Why Biblical Predestination Requires the Baptism of Babies.
Why those
who understand and believe in predestination will baptize their children in the
church.
1. Because of the meaning of
Baptism: the promise of purification of the heart by the work of the Holy
Spirit. This is not subject to the will of man, and God does not do that
with man's permission.
I Peter
1:18 "Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with
corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by
tradition from your fathers;19 But with the precious blood of Christ, as
of a lamb without blemish and without spot:20 Who verily was foreordained
before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for
you...." The redemption of every one of the elect is by the blood of
Christ, who died only for them, being ordained from the foundation of the world
to that mission. Not one of the elect shall fail to be saved.
21 Who by
him do believe in God, that raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory;
that your faith and hope might be in God.22 Seeing ye have purified your
souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren,
see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently: Faith
is "by him" and not the work of the flesh. It is through the
Spirit that our souls are purified symbolized by both the sprinkling of water
and the blood, which purges the conscience from dead works, resulting in
obedience to the truth and unfeigned love of the brethren.
23 Being
born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God,
which liveth and abideth for ever. The new birth is not of
corruptible seed [human sperm], but by the word of God, which produces a
generation alive toward God, possessors of eternal life.
24
For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The
grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away:25 But the word of
the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is
preached unto you. 1Peter 2:1 Wherefore laying aside
all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil
speakings,2 As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that
ye may grow thereby:
All
men therefore, enter the kingdom of God as babes, not as adults who are
perfected and mature, but as newborn babes who need to grow by the
sincere milk of the word. They are to put off the old and put on the
new. Malice, guile [pretense], hypocrisies [false faces], and
envies [wicked desires] are to be put away so they can grow. They are not
adults in Christ and are not born again as adults but as new born
babes. They are to grow up in Him, by feeding on the milk of the
word until they can receive strong meat and have their senses exercised to know
good and evil. All of this is the work of the Spirit, symbolized in
their baptism, for those who are not led by the spirit of God are none of
His. The people of God have been predestined to be conformed to the
image of Christ and to grow up into Him. The Holy Spirit is the minister
of Christ to work the works of regeneration, adoption, sanctification, and
glorification in the elect, applying the benefits of the obedience, the death,
the burial, and the resurrection of our Lord. He will not fail.
That water
symbolizes the purifiction of the Spirit is everywhere set forth in the
Old Testament and indicated in John 3:25 "Then there arose a
question between some of John’s disciples and the Jews about
purifying." Why did John's baptism bring up the subject of
purification? Because the prophets said that John's ministry would
prepare for Christ’s purification of worship: Mal. 3:1-3. John's
baptism symbolized Christ's baptism which would purify.
Ac
15:9 "And put no difference between us and them, purifying their
hearts by faith." This was concerning the coming of the Holy Ghost
upon Cornelius and his people. When Peter saw this he said,
"47 Can any man forbid water, that these should not be baptized,
which have received the Holy Ghost as well as we? 48 And he commanded
them to be baptized in the name of the Lord. Then prayed they him to tarry
certain days. [Acts 10]. He knew that his dream was fulfilled that God
had cleansed the Gentiles by the Holy Spirit, hence they were to be
baptized. This was the opposite of Pentecost, where those who received
the gift had been baptized previously by John or Jesus' disciples.
Baptism
could not be a valid one if there was ignorance concerning the Holy
Spirit:
Acts
19:2 "He said unto them, Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye
believed? And they said unto him, We have not so much as heard whether there be
any Holy Ghost.3 And he said unto them, Unto what then were ye baptized?
And they said, Unto John’s baptism.4 Then said Paul, John verily baptized
with the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people, that they should
believe on him which should come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus.5
When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.6
And when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Ghost came on them; and
they spake with tongues, and prophesied." This is an
example of the reception of the Holy Spirit after valid baptism, like those at
Pentecost. Cornelius and his people were the opposite.
2.
Circumcision was the sign to Abraham, among other things, that he would have a
numerous physical seed that would bring about the coming of the seed of the
woman [of the flesh of Abraham] who would bless the world. All of
Abraham's children were to be circumcised because no one could tell who that
blessed Seed would be. It would be revealed by the coming of the Holy
Spirit upon Him, as John testified. John 1:33 gives the reason why John
came baptizing, to point to Christ, and all who believed that the kingdom was
at hand were to be baptized of John.
