THEOLOGY STUDIES.

 

                                     THEOLOGY STUDIES.

ADOPTION.

THE DOCTRINE OF ADOPTION MANDATES INFANT CHURCH MEMBERSHIP AND INFANT BAPTISM.

     Equally strange are a) the ways in which doctrines of the Bible support each other and are mutually dependent even when apparently quite distinct, and, b) the fact that theologians have failed to see this aspect of Scripture.
Biblical theology gives due weight to the important doctrine of adoption. Adoption is the experience, the practical outworking, of divine justification. Justification is not a mere old, forensic, legal matter, a mere pronouncement of not guilty (by the substitutionary merits of Christ’s atonement) but is a reality by which the justified one is made as truly pure in God’s sight as if he or she had never sinned at all. Because of this they can be and are adopted into God’s covenant family as sons and daughters of the Almighty. It is important to realise this. Adoption is inseparably linked to justification, and thus with salvation, and is the entry into the covenant family. It is thus not only individual, but leads at once to a more corporate and covenantal situation. This is just where modern, Western, individualistic, thinking falls short of the Bible pattern (most notably so in all Baptistic theology, which, in terms of salvation, always stops short with the adult singularly and alone.)
Let us consider this: If I adopt a child he or she then becomes exactly as if they had been born to me. They enjoy all of the rights and privileges (and responsibilities) of family membership. Time passes, the child grows and matures, reached adulthood, marries and has children of their own, That these are the grandchildren of the original adopting parents none would deny. But why should we think that God does what men would never do? The very fact that God the Holy Spirit so links salvation with the concept of adoption necessitates that the offspring of the adopted child are also included in the family ( just as no one would reject or exclude their grandchildren because the parent was adopted). They must be regarded as, and believed to be, safely within the covenant family, elect, and subject to salvation. Adoption thus has an on-going covenantal aspect. Born providentially within the covenant family, as integral parts of that family, they have every right to the covenantal sign of belonging, that is to infant baptism. The logic is irrefutable. It is tragic that even professedly Reformed churches have been so tainted with Western humanism and individualistic thinking that they have failed to see these truths, and have often failed the covenant infant seed as a result.
Finally: does this make election and salvation hereditary? No. The children are regarded as covenantal elect and treated as such with all family rights, privileges, and responsibilities, unless they themselves at some time prove covenant breakers. There are Esaus in elect families, sadly. Some will prove to have never been spiritually adopted, and so fall away. But we say that God knows where to place his elect souls, and so in the majority of cases adopted children of God will produce adopted children themselves, and the line of election flow down though the church. This is strange to Western thinking, but it is precious, because it is Biblical.

