Eschatology Matters
What Is the Reformed View Of Baptism?
Ryan Seacrest here, when you have a busy schedule, it's important to maximize your downtime. One of the best ways to do that is by going to Chumbah Casino.com. Chumbah Casino has all your favorite social casino games, like spin slots, bingo, and solitaire that you can play for free for a chance to redeem some serious prizes. So hop on to Chumbah Casino.com now and live the Chumbalife. Sponsored by Chumbah Casino, no purchase necessary. VGW Group, void where prohibited by law, 18 plus terms and conditions apply. If you're a facilities manager at a warehouse, and your HVAC system goes down, it can turn up the heat, literally. But don't sweat it, Granger has you covered. Granger offers over a million industrial grade products for all your operations, including warehouse HVAC maintenance. And even better, they offer access to experts and fast delivery, so you and your warehouse can both keep your cool. Call 1-800-Granger, click Ranger.com, or just stop by. Granger, for the ones who get it done. Welcome back to Eschatology Matters on the fight-laugh-face network. I'm your host, Josh Howard, and we've got a special conversation today concerning the Reformed view of baptism. But first, are you a Christian struggling to find companies that align with your values and beliefs? Squirrely, Joe's has you covered for all your coffee needs. All their coffee is hand-selected and roasted fresh every day by a family of fellow believers. Try them out, and you'll savor exceptional coffee while knowing that your investment supports a company committed to following God's teachings and upholding truth and righteousness, ensuring your hard-earned money contributes to the growth of God's kingdom. Stop giving your hard-earned dollars to pagans who support evil. We also have a fantastic offer for our listeners, your first bag of coffee, with Squirrely Joe's is free, all you have to do is cover the shipping. So head over to SquirrelyJoe's.com/ematters and claim your free bag of coffee. So today, I'm joined by two Eschatology Matters contributors, one you probably know by his face, one you might not, but I'm going to introduce Corey first, Corey Hall. If you have watched any of our, or excuse me, not watched, but if you've heard any of our podcasts, especially on Spotify or on Apple podcast or any of those podcasting platforms, that's due to Corey's work behind the scenes. So Corey, thank you so much for joining us and by face today. Yeah, it's weird being visual. Yeah, all sorts of uncomfortable, isn't it? Yeah. So now, Corey Hall, you're going to have some questions, and this is kind of from a conversation that you and Stephen had had, but Stephen Baker, many of you guys know Stephen from, if you haven't seen him at one of the conferences, Stephen has an awesome series on Eschatology for Kids, and he's done some other work. So Stephen, great to be chatting with you again, brother. Great to be here again. Thank you. So I don't know which one of you wants to lead off, but from what you guys were walking through on the front end, this is the main topic, the topic du jour is going to be the Reformed view of baptism. We can do all the qualifications and obviously note that we're not going to cover this, you know, in its entirety, many, many other resources out there that we might even recommend a few at the end. That might be a good form, but this came from a conversation with you guys, and that's part of the kind of impetus for Eschatology matters. So every time we present our, our, you know, different walkthroughs or different series here at Eschatology matters, we try to make clear that this is from a broadly reformed perspective. We have many disagreeing views. We have many different faith traditions. Even within the Reformed, broadly Reformed camp, there's many of us who have, you know, very substantive disagreements on things, but we hold most of those things in charity, and we want to aim toward kingdom growth, even while making those differences clear. And I think that's one of the reasons for this conversation is to at least clarify what we're saying and what we're not saying and where those lines, where those lines are. So what I'm looking at today as, and I get this impression from you guys as well, is that this is more of a conversation to clarify where our camps actually are, what we are actually making the case for as opposed to maybe a debate we're trying to, you know, prove someone else's viewpoint is wrong. There may be some room for that, but we also want to make clear what we're actually saying. I've already talked way too much. Stephen, I'm just going to go ahead and kind of give the floor over to you and we'll get this thing going. Sure. Well, thank you, Corey, I'm looking forward to this time together and my, I know our hope together is like Josh said, not to have a fight about this, but to clarify and understand each other and so one of the views, the view of baptism that I hold is covenantal, pedobaptism. So reformed covenantal, pedobaptism. I think there are a lot of misunderstandings about that view and so I do welcome the opportunity to explain it and to help it perhaps make sense, at least you don't have to agree, but it's good to know what you're disagreeing with when you're, when we have differing views. It's true in eschatology, it's easy to straw man, every other position besides your own. And we don't want to do that. That's not charitable and it doesn't bring us to the unity of the faith in any good way. So one of the things that I think it's important to say about baptism that we would, that a pedobaptist and evangelical, cratobaptist and an evangelical reform, pedobaptist would agree on. There's all kinds of things we agree on. And one of them is we are not sacramentalists. Okay, so there are, there are views of pedobaptism. I think this is something that's easy for cratobaptists to just assume about pedobaptists is that pedobaptists are sacramentalists. So what, by sacramentalist, I mean, there's something magic about baptism that changes you. So there, there are certainly sacramentalist, pedobaptists, Roman Catholics are sacramentalist. They believe that when an infant is baptized, he is a, a look at that, sorry, sorry about that. I can't, I count with my thumb, so it's going to be a problem. Don't do this. I didn't know that happened. We keep it lively here on, on eschatology matters. Roman Catholics say that you, when you're, when an infant is baptized, he, he has original sin washed away and receives the Holy Spirit by the act of being baptized. Lutherans believe that baptism confers faith, saving faith to an infant. And I as, as reformed and distinction from both of those would reject that, and I'm assuming core you would reject that as well. So not all pedobaptists are have any, have, have something to do with sacramentalism. Of course they are cratobaptist, sacramentalists as well. My neck of the woods down here in southern Indiana is filled with them. The Christian church, the Campbellites, believe in baptismal regeneration of professing Christians by immersion. Okay. So they're cratobaptist, sacramentalists. So that's weird, but I know you don't believe that. So, you know, we've got to, we've got to make sure we, we, we get all that out of the way. So that leaves the question of what, what do we, what does a, an evangelical, reformed, confessional, covenantal, pedobaptist, where do we get, pedobaptism from? So that's the question. Do you want me to talk about that? Just kind of lay it out. Is that okay, Corinne? What do you have? What would you like me to do? Yeah. I'll tell you what, let me, let me hop in here just for a second. You've laid my position out so that we have an understanding of, you know, where, where we lie on the spectrums and then, and then I'll let you do that if you don't care. So when we had this, I've had this conversation prior with someone else and it was a conversation that was probably done disingenuously because it was actually done kind of piggybacking off of a comment you made about two years ago at our first conference that we had and you made that comment about the reform view of, of pedobaptism and you know, I'm, I'm basically, this is why they don't let me on a microphone here and I'm only allowed to be in the background typing on the computer and uploading the content is because I'm basically everything wrong with the world is, is I'm, I'm not reformed. I would probably, I wouldn't call myself an Armenian at all because I can't jump on board the Armenian train. I don't believe my salvation is based off of my works nor do I believe I can lose my salvation. But I also can't jump head on into the reformed