Baptism is a
sign to the church, among other things, that the true seed of Abraham are those
who are born of the Spirit, not of the flesh. Every person who
understands this, renounces trust in himself, in his ability to train and
educate, to form a child, to predestinate his child, but confesses that his
hope alone is in the promise of God. He baptizes, trains, educates, disciplines,
and prays for his child for he does not know who the elect are, but has been
commanded to bring his children up in the nurture and admonition of the
Lord. The very act of baptism is a renunciation of the flesh, the proud
will of man, the proud generation of the flesh, and a calling upon God
concerning His promise of a spritual seed, born of the Spirit. The
child who believes the promise has eternal life, just as the child of Abraham
who believed the promise concerning Christ had eternal life.
That is why
geneologies ceased after Matthew and Luke recorded those of Joseph and
Mary. They are not important anymore, for the church is a generation of
the Spirit, not of the flesh. The wheat and the tares are mixed together
as in Israel was--even baptist churches are so mixed, for all baptized are not
the elect even in baptist churches in spite of the claim to identification with
the death burial and resurrection of Christ and their snubs of
paedobaptists. That the church is filled with failures is indicated in
the warnings to the church by the example of Israel in 1Cor. 10. All of
the sins committed by Israel may be found in the church, but that does not void
the promise of a spiritual seed.
3. It
was according to the decree of God from eternity that Christian parents have
children born into their families--this is not an accident. Hence, receiving as a gift
from God, and recognizing that one purpose for a Christian marriage is to have
a godly seed [Mal 2:15], obedient parents put the sign of the spiritual seed
upon their children, the waters of purification, to witness to the necessity of
baptism by the Spirit of God if they are to be the children of God. This
is the most important evangelistic mission of the godly mother and father: to
bring the children up knowing the oracles of God, the same advantage that
circumcision had for the Jew [Rom. 3:1-3] The fact that some will not
believe does not make void the promise of God. Let God be true and every
man a liar. Even Isaac, the child of the promise as we are, had two sons,
one loved of God, one hated of God. But that didn't make the promise of
none effect. Even Isaac couldn't change the decree by his fleshly will.
One of the
greatest evidences that a child is elect of God is that he has been given the
exquisite privilege of being born into a godly Christian family, who will treat
him as belonging to God, frail and weak, needing nurture and instruction, and
kindly correction. Not badgering, judging, nagging, and pressing
for a "decision." The "decision" will come in it's
own time, and it may be many years after Mom and Dad are dead.
John 3: 8
The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but
canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is
born of the Spirit.
Cut it
whichever way you will: making an adult decision the requirement for entree
into the visible church sends a wrong message--not the message of the
Gospel. For even adults are not born into the kingdom by blood, nor
of the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, but of God.
There is a disconnect, a clanging of messages, out of step and iscordant:
you enter the kingdom of God as a little child; but you cannot get into the
church without an adult decision. Or to put it another way, You
cannot get into heaven by the will of the flesh, but you can get into the
baptist church down the road that way.
4.
The curse is to three or four generations, as the sins of the fathers are
visited upon the children, but the promise is a covenant of mercy to a thousand
generations:
De 7:9
Know therefore that the LORD thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which
keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to
a thousand generations;1Ch 16:15 Be ye mindful always of his covenant;
the word which he commanded to a thousand generations;Ps 105:8 He hath
remembered his covenant for ever, the word which he commanded to a thousand
generations.
Hence, just as
the sins and unbelief of Israel could not prevent Christ from being born into
the world, so the sins of the church cannot prevent the continual rising of a
godly seed by the Spirit of God. The church continues to rise, as it
were, from the dead, so that the fruit of the Spirit is again manifest and the
light of the Gospel speeds again, for the church is the pillar and ground of
the truth, the salt and light of the world. Sooner can the Lord Jesus be
plucked from His heavenly throne at the right hand of God than one of His
little children [the elect] should perish.
"My little
children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin,
we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: And he
is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins
of the whole world." 1John 2:1,2 The redemption
that Christ has won by His obedience is world-wide unto the end of time, as He
continues to gather His elect in all times and places. --to a thousand
generations, for where sin did abound, there did grace much more abound.
Parents, don't give up on your children. Baptize them, pray for them, instruct them, discipline them, take them to worship and teach them to pray and praise, for the promise is to you and your children. Trust in the power of God, for even if they stray from your environment, they can never hide from God's environment, tho' they be in the sty, eating husks fit only for hogs. His Spirit will pursue them, by His grace, or their children after them. The father in that story had done everything that he could, and he did not chase after his son, but God did and brought him home again.
Amen and Amen.
