(Recorded October 2013)

“What if your gospel-preaching pastor is not as good as one of the great orators of our day? Is it time to sell the house, pack up the family, and change churches? No, I don’t think so. But what should you do?”

Steve Burchett gives us five suggestions, and includes this observation:

“…if your pastor is (honestly) dull, but he preaches the truth faithfully, a little statement I once heard might be helpful for you to remember: ‘The mature worshiper is easily edified.’ When hearing lackluster (even if biblical) preaching, immature worshipers will typically not listen to the message because they wish the messenger was more exciting. Conversely, mature worshipers eagerly receive the truth as it is proclaimed, even if it sounds like the preacher is reading a phone book.”

When Your Preacher Is Not John Piper   HT: Albert Garlando

The recent Australian federal election resulted in a hung parliament, with the balance of power held by a small number of elected independents. Not being forced to toe the party line, each of these men is free to stand for the needs of his own electorate. This can certainly slow down the process of government in the courts of men, but not in the courts of God.

As Christians, we are taught to toe the party line. This is a false piety. Our Father actually loves a lively, argumentative parliament. The process of maturity is supposed to bring us to the point where we are wise judges whom He can include in His government (pictured in baptism), standing on the crystal sea as joint heirs with His Son, Great Prophets whose very words change history.

Back room deals and bargaining with God are an abuse of prayer. Or are they? Not when those disputing with God are men whose hearts are like those of the Father. Abraham and David did it. God’s desire is that we should be like them.

As Covenant heads, Christ, the ministers, the husbands and the fathers to whom He has given authority, have the same responsibility as the ascended Son of God: advocacy. Sadly, our lack of perseverance in prayer becomes an unspoken fatalism. As is the way with our appointed political advocates, the church culture’s party line is to pray like Sir Humphrey Appleby in Yes, Minister. Doug Wilson says,

There is a great difference between complaining about God and complaining to God. Arguing with God, complaining to God, is not inconsistent with piety. We must let the Bible teach us how to relate to God.

When the children of Israel are in the wilderness complaining about the food; when you’re driving around downtown in the rain and the windshield is fogged up and the kids are irritating you from the back seat, and you are muttering under your breath, you are not bringing your concerns to God.

We all understand that such murmuring is sinful. We don’t want to be like the Israelites whose bodies were scattered in the wilderness because they displeased God. But if we turn to the Psalms, we find that David and the other psalmists bring their complaints, concerns and agonies to God. They let God know all about it.

If you try to avoid murmuring about God by not saying anything at all, you are actually trying to be holier than the Bible, holier than the men whom God has set before us as a godly example.

We should all know what happens to those who murmur, complain, moan and grumble. Their bodies are scattered over the desert. But the alternative to this is not stiff-upper-lip stoicism.

In Psalm 55:2, David makes a noise so that God will hear him. If you want to pray like God’s saints in the Bible, lay out your case before Him. Reason it through. Don’t pray like you were a block of wood or you will get answers of the sort that would satisfy a block of wood: tepid, anaemic responses.

The Psalms teach us to sing and pray and argue rightly. The faithful servant in prayer does not want to simply “say the right words.” He wants an audience. He wants God to hear, and prays as though he wants God to hear. He wants to offer up prayers that cannot be refused. You come like the widow who wanted justice from the unjust judge: she wouldn’t leave him alone. Jesus said, “Be like that!”

But we, thinking that it reveals a high doctrine of the sovereignty of God, fall into, not Calvininsm, but stoicism. “Whatever was determined from the foundation of the world is going to happen and I can’t stop it.”

But that is a distortion of the sovereignty of God. He does not teach us to pray, “I am the sovereign God. Just sit there like a block of wood and take it.” That is not what we are called to do.

The great Puritan Goodwin said that when we pray to God we should “sue him” for things. A Puritan said that? Yes, they were Biblical people.