AFFLICTION.
Humans are born to affliction:
Affliction does not come from the dust nor does trouble spring out of the ground,  for man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward  (Job 5:6-7).
Affliction is a consequence of sin:
And he said to the woman: I will add great pain to your childbearing. You shall bring forth children in sorrow, and yet your desire shall still be towards your husband, and he shall rule over you. And to Adam he said: Because you have heeded the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree concerning which I commanded you, saying, you shall not eat of it, the ground is depleted for your sake. You shall eat from it in sorrow all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth to you, and you shall eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken, for of the earth you are, and to earth you shall return (Genesis 3 16-19).
They shall eat the fruit of their own way and be filled with their own devices (Proverbs 1:31).
Because you have given great occasion to the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme by this deed, the child born to you shall surely die (2. Samuel 12:14).
If they do not keep my commandments, then I will visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes (Psalm 89:30-32).
For the iniquity of his covetousness I was angry and smote him, I hid myself and was angry, and he went on stubbornly in the way of his heart (Isaiah 57:17).
Have you not brought this on yourself by forsaking the Lord your God? (Jeremiah 2:17).
Affliction cannot atone for sin:
I am the man that has seen affliction by the rod of his wrath, he has led me and brought me into darkness and not into light (Lamentations 3:1-2).
O Lord, according to all your righteousness, I beseech you, let your anger and your fury be turned away from your city Jerusalem, your holy mountain, for your people have become a reproach to all who are about us, because of our sins, and the iniquities of our fathers. Now therefore, O our God, hear the prayer and the supplications of your servant and cause your face to shine on your desolate sanctuary, for your sake, O Lord. O my God, incline your ear and hear, open your eyes and behold our desolations, and the city that is called by your name. We cannot present our supplications before your for any righteousness of our own, but only for your great mercy, (Daniel 9:16-18).
Affliction is appointed by God, who controls it:
You brought us into the net, you laid affliction on our loins (Psalm 66:11).
The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away, blessed be the name of the LORD (Job 1:21).
Though he causes grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies (Lamentations 3:32).
The LORD saw the affliction of Israel to be very bitter, for none were secure, nor any left, nor any helper for Israel. And the LORD said that he would not blot out the name of Israel from under heaven, but he saved them by the hand of Jeroboam the son of Joash  (2. Kings 14: 26-27).
The darkness shall not be as deep as it was in her tribulation, when at first he lightly afflicted the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, and afterwards more grievously afflicted her by the way of the sea (Isaiah 9:1).
I will not make a full end of you, but correct you in measure, although I cannot leave you wholly unpunished (Jeremiah 46:28).
Thus says the LORD. After seventy years are completed at Babylon I will visit you and perform my good word towards you (Jeremiah 29:10).
Affliction may be deep and severe:
The sorrows of death surrounded me the floods of ungodly men made me afraid. The fears of Sheol compassed me about, the snares of death opened before me (Psalm 18:4-5).
Never be surprised by the fiery trial which is to prove you (1. Peter 4:12).
Affliction may be imposed in mercy and be less than we deserve:
But he, being full of compassion, forgave their iniquity, and did not destroy them (Psalm 7:38).
Though the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your teachers shall not be removed (Isaiah 30:20).
And after all that has come on us for our evil deeds, and for our great trespass, you our God have punished us less than our iniquities deserve (Ezra 9:13).
Affliction is blessed to the believer, exposing his or her errors:
Then the people came to Moses, and said: We have sinned, for we have spoken against the LORD (Numbers 21:7).
Affliction brings them back to rely on God:
When he slew them, then they sought him, and returned, and enquired early after God (Psalm 78:34).
Then shall she say, I will go and return to my first husband, for then it was better with me than now (Hosea 2:7).
And it shall come to pass in that day that the remnant of Israel, and such as have escaped of the house of Jacob, shall no more rely on him who smote them, but shall rely in truth on the LORD, the Holy One of Israel (Isaiah 10:20).
So that the house of Israel may no more go astray from me nor be polluted any more with all their transgressions,  but they may be my people, and I may be their God, says the LORD God (Ezekiel 14:11).
Then he came to himself and said, how many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare, and here I am perishing with hunger! I will get up and go to my father (Luke 15:17-18).
Affliction humbles them and tests their faith and obedience:
They remained to prove Israel, to show whether they would hearken to the commandments of the LORD (Judges 3:4).
We also rejoice in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation works patience, and patience improvement (Romans 5:3-4).
If these things are in you and abound they make you to be neither idle nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ (1. Peter 1:7).
By faith Abraham, when he was tried, was willing to offer up Isaac, even though he was his promised only begotten son (Hebrews 11:17).
Affliction proves their sincerity:
But he knows the way that I take, and when he has tried me I shall come forth as gold (Job 23:10).
The refining pot is for silver and the furnace for gold, but the Lord tries the hearts (Proverbs 17:3).
Affliction equips them for greater usefulness:
He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he shall purify the sons of Levi and purge them as gold and silver (Malachi 3:3).
Affliction furthers the advance of the gospel:
Therefore those who were scattered abroad went preaching the word everywhere (Acts 8:4)Nevertheless the Lord stood with me and strengthen me  (2.Timothy 4:17).
Affliction illustrates the power and the love of God:
We have this treasure in fragile bodies, so that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us (2. Corinthians 4:7).
Master, who sinned, this man or his parents, for him to be born blind? Jesus answered: Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but this is so that the works of God should be displayed in him (John 9:2-3).
This illness is not to his death, but for the glory of God (John 11:4).
Affliction ends in greater blessedness:
Rejoice in the fact that you are sharers in Christ’s suffering, so that, when his glory shall be revealed, you may be glad also with exceeding joy (1. Peter 4:13).
Affliction’s value is demonstrated in Joseph’s brethren:
And they agreed and said to one another: We are certainly guilty concerning our brother when we saw the anguish of his soul as he pleaded with us, but we would not listen, and as a result this distress has come on us. (Genesis 42:21).
In Israel:
You shall also consider in your heart that, as a man chastises his son, the LORD your God chastises you (Deuteronomy 8:5).
In David:
It may be that the LORD will look on my affliction and that the LORD will return good to me for his cursing this day (2. Samuel 16:12).
In Josiah:
Because your heart was tender and you humbled yourself before the LORD when you heard what I spoke against this place…I have heard you, says the LORD (2. Kings 22:19).
In Hezekiah:
Then Hezekiah humbled himself for the pride of his heart, both he and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the wrath of the LORD did not fall on them in the days of Hezekiah (2. Chronicles 32:26).
In Manasseh:
And when he was in affliction he sought the LORD his God and greatly humbled himself before the God of his fathers (2. Chronicles 33:12).
Affliction is a consequence of impenitence:
But they refused to hearken, and pulled away their shoulders and stopped their ears, so that they should not hear. They hardened their hearts like a diamond lest they should hear the law, and the words that the LORD of hosts sent in his Spirit by the former prophets, and so there came a great wrath from the LORD of hosts (Zechariah 7:11-13).
Afflictions are multiplied for the sinfully impenitent:
Those who hasten after other gods shall multiply their sorrows (Psalm 16:4.)
Many sorrows shall come on the wicked but mercy shall compass about him who trusts in the LORD (Psalm 32:10).
Thus says the Holy One of Israel: Because you despise this word and trust in oppression and perverseness, and rely on it, this iniquity shall be to you as a breach ready to fall, swelling out as a high wall whose collapse comes suddenly, in an instant (Isaiah 30:12-13).
Affliction cannot work salvation, and often hardens the heart:
Why should you be stricken anymore? Will you revolt more and more?(Isiah 1:5).
I have smitten your children in vain, for they received no correction (Jeremiah 2:30).
Affliction should not be afraid of by the righteous:
Make us glad in proportion to the days in which you afflicted us (Psalm 90:15).
Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I have kept your word (Psalm 11:67).
Affliction may be a warning to others.
God was not well pleased with most of them, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now these things were our examples (1. Corinthians 10:5-6).
Turned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes he condemned them with an overthrow, making them an example to those who should after live ungodly (2. Peter 2:6).
Affliction can glorify God:
I am against you, O Sidon, and I will be gloried in the midst of you, and they shall know that I am the LORD. (Ezekiel 28:22).
Affliction of the impenitent is seen in Pharaoh:
The Lord spoke to Moses: Go the Pharaoh, and say to him, thus says the LORD. Let my people go, so that they may serve me. If you refuse to let them go, behold, I will smite all your borders (Exodus 8:1-2).
In Ahaziah:
The angel of the LORD said to Elijah the Tishbite: Arise, go up to meet the messengers of the king of Samaria, and say to them, is there not a God in Israel, that you go to enquire of Baal Zebus the god of Ekron? Therefore thus says the LORD. You shall nor come down from the bed on which you have gone up. You shall surely die (2. Kings 1: 3-4).
In Gehazi:
The leprosy of Naaman shall cling to you and your seed forever (2. Kings 5:27).
In Jehoram:
Because you…have walked in the way of the kings of Israel and have made Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to go whoring, like the whoredoms of the house of Ahab, and you have also slain your brethren of your father’s household, who were better than yourself, behold, the LORD will smite your people, and your children, and your wives, and all your goods, with a great plague, and you shall have great sickness by a disease in your bowels (2. Chronicles 21:12-15).
In Athaliah:
When Athaliah saw that her son was dead she rose up and destroyed all the royal seed of the house of Judah (2. Chronicles 22:10).
In Uzziah:
It is not permitted for you, king Uzziah, to burn incense to the LORD, but only for the priests, the sons of Aaron, who are consecrated to burn incense. Go out of the sanctuary, for you have trespassed. This shall not be to your honour before the LORD God. Then Uzziah eas angry and he had a censer in his hand to burn incense, but as he became angry with the priests leprosy rose up in his forehead before the priests (2. Chronicles26:18-19).
In Ahaz:
He also sacrificed and burnt incense in the high places and on the hills and under every green tree. Therefore the LORD his God delivered him into the hand of the king of Syria and they smote him and carried away a great multitude of the people captives, and brought them to Damascus (2. Chronicles 4-5). And in the time of his distress he trespassed even more against the LORD. Thus did king Ahaz. (2. Chronicles 28:22).
The afflicted Christian should exercise patience and resignation:
I was dumb, I opened not my mouth, because you did it (Psalm 39:9).
Let patience have her perfect work, that you may be perfect and entire, lacking nothing (James 1:4).
What glory is it, if when you are punished for your faults, you shall take it patiently? But if, when you do well and suffer for it and you take it patiently, that is acceptable with God (1. Peter 2:20.)
Should acknowledge the justice of the chastisement:
I will bear the indignation of the LORD because I have sinned against him (Micah 7:9).
Should avoid sin:
Sin no more, in case something worse comes to you (John 5:14).
Should trust in God:
I have put my trust in God, I will not be afraid, what can man do to me? (Psalm 56:11).
You, who have led me through great and sore troubles, shall quicken me again, and shall bring me up again from the depths of the earth (Psalm 71:20).
Should praise God:
When I cry to you, my enemies shall turn back. I know this, for God is for me. I will praise God in his word, , I will praise the LORD in his word  (Psalm 56:9-10).
Should remember and be thankful for past mercies:
When I remember those days my soul melts away within me for I have gone with the multitude, I went with them to the house of God with the voice of joy and praise (Psalm 42:4).
Who delivered us from so great a death, and does deliver, and in whom we trust that he will deliver us again (2. Corinthians 1:10).
Should remember God’s promises to be with them in time of trouble:
In time of trouble he shall hide me in his tabernacle, yes, in the secret place of his tabernacles he shall hide me, he shall set me up on a rock (Psalm 27:5).
They cried to the LORD in their distress and he saved them out of their troubles (Psalm 107:13).
When you pass through the waters I will be with you, and through the rivers and they shall not overflow you (Isaiah 43:2).
God, who comforts those who are cast down (2. Corinthians 7:6).
The afflicted Christian should be visited, comforted, and relieved:
He who holds back mercy from his friend has cut of the fear of the Almighty (Job 6:14).
Defend the poor and fatherless, do justice to the afflicted and needy (Psalm 82:3).
Therefore encourage one another with these words (1. Thessalonians 4:18).
The character of the afflicted Christian seen in Joseph:
Joseph’s master seized him and put him into the prison in the place where the king’s prisoners were bound, and there he lay in prison. Now the LORD was with Joseph, and showed him mercy, and gave him favour in the sight of the prison keeper (Genesis 39:20-21).
In Moses:
I fell down before the LORD, as at the first, for forty days and forty nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water, because of all your sins that you had sinned in doing wickedly in the sight of the LORD, to provoke him to anger (Deuteronomy 9:18).
In Job:
In all this Job did not sin, nor blame God foolishly.
In Eli:
And he said: It is the LORD, let him do what seems right to him (1. Samuel 3:18).
In Ezra:
And at the evening sacrifice I arose up from my depression, and having rent my garments and my mantle, I fell on my knees, and spread out my hands to the LORD my God, and said: O my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face to you, my God, for our iniquities are increased over our heads, and our trespass has reached up to the heavens (Ezra 9:5-6).
In Nehemiah:
And I said: I beseech you, O LORD God of heaven, the great and terrible God, who keeps covenant and mercy for those who love him and keep his commandments, let your ear now be attentive, and your eyes open, that you may hear the prayer of your servant that I pray day and night before you for the children of Israel (Nehemiah 1:5-6).
In Daniel:
Then I, Daniel, set my face to seek the Lord God by prayer and supplication, with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes, and I prayed to the LORD my God, and made my confession (Daniel 9:3-4).
In Paul:
Behold, I am going bound in the spirit to Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall befall me there, except that the Holy Spirit witnesses saying that bonds and afflictions await me in every city. None of these things move me, neither do I count my life dear to myself, so that I might finish my course with joy (Acts 20:22-24).
Lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations a thorn in the flesh was given to me, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure (2. Corinthians 12:7).
In the Apostles:
I think that God has set us apostles in the last place, as it were condemned to death and made a spectacle before the world, and angels, and men (1. Corinthians 4:9).
Proving ourselves in all things to be ministers of God, in much patience, in affliction, in necessity, in distress, in stripes, in imprisonment, in riots, in labours, in watching, in fasting, in pureness, in knowledge, in longsuffering, in kindness, in the Holy Spirit, in love unfeigned, in the word of truth, in the power of God, with the armour of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, in honour and dishonour, through evil report and good report, as deceivers, and yet true, as unknown, and yet well known, as dying, and, behold, we live, chastened, and not killed, sorrowful, yet always rejoicing, poor, yet making many rich, having nothing, and yet possessing everything (2. Corinthians 6:3-10).

                 Ere I afflicted was I strayed: thy word I now obey.

         For good thou art, and doeth good: teach me thy statutes’ way.

                It has been very good for me that I was humbled low,

           It through affliction was that I thy statutes came to know.

(Psalm 119: 67-68, 71, METRICAL.)

