709 East 57th Street;
Loveland, CO 80538
Services: 9:30 a.m. and
6:00 p.m. (7:00 p.m. June through August)
Pastor: Rev. Garry Eriks
Phone: (970) 667-9481
Vol. 7, No. 3
Homepage on Internet: http://www.prca.org
Contents:
Infant Baptism in the New Testament
Ninevah's Beasts
Are Blood Transfusions Wrong?
Infant Baptism in the New Testament
One common objection to the practice of infant baptism is that there are no New Testament passages that speak of infants being baptized. This, however, is simply is not true. There are, in fact, two such passages.
The first is I Corinthians 10:2. There the passage of the Israelites through the Red Sea is described as a baptism - a baptism which clearly included infants (Exod. 10:9; 12:37). Indeed, it would be difficult to deny that there were children among the Israelites at this time, for over 2 million of them went out of Egypt (Exod. 12:37, 38).
The point here is that this is a baptism by the NT definition of that word and, in fact, the NT word “baptism” is actually used to describe this event. The Baptist objection that this happened in the Old Testament cannot change that. (It is also proof that the NT word “baptism” does not everywhere and always mean “immersion” as the Baptists assert).
What is more, the fact that this happened in the OT only emphasizes the important point that baptism is not something new in the NT. There were many baptisms in the OT as Hebrews 9:10 clearly shows. And that they were real baptisms is evident from the NT references to them as such.
Nor will the Baptist objection that these were typical baptisms hold any water. The fact is, of course, that all baptisms are symbolic and picture something. Not only that, but those of the OT as well as those of the NT symbolize exactly the same thing, the washing away of sins by the blood and Spirit of Jesus Christ (cf. I Cor. 10:4; I Pet. 3:21; and especially Heb. 9:13, 14, 22).
Hebrews 9:10 and 19 is the second passage. What needs to be noted here is that the word translated “washings” in verse 10 is the NT word “baptisms.” One of these baptisms is described in verse 19 as being applied to “all the people,” and again we know from Scripture that this included children (Exod. 20:12).
These verses are especially important, however, because they show that these OT baptisms had exactly the same meaning as those of the NT. They both signified purification and remission of sins by the shedding of blood Heb. 10:22, 23. To be baptized in the OT had exactly the same significance as in the NT, the only difference being that in the OT it looked ahead while in the NT it looks back.
The thing that needs to be remembered in all of this, then, is that there is no fundamental difference between the OT and the NT, even in the matter of baptism. To think otherwise is to go in the direction of Dispensationalism and to make a principle difference between the OT and the NT.
No more, therefore, than baptism was something new and unheard of to the Israelites when John began baptizing at the River Jordan, is the thought of baptism in the OT a surprise to us. There is but one people of God, one covenant and one way of salvation. Rev. Ron Hanko
But let man and beast
be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God: yea, let them turn every one from
his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands.
Jonah 3:8
A rather interesting question was submitted in connection with this verse: "Could you please tell who or what the 'beast' is?" It is an interesting question, not so much because it is difficult to answer, but rather, because it has to do with the main theme of the prophecy of Jonah.
A brief summary of the book of Jonah will help us understand this.
Jonah was commanded by God to go to Nineveh, the capitol of Assyria, to preach there. This was surprising because Assyria was Israel's most dangerous enemy. Jonah did not want to go. Perhaps his love for Israel and his hatred of Israel's enemy made him determined to escape God's command.
He took a ship to Tarsus because he was of the opinion that God would not be able to speak to him outside the borders of the land of Canaan. In this he was correct, for God Himself had limited His revelation to the boundaries of Canaan. What Jonah forgot was that God can command winds and storms and whales to do His will.
And so, through God's providential control of winds and storms and whales, Jonah was swallowed by a whale, brought back to Canaan, vomited out of the whale, and once again confronted with God's command: "Go to Nineveh and preach against it."
Jonah went, though reluctantly.
We might notice in passing that Jonah's three day stay in the belly of the whale was very important. First, Jonah's prayer in the whale's belly is almost exclusively taken from the Psalms -- as any good reference Bible will make clear. Second, Jonah's residence in the whale was a sign of our Lord's stay in the grave (Mt. 12:40).
God was insistent that Jonah go to Nineveh for a very specific purpose. God was showing Israel, already in the old dispensation, that His church would someday be gathered from all nations and tribes on the earth. That is, His church is a catholic church in the truest sense of the word. Or, if I may put it a bit differently, God's salvation is universal. It is not universal in the sense that everyone head for head is saved. But it is universal in the sense that God's whole creation is saved; that is, the elect human race and the heavens and the earth in which they dwell.
Christ calls attention to this in His own ministry. He reminds the wicked Jews of the fact that the Ninevites repented at the preaching of Jonah, while the Jews reject Him Who is greater than Jonah (Mt. 12:41, Lu. 11:32).