Now, we shouldn’t sue God in the court of the devil, or in the court of the world. But we should go into the courts of heaven and plead our case with God. You might say, “I’m not competent to plead a case of any complexity.” Well, John Bunyan said it’s better that your heart be without words than your words be without heart. It’s not prim and proper words that count. It’s heart.

This is the first thing we learn from Psalm 55. David is in trouble, and he itemises his troubles to God. He wants to tell God all about it and he wants God to do something about it. He pleads his case with Him. “Lord, hear me. Give ear to my prayer, O God, and hide not thy face from me.” Where are you going, God? Don’t hide! Hear me out, here. Attend to me, I tell you!

Now, does that sound godly to you? No it doesn’t, and the reason is that we have our own tradition of what a pious prayer sounds like:

“Dear Father in heaven, Whatever happens, happens. And bless everybody indiscriminately in such a way as I can’t tell whether or not anything has ever happened.”

We’re afraid of getting a “no,” so we build escape hatches into all our prayers. If you get a “no,” you are getting some feedback and you are learning how to pray. What you want to do is submit yourself to the text of Scripture, pray the way God’s people prayed, and as you do so you will discover that you are imitating it rightly in some instances and wrongly in others, and you make adjustments.

Remember the acronym, G.A.S.P. God Answers Specific Prayer. If that doesn’t sound pious, then we have something wrong with our definition of piety. And I submit that we have allowed ourselves to drift into these misunderstandings of piety because we have not been singing the Psalms. We are not steeped in the Psalms. If kids in the Christian church were steeped in the Psalms, marinating in them for ten or fifteen or twenty years as they grew up in the Covenant community, these false traditions of piety could not take root. You could not get away with telling people, “This is how you pray. Don’t say anything specific.”

There are actually seminars for aspiring politicians which teach them how to answer questions without saying anything. When someone on television talks for three or four minutes and nothing clear ever comes out, that’s not natural. One has to study to do that, and they do study. And we have our own schools which teach Christians how to pray that way.

Argue like David did. Argue like the apostle Paul did. Don’t complain about God. Bring your case to God. [1]

For me, one of the most striking examples of such prayer comes from the life of John G. Paton. What made it so memorable for me was the common, uncomplicated and very achievable ministry of advocacy it portrays, and the results that simple, persistent dealing with God can have as a foundation for the courageous faith of those for whom we advocate, and for the sovereign God in changing the history of His world. John Piper writes:

John G. Paton was a missionary to the New Hebrides, today called Vanuatu, in the South Seas. He was born in Scotland in 1824. I gave my Pastors’ Conference message about him because of the courage he showed throughout his 82 years of life. When I dug for the reasons he was so courageous, one reason I found was the deep love he had for his father.

The tribute Paton pays to his godly father is, by itself, worth the price of his Autobiography, which is still in print. Maybe it’s because I have four sons (and Talitha), but I wept as I read this section. It filled me with such longing to be a father like this.

There was a “closet” where his father would go for prayer as a rule after each meal. The eleven children knew it and they reverenced the spot and learned something profound about God. The impact on John Paton was immense.

Though everything else in religion were by some unthinkable catastrophe to be swept out of memory, were blotted from my understanding, my soul would wander back to those early scenes, and shut itself up once again in that Sanctuary Closet, and, hearing still the echoes of those cries to God, would hurl back all doubt with the victorious appeal, “He walked with God, why may not I?” (Autobiography, p. 8 )

How much my father’s prayers at this time impressed me I can never explain, nor could any stranger understand. When, on his knees and all of us kneeling around him in Family Worship, he poured out his whole soul with tears for the conversion of the Heathen world to the service of Jesus, and for every personal and domestic need, we all felt as if in the presence of the living Savior, and learned to know and love him as our Divine friend.” (Autobiography, p. 21)

