Tag: Baptism

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Lord's Day Liturgy

Re-birth Mark

When a believer is baptized, he is permanently marked by Christ as Christ’s. It is an identifying mark, a re-birth mark, so to speak. Even though we use towels to dry the water off, we cannot actually wipe the mark off.

Imagine that the ocean was pure black ink, permanent ink, and imagine being baptized in the ocean toes to cowlick. It would be obvious to everyone for the rest of our lives if we had been dunked in the ocean. In a spiritual way, we are so similarly stained. And though it does take spiritual eyes, it is just as unremovable as it is reality.

In fact, the marks of our baptism get stronger, more dark, as we progress in our Christ-likeness.

When I was playing baseball in college, a painfully pale friend from Ohio came to visit me for a week. The weather that week in eastern Tennessee was hot and sunny, and he asked if I had any suntan lotion. I did, and over the next few days, even throughout the course of the games, he was baking in the sun, and so lathering on more of the sunblock. But instead of feeling better, he described his skin getting crispier. The webbing in between his fingers was also turning a special kind of rust brown.

When we eventually looked at the tube, we realized that I had not bought sunscreen, but sun enhancing cream. It was multiplying the sun’s work.

We’re not being baptized again and again, but the marks of Christ on us are becoming in some ways more and more visible as He shines His favor on us. We ought to remember what we look like, so to speak, when then we’re tempted to sin. Don’t we know that people who look like this, they behave like this, that is in their newness of life in Christ.

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The End of Many Books

The Distinctiveness of Baptist Covenant Theology

Subtitled: A Comparison Between Seventeenth-Century Particular Baptist and Paedobaptist Federalism

Of the books I’ve finished in 2020, this is one of my favorites.

A friend gifted it to me; as thankful as I turned out to be for this gift, I can’t imagine having gone looking for it. The title/subtitle is a mouthful, then come to find out it’s a master’s thesis. You may not be interested in the topic, but you should read it anyway and you might be blessed by the end.

The subject is covenantalism, and more particularly a disagreement in the 17th century from some covenantal credo-baptists. If you’re used to hanging out with paedo-baptizing Presbyterian covenantalists, duh, hence the presenting basis for this book.

I entered and exited this reading as a credo-baptist. I entered and exited as a Dispensational Premillennialist, not withstanding the author’s flabbergasted pot-shots at those in my camp.

But I exited with a much clearer appreciation for the Covenant/covenant along with greater commitment not to ignore or downplay some covenental/federal implications, as is typical Baptistic bias.

I also exited with a clearer concern related to the origin of the debate. I have more to process about the subject, and want to read the book again. And yet it still appears to me that the primary problem for both kinds of Covenantlism (for Baptists and for Presbies) is reading backwards, (though the Baptists do a bit better). There is too much New Testament override of the Old Testament, and even parts of the Old Testament get pressed back into duty at the beginning of Genesis, even into the counsels of God. I don’t think progressive revelation works that way, and while we should be happy about the covenant-keeping God, that doesn’t need to make us covenant-happy readers finding it in all the white space between the lines.

5 of 5 stars

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Lord's Day Liturgy

Perfect as the Enemy of Celebratory

There is a surprising amount to say about baby showers. Today I’m going to connect them with the coronavirus, and baptism. Just watch.

Previously I illustrated the principle that special things do not necessarily require a certain amount of time or expense to celebrate. Think of our celebration of the Lord’s Supper; it’s meaningfulness isn’t measured in minutes. Likewise, special celebrations do not need to be the same in every way. Think of family traditions for holidays and birthdays. Such diversity in the world created by our Triune God is glorious, not injustice.

It is also true that seeking a “perfect” celebration is almost certain to spoil it as a “joyful” celebration. God expects us to obey perfectly, but we don’t, which is why we need His grace. He also sets us up to be not perfect in a thousand non-sinful ways. We all must learn, grow, mature, physically and mentally.

