of the Messiah God used bloody rituals to prefigure what had not yet taken place. It was still future by his promise.

3. Circumcision could only be administered to those outside the covenant community upon a credible profession of faith in, and submission to, the promises of God regarding redemption and his covenant. Believers’ circumcision was mandated in Israel. A person could only receive this sign and be grafted into the visible body of the covenant people if the Elders believed his professed trust in the prefigured gospel was informed and unfeigned.

4. Circumcision was a representation of an invisible and spiritual reality. Moses and the prophets repeatedly told the people they need to be circumcised in their hearts, not just in their bodies (Deuteronomy 10:16, 30:6, Jeremiah 4:4, etc.). The church was never to be imagined as being made up exclusively of the truly redeemed. There were provisions for removal from Israel of those circumcised members who showed by their rebellion or unbelief that they were not circumcised in the heart.

To see the changes in the New Testament along with the continuity of the underlying meanings, baptism can be described by similar statements.

1. Baptism is a sign and seal of membership in the covenant community, the visible church in this era. It does not mean that every person baptized was chosen for redemption before the foundation of the world. It marks the recipients as part of the visible church, not as part of the invisible church which is made up of (and only of) the elect of God.

God’s earthly representation of his kingdom was expanded after the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It no longer would be seen in just one nation, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. That nation prefigured the New Testament church (Galatians 3:14,16, Ephesians 1:12, etc.). The male representation of the family prefigured the federal headship of Christ. This is what male headship over the home was designed to communicate (Ephesians 5:25-31). This limitation of the initiatory ordinance was eliminated in Christ’s fulfillment so that wives and female children would receive the sign and seal of the covenant also.

2. Baptism is a non-bloody ritual representing the washing away of sin and its pollution in the soul. After the shedding of the Messiah’s blood God rescinded the use of all bloody rituals. What they prefigured had been fulfilled.

3. Baptism is only to be administered to those outside of the covenant community upon a credible profession of faith in, and submission to, the promises of God regarding redemption and his covenant. Believers’ baptism is mandated for all those becoming members of the New Testament form of the church. A person could only receive this sign and be grafted into the visible body of the covenant people if the Elders believed his professed trust in the prefigured gospel was informed and unfeigned.

4. Baptism represents an invisible and spiritual reality. Jesus warned that in the New Testament church the tares and wheat are to grow together without attempts to judge the heart.

Excommunication recognizes that the visible church includes some baptized members who come to show no evidences that they are regenerated members of the invisible church of the redeemed. We cannot judge the heart. We only remove those who openly deny the grounds upon which they were admitted in the first place. Baptized believers are reminded that it is the purifying of the heart, not of the body that is important in the eyes of God.

The spiritual import of the sign and seal of God’s covenant of grace continued even though the form of the initiatory rite changed. The connection is clearly referenced in Colossians 2:11-14.

11 In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ,
12 buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.
13 And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses,
14 having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.

The outward acts of circumcision and baptism are not the issue here. Paul shows that they both relate to an inner change by which we are identified with Christ as our Sin-bearer. This atonement and its application to the believer is what the physical signs and seals represented in both eras.

Many clear references in the New Testament show that membership in the church after the time of Christ is a continuation of the same covenant and promises made to Abraham (see Acts 2:38-39; Romans 3:21; 11:16-17; Galatians 3:14,16,29; Acts 26:6,7; etc.).

Baptism represents the union of the believer in Christ’s victory over sin and its judicial effects. Since the true believer is identified with Christ who is his substitute, he is considered to be free from the penalty of sin which is death, the separation of the offending soul from the presence of God (see notes on the Work of Christ section of our syllabus notes on Jesus Christ, the Mediator, from the Westminster Confession chapter 8).

Sadly, many have missed the main point of Paul’s argument in the previous passage of Colossians 2:12 and Romans 6:3-5 to hijack the words “buried with Him in baptism” as an argument to support the mode of total immersion in baptism. A reading of the context shows that the manner of how water is applied neither supports that view, nor does it have any place in the Apostle’s line of reasoning. In reality the Apostle presents baptism in a sense that is most consistent with the covenantal view presented here.

The reference to being baptized into the death of Christ (Romans 6:3), and to being buried with him in baptism (Romans 6:4) is certainly not represented in immersion under water. Jesus was laid in a tomb, not buried in the ground. The concept that submerging a person under water and his emerging up as if coming out of a grave does not picture at all what Jesus did in his being laid in a tomb with a rock over the door and his coming forth from that tomb. The argument falsely imposes our modern idea of burial upon the actual facts of how the body of Jesus was handled upon his death.

Another serious problem with that argument is that it isolates one image from other similar images in the New Testament. We are also said to be “crucified with Christ” and to “put on Christ”. Neither of these images supports immersion under water and emersion from it. They are not promoting a mode of baptism. This is an inconsistent approach to exegesis and is transparently invalid.

The point the Apostle is making here is that by our baptism into Christ we show our identity with his full and complete work as our Savior. Primarily that work is the purifying of the soul from sin and its pollution. Baptism represents the washing away of the offense of sin, and the removing of the penalty of sin which is death. That debt was paid for in our place by the Savior. His resurrection ensures that we will be raised with him to walk in newness of life. The passage in Romans deals with the results of the applied work of Christ as the believer is given spiritual life in him by purification from sin. It has nothing to do with how water is to be applied to the believer when he is physically baptized into the church.

Water baptism is a symbolic act which in itself washes away nothing. It is a ritual cleansing with promises and conditions attached by God in his Covenant. Ritual cleansings all through the history of God’s people up through the time of the New Testament were commanded in the law of Moses to be done by sprinkling or by pouring.

Baptism then is an initiatory rite of membership in the visible covenant community. It represents our union with Christ for the purification of the soul by his shed blood. It is also God’s covenantal seal upon all who rightly receive it. It does not certify their election and certain salvation. It seals them as part of the covenant community, and as recipients of the promised blessings or cursings of that covenant depending upon the disposition of God’s redeeming grace.

Water baptism also represents another kind of baptism mentioned in the New Testament, the baptism of the Holy Spirit. This shows the coming of the Spirit upon a person to apply the work of Christ in cleansing them from sin. The presence of the Spirit imparts the life which is restored when our separation from God is repaired by the removal of the barrier of our offenses.

This was the promise of John the baptist (Matthew 3:11, Mark 1:8, Luke 3:16, John 1:26, Acts 1:5). In Titus 3:5 Paul mentions this as “the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit.” Again, the mode is in most proper agreement with sprinkling and pouring since these are the terms that describe what this baptism of the Holy Spirit represents. It is the coming of the Spirit upon the believer. He is said to be “poured out,” “shed forth,” to have “fallen upon” God’s people. Even the symbolism of the Spirit’s coming at Pentecost is that of flames coming upon the people, not of immersing them in fire.

For such reasons we say that baptism, considering its import and meaning, is best represented by sprinkling and pouring rather than immersion under water.

This important topic will continue in one more installment. The next lesson will be about who should be baptized, and how baptism becomes effective.

(The Bible quotations in this lesson are from the New King James Version of the Bible unless otherwise noted.)

Index of Lessons in the Westminster Shorter Catechism

summary:
Baptism is the initiatory rite into the visible covenant community. It represents our union with Christ for the purification of the soul by his shed blood. It is also God’s covenantal seal upon all who rightly receive it. It does not certify their election and certain salvation. It seals them as part of the covenant community, and as recipients of the promised blessings or cursings of that covenant depending upon the disposition of God’s redeeming grace.

Is God Unjust?

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Lesson 35: Romans 9:14-18

Is God Unjust?

by Bob Burridge ©2011

In the Book of Romans the Apostle Paul explains some hard, but important truths. For 2,000 years before Christ, God had specially blessed the Jews. He had given them many advantages, and charged them with safely keeping his word.

Sadly, for the most part, what God gave them was abused, and his word was confused. Jesus had warned that the glory of the Jewish people was about to be ended in judgment. Their temple would be destroyed, and their corrupted worship stopped. Paul too had taught that the coming of Messiah marked the end of their unique privilege. As a Jew himself, the Apostle Paul deeply grieved for their unbelief.

Did this mean that God was not keeping his promise to ancient Israel? Certainly that cannot be possible. God had never promised to save all of the physical descendents of Jacob. God gave his covenant promises to Adam, and later to Noah. But he never intended all humans descended from them to be his redeemed people. From the descendants of Adam and Noah, he chose the family of Abraham and his descendants to represent God’s blessings. From the children of Abraham God only chose Isaac to continue the advantaged line. And of Isaac’s twins, God loved Jacob but hated Esau as we saw in the previous part of this chapter of Romans.

Not all of the Jews by natural birth are the spiritual children of God’s promise. Of all those outwardly associated with the Covenant People, only a remnant of them are redeemed by the Savior. In that sense, within the Visible Church there is God’s Invisible Church, those chosen by God’s grace, those upon whom God set his love.

This is not an easy truth for the fallen mind. The spiritually dead heart does not want to admit its own guilt and its inability to change its own basic nature. He wants to be free to do what he wants to do. He wonders that if God chooses only some to be redeemed and to become his true children, is there injustice in God? Is he unfair?

In Romans 9:14-18 Paul deals with the justice of God in choosing some only. In 9:19-24 he handles more directly the fairness issue which we will take up in our next study.

Is God unjust?

Romans 9:14, “What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? Certainly not!”

Justice is one of God’s eternal attributes. It is part of what he is. When he created all things, he built justice into the universe as a moral principle. When he made mankind in his image, God put it into the heart of humans to love justice. The fallen heart corrupts that idea as it does all the qualities that are in God.

Justice describes what happens to lawbreakers. First is assumes that there is a rule, a law, that ought to be obeyed. It assumes that there is a penalty attached to breaking that rule. Whenever the rule is broken, justice demands that the penalty will be paid. Fairness means that the rule, and its penalty, are applied consistently.

Is God unjust or unfair when he rejects Israel as a whole, yet saves some? Is it unjust that he loves Jacob, but hates Esau (Romans 9:13, Malachi 1:2-3)?