world either. So I would, I would call myself centrist reformed leaning if I had to label myself. You know, you guys have had an effect on me, but you know, I'm also, I'm also more dispensationalist in a lot of my views and I'm, you know, I'm, I'm Baptist, I'm Southern Baptist, I'm a credo Baptist, you know, solely. So that's kind of the way I've come out, I come at this. That's my convictions of scripture. That's my doctrinal view for 30,000 feet, but, but when you said that I had never heard a distinction of that, like that there's more than one view of pedobaptism and that there's this reform view. So I kept that in the back of my mind and then after I had that conversation later, it was in the respect of what you had said, but you and I had not personally connected yet. And then after we connected, we kind of had that conversation and said, well, we should talk about that sometime and finally here we are. So I think thank you for laying out a lot of the, the basics of this. You know, I think we would agree on the statement that, that baptism is not salvific in nature. I don't think we're going to have to hash that out. You know, I don't think either of us fall. I know I don't. I know you don't. We don't follow who will have bad people regeneration, water doesn't save you, but there are some questions and some ideas that I can't reconcile even, even having said that, that baptism doesn't save you, but then looking at it from the paid oh bad, just viewpoint. You know, I guess what we're looking for is I want to see some of the nuance of this and I want that better understanding. So if nobody is educated by this beyond me, then hopefully we've gone somewhere. Let me ask one thing to going forward guys, because we're kind of walking into it and I know you guys are going to get into some of the details and things of that nature. Just maybe like a, I don't want to say like a 10 second definition, but like real succinct definition, because Corey, you're talking about cradle baptism. Um, Steven, you were talking about see there the thumbs up went. I'm trying to turn this off. By the way, if anybody has a comment, they can leave on this video and tell me how to do this. I'm old. Do any thumbs down? Yeah. Yeah. I'm scared to do any. I'm going to keep my hands on my lap. I have ears or a Bundy nose or something. That's always fun. Yeah. I know what happens when I do two thumbs up and we won't do that. That'll derail the whole video. But, um, yeah. So Corey, so you were talking about cradle baptism, maybe give a quick, you know, real hard and fast definition of that. And then, um, Steven, you're talking about covenantal, pedobabtism, maybe give a hard and fast definition of that. Sure. Corey. Yes. Cradle baptism would be what we would call believers baptism that baptism is in the new Testament is designed and set apart as the outward demonstration of the inward work of Christ for the believer, um, the mature believer that has been regenerated through Christ, um, that has come to a safe in faith. Okay. Very good. Stephen. Well, so covenantal, pedobabtism, reformed covenantal, pedobabtism holds that, um, bat that, uh, paid, uh, that baptism is the sign and seal of the covenant of grace, right? It's the, it's the visible sign. And that it is to be given to believers and their children, uh, because not because it saves them, not because it gives them the Holy Spirit, not because it makes them safer than a unbaptized child somehow, but that it's the, the visible sign of the fact that these children, uh, are in some sense in covenant with God. Very good. Okay. I'll make a case for that, I'll try to make a case for that. Okay. Which one of you guys wants to go first, maybe giving a brief case for your, your particular view on that, Stephen, do you want to lead off with that? And then we can see that that's, that's, that's, that's, sure. So, um, there's something about what, what you find all through scripture is, uh, signs of the covenants. You have covenant signs and it's important to really figure out before we get to baptism, what do covenant signs do and what do they not do? And so covenant signs, you, you have them all through, uh, you know, the, the old testament, obviously the no way at covenant has a sign. It's the rainbow, uh, the, the Abrahamic covenant has a sign that circumcision, the mosaic covenant obviously continues with circumcision, but also had known as the Sabbath and so on. You have these signs, these visible signs, um, the, the key thing is that covenant signs do not produce the covenant or another way to put it, ligand, dunk it, ligand, Duncan says something like a covenant signs do not affect a relationship. They reflect a relationship. They, so covenant signs don't produce the relationship, uh, they, they, they reflect the fact that a relationship already exists or that a covenant already exists. So when God hung the, hung his bow in the clouds, right, that didn't make the covenant. It was the sign of the covenant. He, it was the sign that his covenant had already been made and it was a visible reminder to all creation and to himself, if you read about it, you know, and, and the no way at covenant that, uh, this covenant stands. Same thing with circumcision. God enters into a covenant with Abraham. The covenant sign follows, right? So it doesn't, the covenant sign does not produce the covenant reality, uh, sacraments. This is the word, this is probably a term that, um, typically is not really popular among, especially among Crato Baptist, Pato Baptist, reformed tradition tends to speak of these things as sacraments, the Lord's Supper and, um, baptism, uh, Crato Baptist tend to speak more in terms of ordinances, which is fine where there's no, you know, that, that's fine by me. Uh, but we think of the sacraments as, um, uh, visual signs of spiritual realities. Okay. Uh, sensible, visible physical signs of spiritual blessings, um, they, they, they, they represent by outward actions gospel truths. That's, that's how that's kind of a classic definition of sacraments, which would include the Lord's Supper and baptism. So that's what we, so sign, the sign of, uh, baptism fits in with that and that pattern all through what that we find all through the Old Testament. So there are four things for really, um, arguments, threads of argument that I, that, that convinced me I, uh, I have been a, I was a Crato Baptist for most of my, you know, all of my Christian life and ministry until about three or about three or four years ago. And it was by having to teach through and study, um, covenant theology that, that made me change my mind on this. And so there are four things that I would lay out and I'll just do it really briefly if, if I can, number one is federal headship, I'll list them for you. The reality of federal headship, um, secondly, the corporate and generational nature of all of God's covenants, uh, third, the link between circumcision and baptism and fourth, the reality of apostasy and the new covenant. So these are the kind of the threads that I would, that I would pull together. Um, so federal headship just means covenant headship. So this is, um, you know, as in Adam all die. So in Christ shall all be made alive. That's covenant language, uh, where you have those who are represented by Adam. So when Adam breaks the covenant of works, all who are represented by Adam, the whole human race, uh, die in him and, but in Christ, the, the head of the, the new covenant, all who are in Christ received the blessing of life from him because of his obedience. So that's federal headship. Um, you see this, you know, uh, when Joshua says, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord, you see this with Aiken, uh, when it's, it's not just Aiken, who's, who suffers for his sin, but his whole family, um, you see, you see this reality of covenant headship all the way through the Old Testament, um, certainly between Adam and Christ. And so covenants, this is how covenants work. And they, they work that way, uh, at the big level and at the small level. So at the level of Adam and Christ, but also at the level of nation and household, okay? And so all of God's covenants, this is my second point, are covenant or a multi-generational and corporate, okay? They're, they're corporate and they're generational. And so in the, these are the terms, you'll, you know, we could go through all kinds of passages. I don't want to take the time to, but in the Noeic covenant, it's, uh, you and your household, um, all your descendants after you, that's the language of the Noeic covenant, the Abrahamic covenant. Of course, your descendants, you know, I will be God to you and your descendants after you. I will give to you