Laptop: Hey, waterway church. Good afternoon. Today is Wednesday, October seventh. Yeah. And as you can see on the clock back here, it's early afternoon. Javon and I have just had lunch. And so we are we are cracking on. We are ready to go here with this podcast. It's been a couple of weeks since we checked in with you. Actually, we recorded a podcast last week. it was kind of a first version of what we're going to talk about today, but I didn't like the way it turned out. I wasn't happy with what I said. I felt like there were some gaps in the thinking and I just have to keep the boss happy. So, you know, Javon, it's very so here we are today, back on October seventh. Glad to see ya. And we are kind of starting up in this season of With our podcast, we're gonna be talking about questions that you all have. questions that we hear either on Sunday mornings or that get emailed or texted to us throughout the week based on especially on things that are said during sermons, but additional questions. So today we're gonna be touching on this question. A few weeks ago in my sermon, I talked about kind of how humanity is inclined towards sin and how even even in children, we can see in very small children, we can see that inclination towards you know, children who say no. And rebel against their parents, so to speak. And I'm talking like, you know, really little one-year-old kind of kids. Right. children who lie. Right. And and those sort of things. So so someone asked the question after that sermon: so are children considered sinners? You know, is that sinful behavior for a child, or is there some kind of you know, pass because they're little and they don't know better yet, or they don't fully understand right and wrong? So that question was brought forward. Are kids sinners? And we We thought that that was interesting question, and so we're going to address that today. Today, for those of you who want to hang with us, is going to be a little bit of a long Podcast. It's been a couple weeks that we've been off, and I know you've missed us. So so it's gonna be a little bit of a longer podcast today, and we've got about three different ideas that are all kind of related around this topic of children and sinfulness and all that. They're not necessarily one big coherent conversation, right? But we'll see where that goes. So put on your thinking caps and and let's go along with us. well, one thing I think too, it's interesting because it's kind of as a starter here, you know. I think it's we all can have admit that when we look at kids, we can see that, like you said earlier, we can see that sinful nature, the, you know, putting them in putting them in a room with toys and they'll fight over one toy, even though there's a hundred copies of the same toy, right? But but we also have this innate desire to see them as innocent as well. Because we know they there is there's a sense of which we objectively know they don't know better. Like we as parents are are tr are told to teach our children train up a child in the way they should go. So we have these r conflicting feelings inside of recognizing certainly the sinfulness, but also that desire to be like, Yeah, but they're so innocent. They're so new to this whole world thing. Exactly. And as we think about that, it often leads us then to make conclusions about how we do certain things at church, how do we think about children, how do we talk about things. And that's some of the stuff we want to dive into today. Because, you know, there there can be a lot of emotion Wrapped up in we're gonna be throwing out a lot of a lot of our attempts to study the Bible here. What does the Bible say? So one of the things that we do know that the Bible says is that God loves children, right? I mean, Javon, you you did a little bit of some word search stuff last week, and and what do we see? Jesus says, Let the little children come to me. And and over and over, I mean, what did you discover just as you went down that bunny trail last week of God loving children? What what was your takeaway? The the main takeaway is that even in the old testament there's instances where Specifically, think about the Israelites that were banned from going into the promised land because the spies came and said we can't take them on, and then but so a whole generation was kept out of the promised land except for the children, right? The children essentially it was their parents that their parents' generation that was kept out, but children were exempt from that. And so it does seem clear to us that there is instances in scripture, in the old and new, where God shows that he loves children, and there's a grace that. That he has for children. But there's also this interesting dynamic in the Old Testament too about sins going on from third and fourth generations and those kinds of dynamics that I think we'll talk about here as we play around with the concept of original sin and all that. But it's it's it's an interesting thing. It there definitely are cases, especially like we said in the New Testament too, where Jesus says, you know, these will inherit the kingdom of heaven. you know, he's talking about children. He's like, these will inherit such as these will inherit the kingdom of heaven. And unless you come to me like a child. Right. Right? So there's so again, there's some intellectual wrestling that goes on here. So why don't we get into some Bible study? so to the original question, are children sinners? Is their behavior sinful? Well, we know from the book of Romans, it says in Romans 3 23 that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. All right. Does all mean all? I think all means all, right? And so one of the questions that comes up, well, what about Those people who never heard about God. Well, Paul addresses that in Romans chapter one, right? Romans one, this is verse eighteen. Paul says that the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people who suppress the truth by their wickedness. So these are people suppressing the truth by their wickedness. These are folks who are intentionally doing what they're doing, right? You have to in fact you have to I mean this is a whole nother that's a whole bunny trail, right? But like in fact you have to it you have to suppress that. There's there there is this reality of which you being existing should give and just being in this world should give you a testimony that God is real. That's what Romans one tells us because it says in Romans one nineteen, what may be known about God is plain to these people because God made it plain to them how well Romans one twenty. Since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities Power, his divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. So through God's creation, people who have eyes to see, right, and people who have ears to hear, people who have minds to think, should be able to see enough in creation that makes them say, Somebody made this. Right. There is a God who made this, an all-powerful creature made this. And so Paul says, These people don't have any excuse. They don't have excuses to be wicked. There is enough in creation for For them to see that God's eternal power and divine nature are a reality. Yeah. So all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, even those who haven't maybe even heard the name of God yet, or the name of