Paul dismisses the objection immediately. He says, “Certainly not!” He uses strong words to deny to the very idea that God could be unjust. The Greek phrase here is mae genoito (μη γενοιτο), which literally means, “Let it not be!” It’s like when we say, “Don’t even think such a thing!” One of my Greek teachers used to bring this over into our day by using the American idiom, “Perish the thought.”

Since Romans is an inspired book of Scripture, if no more was said this would be enough. The Bible says here that God is not unjust. Paul had just shown from Old Testament Scripture that God loves some and hates others, that not all descendents of Jacob are the true Israel of God’s promise. Yet God is just. It says so here. That is all we really need.

God in his desire to show us more about this wonder, does not stop there. He explains beyond just telling us the fact. There is a great comfort here for God’s people when they understand this truth. There is a promise here that helps us through hard times and those moments of doubt.

The First Point of Doctrine in the Canons of Dordt, Article 14 on Election and Reprobation, states, “Just as, by God’s wise plan, this teaching concerning divine election has been proclaimed through the prophets, Christ himself, and the apostles, in Old and New Testament times, and has subsequently been committed to writing in the Holy Scriptures, so also today in God’s church, for which it was specifically intended, this teaching must be set forth–with a spirit of discretion, in a godly and holy manner, at the appropriate time and place, without inquisitive searching into the ways of the Most High. This must be done for the glory of God’s most holy name, and for the lively comfort of his people.” (translated from the original Latin manuscript, adopted in 1986 by the Synod of the Christian Reformed Church)

To explain his answer more completely,
Paul again turns to Scripture.

Romans 9:15, “For He says to Moses, ‘I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion.’ “

If God has stated this in his word, it is therefore true and must be accepted. The New Testament regularly cites Old Testament authority to prove its case. The Bible does not engage in abstract philosophical arguments to give authority to its teachings. Neither should we.

God spoke to Moses telling him about his divine prerogative in Exodus 33:19, “Then He said, ‘I will make all My goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim the name of the LORD before you. I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.’ ”

This is the verse Paul quotes here in Romans to support the point he is making. Mercy and compassion are shown toward those to whom God desires to show it. It is hard to imagine anything being more clear. God does not treat all humans in the same way. This is directly stated by God himself.

Also, God is just. The idea of justice itself comes from what God is. While he selects those to whom he will be merciful and show compassion, he never neglects the demands of justice in so doing. As Paul had also written about God, “He cannot deny Himself.” (2 Timothy 2:13).

So then, if all humans deserve eternal damnation and separation from God, how can any be shown compassion and be mercifully delivered without violating justice?

Today we know more than Moses knew about how God justly displays his compassion. Jesus was God in human flesh. He came as the promised Messiah. Only he, as the infinite and perfect God, and as perfect man, could represent those chosen by God, to live and die in their place to satisfy justice for all those to whom God intended to show his compassion.

There can be no principles that limit God other than that which flows from his own nature. Nothing more absolute or eternal than him can possibly exist. Any concept of justice or fairness must come from God himself, not from things external to him. There can be no law that binds the hand of God. A principle that binds must be sovereign over its subjects. If something compels, it is in itself Lord over that which is under it. The highest principle above which is nothing else, is Lord of lords. The Bible tells us that this is the Creator who has revealed himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God incarnate in the person of Jesus. Since God defines justice and fairness, the thought of him being unjust or unfair not only denies that God is God, it makes nonsense out of the idea of the words themselves.

God has compassion upon whom he will. Whatever he desires is by definition right and just. God’s word has established that it is so. There is no need to explain further. The facts of Exodus 33:19 stands by themselves. No more needs to be said. Our inability to reconcile statements, or to comprehend them, is not a valid objection to their being true. The final test is to determine what God’s word says. That is the final word.

What then determines who the
object of mercy will be?

Romans 9:16, “So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy.”

This is a partial conclusion in Paul’s argument. Since it is God alone who decides who will receive his mercy, then it cannot depend upon man. Man cannot be the cause of the mercy he receives if its cause is in God.

First: This mercy cannot be caused by man’s will. It is not by a human’s decision, choice, determination, or receiving that he is saved. It is caused by God alone who has mercy upon whom he will.

Then also he shows that mercy is not caused by man’s efforts. Running is a favorite metaphor Paul uses in several other letters (1 Corinthians 9:24-26, Galatians 2:2, 5:7, Philippians 2:16). It stands for the busy work of man in what he sets his mind to want and to do. But all his efforts cannot be the cause of mercy. It is God alone who makes that determination.

Dr. Haldane suggests that Paul might be thinking back to Jacob, the Father of Israel. He desired the blessing that appeared to belong to Esau. He willed it. He wanted it. He ran off to get the venison, disguise himself and deceive his father. Yet in all this, his desires and actions were not the cause of his being chosen. God had chosen that rascal Jacob before he was even born. Before he had done good or evil. If anyone was undeserving of blessing it was that deceiver Jacob. How clear an example God gives us showing that mercy comes by God’s grace, not by man’s choice or effort (Romans 9:11-13).

The Apostle John tells us why some believe and receive Jesus as their Lord and Savior. In John 1:12-13 he says, “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”

Of course it is also true that those God truly redeems will both will and run. They exercise faith. They receive Jesus as Lord. They do run to him. However, the point is that these are the effects, not the causes, of God’s mercy. He puts that love and faith into their otherwise dead and foolish hearts. As Paul wrote in Philippians 2:13, “for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.”

There is always a divine purpose for some
being left in their evil dispositions.

Romans 9:17, “For the Scripture says to the Pharaoh, ‘For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth.’ “

Paul again uses the Bible. He quotes the example of how God used Pharaoh. Instead of complex philosophical ideas being introduced, Paul looks to what God has said. Man is often tempted to try to explain the existence of evil beyond what God reveals. Some imagine that God is bound by some abstract idea of human freedom. Others imagine that God lays aside some of his sovereign ability to do his own will. But none of these theories come from God’s word. They are the products of the fallen human mind that creatively wants to be in control.

John Calvin wisely cautions us “… never to feel the least desire to attain any other knowledge concerning this doctrine save what is taught us in Scripture. When the Lord shuts his sacred mouth, let us also stop our thoughts from advancing one step further in our inquiries.”

Unwarranted speculation is dangerous, and it is blasphemous to the revealed nature of God. We are not required to comprehend how a thing is done, or how it all fits together. Our duty, which is not possible in yet fallen hearts, is to accept what God plainly says.

How did this part of Israel’s history come to happen as it did? This man who became the Pharaoh was born into the royal family of Egypt. He was raised to develop the dispositions he displayed toward God and the Israelites. It was this man who came to rule Egypt at just that right time. Only one answer is possible. Israel’s history, even her Egyptian captivity, was the decreed providence of God. All that Pharaoh was, made him the perfect tool for displaying God’s mercy toward Israel. It was God who raised him up to be the person disposed to act exactly as he did. It was not Pharaoh who determined that the Exodus would take place as history records. It was the eternal and unchangeable sovereign good pleasure of God.

God tells us that there was a divine purpose in it all. When six of the plagues had been sent upon Egypt, and four more were yet to come, God gave these words to Moses to say to Pharaoh in Exodus 9:16, “But indeed for this purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth.”

God could have removed Pharaoh long before the first plague was sent. But God later explained in Exodus 33:19 to Moses, that Pharaoh’s stubborn and evil heart became the means by which God would show his power in delivering his people who could not deliver themselves. God would declare the glory of his divine nature, his holy name. This would be a testimony to all the earth, not just to the Jews but to us gentiles thousands of years later. Children even today learn of God’s power by hearing the story of the plagues, the passover, the crossing of the Red Sea, and God’s deliverance.

The verse Paul had quoted just a moment ago from Exodus 33:19 said the same thing. It was all done to display the glory of God’s name, that he has mercy upon whom he will. This is the revealed fact Paul appeals to. This is what God himself explained.

Next, Paul adds the negative side.

Romans 9:18, “Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens.”

Here Paul concludes his reasoning from Scripture explaining God’s rejection of Israel. He repeats for a third time, God’s prerogative to show mercy on whom he will, but to this he adds the negative side. He eliminates any possible misunderstanding. If God has mercy upon whom he will, then there are those upon whom he does not show mercy. Those become hardened by the absence of God’s restraint upon their hearts. Being left to hardness, they are used to demonstrate God’s power and holy name. This has been proven already in the verses Paul has quoted.

By hardening, Paul does not mean that God made an innocent Pharaoh become wicked. He left him to the disposition of his own fallen soul. Pharaoh received nothing that was not justly deserved.

Dr. Charles Hodge explained about God’s work in the heart of this Egyptian leader, “He did not make him wicked; he only forebore to make him good…”

God is not obligated to bestow his mercy upon anyone. God’s nature demands that he must always be just. This is why a Savior was necessary to redeem us who are all unworthy in Adam. God’s nature involves a mercy that is a prerogative of his good pleasure. His redeeming grace does not apply to all fallen humans. We do not know this by implication or by the constructions of Theology. The Bible directly tells us.

Oh how this infinite nature of the Creator is so far above us! It is beyond our comprehension. In Psalm 139:6 we read, “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; It is high, I cannot attain it.”

Of course we could look into many more cases in Scripture about how wicked hearts are hardened. We could study more into the details of Pharaoh’s heart and of the sovereign workings of God. We could examine how God hardens the hearts of those who are left in sin. Paul does not go into all that here. That would detract from the simplicity of his argument. He has quoted Scripture, and by this his point has been made. It is clearly true because God in his inspired word says so.

God’s dealings with Israel are not unjust. He would be a “Just God” if he had left us all in the condemnation of sin which we deserve. He may exercise his prerogative and show mercy and compassion upon whom he will.

How tragically foolish when men blame God when they sin. They reason as if it is the Lord’s fault for not stopping them. They assume that if God had a good purpose in their rebellion, then they cannot be held responsible. However, here God tells us that he held Israel responsible for her rebellion and blasphemy.

Paul’s reasoning is beyond objection. He uses God’s inspired word. God is not unjust in hardening Pharaoh, or the hearts of the apostate nation of Israel, or of the apostate modern Christian church. God is not unjust in saving some who deserve eternal damnation, because Jesus settled the debt of justice in the place of them according to that eternal plan. He has mercy upon whom he will, and whom he will he hardens. All are used in his plan to declare his power and glory.