ARMINIANISM STUDIES.
   If we are tempted to mitigate the full degree of error in Arminianism a reminder is offered by a late twentieth-century standard Methodist Systematic Theology textbook, Groundwork of Theology by John Stacey (1977). Along with much that is unobjectionable (although common place) there is (in a work that claims to be of value beyond the Methodist denomination) of course no reference to predestination or God’s absolute sovereignty, but the underlying Arminianism is plain in the dealing with other doctrines, such as that concerning hell. Says the author: ‘Hell would appear to be something which people bring upon themselves in spite of the efforts of God to prevent them’ (p. 306).
Here is the core of the matter: man brings something about despite the efforts of the Almighty! Man sovereignly decides, God is powerless to prevent. How any Christian can speak of God (by any definition of God the Almighty) being powerless, in spite of all his efforts, to overcome what man decides is beyond belief! Yet this is openly taught in a standard denominational  textbook. This is man-elevating humanism, and nothing else. It is blasphemy, open blasphemy, wrapped up in Christian packaging.
Arminianism is the antithesis of Bible Christianity: it always has been and always will be.
Arminius and his followers believed and taught that sin was only sin when it could be avoided. Thus a wrong deed that could not have been avoided, for example a necessary result of man’s sinful nature, could not properly be accounted as sin. There is a fundamental error here. What is ignored is that if the inability itself was caused by sin, then the results flowing from that are also sin. A man may be exempt from military service if he lacks a forefinger and so could not fire a gun. Is his inability sinful? Yes- if he was guilty of cutting off his finger deliberately to avoid that service! Thus man’s inability to keep God’s law, and his on-going sinning, are derived from man’s first sin and fall, and so are responsible for all subsequent sins that flow from it. Arminians cannot minimise total depravity on the ground of natural inability when that inability is, itself, wilful and sinful.