One scene best captures the depth of love between John and his father, and the power of the impact on John’s life of uncompromising courage and purity. The time came for the young Paton to leave home and go to Glasgow to attend divinity school and become a city missionary in his early twenties. From his hometown of Torthorwald to the train station at Kilmarnock was a 40-mile walk. Forty years later, Paton wrote,

My dear father walked with me the first six miles of the way. His counsels and tears and heavenly conversation on that parting journey are fresh in my heart as if it had been but yesterday; and tears are on my cheeks as freely now as then, whenever memory steals me away to the scene. For the last half mile or so we walked on together in almost unbroken silence – my father, as was often his custom, carrying hat in hand, while his long flowing yellow hair (then yellow, but in later years white as snow) streamed like a girl’s down his shoulders. His lips kept moving in silent prayers for me; and his tears fell fast when our eyes met each other in looks for which all speech was vain! We halted on reaching the appointed parting place; he grasped my hand firmly for a minute in silence, and then solemnly and affectionately said: “God bless you, my son! Your father’s God prosper you, and keep you from all evil!”

Unable to say more, his lips kept moving in silent prayer; in tears we embraced, and parted. I ran off as fast as I could; and, when about to turn a corner in the road where he would lose sight of me, I looked back and saw him still standing with head uncovered where I had left him – gazing after me. Waving my hat in adieu, I rounded the corner and out of sight in instant. But my heart was too full and sore to carry me further, so I darted into the side of the road and wept for time. Then, rising up cautiously, I climbed the dike to see if he yet stood where I had left him; and just at that moment I caught a glimpse of him climbing the dike and looking out for me! He did not see me, and after he gazed eagerly in my direction for a while he got down, set his face toward home, and began to return – his head still uncovered, and his heart, I felt sure, still rising in prayers for me. I watched through blinding tears, till his form faded from my gaze; and then, hastening on my way, vowed deeply and oft, by the help of God, to live and act so as never to grieve or dishonor such a father and mother as he had given me. (pp. 25-26)

The impact of his father’s faith and prayer and love and discipline was immeasurable. O fathers, read and be filled with longing. [2]

Quite a few people have asked me for a more clear definition of what Ascension means in the Bible Matrix. This is it. A Covenant head who is bread and wine: the ceaseless, specific advocacy of an upright man in the throneroom of God for those whom God has given him as a body. After twenty-six years of being a Christian, I feel like I am only just beginning in prayer.

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[1] Doug Wilson, Psalm 55: Mischief in the Midst of It. Christkirk sermon podcast, 12 October, 2010.
[2] John Piper, John G. Paton’s Father.

Van Gogh’s work has been regarded by some as “hallucinatory,” however his letters show that few artists were as intelligent and rational. His work was not the product of his dark times but of his struggle against them.

“I am feeling well just now… I am not strictly speaking mad, for my mind is absolutely normal in the intervals, and even more so than before. But during the attacks it is terrible—and then I lose consciousness of everything. But that spurs me on to work and to seriousness, as a miner who is always in danger and makes haste in what he does.” [1]

William Cowper, who battled debilitating and often life-threatening depression throughout his life, and yet was the author of many famous Christian hymns and poems, was the same. John Piper writes:

“I live with an almost constant awareness of the breach between the low intensity of my own passion and the staggering realities of the universe around me, heaven, hell, creation, eternity, life, God. Everybody (whether they know it or not) tries to close this breach—between the weakness of our emotions and the wonder of the World. Some of us do it with poetry.

William Cowper did it with poetry. I think I know what he means, for example, when he writes a poem about his mother’s portrait long after her death and says,

And, while that face renews my filial grief,
Fancy shall weave a charm for my relief.

There is a deep release and a relief that comes when we find a way of seeing and saying some precious or stunning reality that comes a little closer to closing the breach between what we’ve glimpsed with our mind and what we’ve grasped with our heart.