Jesus yet. But again, the question, the original question still stands: what about children? What about people who can't understand? What about babies? What about people with mental disabilities who can't comprehend the way that others can? Well, I suggested in my sermon a few weeks ago that babies and children exhibit an Inclination to sin. We can see that in them. And one of the websites that I like for just kind of a quick first study is gotquestions.org is one of those that you can never just fully trust any website. Always check out what's going on and compare it against other sources. But Got Questions says this no one has to teach a child to lie. Rather, we must go to great lengths to impress upon children the value of telling the truth. Those of you with four year olds, can you say amen? Right? Toddlers, this is got questions continue. Toddlers are naturally selfish with their innate, although faulty, understanding that everything is mine. Sinful behavior comes naturally for the little ones. Okay, so that kind of behavior comes naturally for little kids. They don't have to be taught to be selfish. They don't have to be taught to lie. They will do We we know this in my household. Well, everybody who has any kids has seen this. Even among those blessed little ones who we love so much. Well, actually, pause it pausing right there. Let's take it two to ourselves though. You know how hard it is even for us to suppress that that sinful like in a way we don't it doesn't feel like we have to work hard at being proud. Right. It can come easily. It can come naturally. Or or thinking poorly of ourselves. Right. So it's it's difficult and we've been remade in the image of Christ. Right. Right? We have we have hearts of flesh now. We're fully saved. And so again, our children sinners. Well, another set of Bible verses to consider. this comes from John chapter nine. Jesus is dealing with a man who was was born blind. This is not a little kid, but this is a man who it says was blind from birth. Jesus healed him. And then there were some Pharisees there. These are teachers of the law. These are guys who were too wrapped up in all the little legal details of religion. But the Pharisees called in this man who had been healed. He never had seen and then Jesus gave him sight and the Pharisees called him in twice to question him. And they didn't like his answers because he's basically saying look I don't know who healed me but I know that I couldn't see Now I can. And so they threw him out of their meeting. Jesus, knowing that the Pharisees threw this man out of their meeting. Came up to this man who he had healed, and Jesus said to him, Do you believe in the Son of Man? Now, this is a man who had never seen anything before, and now for the first time is literally seeing things in the world, seeing Jesus' face. And so Jesus says, Do you believe in the Son of Man? Who is he, sir? The man asked. Tell me so that I may believe in him. And then in Matthew 9:37, or I'm sorry, John 9 37, Jesus said, You have now seen him. In fact, he is the one speaking with you. Jesus says, It's me. I'm the Son of Man. And so then the man said, Lord, I believe. And he worshipped him. Jesus said, For judgment I have come into this world so that the blind will see, and those who see will become blind. So Jesus is talking to this young man here, but there were some Pharisees who were still in the crowd, still hanging out, and they heard Jesus say this. They said, What? Are we blind too? And then in John 9, 41, these are kind of the important words that drill down on this sinfulness. Thing. Jesus said to these Pharisees, these Jewish adherents to the law, these ones who were so concerned about doing everything exactly perfectly, he says, Look, if you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin. But now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains. In other words, he said, You wouldn't be guilty of breaking the law if you didn't see what the law was. But since you say that you see, and yet you break it anyway, you You will be held accountable for that. You are guilty. And so again, this kind of comes back to this point for toddlers, for babies, for those who don't understand yet. What does it mean? Are they sinners? Are they sinful? Well. Here's another commentary. Albert Barnes, he was a Presbyterian preacher 300 years ago. Okay. And he wrote a commentary on the Bible. And in his commentary, he said that sin is measured by the capacities or ability of people and by their opportunities of knowing the truth. If people had no ability to know the truth or do the will of God, they could incur no blame. But if they have all proper ability and no disposition to follow God, God holds them to be guilty. Which is exactly why we talk about even in the garden, Adam and Eve they had the ability to choose to eat of the fruit or not. And they chose to eat of that fruit. And they knew what was right and wrong. God had specifically told them, Don't do this. There wasn't a question of should of are they allowed, it was did they want to? Right. And would they follow through? Right, right. But here Barnes is basically saying, Look, if if you don't have the ability to know the truth and know exactly what's right and wrong, then there's a different kind of accountability for that than the Person who knows what the truth in and is and decides to break it because they say I don't care what God says. And this is what Jesus is saying to these Pharisees in John 9. Which so this is an interesting if you don't mind. No for it. Because I think one of the things that could be going through my mind, there is this level of like, even with my own kids, I'll tell don't throw the don't throw things in the house. Or maybe they're throwing a ball. Let's say that let's say they're throwing a ball, a pool ball. You know, to get really destructive. I say, don't throw that. You know, you're gonna hurt someone, you're gonna break something. And then they go and grab this did actually this happened. So then they go grab their toy tractor and they start chucking their toy tractor. Uh-huh. And then you told me not to throw the ball. Right, right, exactly. And I'm I'm thinking like I'm thinking we need to be careful that we're not doing that in our minds right now as we're talking about this. Well, I didn't know he said not to do dot dot dot. Because remember what Paul said in Romans 1, there's a principle there that says, okay, people can know the basics about God just by seeing what creation. We can know the basics of the expected conduct put upon us by what we've seen already. What we've seen in scripture, what we've what we've seen in the moral teachings of Jesus. We have a pretty good idea of what's right and wrong, right? Well, and that's the thing, even even thinking about that being creation revealing to us what what something that we would know about God. Like, obviously a top An infant's not gonna break down this like their knowledge is limited, they're learning about the the world. When you get to a certain age, which I think we'll allude to something we'll talk about later, there the it becomes you know what you know what you need to know about the world, probably to get that general revelation and make it obvious to you as well. For sure. And and this actually goes kind of one layer deeper, or just one more passage that I want