BAPTISM STUDIES.
PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY AND PRACTICALITY OF BIBLICAL BAPTISM.
     It is amazing to consider how little common-sense logic is applied in discussions over the mode of baptism, how generally modern, Western, cultural norms are assumed and the original Biblical situation and culture obliterated.
We need to consider 1) the real historical, cultural, and geographical situation when Christian baptism was instituted, and, 2) the requirement that baptism should subsequently be practically and easily applied worldwide. Placed together, the foundational situation and the on-going requirement, the theory of the Immersionists will be seen to be both novel and impossible.
In Palestine water was in short supply. It was precious. The carefully provided and guarded public water supply in towns and cities could never have been appropriated for ‘dipping’ adult humans. Some rivers were available, but in the New Testament we read of baptisms being quite spontaneous, simple and immediate on conversion taking place, in a huge variety of settings. All speaks clearly of simple ceremonies, without travel or preparations, employing a minimum of water. All is totally in line with previous Jewish sprinkling purifications.
Thereafter Christianity spread globally, but from the Middle East outwards. In many regions, at least during the early Apostolic  Mediterranean expansion of the faith water was scarce, highly prized, and well guarded. In hot and arid regions immersion could never have been an option: where there were wells and cisterns and aqueducts employing them for immersions (much less mass immersions!) would also have been unthinkable. Small quantities of water, and simple, non intrusive ceremony was mandated, was essential for the spread of the faith.
Baptism was intended to be a world-wide ordinance, just as the church was to be world-wide. The earth contains is frozen and well as its arid zones. When Christianity reached such areas it encountered a situation in which open water is frozen for most of the year. Traditionally drinking and washing water had first to be thawed- and so was carefully conserved. Submersion in freezing water after breaking ice is dangerous, and would be about as far from the original Near Eastern practice as can be imagined. Again for large parts of the earth dipping would be out of the question, but genuine baptism was intended to be the same ordinance, globally. Sprinkling purification is ideal in all situations. We ask: would the Almighty mandate a sacrament for all of his people in all ages and all climates and nations which would be impractical, dangerous, or impossible for many of them? Or was the divine ordinance and intention for a simple, easy, Jewish based rite, easily and swiftly performed anywhere?
Western arrogance, re-arranging Biblical matters in the image of modern culture (air conditioning, plumbing, constant water supply) and then the erection of elaborate baptistries and associated ritual and appliances is gentilism making a new faith on its own current cultural basis. It has put a huge divide between the true early church and themselves. This is not pleasing to God. The Spirit has largely withdrawn. Reformation- restoration of the original and genuine, simple, easy, cleansing sprinkling baptism- is essential.
 BAPTISM IS NOT INDIVIDUALISTIC.
     To be Scriptural baptism should not be thought of as being totally individualistic. That is a post-Biblical, modern, Western concept, that underlies all Baptistic theories. In Scripture baptism is never an individual event centred on the candidate and highlighting their obedience or witness or whatever. Christ was baptised in his blood, although he needed no ritual cleansing for sin. His atonement earned the true Scriptural cleansing, the one true baptism for the church in all ages. When a person is baptised in the church they are actually baptised into Christ’s archetypal baptism for them. It unites them to the atoning death that involved the blood-baptism on behalf of all of the elect. They have a antitypal bloodless water baptism, because Christ had the typical blood baptism for them. The individual is thus part of a wider, on-going, church community, not an isolated (man-centred) individual. The focus is on union with Christ, and so union with his body on earth, the church, by virtue of what he has done: never on what an individual is doing.
Here again we see the contrast between modern, Western, individualism, with its human-centredness on the one hand, and the corporate, covenantal, Biblical standpoint with its Christ-centredness on the other hand.
 BAPTISM AND COVENANT.
     One factor that cannot be stressed too strongly (indeed is a key distinctive and contribution of the Reformation Christian Churches) is an understanding and application of the joint, communal, corporate, covenantal, nature of God’s dealings with mankind, rather than the humanistic and individualistic, man-centred, philosophy and practice that the professing church has adopted from the dominant and prevailing Western culture in modern world.
Of course the vital matter of salvation, of conviction of sin, of repentance of closing with Christ in saving faith, is personal and individualistic, but do we realise that once salvation has taken place the saved one is, thereby, incorporated in a wider body- the church invisible- and that God’s dealings are, and will be, mainly with that person as a unit within a whole, and not primarily with them as a (sovereign) individual? Failure to see this (a result of the humanistic Western mindset) had led to many Bible texts that refer to the corporate body (Israel/ the church) being incorrectly applied to separate individuals. For this reason there has been much confusion and meaningless controversy over subjects such as the New Testament household (family) baptisms, for Western man, quite unlike the saved Jews before him, struggles to grasp the covenantal dimension of Scripture. The result is a massive distortion of the Bible message and a huge failure to heed what the sovereign God is saying to us.
This situation, more than any other, underlies the confusion and controversy that has surrounded the sacrament of baptism, during the centuries since the great Reformation, in which the gospel has been centred in Europe and then the wider Western world. During that period the arguments have swirled around the mode, the method, the practice, of baptism, with theologies derived to support the chosen and preferred mode. This approach is fundamentally philosophical (that stumbling block of the Greeks) ending in often elaborate eisegesis rather than humble and observant exegesis of what God in the Bible is truly saying.
Let us go to some vital texts, that are, typically, read and the instantly misread today.
The first is Ephesians 4:5  One Lord, one faith, ONE BAPTISM.  That is just what God the Holy Spirit says, through God’s servant Paul. It is certain that the modern Western world reads this and then mentally alters it radically, as one mode of baptism, one true way of baptising and so on. Given that you can defend your preferred mode, and have the dubious satisfaction of assigning all other modes and practices as being not that one true mode, and thus not true baptism at all. But this is NOT what the Spirit says. God says that there is actually, numerically only ONE baptism. Literally, just one, and one alone. Thus, in God’s view- one, single, unique, baptism. Literally, numerically, just one.  This again is something that the modern, Western, man cannot easily comprehend. Surely since the days of the Apostles there have been millions of Christian baptisms performed. Did not God himself command the church to baptise disciples? How then can God say that there is actually only ONE in his sight?
Our next texts are Luke 12:50 I have a baptism to be baptised with, and how I am oppressed until it is accomplished! and Matthew 20:22  Are you able to drink of the cup that I am about to drink of, and to be baptised with the baptism, that I am to be baptised with?
      Here is God the Son, Jesus Christ, describing a baptism that he was soon to undergo. How many read these words and pass on, because they (as typical Westerners) simply cannot understand what baptism has to do with it. And what truth we miss if we do that  Christ had been baptised with water by John at the Jordan some three years before this. So Christ cannot be referring to water-baptism at all. Even those stumbling at the strange-looking reference to baptism agree that Christ was describing his forthcoming atoning sacrificial suffering on Calvary’s cross. Christ calls his hanging on the cross and undertaking the Godheads’ wrath against sin on behalf of his people- BAPTISM. Putting these factors together we can see that Christ’s saving work on Calvary was the only real, true, and ONE baptism. One Lord suffering, undergoing one baptism, the benefits received by the elect in the one and only saving faith (exactly what Ephesians 4:4 says all along.) Thus the atonement on the cross is the one true, archetypal, and real baptism in history. As Christ hung and shed his blood, the sprinkled blood availed for many, and his baptism on the cross became the only possible fount and source of all subsequent cleansing water baptisms, simply because they have no purpose or validity except by spiritual union with the true and foundational baptism on the cross. That baptism was never individualistic. It was the core baptism of the whole true church, of the elect, the bride of Christ. It is seen by God as corporate and covenantal, the baptism of ONE person in Christ, the complete church. Subsequent individual baptisms, be they of covenant infant seed or of older converts from the world, are thus only the mode of stating and demonstrating incorporation into that one true baptism on the cross, through faith (covenantal or adult-personal). Thus Christ has been baptised for us, and we partake of the benefits (savingly) of that baptism as we are united to it in our personal, derived baptism.
This is the corporate, covenantal, teaching of the inspired Bible (however hard it is for Western culture to grasp.) Our baptism and that of our offspring is never something that we chose to ‘for God’, but is an acknowledgement and glad acceptance of incorporation in what God, and specifically Christ at Calvary, has done for us and our covenant children. The whole concept of baptism as God-centred and as God lovingly providing for the entire covenant community the church is far richer and more wonderful than most people imagine today. The mode, in grateful acceptance, must reflect that sacrifice on the cross with the shed, sprinkled, descending, and saving blood. This is the true baptism. May the church understand, believe, teach and practice it again!
THE MODE OF JOHN’S BAPTISM.
    When Christ came to the banks of the River Jordan to be baptised a circumstance occurred that is recorded in all four Gospels (something that in itself should alert us to its importance) but which passes unnoticed by most readers and Commentators. It is contained in this: There cometh one mightier than I after me, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose  (Mark 1:7), the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose  (Luke 3:16), whose shoes I am not worthy to bear (Matthew 3:11), Whose shoes latchet I am not worthy to unloose (John 1:27). With this repeated emphasis by the Holy Spirit in Scripture, there must be something memorable here. Why the stress on unloosing and carrying Christ’s shoes? The whole context is, of course that of Christ’s baptism in the Jordan. Now if immersion had been at all in view the emphasis would surely have been on towels and a change of dry clothes. John would have said something like: Whose clothes I am not worthy to look after. Why then are just shoes highlighted in this way? Once noted the answer is quite obvious. In Jewish cleansing fashion (John acting as hereditary priest could do no other) the candidate stood in shallow water, whilst the administrator cupped water in his hand and then poured or sprinkled it on the candidate’s head. To be baptised the candidate had to do no more than remove his or her shoes or sandles (and possibly hitch-up a flowing outer robe), step barefoot into the shallow water, and afterwards put the footwear back on. Someone would keep or guard the shoes or sandles on the river bank until they were put back on. This is exactly what the record of the four Gospels records!  That and nothing more.  John, aware of his unworthiness, points out that he was not even worthy to unloose Christ’s shoes, or to look after them on the bank, much less perform the actual baptising. Christ tells him to suffer it to be so.
All is plain, and strikingly vivid and realistic, and would have been to all if false presuppositions had not blinkered many people’s thinking.
Next we might consider the geography of John’s baptism. In John 1:28 we are told that: these things were done in Bathabara beyond Jordan, where John was baptising. Bethabara means the house at the ford. By definition a ford is where the water is lowest, where you can walk across. Why did John specifically chose this place? Nothing less suitable for immersion can be imagined! However, for the candidate to stand in the shallow ford water as water was raised and sprinkled on them by the baptiser (the method of Jewish purification) it was ideal. John was a Jewish priest and could do no other. John chose this location because he understood what baptism is.
GENESIS SEVENTEEN AND BAPTISM.
     Genesis 17:14:  The uncircumcised male child, the flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from his people, he has broken my covenant.
     This serious, and demands serious consideration. In the New Testament baptism bloodlessly fulfils and continues circumcision. It was a divine command that (male) infants of the covenant community (then Jews) be circumcised, and so the law of continuity mandates that infants (now both male and female) of the new Testament covenantal community (the church) be baptised. Baptism signifies their existing covenantal connection to Christ, and thus their place within the covenantal community, now the church, within which they are to grow and mature spiritually and increase in faith and sanctification until they in their turn take on adult roles. Thus the promise to you and your children is not annulled. We must note carefully, in these circumstances, that in the fulfilment and continuation phase the equivalent must be; ‘The unbaptised child, the flesh of whose forehead has not been washed, that soul shall be cut off from the people. They have broken my covenant’. Moreover the uncircumcised (Old Testament) or unbaptised (New Testament) child has itself broken the covenant, even though it is an unconscious infant taking no part in the choice not to apply the covenant seal. Such is the covenant identity of parent and child that it incurs the blame and penalty for what the parents have failed to do. Conversely the circumcised (Old Testament) and baptised (New Testament) receives the covenant benefits and blessings that the faithfulness of the parents procure for it by their obedience. This is a point that seems strange to modern, Western, thinking, and so needs to be carefully pondered and understood. The text, in its continuation phase, states clearly that believing parents who fail to have their offspring baptised deliberately place that child outside of the covenant of God, outside the church community. The child’s spiritual nurture is seriously harmed and impaired as it has become an alien from the Commonwealth, classed amongst covenant-breakers. Its only hope is, apparently, that of a later adult conversion. All too often excluded children understand that they are placed outside and so that the church is not for them, and so that conversion becomes ever more unlikely.  The evil is caused by Christian parents failing- or refusing- to understand that they are in a position that is radically distinct from that of all other parents. Their children should have been the subject of fervent prayer from proof of conception onwards, and it must be assumed that God will indeed grant elect children to his elect and praying people. Tragically some will later prove to be reprobate covenant-breakers, but it must be understood that such are the exceptions. There is no excuse for born-again Christians thrusting their infants beyond the bounds of the covenant, but that is what the Bible says is done when they refuse to have them baptised. That is sin, and it is sin of a serious nature. It is also spiritual cruelty of the worst kind to God-given offspring. May this be understood and repented of. Indeed it has to be, if the church is regain its spiritual strength and purity.
ACTS CHAPTER TWO AND BAPTISM.
     One of the most important and foundational events in the Christian church is recorded in Acts, Chapter 1. On the decent of the Holy Spirit and the gift of foreign languages (vs, 1-4) there were: Devout Jews dwelling at Jerusalem out of every nation under heaven. And when this was heard the multitude ran together and were amazed because every man heard someone speaking in his own language (Acts 2: 5-6). As a result: their hearts were touched and they said to Peter and to the rest of the apostles: Men and brethren, what shall we do? Then Peter said to them: Each of you repent, and be baptised in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. The promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call (37-39).
Note that the hearers who has gathered were apparently all adults. If the apostles had said: repent, and be baptised in the name of Jesus Christ this might have served as a prime proof text for adults only immersionists, but no man has any right to separate what God has joined together, and the apostles state absolutely and specifically in connection with this baptism that the promise attached to baptism was not just for them, but for them and also to your children. Although immersionists are fond of claiming that there is no direct and absolute command to baptise children, a more specific one than this could hardly be found. It is plain from what is said that their children could not be partakers of the same promise, unless they were partakers of the same baptism.
     New believers sincere repentance and coming faith in Christ brings them into the realms of the promise (salvation), but to the adults it is here clearly laid down that the promise was for their children also- and that the promise was secured by baptism. What is more striking is that they (the adults) could not partake of the blessing without their children. All must be baptised and be blessed- or none.
A second, less obvious and more collateral proof is supplied by verse 41: Then those who gladly received the word were baptised, and the same day there were added to them about three thousand souls.  How many people actually pause to think about and consider this when they read it? As the word of the miraculous events spread a crowd gathered, but the three thousand cannot be the entire crowd, because a) not all the crowd in fact believed, but only a part, and, b) so large a tumult, leading at once to a mass baptism, would have certainly attracted the notice and hostilities of the authorities. We must assume, then, that the baptisms took place subsequently and more privately. Clearly the three thousand cannot have been exclusively men, or even all adults. Such a figure mandates that those who heard and were converted included their families, when it came to baptism, and so here we are presented for the first time with the Scriptural phenomena that is repeatedly but almost casually mentioned thereafter- as if a given that was not expected to be denied- that of covenant household baptism. That the souls who were added to the church by baptism included all ages, and not only adults, is proven by all Scriptural usage of the term. Thus when Abram defeated the kings and rescued Lot the king of Sodom said: Give me the souls, and take to thyself the goods. The souls were captive families including all ages. All the souls of the house of Jacob who came into Egypt were three score and ten, defined as: his sons, and his son’s sons, his daughters and his son’s daughters, and all his seed. That is various generations down to the latest born infants. No Jew would ever have read this text without understanding the souls to be a direct reference to humans of all ages and both sexes, and that they were all without distinction added to the visible church by baptism.
Household covenant baptism of the baby and child offspring of believers is so clearly taught here, as the natural corollary of conversion, that there is no way in which it would ever have been doubted whilst the church remained predominantly Jewish in makeup. A genuine church must return to its covenantal roots to be authentic and pleasing to God.
 BAD EXEGESIS: WHY MEN HAVE CONVERTED TO ADULTS ONLY BAPTISM.
     Adults-only immersionists frequently make capital out of the narratives of good men who have converted to their position, but when considered these all follow an almost identical path, and hence sound a warning for us. The basis is always faulty exegesis, and always the same faulty exegesis. We see the same recorded for men such as Philpot, Tiptaft, and Muller. Another example is that of Rev. John Barnet (1878) who says that he: “searched the Scriptures for a justification of the ceremony (infant baptism) and felt himself to have failed. He read the books on either side. He was driven back to a plain sense of the English version of the New Testament.” (Emphasis mine). There you have it in a nutshell. This is almost exactly the way in which George Muller describes his own change from Lutheran paedobaptism to the adults only position. He records how he was challenged to prove infant baptism from Scripture: in response to which he “read through the entire New Testament”.
     Since when has the New Testament been the entire Bible?  The solid foundation of infant baptism lied in the Old Testament, in promise, in covenant, in circumcision. Baptism continues but fulfils (bloodlessly) circumcision as certainly as the Lord’s Supper continues and fulfils (bloodlessly) the Passover. Omit the background, ignore the foundation, and something entirely new can be erected. This is the error, and it is also a trap. Barnett (lacking proper theological and hermeneutical training) blundered into mistaking the New Testament for the Bible on his own volition. Muller, conversely, was tricked into it.
No doctrine of the Bible may be established by reference to one section of the Bible alone. The foundation of the New Testament is constantly laid down in the Old Testament. We ignore that fact at our peril.
BAPTISMS AND COVENANT SEED.
     God’s promise to Abraham and his seed included a covenant sign: circumcision. That promise was unconditional and everlasting. But the church has ceased to circumcise. How could the promise be permanent and the sign not? Only by a replacement sign. There is no other possible candidate for a replacement sing except baptism. To continue the permanent sign of the permanent promise there has to be baptism- and baptism, to be consistent, has to be applied to the covenant seed.
BELIEVING MOTHERS AND INFANT BAPTISM.
     As the Bible considers baptism to be the fulfilment and continuation of circumcision some of the implications of circumcision must also be carried forward and taken into account. This is a factor that even most paedobaptists have failed to consider. We note that in the Old Testament a mother was ritually unclean for seven days, and her (male) baby was circumcised on the eighth day. This his circumcision also terminated her ritual uncleanness. The rite of circumcision that a graphic reminder that we are all born in sin, that the shedding of blood is necessary to remove sin, and that our sin nature is derived via the mothers who bore us. Circumcision rendered the child federally holy and a member of the covenant community. The mother’s part in necessarily and involuntarily passing on sin is discharged when her child is circumcised, and with that she regains her full standing within the holy covenant community. If we take seriously the continuation of infant circumcision in infant baptism the same situation applies. The child (now either male or female) is visibly accepted into the covenant community at baptism, and the mother is cleansed from her part in involuntarily passing on a sin-nature to her offspring by that baptism.
     If the baptism does not take place, if for whatever reason it is deferred into the future or becomes just a possibility later in life, then in God’s sight the mother is rebellious and remains ceremonially unclean and thus is spiritually detached from the faithful covenant community. Scripturally, therefore, a professing mother who does not present her child for covenant baptism has no right to the covenant meal: she should not approach the Lord’s Table. This is plain logic, given the continuation of the Old Testament in the New. This is something that all mothers within Baptistic congregations should consider very seriously indeed.
If we (correctly) understand the unity of the two Testaments, with the church now the spiritual Israel we must also understand that the baptism of the infants born in the confessing community is mandated both for their admission into that community and for the restoration of the mother to her full place in the community, and thus for the continuation and healing of the body corporate- the church of Christ.
THE GROUND OF COVENANT INFANT BAPTISM.
     Covenant babies and children are presumed to be elect and regenerated because they are the children of believing prayer from their conception, and have been born to believing parents, who will nurture them (along with the church) in the things of the Lord through life. However, this presumed regeneration is not, in itself, the main ground of their right to baptism. That basis is the unshakeable promise of God to be the God of believers and their offspring. It is on the foundation of that promise that regeneration may be presumed, and baptism given by right.
Thus baptism should never be linked with salvation. (There is no baptismal regeneration). Salvation takes places in all cases, adult or infant, before baptism (though the fruits may only show in later life.). Baptism is, however, linked to sanctification. This is a most important point to grasp. The level of sanctification spiritually granted in baptism is a foundation for spiritual life. It may be added to by gracious holy living, the believing taking of the spiritual nourishment of the Lord’s Supper, obedient Bible study and so on, as life progresses. The grace attached to baptism for an elect one is grace of sanctification, allied thus to the grace of sanctification in the Lord’s Supper. Both rely on, and require, previous regeneration.
 IS ROMANIST BAPTISM VALID?
     Romanist baptism, in its evolved high medieval form, is an elaborate and superstitious ritual. Typically it involves oil, a taper candle, spittle, repeated crossings and repeated exorcisms and adjurations. The priest changes his stole (from violet to white) at one stage, and drops his stole over the child’s (or candidate’s) head at another point. There is repetition of the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer, touching the nose, and ears of the child, anointing of the forehead with oil, the passing of a lighted taper (to the candidate or the sponsors), whilst the child is dressed in special and elaborate white robe, the ‘chrism’ (from whence the term christening is derived.
Needless to say all of these elements are totally unknown to Scripture. They are superstitious and idolatrous elements added over the dark centuries, until the purity and simplicity of the Biblical sacrament is almost totally obscured.
In light of all this, added to the fact that the officiating priest is most unlikely to be a born-again, saved, regenerate man, should not be conclusion be that such a ritual is in fact no Christian baptism at all, and so that Romanist baptism is invalid and that those who have undergone it are, in Bible terms, unbaptised, and still require (true) baptism for membership in Bible-based Reformed churches?
That would be a simple solution, but (strange as it may seem at first glance) we say no. Looking at the situation Scripturally and theologically we must first consider that any baptism is only valid when the candidate (covenant babe, child, or converted adult) is one of God’s elect. Whatever the ritual, be it elaborate or simple there simply is NO baptism if the subject is not elect. Secondly, for the elect candidate the validity of their baptism requires (whatever the added trappings) only the element of water poured or sprinkled specifically in the name of the Tri-Une God. God’s promise to his child is specific: the human administrator is not a party, is a convenience, beyond which he is irrelevant. It is clear that the validity of baptism does NOT, indeed CANNOT be in any way affected by the spiritual state, saved or unsaved, of the administrator. If that was the case we would have a situation in which no one would ever be sure that their baptism was certainly valid- for no one on earth can be 100% sure of the salvation of any other person! So the presumably unsaved status of the Romanist priest is not at all relevant, nor are all the mummery and additions. If water is sprinkled or poured, specifically in the name of the Tri-Une God, then (in God’s sight) the baptism is valid- because it is a transaction exclusively between the elect candidate and God himself, that cannot be deflected or compromised by human elements.
It follows, then, that if the person shows the evidence of genuine faith in later life then they are elect, and their baptism was perfectly valid in God’s sight, and so there is no question of any other baptism (which would be the sin and heresy of Anabaptism).
Historically, it should be noted, this was the conclusion of all of the great Reformers. Luther, Calvin, Zwingle, Cranmer, Latimer, Ridley, Knox, and all the rest of the first generation Reformers were born under Rome, and all were baptised before the Reformation by Romanist priests. Not one of them ever questioned the validity of their baptism, so sought or taught a new Protestant baptism later. Clearly they knew their Bible too well for any such idea!*
Man’s superstition cannot harm God’s ordinance.
*‘In the Papacy the virtue and substance of baptism remain. The efficiency of baptism does not depend upon the person administering it. We confess that those baptised in it do not require a second baptism.’ French Confession of Faith, 1559.
‘That baptism is not to be repeated the pious are sufficiently agreed.’  John Calvin.
‘We acknowledge that by the singular providence of God the true doctrine of baptism remains in the Church of Rome, because it is retained in the matter of true baptism, to wit: water and the formula prescribed by Christ, according to which it is administered in the name of the Trinity. For that reason baptism performed in that Church is considered valid, and not to be repeated.’ Francis Turretine. ‘Institutes’, 3: 405.
‘We properly gather that Roman baptism is not to be repeated for (1) the essence of baptism still remains entire within it, and, (2) the power of baptism is not dependent upon am erring minister or heretic, but on Christ. (Matthew 3:11, 1. Corinthians 3:5)’  Turretine, Institutes, 3, 409.       

