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. 4
Homepage on Internet: http://www.prca.org
Contents:
Family Baptism
John the Baptist
Are Organ Transplants Wrong?
We prefer to describe our practice and belief in
relation to baptism as "family" or "household" baptism rather than as
"infant baptism." There are several
reasons for this:
(1) We do not only baptize infants. Those who are converted later in life and have
never before been baptized we too baptize as adults.
(2) In baptizing infants or adults, wherever and
whenever baptism of families is our practice.
(3) Family or household baptism is the kind of baptism
Scripture describes when speaking of those who ought to be baptized.
(4) This description of our practice serves as a
reminder of how and why such passages as Acts 16 are used a proof for the practice of
baptizing infants as well as adults.
That Scripture speaks of family baptism is clear. In Acts 16 the households both of Lydia and of the
Philippian Jailer were baptized by Paul (vss. 15, 33).
He also speaks in I Corinthians 1:16 of having baptized the household of Stephanus. So too, we read in Acts 10:48 of the baptism of
the household of Cornelius by Peter and those who were with him. This, then, is the NT pattern for baptism.
It is in this way that these passages are used to
support the practice of baptizing the children of believers. It is true, of course, that we do not know if
there were small children in any of these households (it is unlikely that there were no
infants at all in all four of these families).
Nevertheless, if family or household baptism is the pattern laid down in Scripture,
it is impossible to practice such without baptizing infants, since most households do
include them.
We would add that if believer's baptism only is the rule
of Scripture, family or household baptism becomes an impossibility. Even if it so happens that different members of
the same family are converted and baptized at the same time in a Baptist church, they
still are not baptized as members of a household or family, but as individuals,
each as a result of his own profession of faith only.
That we baptize households and families follows from our
belief in God's family covenant, i.e., that He sovereignly, graciously, and
unchangeably promises salvation to families and households, promising to be the God of
believers and of their children (Gen. 17:7;
Acts 2:39).
Our practice does not, however, indicate that we presume
to think that every member of a household is necessarily saved. But, then, baptism even of those who profess faith
as adults can never be taken as such a guarantee. Never
does baptism prove or say that the person baptized is certainly saved.
That we baptize families or households, following the
clear example of Scripture itself, is a memorial to the fact that God Himself is a Family
(Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), and to the fact that He magnifies His grace and reveals
Himself in sending salvation to families. He
is indeed the God of families (Ps. 107:41).
Rev. Ronald Hanko
Verily I say unto you, Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist: notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. Mt. 11:11.
This is a puzzling text in a way, and the questioner who submitted a question on it rightly sees that it has some difficulty. (By the way, all the questions that are answered in this leaflet are indeed sent in. We do not invent them.) The question reads: "Who is the 'least' in the kingdom of heaven, and how is John inferior to him?"
But the difficulty is cleared up when we remember the work which John the Baptist had to perform as the forerunner of Christ. In a certain sense of the word, John straddled the two dispensations, the old and the new, and had a foot in both.
The differences between the old and new dispensations are not, I fear, fully appreciated. From many points of view, the Old Dispensation was spiritually poor. It was not very spiritually rewarding to live in those days.
We cannot go into the details of those differences in this article, but two differences ought to be mentioned, although the two are related.
The OD was the time of types and shadows. The reality of God's promises to bring to His church salvation in Christ was still in the future. The types and shadows were only pictures of the great realities of salvation.
In the second place, while God's people were saved by the Holy Spirit through regeneration and faith then as now, the Holy Spirit could not and did not make every one of God's people prophets, priests, and kings, as in the ND. The people were dependent on others for their relationship to God. They had to go to the prophet to know God's will, to the priest to pray and bring sacrifice, and to the king to have God's law applied to their lives.
We may perhaps compare the OD to the primary grades in school in which grades the children are dependent on their teachers, are learning to read, and are in need of picture books to understand things. Picture books are nice, but they are not as nice as the reality.
I may show someone my pictures of Yorkminster, and my audience may be duly impressed with the size and majesty of the cathedral, but it isn't like seeing it for one's self. When one does see it, one will say: The pictures never really did it justice.
John stood between the two dispensations and was called to be the forerunner of Christ by preparing the way for the ND. He spoke of repentance as being the chief characteristic of those who belong to the ND, of baptism in the place of circumcision, of the washing away of sins, of the Lamb of God Who would take away the sins of the world -- all truths of the ND. He warned that the old system of worship in the temple with all the ceremonial laws was about to be taken away ("The axe is laid at the foot of the tree . . .") and warned those who practiced an outward religion to flee from the wrath that was to come. And finally he pointed out Christ Himself: "Behold, the Lamb of God . . . ."