to look at on this actually comes out of first Corinthians five. I'm trying to rush him to his point here. and I'm belaboring it a little bit. Well I no I it's been a couple of weeks here that people are hungry. That's right. And if we keep going on and on, well just hit pause and come back to us in a couple episodes. We'll we'll still be here. What you can't do in the sermon. That's exactly right. That's exactly right. Skip, skip, skip. But actually it it's interesting, just one more Bible passage for you. This topic, as we look at first Corinthians 5, Paul is talking to the church, and he's talking especially here about sexual issues, which of course is then an adult issue, right? This is people who should know better. That's this is not with toddlers. But look at this, look at this teaching here. He says, I wrote to me you first Corinthians five nine. I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people. In other words, church, don't associate with sexually immoral people. Then he goes on and clarifies in first. Corinthians 5.10, not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers or idolaters. In that case, you would have to leave this world. But now I am writing to you, and he's writing again to the church. These are two believers. He says, I'm writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister, but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. Don't even eat with such people. So again, this kind of comes back to echoes of what Jesus is talking about with the Pharisees and the blind man in John 9. Somebody claims to be a believer, somebody claims to be sophisticated in their thinking. Somebody Claims to be a Christian, and yet they are still able to be identified as greedy or an idolater or slander, able to be identified as that not just because they've done it once, but because they have a pattern, and people can see this. that's a slanderer, that's a drunkard, that's an idolater, that's a swindler. If there are people like that who say that they're Christians, but their actions are revealing this, Paul says, Don't even eat with these people. And then in 1 Corinthians 5:12, Paul says, What business is it of mine to judge the Those outside of the church. Right. In other words, I'm not going to condemn all those people outside of the church. Right. Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside. And then Paul says, Expel the wicked person from among you. Wicked being the person who says, I'm a believer, and yet they consistently and decidedly turn to and practice sin over and over. So let me there's this there's this idea that what we claim and what we're saying that we are. are if that doesn't line up with the way that we're acting, then there is a big consequence for S these people should be cast out of the fellowship. Right. But again, nobody who's an adult is going to be held accountable for rejecting God. Creation kind of reveals that to them. However, there is for those who are legitimately blind, there is grace here as they're learning the nature of truth and who God is. Mm-hmm. Well I was just I was trying to so are you saying as a church we we are to hold one another accountable. So in sense we have a level which we can judge one another based off of the claims of commitments that we're making and to be a part of the body, to be living under the lordship of Christ. We can judge e one another upon that commitment. Sure. But we are not supposed to take our judgment to the outside, those who don't even profess to be a part of our body. That's exactly right. And and one of the key principles here is that God gives us the ability to discern and make judgments. Right. It it's not as if well I I'm not the judge, I'm not gonna decide anything. No, if somebody says that they're a brother or a sister, if somebody says they're a believer and yet they're acting like an unbeliever That that has to be dealt with. Right. Right. And certainly with patience and with counseling and all that. But again, there is a principle here that says we're able to see a lot of what's going on in certain situations, especially with adults who say that they're Christians. Now, what does that have to do? We're getting pretty far down to bunny, right? I'm sorry. I'm sorry, guys. No, but this is this is how it goes when we start talking about these topics could I could I flush out one more thing? Not yet. Not yet. Okay. What does this have to say though as we deal with children? Well, how do we identify? Right. Are we identifying children as sinners? Are well, we need to be really careful. We're able to kind of judge the conduct of adults based on what adults say and what they do. Right. Because God has been working in their hearts, has been showing himself to them. They should be able to comprehend what's happening, especially if they're in the church and saying they're a brother or sister. They should have some comprehension of what's right and wrong. But again, we have to be careful with how we label these little children and those who may be mentally immature in such a way that they're not able to fully understand what is right and wrong. Right. All the details of that. Does does that make sense? Is that is that a little helpful? It makes sense. And I think the one thing to this is not what you're saying, but to add on to it let a lot of these questions, what about people who've never heard? What about infants? What about We want we want answers. We like knowing things. But at the end of the day, what we do know is that God is the judge. Correct. as you're talking about. We we're not we're not the ones that are responsible to judge the world, but God God is God gives us the responsibility to discern the right and wrong actions of people in our fellowship. So here at church, especially if you claim to be a brother, I'm I am a member at Waterway Church. I'm a Christian, well then we have the dis the ability to discern right okay that action was right or wrong. Right. But as far as salvation, right no, none of us judge that God judges those outside. Right. Right. And that's where I think we need to remind ourselves with these questions and And who is the judge? The judge is the person who has shown us immeasurable grace and mercy. Exactly right. And has laid given his own son to die on the cross for us. And so I, you know, just remind ourselves of the heart of the judge. And I know some of us perhaps we've had negative experiences with with people in authority, and so it's hard for us to see a judge that could be loving. But the truth is, this is a good loving judge. And so we can rest and trust. His judgment. That's exactly right. And so that actually leads us into kind of the final point that I have. I'm thinking about with this person who asked the question, Well, are children sinners? I think for a lot of us then there is a second question kind of behind that question. Right. And and this is where we can kind of stumble and get off track sometimes. People say, Well, how do we think about children and salvation? What what is going to happen to what is going to happen to the infant who dies at childbirth? What is gonna happen to the toddler who dies because of an illness or an accident? What about what about those folks who never who whose minds never mature to the place where they can really discern God? Are they going to heaven or hell? Are they