Take a believer’s testimony in baptism as an example. Being baptizied is commanded by God through Christ and His Spirit. An obedient disciple is a baptized disciple. But baptism is one and (most of the time) done. You get one shot. And based on the commands to believe and be baptized, infering that a long duration between the two is not expected, one’s profession will never be as perfect as it could have been. You will not give God the most knowledgable, most theological, most mature expression of glory. If you wait for those things, you’ve not been perfect because you’ve delayed in disobedience. God is pleased with humble faith, publicly professed, in various circumstances.

Is your baby shower, or that of your closest friend, or that of the lady on the fringe that you care about, required to be more “perfect” than the ordinance of baptism?

This does not argue for carelessness. It argues for not freaking out. If 20 people wanted to be baptized, we would, for practicality, encourage them not to give 20 minute testimonies each. And if there comes a time when we have 20 pregnant moms due in a short window, let’s say, around nine months from our current in-home quarantine, each mom may not get two exclusive hours in the spotlight. Is it because we have too many baptism candidates? Ha, no! Is it a problem pressing a standard of “perfection” that makes it easier to judge than rejoice? That is a different infectious disease.

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Lord's Day Liturgy

Open Communion, Closed Membership

We love celebrating weekly communion at our church, and it is having multiple desired effects. It proclaims the Lord’s death (1 Corinthians 11:26). It unites the body as we participate in the blood and body of Christ (1 Corinthians 10:16). It encourages us to keep short accounts (1 Corinthians 11:28). And it makes people ask questions, including our kids, who wonder when they will get to share in communion.

This is a feature, it doesn’t have to be a frustration. Just as the liturgy of various offerings in the Old Testament provided opportunities for parents to tell their kids about God’s redeeming work, so we want our liturgy to cause others to want it, especially our kids. If we had to choose between abusing the Table by making them dread it due to our anxiousness, or abusing the Table by making them desire it due to our joyfulness, is that hard to answer?

One question that is a bit harder, at least on a personal level, is, Who is welcome at the Table? We practice what has historically been called “open” communion. That means that you do not need to be a member of our local body to be invited to eat and drink. You do need to believe in Christ, and, in most cases, you should already be baptized in public identification with Christ. We typically discourage parents from having their young people partake until they’ve been baptized.

One additional challenge for us involves those who sincerely believe that infant baptism is a valid expression of the ordinance. As a church we do not believe that, and so we have what is called “closed” membership. We believe (in brief) that “disciples obey the Lord in baptism” and so, as a credo-baptist church, we do not affirm paedo-baptized members.

But, desiring to be charitable to those who profess with both lips and lives their belief in and love for Christ, we will encourage them to partake at the open Table though we won’t affirm them as official members. This is a compromise we are comfortable with. Currently, the most significant limitation is that such a person could not hold a church office (that is, be an elder or deacon), though in every other way they would receive the care of the shepherds.

We gladly welcome the Lord’s disciples to the Lord’s Table, even when we believe there is more to teach them to observe that He’s commanded, which is, of course, true for all of us in some way or another this side of glorification.

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Lord's Day Liturgy

In Remembrance of Where Christ Is

We are in a constant spiritual war and our enemies—sin, the world, and the devil—are relentless. The Lord has not left us without weapons.

Paul told the Romans to reckon themselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus by remembering their baptism. “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?” (Romans 6:3) This is one reason we don’t sprinkle, we dunk under water as if buried under it. Then, “just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4). We’re united with Christ in death and resurrection. Sin is not our master anymore, so we don’t need to present our members to the enemy but to God as instruments of righteousness. Yield to grace.

And then feed on grace. Our baptism identifies us with the army of God, and our communion strengthen us for the fight. The bread and the wine remind us that the Lord is with us. During this part of the plan we might be in Egypt (an analogy to Joseph), we might be in prison (also analogy), but we are not alone.

The worst part about excommunication, in which an unrepentant but still professing believer is prohibited from the communion table, is that such a person is removed from the protection. He is delivered to Satan for the destruction of the flesh (1 Corinthians 5:5). The rest are “assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus…with the power of our Lord Jesus” (verse 4). We are not alone and hungry. We do not become prey for the enemy. We are fed for strength to succeed in our work and to resist temptation.

So eat and drink in remembrance not only of what Christ has done, eat and drink in remembrance of where Christ is, here, with us.