                                                               BIBLE TIMESCALES ARE PRECISE.
     The timescales and timelines in the Bible are never random or arbitrary, even when extended over long periods of history. God is always very precise. For example: Abraham and his seed were to sojourn amongst strangers for exactly 400 years.
Israel was brought out of Egypt on the very day that 430 years expired (Exodus 12: 40-41): Now the sojourning of the children of Israel, who dwelt in Egypt, was four hundred and thirty years. And it came to pass at the end of the four hundred and thirty years, EVEN THE VERY DAY, it came to pass that all the hosts of the LORD went out from the land of Egypt.
     Jeremiah predicted that the Babylonian captivity would last for exactly 70 years (note how Daniel understood this literally.)
Ezekiel predicted an exile in Egypt to last precisely 40 years (Ezekiel 29:11)Isaiah says that Ephraim would be broken after 65 years.
All these are round numbers, and all were completed exactly.
Consider this: After three score and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself (Daniel 9:26 ). The time ordained was three score and two weeks, and the time from which this computation was to be made was: from the going forth of the commandment to restore and rebuild Jerusalem. ( Daniel 9:25) Prophetic weeks are understood in this, as in all similar cases, to intend weeks of years- that is to say, every day is placed for a year and the calculation proceeds upon the number of days to be found in threescore and two weeks, the sum of which will give us the number of years from the period assigned to the accomplishment of the prediction. Having obtained, by these means, four hundred and ninety years, we examine how far the fact will be found to correspond with the prophecy. From the decree granted by Artaxerxes in the seventh year of his reign to Ezra, for the restoration of the ruined fortunes of his country to the death of Christ are exactly four hundred and ninety years. The learned and accurate Dr. Prideaux has established that the event corresponded exactly with the prediction, for in the month Nisan was the decree granted to Ezra and in the middle of the same month, Nisan, Christ suffered, just four hundred and ninety years later.’*
Thus we might assume with confidence that Christ began his public ministry exactly 30 years (to the day) after his miraculous birth, and that he fulfilled his ministry, made his atoning death and resurrection precisely 3 years later (this making his birth and his death on the very same day of the year, the latter exactly 33 years after the former.) In this way we should expect that Christ’s return will also be on a round figure date, and occur on the precise anniversary of his ascension.
*  William Collyer, Lectures on Scripture Facts, 1835.