sinners? Is that keeping them and so this is where church we have to be really careful that we remember what salvation is. And and this is coming back to God as the judge, right? God judges salvation. We can, by godly standards, we can judge conduct within the church. God judges salvation, but remember how salvation works. Right, right. Right? Salvation is not compromised when we commit our sins, nor is it earned by being. In other words, it's not as if like, well, I sinned today, now maybe I'm going to hell. I need to be careful. Or Hey, I've been good today, and so now I'm reminded that I'm going to heaven, so I'm I'm all right. Let's be careful. That's not how heaven and hell works. That's not how salvation works, right? Ephesians 2 tells us it's by grace that we have been saved through faith. Amen. This is not from ourselves, it's a gift of God. It's not by works so that no one can boast. So we we can't pile up a whole bunch of good things and say, See God, I get to go to heaven, right? John 3 16, God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. Life. This belief has a lot to do with salvation here, right? Right. Acts 2 21. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Salvation is not based on our works, it's not based on being good or tipping the scales. And on the flip side, damnation or going to hell is not based on being bad. We don't have to say, my child is being bad today. Are they now in danger of going to hell? That's not how salvation works, right? One more thought from Got Questions. They say, before people mature enough to discern right from wrong, sometimes called reaching an age of accountability, it would seem that they are not held responsible for their sins by God. Toddlers sin and they bear Adam's corrupt nature, but lacking the ability to understand the concept of right and wrong, they are under God's grace, in our opinion. That's from gotquestions.org. And remember, it is God's grace, and God dispenses that grace. It is God's grace that saves us. So, so let's be careful. I think sometimes when people say, Well, is my child a sinner? What they're really asking is, Is my child going to go to hell because of the bad things that they've done? That's that's not how it works, right? Salvation is based on a confession of faith in Jesus Christ and the gift of God that comes. And if a child is not old enough to be able to make that decision of whether they believe in Jesus Christ or not, then you know we can trust them into God's hands. So that's the question I think I'd have yet. As parents. with this knowledge, we can't like like you're telling us from what I'm understanding is that we we can't find out when they're two is this one going to heaven or this one going to hell? Like that's not that's not that's not the question we're supposed to be asking. That's our job. We we never have any kind of say over whether someone is going to heaven or hell. But what do we do? Because clearly as a parent we have this desire for our children, especially if your faith means something to you, for your children to have that same faith. What do we do as parents with that? Well, even even amidst the things that are unclear, it is very clear. Scripture tells us over and over and over Train your child in the way they should go. Parents, teach your children. Teach your children and your children's children, you know, down to so many generations. You know, teach everyone you have an opportunity to influence, but especially your children. This is why, you know, fathers, train up your child. Mothers, train up your child. We are called, and even as a church body, to look after the children and raise them. So it's the the salvation stuff, we can go there pretty quickly because we get worried. We want to control it. Sure. Right. But what we can Do and what is very clear is that we can teach our children what it means to follow after God. We can teach our children what it means to have faith in God. We can teach our children the scriptures. We are responsible for that. There will come a time when they will be held responsible for what they do with that knowledge, whether they receive it or reject it, whether they follow after God, whether they reject the Lord. There will come a time when they're held accountable for that. But when they're when they're these small children, and again, we can kind of tie in there, you know, those with mental disabilities. disabilities or developmental challenges, they they might be in the same category here as far as folks who are not able to comprehend enough to be able to receive or reject God. But there will be a time and God will judge that. And we we can also pray, right? Absolutely. We can we teach and we pray. Absolutely. Good good point, Jon. Yeah. And so so we've kind of gone around the bush here with a number of different little little sidetracks as we talk about children, belief, behavior, and all that kind of stuff. If you want to go just one level deeper with us, hang on for another couple more minutes. we kinda got into Javon and I did got into a discussion about baptism because one of the things that we know is different at different churches, and this is different Christian churches, is that there are some who baptize infants and there are some who do not baptize infants and this all sort of Ties into some of the things we've talked about already. So if you want to go a little bit deeper with us, keep listening. Here we go. Javon, you've been putting together some summary statements for us. Now we can read there are books and books and books and volumes written about baptism and all the details and the theology and the reasons and why we do this, why others do that. But Javon, share with us a little bit. Yeah. Tell us what your studies have revealed to you about baptism. So So yeah, as you're saying, this this concept of infant baptism it kinda it's it's directly tied to how we see children and and and salvation. And And so I'm just gonna give us an overview of some of the different shot perspectives on baptism and even some hi some history here. So just so go ahead. Well and full disclaimer, you know, folks, you may have some Catholic friends or some Presbyterian friends or some Baptist friends or some other who will say, Well, that's not exactly what we believe, that's not exactly how we see it. We're doing a very high level summary here. There are details and particularities about theology and Bible stuff that we're not gonna cover. Absolutely but just in general. Because this does tie into this whole children topic, tell us give give us a couple of high-level summaries here, so so first to start with some history. All right. So back in right around the time of the Reformation. So 1500s in Europe. Right. All right. Right when Martin Luther was nailing those theses on the wall and saying, enough with the Catholic Church, we need to change things. Early 16th century. Figure 500 years ago. Right. At that time Infant baptism was a common practice. Well, because Catholicism was right. If you were Christian in Europe at that time, you were You were Catholic Church. It was everyone there was Catholic. Right. And even in the Eastern Church, which would have been s kind of starting the Eastern Orthodox, th there there would have been infant baptism as well. and I think one of the things that is interesting kind of going back, so