Have you been touched by the mercy of God? Has he made you aware of the offense of your sin before his holy eyes? Has he made you see the wonder of the Cross of Christ? Has he made you hungry for righteousness. Do you desire to obey his moral principles in every way you can? Has he humbled you to repentance when you fail? The Eternal God did not have to do that. It was his divine prerogative to show mercy. You deserve as did Pharaoh, Esau, and all those not redeemed in Christ, to be justly left with your deserved guilt, and to be hardened in your heart against God.

What marvelous grace rescues us, and will not let us go! What comfort and hope is ours, who in Christ learn to rest in God’s compassion rather than in our own devices. Take time to thank God for his undeserved grace.

(The Bible quotations in this lesson are from the New King James Version of the Bible unless otherwise noted.)

Back to the Index of Studies In Paul’s Letter to the Romans

The Meaning of Baptism

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The Meaning of Baptism

by Bob Burridge ©2011
Part One of the study of the Sacrament of Baptism
(Westminster Shorter Catechism Questions 94-95)
(watch the video)

The Meaning of Baptism

Baptism is one of the two sacraments instituted by Jesus Christ for his church. In Matthew 28:19-20 he gave a three-fold commission to his apostles: “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Amen.”

Clearly these three commands are to continue in the church until the end of the world. In carrying out the duty of baptizing those evangelized, it is obviously important to know how baptism is to be administered, who is to receive it, what it accomplishes, who is to perform it, and upon what conditions is it right and appropriate to do so.

Before we get into the details of those questions, ones which have sadly divided the evangelical churches, it is important to understand the basic meaning of “baptism” as presented in God’s word.

The Westminster Shorter Catechism
Question 94: What is baptism?
Answer: Baptism is a sacrament, wherein the washing with water in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, doth signify and seal our ingrafting into Christ, and partaking of the benefits of the covenant of grace, and our engagement to be the Lord’s.

Westminster Confession of Faith 28.1
Baptism is a sacrament of the new testament, ordained by Jesus Christ, not only for the solemn admission of the party baptized into the visible church; but also, to be unto him a sign and seal of the covenant of grace, of his ingrafting into Christ, of regeneration, of remission of sins, and of his giving up unto God, through Jesus Christ, to walk in newness of life. Which sacrament is, by Christ’s own appointment, to be continued in his church until the end of the world.

There is a great deal of overlap of the issues that divide people. What baptism represents partly determines how it is to be done, and to whom it is to be administered. Therefore, only at the conclusion of our study will all the individual parts come together to produce a consistent understanding of the sacrament.

In a previous study we defined the sacraments as signs and seals of the covenant of grace. They are directly instituted by Jesus Christ as a continuing practice for his church. They represent Christ and his benefits, confirm our interest in Christ, and put a visible distinction upon members of Christ’s church. Baptism qualifies in all these areas if it is rightly understood, administered, and received.

It’s clear from Matthew 28:19-20 that baptism was directly instituted by Jesus Christ as a continuing practice of his church.

As a sign and seal of membership in the covenant community baptism represents being a part of the visible church. All those properly baptized are to be considered as citizens of the covenant community. It is evident that not all who are baptized are truly members of the invisible church which is composed of only the elect of God. From the many warnings in the New Testament about false believers and the process of excommunication it is clear that some who are received as members of what we see as the church visibly, are not truly God’s redeemed people.

As a sacrament, baptism is also a sign and seal of the covenant of grace, of ingrafting into Christ, of regeneration, of remission of sins, and of being given up to God through Christ to walk in newness of life. As we saw in the previous lesson a sacrament does not in itself convey these spiritual blessings. It is a sign and seal of God’s promise concerning them to the proper recipients of the sacrament. We will see these issues clarified as we progress in the topics of this lesson.

The Way We Baptize

One area where sincere believers differ is how Baptism is to be administered. The position of the Westminster Assembly describes what is followed in the Presbyterian and Reformed churches.

Westminster Confession of Faith 28.2-3

The outward element to be used in this sacrament is water, wherewith the party is to be baptized, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, by a minister of the gospel, lawfully called thereunto. Dipping of the person into the water is not necessary; but baptism is rightly administered by pouring, or sprinkling water upon the person.

Water is the outward element used to represent and seal baptism’s inward grace. While there is no significant debate about the use of water itself, the method of applying the water has divided some branches of the evangelical churches. The issue surrounds several areas of difference.

  • The meaning of the words baptism and baptize
  • The examples of baptism in the New Testament
  • The significance of the act of applying the water

The meaning of the words baptism and baptize
Since no actual definition is given in the New Testament when baptism is first mentioned, it is obvious that the words used had a meaning which was already understood. The Greek terms in the books of the New Testament are: baptizo (βαπτιζω), baptismos (βαπτισμος), baptisma (βαπτισμα), baptistaes (βαπτιστης), and bapto (βαπτω). Instead of being translated where the English meaning or synonym is substituted, they are most often transliterated by dropping the Greek ending and using the English alphabet instead of the Greek letters. This often requires adjustments such as the adding a final “e” to conform to the grammatical rules of the English language.

The first is the verb baptizo (βαπτιζω) which is usually simply transliterated as “baptize”. This word is used approximately 80 times in the New Testament.

The second word is the noun baptismos (βαπτισμος) which is used four times and has reference to the ritual washings already practiced in Israel (Matthew 7:4, Mark 7:8, Hebrews 6:2, and 9:10). The subjects of these washings are cups and pots in the Gospel references. In the Book of Hebrews it is used to describe the Jewish ritual washings based upon the prescriptions in the Old Testament law. It is usually either transliterated as “baptism”, or translated by using the word “washing”.

The third word, baptisma (βαπτισμα), is a noun related strongly to the previous one. It is used 22 times usually being transliterated as “baptism”.

The fourth word is also a noun. Baptistaes (βαπτιστης) is used 14 times. It is always in reference to John describing him as “the one who baptizes”, “the baptizer”.

The fifth word is another verb bapto (βαπτω) which is used four times in the New Testament. It is usually translated by the word “dip” and has reference to dipping a finger in water, of Jesus dipping the sop at the last supper, and of clothing dipped in blood (Revelation 19:13).

Lexicons and dictionaries range from sound scholarly studies of how words are actually used, to attempts to define words to defend a particular theology. Those who promote a restricted single meaning for baptizo (βαπτιζω) tend to ignore many obvious places where it is clearly used in other ways. The meanings of words are determined by how they are used by those naturally speaking the language. Words sometimes take on new meanings and drop old ones since languages grow with the cultures using them. An honest approach will seek to assemble the possible meanings a word may have, then let the context determine which definitions are allowable, and which are ruled out in each particular place where the word is used.

The words for baptism are very ancient in the Greek language. They were used by Homer, Lucian, and other classical writers from various eras. They show a wide variety of uses of the words, all having to do with the basic idea of cleansing in some way. The range of uses include: sprinkling, washing, dying of fabrics, and of immersing things in a basin or pool of some kind. But ancient meanings and those used by writers in pagan cultures are hardly a good standard for judging the way the words were understood by the first recipients of the New Testament message.

The meanings of the words for baptism when introduced in the New Testament are deeply rooted in how the terms were understood by the Greek speaking Jews to whom the gospel was first given. The historically wide range of meanings for these words seems to continue as they were used by the Christians who authored the New Testament books. The basic and most literal idea is “to wash”, or “to cleanse’. This was done in the same way people have always washed things. They may dip them into some solvent (usually water) at times immersing them. Often washing is done by pouring the solvent over something or rubbing it over the object to be cleansed. Sometimes washings were symbolic of a moral or spiritual purification, in which case simply sprinkling the solvent on the object was sufficient to represent the cleansing.

These various types of cleansings were part of the Old Testament writings. When the Hebrew and Aramaic texts were translated into Greek in the Septuagint versions (often represented by the letters LXX), words based upon the “bapt-” (βαπτ-) root were often used.

A summary of these uses is offered in this table:

passage Hebrew Greek LXX use
Lev 11:32 בוא (bo’) βαπτω (bapto) to place into water (immerse)
Lev 14:6,51 טבל (taval) βαπτω (bapto) to dip one bird in the blood of another bird
Lev 14:16 טבל (taval) βαπτω (bapto) to dip a finger in oil to sprinkle it
Josh 3:15 טבל (taval) βαπτω (bapto) to step one’s feet into water
Ruth 2:14 טבל (taval) βαπτω (bapto) to dip a morsel of food in vinegar
Psa 68:23 חץ (makhats) βαπτω (bapto) to smite an enemy (figurative)
1Sm 14:27 טבל (taval) βαπτω (bapto) to dip the end of a rod in honey
2Ki 5:14 טבל (taval) βαπτιζω (baptizo) Naaman washed himself in the Jordan River
Isa 21:4 בעת (ba’at) βαπτιζω (baptizo) to terrify (figurative)
Dan 5:21 צבע (tsava’) ¹ βαπτω (bapto) to wet with morning dew

¹(Aramaic)

The Levitical and traditional practices described in the book of Hebrews are summarized in 9:10 using the plural of the word baptismos (βαπτισμος). They are all called “baptisms”. The actions described here are mainly sprinklings of the priests where the Old Testament passages primarily use the Hebrew words:
nazah (נזה): which means to sprinkle, spurt, spatter, or splash.
zaraq (זרק): which means to scatter, or sprinkle.

A complete analysis of each of these passages would simply repeat the careful work done by some of the best exegetes God had given the church. A very good summary is given by Dr. John Murray in his book Christian Baptism.

A simple reading of the contexts of these texts shows that no single meaning can be forced into all of them. Those who insist that the words always have only just one meaning struggle with some of these passages. For example it is hard to make the words always mean ‘to immerse” when a living bird is “immersed” in the blood of another sacrificed bird (Leviticus 14:6), or how the body of Nebuchadnezzar was “immersed” in the morning dew.

The most important question that demands an answer is how the words chosen by the Holy Spirit were used and understood in the Jewish contexts in which they first appear in the New Testament writings.

The first reference to baptism in the New Testament is in relation to the baptisms being performed by John prior to the beginning of the public ministry of Jesus.