and your descendants. I will be their God, you know, descendants, Abraham's household, um, uh, those are the terms of the, of the Abrahamic covenant. You see the same thing in the mosaic covenant. Um, you see it in the, in the Passover, uh, you know, the first Passover event in the land of Egypt where the households are spared, um, by the act of the head of the household and, and a band God's commands with the blood and with the Passover, Lamb and all of that. And it's explicitly given in terms of, I will spare your home, I'll spare your household, those kinds of things. Um, God visits the iniquity of the fathers on the children on the third and fourth generations of those who hate me, but showing loving kindness to thousands, to those who love me and keep my commandments, those, that kind of language in the, in the mosaic covenant on and on. Um, Deuteronomy 30, uh, says this for six, Moreover, the Lord, your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants to love the Lord, your God with all your heart and with all your soul so that you may live. So there's a, a promise in the, in the old covenant scriptures about, uh, pointing to something that's not just physical circumcision, but heart circumcision. So that'll come up again in a minute. Um, so anyway, you see this all through the old covenant, all the covenants in scripture. You see it, of course, with the Davidic covenant, it's all about David and his descendants. So it's corporate. Hey, it is Ryan Seacrest. There's something so thrilling about playing Chumbah Casino. Maybe it's the simple reminder that with a little luck, anything is possible. Chumbah Casino.com has hundreds of social casino style games to choose from with new game releases each week. Play for free anytime, anywhere for your chance to redeem some serious prizes. Join me in the fun. Sign up now at Chumbah Casino.com, sponsored by Chumbah Casino. No purchase necessary, VGW Group, void where prohibited by law, 18 plus terms and conditions apply. First-cription products require completion of an online medication consultation with an independent healthcare provider through the LifeMD platform and are only available if prescribed. Subscription required. Individual results may vary. Additional restrictions apply at LifeMD.com. Read all warnings before using GLP1s. Side effects may include a risk of thyroid T-cell tumors. Do not use GLP1s if you or your family have a history of thyroid cancer. If you've struggled for years to lose weight and have given up hope, did you know you can now access GLP1 prescription medications through LifeMD? LifeMD is now offering eligible patients online access to GLP1s, the breakthrough prescription medication that can help you lose body fat and weight. Listen to what people are saying. You just take your shot. It doesn't feel like you're on a diet. What I wasn't expecting it to do was to shut off the food noise. This was life altering, and if I can do it, I feel like anybody can do it. And here's the best part. Your insurance may cover 100% of the cost of your medication, so go to trylifemd.com and to have your eligibility checked right now, get started today at trylifemd.com. It's not just individual, it's corporate, and it's multi-generational. And you see this, I would argue, you see the exact same pattern in the new covenant. This is where we're going to disagree. This is where one of the places that is like a fundamental disagreement between crate of abaptists and pato-baptists. A crate of abaptists, when I was a crate of abaptists, I would have argued, one of my arguments would be that there's a difference, there's a shift. When you move into the new covenant, where you have different terms and the covenant structure itself is different. But the fact is, as far as I'm concerned, as far as I see in Scripture, you do have, even in the promises of the new covenant, the prophecies of the coming new covenant. You have the same kind of corporate, multi-generational language. So let me read some of these to you. Isaiah 59, 21, as for me, this is my covenant with them, says the Lord, my spirit, which is upon you, and my words which I put in your mouth shall not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your offspring, nor from the mouth of your offspring's offspring, says the Lord from now and forever. So that new covenant language, that promise of the spirit that is picked up very explicitly later in Jeremiah, especially Jeremiah 31 to 32, says this, "Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah." So there you have corporate, the new covenant, explicitly the new covenant promise is made with groups, the house of Israel, the house of Judah. And then Jeremiah 32, 38 and 39, "They shall be my people, and I will be their God, and I will give them one heart and one way." So this is that promise of the new covenant, that they may fear me always for their own good and for the good of their children after them. So when covenant theologians, people who pulled the covenant theology, look at the patterns. You see federal headship, corporate and multi-generational, that this is how covenants work, okay? And so he makes a covenant with a federal head. He makes it corporately, including with the children and the descendants of those heads of household or heads of nations or heads of covenants. And what a covenant theology says, that's like the thread, that's the cable that binds together the whole scripture from beginning to end, is this covenant reality, this covenantal. This is how God works, and there's a unity to that work. And there are differences between the covenants, yes, but there's also this underlying unity that makes them all function very similarly. And so when you turn to the New Testament scriptures, what I would say, what we would say is we have to let the Old Covenant, the Old Testament scriptures, the Hebrew scriptures, teach us how to read the New Testament, especially when it comes to this kind of thing like covenants. So when you come to the New Testament, you have Jesus, Luke 18, where it says they were bringing even their babies to him, so that he would touch them. And this does not mean that I think Jesus had sweaty palms and was baptizing by virtue of the sweat on his hands, I've actually heard that argument and it's silly, but here's what's going on. They were bringing even their babies to him so that he would touch them. But when the disciples saw it, they began rebuking him, but Jesus called for them saying, permit the children to come to me and do not hinder them for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these, right? And truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter into it at all. So I would argue covenant theology has a category for that, okay? The inclusion of children in some kind of covenantal blessing makes sense because that's what you see all through the Old Testament. When you come to the book of Acts, places like Acts to 38 to 39, where this is in the Peter Sermon on the day of Pentecost, repent, each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit for the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off as far as as many as the Lord our God will call to himself so that there's like this language of multi-generational, there's a multi-generational language even there. We can come back and talk about that in a minute. Acts 10, you have Cornelius in his household, Acts 16, you have Lydia in her household. You have the Philippian jailer in his household. You have Christmas in his household. You have Staphanis in 1 Corinthians in his household. And so that household language is certainly in the New Testament. And that makes just that's just as a natural thing to expect when you read all of the household language and all the covenants prior to the new covenant. And it makes so these things are assumed in the New Testament. So you have covenant headship is assumed, the corporate nature of the new covenants assumed and the children and in fact, whole households, which is another thing, you know, you could think about this, but it's like the whole households are being baptized. So we know the nature of the of the ancient the households in the ancient world. This would have almost certainly have included children of all ages and even servants in the household. But that was also true in Abraham's household. They were all circumcised. So you have that kind of language just assumed and used without explanation, I would argue because the two thirds of the Bible prior to this is the explanation, okay, the way that covenants work. And then you have my way of thinking about this, I believe, what I have come to see, you know, in my study of scripture, is that mindset helps me