you ask yourself, I feel like the next question you might ask is, Well, what about the early church, like maybe right after Acts? And the truth is we don't we don't have any definitive information one way or the other about that ha they say first century. Right. The only thing we have is something called the Didake. do you know what the Didake is? You're gonna have to enlighten us. Yeah. It's it's a old document with sine kinda like some procedures for church, for the first century church. It's probably one of the older documents that gives us. It's not written by any of the apostles or anything like that, but this is kind of an early record of how the church was functioning. Right. And it's one of our earliest I think one of our earliest records, which which makes it very unique. and think of it like bylaws. That's what it is. We have bylaws where we say this is how as a church we agree to function, this is how we're gonna do our slate nominations and yada yada yada yada. So they have the diak is kind of a similar idea. It's it's kind of bylaws and where they want to function. They talk about baptism in there. and they mention actually interestingly enough that prior to baptism someone should fast. and they say as long as they're able. but it would be interesting to conceive of the idea of an infant trying to fast prior to like how would you handle that? That just seems funny. Well, and the only way that infants get to eat is when adults give it anyway. So there's, you know, not a lot of not a lot of their own choice, is there? And so there's no mention in the D D Duckey of infant baptism. So one of the earliest documents, again, it's kind of an argument from silence as we'd call it, where there's not really anything said, but it is significant what isn't said. There isn't Doesn't seem to be anything indicating that there was exactly infant baptism happening in the Dokay. Well, which is isn't that also the case though in the New Testament? I mean, in the New Testament there are one or two times where it's mentioned that someone's household was baptized. Yeah, yeah. But every time we see baptism mentioned in the New Testament, it's an adult. Yes, especially when it's specifically named. Like Jesus was in his thirties, you know, the people that were going out were able to walk out, they were deciding to to be baptized. John was asking them, you know, is this something that you're doing? People were doing this by their own decision. It wasn't it wasn't based. babies, you know, as as far as what's stated. Right. and again we need to be careful about arguments from silence, but the D Dakae and the New Testament have some similarities that's going for people that are able to do something about it. Right. Now what we do know is that as the church progressed rather quickly, infant baptism did become fairly commonplace. And that's where we found ourselves in the in the in the Reformation. Now the whole Catholic Church is doing infant baptism. Right. So now we're back in the fifteen hundreds. So when Luther went to start the Reformation, as it were, you know, he was really just a catalyst, he he he and many of his contemporaries did not feel a need to push back on that particular doctrine. They were more concerned about. Right. But there was one group that push back on it. And it it's a group that we are very familiar with. it's a group that our church denomination history comes from. It's a group that some of our friends name themselves after. Yeah, w and that would be the Anabaptists the Anabaptists and what is do you know First first Anabaptists, they were thinking and they were teaching and they were preaching at the same time that Luther was. Right. This is within the same couple of years, you know, that they're thinking about that. It's not something that came along a lot later. Right, exactly right. and I think especially a lot of them were right around right around the same area where Zwingli, which is Zwingli's another name that was like a contemporary of Luther there. but so why do they call us Anabaptists though? Because Anna in Latin means to re-right baptize. Right. And so we were the rebaptizer. Why? Because the Anabaptists, I say we, I wasn't there, but my church history and really my family history. you know, we re-baptized people who were baptized at birth as infants. And we said now that everybody was baptized at birth, and yeah, you everyone came to the church to have their child baptized when they were a few days old. Right. This was actually part of the law. These records, these church baptism records were actually a part of the citizenship records. of many of the countries in Europe, they knew that you were a citizen, they knew when you were born because they had records in the church of when you were baptized. The church was the main record keeping for in different parts of Germany at that time. There you go. So so you can see, I mean, baptism was wrapped up not only in theology at the time, but also there was a political angle to this too. Yeah, interesting. Because the re baptizers, the Anabaptists, when they said, Hey, we want to be faithful to what we see in the New Testament with people being baptized when they can make a choice, when they can when they can say they their baptism when they're an adult. Those people who were being re baptized, there was kind of a double penalty there. Right. Because some in the church are saying, Wait, you're you're spitting in the face of infant baptism, which is central to the church. But also you're you're spitting in the face of the political law and order that comes along with us knowing who the citizens are based on baptism. Right. So yeah, baptism, a lot of layers here, right? Yeah. Guys, I just want to say he he didn't he did not r study that prior to this podcast like today. So that just came off from the wealth of knowledge that's in this man's head. I'm just I'm just putting that out there. That's that's a credit to some fascinating teachers twenty five years ago. Thank you, Jeff Bach. There you go. So anyway, so yeah, so we had these Anabaptists that are re-baptizing, and they their main thing is that you need to have a believer's baptism, that you need to even though people were being baptized, they weren't living their lives under the Lordship of Christ. And so when somebody made that verbal profession and said, I believe in Jesus, they would make a decision to re-baptize and say, Okay, this is a symbol, a sign of this commitment that you made to Christ. So that's kind of a just a brief history on the an on on baptism. Yeah, perhaps. so now what are the kind of mainstream perspectives on baptism that's coming? How do we do it today? I that was 500 years ago. A lot's changed in five hundred years. Well, and a lot about how churches do church. Right. And a lot's been impacted by the way that those conversations that we're having, they're still around today. So the first one we call baptismal regeneration. Baptismal regeneration. Meaning regeneration is referring to when we are saved, we go from the Bible talks about being dead in our sins and alive in Christ. We're regenerated. Regenerated. Not zombies. Almost recreated. it's it's this the idea well, the idea of being born again. Right. Right. Yep, exactly. So the Catholic view is is the baptismal regeneration, which they would say the Catholic Church has this thing