It shouldn’t be surprising that probably over 300 pages of the Bible was written as poetry. Because the aim of the Bible is to build a bridge between the deadness of the human heart and the living reality of God.” [2]

I want to relate this to every Christian life. This fruitfulness from the darkness is a process that belongs to every child of God. At the very heart of it is the tension caused by challenges to unseen truth by an unbelieving world, and the desire for vindication and rest. This is one of the processes inherent in Covenant history, and an understanding of it helps us to persevere in the truth, even in the darkest times. The New Covenant is no exception. [3]

God calls a man
…..Separates him for duty
……….Gives him the rules
…..Tells him the consequences of his performance
Arranges for the next tour of duty

Of course, this is Ray Sutton’s 5 point Covenant pattern, and I maintain that it becomes 7 point when “played out” on the stage of history:

Creation: God’s call and anointing
…..Division: The man is sent to work

and this is where the distress of the Covenant comes in. The central point is split into three—LAW/LAW/LAW:

……….Ascension: He receives the Covenant Law (as above)
……………Testing: He is challenged by a false Law

This is where the rubber meets the road. It is the Starry Night of Day 4, the saints in the wilderness. Will we be rulers, or will we be ruled? Will we be filled with the law as burning bushes (Lampstands) like Daniel and his friends, or will we be incinerated like the sons of Aaron?

The test is that the world suddenly doesn’t seem to correspond to what God said. We can only see so far, and Satan and those who follow him maintain that what is beyond our sight is not what God said (which is also why evolution is not science but philosophy). How many Christians feel that God has abandoned them, or betrayed them, or failed to reward them for their faithfulness so far? The challenge is to understand that God is qualifying you for more responsibility, more servant-kingship, and of course, more glory.

God’s Word often seems to contradict reality. Imagine being instructed to build a very large boat on dry land, and to put up with the jeers and taunts of the scientists and philosophers of the day. Imagine being instructed to tell the rulers of Judah to submit to the king of Babylon. Imagine being a Pharisee instructed to eat with Gentiles, and form new Jew-Gentile synagogues across the empire. Imagine being instructed to tell the King of the Jews that it is, in fact, You Who are the true King of the Jews. Both Jesus and Paul were thought to be mad. Do you know that feeling? [4]

Of course, vindication came, in torrents, in every one of these situations. The Book of Hebrews is a plea to Christian Jews to hold out, to persevere with this “new Covenant,” despite the fact that the Herods were still building monuments of white stone and gold all over the Land (including the Temple) and Christians were being persecuted and slaughtered across the empire. The words of Jesus certainly didn’t correspond with reality, did they? But the elect, as Daniel predicted, shined like stars. They believed the Word spoken, saw the fulfilment of the promises by faith, although they were far off and not yet seen. Faith is not blind. It is long-sighted.

Faith is also attractive, especially when it rides against the zeitgeist. It is very striking for people today to come across Christians who not only know what they believe, but are also not idiots. I teach the Bible to high school students, and the testimony of someone who believes it from cover to cover stays with them forever. I know, because the Bible was taught to me by people just like that. Brave testimony, under distress, is the heart of the New Covenant.

……….Maturity: He repeats the Law, warns the Bride,
……….and there is great plunder

After obedience at Testing, there are always plagues and plunder. That’s what we see in Exodus. That’s what we see in the ministry of the Apostles and the Reformers and the great missionaries (and not-so-great).

How about you? Are you willing to submit to God for the sake of the plunder? For the New Covenant missionary, the plunder is people, even if he doesn’t live to see the result (like Jim Elliot). I read about a missionary who spent seven long years evangelising some remote tribes and died without seeing a single convert. But those who followed after him reaped the harvest. Unlike discipling your own children, teaching the Bible to other people’s kids seems fruitless at times, because the seed takes a while to germinate. We have faith that it will sprout and that God will give the increase. Many Australians trace their conversion back to Sunday School or SRE (Bible teaching in public schools).