understand passages like 1 Corinthians 7, where he's talking about the unbelieving husband is sanctified through his wife. The unbelieving wife is sanctified through her husband, believing husband for otherwise your children are unclean, but now they're holy. I don't mean I don't think that means they are saved or they are regenerate or anything like that. But there's there's a covenantal this headship going on there with them. Ephesians, you know, children obey your parents in the Lord, bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord, that's covenantal language. Children be obedient to your parents, Colossians, this is well pleasing to the Lord. So even our children are to be raised in some sense in relationship to Christ. That's assumed that that's that's what's behind those commandments. So so here's my point, okay, up to this up to this point, or so far, covenants always involve headship and representation. They always involve corporate bodies like the whole human race or nations or households or the whole elect body of those who are in Christ. And covenants always include descendants. And so the new covenant doesn't change any of that. The new covenant doesn't change any of that. That's how covenants work. And so let me just close this and there's one more big point, but we'll get to that in a minute. I want you to hear your reaction to this. Just think about it like this, if you're in Israelite, okay, and you're living under the Abrahamic covenant and the Mosaic covenant at the time of Christ's incarnation and ministry. This is their paradigm. You hear the preaching of the apostles. You're steeped in the realities of God's covenants and how covenants work and have always worked. And you hear Christ and the apostles saying things like this, permit the little children to come to me, for of such is the kingdom of God, right, for the promises to you and your children and to all who are far off as many as the Lord or God will call, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you'll be saved, you and your household. Fathers don't provoke your children to anger, bring them up in the disciplined instruction of the Lord. Children obey your parents in the Lord, for otherwise your children are unclean, but now they're holy. You hear all this language. You've come up through God's covenants. This is the whole background of everything that you know about God. And you hear all that language. You're steeped in the reality, the history of the covenants. You hear all this. What are you supposed to think? What are you supposed to think? Ah, well, you know, I can clearly see that now in the new covenant, federal headship is gone, corporate bodies are gone, children are gone. Those are exactly the things you would never think. You would just, it would never enter your mind to think such things. If you have the whole backdrop of everything that God has done prior to this moment in the old covenant scriptures and you hear this language, it's like, yeah, make sense. That makes sense. Yep. I know what he's talking about. You'd hear about the representational, corporate, familial, generational language from Christ in his apostles and you just think, yeah, that's perfectly normal. That's familiar. That's covenantal. I get it. It would make perfect sense. So that's the, the, the Old Testament. That's kind of like the biblical theology understanding of covenantal infant baptism. We're not baptizing them to make them a part of the covenant. We're baptizing them because they already are a part of the covenant and they are to be raised up in the covenant in the fear and instruction and discipline of the Lord. And they are to obey their parents in the Lord and they'll be welcomed into the blessing of Christ in terms of this covenant relationship. I know there's all kinds of questions that would go along with that. So I'll stop them and see if that makes sense to you. You don't have to even, Corey, do you want to do, I'm assuming you're probably going to want to do a response then maybe in some questions to what he did or do you have a positive presentation or is yours going to be more of a response to what he just laid out? Probably a little bit more of a response. Okay. Very good. Yeah. So, um, well, let me, well, this might need to be a two parter. Let's go to acts two 38 real quick, repent and be baptized with every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the, for the forgiveness of sins and you'll receive the home ghost. Um, this, this is a, a command to a mature individual for a pen baptism followed. Yes. Um, the great commission, Matthew 28, 19 and 20 go and make disciples of all nations baptizing baptism came after they were made to be disciples. Yes. All throughout the New Testament, baptism is an act that is done by the mature believer. Um, one of my hang ups with, with all of this is pretty rudimentary, I guess, um, face value. I can't help but think of the word baptized. I mean, we're using the word baptized here. We're talking about baptizing infants and, um, you know, before we got on, you said that, you know, you're not Eastern Orthodox. You're not baptized, literally dunking infants, which is a form of child abuse, I think, uh, they do it at the YMCA all the time. Well, it's one thing to dunk your four year old when you won't take a bath. That's another thing to dunk your four month old. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. Anyway, um, I'm with you. We're baptized. Baptismo meant to be mercy, um, so the command go and baptize, go and immerse, um, if we're not immersing, um, infants, you know, I've, I believe that there is grace in Christ, obviously. I think that if someone, you know, to the example of if someone that's in a wheelchair that can't be put into water or comes and they want to be, uh, baptized at the church, do you, you know, I believe there's grace in saying we can just pour water over your head and, and God honors that, um, due to this condition. But the prescription in scripture, and I believe for the majority of the time, it should be followed is not the one offs where we allow great, you know, allow grace to be warranted in that circumstance is to follow the biblical prescription. The biblical prescription was to immerse a believer that had already become a disciple. Um, and even in the, the few verses I gave you real quick, um, you know, um, Romans, uh, sorry, uh, Romans six, four, um, we were therefore buried with him through baptism into death. Um, I guess let me ask this question if you, if you can give a, you know, somewhat of a quick response. Yeah. What, what symbolic nature of being buried in Christ through baptism does infant baptism hold. How does an infant baptism justify Romans six, four, when it says we are therefore buried with him through baptism. If that person hasn't reached a salvific understanding of Christ, so, um, there, there are three things you said, so I'll, I'll get, I'll, I'll do that one first, but I want to go back as well. Okay. You got to let me do that. Um, so, uh, baptism, the way that covenant signs work. So I would imagine that you don't think I'm, I'm just going to assume this because you could read Romans six and, and convince yourself to be a sacramentalist that in baptism, we are buried with Christ and we are raised, you know, raised, that, that there's like this ontological, something happens to me. Something happens to my being when I'm baptized, when I'm baptized, I am somehow crucified with Christ. I die with Christ. I'm buried with them and raised up with them in his resurrection. You would not, I'm, I'm sure you wouldn't say, and I wouldn't say that the act of baptism alone produces those things. Am I, am I right to assume that? No, I don't believe baptism has any salvific nature at all. Right. So it represents, but I do believe that it, it represents, I believe it represents the first order of, of the believer becoming obedient to Christ and I don't believe you can have obedience without, I don't believe you can have a full obedience in Christ without baptism. So in that respect, I guess, I do believe that, that it does something to solidify that walk and that walk. It's not meaningless. It's, it's very significant, but it's, my point is in Romans six, what you have is the kind of things that you find in scripture about covenant signs. So covenant signs are often spoken of as if they were the covenant itself. Okay, so the covenant of is circumcision, circumcision is the covenant, okay? But we know it's not literally, but it's, it's the sign of the covenant. And so all the things that circumcision pointed to are created by the, by the act of circumcision, but they're pointed to. So if this gets back to this