CHRIST’S ACTIVE AND PASSIVE OBEDIENCE- AND THE BELIEVER’S   JUSTIFICATION AND SANCTIFICATION.
     We believe that Christ fulfilled the broken law in his perfect and sinless life (often called his active obedience), and that this fulfilment is not just imputed but imparted to his people, so that they individually  kept the law in and through spiritual union with Christ, and that this is an essential facet of their salvation.
This factor has been frequently denied or argued against, mainly on the grounds that this element apparently in some way reduces or waters down the atonement made by Christ on Calvary’s cross (often called his passive obedience), as if that was not complete or fully sufficient but required the law-keeping previous obedience to achieve full payment and atonement. This is a huge misunderstanding. The two are in no way additions one to the other, but rather are inseparably linked. Sin in the elect had to be righteously punished, to be fully paid for. That was done on the cross. Nothing more (or less) was needed or at all necessary. Calvary worked and earned full salvation. But we should note that the broken law, although its breaking was fully punished (in Christ) also required to be restored by being fully kept without a breach. That is what was also achieved (in wonderful fashion) by Christ in his perfect and sinless life, when he kept the law fully. Clearly Christ did not keep the law just for himself! Just as the passive atonement must be graciously imputed and imparted to the believer for their justification from the guilt of sin and law-breaking, so the active obedience must be imputed and imparted to them so that they also stand as law-keepers in and through Christ.
The elect do not reach eternity merely as forgiven law-breakers but as those who have had their sin wiped out for them, and who have also kept the law, because it was kept for them. They are as free from lawbreaking as was Christ, due entirely to their spiritual union with him by grace.
Given this understanding we might link justification with Christ’s passive obedience on the cross, that fully earned salvation for his people, and link sanctification with Christ’s active obedience in keeping the law, and making them law-keepers in and with him.
It should be noted that justification was completed once and for all on the cross, and is imputed and imparted once and for all in salvation, but that sanctification is necessarily a process, not completed until the believer reaches glory. It is in this way that the law is a schoolmaster, a rule for life and a guage of our level of sanctification during life. Nevertheless it is a process of attempting to keep the law (not for salvation but for sanctification) within the parameters set out perfectly by Christ, and a process that will be completed with our glorification, when we will have our sanctification perfected, and be seen as full keepers of the law- by the grace of vital union with Christ.

                           CHRIST’S SUFFERING ON THE CROSS: WAS HIS DIVINE NATURE INVOLVED?
     There is great resistance to any suggestion that Christ’s God-nature was in any way involved in his atoning vicarious suffering on the cross. Even so sound and so dedicated a Calvinist as the Rev. Herman Hoeksema could say: ‘The divine nature could not suffer and die’.  Similar dogmatic statements have been made by very many theologians, and naturally so, as there is a repugnance to the thought of Christ’s divine nature, rather than his human nature alone, experiencing suffering. Does not such a concept strike at the vital truth of the immutability of God? It almost seems to be blasphemy to many. But we note at once that these denials all link two things: a) suffering, and b) death, and then attempt to deny the whole concept on the great truth that God cannot die. But suffering and death are not the same thing, nor are they inseparably united! In denying this link Hoeksema develops an elaborate theory in which the human nature of Christ was miraculously made capable of bearing the punishment due to a near-infinity of sin by virtue of its union with his God nature, but without that God nature sharing in the atoning suffering.* But there was a way in which Christ’s God nature could suffer (temporarily) without reducing his true divinity at all. Incapable, of course, of physical suffering, the spiritual God nature of the Redeemer could suffer in just one way: by experiencing all the horrors of a temporary breach between the very Persons of the Godhead itself!  And this is exactly what Christ described when he cried out on the cross My God, my God, WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?
     Why was this short break in the Unity of the Godhead necessary? Because it was required, it was vital, that Christ suffered the exact equivalent of the punishment due for all of the sins of all of his people. They deserved hell. And what is hell? Flames and brimstone may be figurative and symbolic terms, but the essence of hell is that of total separation from God. The unregenerate sinner has all his or her life in effect told God that they do not desire him or want anything to do with him. On dying they simply get what they have craved- complete separation from God. The point is, however, that all that is good, all that is pleasant, all that is comfortable, flows from God and him alone. Separation from God (as they desired) necessarily means separation from all that is good, and the experience instead of all that is bad. This the elect also deserved, by nature. Christ could not experience it for his people without also knowing the horror of separation from the Godhead. Given the immense number of the elect, and the immensity of the lifetime sins of each and every one of them, there is no way in which the human nature of Christ could have sustained that. Moreover, the human nature of Christ was limited: he grew and developed, he suffered weariness and hunger, his human knowledge was limited. If that nature alone suffered on Calvary’s cross (however mysteriously sustained) it would have had to suffer eternally. Chris in fact suffered the whole during a part of the three hours of darkness- that very time when he experienced the horror of forsaking or separation from the other Persons of the Godhead. Only the God nature, unlimited as it is, could have done that.
Not only was this temporary breach necessary for atonement to be truly made at all, but this understanding reveals something of the real depths, the amazing magnitude of just what Christ voluntarily undertook and underwent to redeem his people from their sins. Such love is awesome, is amazing beyond our comprehension, yet the intense bodily suffering of Christ’s man nature during the agonies of crucifixion were but the tip of the iceberg of what he suffered to redeem us. Although short lived, and soon reversed for eternity to come, yet the anguish of a breach from Father and Holy Spirit in order to take on the punishment of sin, that brought out that anguished cry, is beyond our ability to comprehend. And this was done for us!  Eternity will not suffice to plumb the depths of this God-like act of love!
* Reformed Dogmatics Vol. 1, p. 501.

                                                 CHURCH CHAFF AND CHURCH WHEAT.
     The purpose of evangelism is to bring God’s elect into the church and to nurture them there, along with the covenantal elect born within the church families. However in the modern Western world evangelism as an entity and aim by itself has usurped the central role of church nurture. Saving new converts has become all-in-all. The focus has been moved from within to without the church, making the church organisation less and less relevant. This emphasis naturally encourages Arminian theology, with its efforts to persuade as many people as possible to make a decision for Christ as if salvation was a matter of human choice and election was a myth. The results have been nothing less than disastrous, as the whole evangelical scene in Western nations today testifies. Over the same time most evangelical churches have taken in numbers of superficial, temporary, and insincere converts, whose ideas must be catered for, and who typically outnumber the long-term covenant families: indeed such is the thirst for converts that the newcomers usually take the limelight, and those claiming to have once been great sinners and then spectacularly converted become the stars and centres of attention. The quiet covenant ones, who have grown up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord within the church, have moved unspectacularly but solidly from child to adult faith and service, who have (providentially) new sinned deeply and have always loved the Lord- are neglected and side-lined.
     We should certainly look for, pray for, work for, and rejoice in genuine conversions. That is one great way in which the elect are saved and brought into the church visible. But what is the place of those true converts? They are the spiritual babes of the church, brands plucked from the burning. Babes do not lead families or teach their parents and elders! Real converts will be humble, teachable, eager to learn, submissive to those who are providentially more advanced in the faith, keen to look and learn and follow sanctified examples in the fellowship. Anything else is not the wheat or elect additions, but is chaff. What does the chaff do, when it is dominant? Like tares in the wheat it strangles the church from the roots. They soon dictate doctrine, worship, practice, along the lines of what seems to them to work, or be pleasing or attractive to outsiders- in complete ignorance and neglect of God’s word and mandate for the church. The chaff, when dominant, moves the church from a divine into a human plane. This must be prevented, if churches are to survive as churches in God’s sight.
What is the end of the chaff? Its end is to be burned. What is the end of the wheat? It is to be gathered into heavenly garners in the loving presence of the Lord forever.
We do not plead for the possibility of a perfect church on earth. The soundest churches have tares and chaff amongst the wheat, and will do so until the Lord returns. We do plead that converts take the learner’s role, be humble, and progress to show the evidence of conversion in changed and sanctified living, as they mature in grace and sanctification, not disturbing the church but moving seamlessly into its covenantal structure. Those who will not do so reveal themselves as chaff and should be subject to wholesome church discipline.
Covenant nurture first, evangelism second, is the Scriptural way.