John’s baptism was performed as a sign of repentance. It was to call God’s people from the corruption that surrounded them, to a renewed commitment to trust and honor their Lord. It represented being cleansed from the guilt of their sins. That was the underlying meaning behind the established Levitical ceremonial washings.

John’s activities soon got the attention of the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem. The leaders sent a delegation to find out who this baptizer claimed to be (John 1:19-27). It is helpful to note that they were not sent to ask what he was doing. Baptisms were well known to the Jews as proper things for a priest of God to do. They were performed in various contexts including the sprinklings of the Temple services and various other cleansing rituals (Hebrews 9:10).

It is also wise to note that they were not concerned with identifying the name of this baptizer. They would certainly have known the son of the High Priest Zacharias. Their questions were about who he claimed to be with relationship to biblical prophesy, not about his human identity. It is as if they were asking him, “Just who do you think you are, baptizing people to repentance as you have been doing?”

If John had been introducing some new concept, such as immersing people rather than following the Levitical and traditional mode of sprinkling or pouring water in symbolic purification, it is strange that nothing is ever mentioned of this in the record of the New Testament. You would think that those looking to find something wrong with what John was doing would have latched onto that as a good argument that he was straying from the ways prescribed by God in his word.

The next baptism described in the New Testament is the baptism of Jesus. This is of a different nature than the baptisms John had been administering to show the repentance of the people of Israel who came to him. Jesus had nothing from which to be cleansed. There was nothing of which to repent. So John expressed his reluctance and lack of understanding. He should be seeking baptism from Jesus for the purification of his own soul.

Jesus answered in a manner that satisfied John that this baptism was to be for a different purpose. It was “to fulfill all righteousness” (Matthew 3:15). John gave no further argument. He understood what Jesus was asking.

Righteousness is defined in Scripture as innocence before God’s law. In Deuteronomy 6:25 it defines it this way, “Then it will be righteousness for us, if we are careful to observe all these commandments before the LORD our God, as He has commanded us.”

What law would be fulfilled and honored by a baptism of Jesus by John? Jesus was about to begin his public ministry. In his ministry he would exercise the office of priest in several respects. He must therefore qualify in keeping with the law given to Israel if he was to be above reproach and was to be understood for what he was doing.

There were three basic requirements of the law that had to be followed for someone to assume the authority of a priest in Israel.

First, he had to be called by God in a manner consistent with the Scriptures. Jesus was not of the line of Aaron as was John. But he was not going to circumvent the law and intrude upon the authority of the priesthood. There were others called specially by God in the Old Testament who were not identified as priests by their blood line. Melchizedek is an example of those called by special revelation. In Hebrews 7:17 it is directly said that Jesus was a priest of the order of Melchizedek. The calling of Jesus was made clear by the revelations of God through the angels at the time of his conception and birth. Many times the words of the prophets were quoted identifying him as the one who fulfilled the promises of the Messiah, the Anointed One. It was by this authority, not by his human heritage, that he was called to the office of a Priest of Israel.

Second, a priest must be at least 30 years old (Numbers 4:3). It is interesting that the gospels are very clear to state that at the time of his baptism Jesus was 30 years old (Luke 3:23). His age is not given again during any time after that in his ministry. This shows that here it must have had some particular importance. We need to remember that it is not that Jesus had to be 30 to qualify, as much as it was God’s preshadowing of the priestly ministry of our Promised Savior that set 30 as the age for all priests in the Levitical system. Many of the details of the Mosaic law made little sense until the coming of our Redeemer where the shadows became a reality.

Third, a priest needed to be properly set aside by the forms of ordination. This was only valid if done by an already properly recognized and authorized priest. John was qualified since he was of Aaron’s tribe, son of Zacharais (Luke 1:5) of the division of Abijah, those charged with temple service (1 Chronicles 24:10). The mode of ordination was also specified in Scripture. Among the things required was the sprinkling with water mentioned in Numbers 8:7. “Thus you shall do to them to cleanse them: Sprinkle water of purification on them, …”

It is reasonable to assume that the baptism Jesus was seeking from John fulfilled this requirement of God’s law, and therefore fulfilled all righteousness in preparation for his ministry which was about to begin.

In confirmation of this line of reasoning, we see that when the authority of Jesus was questioned when he cast the money changers out of the temple, he cited his baptism by John. Matthew 21:23 records, “Now when He came into the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people confronted Him as He was teaching, and said, ‘By what authority are You doing these things? And who gave You this authority?’ ”

The answer of our Lord in verse 25 is instructive, Jesus answered, “The baptism of John — where was it from? From heaven or from men?” The accusers were left with no grounds for complaint that Jesus had abused priestly authority. He was guarding the place of worship from corruption – one of the duties of a Priest.

The writer of Hebrews makes this same connection with the priesthood of Jesus when he quotes the words spoken by God at his baptism. In Hebrews 5:5-6 he says, “So also Christ did not glorify Himself to become High Priest, but it was He who said to Him: ‘You are My Son, Today I have begotten You.’ As He also says in another place: ‘You are a priest forever According to the order of Melchizedek’;” The words “You are my Son” were spoken at the baptism of Jesus.

If Jesus had been baptized into the priesthood by an innovative ceremony, one that was at variance with the details of the law he was honoring, there would have been ample reason for the Pharisees at the temple to reject his argument. But they did not. The mode of the baptism of Jesus was most likely done by sprinkling water on him as he and John walked down into the waters of the Jordan river. Then after the baptism into the priesthood they came together up out of the water.

Jesus obeyed every part of the law in securing our righteousness. He did not dare to disturb even the shadows of the Levitical system lest any confusion should occur concerning the reality it prefigured. He partook of circumcision, temple presentation, Passover, and the other biblical feasts. The baptism of Jesus is another example of his devotion to God’s law to encourage us that He is our righteousness. He kept the law in every point to be above reproach.

Other references to baptism in the rest of the New Testament build upon this same foundation. The words used come from the respected heritage of biblical law. There were also baptisms added by the Rabbis which Jesus and his disciples did not respect or follow. They did not come from God’s law but from human-invented superstitions and prejudices.

In several places it is directly recorded that Jesus and his followers did not follow the traditions of the Rabbis in washing their hands before eating (Matthew 15:2, Mark 7:2-5 and Luke 11:38). John Murray points out that this tradition of the Rabbis is described in the Talmudic tractate Yadayim in chapter 2, mishnah 3. It says, “Hands become unclean and are made clean as far as the wrist. How so? If he poured the first water over the hands as far as the wrist and poured the second water over the hands beyond the wrists and the latter flowed back to the hands, the hands nevertheless become clean.”

Significantly, Mark 11:38 refers to this by using the Greek word baptizo. There is no evidence that the critics of Jesus expected that Jesus and the disciples should have immersed themselves in water every time they ate, as if all good Jews did this. It is most reasonable to believe that this tradition of the Talmud was what their accusers had in mind.

A similar reference is found in Mark 7:4 when the ritual cleansing expected of those returning from the market place is referred to by the word baptizo (βαπτιζω). Some Alexandrian Greek texts substitute the word hrantizo (ραντιζω) which means to sprinkle. This variation was probably introduced to clarify the type of Rabbinic practice to which the critics of Jesus referred. Even if we keep the more received reading of baptizo (βαπτιζω), the ritual it describes is unlikely to mean that everyone returning from the market totally immersed himself in water.

There are these types of water baptisms in the New Testament:

  • The Levitical purifications and sacrificial sprinklings of God’s Law
  • The traditions of the Rabbis who added ceremonial washings of their own
  • John’s baptism, an established symbol of purification showing repentance
  • The baptism of Jesus as a priestly ordination following Numbers 8:7
  • a new kind of baptism which marked out the followers of Jesus Christ as the New Testament church which was established in fulfillment of the old Jewish order of the covenant.

In summary, the uses of the words transliterated as “baptism” in the New Testament have a wide variety of meanings. There is no support for the theory that they must always mean “to immerse”. The practice of the church in the sacrament of Christian Baptism must be defined not by assuming narrow meanings for the words, but by the significance and purpose of the sacrament where that matter is discussed directly in God’s word. The mode will become more clear as we look to the passages which describe why believers are to be baptized.

This important topic will continue in two more installments. The next lesson will cover the significance of baptism, and the final lesson will be about who should be baptized, and how baptism becomes effective.

(The Bible quotations in this lesson are from the New King James Version of the Bible unless otherwise noted.)

Index of Lessons in the Westminster Shorter Catechism

summary:
The practice of the church in the sacrament of Christian Baptism must be defined not by assuming a narrow meaning for the word, but by the significance and purpose of the sacrament where that matter is discussed directly in God’s word.

The Israel which God Loved

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Lesson 34: Romans 9:6-13

The Israel which God Loved

by Bob Burridge ©2011

Does God love everybody? The general belief is that he does, and that this is a primary teaching of the “Christian faith”. Like so many of the theories people come up with, it is not what is taught in God’s Word.

Paul had been warning the Jews that because of their continuing rebellion, and now their rejection of the Messiah, God was going to judge them as a nation. They did not like the message of Jesus. Both Jesus and Paul warned that God was about to judge Israel and remove her national privilege. The Jews could not accept that. In their thinking they were God’s specially loved people.

If what Paul was saying is true, that her time of national honor and glory was about over, then what had gone wrong? Had God’s promises to the ancient fathers been a failure? Absolutely not!

So Paul explained that he had a deep concern for Israel and wanted them to know the truth. The fact was, apostasy had set in, and God was angry with those who called themselves his people but were not.

Paul takes up this central question in Romans 9.

Romans 9:6a, “But it is not that the word of God has taken no effect. …”

The problem was not that God’s promises failed, or were ineffective. He was keeping his promises exactly. The problem is that they didn’t see that side of God’s covenant with Israel. The promises had been gravely misunderstood.

Misunderstanding God’s word brings confusion today as well. There are so many different groups, each promoting its own brand of Christianity. They imagine that we are all really God’s people and that our different beliefs are not important. The uniting assumption is that God loves everybody. There is the problem. God’s promises seem to have failed, because people assume things God never promised.

Paul goes on to show what they had distorted about the promises.

Romans 9:6b, “… For they are not all Israel who are of Israel,”

To begin with, we need to know who God considers to be his Israel. His promise to his people, both to church in the Old Testament and in the New, is made on two levels. We went into detail about his in our last study.