whole, the idea that there is in fact a connection between circumcision and baptism, okay? They basically symbolize the same things. They symbolize inclusion and exclusion from the covenant community. If you're not circumcised, you are to be cut off. You know, if you don't cut it off, you're to be cut off. That's, that's literally the language in Genesis. Um, was never in the Old Testament was never seen as merely an outward act. There is a circumcised your heart, you know, then the promise that God said, I will circumcised your heart. There's this, there's a, there's a inward fun radical change that circumcision points to a spiritual reality. It doesn't create that change. It points to it, all right? And so there's, there's all this similarity and what baptism points to that's very similar to what circumcision points to baptism and Romans six, you see this, you know, those who are baptized into Christ have been baptized into his death, buried with him through baptism into death. Baptism works the same way circumcision did, a visible sign of a spiritual reality shows us that we need to be cleansed from our sins, that we are united with Christ with his death and resurrection. And so circumcision and baptism point to the same things. And now you're going to say, aha, see, that's exactly what you're saying. In other words, you're saying the cradle Baptist is, is going to say that how can you, how can baptism actually point to those things if they're not true of the person being baptized? Exactly. Is that fair? I want to be. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. So, okay, so let's go back to Abraham. You said a minute ago that Abraham or that the baptism in the New Testament is administered to mature believers, adult mature believers. And I would say yes, and so is circumcision. Lucky land slots asking people, what's the weirdest place you've gotten lucky? Lucky? In line at the deli, I guess? Aha, in my dentist's office. More than once, actually. Do I have to say? Yes, you do. In the car before my kids' PTA meeting? Really? Yes. Excuse me, what's the weirdest place you've gotten lucky? I never win and tell. Well, there you have it. You could get lucky anywhere playing at luckylandslots.com. Play for free right now. Are you feeling lucky? Don't purchase necessary. VGW Group would be recruited by law 18+ terms and conditions apply. Is your vehicle stopping like it should? Does it squeal or grind when you break? Don't miss out on summer break deals at O'Reilly Auto Parts. O'Reilly Auto Parts. Circumcision, when Abraham was circumcised, he wasn't an adult mature believer. And so Paul's at pains to talk about that, no pun intended, in Romans 4, when he talks about Abraham being circumcised as a sign and seal of the faith that he had before he was circumcised, right? And so you would say, "Well, yeah, exactly. That's the pattern." Abraham believed and it was credited to him as righteousness, and then he was circumcised. But what about Isaac? What about Jacob? About all the sons of Abraham for generations and generations. So you do have the existence of adult circumcision in the Old Covenant. But then from that point, in that household, the sons are circumcised. I think you see exactly that in the New Covenant, in the New Testament. When you're preaching to whether they're Jew or Gentile, people who have not been baptized, you preach to them and you say, "You must be baptized." But then in the same breath, an ex to Peter says, "And your household." He says to the Philippian jailer, "And your household." You see them baptizing their households. So I think it's more of a stretch to say that every one of those, given the covenant framework of Scripture, that makes sense. If there is no covenant framework of Scripture, the baptism follows, right, then your left was saying, "Oh, yes, all of the members of the household were baptized. Every one of them was old enough to consciously repent and believe." They all did, in fact, repent and believe. And that's why they were baptized. I think that's a harder argument to make. I think that's the real argument from silence, because a covenant framework coming from the Old Covenant and all the covenants in the Old Testament make sense of that, regardless of the age of the child. I don't have to know the age of the child. It doesn't matter. It's a household baptism because that's how covenants work. So I'd go back to Abraham. So covenants, the signs are visible, outward symbols of invisible realities. That's what I think Paul is talking about in Romans 6. I know that your question also had to do with mode, so immersion. I mean, we immerse in my church, we practice both paido and creative baptism, and our basic default mode is immersion. When we have an infant, we sprinkle, but there's a lot of biblical and linguistic evidence that sprinkling is certainly has similar symbolic meaning or has similarly significant symbolic meaning, sprinkling dust, all through scripture. And I don't want to argue about mode. I think it's to insist that the only baptism that's valid, I know you're not saying this because you just said it, that you don't. But to insist that the only baptism that's valid is immersion, I think, or that the only mode that's valid is sprinkling. I think both of those arguments are missed the point. And you see this in the early church in the Didickay, which is a very early church document. You have a priority kind of a mode of baptism. You've got the first mode, oops, there I did it again, the first mode. Do two thumbs, just for giggles, do two thumbs, is it doing it? There you go. You just won the debate, that's it. The first mode in the Didickay is cold running water. The second mode is standing water, the third mode is pouring and the fourth mode is sprinkling. They basically weren't obsessed with or caught up with mode as being the most important thing. It's what it signifies. It's like bread and wine, we could get into big arguments about whether you have to have unleavened bread or not unleavened bread or whether you have to have wine or are allowed to have juice and Calvin, when he was faced with that argument, would say, you guys are being superstitious, stop it. It's not the point. The point is not the precision at that level. Right. Well, I'm Baptist and we've got stock in Welch's. But let me ask this next question, 1 Corinthians 12 verse 13 for we are all baptized by one spirit as to form one body, whether Jews are genital, slave or free, and we were all given one spirit to drink. What symbolic nature of being baptized into the body of Christ as disciples does infant baptism hold? Okay, the same symbolic nature that circumcision held, a member of the covenant community. So, for example, when a Jewish infant boy was circumcised, that signaled that he was a member of the visible covenant community. It was literally a mark that you'd carry the rest of his life. And so to be circumcised outwardly meant something. And as we know from the history of the Old Testament, there were times in the history of the Jews where the majority of the people were circumcised in the flesh but not in any way circumcised in the heart. And yet, when God brought upon them the nations to punish them and to discipline them as his people, he did it for breaking his covenant, for breaking the covenant. They were covenant breakers. They were not regenerate and yet they were held accountable to the stipulations of the covenant. Okay? Does that make sense? So, Reform theology holds that you have exactly the same situation in the church. You have what we call the visible church and the invisible church. The visible church is all professing believers and their children. That's what the Westminster Confession says. The invisible church is made up of the elect of all times and places throughout history who truly, who have true and living faith. So, it's the same situation that you have in the Old Covenant. This is one of the real sticking points between Crater Baptist and Pater Baptist. This was my last sticking point that really held me back or that I had to overcome in order to change my mind about Pater Baptist. So the one way to talk about it is that the New Testament church either is or is not a mixed covenant community. So, if you read stuff by Crater Baptist, lately it's going to be progressive covenantal type authors who are talking about this a lot and they're going to want to argue that the New Testament church here I have a quote for you that the church, this is from a kingdom through covenant, a very popular book on progressive covenantalism. The church unlike Israel is new because she is comprised of a regenerate believing people rather than a mixed group. It's the