called sacraments, which I give your best shot at a sacrament explanation. I'm trying to think even in my head right now. As their obedience to God. And baptism is one and marriage is a sacrament. Eucharist. Communion is or the Eucharist is a sacrament. There are a number of other ones. Which I think they also in our church we do we see the closest thing that we would have to a sacrament, we call them ordinances. But that would be that would be communion and that would be baptism. Right. These these are the two that we would kind of still hold on to. We'd say the others are fine, but those are more essential. Right. The sacraments, the the Catholic Church saw these as things that you kind of had to do to be able to to receive grace from God. Exactly. That's and that's what so the receiving grace from God I think is the thing that I I remember being taught, you know, the sacraments are a way that you actually like it's like in some minds it's almost like grace points. Mm-hmm. Like you need to level up, you get some more grace points. But if you do the sacraments, then you're kind of in line to receive God's grace. Right, exactly. So so they would see baptism Catholic church now. This is Catholic church. They would see baptism. Thank you. That's a good clarification. We would see they would see baptism as an act of receiving God's grace. It's it's effectuating God's grace. It's bringing God's grace in in in the act of baptism. there that's it, period. It it's effective on anyone. It it's it's like I don't know, i it's like drinking caffeine to get energy. I mean it just it happens. then out of that same in the same vein of thought is Lutheranism, which comes from Luther. But one of the things they added, they they still kind of see this Baptism being a part of when regeneration happens, when you go from death to life. but they add there's must be faith first for it to be effective. It's not effective without faith. And one of the things they point to, the main thing is Romans chapter six, where Paul talks about how we are through baptism, we are dead in Christ, and in the same way we're unified with him in resurrection. If you look at Romans six, one through eleven. So that's kind of their text they point at. They're like, well, see, it's through baptism that we receive that we are regenerated. And outside of that we are not. That would be their point. And so again, our friends in the Catholic Church or friends in the Lutheran Church may have details or very fine points about vocabulary they might argue with us about right or whether we're explaining this correctly. But the way that we're understanding it is when in the Catholic Church and in the Lutheran Church, th would understand baptism as when you are baptized it saves you. Right. And and that doesn't matter whether you walked into that baptism tub or if you were carried into that baptism tub as an infant or led by the hand as a toddler, if you're baptized, there is something about what happens You are regenerated. That that regenerates you. Right. So then there's another one. Why wouldn't you take your child and have them be baptized just to cover your bases, right? Exactly. That thank you. That's exactly right. So then the where the infant baptism comes in is that yeah, for the Catholic, if if it's if it's anyone that can get this, well then why not infant baptize your infants? For Lutherans They have a bit more of a difficult time explaining the infant baptism, honestly, because they have the they have the fact that faith must be a part of it. there's And is the faith of the person being baptized or is does the faith of the parents. Exactly. So that's there's two ways from what there's research I've done that people would explain this from a Lutheran perspective. One would be that you can have an unconscious faith. Luther talked about perhaps, you know, when you're sleeping you don't lose your faith. so he supposed, well maybe it's possible you can have unconscious faith and that there's infants that would have that for child or anything and so their faith makes it effective. I bef I'm gonna show my cards here right now because I think it's important I do. I the idea of an unconscious faith to me spits directly in the face of what faith means. Faith is a decision to to put your belief in Christ. the other one that Lutherans would say is, well, perhaps the faith of the parents. 'Cause it was only Christian children that they would baptize. The faith of the parents are is rendering the baptism effective. That that kind of speaks for the kids. Right. So that kind of ignored to describe a couple of different different angles of the Lutheran perspective, and of course neither of others us or Lutherans, but trying to give you an overview why do people do what they do. Yeah. So another another moving on to an another theory. Baptize the child and that is a sacrament that puts you in line to receive God's grace. And so, you know, just do that, including, you know, have your children baptized. The Lutherans have a little bit more nuance. They're still baptizing infants, right, but they're doing this only for Christian families and kind of recognizing that something about the faith of the parents helps to make that baptism effective exactly for regeneration. Exactly. So there's a couple of ideas. What else you got? Yeah. So there's another perspective which we call b Covenant, sign of the covenant or seal of the covenant. Baptism is a sign of the covenant or seal of the covenant. This is tradition. Signed, sealed, delivered. Sign sealed. No. No, that's yeah. Sorry. Okay. So So Reform churches traditional reformed churches, and I use the word traditional because not all reformed are in this camp, but traditional Reformed churches and Presbyterian churches, Presbyterian reformed. Is that synonyms? Are they the same thing or are they different? They would be largely influenced of one another, but the thing about Presbyterian is it Presbyterian is specifically a church denomination that operates i underneath the presbytos and they meaning elders, an elder led congregation church. I mean reformed churches would have elders and stuff too. It's it's kinda my understanding is the reformers I I'm spitting off my understanding here, so I might be way off. But my understanding is refr that, you know, Presbyterians are Birthed from the Reformation as well. But there are a lot of Reformed churches that are not necessarily Presbyterian. Although you've got Reformed Baptists, you've got Reforms who are just the Reformed Church. Okay, so these folks are folks who really take a lot of their theology from the works of John Calvin, right? Luther and bas based on Luther though a little early. Right. Okay. Yeah. So what do the Reformers? They've got this sign of the Covenant or Seal of the Covenant baptism. Right. How does that work? So essentially the argument breaks down to this, from what I understand. you they point to passages that talk about how we are now in the new covenant. And in the same way that circumcision was a representation of your initiation, as it were. In the old covenant. In the old covenant. Now baptism is the symbol of initiation into the new covenant. Okay. And so the way this plays out then with infants is In the same way that Abraham, when he was circumcised, was commanded to circumcise his whole camp. even infants, right, were