Faith is like time travel. In the midst of suffering, abandonment or persecution, we travel back in time to remember God’s faithfulness in the past, in our life, in the biographies of saints, and in the Bible. And we jump ahead in our head and hearts to the Conquest and Glorification that God has promised for the elect. The Psalmists did this (in both directions), and so did Christ and the Apostles. God is consistently faithful, regardless of how things might feel right now. How can we be trained to judge if there is no tension, no true and false witnesses presenting evidence? The question is, will you turn to other, short-term gods to ease the pain? [5] Or will you persevere and produce the abundant fruitfulness possible only through this process of pruning? Jesus said that if we judge ourselves, we will not be judged.

He shall see the labour of His soul, and be satisfied. Isaiah 53:11

Van Gogh sold only one painting, and died by suicide in poverty. William Cowper had the loving ministry of John Newton, and His God, watching over him. Imagine if Van Gogh and Cowper could see how their labours, the fruits of lives spent suffering in the dark, have been a blessing for hundreds of years to millions of people.

Faith, the substance of things not seen, is like time travel. By your obedience to the Word, and your fearless witness, you are a memorial to something that hasn’t even happened yet, and something that happened long ago. Like Noah, like Jesus, you are the incarnation of the past and a window on the future. Faith is the domain of the prophet, and in the New Covenant, all God’s people are prophets who know the end from the beginning.

So stick with it. Stand. Perseverance is just about everything. And vindication will come.
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[1] Quoted in Robert Hughes, Nothing If Not Critical.
[2] Listen to or read the transcript of Piper’s wonderful biographical sermon here. See also Seeing In The Dark.
[3] See A Lamentable Life.
[4] See Mercury Rising.
[5] See What Comes Out.

Ending the False Dichotomy of Blood and Spirit

NOTE: THIS POST HAS BEEN REMIXED AND INCLUDED IN GOD’S KITCHEN.

The Old Testament is a bloody book. Beginning with Adam’s “dissection” to build Eve and the animals the Lord made into tunics, it culminates in Revelation with the massacre of saints under Herod/Nero (Revelation 14) and then the massacre of Jews under Vespasian and Titus.

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[1] I highly recommend James Jordan’s Crisis, Opportunity and the Christian Future.

“We are witnessing the end of Western Civilization. The present crisis in our culture is the greatest since the first century. Many commentators on the present scene believe that the entire world is moving into a period of “neo-tribalism.”

In this striking book, theologian James B. Jordan argues that this cultural change is part of God’s ongoing plan for humanity, the plan by which the Holy Spirit grows God’s daughter, humanity, into a fit bride for His Son.

The present crisis provides a tremendous opportunity for the Christian Church to challenge and transform the world as never before. Here, Jordan points to how this can be done.

While many view the present crisis with dismay, and are looking backwards to older traditions, Jordan argues that God is calling us forward, and that the Bible points the way.”

How serious is it to say to a regenerate person: “You are not permitted to be a member of this church”?

If you haven’t heard John Piper’s sermons on the importance of baptism and church membership last year, do yourself a favour.

Frank Turk does have an issue with one point, however, which I repost here with his permission:

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

Dr. Piper opens up the can of worms at his church again by beginning a series on baptism and church membership. The long-time readers of this blog know for a fact that this topic is near to me and dear to me — because it’s one of the topics I have blogged about most often. And in that, I think I am more a Baptist for it today than I was 3 years ago.

I respect Dr. Piper and the elders of his church wanting to have an open door at their church for all believers in Christ — for wanting, as they have said, to keep the front door of the local church as wide as the front door of the universal church — namely, all who believe in Jesus Christ.

Dr. Piper’s message yesterday delivered a stirring call for the importance of church membership — one with which I would agree almost entirely. Almost.
He says this in the middle of his message:

One of the key convictions behind the elder proposal (that was made and then withdrawn) is that excluding from membership a truly born-again person who gives credible evidence of his saving faith is a more serious mistake than receiving into membership a true believer who is not biblically baptized though, according to his own conscience, he believes he is. But that conviction assumes church membership is really important, so that excluding a person from it is very serious.