essence of the difference or the argument. In the Old Testament, infant boys are circumcised and that makes them part of the covenant community. Some of them then are also circumcised of heart and so they're a part of the covenant in a vital way, not just an external way, but even if they're only a member in an external way, they are responsible for the stipulations and the commands and the violations of the covenant and God holds them accountable to that very plainly throughout the Old Testament. So you have exactly the same thing in the New Covenant. And I think you, Stephen, what is the legal vital? Would that be correct language we could use there? That'd be perfect. Yeah, that's fine. That's good language. So you have an outward, I call it outward, an inward or outward and vital, but legal and vital is great. So you have in the book of Hebrews, okay, you have those passages that all of us get uncomfortable with because they seem to be saying things that we just don't like that seem to speak of the ability to lose your salvation. But there's one in, I'll grab a Bible here, you have them in Hebrews 6, but then it intensifies and intensifies throughout the book of Hebrews till you get to Hebrews chapter 10, and you have this. So if we go on sending willfully, this is Hebrews 10 verse 26, make sure that's the right place. I believe it is. Yes. For if we go on sending willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries, anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much severe punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled under foot the son of God and as regarded as unclean, the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified and has insulted the spirit of grace for we know him who said vengeance is mine, I will repay. And again, the Lord will judge his people and is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God. This is obviously old covenant language. It's he's quoting from the Old Testament here, the Lord will judge his people and this is a warning given to someone who has been sanctified by the blood of the covenant. He's not talking about an old covenant person, he's talking about a Christian, he's talking about the son of God, he's talking about Christ. So there's a situation here where a man has was in the covenant in some sense you could say he says sanctified by the blood of the covenant is a member of God's people, member of God's people and yet he has broken the covenant, he's trampled it under foot and he will be punished for this, just like all of God's people, the Jews and the old covenant who did not believe and yet were covenant breakers because they really were part of the covenant in this outward legal sense, right? You have exactly the same situation here and that hit me like a ton of bricks. And then I saw things like when Jesus says, "I am the vine, you are the branches, any branch in me that does not bear fruit, God cuts it off, throws it into the fire. Any branch in me, in me," he cuts off and throws into the fire. You have the olive tree in Romans 11 where branches are broken off because of their unbelief and the wild olive branches, the Gentiles are grafted in, but don't be proud, don't be arrogant because if you don't believe he will break you off too and he's able to gray-graft the Jews in, there's this, I believe that is the covenant, the covenant of grace that we are grafted into by faith, but there's a sense in which we can be certainly broken off. I'm not an erminian, I don't think you can lose your salvation, so there has to be another way of understanding those passages. So that means, I believe that apostasy is possible in the new covenant because there's such a thing as the visible and invisible church, just like there was in the old covenant. So the passages to get back to your question from 1 Corinthians about being baptized into one body. I think there's an outward sense that we're in the body of Christ and there's an inward vital sense that we're in the inward body of the real, the living union with Christ. And they're not the same thing. Roman Catholics will say that to be baptized into the church is to be baptized into Christ period, to be baptized is to receive the Holy Spirit, to be baptized is to be elect, to be baptized is to be regenerate, but you can lose all of that. You can become unregenerate and unelect by your actions because they will not see, they refuse to see a distinction between the visible church and the invisible church. This is the error of federal vision as well. So that's a distinction they don't want to hold on to. I'm curious too, to just get like, Corey, what are your thoughts on some of this, not to cut you off at all, Stephen, but like just to hear maybe like a little, I don't know, feedback or push back on any of that, what do you think? So going back to, you kept talking about the, you know, the consistency of the covenants from all just into the New Testament. I would say that the covenantal string that you mentioned is Christ, that Christ is that covenantal string. He is the constant that takes us from the old covenant, the old law even into the covenant of grace, into the fulfillment of the law. You know, when you talked about the children coming to Christ, I look at that and I see that imagery of the humility that we have to come to Christ as children, you know, believing in faith that God is able to redeem us. Again, I go back to Acts, chapter two, repent be baptized. That wasn't in my view that in my understanding of this, this was a very, very personalized individual statement. This wasn't generational at all. That was, that was talking to individuals and saying, you need to repent, repentance. And I'm not saying that you're saying this, repentance is not a generational act. I can't repent for anybody. Absolutely. I would completely agree with you. And I know you do. And, you know, and I think I could even have my children, you know, if you want to use I'm, I'm, I guess maybe it's semantics that I'm stuck on. It's mode. I'm stuck on because I don't want to use the word baptized because when I think baptism, I think of it from the biblical lens and from the biblical lens, baptism is an act that was reserved for the believer, for the mature believer. There is, I see no biblical precedent for other than speaking out of the silence, as you said, where it talks of, of, you know, the whole family being baptized, I don't, I don't have a definitive, I don't have a definitive thing to say that that included the infants of the home. I don't, I don't have that. I can't make that judgment because I don't have that. And I'm, I'm, I'm careful to put words where there weren't, where there aren't words and I'm careful to develop an ideology out of silence. Maybe that's me being over careful. But when I look at, when I look at the, the Old Testament circumcision, and I see that imagery of, you know, being cut off of the Israel being the people of God and they are, they physically had that done so that they would be able to know who they were in God in that relationship they had with God as the dispensationalist in the crowd that that relationship they still have with God being separate from the church. I guess there's quite a bit of, we could go down a huge different discussion there with, with this entire conversation, but we won't do that for time's sake. So I see that, but then I see baptism is not looking forward as circumcision was, it was that looking forward to the Messiah that was going to come. It was who they were in God in that moment in that covenant. We have baptism now that makes us see back to what Christ has done. It's the symbolic act of what Christ accomplished on the cross. It's the finished work of the cross and it's the imagery that we have been commanded, not as a generational act that was done to us before our consciousness even began, but it's an individual act that was dependent on nobody except our own response to the call of God, to the drawing of, of God. So I think you would agree that there's no such thing as inherited Christianity. We are Christians on the merit of our own, it depends on what you mean by that, doesn't it? Okay, it does. Because if I am to raise up my children and in the, I'm Victoria Cash and I want to invite you to a place called Lucky Land, where you can play over a hundred social casino style games for free for your chance to redeem some serious prizes. So what are you waiting for? The best way to discover your luck is to spin. So go to luckylandslots.com, that's luckylandslots.com, and get lucky today at Lucky Land. No purchase necessary, VGW Group, boy, prohibited by law, 18 plus terms and conditions apply. Is your vehicle stopping like it