On one level, God establishes an outward organization we call the Visible Church. It is made up of professing believers and their families. This was the Nation of Israel in the Old Testament, and is the Apostolic Church of the New Testament. God set up this outward form to represent how he chooses some from an unworthy humanity. The outward national advantages to those of the seed of Abraham were listed in the previous verses (Romans 9:4-5).

On another level, within the outward visible church, there are the true children of God. This is the Invisible Church. It is made up of those actually redeemed by Christ. They are saved by grace from the deserved outpouring of God’s wrath. They are the spiritual seed in whom God puts the faith of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Since only God knows for sure who these are we say this group is to us invisible. God commands all the saved to join in the worship, fellowship, and discipline of the visible church. Not all members of the visible church are necessarily truly God’s redeemed people.

That’s what Paul said back in chapter 2 concerning the Jews.

Romans 2:28-29, “For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the Spirit, not in the letter; whose praise is not from men but from God.”

The failure of the Jewish Nation in no way shows a failure of the promise. It shows the true nature of God’s promise. God has always been faithful to his true Israel. His covenant never fails to accomplish everything that was promised, but only to those for whom the promises were actually intended.

Paul tried to help the Jews understand God’s original promise.

The answer was actually proven in what every Jew already admitted. The promise was first made with Abraham, not with Israel.

Romans 9:7a, “nor are they all children because they are the seed of Abraham; …”

God selected Abraham and his seed from all the other humans then alive on the earth. God called that one family to go to Canaan, and to become the visible nation of Jehovah. Within that visible nation God also chose some to be invisibly touched by grace. These only were the true sons of God. Being a physical descendant of Abraham did not guarantee being a child of the promise of grace. in Galatians 3:7 Paul had explained, “Therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham.”

Jesus told the Jews the same thing. Some had boasted to Jesus saying, “Abraham is our father.” (John 8:39). Jesus answered implying that it was not that simple. He said, “If you were Abraham’s children, you would do the works of Abraham.”

He went on to explain to them, “If God were your Father, you would love Me…” (John 8:42) . Then Jesus revealed their true spiritual heritage. Though they were all descended from Abraham he said, “You are of your father the devil …” (John 8:44). Jesus made it clear, all those descending from Abraham were not necessarily the true sons of God.

Next, Paul showed that God narrowed the scope even more

Romans 9:7b-9, “… but, ‘In Isaac your seed shall be called.’ That is, those who are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God; but the children of the promise are counted as the seed. For this is the word of promise: ‘At this time I will come and Sarah shall have a son.’ “

From among Abraham’s sons God only chose Isaac and his descendants. [en Isaak klaethaesetai soi sperma ( ἐν ᾿Ισαὰκ κληθήσεταί σοι σπέρμα)]. These alone were to be the visible nation of God’s people. Obviously the Jews had no problem with this historic fact. They did not consider the race of Ishmael to be part of the called nation of God.

Their own understanding of God’s word taught that being a child of the flesh alone did not necessarily bring God’s promise. God never intended it that way. Only those to whom God extends his promise are counted as the promised seed.

Then Paul showed how God narrowed the scope even more.

Romans 9:10-12, “And not only this, but when Rebecca also had conceived by one man, even by our father Isaac (for the children not yet being born, nor having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works but of Him who calls), it was said to her, ‘The older shall serve the younger.’ “

From all the lost families of the earth God chose the family of Abraham. Then he chose only the seed of Isaac to carry on that promise. But not all of Isaac’s descendants were of the promise either. Of his twin sons, Esau and his descendants were not to be part of the nation of God. Every Jew knew this. God chose only the line of Jacob, who was called Israel, to be the chosen Nation.

They both had the same father and mother. They were twins. This was to make clear that the choice was based upon God’s sovereign choice alone. Not all in the outward family were chosen to continue on the special promise. The one twin was chosen, and the other was not.

To further show the sovereign nature of the choice, the younger was chosen not the older. That was against the usual custom and God’s general law of primogeniture. God does not base his choices upon anything outside of his own eternal purpose. He makes it very clear that the choice was not based upon anything the sons did or would have done themselves. The determination was eternal, before they were even born.

Remember, Paul is using these obvious choices and rejections of the visible nation to show that a similar election of God takes place in the invisible nation. If God did not intend to include all the physical line of Abraham and Isaac in his visible nation, then certainly it is foolish to imagine that all the visible nation was to be saved eternally. That was never promised in the ancient Covenant of God. (We will see more about this spiritual election as Paul continues to develop his point in this section of Romans.)

No, God’s promise to Israel had not failed! The Jews had misunderstood who the true Israel was. Those who rejected Messiah, and who had perverted the temple worship and sacrifices were not true sons of God by the spiritual promise. They were only outwardly and by appearance the visible nation of God.

God’s promise had exactly succeeded, once that promise was properly understood.

Were all the Jews specially loved by God?

Paul quoted from the Scriptures to show that idea to be absolutely wrong.

Romans 9:13, “As it is written, ‘Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated.’ “

Does this mean that God loved the one and hated the other?!! — Yes, that is what it says!

Paul quoted directly from Scripture. Malachi 1:2-3 had said, ” ‘I have loved you,’ says the LORD. ‘Yet you say, “In what way have You loved us?” Was not Esau Jacob’s brother?’ Says the LORD. ‘Yet Jacob I have loved; But Esau I have hated, And laid waste his mountains and his heritage For the jackals of the wilderness.’ ”

Note on the word, “LORD”: When the word “LORD” appears in all upper case letters in most English translations it represents the covenant name of God which is sometimes represented by the word “Jehovah”. In Hebrew, the Old Testament writers only wrote the four consonants יהוה which in our alphabet are “YHVH”. These four letters are often called the “tetragrammaton”. To avoid any careless use of this holy name the Jews would read it as “Adonai” (אדני) which means “Lord”. The vowels from Adonai were adjusted and put into the four letters. In older times the letter “J” was pronounced as our letter “Y” so the name “Jehovah” was invented. The reason the vowels don’t look the same in English has to do with rules of the Hebrew language. Even in the New Testament Jesus and the Apostles used Greek words for “Lord” (usually the Greek word “kurios” [κύριος]) when quoting the Old Testament where this tetragrammaton was used. This is why today we still use the word “Lord” when quoting those passages rather than attempting to pronounce the four Hebrew letters. This is the principle the Holy Spirit used in directing the writers of the New Testament, so it is the most biblical approach to reading and writing those passages. To let us know that the original word was YHVH the letters of “LORD” are often printed in all uppercase letters. The actual pronunciation of that name of God is somewhat uncertain. In older times they tried to pronounce it as “Yahweh” but there is no “w” in the Hebrew language. We now know that the letter “ו” that appears there should be rendered by our “v”. The best we can estimate is that the name would have been pronounced as “Yahveh”.

Those who want to believe that God loves everyone have a problem here. They must come up with some way to twist these words around in unnatural ways, otherwise they must admit that salvation is a sovereign work of God’s grace to some alone. That is something the fallen human heart cannot comprehend.

Several theories have been suggested to explain away the plain statements of the Bible.
1. Some say .. “hate here must only mean that God loved Esau less than Jacob”
That only brings in more confusion. It is clearly not what the same words mean in Amos 5:14-15. There it says, “Seek good and not evil, That you may live; So the LORD God of hosts will be with you, As you have spoken. Hate evil, love good; Establish justice in the gate. …” Does God want us to love evil less than we love good? That would be absolute nonsense.

If it only means that God loved one less than the other, what would that possibly mean relative to the point being made? If God loves some less than others, then what causes that distinction? The same problem remains.

If God loves everybody (which is never said in Scripture), what would love mean? Does God love Satan and the fallen angels just a little less than he loves the angels that remained faithful to him? Does he love the pagans just a little less than he loves the redeemed? If love is common to all, then it means nothing special to any.

Besides, If we can do that to the idea of “hatred” in this verse how can we make sense of the next part that says that God loved Jacob? Does that mean he only hated Jacob less than he hated Esau? You can’t make God’s hatred to be anything less than what the word hatred means, while at the same time you keep his love as really love. Such a tangled confusion denies the plain meaning of these very simple words.

2. So some have tried another theory.
They suggest, “Perhaps hate just means that God “slighted” him, or “treated him with an act of hatred.” Does this mean that God slights people he nevertheless loves? Does he treat them with an act of hatred when he does not actually hate them? This solution causes more confusion than it is imagined to eliminate.

We need to remember that God’s hatred of Esau is nothing more than what we all deserve. Jesus took on that hatred which resides in the hearts of some, in order to satisfy the demands of holy justice for them. That was an act of redeeming love that did not fail. It saved all those Jesus came to save. No one the Savior came to redeem is lost.

These foolish attempts to re-build the meaning of this text fail completely. Such ideas do not fit the purpose of Paul in showing why God’s rejection of national Israel was not a breaking of his ancient promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Those denying the obvious meaning of this verse often try to back up their position with a reference to 1 John 4:8. They quote the part that says, “God is love.” The problem is that this verse is not making a complete identity between God and love. It is not saying that the words are always interchangeable. The point is that God defines what love is, not that our idea of love defines God for us.

We should never use our confused human feelings about love to explain God. Rather God shows us what love is by his redeeming undeserving people. God is the original. All other love is derived from him. God’s love promotes his glory and furthers his eternal design. So our love should promote the same. That is John’s point. We who do not love as God loves, have not really known him.

The Bible also makes it clear that God hates the workers of iniquity. Psalm 5:5 says, “The boastful shall not stand in Your sight; You hate all workers of iniquity.” Then in John 3:36 John the baptist said, “He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.”

Some have tried to save this idea of universal divine love by saying, “Isn’t it God’s love that sends daily provisions for the wicked?” However, that is not what the Bible calls it. When Paul speaks of that in Acts 17 at Athens, he calls it a display of God’s long-suffering, not of his love. When the wicked receive God’s rain and sunshine, they imagine they deserve them. This only condemns them more because of their self-centered view of life. Daily care for the world in general is not done out of love for the wicked, but to display God’s power, and to provide a livable world for his own children.