So one of the arguments against the elder proposal was that membership in a local church like Bethlehem does not matter very much—certainly not as much as baptism—because a non-member can worship and take the Lord’s Supper and go to Sunday School and be a part of a small group and be visited by a pastor in the hospital; or he can simply go to another church that shares his view of baptism.

So if membership is not that important, then excluding someone from membership will not seem a serious problem. That would mean that the elders are trying to solve a problem that doesn’t really exist. This is one of the most crucial issues we need to think through as a church: How serious is it to say to a regenerate person: “You are not permitted to be a member of this church”?

Let me say frankly that this is not a matter either of subjective belief or of merely-judicial or -authoritarian caveat. This is the place where the reasoning at Bethlehem goes off the rails, in my opinion, and let me explain briefly why I would say that.

In Acts 19, Paul finds the “disciples” at Corinth who had received John’s baptism but not the baptism of Jesus. Those people there sincerely believed they had been baptized, but in fact they had not been baptized into Christ. That example speaks clearly, I think, to the question of whether or not what one thinks about one’s baptism is what we should weigh when we are considering them as members of our fellowship and churches. We are not saying they are not disciples: we are saying they are not baptized, and they should hear that call plainly for what it is: a call to be obedient to what God has ordained for the church and for the believer.

In that way, we are not questioning anyone’s status as being regenerate or not regenerate. We are calling them to do what God has called them to do. The excuse, “I think I already have done it,” is dispelled by they fact that they did not, in fact, do it — it was done to them before they could agree or decline. What they have had done is not objectively the same as what we are calling them to.

By saying that, we are not saying to a regenerate person, “your salvation doesn’t matter to us and you cannot join our church.” We — that is, the church and specifically its elders – are saying what the elders ought to say in the name of Jesus Christ: if you love me, you will keep my commandments.

Baptism is a commandment from God for the believer. And without overstating this matter, it is the charge of the elder to exhort the believer to do what God has commanded, and not merely settle for what seems good to every man in his own eyes. Someone who doesn’t want to do what God has commanded is someone, I think, who is not under the authority of the elders but on his own program.

I really love that Bethlehem Baptist church is thinking deeply about this matter. But one of the most deeply-resounding themes of its preaching pastor is the matter of obedience to God out of love and joy for what God has done for us. Is it really such a hard thing, in that context, to tell those who want to fellowship in an assembly which hears the Lord commanding us to baptize the believer that this is their first step in truly desiring God?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Basically, if you are a soldier and you want to serve, you need to wear the prescribed, approved, and very spiffy uniform. Non-compliance doesn’t mean you are not in the army. It just means you get to scrub the latrines until you comply.

“I think relevance in preaching hangs very little on watching movies, and I think that much exposure to sensuality, banality, and God-absent entertainment does more to deaden our capacities for joy in Jesus than it does to make us spiritually powerful in the lives of the living dead. Sources of spiritual power—which are what we desperately need—are not in the cinema. You will not want your biographer to write: Prick him and he bleeds movies.” [1]

I agree fully that we should be reviewing and assessing popular culture, and using elements of it that are familiar to people to reach them with the gospel. Jesus apparently refers to Prometheus in his comment to Saul about kicking against the goads! See here.

But, I can only think of a handful of preachers, let alone Christians, who, when pricked, bleed Bible. Charles Spurgeon and James Jordan come to mind. All the others are from earlier history.

Peter Leithart says we desperately need to “speak Bible.” We need to read and think Bible, and see the world—and popular culture—with Bible eyes first.

Otherwise, our efforts at relevance make us a white cat in a snow storm.

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[1]  John Piper, Why I Don’t Have a Television and Rarely Go to Movies.

Question: If your conversation were a blog, what would your tag cloud contain?

or Why Are We Baptizing the Dead?