should? Does it squeal or grind when you break? Don't miss out on summer break deals at O'Reilly Auto Parts. "Discipline and instruction of the Lord, and if they are to obey me in the Lord, then of course I'm raising my children." Yes. Yes. So when I say there's no such thing as inherited Christianity, if, if I was a wealthy man and I die and I leave my money to my children, inherit my estate, what was mine becomes theirs, as no doing of theirs of their own, they inherit what was theirs. There is no such thing as an inherited Christianity. There's no one that's going to go to heaven because their daddy, every country of God as he may have been, there's no one going to be redeemed because of the past redemption of somebody else. Yes. Let me, can I sharpen, can I sharpen your argument to make it the word a little better? I think what you should, what you mean is there's no such thing as an inherited regeneration. Okay. There's no such thing as an inherited election. Okay. I would, because there, there clearly is an outward Christian, just like an, an unbelieving circumcised Jew is called in covenant with God in the Old Testament. You can have an unbelieving baptized, what are you going to call them, Christian, who is part of the visible church, who, who is not regenerate. And the one can be, you can, you can grow up as a Christian in the first sense and not be regenerate. Okay. That's, that's my argument. I just think that helps your, your language because you're right. The problem is, the problem is we're looking at this from almost a cultural standpoint, because we, we use the word Christian over too broadly, right? In fact, and even in what you just described, you're using the word Christian out of its context, because if we really, and this is another one of my downfalls, words matter. And the word Christian literally means Christ-like. And if you're not in Christ, you're, you're not one of his, you're not going to be Christ-like. So if you're unregenerate, you're not a Christian, that's that. So in that respect, if you overanalyze it the way I just did, then you would come to the same conclusion that there's no inherent Christianity, but you've really got to love words to stick up to that conclusion. So my point there was we have to come to faith in Christ, not on the merits of our ancestors, so we can come to Christ, a faith in Christ due to the, the evidence of our ancestors, due to the prayerfulness, due to the faithfulness, due to the, the, the, the training that being raised up in the fear and instruction of the Lord, absolutely. Those are all things that will be the schoolmaster, as Paul called it, to lead us to faith. But, but we have to come to Christ, not on the merits of our ancestors, but on the merits of our own depravity and our own individual, desperate need of redemption. Absolutely. So every person in that respect, your salvation is an individual act, and the same, the same is true of baptism, I believe we aren't, we aren't inheriting our salvation, I'm sorry, let me reword that, a child isn't inheriting anything in the act of baptism other than the promise of the parent to raise them up in the way of the Lord, in the fear and admonition of the Lord, if, if words matter, and I believe they do, if baptism was a specific word, and maybe this is my last question, and I, I kind of tie it up with this and let you, let you finish this up, because I don't want to keep kicking a dead horse, and I don't want to keep dancing around the same rabbit hole, if, if salvation isn't inherited, which some believe that infant baptism is, is inherited salvation to the child, which you've said you don't believe that, most certainly not, then, if, if I guess we have to come to an agreement that baptism is, is prescriptive to be done in immersion, if we can't come to an agreement on that, then, then the rest of this is moot, but it, it, that was the word that was used in scripture, I believe that to be a specific word that was therefore a reason. So why does it say to be immersed? Why is the scriptural outline seeming to be baptism as a result of becoming a disciple? These are all post salvific works. These are all individual acts of salvation, then repentance taking, I'm sorry, baptism taking place after those. Then what's the point in baptizing the child? Or what's the point in calling it baptism? Do some, is it semantics? Does it matter? Should we stop calling it baptism and call it a child dedication? Do we need, do we need to have a better understanding across the board of what baptism is? Have we, you didn't even do a thumbs up and you've got one. Someone's giving you these on purpose. I'm sorry. Yeah, I was this into cut off my thumbs. Your AI is even reformed guys. So I'll let you tie that up. Hey, Corey, I would, I would just intersect in before Stephen, you answer that this is, this is a major reason why a lot of Baptists would have issue with maybe dedications that use language that speaks of a long covenant of lines. And there's something to be made there, I think. But Stephen, go ahead. Well, a lot, I guess the short answer is that I disagree with a lot of your ifs, a lot of your premises, premises. Okay. Because as I've said, I think there is, I agree with much of what you said about what baptism is not. All right. So it is not, does not confer salvation. There you go. It doesn't, no one inherits salvation. God uses means and he uses the means of most, the most common means that he uses is the raising up of children to, to know and fear the Lord. That is not accidental. That's how God normally works. He normally works in families. This is how he is always normally worked. And so that's, that's kind of at the root of my, my, my position is that we, we, we, the, the, what we find in the New Testament makes perfect sense given covenantal presuppositions. It's like, it really is a presuppositional kind of thing. Okay. So where is, what is your starting point? If your starting point is, you know, I see all of this covenantal realities through the Old Testament, mixed community, outward sign, not necessarily, doesn't confer the inward reality. Someone who's circumcised in the flesh can later on be circumcised of heart and have all the things that the original circumcision pointed to, but have them in reality. I think it's exactly how baptism works. So you see all these things and you see all the, the household, the something that it's interesting that, you know, there really is the household language makes sense from the covenantal view. It's a weird thing to the non covenantal view, or the non, the Crado Baptist view is something you have to explain away as opposed to explain in light of everything that came before it. And, you know, the idea that we raise up our children as Christians, that does not mean that we believe they're regenerate necessarily. So, you know, all of us were all fathers, your core, I'm, you have children, I'm assuming. Did you preach? Did you teach them to pray the Lord's prayer at any time before they were baptized? Did you preach? Did you teach them to pray to God before they were baptized? My children are seven and six and I've got a baby and my children haven't been baptized yet because they haven't been saved yet. Do you teach them to pray to God as their father? Yes. Well, there's a reason for that. Or is God their father? Right now I believe so because my children haven't come to a saving knowledge nor have they come to an intellectual reality of needing salvation. You know, I believe in the age of accountability. So, I don't, I don't believe that, you know, my kids have come to the place that they they have been regenerate nor have they been intellectually touched with that need for regeneration yet. So I don't believe that these things are applicable to them in that in the way that you're talking. Ok. Well, that's interesting. It's a little rabbit hole. We don't want to go that. But you're still claiming God is their father, right? And you would recognize God is not the father of all just to interject. Right. Would that be accurate, Corey? Yes. You're raising them, you're raising them to be Christians. Yes. You take them to church, you expect them to obey you, I'm assuming. You expect them to obey you because that's the law of God and and it's, you know, the New Testament. Children obey your parents in the Lord, you know, these are things that you take for granted that makes sense in a covenantal context, which I think strengthens the the pato Baptist kind of view of things. But again, not that we, it is most certainly not. I think this was the one of the things that I think in that earlier conversation you're talking about with you and someone else on that on a podcast