There are some who with great sincerity explain that God loves the sinner but hates his sin. That is way too general a statement. Sin cannot exist without a sinner. To hate some abstract idea of sin when detached from the person doing it does not explain why there are those God says he hates and fits for his wrath. If persons are not personally responsible for their own acts, there is nothing left to hate. It is true that God loves those he chooses to redeem yet does not like it when they sin, but that is a far more narrow statement. No where in the Bible does it say that God loves all sinners while he hates only their sin.

Part of the problem is that some have a wrong idea of hate. Hatred is not sinful. Biblically, that which is sinful ought to be hated (Amos 5:15). But in us fallen creatures, our hatred of evil is mixed with evil itself. In God it is not. We horribly distort God if we see his love as his only or dominant attribute. God is not only love. He is also holy, just, and consistent. He judges as well as blesses. If God does not hate he is not the God of Scripture.

In loving Jacob God shows unmerited favor toward him. In hating Esau he acts justly toward him. That is what he and all humans, even Jacob, deserve. Even in John 3:16 God’s love for the corrupted world order does not offer to save everyone. In that verse the love of God sends a Savior to redeem only those who believe. And believing is not possible for any aside from the gracious work of God’s Holy Spirit. The Spirit applies the atonement of Christ to remove the offense and to reconcile. Without that grace, Jacob would receive the same deserved hatred, as would we all. Any godliness or faith is due only to the distinguishing grace of God.

God chose Abraham and his seed from all the fallen race, but not all his descendants were chosen. Only Isaac was chosen. Not all of Isaac’s seed was chosen either. Only Jacob was chosen. His brother Esau was rejected and cursed. Even of the 12 tribes of Jacob (Israel) not all were the spiritual seed of promise. Only a remnant will be saved. This becomes evident as Paul continues to develop his point in the remaining verses of this section of Romans.

Romans 9:27, “Isaiah also cries out concerning Israel: ‘Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, The remnant will be saved.’ ”

Romans 11:5, “Even so then, at this present time there is a remnant according to the election of grace.”

Those rejecting Jesus as the Messiah were not of that chosen remnant of Israel. God only intended to redeem the “children of promise”. In Galatians Paul leaves no doubt about this fact.

Galatians 3:9, “So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham.”

Galatians 3:29, “And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

Obvious questions come up in our limited and fallen minds which want to find a way out. Paul deals with them in the next section of this chapter.

God has always been faithful to his true Israel.

His promises never change nor fail. His covenant accomplishes all that is promised to those for whom they are intended.

Confusion about God’s promises is not just a matter of debate among scholars. Confusion hurts people. The average church member struggles to live to please God. But there is no comfort in outward things. If we put our hope in our own goodness, in our own choices, in church membership, in baptism, in prayers, in a re-defined God who loves and wants to redeem everyone but is for some reason unable to do so, then we hope in a tragic deception.

If, on the other hand, our hope is placed humbly in God’s grace, which is ours by the sovereign work of Jesus Christ, then we learn that we are loved even though we on our own could never deserve it.

Grace is greater than what we now are able to understand it to be. That appreciation grows as we learn more of God’s nature and of ourselves, removing the myths and human theories about each.

Has God loved you? Here is how you can know. Has he brought you to deeply sorrow for your sins? Has he made you know that Jesus paid your debt as no other could? Has he shown you that he lovingly calls you to him for forgiveness and comfort?

If so, then you have a solid foundation for hope, hope in a promise that cannot fail. The faith implanted in you by grace is a seal on your heart that you are not only visibly one of his people, but that you are invisibly redeemed by a love that never fails.

(The Bible quotations in this lesson are from the New King James Version of the Bible unless otherwise noted.)

Back to the Index of Studies In Paul’s Letter to the Romans

Hats for Women in Worship?

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Heads, Hats, and Hair

(questions about 1 Corinthians 11)
by Bob Burridge ©2011

Some teachings of the Bible are completely at odds with what we see being commonly accepted in our world today. The domestic roles God assigned to men and women are often the target of attack. At one extreme, male headship is perverted into dictatorship, and female subjection into slavery. At the other extreme, the idea of any kind of male headship in the home is rejected altogether.

The entire biblical family structure faces challenges that threaten our homes and loved ones. The aborting of our unborn children has been permitted by law in our country for several decades. Open sexual practices empty marriage of its once valued intimacy. Unmarried couples are led to believe that it is normal and healthy to engage in sexual activity without the bond of marriage. Some in same-gender relationships want to call what they have “marriage”. They are not content with just being tolerated. They want to force everyone else to accept their definitions and views, and to reject what the Bible says about marriage.

In warfare one of the basic goals is to disrupt the enemy’s command structure. If no one is effectively in charge, there can be no coordinated supplies, attacks, or defenses. The unifying principles that direct an army will be abandoned, and individual soldiers will begin to look out for themselves. They forget the larger reasons they are there.

It makes sense that the spiritual enemies of God would attack the organization of God’s Kingdom. The family structure is so basic that it becomes a natural target. The husband-wife roles are the foundation of the family. It is no surprise that the duties God assigns to men and women would be attacked.

There is a full-court press going on to make godliness appear to be a blight upon society. Those who believe what the Bible says about men, women, and marriage are portrayed as bigots and enemies of our culture.

These are not entirely new attacks. God’s ways have been the target of evil from the beginning of time. In the ancient city of Corinth a pagan culture and an influence of confused Judaism were clashing with Christian principles. There was confusion about how the new believers should adjust their lives to deal biblically with the way things were believed and done around them while living in a city dominated by unbelievers.

The Apostle Paul wrote his First letter to the Corinthians to explain God’s principles to them. He did not just teach detached ideas and theories. He was committed to clarifying God’s ways and how they lead us to live as lights to this sin darkened world day by day. In chapter 11 of 1 Corinthians he takes up one of these issues.

Paul set an example by personally
honoring and obeying the teachings of Jesus.

1 Corinthians 11:1, “Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ.”

Some put this verse as the conclusion to chapter 10. It is actually a nice transition. Paul’s point is that he has tried to be an example of the principles he taught.

Chapter 11 does not introduce a totally different idea. In chapter 10 he warned that believers should consider how others perceive their actions. He said there is nothing morally wrong with eating meat that had been sacrificed to idols. However, clearly the worship of idols is evil. In situations where others consider the meat to be sacred in some Pagan sense, we should not eat it so that others would not think we are honoring their idols. In Chapter 11 he shows how this fundamental principle applies in another situation.

First, he reminded them how much
he appreciated their allegiance.

1 Corinthians 11:2, “Now I praise you, brethren, that you remember me in all things and keep the traditions just as I delivered them to you.”

He was pleased that they continued to follow the traditions he taught them. The Bible mentions both good and bad traditions. A tradition is some accepted practice that is passed on to preserve some idea or principle. Good traditions help us to stay within God’s boundaries, and to remember God’s truths. Bad traditions create misleading boundaries, and promote false ideas.

There was a clash of traditions concerning
the principle of headship in the home.

1 Corinthians 11:3, “But I want you to know that the head of every man is Christ, the head of woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.”

God organized the family to teach about his nature and about the church he would redeem. In the Trinity, all three persons are perfectly equal in power and glory. Yet there is an orderliness in the Trinity. The Father sends the Son to redeem his people, and the Son is subject to the Father. Both the Father and the Son send the Holy Spirit to carry out certain works. There is subordination without inferiority or superiority – equals who carry out different works.

God established a similar relationship for the family. He made the male to be head of the wife and of the home. He created the female to be in supportive subjection to the man’s headship, subordination without inferiority or superiority – equals who carry out different works.

Paul gives more detail about that home organization in Ephesians 5:22-33. There it says, “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her,”

In that chapter it is clear that male headship is not to be self-serving. Male headship in the home is to represent Christ’s headship of the church. Therefore it is not to abuse the wife, to get his own way, or to be dictatorial. His role is to lead in a way that lovingly gives himself for his wife’s benefit and enrichment. His headship is to reflect Christ’s care of his church.

There is no superiority implied in male headship. Christ is equal with God the Father in substance and glory. Yet he was sent to carry out the work of redeeming his Father’s children. So also men and woman are equal in substance and worth. Yet the male is responsible for guiding the family, providing for it, and protecting it. He is to help his wife and family grow in Christ so they can enjoy God’s blessing to the fullest.

There was a danger that threatened this relationship in the Corinthian worship.

Male headship was represented in Corinth
by head coverings for the women.

1 Corinthians 11:4-7
4 Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonors his head.
5 But every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head, for that is one and the same as if her head were shaved.
6 For if a woman is not covered, let her also be shorn. But if it is shameful for a woman to be shorn or shaved, let her be covered.
7 For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but woman is the glory of man.

The situation here has to do with what goes on in the public worship of the church. This becomes more clear later in this letter when Paul explains what it is to pray and prophesy.

Evidently, there was a tradition in the Corinthian culture about head coverings. They had come to represent submission to some human authority. If men covered their heads while praying or prophesying in worship, they disgraced their headship by implying they were in subjection to those they should be leading. When women covered their heads it showed their respect of the authority of their husbands. If she prayed or prophesied with her head uncovered she disgraced her husband’s headship. It was as if she was rejecting God’s order. This was a good tradition to the degree that it promoted a biblical truth.

In that culture, the women may as well shave their heads, if they worship with their heads uncovered. Chrysostom, a first-century writer said that a woman caught committing adultery had her head shaved as to mark her as a prostitute for rejecting her husband’s headship.

The Bible does not mention this custom in any other place than here in this letter to Corinth. John Calvin warned that we should not be “so hide-bound” that people would condemn the Pastors in his time who wore skull caps when preaching. But he agreed that the principle it represented in Corinth is a good one. It should be respected when it shows a wife’s subjection to her husband while in worship.

The principle in this context is like not eating meat that was once sacrificed to idols in the previous chapter. God never commanded it as a universal moral tradition. However, in situations where our practices would generally communicate an unbiblical attitude, we should avoid offense and follow the good customs.

Paul’s reasoning in verse 7 is a little hard to follow because of the technical terms he uses. Mankind in general was made in the Image of God, both male and female. They both are to make good use of their abilities and resources. Together they produce families, and make up the church of God on earth. But that is not what Paul was referring to here. The Greek wording he uses here are a little different that that which is used in the more general context of bearing God’s image as his creatures.