Peter Leithart writes concerning baptism:

“In Genesis 9:11, Yahweh promises not to “cut off flesh” by water.  That is the covenant with Noah.

A few chapters later, Yahweh tells Abram that he must cut off the flesh of all male children of Israel, not by water but by a knife.

That means that Abram’s children receive the “cutting off” that all flesh deserves, and got, in the flood. Or, it means that Abram’s children are the people who live beyond flesh, the people who have passed under the knife and through the flood that removes flesh.

It also means that the Noachic covenant is over. The world that then was was destroyed by a flood, and a new world came into being. But now God does again cut off flesh through water, the water, the water of baptism.”

If you have read my articles on baptism (See, Weapons of War, articles 3, 4 and 5), you will know I think that not only is there no Scriptural evidence for paedobaptism, but the typological freight train of all Scripture is against it as well. So, how would I deal with this excellent observation on Noah and Abraham?

Once again, all depends on the crucial distinction between Passover and Atonement, between the head and the body.

Sabbath – initiating Word
……..Passover – blood and water (Red Sea – death)
…………….Firstfruits – presentation of head
……………………Pentecost – head rules body
…………….Trumpets – presentation of body
……..Atonement –  water and blood (Jordan – resurrection)
Booths – head and body united in God

Concerning Adam, the flood was Atonement. It was judgment at the corporate level.

Sabbath - Creation of Adam
……..Passover - Animal substitute slain to cover Adam’s sin as head (singular death)
…………….Firstfruits - Enoch preaches (Lev.) and men
…………….draw near to God. Enoch ascends
……………………Pentecost - head fails to rule body.
…………….          “Adultery” in the “wilderness” (Gen. 6)
…………….Trumpets - Noah preaches (Deut). Substitute body
…………….as animals submit instead
……..Atonement -  the flood divides body (corporate resurrection)
Booths - head and body united in God (Noah and animals in a new world)

However, concerning Noah, the floodwaters were a “Red Sea” baptism, a setting apart of the head, not the body (as with Adam’s and Abraham’s personal “covering”). For Noah as High Priest, it was Atonement, inside the Most Holy, behind the veil. For Noah personally, it was Passover, inside the ark, behind the closed door.

Sabbath - Call of Noah
……..Passover - Noah’s exodus through the flood (singular death)
…………….Firstfruits - God’s blessing. Noah makes a sacrifice. Law given (Lev.)
……………………Pentecost - head fails to rule body.
……………………Ham seizes the robe and uncovers nakedness
…………….Trumpets - Law repeated (Deut.) Noah judges Ham. Children multiply
……..Atonement -  Joktanites DO NOT separate from Nimrod (corporate death)
Booths - The Lord destroys the “Tabernacle” and scatters their children

Now, because this entire process of planting (grain of wheat) and harvest is chiastic, it does allow the Bible to use them interchangeably. For instance, in Ezekiel 1-8, the prophet’s own fall-down-as-dead “death” is Passover, and the slaughtering Levites appear as Atonement. But in the structure of the whole book of Ezekiel, the Levites appear as Passover, with the destruction of Gog and Magog as Atonement (and the description of Ezekiel’s temple follows as Tabernacles/Booths).

Jesus’ baptism was a “Red Sea” baptism. Typologically, Passover (Red Sea) is circumcision and Atonement (Jordan) is baptism. One deals with the male head, and the other with the whole body (puns intended).

But for the saints, Scripture consistently aligns Christian baptism with the Jordan, conquest and government. I posted yesterday on the structure of 1 Cor. 1-3, which also puts Paul’s baptisms in this spot.

So circumcision cuts off the flesh of the head, the sole mediator. It rescues slaves. Baptism cuts off the flesh of the body. It concerns resurrection – the resurrection of the resulting corporate mediator. It enthrones tried and vindicated governors.