                                                               CHURCH UNITY STUDIES.

WHAT IS CHURCH UNITY?
Many Christians today lament the fragmentation of the church and the fact that genuine, born-again believers are separated by what is often called secondary issues. The remedy is then, mistakenly, taken to be found in looking horizontally, that is sideward at existing churches and fellowships as they are, noting points of agreement and noting differences and then trying to evaluate all in a Biblical scale with the admonition to ‘be humble and never assume that you are right and that others who differ can’t teach you anything.’ What is overlooked or ignored is that all churches today are products of evolution and development over time, indeed over the 2,000 year course of the church in the West, and so such an approach can only seek the divisions of the current, evolved, churches as they exist today. Such a negotiated unity is not Scriptural unity! It can only, at best, produce lowest common denominator churches, studiously attempting to ignore or down-play any matter that has become controversial over the course of time. Instead the study should be vertical, that is directly to God’s will in the Bible, seeking the true original intent of God for the Church and sweeping away all the wood, hay, and stubble that has accumulated over the weary centuries. In the Bible the pattern of the church is fixed, once and for all when Scripture was completed, and it needs no addition or modification, much less accommodation to ever changing and fickle human society, since. This is the principle of sola Scriptura often called the regulative principle of Scripture. Here, and here alone, lies the possibility of church unity. The more leaders and churches understand this and willingly surrender to God’s word and truly seek to be reformed by it, the closer they will find that they approach each other. Even if those applying this God-given rule are but a little flock at first they hold the key to the true unity of the church, and serve as a rallying point for the elect. Only doctrine, practice, and worship mandated and regulated by Scripture is genuine. Only that can stand before God, now and in the light of eternity to come.
 FALSE CHURCH UNITY.
     Typical of much of what is current and accepted in even conservative evangelical churches today is the concept of church unity that was preached recently by a popular Pastor in the West of England who has a reputation as a sound and Bible teacher. During a series of sermons expounding Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians he came to Philippians 2:3-4, which in the King James Version read as: Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. (The preacher used a more modern version.)  He proceeded to explain this much as follows: a failure in the local church that must be corrected occurs when a member, or group of members, having their own OPINIONS, seek to influence others, and persuade them to adopt their particular point of view. It was said that this will inevitably clash with the OPINIONS of others engendering strife in the congregation, that strife leads to division, and that church strife and division is Satan’s sharpest weapon against the local church. To prevent this evil all should be willing, indeed should strive, to ‘look on the things (defined as the OPINIONS) of others’ and to admit that their point of view may be as valid as their own, and might even be the correct one. Thus every member should be careful to respect and honour the views and opinions of others, when they differ from their own, in order to preserve the unity, in love, of the local church.
Thus far all seems to be good and right, but we are already wondering: Should we respect the opinions of others, whatever they are? What if they are erroneous, false, heretical, God-dishonouring? Does not Satan seek to implant false teaching, as part of his disuniting strategy?
And then came something truly shocking: the preacher listed some of the things concerning which, he maintained, differences of opinion must not be permitted to cause dissention in the local church. High on his list were different views on BIBLE VERSIONS, and different views on WORSHIP SONG AND MUSIC. What we have here is far, far, removed from anything taught by the Holy Spirit via the Apostle Paul to the Church at Philippi and the churches since! Is this what evangelicalism has really come to? On this reasoning the church, the people, and their comfort and wellbeing, are everything, and God and his word are clear out of the picture! Has God then nothing to say on the vital subjects of his own word, and his own worship? This is sheer, naked, humanism. The congregation must be kept happy and harmonious at all costs. God’s truth is not in view at all, and the one who would valiantly stand up for it is excoriated as the ‘trouble-maker’ and potential divider of the congregation! This man-centredness, directly in the face of God’s rights and authority, is the very core of Arminianism.
No one doubts that there should be toleration and love over genuinely secondary matters (if there really are such) but to demand toleration for deadly error concerning the very Bible itself, and concerning the sacrifice of praise due to God, is nothing short of disastrous.  Man has usurped the place of God. God and Christ are invoked constantly and piously by name, but in practice all is man, first and last. The result may be a united, tolerant, even loving fellowship, but the end must be the silence and peace of the grave, as an insulted (or at least ignored and sidelined) Spirit withdraws.
God HAS spoken concerning the purity and preservation of his word. False and corrupted altered versions are heretical. A mere glance shows how much that is vital has been removed, or fatally altered, in modern versions. God cannot approve them, or tolerate them being placed on a par with his inspired and preserved word. Where the true is freely available, to choose the corrupted is sinful. There is no obedience in that. It is open apostasy.
Similarly for sung worship. Shall each member decide what worship songs or music he or she prefers, and each be as valid as all the others? Where is God in that? This is to make the church openly an all-human society and endeavour, adding to itself, by evangelising in the name of Christ. True worship is a sacrifice to God- the only sacrifice that can now be made, the sacrifice of praise. Sacrifice must be perfect, that is sovereignly provided for that purpose by God himself, so as to be acceptable beyond the veil in heaven. When God is even brought into the picture the phantom of human choice and preference falls at once to the ground and becomes truly ridiculous. Yet these things are advocated and preached in the churches today. Are these then not man’s churches and not God’s churches.
This preacher clearly has no concept of God’s sovereignty, much less of the regulative principle of Scripture (based on an authoritative Bible.) He can preach stirring practical messages of toleration and mutual support and love among the people from any Bible version he pleases, he can allow the singing of anything at all so long as it is sincere. Everything is subordinated to keeping the congregation happy and together: God must, it seems, not be allowed to disturb that should any of his truth be unwelcome to anyone’s OPINIONS. And woe-betide any member who should in any way attempt to defend God’s truth. In fact, over church history, the truth has always been divisive. It must be so. It divides the sheep from the goats. There can be no true unity, that is not unity in the truth. The true Sovereign God, the true inspired and preserved Bible, true and acceptable worship and much more.
God’s elect should never be insulted or mislead by such teaching. It is anathema to them. If necessary, come out of her, my people.

                                                                                COMMON GRACE.
        An example of how the theory of common grace distorts Reformed theology is provided by Scottish theologian R.A. Finlayson, who in his book The Holy Spirit in the Life of Christ says: ‘The Spirit, in common grace, operates towards all who hear the gospel, and when his overtures of mercy are repelled it is resistance to the Holy Ghost. Thus we have here what is specifically the sin of unbelievers under the gospel.’
This is a serious error, a misrepresentation of the situation of the reprobate who hear the gospel. Where is the grace in overtures of mercy to those who God knows are non-elect and will never repent? What use are overtures to the deaf, the dead in sins? To say, as Finlayson does here, that these gracious overtures may be repelled and that this rejection is itself the core sin of unbelievers who hear the gospel requires that the overtures or offers were genuine and sincere, and thus God makes offers and overtures to those who he knows cannot and will not accept them! Does God mock men? What is more, it requires than sinful men have the power or ability to voluntarily accept these overtures: for how could they be blameworthy is they could not? This places the crux of salvation in men’s hands, not God’s. If this were possible we would have to assume an unlimited, indefinite atonement, with the Almighty waiting to see who will agree to respond to the overture, with Christ making salvation possible, but actually saving none (until they chose it).
No doubt Rev. Finlayson would have denied this result and would have insisted that this refusal lies only with the reprobate, but, we repeat, why then teach that God makes such an offer to the reprobate who he knows would scorn it? The reprobate could never be touched by such an offer or overture: the elect need no overture or offer but are reached by sovereign grace, convicted, and converted.
By invoking the chimera of common grace Finlayson lands in the free offer camp, connives with indefinite atonement, and (without at all meaning to do so) teaches the heresy of Arminianism. This is very sad.