Again, perhaps we may use a figure. The ND is the dispensation of the kingdom of heaven. The pictures of the kingdom which God gave the church in the OD were on the door of the kingdom, a door which was firmly shut. All the people could do was look at the pictures.
When John came, he opened the door a small crack. The result was that the people to whom he preached caught a glimpse of the reality through the slight opening of the door.
The people, upon catching a glimpse of the glory of the reality, took the kingdom by violence (vs. 12). They were so enthralled with the blessedness of the kingdom that they stormed the door and would not be turned away.
Christ opens the door. He enters the kingdom through His own blood because He took on Him the sins of His people. Entering the kingdom through His own blood, He takes His people along with Him into the kingdom.
John straddles the two dispensations. He belongs to the OD, and in it he is the greatest prophet of that OD, because he prepared the way for Christ, and because, although he did not belong to the ND, he had a foot in the door.
And so, while he is the greatest in the OD, he is less than the least of those in the ND. Those who are born and live in the ND are on the other side of the door. No longer do they have to limit themselves to pictures. They have the reality. No longer do they need prophets, and priests, and kings. They are themselves prophets and priests and kings, because of the Holy Spirit poured out on Pentecost. John never had these realities; the least in the kingdom of heaven do. They are greater than John for that reason.
We are of the ND who have the great realities of the kingdom. It is true that we will not have them fully and perfectly until we are in glory; but nevertheless we have them all in principle. We have the Spirit of our exalted Christ. We are prophets and priests and kings under Christ. We are citizens of the kingdom of heaven.
Let
us be thankful for that. Let us not take that
blessed reality for granted. Let us praise
God for His marvelous works.
Prof. H. Hanko
In an earlier issue
we answered in part a question about organ transplants.
There we pointed out some important principles that the Christian must keep in mind
when considering this matter. There is more
to be said, however.
Another important
principle that needs emphasis concerns modern medicine itself. We ought never to forget that modern medicine is
fundamentally humanistic in its outlook. This
becomes evident in a host of different ways.
It is evident in the
fact that modern medicine can, on the one hand, seek to preserve life, and on the other
hand justify abortion, assisted suicide and euthanasia.
In this it proceeds from the humanistic and evolutionary assumption that life is
just chemistry. So it seeks to preserve only
that life which is useful.
This is why we hear
so much talk about "quality of life" in any discussion of euthanasia, organ
harvesting from living donors, and other such matters.
Modern society cares little either for the elderly or for the unborn, because they
have no "quality of life." The fact
that life is created by God never enters the discussion.
This same humanistic
outlook shows itself in a consideration of the ethics of
organ transplants from animals. These
transplants are usually justified either implicitly or explicitly on the fundamental
evolutionary premise that there is no essential difference between humans and animals,
i.e., that humans are only highly developed animals.
Whether this in
itself makes such transplants wrong, it is not so easy to say. Nevertheless, Christians should take this fact
into account when considering the morality of such transplants. The truth is that God created man and made him
unique among all his earthly creatures (Gen. 1:27; 2:7).
No Christian may ever forget this.
We might note in
this connection that the whole question of creation versus evolution is not merely a
matter of academic theological debate. Both
creationism and evolutionism involve views of life that give very different answers to
moral and ethical questions, and even have a different way of answering such
questions.
The present emphasis on "the right to die" also reveals this same godless, humanistic influence. The Bible says that all life belongs to God, first as Creator, and then also (in the case of His people), by purchase. No man's life belongs to himself to dispose of as it pleases him. It belongs to God, and belongs to Him so completely that even our "times" are not our own but are in God's hand (Ps. 31:15).
God determines not
only the time of our birth, but also the time of our death, and that according to His
sovereign pleasure, keeping alive for a long time an elderly person who no longer knows
one hand from the other, and then taking away the life of a newborn infant or young child. Nor can we stay His hand in such matters. All efforts to preserve life are in vain if it is
time for the spirit to return to God (Eccl. 12:7). Even
when we act unlawfully, and with wicked hands take our own life or the lives of others, we
discover that we have only done that which He had determined before to be done (Acts 2:23;
4:28), though the sin and responsibility remain our own.
Christians must not make decisions about these matters carelessly. The Biblical principles must be learned, considered and remembered, so that such decisions, often made under severe emotional stress, are not made without proper consideration. Rev.R.Hanko
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