circumcised, or young boys. that was the old covenant sign. That was the old covenant sign, the same way the new covenant sign should be practiced, where we we practice for Christian families in the same way that Abraham was commanded to do the old covenant sign, we in our Christian families should baptize our kids as a sign of the covenant on them. Now you're saying that the Reformed and Presbyterian folks today, and there are some who are listening here who, you know, even here at Waterway Church who have come out of that Reformed or Presbyterian background and have experience with that. You're saying that the way they see baptism is that baptism is kinda has replaced circumcision. In the old testament it was circumcision. Now through Jesus, now it's baptism. They're practiced in similar ways on similar folks. Right. But Baptism is is kind of the new version of of circumcision. And they would point right and you would they would point to concepts too of like circumcision of the heart. The Bible talks about circumcision of the heart. Okay. And how believers, especially in the Old Testament, are are to have their hearts circumcised in in a sense as a sign. And so the in a way you're not completely doing away with circumcision entirely. It's more of like, okay, this internal circumcision, now we externally put that out there through through through baptism. So So that's again a a child though in this inf or an infant in this case could be baptized as a sign of the covenant, but they would still need to make a profession of faith later for to be essentially to be saved, as it were. I've heard people say before that, you know, in the in the Reformed church they baptize their infants and then they have like a confirmation or a right later or dedication, you know, later and at an older age. Here in the Mennonite church we have a dedication of a baby, but then we don't baptize until they're a little bit. older. So we've got this Catholic idea of the children are saved or guaranteed a spot in heaven when they are baptized. The Lutherans are similar to that, but it has to be there's some family faith that has to do with that. You're talking about now the Reformers and Presbyterians who have this covenant view That say that baptism is comparable to Old Testament circumcision. And so this is something that should be practiced for everyone in the household, even if it's an infant and not able to necessarily choose for themselves. Exactly. And I should add too, there are some non Reformed Presbyterian, like I there are some evangelicals that would still hold to this view of baptism, that it's a sign of the covenant. so this is not it's not just those those church groups, but another another sign we call believers' baptism. This is the one that Anabaptists would have held to. This is the one that we've You've got kind of the Presbyterian Reformed covenantal view. Right. And now you're stepping into what we practice as Anabaptists. Right. And it and we would call it believers' baptism. And the reason it's called believers baptism is because we only baptize those who profess to believe in Christ. And we would we would say so baptism is an outward symbol of inward change and we like you said, we call it an ordinance, not a sacrament now. Now we're moving away from the sacrament language. It's an ordinance, meaning something that's ordained by God. And like you said, you know, we we see we see communion as something that's ordained by God for the church to do. Right. We see we see footwashing. we call that an ordinance too, something that we feel is ordained by God for us to practice and to do. So we would point to things like a in Acts, constantly people are told repent and then be baptized. So you must be able to repent. To be baptized. You have to have some concept that you were a sinner. You must have some concept of the fact that that God is real, that Jesus Christ forgives sins. Right. And so and that Jesus is the Son of God, and so for repentance to happen, there's got to be some degree of understanding and maturity. Exactly. And for baptism to happen, there has to be repentance, so there needs to be a certain age as before we baptize for Exactly. And one other thing that I think is interesting too, the Great Commission tells us to go make disciples and baptize them. So making disciples and baptizing are tied together. and obviously we would say somebody needs to again profess faith in Lord to be a disciple. so so those are kind of the proof main proof ideas that we would point to. And in this view, infants cannot be baptized because they cannot profess Christ as their Lord and Savior. If you can't repent, if you can't state your belief in the Lord Jesus Christ, You shouldn't be baptized. Right. That's what Which again we're saying here. We would say you see time and time again in the New Testament, especially the people that are named outright as believing them baptizing, there's that believing that comes first. Sure. It's never no one is ever baptized in the Bible just and named that that just got dunked and and was like, Okay, now later we'll get you to believe. There was always belief prior. so that's what we point to. Now, you brought up that the thing the the debate largely wrestles around the household baptisms when it comes to infant baptism. So we know Lydia's household got baptized, Philippine Jailer's household got baptized, baptized, Christmas's household got baptized in Acts. you can go ahead and look up those stories on Google to try to figure out where they're at. But you know, the thing that I think is interesting about this household it it's kind of the Bible does not explicitly say that infants should be or were baptized. And we all All denominations accept that. It doesn't explicitly say that. It also does not explicitly s state that infants were baptized, you know. It also doesn't explicitly say not to either. and when you hear the term household, it doesn't again, it doesn't necessarily mean that the children were baptized. Think of it this way. In our day and age, we're used to thinking of a household being mom, dad, and kids. But in that day, that's not necessarily the case. A household could have adults servants or slaves or aunts and uncles and grandparents and co-workers and people under your care. Exactly. So it's perfectly reasonable that somebody writing this story would just say, Well, you know, the whole household got baptized. Not meaning that the infants, maybe even just assuming that we know that these infants were not being baptized. Now, one of the things that I would state too is interesting often in those stories, it also says the whole household repented, the whole household spoke in tongues. it would that's an interesting concept to think of hap speaking in tongues and repenting again happening with infants. And that would be the major point that we would make in a believer's baptism. That it just seems to us to be a stretch to say that because the whole household was baptized, it therefies says therefore says infants should be baptized because of what we understand of salvation and because of what we understand of the symbol of baptism. And so if you weren't sure before part of this kind of conversation is part of the reason why even two thousand years after Jesus Christ and five hundred years after the Reformation, we still have different