He is saying in this context that the male was created to be a reflection of God’s authority in caring for us. The female was made to be a reflection of the authority God gave to her husband.

This basic principle of headship
was established at creation.

1 Corinthians 11:8-12
8 For man is not from woman, but woman from man.
9 Nor was man created for the woman, but woman for the man.
10 For this reason the woman ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels.
11 Nevertheless, neither is man independent of woman, nor woman independent of man, in the Lord.
12 For as woman came from man, even so man also comes through woman; but all things are from God.

When God made the animals, he made them male and female at the same time. With humans he made only the man first, then made woman from him to be his helper. Unlike the animals, humans were made to specially represent God in the world. From the beginning, the differences in male and female would not be only for producing children. They were to reveal God’s grace and show his love for those he would redeem.

Before he made Eve, God let Adam come to realize that he was incomplete by himself. His wife was made to be a fit helper for him in carrying out his responsibilities in the garden.

There was no inequality or inferiority. They complemented one another, were needed by one another, and were mutually important to one another. However, they would have different roles in reflecting God’s glory, and in fulfilling his plan.

Verse 10 has some confusing expressions in it. literally it says: “Therefore, the woman ought to have authority on the head because of the angels”

In Corinth at that time, the head covering represented submission to her husband’s God-given authority over her. The part about the angels is harder to understand. God has not given us much information here. This particular issue never comes up in any other place in the Bible.

The word the Bible uses for “angels”, angelos (αγγελος), is the word that was commonly used at that time for all types of “messengers”. It was used for human messengers as well as for spirit beings. In war chronicles it often mentioned “angels” (messengers) carrying messages from the generals to the troops on the front lines.

One theory is that this refers to the spirit beings who serve God in various ways. The Bible says that God’s angels are observers of the church on earth. However, it is not clear how this is a reason for women to wear head coverings in Corinth during worship. It would not be helpful here to go over all the strange imagined theories about angels lusting for women.

Some think this means that uncovered female heads were somehow offensive to church Pastors as messengers of God to represent him to the church. However, that does not seem to fit with the message of this passage very well.

More likely it means that if the spirit messengers of God saw the woman rejecting this symbol of subjection, the angles would be the instruments to bring it before God for his judgment for confusing and obscuring creation’s authority structure.

Whatever it meant, the Corinthians would have understood this expression. Paul’s point is clear: The women members of the Corinthian church should show their respect for the authority God gave to their husbands. They were obligated to make sure their submission was communicated to others. This meant respecting what the traditions of their own culture meant.

Paul sets out the reasoning behind his warning:

1 Corinthians 11:13-16
13 Judge among yourselves. Is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered?
14 Does not even nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a dishonor to him?
15 But if a woman has long hair, it is a glory to her; for her hair is given to her for a covering.
16 But if anyone seems to be contentious, we have no such custom, nor do the churches of God.

The Apostle repeats the moral issue and asks them to make a judgment based upon certain facts. They should consider nature itself which teaches that hair length implies something. The word for “nature” here refers to inherent properties that characterize something.

The Greek word Paul uses for “nature” is phusis (φυσις). The Bauer, Arndt, Gingrich Greek Lexicon defines it as, “a natural endowment or condition, natural characteristics or disposition, the natural order of things, a product of nature .. creature”.

There was a broad usage of the term at the time of Paul’s writing. It was often used for things that seem “natural” to people, their disposition toward things as commonly accepted. We use the term that way when we say, “that just doesn’t seem natural”. Paul could not mean God’s creation order. That would be contrary to both our observations, and other biblical mandates.

In cultures where the hair is never cut or removed, men tend to have much more hair covering their bodies than do women. Both grow very long hair on their heads. The average human hair growth rate on the head is 0.44 mm/day. It tends to slow down some as we get older and is a little faster in women than men. However, the slight differences in rate are hardly a compelling and obvious argument.

The context here and in chapter 10 has to do with traditions and what is natural in their culture. We know from coins and statues that men cut their hair short in that Greek-Roman culture. The women let their hair grow long showing their distinction as females. We need to be aware of cultural symbols that represent things to those who live in that setting.

Back in verse 9 Paul referred to the creation order. In the physical sense, male headship was established because God made Adam first. Here in verse 14 he seems to direct their attention to what is accepted as “natural” in their culture. The creation order of male headship was in a sense being preserved by a good Corinthian tradition. In most societies men and women have different hair styles that preserve their distinction. The idea that there should be no difference between the roles of men and women goes against what even pagan cultures have generally recognized by their practices. However society may depict it at the time, we should promote the role of male headship.

Paul adds that if someone wants to argue the point, they have no customary support.

We need to be careful here not to confuse Paul’s applications with the principles themselves. He is not teaching dietary laws for Christians in chapter 10, and he is not teaching dress codes and hair styles for Christians in chapter 11.

The point he is making continues the basic principle discussed in the previous chapter. There is nothing morally right or wrong about hair length in and of itself. God required men to let their hair grow uncut under certain vows (Numbers 6:5). Crowns on the heads of kings represented their authority, not submission to other men. The Old Testament Priests were required to wear special hats while performing acts of worship. God would not command such things it they were inherently immoral or decidedly feminine.

At this time in Corinth, hats in worship showed submission to human authority. Long hair also represented the feminine role of women among God’s people.

The point here is not to command certain outward symbolisms. It is to show the importance of what was represented by them.

Though the customs here are hard to clarify,
the principle taught is not confusing at all.

Our lives should reflect and communicate respect for the creation order of things. Our freedom in Christ is not only bound by God’s universal and direct commandments. It is also bound by what appears to support sinful ideas or unbiblical teachings. Extremes in style often represent rebellion against rightful authority.

To a limited degree, young people often like to show that they question some of the meaningless traditions to which people cling. They often adopt outrageous hair styles, trendy clothes, and their own kinds of slang expressions to develop their own culture and traditions. The next generations will probably question and replace those which are made popular today. In the 50’s there were leather jackets, long sideburns and ducktails, saddle shoes, and poodle skirts. Those who wore them were often thought of as in rebellion. For some, it was true. Most were just following trends. In the late 60’s there were tie-dyed fabrics, uncut hair, sandals, and granny dresses. In the 70’s it was bell bottoms, platform shoes and big afro hair styles. Today the extremes go from urban baggy clothes, to gothic black cassocks.

Christians of all ages need to be careful that while they accept or reject cultural traditions, that they are not giving the appearance of rejecting good principles which are based upon God’s priorities and ways. It is one thing to want to be stylish, but we should be aware of what our styles say to others.

For Corinthian women to worship with their heads uncovered, would have shown a rejection of one of God’s basic principles. For teens to dress outrageously intending to show rejection of their parent’s authority, or of God’s morality, would also be very wrong and sinful. For most today hats and hair length are just matters of style and personal preference.

It is important to maintain and promote biblical principles in our daily lives. We should never appear to reject them by adopting styles or practices that are perceived as contrary to them. We need to know what styles and customs communicate to other believers and to the watching world. While we know to watch out for wolves in sheep’s clothing, we need to be careful that as sheep we don’t go around looking like the wolves.

How different our churches, homes, and communities would be if men cared for women as they ought — not to demean them but to respect them, and if women respected the responsibility God gives the men — not to covet their calling, or to take over headship in our homes, or in the ordained offices of our churches.

When we accept God’s order and our own place in it, and the responsibilities God gives others, the kingdom of Christ, our homes, and our communities would be far better places, and God’s truth would be better communicated to a confused and lost world.

As for the matter of women wearing hats in worship today, I would suggest that it is a practice generally understood in the proper biblical sense of 1 Corinthians 11. It is not required by that passage or by any other portion of God’s word. It is allowable as long as it does not become a distraction to worship by head-wear that would draw undue attention to itself, and as long as it does not become a matter of spiritual pride. There are no grounds in Scripture for judging those with or without hats as being more or less spiritual than the others who are there with humble hearts to honor our God.

(Note: The Bible quotations in this article are from the New King James Bible unless otherwise noted.)

The Sacraments as a Means of Grace

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The Sacraments as a Means of Grace

by Bob Burridge ©2011
Westminster Shorter Catechism Questions 91-93
(watch the video)

(This Lesson is based upon and is almost identical with Lesson 3 in the Ecclesiology section of our Syllabus on the Westminster Confession of Faith.)

Definition of the Sacraments

The term “sacrament” comes from the Latin word sacramentum. In its classical uses it represents something set apart from other things, something dedicated for a particular and special purpose. It was used for the oath a soldier took as he dedicated himself to the defense of king and country, and for money set aside to bind an agreement. The church came to use the term “sacred” for those things set apart specially for God’s honor. Its original uses are vague, broad ranging, and offer little help in understanding what the Reformed churches mean when they declare that God has instituted two sacraments, Baptism and the Lord’s Supper.

The word sacrament is not directly used in Scripture. Like the words theology, Trinity, and others, it is used to represent a particular biblical teaching. Some who use this word may have a very different meaning than others who use it. The test of correctness depends upon which definition is derived from the teachings God has revealed in his word, not upon the historic or presumed meanings attached to it by men or churches.

The Westminster Shorter Catechism deals with the Sacraments in general in questions 91-93.

Question 91: How do the sacraments become effectual means of salvation?
Answer: The sacraments become effectual means of salvation, not from any virtue in them, or in him that doth administer them; but only by the blessing of Christ, and the working of his Spirit in them that by faith receive them.

Question 92: What is a sacrament?
Answer: A sacrament is a holy ordinance instituted by Christ; wherein, by sensible signs, Christ, and the benefits of the new covenant, are represented, sealed, and applied to believers.

Question 93: Which are the sacraments of the New Testament?
Answer: The sacraments of the New Testament are, baptism, and the Lord’s Supper.

The Westminster Confession of Faith handles this more completely than the Shorter Catechism, so that will be the center of our lesson on this topic. It defines the Sacraments in chapter 27.I.

I. Sacraments are holy signs and seals of the covenant of grace, immediately instituted by God, to represent Christ, and his benefits; and to confirm our interest in him:as also, to put a visible difference between those that belong unto the church, and the rest of the world; and solemnly to engage them to the service of God in Christ, according to his Word.