If I may interject
another remark at this point, it is well to point out that Jesus' words clearly show that
the repentance of the Ninevites was genuine. I
say that because some commentators argue that it was only an outward repentance which was
brought about by Jonah's warnings of judgment. Now,
the point of this prophecy is that God's salvation is so universal that even the creation
is included in it. This is a recurring theme
throughout Scripture. Think, for example, of
the sign of the rainbow at the time of the flood (Gen. 9:9-17 -- which mentions
"beasts,") and Paul's description of the creation in Rom. 8:10-22.
That theme of universal salvation is picked up again in the prophecy of Jonah in the concluding verse. It is a surprise that God should end this prophecy with the statement: ". . and also much cattle." God saves beasts.
One more point needs to be made in this connection. God's work of saving a catholic church is performed through Christ. By His death on the cross, resurrection from the dead, and exaltation at God's right hand, Christ becomes a catholic Christ. This is why it was necessary for Jonah to be in the belly of the whale the same length of time Christ was in the grave. Jonah was a "sign," the Lord says. Jonah died, was buried and came forth from death in those three days. This is the theme of his prayer, taken from the Psalms: "I went down to the bottoms of the mountains; the earth with her bars was about me for ever: yet hast thou brought my life from corruption, O Lord my God" (2:6). Jonah sang this from the whale's belly; Christ sang it in His work of salvation.
Through the whale's belly Jonah went to proclaim a gospel of universal salvation; Christ passed through the cross, the grave, and the resurrection so that a catholic church might be saved, and so that all things might be reconciled to God through Him (Col. 2:20). Now from heaven He pours out a catholic Spirit Who goes into the nations to find and save the elect from every part of the world. And, by the same Spirit, the creation itself is renewed and delivered from the curse to be redeemed through the one "better than Jonah."
Scoffers
may mock that no man can live in a whale's belly for three days; C. S. Lewis may say
somewhere that the book of Jonah is a fine piece of Hebrew humor. But we proclaim Jonah's prophecy as the
everlasting gospel of our salvation.
Prof. H. Hanko
We continue here to deal with the matter of blood transfusions and organ transplants. In the last article we said that we could see no principle difference between blood transfusions and organ transplants, but one of our readers has written about something we missed. Since his comments are to the point, we let him speak.
He writes: "A short comment (not being controversial, just something that struck me) - in an earlier issus, under 'What about organ transplants' you say: ‘It seems clear, to us at least, that there is no essential difference between blood transfusions and organ donations, so that if organ donations are wrong then so are blood transfusions.' As I read this it occurred to me that there is a very essential difference between blood donation and organ transplants- that is that blood is a renewable substance. If I give a pint of blood as a blood donor I do not spend the rest of my life going about with one pint less blood than others! It renews within my body. An analogy might be a nursing mother's milk; by feeding her baby and 'donating' milk she gives what her body will renew, so long as she continues lactating. Possibly hair and finger and toe nails also are analogous to blood in that sense. But organs are essentially different, in that they are not renewable by the body! No kidney donor grows a replacement kidney, no new liver or heart develops in a body from which they are taken. So, extremely unlike blood, organs are an essential part of an individual body, an essential and unalienable part of a whole created by God, and to be ultimately resurrected or changed by Him. Therein lies the essential difference and dividing line, and the reason why Christians can oppose organ transplants without any hint of the Jehovah's Witness nonsense about blood transfusions and the 'soul in the blood' etc."
We agree with the brother and wish any confusion over the matter of blood transfusions to be cleared up. In this light, it seems to us, there can be no legitimate objection to blood transfusions. Certainly we ought to have no sympathy for the position of the Jehovah's Witnesses, especially because their opposition to blood transfusions is based on Leviticus 3:17 which forbids the eating of blood.
The use of blood transfusions, therefore, is simply a matter of using lawful means to preserve life. Such use of lawful means to preserve life is not forbidden by Scripture. Doctors, medicine, and hospitals are not in themselves wrong. God Himself uses the means to preserve our lives - food and drink is but one example.
We even have a certain obligation to preserve our own lives and the lives of others by the use of such means. The Westminster Larger Catechism in its explanation of the Sixth Commandment speaks of our duty, by "lawful endeavors, to preserve the life of ourselves and others by ... a sober use of meat, drink, physick (medicine), sleep, labour, and recreation." In proof of its statement about medicine, it quotes Isaiah 28:31 where God Himself heals Hezekiah but by means of a lump of figs.
Nor must we become confused and think that the use of some
such means (inoculation being another example) is wrong because it denies God's
providence. There are some who refuse to use
such means, thinking that they will not then be depending on God Himself and on His
providential care for us. If we are not
trusting in God when we use doctors, transfusions, medicines, and other lawful means, the
problem is not with them, but with our own hearts. Rev.
Ronald Hanko