                                          ROMANS 9:3 AND PAUL’S BEING ACCURSED FROM CHRIST.
     This is a commonly misunderstood text, not so much because there are false doctrinal suppositions read back into it, but rather because it is certainly a very difficult, ambiguous, in many ways mysterious text. It is hardly surprising, then, that it has frequently been the subject of speculation, or that it is more frequently passed over and tacitly ignored as being quite inexplicable. In the King James Version we read: For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh. Paul continues in verse 4: Who are Israelites; to whom peraineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises.
     What is certain is that Paul was in deadly earnest concerning the salvation of his people, Israel. He yearned for the conversion to Christ of as many of them as possible.  One example of attempted interpretation that has been given to Romans 9:3 is that Paul here rules out any theory of the annihilation of the dead, because he is so extremely earnest that as many Jews as possible be saved from eternal torments in hell. This, however, cannot be Paul’s meaning (whatever is thought about the specific issue of future punishment), because it assumes that accursed from Christ must mean passing into eternal future torments, which is quite alien to the context of Paul’s discussion, and then it assumes that Paul is saying that he could wish on himself eternal, never ending, agonies in hell fire, if that would save some of his Jewish brethren- a concept surely far beyond the sacrificial nature of Paul, and moreover both impossible and blasphemous. Paul, even more than most, knew and trusted fully in the assurance of salvation by Christ. He knew that not one of Christ’s sheep could ever possibly be lost, or taken out of his hand. Paul could never have said or intended any such monstrous and Christ-denying concept!
Are we then floundering in the dark, with an inexplicable text of Scripture? But surely the Holy Spirit intended readers and hearers to understand all of the Bible. As usual in exegesis we face two difficulties: 1) the difference in language between our current English and the original Hebrew and Greek, and, 2) the massive historical and culture divide between our modern society and that of the people of the Bible. Let us look at the  text and we note at once the word anathema, which occurs, untranslated, in 1. Corinthians, 16:22: If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maran-atha. This is usually explained as: separated from, rejected (scornfully?) by, and so on, from Christ at his coming.
The Greek of Romans 9:3 is certainly difficult, but let us look at it again in a very literal translation: WAS WISHING…FOR MY PART…A CURSE/ REJECTION FROM…CHRIST…BECAUSE OF (or by)… THOSE MY BROTHERS. Do we begin to see a little light here? Moving over to the cultural and historic background, the wider picture to set the statement within we must note one important factor. Paul, before his conversion was a high ranking, zealous, ultra-religious Jew. He was proud of his ancestry and family connections: Circumcised the eight day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews, as touching the law a Pharisee (Philippians 3:5), brought up in this city (Jerusalem) at the feet of Gamaliel (Acts 22:3), I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee (Acts 22:6), After the most straitest sect of our religion I lived a Pharisee (Acts 26:5). This religious standing and position in Jewish society was extremely important to Paul- to give it all up was a huge wrench for him, and to become a social outcast, be hated and made anathema as a apostate was a very bitter pill for him, for it brought him, as it were from being among the highest of the high elite to be the lowest of the despised low. The whole point here is that so genuine, so thorough, was Paul’s conversion, so deep was his attachment to Christ, that the humiliating loss of so much privilege was counted as nothing by him, in light of what he gained by spiritual union with Christ. This is expressly stated in Philippians 3:7-9: What things were gain to me, those I counted but loss for Christ, yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, and be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.
     Scripture interprets Scripture, and seen in the light of the Philippians statement do we not have the clue to understand the (admittedly obscure) wording of Romans 9:3?  The somewhat detached statements have traditionally been understood by attaching the accursed from as being Paul accursed from Christ, but if we instead see this as Paul’s being detached from, rejected by, anathematised by his brethren the Jews, then we have a parallel text to the Philippians one. Paul was he could even be glad for being cast out and rejected by the whole Jewish hierarchy, a) because this humiliation was for the cause of Christ, and, b) because it might result in the conversion of other of his Jewish brethren to Christ. If so- all is clear.
Finally this brings us back to our English translation. Given the differences between the languages, and the, as it were, string of statements in the Greek, it is plain that something has to be added, or a slight change of word order made, in order to reproduce the original intent in English. Read as: For myself  I could almost prefer being so scornfully rejected for the sake of Christ by my kinsmen according to the flesh. This is not a paraphrase or an addition, but a re-arranging of the wording into our English medium. It brings the text into context, into line with parallel texts- and solves a long-standing difficulty in interpretation.

                                                  WESTERN THOUGHT IS INDIVIDUALISTIC.
       Modern Western people compartmentalise things, reduce them to a series of individual units, and tend to see themselves and others in that way also. This naturally elevates man and places me in the cultural centre. In fact whereas the West deals firstly in I and me, the Bible deals firstly in us and we. This shift underpins the common concept of adults only conversions (leading to churches composed of all proselytes and no on-going Jewry), Independency in church government (our group of individuals is distinct from- and possibly better than- your group of individuals) and Arminian theology (I chose, I decided).
This Western and modern individualistic cultural mindset distorts understanding of the Bible (leading to eisegesis- reading into rather than exegesis- being taught out of the Scriptures.) To illustrate this let us consider Ten Commandment. Almost all approach and understand them as ten associated but separate commands. Then we make a tick list on our performance concerning them. How man ticked boxes out of ten is a pass mar’?  In the Hebrew and biblical culture this is not so at all. Certainly ten commandments are listed and all are to be kept, but they are not so much ten items but rather one law, with ten faces or facets, like those of a cut diamond. The point that we miss by modern individualistic thinking is that we cannot in fact break one of the commandments and leave the others unbroken. Damage one facet and the whole diamond is thereafter flawed. This is why breaking one commandment is tantamount to breaking all of them. Consider the case of an adulterer. He has broken one commandment, and knows it, but can he claim innocence of breaking the others, as if they are not connected? If he has committed adultery with another man’s wife he has stolen that man’s exclusive marriage-rights. An unrepentant adulterer cannot sanctify the Sabbath to keep it holy. Before actual adultery he must have seen and desired the woman- he has coveted her, and his desire has made an idol of her before God. He will probably attempt to conceal the fact by bearing false witness. Following logically though we see that the law is an organic whole, and each command his been broken in and with one breach of the law. Only a Western, individualistic, mindset fails to comprehend this. The danger is then that, given healthy conviction of sin, only a part (the most obvious) is ever repented of or believed to be in need of atonement and forgiveness! This is serious.
This individualistic approach can distort other Scriptural matters also. How many have puzzled over and struggled with, for example, Proverbs 26:4-5: Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him. Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit (King James Version). Typically we see these as two separate compartments or statements. Box One: do not answer a fool according to his folly. Box Two: answer a fool according to his folly. And they are contradictory. Do we answer the fool, or do we not answer the fool? How may God the Holy Spirit have inspired two such opposite requirements? This is the Western mindset at work. Here are not two separate statements at all, but two parts or facets of one piece of inspired Proverbial wisdom. In up-to-date language Solomon is advising; “Don’t attempt to reason with a foolish person at all- you can’t win. If you descend to his level you gain nothing and risk being like him, whilst, on the other hand, he will believe that he was overcome you and so add to his conceit.” This is analogous to the New Testament warning not to ‘throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them under foot, and turn again and attack you’ (Matthew 7:6). Hebrews would have no problem with the Proverbs statements, because they see a unit where we see separate items.
We must return to our spiritual roots, and think Biblically.

                            WAS JUDAS THE BETRAYER FROM KARIOTH, OR FROM BETHANY?
        Jesus, six days before the Passover came to Bethany, where Lazarus was which had been dead, whom he raided from the dead. There they made a supper; and Martha served: but Lazarus was one of them that sat at table with him. (John 12:1-2).~
At this meal Mary anointed Christ’s feet with ointment, and Judas Iscariot objected. So we have this supper being held at Bethany. Mary, Martha, and Lazarus of Bethany were there, along with Christ and his immediate circle of disciples, among which Judas Iscariot is noted for his false objection to Christ’s anointing. This brings Judas Iscariot to our attention. What is very noticeable is how he is indicated in John’s Gospel: Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon. Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon’  (John 6:71, 12:4, 13:2, 13:26). Although something was necessary to distinguish him from other Judas/ Judes, the emphasis on his father Simon is striking. We must keep in mind that when the Scriptures were first penned the original recipients had knowledge that we do not, sometimes referring casually to people that were expected to be well known to the first readers, but are now long lost to history. An example is at Mark 15:21 where we are told, incidentally, that Simon the Cyrenian was ‘the father of Alexander and Rufus.’ Clearly these were well known to the first readers, but are unknown now to us. Similarly with Judas Iscariot: the repeated emphasis on his father makes it clear that the first readers would know who this Simon was, and thus about the family. However, this makes little sense if Judas came from an obscure and distant village, where his lineage and family would be unknown to those at Bethany.  Clearly the family are at the centre of the action surrounding the supper. It is therefore very striking when we read that this supper was not hosted in the house of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, but in the home of another family: Now Jesus was in Bethany, in the house of SIMON, the leper (Matthew 26:6), And being in Bethany, in the house of SIMON the leper…  Here is a Simon, at the centre of the action, and we are repeatedly told that Judas the betrayer was Simon’s son. Putting the gospel narratives together we have the conclusion that Simon the leper (obvious a cured leper, or he would not be living openly in the community. Possibly he was even one of the unnamed lepers cured by Christ- hence his eagerness to host Christ in his house?) had a house and family at Bethany, and among his neighbours were the Mary, Martha, and Lazarus family. His son Judas, brought into the circle of Christ’s disciples (just possibly because of his father’s curing?) was never really converted, and became the betrayer of Christ. All makes good sense, except for the (modern) difficulty over the surname Iscariot. But if this is a description (of his character) rather than a place name, (the usual guess being Qiryoth/ Kerioth, mentioned only in Joshua 15:25) then there is no problem, but a great deal of light is thrown on the real circumstances surrounding the events. In that case we may read (Aramaic) ISH (man, or man of) and QRYYWT a character indicator, ranging from ‘contentious’ to ‘killer’: in itself not a bad description of Judas the betrayer of Christ.