Christian churches here in our town. even represented here in our church, different churches, different styles of doing things and still still super duper smart people. who are reading their Bibles, who love the Lord, who are saved, are still arguing about well we should do it this way. Right. Or we should do it that way. Because of what it says in Acts, or because of what it says in Romans, or you know, there's there's a lot going on here. A lot of a lot of room to disagree, but yet we each have our own practices that we feel are best. Right. For according to how we understand the Bible. I think the thing I would leave us with here, just to kind of tie this all together. We've been going on for a bit here. Yeah, we have. God bless you. first Peter three twenty-one talks about baptism, but it's interesting that it mentions how baptism is a confirmation of our salvation that comes through the resurrection of Christ. We are saved, as you mentioned earlier, by grace alone through faith alone. We believe that it is only through Grace that we are saved. And this would be this would be why we would strongly say that we f believe in a believer's baptism. Furthermore, in Galatians chapter 5, 1 through 2, Paul argues against Judaizers who are saying, no circumcision, you need to be circumcised to be baptized. And we would, if you read that, it seems clear that that same line of reasoning he's using to argue that no, you don't need to be circumcised to be saved, is the same line of reasoning we could use to talk about baptism. we don't we don't believe that you need to do anything because that defeats the whole purpose of grace alone and faith alone. It it mu if and that was kind of what the Anabaptists were telling the reformers. Like, hey, if you're gonna say that it's not by works, why not go all the way? Why not go take it to its full extent and say, Well then you must believe before you're baptized? And and that baptism is only a symbol. One other note I would give you too. Romans six and I now I'm arguing from my perspective, clearly. We're not so it's easy for me to do this here, but Romans six, that passage that talks about us being dead with Christ in baptism and rised raised up again. one thing to note in Greek, those verbs, the baptizo baptis bat baptizo, is in the aorist tense in in that verse. The aorist tense the erist tense. Remember your eleventh grade English classifies? Remember what the aorist I know past, present, tense. Well, so that's the thing. Aorist is not an English tense. so it's so we think so in Greek they have some some tenses for their verbs that we don't have in English. You're exactly right. Okay. So we we think in terms of present, past, present, past, and future. and so that's why our language it would say baptized. aorist tense often gets translated as past tense because it usually is talking about something. something in the past. However, the difference between the aorist and like a past tense in English when we say I I ate something, it means I did that thing. It's complete I ate it. Okay. It's so it's an event that happened and stopped. Right. We in the aorist tense that's not the case. Aorist is trying to make no statement about when the finite moment it happened. It's more taking a big picture and just saying Generally it has baptism does this. Okay. So that's the or or generally those of us who are baptized is the way I should say it, are dead in Christ and alive in him. So it's not it's not the perspective is not that baptism specifically initiates that regeneration. It's that bap that generally speaking, those of us who are in Christ and baptized, we have been joined with him in his death and resurrection. And indeed, that's why we often do practice. Dunking, right? Because we we believe it's a symbol of dying to yourself and being raised again to new life. so why should we be baptized then, though? If we were going with the believer's baptism, I suppose that's a question we could have. Why why care about it? And I think then there we would just have to point to scripture that says time and time and time and time and time again, when people were saved, they were baptized. It seems clear that kind of what we were talking about in the sermon last Sunday. You know, your faith is going to produce actions. If you're if you have given your faith to Christ, you should have a desire to proclaim that and to be baptized. and and that's something that just always joins those who are saved is is is the the desire to want to be baptized. And I think to wrap one one kind of final thing just to throw in there. I mean, it is interesting to me. Jesus was not baptized until he was quite later on in life. But But anyway, so that would be kind of my case of why why we we practice the believer's baptism. And it relates to our whole discussion on infants because how you see baptism does impact how you even how you see the salvation of infants impacts how you decide whether you will baptize infants or not. And then here in our case, we believe in an age of accountability when a child gets to that age, professes faith, now they are a believer, now we baptize them. And and often, you know, just often our practice here is that that comes somewhere around middle school. Right. You know, ages eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen. Not always. Some people just have a deep sense of belief in God before that. Some people it doesn't happen until after that. But oftentimes we talk about that age of accountability as, you know, kind of that very early teenager kind of child. And so, boy, we have covered a lot of territory here today and and all of this based on the question of are children sinful. And so hey, we've we've done a lot of work and and those of you who have listened to us have done a lot of work in listening and and working through this. If you have any more questions about any of this stuff, we've just scraped the surface on some of these talks about baptism and and and trying to sum up what some other folks believe about how to do that. we're trying to do the best we can, but again, these are complex issues that we're addressing really quickly. So hey, thanks for listening today and and let's remember this above all is that all have sinned fall short of the glory of God. There is nothing that we have within us that can save us. But praise God that because of God's incredible love and God's amazing grace, because of the sacrifice of his son Jesus Christ, and because of his everlasting life now, we have hope. Amen. And not just us, but our children have hope. The vulnerable have hope. The weak have hope. The immature Have hope because of Jesus Christ and because of God's love and grace. And so even in the midst of all the questions and all the what-ifs and even concerns about baptism, let's remember foremost that our God loves us, that He is a good, good Father, that Jesus Christ is our only Savior, and that all of the judgment is left in the hands of the one who loves us most. Amen. So church, hey, thanks for sticking with us today. We're going back just about weekly with with more of these kind of questions. Probably most of them won't go as long as this one today. Right. But thanks for being with us and hope to see you on Sunday here at Waterway. It'd be great to worship together. Otherwise, though, we'll see you next time you tune in. See ya.