In this 27th chapter of the Westminster Confession the term sacrament represents something with five distinctive features:

1. A sacrament is a holy sign and seal of the covenant of grace.
As a sign, a sacrament represents something other than itself. It teaches about some truth symbolically. There is something in the sign which corresponds with the object it signifies making the truth about its object obvious to those who see the sign. Not everything about the sign corresponds with the object or there would be no difference between the two. The one instituting the sign must tell or explain what particular features are being illustrated. In the sacraments God who institutes the sign reveals by his word what is being signified.

As a seal, a sacrament certifies by the authority of God that the person receiving it has the quality signified. This does not mean that an unauthorized use of the sacrament imposes the quality upon its object. Only when rightly administered by the conditions demanded in God’s word does the sacrament truly certify and authenticate the promise or quality signified.

When someone receives a diploma upon graduation, the diploma certifies that he has completed the course of instruction as recognized by the faculty and board of the institution granting the degree. If a person forges a diploma or has misrepresented himself to the institution, the certificate does not make him qualified in the field it represents. It would be a serious crime and offense to the institution to make such a false claim. Similarly, someone who wrongly receives a sacrament offends God and does not bring the blessings promised upon himself. Instead he calls down the wrath of God upon himself for his false claim. When a child of God receives the sacrament rightly administered by God’s prescription he receives that blessing which is represented by the sign upon the authority of God who instituted it.

In this sense we say that a sacrament is a means of grace. It does not convey the grace by its outward application. God uses the sacrament, when rightly applied and received, as a means by which he dispenses his grace to the recipient.

2. A sacrament is immediately instituted by God.
The term sacrament is reserved for those signs and seals of the covenant of grace which God has instituted himself. By “immediate” the confession means that it came about without the mediation of a human prophet or instrument. Jesus Christ himself directly instituted the sacraments of the New Testament church. No council of human ministers or prophets have this authority. Jesus himself instituted both Baptism and the Lord’s Supper as continuing signs and seals of his covenant with the church. No other sacraments were instituted by him. This definition eliminates the claims of some groups that there are more than two sacraments for the church in this era.

3. A sacrament represents Christ and his benefits.
The two sacraments, Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, represent and seal to true believers the cleansing work of Christ’s atonement and the conveyance of his continual removal of the guilt of sin. The work of our Savior on the cross is depicted and sealed in both, but in different senses. Baptism is the initiatory rite marking a person out as a member of the covenant community, and the Lord’s Supper is the covenantal meal for those marked out. By this meal believers regularly show their partaking of his promises and benefits. The significance of each is covered more thoroughly in the next questions of the Catechism and the next two chapters of the confession. Only these signs which represent the person and work of Christ can be called sacraments according to the definition derived from Scripture and adopted by the Reformed churches.

4. A sacrament confirms our interest in Christ.
Those who partake of the sacraments must meet the qualifications set forth in God’s word. When we receive the signs they must represent not only the work of Christ in a general sense, but also its application to the individual who receives the outward sign. Those who receive it and who are not redeemed by our Lord as individuals appropriate God’s wrath rather than his blessing upon themselves.

This is why the sacraments are to be carefully guarded in their administration by rightly examined and ordained Elders who have a sound understanding of the qualifications God gives us in Scripture. Solemn warnings ought to be issued before the reception of the sacraments to advise against receiving them casually, or by partaking without showing a true interest in the person and work of Jesus Christ who is being represented.

When rightly administered and received the sacraments are a benefit to believers in several ways. They are a witness to the person’s trust in Jesus Christ, and in the promises of God attached to the sacraments. By receiving the sacraments a person declares to God and to the church that he is a partaker of the covenant of God’s grace, and loves the Lord who extends his blessings to his children. God honors this sincere confession, and promises to bless those who obey him by submitting rightly to the sacraments he has instituted.

5. A sacrament puts a visible distinction upon members of Christ’s church.
Those who are baptized into the church and who partake of the Lord’s Supper are clearly distinguished from those who have not submitted to these signs and seals of God’s covenant. They visibly mark out those who are a part of the covenant community from those who are not. But the testimony is primarily to the church, and demonstrates to God our submission to him. The world may be aware of who is baptized and of who receives the covenant meal of the Lord’s Supper. Some may even have an academic knowledge of what they signify and seal. But our testimony to them is to be in the word of the gospel, not in the sacraments. We do not administer or receive the sacraments as a means of evangelism. They serve as a solemn act affirming our membership to the actual parties of the covenant.

Jesus leaves us with a challenging duty. The mark of the true believer to the eyes of the world is not to be found in the sacraments of the church, but in our love for one another which demonstrates a soul renewed by the power of God’s grace. In John 13:35, Jesus said, “By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” It is the fruit of the Holy Spirit and our obedience to the principles our Lord has taught us that demonstrate the promise and power of the gospel to those who are yet outside of the covenant community. Jesus said in John 14:15, “If you love me, keep my commandments”

The Sacraments are a Means of Grace

Westminster Confession of Faith 27.II-III

II. There is, in every sacrament, a spiritual relation, or sacramental union, between the sign and the thing signified: whence it comes to pass, that the names and effects of the one are attributed to the other.
III. The grace which is exhibited in or by the sacraments rightly used, is not conferred by any power in them; neither doth the efficacy of a sacrament depend upon the piety or intention of him that doth administer it: but upon the work of the Spirit, and the word of institution, which contains, together with a precept authorizing the use thereof, a promise of benefit to worthy receivers.

Among the major issues dividing the denominations that call themselves Christian, is the debate over what the sacraments accomplish when they are administered. The differences have to do with how we understand the sacraments as a sign and seal.

The view the Reformers primarily confronted in the 16th Century was Sacerdotalism. This is the view of the Roman Catholic church and some other denominations. They extend the power of the sacraments to include the actual and independent conveying of the blessing signified. The seal becomes not only a certification of God’s promise and work, but an actual imparting of the things being represented. The blessing comes by the power of the sacraments themselves. Dr. Charles Hodge explains, “According to the Romanists, therefore, a sacrament is a divine ordinance which has the inherent or intrinsic power of conferring the grace which it signifies.” (Systematic Theology part III, ch. 20). For a more complete discussion of the error of sacerdotalism see B. B. Warfield’s The Plan of Salvation (chapter 3).

Another view of the sacraments is Memorialism. Those who hold to this view deny any sealing power of the sacraments. They see the sacraments as mere object lessons instituted by God, but nothing more. Primarily this position arose as a reaction against the Sacerdotal view of the Roman Catholic church. It was held by the Zwinglians and the followers of Arminius. It continues today in many Evangelical churches which often incorrectly see it as the only alternative to sacerdotalism.

The position of the Reformed churches:
The confusion is cleared up in the statement of the confession that there is a sacramental union between the sign and the thing signified. It is a spiritual relationship. The words describing the thing signified may be applied to the sign, and that which the words represent is certified by the seal. This means there is real promise attached to the right administration and reception of the sacraments, but the effect is from God. It is not inherent in the actions or elements of the sacraments. We will see more about this as we take up our study of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper in the next lessons.

For now we will simply state that Baptism as an act does not remove sin or convey salvation, nor does the Lord’s Supper convey sanctification in itself or by some power inherent in it. Both are spiritually adventageous when properly practiced, but not in isolation from the sovereign operation of the Holy Spirit according to God’s prescription for each which works when, where, and how he wills.

There are two Sacraments

Westminster Confession of Faith 27,IV-V.

IV. There be only two sacraments ordained by Christ our Lord in the Gospel; that is to say, baptism, and the Supper of the Lord: neither of which may be dispensed by any, but by a minister of the Word lawfully ordained.
V. The sacraments of the old testament, in regard of the spiritual things thereby signified and exhibited, were, for substance, the same with those of the new.

There are only two sacraments directly instituted by Jesus Christ for his church in the New Testament era. Both Baptism and the Lord’s Supper include visible signs which represent and seal to the believer the benefits of the work of Christ in the covenant of grace. The Roman Catholic church adds five more. They include Confirmation, Penance, Orders (ordination), Matrimony, and Extreme Unction. But these are missing one or more of the necessary qualities included in our definition of a sacrament. They either do not include outward signs representing the benefits of Christ in the covenant of grace, or were not instituted by our Lord immediately.

The sacraments may only be dispensed by a minister of the word rightly ordained. This principle is not based upon any superstitious view of the ministry or upon any presumed power of those ordained being necessary for the sacraments to be effective. It is based upon the nature of the office of the Elder as described in Scripture. Only ministers of the word are ever seen administering the sacraments in the New Testament. This gives us a clear example which is to be continued in the churches. Our Lord entrusted to them the guarding of the purity of the church which is covered in chapter 30 of the Confession. Only those who have given evidence of a sound knowledge of the teachings of Scripture should oversee the administration of these solemn practices entrusted to the church by our Lord.

The sacerdotalists tend to extend priestly powers to the ministers even to the extent of asserting that their intentions in administering the sacraments are vital to the conveying of God’s blessings in them. However, the Scriptures teach that it is the sovereign operation of God that makes them effective, not the heart of the one administering them. There is no fear that a Baptism or Lord’s Supper given by an insincere pastor was invalid simply because the minister’s heart was not right with the Lord at the time.

The memorialists tend to allow anyone to administer Baptisms or the Lord’s Supper. This has led to many abuses of the sacraments. They have administered them as if they taught things not assigned to them in the Bible. Extreme and bizarre elements have been used to replace the bread and wine used by our Savior. I remember reading of one youth group leader that used CokaCola and Pizza for the elements. Only those who have been ordained after examination showing them to be well studied in the Scriptures and who are proven to be genuinely called of God should take up this awesome duty representing the person and promises of our Lord.

The sacraments of the New Testament correspond with and continue the Old Testament institutions of Circumcision and the Passover. Circumcision, like Baptism, was to be administered only once and marked the recipient as a member of the covenant community. The Passover was administered repeatedly within the covenant community as a continuing sign and seal of God’s covenant of grace. As we study each of the sacraments in the next lessons this isomorphism between the practices of the Old and New Testaments will become more clearly defined.

(The Bible quotations in this lesson are from the New King James Version of the Bible unless otherwise noted.)

Index of Lessons in the Westminster Shorter Catechism