that made that prick to my ears and said, wait a minute, that is not what we believe. And it was it was that kind of language that pato Baptist believe that our children are saved by being baptized or that they somehow inherit salvation by virtue of being baptized. That I just want to be take pains to say that is not in any way what we believe. That is a straw man. That's a wispy feathery, fluffy straw man that you that I that any of us can blow over without any effort, because it's just not not true. And it's not what any of us believe. So that's not why we so that can't be a reason not to practice infant baptism, because it's not what we believe. Okay, so in rejecting that that view, you're not rejecting what I believe. You're rejecting a, you know, does that make sense to you? Yeah. So that's important. I think that's important to really clarify. Well, I'm not sure that I'm not sure that either of us was was convinced of anything either either way, I'm not sure that I stand on your your premise, quite frankly. But the great thing about this is I don't see this as a, you know, this isn't a salvific issue. I don't think we need to separate. I don't think we need to call one another, you know, apostates or heretics over this. This is one of those areas that isn't it's it's not the top of the food chain and theological triage. So to speak. But it is something that, you know, if I was seeking out a church to attend, and I moved to your town, I probably would not attend your church with all due respect, because there would be some discomfort there doctrinally for me. Well, you might actually, because, well, let me I think this is important because it's completely supports what you're saying. Our church is made up of both Crato Baptist and Pato Baptist. And we practice both. And we have pastors, elders, deacons, and church members who have, we have both of those positions. And so what you would find in our church is sometimes we do in fact argue about it, but we argue about it like this. We're going to present our view. We're going to say, wait, that's not what I wait, you know, you know, we're going to go back and forth and sharpen one another, sharpen our own understanding of what the other position is so that we can really understand it and really be charitable. And then we're going to agree to disagree. And then we're going to get on with the work of discipleship and kingdom building in this place with the strength of numbers and real warmth of fellowship and love for each other. So you would hold your nose probably when a when a when a Pato baptism is happening. But, you know, I would I would, but on the other hand, you would you would not feel attacked. You know what I'm saying? It's not like, there's there's there's there's a way of holding unity across the that the baptism defied that I thought before I came to this place was impossible and unrealistic and would certainly result in crazy awfulness. This church has been around for 27 years and has been living in real harmony and peace across that issue. And it's one of the it has produced, I believe one of the sweetest things I've ever seen in terms of a spirit in a church. Hey, Steven, we're used to we're used to getting along with about things like that. Yeah, me. I don't mean to cut you off. I know Corey's about to have to jump off here. But what you were just saying, so this is my thought because I wanted to try to wrap this up a little bit with like just kind of a thought and encouragement. So the thought is what you were getting at right there at the end. What what is happening within your church? I think is what we want to see within reformed Christianity or even just like let's just say Christianity, right? We're in a unique time and place. There's a lot of pressure from especially the world and from the darkness. This is a time when Christians need to be real clear headed about where we have to draw lines, but also where we can have unity where we can even have disagreement like real substantive disagreement. Like you said, right? That's one thing we try to aim toward with it within our circles. So that's key. What I'm gonna ask is and I don't think we hardly ever do this. If anybody has questions about these topics, anything related to this because this is something that's impacting a lot of people that will watch our channel. A lot of the conversations that revolve around eschatology are covenantal in nature. Covenant is many of described as like that backbone that holds the Bible together. This is one of the overarching narratives that scripture is built upon is how God relates to his people through covenant. So if you have questions about that or if there's specifics about anything that's come up during this conversation, please reach out to us. You can email us at eschatologymatters1@gmail.com. You can drop something in the show notes, but please reach out to us. We have many contributors from different covenantal streams. And this is something that really impacts our faith and practice, not just with baptism, but as is coming out with the conversation here, it's how we raise our kids, how we structure church. It's how we form our eschatology, many of those things. But any closing thoughts, guys, because again, I know we are at a time crunch and I know Corey's got a jet, but any closing thoughts that we could wrap it up from there, you guys go ahead and close us out. You know, I love this group. I love the community that we have in this group. All of us here, you know, members of eschatology matters. And this is the first time I'm really, you know, visual on the screen, you know, helping to contribute. I don't know that I helped to contribute to much today other than confusion. But this is this is an amazing thing. And quite frankly, there's people in my world that know I'm associated with this organization that have told me be careful because you're dancing with heretics and be careful because you need to stay away from, you know, all this stuff. And I look at them and say, I don't think you really understand what unity in Christ means until you put yourself as the odd guy out in a group of people that theologically we don't all agree. But we agree on the premise of Christ. We don't agree on even this matter. But we agree that the one thread all throughout scripture was Christ. That Christ is the way truth in the life that we come to Christ by no other means, but by Him. We can agree to disagree on the mode of baptism. We can agree to disagree on how the millennium comes or whether there's a rapture or whether there's not none of it that matters at the end of the day. All that matters is that we agree on the premise of Christ. And I'm so grateful that this platform serves as a way to prove that there is a way to have an intellectual disagreement while still maintaining unity. Great. I would just simply close with this. As Josh said, you know, when as we're watching the basically the unraveling and the collapse of Western society around us, it's really great to, you know, I like the image of when when Marines and Air Force and, you know, the army are in peacetime. They hate each other and they fight with each other and they bicketer each other and they make fun of each other. When the bullets start flying, they're in the foxhole together, you know, they've got each other's backs big time. And I think that we have to recover that or else we'll be peeled off. And, and, and the church will will not be the better for it. Yeah. Yeah. You're right. We need to agree what it means to be a Christian. What does it mean to be right with God? And there's so much that we can do back to back shoulder to shoulder to work for the kingdom of God from this. Well said, no, it's just magic, you know, right. Guys, you, you bit off a huge chunk, reformed, reformed covenantal baptism, huge chunk. I hope we hope we've scratched the surface and at least made some things clear. But this was fun. Corey, Steven, thank you guys again and hope this was helpful. Yeah, thank you guys. Corey, love you. Thank you very much. Great. Good to see you, man. Thank you, Josh. Love this patch. Thanks. I'm here at my right hand, the Lord, to my Lord, to command for all these heat that I will make a kingly foot. So for your share, the Lord, how to have fun anytime, anywhere. Step one, go to chumbah casino.com. Chumbah Casino.com. Step two, collect your welcome bonus. Come to top of welcome bonus. Step three, play hundreds of casino style games for free. That's a lot of games, all for free. Step four, unleash your excitement. Save on a Riley Break Parts Cleaner. Get two cans of a Riley Break Parts Cleaner for just eight dollars valid in store only at O'Reilly Auto Parts. (screams)