Sabbath - the Word of God calls a sinner from the old city
……..Passover - he is cut to the heart by the Word (to the joints and marrow)
……..and covered by a circumcision made “without hands”
…………….Firstfruits - the Covenant “scroll” is opened to him
……………………Pentecost - now legally perfect, he is filled with the Spirit and
 …………….          enthroned with Christ outside the city 
…………….Trumpets - the saint presents himself to God as a
…………….member of the army (enrobed)
……..Atonement -  he is symbolically resurrected to the
communion of saints, into the new city (washed)
Booths - and invited to dine with Christ (seated)[1]

The debate over paedocommunion evaporates if we only baptize believers, including believing children. We have grandchildren, but Jesus doesn’t. He is the Covenant head, not parents. We will still have a problem with baptized unbelievers, but at least we’re not playing on the highway.

Baptizing children is fine, as long as they believe. Let the little children come , for baptism and for communion, but on their own legs.[2] The New Covenant is not about redeeming a “birth” of sin but about a redeemed living body approaching God in response to Jesus’ call to arms. It is the elders following Moses and dining with the Lord on the crystal sea (Exodus 24:10). It is about resurrection to govern over a new world.

Humbly submitted for comment.

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[1]  Notice that when Peter saw Christ on the beach, he too was “enrobed, washed and seated”.

[2]  Jesus laid hands on babies. He didn’t circumcise them or baptize them. If anything is to be drawn from this besides trusting childlike faith, it is that baby dedication is a good thing. But it should not be confused with baptism. We don’t confuse this passage with circumcision, do we?

P.S. Yes, that is the ugliest, most unsettling paedobaptism picture I could find.

P.P.S. I came across this quote the other day, which is a logical conclusion but based on the same confounding of head with body:

“Not to warn parents of the dangers of not baptizing must be seen in light of Genesis 17. Not to have the sign is to be rejected by God; to be his self declared enemy. God told Abraham not that he would only love him but that he would also love his children.”

Surely they which are of faith are the children of Abraham?

And this one from Dr. R. Scott Clark:

“The complementary messages of the the NPP and FV are corrupting. They are corrupting of the peace of the churches. They are corrupting of the assurance of believers. They are corrupting of the gospel itself. In the case of the NPP, the radical re-definition of “justification” from “forensic declaration by God that a sinner is accepted by God on the sole basis of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness and received the faith resting and receiving alone” to a socio-religious boundary marker is nothing if not a corruption.”

What I find most amazing is that I agree with everything the Federal Vision theologians say about baptism, but only if it is limited to credo-baptism. If they refrained from baptizing infants, their “boundary-marking” theology would make total sense to me. And to John Piper!

John Piper explains why he invited Doug Wilson to speak at DG’s Fall conference, here.

“Then there is Blomberg’s misunderstanding of the relationship of the Reformers and culture.

‘Fixate on the Reformers’ (understandable) preoccupation with how an individual becomes right with God (crucial in its day against medieval Catholicism) and one may miss the bigger picture, in which the fulfillment of God’s covenant with Abraham through the children of Israel as progenitor of the Messiah looms even larger.’

Notice what is being juxtaposed here. The Reformers had an individualistic fixation on getting individuals into heaven when they die. But we, upon whom the new perspective has shone, now understand that there is a “bigger picture.” I see. And what did the Reformers do with their narrow vision? Well, they toppled kings, transformed laws, overhauled cultures, settled a continent, built nations, founded schools and colleges, inspired musicians and painters, and we could continue in this vein for quite a while. And what do we do, entranced as we are by the new perspective? We write academic papers, download podcasts of academic lectures that we can listen to in the privacy of our ear buds, and we go white in the face if conservative Christians suggest that Jesus might have an opinion about the ongoing slaughter of the unborn. John Piper, with his preaching on the pro-life issue, challenges the principalities and powers. The soft statism that goes with trendy theology these days does nothing of the kind — it simply suggests (but not too loudly) that we need kinder, gentler principalities and powers.”